The SPAGHETTI FACTION

2012-01-28T19:39:00.004Z

CLASS WAR & ULTRA-VIOLENCE AT THE ALEKSIA SLOANE BOOK CLUB IN 14PT BATANG PUTNEY

Undercover in 14pt Batang at the Aleksia Sloane Book Club, an exclusive anti-social event near the banks of the Thames and even nearer The Banks Of The City, Boyd Liberation bides her time, as the Putneyed professionals peruse her membership credentials.

L'objet du exercise chez le salon de Ms Sloane: ostensibly, it is books that are critiqued, but a darker agenda lurks, stalks and prowls beneath the subtext like a string of stereotypes in a pub joke about three men from representative parts of the British Isles and a Celtic tiger. Toothless, but all more the dangerous for it.

There are these posh kids see. Annabella is attached to lacrosse, Roderick is embedded on the river, Lucinda is chained to a cello and another off-shoot ending in a feminine vowel is engaged in another overachieving endeavour, overachieving, and yet another is gestating prodigiously in an incubator known as Pre-prep. Meanwhile, the least advanced sections of the proletariat whine about immigrants, and/or toxify themselves with imported produce from Helmand Province, having benefitted handsomely from a half-arsed career in miseducation.

She does not remember the delicious sarcasm of the stressed auxiliary and the marker then that time in the green tech workshop when, while she was painting a Black & White! Unite & Fight! banner, the homeless and only latterly re-housed bicycle mechanic in the body warmer and dicky goatee declaimed that he didn’t drink or do drugs!, and she’d asked, what did you do after you left school then?

The title demands a she. A she, like Swastikas, golf and Royals, shifts units. She, of course, should've swashbuckled in, SMASH! Bang! Wallop thank you BIG MAMA! through the upper case of The South West London Diaspora: a pony-tailed, armed-to-the-sinewy athletic/balletic bronzed-bodied, jump-suited, jumped-up, in-yer-face, Riot Grrrl!! with a Tank Division of Pre-Romantic Poets as back-up.

- I hate you Butler! Says William Blakey to Samuel.

- .....

- That’s my opening riposte as representative of the working class rebel arts direct action vanguard.

- ....

- Do you stuck up aspirationalist fucks even get the reference?

Solitary bush blows across their class horizons. There is a time and place for flighty fancy and Putney isn’t it.

Instead, Liberation makes mental notes, as well as actual physical notes, disguised as an OCD compulsion to record any exchange of information containing figures and statistical data. Data that she might well have recalled weeks later with near-total accuracy, had she been a full-blown carrier of testes. Binary Bollocks! as she is wont to brandish. She hankers after guttural Anglo-Saxon with black heartache.

Concentrate. Set up first. Action later sister.

Convention demands the assembled familiarise themselves with the ready-sketched character outlines purposefully yet casually strewn on the furniture around the lounge.

Aperitifs and canapés are served. Reading her own first, Boyd scans for inconsistencies of fact. Boyd Liberation is almost a he. At 27 going on 47, s/he shifts layout parameters, uses brackets and exploits “......“ in her fertile resistance to the sexual posturing of the Dominic Strauss-Khan/Polanski chic of midlife male fantasy. An iconic totem of five feet four and half inches, squatter than most monetized model bodies, and with added humanity, s/he is hotter than a tequila-slugging ketamine-toting, sten gun-blasting Zapatista/Pasionara bullet sash-wearing full-colour-tattooed amalgam of a modern woman who loathes Pepsi advertorials and carves Baudelaire poems into her arms and thighs with raw razor wire fresh from a quarter life crisis she left in Cambridge for a part in A Bike-Powered Kumquat, a Workers' Theatre Co. Production abandoned after the opening sentence fell apart through lack of bums on seats and/or deterioration of Arts Council funds.

Liberation has micro-engineered her entry into the UMC club like a woman of her station (Cityline) via the appropriation of job, husband, accent, garments, accoutrements, borrowed children (boarders all, naturellement), ear-rings, pearl sets, waxed Burberry et al. Deep undercover is a matter of acquiring the right superficiality.

Yet something other exists, persists and insists: the indefinable fine line between the expansive vastness of middle and upper. The class chasm is a gash that no amount of Oxbridged socio-cultural capital can fill. The only way across is by dint of faithlessness. Such an act of faithlessness as might be undertaken by a grocer’s daughter.

Faith Constance (née Snotty Roberts) had come from somewhere Up North. She had concealed her North Country roots so thoroughly even she believed her father to have been an alcoholic property solicitor just outside Durham-near-Posh, or rather an impressive but overlooked landscape gardener from Skipton-upon-its-kness, or rather... any number of re-inventions her bifurcated identity dreamt up. It matters little. Such is the shared self-absorption of the group that members refrain from talk of The Third Aged. The elderly are referred to fleetingly, and almost exclusively in relation to their capital assets.

In any event, Faith usually deferred to Aleksia in all matters conversational, hierarchical, and indeed menstrual, being the least steady on her upper-middle class Edwardian legs.

Aleksia Sloane is herself self-evidently, and like all great self-publicists is ordinarily the first to insist she be introduced last: the hostess with the upmost sense of propriety. Her defining characteristic is her vacuity, a vacuity at her heart that throbs as a paper bag in danger of ripping apart at every beat. The fragility of identity is gift wrapped in propriety.

Propriety is theft, thinks Liberation.

Having established a sense of class enmity as per her brief, Boyd craves atmosphere. The decimation of the Sloane and her range of cohorts on the unsuspecting is auspicious. Hyper-violent choreography requires careful placing in the outer body of the meta-text that passes for socially constructed verisimilitude, don't you know.

The ladies defer to precedent and convention, and reject Boyd Liberation's application. Her impatient, creative drive to self-knowledge is unnerving, lateral, anathema. Anathema? Now that would have been more apposite. Whoever heard of a Boyd at the Aleksia Sloane Book Club?

The residents of 14pt Batang Putney know they belong. They aspire not to the light programme on the BBC, but if dear Dominic will insist, well one hates to refuse, though one is loathe to bask in the Devon surf of super-ego driven goldfish bowl lives framed by valorising editorial decisions one has schooled with, even if some portrayals reek of liberal/left-leaning post-class ironic tosh.

Bang! There goes the first. A pre-emptive Chinese fire cracker of a precursor. The ladies, mais bien sur, choose not to heed the winds of change.

At times like these ladies, more radioactive Earl Grey, vicar...

Malificent Martyn-Jones steps up to the saucer and observes the scene with just enough disdain as to bring its actuality into doubt. Aleksia Sloane’s immaculately kept Edwardian home and status symbolism remain aloof. Eyes return to Malificent's Brodie's notes.

Malificent acquired her misogynist moniker at the Chambers. Somewhere under her caricature of a shell of a personality on loan there stirs a competitive streak... but postmodernist Trixie & Dixie jinks rumble behind Liberation's back... intervention is inevitable now... there is another loud bang... and Boyd's rucksack blows apart... Edwardian decorum is shattered... pages fly hither and... there are notes... suspension points... unfinished canapés... and cocktail sticks...all over the gaff...

Boyd Liberation undercover @ Aleksia Sloane Book Club/exclusive Putney-based VUMPires = V. Upper-Middle C. vampires/under discussion: THE BOOK CLUB MASSACRE. Boyd as Liberationist heroine (cf Ripley) ... paradigm shift in Black & White like Lindsey Anderson's IF. Do hyperviolence in note form/ Boyd's bag explodes/Lib sprays room with high-powered machine gunfire, but ladies retaliate with heavy weaponry... claret everywhere!

There are three alternate endings so far:

1. Fluffy ending resolution/liberal compromise

2. Black Bloc /Dikes on bikes

3. Daily Mail/Harper’s

Boyd can stand no more and pipes up. Again. Afghan. Black. Very black. Up all night on vodka and ketamine. So she feels normal. Or is it that she's been up all night on k and vodka so that she feels normalised? Normality. Normalcy. The dictatorship of the normals. No inner turmoil. No psychological enquiry beyond the implanted memes of their socio-cultural hamster cage. Do I demand the impossible?, she thinks. There was a time when she refused to countenance such a possibility, but these days... she lives in the cracks in the pavement.

Liberation detonates the third movement of her suicide symphony. An afterbirth of discarded satisfaction descending over her cosmic horizon is the best she had ever hoped to sensate, psychically. In the significant event, it feels better. Her default setting changes instantly from Slaughter House 5 to summer.

An analgesic for the few, it is a moment of bliss for the many.

WIKILEAK!
... the British upper middle class can be subdivided in two, distinguishing a socially liberal but fiscally conservative professional subclass, and the more conservative leaning managerial, executive subclass. The managerial/executive wing of this class tend to live in the outer suburban areas, while the professional wing is often more urban, preferring instead, the stately old terraces and semi-detatched houses on the streets of such south-western London neighbourhoods as Richmond, Kew, East Sheen, Twickenham, St. Margaret's, Teddington, Surbiton, Kingston and Wimbledon. Single and younger members of this class prefer places like Parson's Green in Fulham, Putney, Clapham Common, and Balham. Politically this is also reflected in the professional wing often voting more along Liberal Democrat lines and the managerial, executive set voting almost exclusively Conservative. A minority of upper middle class families may also have ancestry that directly connects them to the upper classes. Armorial bearings in the form of an escutcheon may denote such past status. A lesser status historically directly relevant to the upper-middle class is that of squire or lord of the manor, however, these property rights are no longer prevalent. Another distinguishing feature of this class is a noticeable prevalence of double-barrelled surnames.

2012-01-19T12:24:00.001Z

(ONCE UPON A TIME... THE END.)

Sold cow.
Slew giant.
Happy now.

Huntsman’s merciful.
Miners accommodate.
Stepmother’s foiled.

Hair descends.
Prince ascends.
Couple absconds.

Porridge cools.
Goldilocks squats.
Bears evict.

Grandma’s sick.
Wolf’s hungry.
Woodcutter improvises.

Pigs 3.
Wolf 0.
Brick’s best.

2012-01-18T16:55:00.003Z

I'M RUNNING THIS MONKEY FARM NOW FRANKENSTEIN!!...

I had not proceeded more than eleven words homeward
when copyright infringement struck. Apparently
the people had already demanded the fall of the regime
The self-immolation of the Tunisian fruit seller
whose name escapes
the clutches of the amnesia that passes for history
was the catalyst. With an Arab spring in my instep
the inward investment in time on the page continues apace
Cut and paste
Turn the page
and re-emerge
in Govan 1915 during the rent strike
The Rent Strike with anti-capitals
An MBA with balls
Mary Barber's Army. She was the very first Labour councillor
in the days when it mattered. Favoured Zombie quotations
serve as titles in the House of Elites actuellement n'est-ce pas?
Sloppy Doc Kills The King Of Pop!
Give him the painkiller
Give him what he wants. You're paid to provide
for his needs needle boy, with your medical degree
and your deference to celebrity and power and lucre
Richly filthy
The psychopathic healthcare strain has been isolated
You can purchase the antidote from all good chemists
if you know what to ask for. Sign the back of the script
and tell her you're a friend of Michael's. Go on! Marley
was dead too, probably. It was hard to tell though
through the cloud of smoke from the pavillion end
Cricket wasn't his normal game. His normal game was togga
Togga was a game like football, but without the millions
Played on a debris at the back of Charles Dickens' townhouse
Tavistock Square, where
he systemically abused his legally separated wife
while lusting over young flesh...
Judge not the Dickens!!
Lest the judge you booked to judge your book
fucks yo' over too judgement boy
There were rumblngs in the jungle anyhow
If the point of view of the 10 year-old is anything to go by
Then all is either cosmic, random or epic
But prey tell little 'un, what does one utter otherwise?
We just say, it's shit. LOL
The next double page spread goes blank then alliteration strikes
Toxic tycoons tap telephones to the tune of trillions
as toadying tawdry toerags trash Tesco for tofu and tea
Redbush without the social conscience
Five times already Tory boy. American without tears
Resolvement. Hesitancy
The rush is to save the Euro but not the world
The world can go to Chesterfield on a handcart for all the Iron Lady cares
Miners' support groups support clause four. Forever chumrades
The Second Coming promo video. End times
Mayan binary code for the apocolyptically-challenged
Dolly's a global brand. She used to sing Country
but now has plans for worldwide dominatrix
Shurely shome mishtake Mish Funnny Fanny
British Association of Plastic Surgeons
Big BAPS replace empathy
Corporate cash cows crave the milch of humane kindness
London is an off-shore tax haven said Ernest Bevan
to the earnest librarian
with the earnest grizzled beard in earnest grey
He was a man with a salient past and a future he kept to himself
He smiles on the point of climax
Back in the cafeteria
Finnegan's awake and his tart's waiting for him in the corner
under the TV nobody ever notices isn't actually on
despite the BBC's best efforts
All he wants at that moment is to be alone in her company

When all's said and done
in the rock paper scissors of life
hugs and fucking trump talking

2012-01-17T16:40:00.003Z

ENGLAND REMAINED RELATIVELY CALM LAST NIGHT
(Inspired by Jonny Marvel)

Hear it read aloud: http://www.mixcloud.com/RebelArtsRadio/rebel-arts-radio-22nd-august-2011/

Jonny’s in the basement mixing up a Molotov. I’m in the Grand Arcade, Cambridge thinking about a poem. Thinking about a poem. Get this. Thinking about writing a poem. That’s writing. Not rioting. I think it’s important to make the distinction. Writing. Not rioting. Not Luton. That’s a place in Bedfordshire. Not lute. That’s medieval stringed instrumentation and this is Cambridge, in the grandest of Grand Arcades. And I’m thinking about writing a poem.

The shop assistant in Gant accosts me, as I loiter with poetic intent in the vicinity of two comfy armchairs, in front of a blue mosaic chintzy tiled fireplace and a faux coffee table festooned with appropriate lifestyle magazines with all the studied casualness of a Bananarama hair-do.

- What are you thinking about? I am asked.

- I’m sorry? I reply in my best middle-class.

- You’ve been standing there for some time now. Thinking. And I have to ask.

- Yeah, that’s right. I’m thinking.

- But why are you writing notes?

- Notes?

- Notes.

- Yeah, they’re notes for a poem.

- Well, I have to ask, she says defensively as she walks away.

For all the world looking like I’ve just goosed her with the unrubbered end of my HB pencil.

- Why? Why do you have to ask?

- Security.

- Security?

- Yes. Security. We have to ask.

She doesn’t elaborate. So I do.

- What? In case I’m a security risk. Like I could be EDL, Al-Qaida or a looter planning a riot or…

- Are you?

- Am I what?

- Planning a riot.

- No. I’m planning a poem... ...about a riot.

The last three words seal it. Off she pops. To get a security guard by the look of her.

Next shop. Jack Jones. All on my Jack Jones funnily enough. At ten past four pm on a Wednesday in a high-end clothes store all on my own with two assistants and nothing more than a piece of rhyming slang in my head and a biro and pad.

The assistant does a passable impression of knowing who Jack Jones is. He of the Trades Union Congress, the Liverpool Docks, the Spanish Civil war, pensioners’ rights, Las Vegas cabaret and the rhyming slang. He gets the rhyming slang and the American crooner but has to search for Trade Union Leader in the dark cultural recession of his social history. He leaves the reference hanging in the air.

So, as a parting shot, I note how Jack’d be turning in his grave if he only knew the things that were happening in his name these days…

- Could be worse?

Could be worse? Could be worse? I can’t resist. I turn back towards the counter, as he leans over it, all cocky for the benefit of the other assistant/bouncer because he does know who my Jack Jones is after all.

- Really? Could it? What could be worse?

- What do you…?

- Go on. Name one thing. What could be worse, I goad. Go on!

- Well... he... he... he could be the next Hitler.

Hitler! Jack Jones could be the next Hitler. I repeat at slightly less than soto voce. I leave Jack Jones at that point in order to laugh my freakin’ head off in full view of the shoppers and security contingent now in entourage around a fully aroused Gant girl. Boy, has she been busy. She appears to have told all those gathered that a dangerous and subversive act of poetry preparation is in progress in the Grand Arcade, Cambridge on a Wednesday afternoon.

Two of the security are high-end: smart shirt & ties, walkie-talkies, hi-tech earpiece gizmos, the works. I hesitate to look too closely at an increasingly militant Gant girl, but I’m sure she’s busy checking that the community police lady has sufficient rounds of plastic bullets and tear gas.

The security look at me and laugh. I surmise it is merely nervous neuro-mimicry. Unless. Unless they’ve got Jack Jones bugged (after all, it wouldn’t be the first time Jack Jones has been bugged… by Mi6 admittedly, and not Grande Arcade security, but anyway…) That must be it. They’ve got Jack Jones bugged and they’ve just heard the hilarious the long-time dead International Brigader and fighter for pensioners’ rights as Hitler gag!

Next stop. The Apple store.

- Excuse me mate. What's this shop called?

I am careful not to cross the threshold this time. Suddenly, politically conscious of how much of a threat my 1968 NATO issue Smock Man’s Combat Jacket and 1963 Liverpool issue accent pose in the Grande Arcade, Cambridge, I stay out of the shop, filled with enough hi-tech gadgetry and gizmos to arm a techno-geek’s Berlin bunker should he have Jack Jones-like designs on our precious liberal democracies.

- The Apple Store, mate. Why?

- Why what?

- Why do you ask?

- I’m writing a poem.

- Oh.

He doesn’t say it but I know by now what they’re all thinking. What? And you thought I might be planning an armed insurrection and Apple is where we lift the techs from.

Apparently, Swarvoski isn’t Russian. Though it’s high-end crystal jewellery is just about within reach of the average oligarch’s income. Swarvoski is Austrian actually. As Austrian as Freud, Vienna, Bach, schnitzel and Jack Jones.

Passing Frank Hart’s Gucci custom jewellery and TW Steel, big in over-sized watches, the next stop on the top shop trail is Kuoni. A new concept of luxury travel. Again I stand outside and read the marketized wordage on its high-end façade, doing my best trying-not-to-laugh laugh, at full volume, until the curious and bored sales clerk emerges.

It is surprising how little buying actually goes on in high-end retail on a Wednesday afternoon. He asks the inevitable, predictable, rote learnt question every language student from here to Shanghai knows. The open sesame of international capitalism no less.

- Can I help you, sir?

By now, I have abandoned polite sarcasm for full-blown persecution complex.

- If I wanted any help from you, I’d’ve gone into your store, wouldn’t I comrade?

- Sorry. I was only asking.

I rant something about joining up synapses and being a jobs worth shop clerk to the devil, but by now I am merely an ex-curiosity and no longer a potential threat. I’m fast learning that the threat of a customer looms larger than actual custom in the high-end retail market. You don’t get this much attention in Primark.

Azendi’s sterling silver 925 freshwater pearls remain unlooted as I note down their names. I ask the thirty-something woman in Guess with a glamorous haircut what the name of her store might be.

- Guess, she answers missing the irony inherent in my request for redundant information.

My raised eyebrows do nothing to enlighten.

- A shop! I guess.

- Sorry?, she replies.

- A shop. That’s my first guess. I reckon it’s a shop. High-end I shouldn’t wonder.

She grins nervously as her colleague looks suspiciously at my notebook which I am now brandishing like Sub Comandante Marcos would a sub-machine gun. My biro has become a pipe full of coca leaves in the armed struggle for the liberation of the proletariat and peasantry of the entire Latin American Diaspora, and it’s only Wednesday afternoon in the Grand Arcade, Cambridge.

Rigby & Pellier confirms the unlikely link between shopping mall and Amazonia with their promotional sign front of shop, which contains nothing but bikinis and glamorous, bored women, not selling any swimsuits of any kind and reading glossy magazines.

Purchasing one bikini, announces the promo, purchasing one bikini saves one square metre of the rainforest. There you go. Job done. Put down the machine gun Sub Comandante Marcos and put on a mankini.

Next stop. Schuh. Not a poetry critic. But another store. Shoes. Two shops away from Azendi. By now names mean nothing. Build-A-Bear Workshop could be The Bilderberg Group. The White Shop. (Everything’s white.) The Pen Shop (Yep. Pens) and the ubiquitous Hollister. Someone in a Hollister 22 emerges looking every bit like a Harper Seven in a few years’ time: all gelled hair, vacant smile and retail therapy.

On the frontage of yet another three-quarters empty high-end store, a list of aspirant metropolitan centres. I read out loud including my own additions: Zagreb, Paris, Amsterdam, Lisbon, Antwerp, Tottenham. Munich, Moscow, Berlin, Milan, The Arnedale Centre.

A young woman in pink and glitz from the shop next door to Guess barges her way through pretend community police in low-end yellow bibs.

She blurts,

- If you do start a riot, I’d like a pair of Prada slingbacks, size 6.

But it is the two full-on female officers from Cambridge Constabulary who I engage in conversation. If I’m going down for writing a poem, I want to be shopped by the law not by a couple of hobby bobbies.

- Aha officers, I start, almost relieved. Excuse me I’m just texting a comrade.

- A comrade?

- Yes, a member of the Socialist Workers’ Party. We meet for coffee and chat. She’s terribly sweet. Just a little text to tell her where I am, just in case, I add knowingly.

- Now, how can I help you officer?

- Er we...

- ...you wanted to know why I am causing so much consternation and mortification on a Wednesday afternoon in the Grande Arcade, Cambridge.

- Yes, we did.

- I am writing a poem. Would you like to see my notes? Here we are officer.

As I hold them up, I read an abandoned couplet,

- Carluccino’s the first to go/cappuccinos all over the show. What do you think officer? Too doggerel?

- Well, I...

I can see her literary critical apparatus is on temporary suspension due to other pressing matters. I’m certain, ordinarily, on civvy street, she’d wax eloquent about iambic pentameters and rhyming couplets, a small Amontillado, slippers and Radio 3 on in the background. But not today. Not four days in to generalised rioting the length and breadth of democracy. Not with a sarcastically militarily attired smart arse masquerading as a poet and marauding the Grand Arcade, Cambridge planning riotous verse left right and centre. She went straight for the literal, of course.

- A riot? Why have you written a riot?

- It’s not a riot, officer, It’s the word riot. It’s notes for a poem… about a riot in the Grand Arcade, Cambridge on a Wednesday afternoon in August. Rather than rioting, I thought it’d be altogether better to use my creative imagination to write a poem about having a riot. It’ll be cosmic. Firebombs all over the shop. Kurt Geiger’s windows dished in. The arcade up in flames. Glorious. Can you imagine officer?

No she can’t. Instead she adopts the line of questioning she’s been trained to adopt.

- What is it you do?

- I’m a poet. And a writer. And a teacher.

- A teacher?

- Yeah. Of English.

- An English teacher.

Her grasp of language is outstanding.

- Is that a Liverpool accent?

- It is, officer.

She’s quite pleased with her detective work.

- And how long have you...?

- A long time. I’m resident in Cambridge. It’s a lovely place. Completely riot-free. It is my preferred haven of tolerance and intellectualism in my favourite of all the neo-liberal democracies. That’s why I came here to write poems, officer.

- Can I have your name?

- Why do you want to know my name?

- We like to know who we’re talking to.

I’m disappointed. I thought she might’ve wanted a copy of my poetry book.

- Tell you what I’d like officer. I’d like to go and write my poem now.

I turn to the small throng of two cops, two hobby bobbies, four Arcade security and several unoccupied high-end sales staff and scream.

- Is that OK everybody? Is it OK if I write my poem now? Is that hunky dory with all and fucking sundry?!

Later, in the station, they are helpful enough to provide pencil and paper.

That’s where we came in. Jonny’s in the basement mixing up a Molotov.

Based on a true story.
10th August 2011, Cambridge magicphil@btinternet.com

2012-01-15T00:59:00.001Z

STAATLICHES EXPRESS

Donned in the gloom-laden hosiery of the unliving, shiny patent black shoes and the red-lined iconic cloak he is to be buried in years later (despite never issuing specific instructions for his undead corpse to be draped in the well-worn comedic capery that pursued Messrs Abbot and Costello), having recently fled the Transylvanian White Terror that visits the local population after the Lenin Boys are booted back to Moscow by the House of UnAmerican Activities, Béla Blaskó, aka Lugosi, aka Arisztid Olt, 180 pounds, six foot one, technically older than Dracula, 30 (+7) years old (Hollywood age), ex-president of the Hungarian actors' union, communist and vampire to the stars, enters Staatliches Bauhaus, stumbles slightly, a consequence of the phial surreptitiously self-administered outside the building school, then pounds the steps to the office of Walter Gropius in the hope that rehabilitation awaits.

An overwrought introduction to chill the cockles of Northamptonshire's gothic rock community is typical of the man. He's gotten his decades mixed up again. The 1880's or the 1980's? Must be the methedone. Or perhaps the garlic.

- Ah! Herr Blaskó. Please be seated.

- Please to call me Lugosi, Herr Professor. And if the Professor will permit, I should very much like to lie down.

- Why ...er.. of course. The couch?

- I prefer the floor if it disturbs not the good professor.

- Not...not at all. Please Herr Lugosi, feel free.

Out of instinct Walter Gropius admires the architecture of Lugosi's prostrate form before him. The slight asymmetry of his widow's peak (aka McDonald's hairline) only serves to emphasize its underlying symmetrical intent. The zig-zagging of the folds of the cape hint at an aesthetic that presages Elsa Lanchester.

There is an aura of sulphur matches in the room. The architect fancies it is from his assistant's smoking, or those apprentices from the crafts guild using his office to play cards again. Strange. No tobacco smell. The pungent sulphur and musty tanginess of Frau Gropius's famous strong cheese and garlic on rye is of a different order.

The reflection of his visitor's breath in his shiny patent shoes takes Gropius aback. It is only early Weimar Republic. Why so cold? And then the breath... It comes from nowhere. Gropius turns and looks at Lugosi's lips. They have no reflection in the shoes. But then, neither can he see any trace of cold breath emerging from his now sleeping guest's mouth.

- Professor?

Gropius starts.

- Forgive me Herr Professor. From time to time I, how to say, nod. It is a symptom of my condition.

- Condition?

- I am plagued by the gothic. Doomed to typecast. Assailed by self-doubt. Existence is highly contingent for the commercially undead.

Lugosi's heavy burr is lugubrious and hypnotizing. In his mouth anon, Gropius's heart now beats in time with his visitor's mythical rhythm. Slowly Lugosi rises. The weight of demetrification, English, America's psychopathic healthcare, the debt to Sinatra, Béla Jr, the hospital bills, the mass production of horror, kitsch, unemployment, high camp, the defeat of the 1919 Hungarian Workers' State, sciatica, morphine, eternity, the four wives, lifts. Hope, the last one. Hope.

- Is there to be hope Herr Gropius?

- The bats have left the modernist bell tower. There is nothing but hope.

- How is the cure to be administered?

- A process of detoxification is to be recommended. The ornate, the gothic, the romantic, the decorative are to be banished in the machine-age man. Form must follow function. If we need to bolt a head onto your shoulders, then we engineer a virtue out of the bolt. The aesthetic of the functional.

- Karloff.

- Who?

- No matter. I am in need of the cure. I am in your hands Herr Professor.

- The enrolment procedure has already begun. I need only to see you draw.

- Blood?

- No. Herr Lugosi. Ink will suffice .

2012-01-15T00:53:00.002Z

THE CREATIVE CLASS

'You should avoid starting a story with dialogue!' said the Creative Writing lecturer, reading from his notes to his freshman class.

'Neither should you use exclamation points, clichés. And,' he continued, ignoring several raised hands, 'you should never start a sentence with and. Or end one with butt.'

Just then, in Dakota University, as in all other all-American educational institutions, no sooner had the class begun, then the bell went off. Each Hollywood academic hour lasts on average 37.5 seconds, making it possible to complete a whole term's course work in one afternoon, which, of course, only brainiacs and nerds do. The tutor's words trail off as the freshmen students instantly collect all their gear and vacate the room with indecent haste, as though their very popularity rating depended on it.

Only the most attractive and most famous member of the class stays behind. She is worried about the only two things she is ever concerned about: her low grade average and not being the most popular girl in the school, despite her telegenic strawberry blonde looks.

' "What are you looking at me for. I didn't come to stay," ' is the first line of Maya Angelou's I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. And you said you oughtn'ta..'.

'Yes, I know what I said. And when you're as vibrantly colloquial as Ms Angelou is, then you too can start stories with dialogue. Until then, it's probably better not too, that's all.'

'It's just that I can't seem to recreate. I tell. I don't know how to show...'

'Write what you see happening in your mind's eye.'

'Maybe this'll improve my academic grades, but what about my popularity rating. I only averaged a C+ this semester.'

'Well, this semester's barely 90 seconds old , so there's still time to improve... Lemme give you a ride home and we'll discuss your options in the car.'

As they headed down the six-lane expressway, the purples and pinks and reds of the Californian sunset spelt out the words Toxic Sludge is Good For You. It was as beautiful as Sellafield on a wet winter's eve.

'Look. I normally spin up a doobie on the way home, Samantha. You don't mind if I call you Samantha, do you?'

'Course not.'

'Call me Dean. If you look in the glove compartment you'll find an ounce of California's finest. Our state may have the fifth largest economy in the world, but those Mexicans sure ain't gettin' high picking strawberries 14 hours a day. Did you know that 80% of the world's strawberries are grown here?'

'I think you're confusing me with someone who gives a shit, Professor. You'll be asking me about Iran next. Where's the Mary Jane?'

Sam opened it and ( 'Oh!' ) sure enough there it was. She started loading up a paper on the dash like an expert, while fiddling with the radio, till she found the local hip hop station. Oh la la by The Wiseguys. Nice. She turned it up.

'Usually I wouldn't dream of smoking illegal narcotics with a student whilst driving. But since this is only a story, and I'm Head of Creative Writing, we can allow for a bit of author intrusion, just so's I can get stoned, I reckon. I mean it's not like this is even South Dakota anymore.'

Fifteen minutes later, they were stuck in traffic on a Hollywood freeway. America's biggest cash crop had the entirely predictable effect on Sam. Particularly since she'd had half an MDMA, three beers and 20 mgs of Diazepam before class, as per.

'What do you mean you want me to buy a War Cry? You're in the Army and you're giving me Salvation. Look kid. I'm already in the Army, what do you think the uniform's for, selling ice cream? Get outta here!'

'Dean! Come on. We need surprise and irony,' shouted Sam trying to bring him round.

Luckily, they'd just gotten off the freeway, and Sam was able to slap him back to himself with coffee and kindness. It would take more kindness than she had ever known. She had had to do Hollywood movies since she was fourteen. She remembers very little of it. It became kind of a mechanical thing for her, divorced from any pleasure or pain. Best way really. Just plough through. Get through the punters. Quick. Get out of the rain. Get the bag of brown and then get home to the kids. The Drew Barrymore of Bootle, they called her.

As for Dean, he'd turned into Sgt Bilko on a British Legion night out on a Wednesday in Tooting Bec.

Goddam escapists.

2012-01-12T13:54:00.008Z

GOBBLE DEGOOKSVILLE ALABAMA FREE FALL

Pure unbridled tripe like a bastard
fun for eleven minutes on day 8
cos if I stop to think too much
the phone goes off in my head. Full stop.
No time to think or scratch my nose
She wrote it on her fucken arm man
She wrote what I said on her arm in tattoo
No one has ever done that before
Not my wife, not my brother, not my anyone
Wowser wowser
See if I trail the juice in the corner
only the cat will tell if I'm dreaming
Sub optimal prime relief
Too much caffeine in my blood cream
and a lack of real pie in my quiche
A face smashed apart by hyper masculinity
until new vocabulary hits the mainline
like a smacker on the kisser up the mush
round the Elephant & Castle up the arsehole
Jesus saves in the ethical investment trust
he doesn't have faith in anymore
since the hedge fund managers
- who get a terribly bad press btw -
kicked the living shite out of the temple dwellers
who Occupied London in a vein attempt
Smacked off their tits with debt
and crisis and ethics
and Bing Crosby
It ain't easy being a frog in a shellsuit
standing up for the accused
since he's been and gone and left
a trail of redundant past participles in the deep fat fryer
like a turd in a Tesco bag aside a collosus of random detritus
in the back of a Datsun Sunny
with the go-faster Starsky & Hutch stripe
that his Dad painted on until he was black and blue
with expletives and normative male conditioning
til the plastic-coated pretend rubber bullets left
hits and exit wounds round the back of the bike sheds
where the cigarette butts are trod into the oft recounted
bored truisms of six two foot rugby players
who beat up leaders of fascist parties
in order to impress five foot two blonde princesses
who think that stinks
Think. Think again. Levi Strauss's tears fall down my face
Is here to make it all ok with you
One dark day he came home from the Socialist Party meeting
to tell her he'd met someone
She had a beard like Trotsky's granddaughter
but her new Brazilian stubble meant Ayrton Senna's iPod
made her cream her jeans with the word jizm
which he misspelt and she had never heard of anyway

Blob

2012-01-12T13:33:00.001Z

VIOLINS OVER RAMALLAH

Israel has warned international observers to leave. Completely spasmodic, if you ask me. There are F-16's and choppers hovering over me as we speak. Are you going to Fifi's BBQ? There are large numbers of tanks throughout Rafah and Gaza. Why would I not want to go to double Latin today? The sonic booms of Israeli warplanes are deafening. The next station is Letchworth. Fear comes with the night. My piano teacher's not even giving me half my lesson. The sonic booms are making pregnant women give birth prematurely. Choir practice. The border to Egypt is closed. Sheet music by Handel. These are not military objectives; they're targetting the civilian infrastructure. You shouldn't let her get away with only giving you half of your lesson. The film went out on all major Western news channels. She used to do the same thing with me. The bridges that connect north and south Gaza have been destroyed. It's an impossibly difficult piece for the viola. Hezbollah said they had not fired the first missile. Is Alice still going with Mahmoud? Zuhair Ali Al-Mansouri of Hezbollah said the Israeli footage, meant to 'prove' that 'militants' in Lebanon fired at Israel first, showed nothing of the sort. Is he from Iraq or Iran? Al-Jazeera carried this denial, as did BBC World Service radio, briefly. He shouldn't really smoke if he's a strict muslim, should he? The television showed shots of injured Israelis, but Lebanese and Palestinian casualties went unseen by tea time audiences. He doesn't eat pork or drink. The spokeswoman accused BBC radio of being part of an Arab propaganda plot to undermine Israel and drive it back into the sea. He drinks cardamon coffee and eats dates in the afternoon, after smoking his pipe. She sounded like my piano teacher.The concert for peace had been organised before they fell for each other. The Israeli Army aren't coming to Fifi's barbecue, are they? They would have been better to have the concert at Ely Cathedral like last year. Just four chairs right in front of the wall. The accoustics are much better. They managed to play beautifully throughout. A quartet of Apache helicopters moved in on the players. Only one of them could speak English properly, don't you remember? The IDF are completely spasmodic for messing up the peace concert like that. They shouldn't be allowed to get away with it. They called Mahmoud a terrorist. Apparently, the cellist had been to Finsbury Park once. The first bullets ripped through the double bass and violins; the second round sprayed across their faces and chests. Mind you, the General had to admit the music had been beautiful. Pity they killed everybody before they reached the end.

The next station stop is Ramallah.

2012-01-12T13:32:00.001Z

DAY 7 AWAITS

Day 6. It was as per. Usual wasn't the word. It was far from that. But it was as it always was... disorientation, distortion, distemper and... something indefinable. Sticky humidity. Sweaty palmistry. The quickening in the chestal membrane. Sane in the brain. Far too linear. Too much chronology, not enough psychology. It wouldn't get any easier, but it might get simpler. Time to look in the book for hooks. Lines to be taken for a walk along The Watchtower with Jaime, a witness of Jehovah with a letter of dismissal from Fort Campbell, Kentucky fried licks from Satan and a dopey look of irreverence in his eye.

Then the beep beep of intertextuality revealed an sms. Cheryl might go zebra later. The blacks and whites of trapped conventionality. A pantomime horse in pyjamas on double bass. A white rastafarian on public school grounds for prosecution. A Southend singer songwriter with curbed Essexist tendencies and a predilection for beetles and The Beatles. An epidemiologist from Braintree. Surgery hours only.

Hook line and sink. Of course, it's a disaster for our shareholders. He has lead an unprecedented response in the Mexican Gulf. The positive spin spun a web of deceit in his gall so apparent it made his ligaments cramp like hamstrings. Not enough muscular relaxant. Patchouli is no substitute. Tales of THC withdrawal from the river bank. The advertising standards in the industry aren't brilliant. That's code for: They lie. Greenpeace switched on the safety handles at the pumps. An irresponsible and childish act of political posturing and piracy. Pissing trillions of gallons of toxic black crap into an ocean is an act of maturity. It is only a calamity when the shareholders lose dividends. This is a given. Consensus manufacture for the masses.

I can stand it no more. Tired eyes. I take them out, wash them and pop them back in. Playing games with metaphor is akin to speaking if you are deaf to the deception of propaganda. The words faded colonial glory drift across, as 16-year-olds from Sao Paolo learn the language of cultural imperialism known as globalisation. I want not to listen. I switch off at the ear. I switch off at the temple. I wish not to ruminate. Act. Show. Do not tell. Do.

From out of the nebula there is a bridge standing under the man. At once the man is, and he is short. The left hand indicates size, the right sex. It is tempting to make the sign of the wanker, but this is too open to misinterpretation. Typical thumbs-up hearing fucker. These days British Sign Language raises its middle finger in recognition that they are not better, just aurally impaired. How do they live in a world of sound effects? Silence is... Noise annoys.

I think, therefore I scam. The philosophy of the tea leaf. Marketised time for the employed pays the rent, but not everybody has rent to pay. Opt outs are optional, but perfectly doable.

R.E.M. is strong. Mornings are woozy. The lack packs a punch drunk sleep in the eye that is hard to shake off first thing. I was trapped in a shared house of multiple occupational therapists, a close friend, a manic depressive, random members of Pink Fraud and Uriah Heap and a supergroup anxiety complex. Wakey wakey Boodah Bobbah. One of the heads aboard Gilbert The Narrowboat's door buddhas is missing. It imploded with enlightenment. Apparently high-functioning sociopaths embrace orientalism as a cover for their nefariousness. There are more of them than we think. Paranoid? Paranoia is a cinch compared to full-blown ideation persecution, sister. Two pints of IPA, a line of Carlos and a smidgen of BZP, please. What the fuck is passive aggressive anyway?

Jean Paul is my spirit guide out of the mist. He hangs around the rim of my consciousness like a Tangiers male prostitute in a Today Is A Good Day t-shirt and a copy of Huis Clos next to a lame stick of Wrigley's in the back pocket of jeans that one of his clients has given him in return for rendered servility and half an hour of lusty wrestling.

There goes the bell. Time out. Time to turn the page. Day 7 awaits. Magnificent. Lord knows I need the rest. The act of creation is knackering. I should have made a Genesis Device and let it do all the work.

No matter. Job done. Good night, God bless.

2012-01-12T13:28:00.001Z

A CONTINENTAL DOG'S BREAKFAST

The two Frankfurters entered the diner first, followed by the Hamburger, the Berliner and finally the French toast. The thinner of the Frankfurters, bathed in eau de Cologne, considered the German chancellor's stance vis-a-vis the American-Belgian Waffles crisis with the curious detachment of a captain of industry at three removes away from the Munich beer hall putsch of 1923. The fatter of the two Frankfurters, his deliberations consumed, was more than happy to accommodate US-style additions, provided the syrup agreed to be one of his myspace friends. All four had gone Dutch to spite the French toast. Buttered on the untoasted side only, she was actually British and proud of it, no matter how many sprouts Big Brother Brussels left all over the plate.

To scotch the Welsh rabbit's plans, the Danish pastry had saved everyone's bacon by squeezing orangemen till the pips squeaked in each of the Six Counties. As part of a negotiated settlement, the Ulster Fry was to be covered in haricot beans and artificial sweetners. Pound for pound, it was still a full English whichever way your baguette was buttered. The Celtic Tiger roared. He had more important fish to fry: kedgeree for starters, then depleted cod stock and finally skate on a bed of thin ice, topped with a neo-liberal sprinkling of tax breaks for business class customers, all at M3 motorway prices. No self-respecting Pole would touch it with a bhaji.

Meanwhile, Asti Spumante was drinking expresso au terrace with an off-duty cigarette who had been forced alfresco by the frying pan, so the French poodle could give his "Make the Trades Unions Bleed" speech in all major European languages, except English. Tipped off by the waiter, the creme Catalan caught wind of the US subprime market collapse in good time to rake off 8.5 billion Euros for gateaux re-construction in the Black Forest. The Portuguese man-of-war, full of Middle Eastern promise, nevertheless continued to swat the Spanish fly. The cheap Sicilian red, who was never up at this time of day, had spent the night on the bio-diesel with the famous Russian salad, who had got the Venetian Blind drunk and left the Greek cross under the table, totally shished off his kebab, much to the delight of the Turkish coffee, who never ever touched a drop of the Tatar sauce.

The waitress, who wore her hair in a French roll coated in egg and milk (lightly fried), a style more suited to Southern Mediterranean than Nordic tastes, asked in her best dog, "Is there anything more you desire, monsieur?

She was addressing Rex the Dog.

Rex, the biggest canine star of his day, was known as the King of Dogfooding. In the advertising game, he was the dog who always ate the dog food. Rex would never turn up his nose at the product. Back in the day, there was nothing more embarrassing, or costly, on a live TV commercial than the dog not eating its Lassie Chunks. But this really wasn't his cup of tea at all. Even though he'd never been much for sheep herding, he hated wordplay with a passion bordering on collie. It was time he hightailed it. He'd already waited far too long for the waitress to notice him in amongst all the sticky puns.

- I don't suppose you could fetch me a bone and a people bag to go, woofed Rex softly.

As he pushed open the door to leave, a dispute over the provenance of the idiomatic infusion broke out between a couple of inebriated English peers, who had been down and out in Paris, London and other world-renowned European capitals more times than Rex had had dog's dinners. Lord Lipton of Lambeth Walk insisted the brew was rightfully his, while Earl Grey of Essex claimed the oil of Bergamot entitled him not only to possession of the dog's cup of tea, but to full droits de signeur over the waitress too. Pretty soon they were at it like humans. Rex was best off out of it. Pity. He'd been looking forward to that Vienna sausage.

2012-01-09T15:24:00.001Z

42ND ST BURGER

"There can be nothing more mistaken than to assume that the Russian proletariat, or even its leader, the Communist Party, came into power with recipes prepared in advance, of practical measures for the realisation of the dictatorship."
Lev Kamenev from The Dictatorship of the Proletariat 1920.

I will miss very much your Old Speckled Hen. It was the last thing he said to me before going back to Moscow. The hangover got by way of too many Mad Monk Vodkas would pass, but I’d remember his fondness for English real ales - rough, self-assured, but not without subtlety, much like his sense of humour. His reactions were quick and acute. It was evident that he was no friend of long explanations. He regarded Molotov as very close comrade and only member of Politburo who could make decent cocktail.

He ate food in quantities that would have been enormous even for much larger man. He usually chose meat, sign of his mountain origins. He also liked all kinds of local specialities, but I did not notice that any one dish was particular favourite. On his last night he tried his first American-style burger from British Chinese chip shop take away.

- Enjoy yourself, get fat and never stop laughing. This was Comrade Lenin’s maxim. Gorky Park was great place for Kuhlich picnic…

-… before the Bolshevik putsch swept the hopes of the February revolution into the gutter, I interjected.

But it was no use: after the local schoolchildren’s musical performance, Stalin was in party mood.

- McDonald’s. McDonald’s. Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut. Is catchy tune, no?

- Yes, Josef. That’s the point.

- I thought Healthy Eating Week launch was point of evening show.

- Me too… You couldn’t hear anything at the back, apart from that advertising jingle. The whole show was a mess.

- I thought you liked, how is it said, chaos.

- Structurelessness is tyranny, not anarchy. Co-operation need not be chaotic.

- Psst! Theory. Don’t give me theory. I want two double 42nd Street burgers made from purest cuts of beef just like it say on capitalist poster.

- Capitalism is pants.

- Ah! You anarchists always complaining. Vladimir was right. So infantile. Grow up. Be man. Eat some meat.

The meat looked insipid. The poster was red and shiny and promised a new world order devoid of salad and joined up thinking.

Fast Food's Most Decadent Burger Arrives
Triple Ultimate Cheeseburger for purists.

Three beef patties, two slices of American cheese, one slice of Swiss cheese, mayo, onion sauce and a jumbo bun. It’s a clench-fisted burger sure to satisfy the fool-hardiest of appetites.

Remember: real men don’t do salad.

[Meets and surpasses the new meat laws]

The newspaper on the counter says the FSB put Polonium-210 in Sasha's tea. Do not believe a word. Putin knows from his grandfather never to mix radioactive isotope with liquid. For sure is classic pirozhki ingredient. Now shut up and let me eat crazy dead cow from Mi6 in peace.

2012-01-06T15:13:00.001Z

THE GINGERBREAD MANAGER

Once upon a time, there was an elderly retiree, barely endowed with adequate finance to survive the week, let alone the fiscal quarter, but among whose core competences included the fabrication of gingerbread mini-figures which she pre-planned to consume in tandem with her long-term partner, going forward.

One day, while the elderly retiree, female, (a.k.a ERF) was up-scaling in her rocker, shooting the blue-sky, she fancied that she detected an odd noise coming from the oven. Fairyland performance indicators dictated she investigate further, going forward.

- Assistance! Assistance! I require assistance in this space, looped back a voice from the interior of the ageing Aga.

Mother ERF's ginger confection was evidently human-type capital in crisis. Opening the stove door, the incentivised elderly service provider discovered her product launch had sufficient proactive functionality to conversate. A cinnamon stick had attached itself to his thorax, and sprinkling its folkloric magic had miraculously materialised a half-baked talking gingerbread boy with a Masters in Business Administration, a high-altitude overview and enough bandwith to capture the vertical market, going forward.

Blind to the unrestricted opportunities this serendipitous synergy had blended into the marketing mix, Mother ERF's silo-ed thinking was focussed on immediate consumption rather than the strategic staircase, up which the gingerbread MBA was pre-fated to hop from the get-go. Had she not been living the values of the impoverished fishwife, she would have got her fingers down the throat of the ginger nodule and grasped the granularity of the situation. However, bereft of 360 degree thinking, of the kind that separates the rhizome from the ginger root, she was destined to let the lemongrass grow too long on this one, going forward.

Wiping her hands on her holey apron, she placed the bipedal biscuit gingerly on the rustic table and stood agape, arms akimbo, frowning like a fairy faced with paradigm shiftage. The gingerbread youth straightened his marzipan tie and gave her the heads up on her swift intervention, going forward.

- Much obliged to you Ms, interfaced the gingerbread manager to Mother ERF, who had the sensation of being seriously out of the loopage.

- Don't mention it, love, communicated the ERF.

- Mother ERF... you don't mind if I call you MERF, do you? Look MERF, clearly we need to tic-tac here. Seems to me you misoverestimated the ETA on this project, not to mention failing to feed the product through the sales and delivery pipeline.

- I only had enough to make one biscuit for me and my old man, son.

- Give me some context here. Is it your intention to pursue short-term objectives and chase me down the street as per? Or would it not be preferable to leverage our talents and go forward together, out-foxing our competitors and giving the key stakeholders an option to buy into something more long-term?

- I'm not sure what you mean, young man. I don't...

- What I mean is, instead of targeting the domestic market, have you sounded out the emerging vertical? Maybe even go down the road of divesting, outsourcing the pre-preparation to the Far East, freeing up you and your partner to focus around marketing and procurement. Production is so labour intensive. Wouldn't you like more time to yourself MERF?

- But...

- Time is the new black. A luxury we can all enjoy. Time to kick back on the old rocker and watch the coinage roll in. Looking around, I'd say you need all the financial leverage you can get. You ought to be pushing the envelope here. We're talking low-hanging fruit cake. The brand alone's got to be worth squillions. 'S all about branding these days MERF.

- Branding?...

- Look, without the Gingerbread Man brand, I'm just another runaway lippy cookie with an attitude problem... Problem? Did I say problem? I meant challenge... Listen, my oven door is open on this... We need to look under the bonnet... Let's deep-dive an ideas shower and touch base offline... If you wrongside the demographic, then nobody's coming to the party... You got to develop a high-level overview... I'm committed 120%... the human touch MERF... need to connect ear-to-ear with the Chinese... and also, in addition...

As Mother ERF listened, her voluble creation was so intent on feeding it back, she was able to edge towards him, clutching her gingham dishcloth between the thumb and forefingers of both gnarled hands like an arthritic matador, going forward.

Before he could say "You can't have your cake and eat it, so you have to step up to the plate and face the music", the cloth had cascaded down over the anthropomorphic gingerbread figurine so that not only was the hungry housewife able to furnish herself and her husband with a nutritious appetising snack, midmorning, but, more to the point, she also managed to shut the little gobby fucker up, going forward.

THE END (of capitalism in fairyland.)

2011-12-29T15:35:00.001Z

FOR A FISTFUL OF THORAZINE

The Ho Chi Minh Maoists came around the corner. Late, but impeccably turned out in huge sombreros with matching Red China flags, carrying little pictures of Minh, Marx and Mao. The PKK were already making moves on Churchill. Unfinished business you might say. La Bestia de Bagdad wasn't the first to WMD the Kurds. On the other side of the road by the Cenataph, Indymedia were filming the federales and the Press, who were filming us filming them. Nobody, however, was filming The Man With No Name. He sort of appeared from out behind the Maoists, just as the last of the young revolutionaries was being planted in Parliament Square.

- Hey amigo. Is this where I can find the one they call El Cabrón?

-Sorry mate. No idea.

- Hey compadre, you show me respect. I want to speak with the boss man.

- Well ok. If you mean by boss, the head of the state managers of power, i.e. the executive, i.e. Tony Blair, then .... yes, I replied. Over in that building.

- El Cabrón calls himself Tony you say. Thanks amigo. Hey, by the way, you might not wanna do that quotes thing with your fingers any more. Makes you look like an asshole.

I thought about the obvious reply for a second. Something along the lines of "I'm not the one in brown leather chaps, cowboy hat and poncho", but I let it slide. He was after all armed and American, I think.

* * *

El Ciego had been exiled to the Isla del Hombre. El Gordo was doing better: thanks to the intervention of his mamacita, to her impassioned pleas (of "No, no, don' kill 'im. He'z just a boy from the Global Village.") and to the elevated status accorded motherly love in our New Jerusalem. It had been put to him that his was the greater dishonour since he had betrayed his own people. El Cabrón, on the other hand, had not. He was one of them. He had been handpicked to look after the store by the gringos agentes of La Inteligencia Central. He'd been to a top riding school and had learnt how to handle a horse and how to trick the peones into believing he didn't hate their filthy stinking hides. He was only doing what we expected of him.

- That's a bloody daft argument. I could use the same line. I could argue that you expected me to make amigos with big business. That you knew the laboristas would line up alongside the bandits. I admit it. We never thought this toy town revolutionary nonsense would catch on. It took us all by surprise.

- True. Your lack of foresight is staggering El Gordo. We reluctant revolutionaries have preposterous imaginations. How could you ever have anticipated this present state of affairs? That one day the bandits of the dollar would leave you in la mierda and you'd be facing penniless exile or this: pleading with the Consejo for a chance to live out your last days as a lousy toilet cleaner at the Museo de la Democracia Disfuncional. Anyway, relax compadre, you're in. You'll get minimum wage, paid monthly in arrears in Cuban pesos... Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha....

The corridors of Whitehall rang out with maniacal guffawing, made all the more psychotic for being badly dubbed from the original half Spanish-half Italian. At times you could almost not hear The Man With No Name speak: his lips moved so quickly, and not always in synch.

El Gordo had been one of the ones who hadn't fled, and so missed the great accident in the sky. When those yankee gringo, Los hermanos de Wright introduced their weapon of aviation, it was like the time my grandfather took me on the Channel ferry to see a machine gun. But the accident was even more incredible. The hermanos made it so that, not one, but two airplanes would fly into the side of the Palacio de Buckingham. El Cabrón's plane was the first to hit, so closely followed by the plane of los ricos that a mid-air collision was only just averted. But when the two planes crashed, leaving the tail ends of both planes were sticking out of the Palacio like two chocolate Flakes in an helado, we knew they'd meant it to be so.

The government funcionarios, the médicos of spin, the executivos, the fascistas, the aparachiks and the rest of those sons of dogs all perished in the gran accidente. What was left of the old guard, put it down to the air traffic controllers - it was after all half-term. But, since the airplane had only just been invented, most of us knew it was just propaganda. The gran accidente was a snapshot of what had been happening generally, up and down the country, unexpectedly, suddenly. It had started as we drifted back from fertile resistance day on May 1st. The footage of the gran accidente and the Indymedia coverage of what we'd been doing just hours before all seemed to coalesce in the public consciousness, as if we had planned it. I'd been filming happy smiling faces planting Emma Goldmans and Noam Chomskys in the undergrowth in Parliament square: the faces of confident Arab workers, relaxed protestors gleefully setting about the coiffure of the Gran Assesino. We had not been expecting it to end up syndicated on prime time TV and all the news channels. And we certainly hadn't expected what came next. Everybody, or so it appeared, started talking, sharing ideas and making plans. People started to sound as if we'd dreamed them up. Like the one of our pamphlets we used to educate the peones. This was too good to be true.

- Wotcha, Agrippa.

- Alright, Jules. What can I do you for?

- It's just occurred to me that we no longer have to put up with grotesque inequality.

- I couldn't agree more. Did you know that top three richest gringos have as much wealth as the world’s 60 poorest countries?

- Really? We have to do something.

- And so they did. Five million marched on the capital. The federales were taken unawares. Nothing in their gringo intelligence reports had lead them to believe the peones would so swiftly act to demand the middle managers hand over the big golden key of power. The workers closed down the Parlamento. Now it was a museum of their failure and our triumph.

As the delegates from the Quakers, Gringopeace, the Celtic Anarchistas, the Women’s Environmental Network, the Black Caucus, Class War, Workers' Libertad, the Partido Socialistas of Scotlandia and the Children’s Movement took their seats for the gran reunión, The Man With No Name left quietly. The reluctant revolutionary ignored the beautiful woman with the sallow complexion and dark eyes, as she took the cheroot out from between her full red lips and spat at him. He dismissed the latent homosexual overtures of the technologically-minded blond gringo. As he turned the corner and left the Mall, he kicked the dog that had been chewing over the bones of El Cabrón. They say the dog was once blind.

* * *

- That's an interesting parallel though Tommy. Could help you in your present situation. And as a Marxist you're already half way there.

- What do you mean Dr. Klein?

- Well, you believe in the afterlife, you know, the future utopia, as predicted by the prophet Karl Marx. Everything that has happened in the last 150-odd years since Das Kapital has been predicted by him you say. This is theology. Everything has not already been written down. The revolutionary road to socialism hasn't been laid by Herr Marx in Sanskrit for the Leninist orthodoxy to decipher on behalf of the masses.

- So, what are you saying my hallucinations are a kind of Bolshevik Da Vinci Code?

- Ah yes, nicely put. There's that active imagination of yours again. No, your problem is not theology, it's dopamine. The Da Vince Code is a fiction like the teachings of the Catholic Church. I am scientist I deal in what’s provable. When we talk to Our Lord, they call it praying. When God starts speaking to us, you know what it is Tommy, do you?

As Dr Klein left the ward, she took out a cheroot which she put in her mouth in anticipation of being off hospital property. She looked over her left shoulder and winked at the Scottish Socialist Party MSP strapped in the chair. She gave a stern warning to El Gordo and El Ciego as she left.

- Take it easy on him boys. The thorazine's wearing off.

2011-12-24T13:10:00.001Z

Holy Herbicide it's...JACK & THE GENESTALK

To her first born son spoke Jack’s mother
with as much gravitas as she could muster
crouched over compost micturating
explaining the benefits of crop rotating

Not for the Crown of England, lad
would I get rid of the cow
if I were your dad
but since he took off and had our money away
I’ve had sod all off the CSA

‘Sides the moral climate’s changed my sweet
We’re going free range and not doing meat

Jack loves his mother’s veganism now
so he's off to market with Daisy the cow,
to be passed on to a non-pesticide farmer
for as many loads of muck as Jack can garner

But the way to town is not what it seems
when a spindly old man offers Jack some genes
they’re not normal ones but special and magic
with eco-consequences, potentially tragic

Jack’s wet behind the ears and a wee bit green
But his mum’s not happy with the GM scene
and chucks the magic genes all over the floor
and the very next day, well, you know the score
there’s a bloody great beanstalk ascending to heaven
an irresistible attraction to a boy of eleven

Off the boy goes to the land of the Giants
Up to the castle bold and defiant
- I’ve got a penchant for tofu and yoga
You two are nothing but flesh-eating ogres.

The Giants got angry and growled at Jack
as the golden goose jumped up onto his back
- Fee Fi went Aventis
- Fo Fum went Monsanto
Who’d’ve thought we’d both end up in panto

Jack took flight straight down the stalk
as the golden goose began to flutter and squawk
it spilled the beans to the people’s press
about the insidious nature of the GM business
its plans to terminate seed germinations
in less well developed Third World nations
sowing things up for the agri-Giants
leaving poor farmers over-reliant
on sterile seeds at First world prices
instead of lentils, potatoes, red beans & rices

The twist in the tale for this lethal crop
happened as Jack got set for the chop
with the grim determination of guerrilla ecology
but the stalk dropped dead from termination technology

Aventis and Monsanto fell thereafter
And Jack & his mum lived organically ever after

The End.

www.monsantowatch.org.uk

CRUSTILOCKS AND THE THREE BEARS

Once three bears are out for a stroll
in the woods as you do
while the porridge goes cold
In wafts Crustilocks
A bird on the wing
Dreadlocks so golden
And a dog on string
No home of her own
No job either
Boots with no laces
And a bottle of cider

She's proper Hank Marvin
And so's her mongeral
As she checks out the porridge
With predictable doggeral
"This one's too hot!
This one's too cold!
Ah! This one's just right"
Wouldn't you know?

Choosing a seat
It's the same rigmarole
"This is too wee
This is too large
Oh! this one's just right
for my fussy hippy arse!"

'Cos Crustilocks has issues
with the number three
It's the bane if her life
She is OCD

She needs a bit of kip
to relieve her anxiety
But a trio of beds
It's just too much variety
"Which bed's too small?
Which bed's tool lumpy?
Is it bed number three
the one that's most comfy?
Oh! Sod this!" she frets
"I need some slumber"
as she crashes on a beanbag
and spins up a number!

The bears get back
and see Crustie's been unruly
The breakfast's buggered
And the place stinks of patchouli

So if you live in the woods
And your porridge is too hot
And you don't want your pad turned into a squat
And you've got sharp claws
And you're covered in fur

Maybe you shouldn't be living in a house anyway
Maybe you'd be all together better off in a cave.

The END.

The Pie-Eyed Piper

Once, up on charges I never did like going into, I left court with a non-custodial sentence on condition I go straight back to Hamelin. (On foot. No bus fare. )

I had played my way out with a jaunty tune once used to great effect in mediæval Germany, but was having trouble remembering the words. I needed the kids. I had a long walk ahead of me. Another problem. I wasn’t sure I could remember the way. It had been a long time. I have a childhood memory of an orange stone bridge. But in that version of the story, I’d been drawn as an anthropomorphic pussycat rather than a serious rat-catching feline, like I was on Wikipedia. And there were other issues. It was only 10:30 in the morning. And I wasn’t pie-eyed yet. But if I couldn’t recall the route, there’d be nothing for it than to hit the nearest tavern for inspiration. Then who knows. I could go all Geoffrey Chaucer, or else lie around getting tight all day “…drinking of strong wine as red as blood. Then ...talk and shout as a madman would.”

The first kid to approach did so with none of the menace that his hooded attire suggested. He was one of those lanky adolescents who’d sooner stand bent double like a fairy-tale old lady than deal with being the tallest kid on the manor, and all that implied. When he spoke, his voice, which had collapsed rather than broke, came from deep under the soles of his trainers. When he spoke. Often he didn’t. A case in point. I had to search for an appropriate opening gambit. With men my own age it was easier, especially with those in the trade. Shutting them up again was the thing. But what do you say to a fifteen-year-old when you’re in hooped earrings, gold-buckled boots and furry ears? The part-pirate/part Puss-In-Boots look. It’s not right. No self-respecting, jobbing, rat-catching journeyman musician should have to.

Anyway. In the end, Hiya? came out. I wished it hadn’t. It sounded so modern. I’d quite fancied a Forsooth yonder youth!

But wasn’t sure of the grammar.

- Wotcha, went the youth, sounding even less mediæval than me.

- I don’t suppose you know what’s supposed to happen?

- You blow. I follow innit? said the youth, as if it was the most obvious thing in the moral universe.
- Yeah but what about the rats?

- Don’t be a muppet? There were never rats. They put that in later.

Just then, my blackberry went off. An email.

From: The Appropriate Municipal Authorities To: The Pie-Eyed Piper
Date: circa 1284 Subject: rodent infestation

To contextualize the horrific event in relation to the child abduction, the chief executive’s office has implemented a whole raft of measures to move forward in the present situation vis-à-vis the rodent infestation in respect of all monies due to be remitted post-haste notwithstanding. A welter of highly improbable collocations of meaningless jargon will follow on from this memorandum of personal stagnation in the name of spiritual growth and economic decline at this time in the early 21st century. The implications of the Piper myth are after all widely known to have been googled both far and wide throughout the length and breadth of the kingdom by now sunshine. Consultancy Fee £5,000

- 5k! You’ve been had mate.

My young companion had it sussed even before I’d unconvoluted a word of it. He had his Babel Frog with him. A cheaper and quicker, black-market version of Babel Fish he’d downloaded as free source software directly into his memory stick. It read councilese like a charm. I immediately appointed him IT project management consultant.

- I’m PDA then? he asked.

- Sure. Yeah.

I’d ask him what PDA meant later. For now there was the recruitment problem. If the tunes weren’t working, then we needed a gimmick. Speed dating? Speed? A rave? Hooded tops with the Pie-Eyed Piper logo? Alcopops?

- I suggest we soujourn to the nearest inn for a brainstorming session. I’ll buy you a shandy. And you can pass out your illegally purchased cigarettes my young friend.

- Sorted, he replied, far too stereotypically for my liking.

THREE LITTLE PIGS

There were once three little pigs who each wanted to own a home of their own.

The first little pig used southern rock to make his home. He thought it would be sturdier than straw and longer lasting than concrete. Though he toiled hard at his three jobs, he could only afford a fixed-rate mortgage over 99 years at eight and half times his annual income. Soon he failed to make all his repayments.

One day the wolf knocked on his door.

- Who is it? asked the pig through the letter box.

- It’s wolf, little piggy. I’ve come to foreclose the loan on this property and blow your house down.

- You can’t do that. This is a home not an investment opportunity.

The wolf was immune to all appeals to reason. The logic of the financial system was as immutable as the hair on his chinny chin chin. So he huffed and he puffed until he repossessed the property.

The little piggy and his dependants went to stay with the second pig. This little piggy’s home was secured on a much more solid basis. Though he didn’t work as hard as the first pig, mummy and daddy pig had ponied up for a deposit on an endowment mortgage to give him a trotter up on the property ladder.

Presently, modernisation lead to liberalisation which was part and parcel of globalisation which in the end meant rationalisation. That is to say, the second pig lost his job. His partner lost her job. And his eldest lost his job. All three were re-employed on new contracts with longer hours for less pay.

One day, the wolf came a-calling.

- Who is it? asked the second pig through the letter box.

- It’s wolf, little piggy. I’ve come to foreclose the loan on this property and blow your house down.

- You can’t do that. This is a home not an investment.

But as with the first pig, he huffed and he puffed until he blew the house back onto the market.

The second pig and his family, along with the first pig and his kin, all moved in with the third little piggy, who lived in a kith in shared ownership house on the margins of the wood. The pigs got along fine, in spite of statutory overcrowding.

Unfortunately, the lack of liquidity in the banking system as a result of the sub-prime crisis had knock-on effects throughout the forest. Fairy tales for miles around were subject to its laws, the third pig included.

One day, the wolf came a-calling.

- Who is it? asked the third pig through the letter box.

- It’s wolf, little piggy. I’ve come to foreclose the loan on this property and blow your house down.

- You can’t do that. This is a home not an investment.

As with the first and second pigs, he huffed and he puffed until he blew the house back onto the market. And there the story ends, at least according to the original, translated by free-lance writer, Maureen Sturgeon, so she could pay her own home loan.

Unfortunately, work has been slack lately and Maureen’s not sure how long she can keep the wolf from her door, huffing and puffing notwithstanding.

2011-12-01T17:11:00.005Z

KINDREND SPIRIT'S DICK

She awoke
and wanted some ugly

She'd had enough male gaze to last a fuckin' life time
A life time fucking
A life time in the fuck biz

Just ugly enough to stop em looking
stop em wanting to fuck her long enough
to listen to what she had to say

2011-12-01T17:06:00.001Z

THE POSTHUMOROUS PICKWICK CUTTINGS

Forgive me my impudence, Mr. Prickwick. A matter of form? Quite. Joe The Fatboy Slim. How do you do? Anything the matter? Transient thermal pleasure. Carting your huge postmodern bulk around, please make 'aste with the narration or the Pickwikipedians will not be best 'appy. Prepare to Ballydoran Post Office directly, bill of costs, pop in the shops for a warm, the psychologist expressly said so, on spec' ulashun Mr. Picklewink, they names the baby seal they found 15 nautical miles inland in a barn Gulliver, on account Miss Abigail of his great love of satire, Swiftian plunderings steadfastly adhered to, conversing henceforth more than the law says you need, still now, the state's inflexible resolution, warm port keeps a body a-going, a-misteltoing, a-missing intimacy, a-pining for the warmth of her body, vixenish ladies. The local economy heavy and subdued, demeanour grim. Recollect yourself. Worksearcher, workfarefinder, workhouselodger. Is that how it works? JOBSEEKERS' DISALLOWANCE. What has decomposed you, madam? DEPARTMENT OF WORKFARE & PENURY Let us contract a Hackney cabriolet my good man and despatch to indebtors' prison. GO DIRECTLY TO JAIL. DO NOT COLLECT TWO HUNDRED POUNDS. More than you need to live on. The law says. The law? The law is an ass, sir! Arsehole of The Bailey, Mr. Rumpun. Don't try yourself, Mrs Winklepicker. My sister's a saint. We have looked at your claim ladies following a recent change. This is Fleet Prison: a place of debasement in the depths of depression. Stone the Russell Crowes if the whole financial system don't go and get itself in danger of collapse. State capital my dear Mr. Malevolent Bankster. THIS IS NOT OUR FAULT. But now in the run up to Christmas. Sod it. Spend spend spend. Augustus Nathanial Lotterywinkle. You don't snuff, do you? I think not, Ballydoran was produced and recorded in Liverpool. Shopping as drug addiction, beastly energetic, put you in a perspiration. Time for a glass to bid farewell, to celebrate the end of that melancholic adwenture. May a working-class anarchist make so bold as to question, sir? Shopping exertions barbarous. Conspicuous consumption. Consumption. TB1 and TB3 for the little 'uns. The petit bourjoirsee, one in twenty-five of whom are morphine addicts, imbibe five and twenty gallons of porter a chapter, Mrs Winkle. So I goes to insolvency court on behalf of the Halewood debtors' group. NO NO NO POLL TAX. Tax credits. Tax debits. National Insurance pyramid scheme for proles and pensioners. Turn it over in your mind. Obesity hypoventilation syndrome. Very Pickwickian. What an annoyance! Drank copiously port and porter for several episodes while sermoaning temprance. Humungersaurus hypoventilation, hypocrisy and hip-hop, hippy to the hop, took the hippy to the hop, now he love real ale. What's the matter lager boy? A-feared you'll taste something. You do the cumshot for a change. A scene of misery and debauchery Mrs Winkle. We cannot pay you. IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THIS DECISION. The law says you need to live on. to live on. to live. to. live. A little warm water, slice and sugar. The busiest day of the year for our inflexible friend online. FLEET INSOLVENCY COURT (1165) Credit your debit card. Debit your credit card. You're reprobate, Mr. B. Mr. Corporation Tax Virgin. Wery good, Mr Goodwin. Clue's in the name. Wery Dickensian. One in twenty-five are equally sociopathological. You are not privy to ungrateful remarks, my dear Mr. Jingle Jobseeker. Legs shaky. Head queer. Earthquake-y feeling. In the qwuick of double time I'm a-feared he's working on the side, cash in hand for a-misteltoeing? Nourishment. Would you relish another of the same dimension Mrs.Cockleworthy. Sixpenneth for a good half crown Mrs.Winkpickle. Port/East India Sherry from Jerez, Bollywood. YOU ARE LIABLE FOR THE CHARGES STATED IN THIS NOTICE. Old fossils! Your father'll be the dearth of me. I reckon him and his piano don't count as work. I know they ain't wery good sir, so they ain't, Ballydoran so it is. My Dear Mr. Mockney Puckwit. How do you find yourself? Satnav sir. Satnav. Wouldn't be where am I today without satnav, sir. Capital Mr. Puckwith. Capital.

2011-12-01T17:05:00.002Z

AN ANTI-NATIVITY STORY

Once, without the city limits of Royal David for a welcome change, long long ago, long before post-industrial neo-isms had destroyed photo-synthetic-dependent life on the planet, long before Empire building had used up all exploitable fossil fuel (except hemp), long before state-capitalism's appropriation of old folk narrative, but just in time for the Christmas market, there lived a hirsute Northern European gentleman in a red & white Coca Cola-sponsored uniform with a bent for compulsive consumerism and philanthropy. His name, like his gift-giving, was self-evidently seasonal.

Known as Sir Nicholas Fairfax-Worthsthorne, The Lord Protector of Yule, to the implausibly English in LA, as Saint Nicky to the overfriendly, as Mr Claus on insurance policies, as Sir Sleazalot, following a spin operation that backfired like a rain forest on bio-diesel, or as plain Santa to jobbing screenwriters and Americans, Father Christmas had since time immemorial filled his sleigh with the most environmentally friendly fuel propellant (un)known to man: supernatural gas.

It had been the best kept secret ever. However, in the light of the legendary fudge at the 2007 Bali Conference on behalf of the world's most profitable businesses and the US State Department, Santa saw the need to go public.

Essentially supernatural gas only worked if you believed in it. Truly believed. Just as your kid did in Wonka-Vite, tooth fairies, or flying snowmen. The purity of the moral code was what made it work. Adults tried prayer. No good. Belief in God didn't do it. The ideology and ritual. Clogged up the flow-thru apparently. On the other hand, pure, unadulterated child-like belief without any added rational discourse worked like a three-leaf clover strapped to the back of a black cat on St Patrick's day, being careful to avoid the ladder and making it through a graveyard full of cluster bombs near the Israeli-Lebanese border. That’s to say, like a very lucky charm.

One morning, all three and half billion believers, children and cyclists mostly, woke up to find a 14-gallon drum of supernatural gas (SG) at the bottom of their beds. Inexplicably, two billion agnostics wet their pants.

The believers set to work straightaway. They badgered, pestered, rallied and siphoned SG into anything they could find, except at first cars and trucks. Favourite make-shift vehicles were: Bedknobs & Broomstick-style four-poster beds, bath tubs (gold taps a must), turned-up tables, inflatable bananas and Edwardian perambulators - not to mention the classic magic carpets. Stock options in Persian rugs and furniture stores soared. Sofas, which had clichéd so swiftly, were cool and retro again within weeks. The most fashionable trend was amongst cyclists, who at weekends had taken to cruising former motorways in wheeless and engine-less 4X4's. As conventional fuels were priced off the road, SG being supplied free by elves, combustion engines became passé overnight. The public highways were abandoned, turfed up, drawn on, partyied on, and eventually converted to land for food and shelter.

The non-believers, or the Thomases, were rendered ineffectual, weak, divided, doubting and stationary. Road reclamation was very nearly about to reach critical mass. The developed world was almost on the point of having more recycled road than automotively-dominated tarmac and concrete, when the Thomases and their oil-company backers were saved by their big idea. Their coup de Graceland Tennessee.

They founded a new church. They got the notion of promulgating Santa Claus as an official faith. The Church of Santa, like those of Scientology, Seventh Day Adventism and The Poison Mind, took off in a major way. The competing theologies of Astrology, Marxism and Jedi were outstripped. Clausism became a full-blown religion with its own code of behaviour, its own ideological superstructure, its own capital assets, its own property-rich, tax-light elite with their very own stake in education, in investment, in biological and chemical weapons, and in the afterlife. Official tours to Santa Heaven could be booked online.

On the money markets, purity of belief slumped overnight. Innocence went through the floor. And SG went with it. Its shares plummeted like a feather coated in black tar on the morning of the world's worst environmental disaster. The bottom fell out of gas.

The rest, as they used to be able to say, is history.

2011-12-01T17:03:00.001Z

CLAUS 'FORE CHRISTMAS

Advent again already. Stress builds. The quotidian is a coping strategy. It lessens anxiety across the board. Monday to Friday: so-so. So-so is better than angsty pangs in the gut. Routinize reality. Lemon jelly for the party. New shoes for the elves. Organize. Keep busy. Don’t dwell. Don’t edit. Let it flow. Release the stopper from the genie bottle lest the Charlatans of the West be denied their Deirdre Langton of pain. Other non-sequiters flash front of brain. No matter. Just get through the day. The backdrop: an Alpine mountain festooned with bad spellong along a border that separates desperados from safe bets for Swiss bankers. Arrrgh! Baby J and the manger. Called the manager by mistake, said there was no room, boring boring boring nativity bollocks again. No mention of the politically dangerous Middle East, too much present reality, dark. Hollywoodenize. Even Bad Santa's a goodie. Shifting units on Channel 5. Bottom line. The local Anglican terrorist wants me to do bad Santa, ray gun and all. Instead of gifts for the kiddies, there’re boxes of frogs. Burrup burrup. Burrup burrup. Californian frogs apparently because Hollywood recorded the sound for posterity. Picture the scene. Red van. Hybrid. Half-reindeer, half-hydrogen. So-so. Snow. Course. Real snow. In monochrome. Slushy, dirty, wet. Working-class sludge dredged up from the souls of welly boots and worn out postal strikers weary of hierarchies and lies. Doing our best. Five houses. Detached. Pure white driven everywhere. Except the post box that the under nines call a mail box. Santa’s steps carve a six-pointed star in the powdery perfection of the bourgeoisie swept in from Aspen and Val D’Eserre. Can’t spell it; can’t afford to go there. Twould be a good place for bad sad Santa to don his evil English dude accent, semiotics and cigarette. Smoking Englishman bad. Smoking ray gun good. Hey Mr Taliban. Yes, we have no bananas. One of the houses has no insulation, but the snow doesn’t melt. Not like in the manufactured world. This is only a Christmas card. The ray gun. Operation Cyclone. How would Jimmy Carter use a covert CIA ray gun? It has peaceable applications this time of career surely. It zaps Afghan children back to life and sucks the oxygen of hegemony out of the hyper-wealthy just in time for January 4. Corporatism's most cheerless day. Rayguns are used auto-destructively more often that not. Let's play our office Xmas party game. We'll blast lemon jelly over the faces of the Fortune 500... With love and xxxxx from Misfortune 6.5 billion plus. No hard feelings eh? The slactivists can wiki up trouble on the spinternet all they like. It’s CHRISTMAS!!! bellows the croaky glam rocker from the West Midlands. The most exclamation marks and the closest to Santa Walsall ever got. Look at him now. Bags. Bags under the eyes bigger than those in the reindeer hybrid. He’s not even looking at himself. There is no contact through the eyes. The tracks of the tears of the universal clown will be gone by the time he faces the kids. He loves his lemon jello. Marvin Gaye’s gun still smokes. Santa smokes too. His chest is full of water again. The bong gets him through December. January. Bronchitis, clinical depression, loneliness, dislocation and the sales. Thank God for the Summons For Non-Payment Of Council Tax. The grinding down of dignity and hope and fun and life through the millstone of statism and social control. The nuclear windmill never brakes. It’s an ill society that blows not well. Cheer up you miserly philanthropic fuck. Shave? He’s going to shave. I don’t believe it. Not the beard Nick. Not the big white beard. Mirror in the bathroom please don’t see. He's sobbing again. I felt it reverberate around my metal rim. Barely got enough gas to heat the water. He ain’t thought of that yet. He’s switched off thought. He’s switched off care. They’re deducting it from his benefits. Apparently philanthropy isn't work. It means he's not available for the alienating toil stuffing sponsored envelopes with pre-packed Santee messages that the Job Centre Plus Less offered him back in November. Minimum wage slavery might conceivably save the elves from eviction, but for a 62-year-old with no equity or family... Anti-socialisation doesn’t quite cut the cranberry sauce. Murray Bookchin. Emma Goldman. Cop15 president. Coping. Julian Cope. Copenbloodyhagen? Don't make me laugh. Fallen golden arches. Bah hamburger humbug! He’s leaving the beard on. It’s all he’s got left. And me. Since his lock-up burnt down. Bad November's are never good for philanthropy. The cheap insurance from the council (cahncil) means he only got Argos vouchers in lieu of. So far. He's bought me, a far too reasonably-priced two-faced shaving mirror. He's so cheap. Lapland? You having a Tufnell. Poundland more like. Go go Inspector Hamster Gadget. Freddie Starr ate my valium. Luckily his plastic health & safety razors are so cheap he's never going get that growth off. Does he remember where he put the scissors? Let's go inside and have a look see. Sign. Sign. Remember to sign on. There's hydrogen enough for Blitzer or is it Pincer? All look the bloody same. Rhythm is a Dancer. It's my favourite reindeer. Get down the dole. Go for a swim. Don't want to overdo again though. Move the joints. Hurt. Rest the joints. Stiff. Smoke the joints. Relief. But I do get para... Oh go on then. Just a little hit. Helps the mussels. RUDOLPH! What've you done with the stash tin? Where is that red-nosed shit? Rudolph. I'll let you have snort of the purple tin if you help me. Attaboy. The finest sniffer reindeer Lapland and Borders Police ever had. Nice one. Cheers Rudy. Life? It's all smoke and mirrors boy. Knoworramean? Smoke and mirrors. Happy Fucking Christmas.

2011-12-01T17:02:00.001Z

TOP SECRET SANTA

In the lore of the people it stands written: "Here on this Earth to philanthropise the little children, the Spirit of Christmas has bequeathed his only ill-gotten son, Santa Claus. Each Yule Eve, he shall come down chimneys bearing gifts among you."

And so it was. Until one day.

It happened that Claus (dressed in standard Coca Cola-issue red and white) had begotten himself lodged behind the chimney breast of a particularly compact one-bed nu-build, of the sort that was a major contributor to loneliness and depression. And they (unisex singular) didn't even have kids.

Thereupon all he could do was wait upon the emergency services' transmutation from authorial invention to actuality. Worried his undercover cover had been compromised, SC phoned in. Head office sent the Archangel and a couple of elves.

The Spirit of Christmas, real name Engelbert Spanner, sounded made up - appropriate in Spanner's line of work. The Claus project, originally a Scandinavian intra-Agency conduit propaganda job, was the most successful psych-op in McHistory.

And so it transpired that, as Claus was sandwiched in the chimney flue, he ruminated in italics.

Not enough room to turn round. There is no conspiracy. Betcha I could play harmonica. Conventional realism is not real. Look. Shop till you drop. The dyslexics had one too. Secret Satan. Wish I had me mouth organ. The elves think they're good on them flutes. But they can't rock like Santa. They got no blues in 'em. Too folksy and hobgoblin. Hell, I really need a piss. Hurry up guys. As for the Angels, they go for that techno ambient stuff - all keyboard swirls and harp archipelagos.

- Santa! Santa!

- ...

- He's either out or sleeping... Santa!

- Listen elves, spake the Archangel. Don't care how you do it. Just get him out of there before the constabulary turn up. The fire bobbies I can deal with. But the rozzers... Call me @ Starbucks when you've got him back in the sleigh. K?

- What ya up to? the elves asked as one voice.

- Laptop boys. Should get one. I'm gonna wikipedia us up a backstory, do some rummaging on Mi5 connivance and consume hot caffeinated drinks. Capice?

Most say it started after the switchover from analogue to digital. Some claim it had been happening for ages, but we'd never noticed before. They say I take their minds off it. The raw sewage flowing down the street. The genocide. The war crimes. I'm part of the mind control conspiracy, like the NBA, CNN, porngraphy, cannabis, CIA and the Bilderberg group. Secret Santa. The number of children who actually gets a present from me all old school straight down the chimney is minsicule. And I tell you what. I am sick of getting fucking stuck. I'm taking this operation into the 21st Century. The sleigh goes. The reindeer. The whole kit and kaboodle. Outsourcing. That's the key. Santa Claus. I am a brand, man. I need to divest. I don't need the liabilities. The grief. The go-slows and disputes with the elf unions. Running against the deadline. If they want me to be part of the secret state. I want e-Santa status and work from home. We got broadband in Lapland now.
- Santa! Santa!... He's still out to lunch.

- Jeez I needs caffeine, sugar and storyline. Fast forward filmically, while I get me a mocha.

The elves santa-ported Claus to head office.

Spanner agreed. Get the Yuletide software out to the kids, downloadable Santa products online. No more chimney work. Hard slog. Sure.

- But what about the toddler market? We gotta start with the mind control young. Early learning budget is big enough for Chrissakes, Spanner drove each point home with an airprod of his forefinger.

- Get the parents to do it, suggested the Archangel. They sneak in in the middle of the night and plant the presents in the room.

- Nah! It'll never catch on.

2011-11-20T22:43:00.001Z

PEEPING TOM THUMB

- Good to see you looking so well, Tom. You're at least three-quarter size and it's already 10.15. Well done.

- Thanks Dr Frankelburger. I've only had one shrink attack today. I did the deep breathing exercises and it stopped, which was handy. First week back at work and all.

- These are the benefits of not succumbing to shrinkage Tom. How is the world of surveillance these days? Things must have things changed substantively since your sabbatical?

- Aye, it's more monitoring than your actual watching these days. What with all the technology everyone's a peeper, or thinks they are. Virtual ain't the same as...

- Vicarious?

- Yeah. Vi-whatsit.

- You crave real voyeurism, in the moment, in the flesh, on the edge.

- Yeah. Dangerous.

- Do you think you might be in the habit of associating code-breaking and taboo behaviour with the sexual high?

- What does that mean?

- Do you need to spy secretly on real women to get your kicks?

- I know how it works Doctor. I'm not totally thick. I have an addictive personality. The cogni-whatsit behaviour therapist said...

- Now you're sounding like a psychologist. Remember KISS. Keep It Simple Stup...

- Don't call me stupid.

- I'm not Tom.

...........

- I have an idea for us to work on.

- What?

- Do you have confidence in me Tom? Or do you feel mistrust?

- What's the difference between mistrust and distrust?

- I think that's evasion. I think you know what I mean. Your ideation. When you succumb to shrinkage...

............

- You are Thomas Spyworthy, Surveillance Officer, Fairyland Security. It's easy to get all puffed up by that. That's one helluva title feller.

- Wish I was Pinnochio. At least things grow when he lies. When I go bad, I feel so small.

- Well take it from me. It isn't all Guns and Roses Jiminy Cricket for Pinnochio Tom. I should know.

- Really? Tell me...

- No Tom. Hypocritic oath.

- Don't you mean hippocratic?

- My dear boy. Such a lot to learn.

- Does Pinnochio...?

- Tom, we couldn't possibly accommodate yet another folk tale within the confines of this session, especially in the light of your on-going identity predicament. Tom Thumb is coming to terms with his voyeurism. He's developing strategies, getting on with his life...

- What and I'm not?

- I didn't say that Tom. Tell me about the peep-hole at the boutique.

- Why? It's the shrinking that's the problem, not my peeping.

- They might be connected Tom. Indulge me.

- It was the 70s. Things were different. I was still a growing lad. I didn't notice any shrinkage back then. Not really. My mum would comment now and again. But she was on the Freddie Starrs and the gin. So nobody listened to her. Everybody put it down to erratic growth spurts, even the doctors. They....

- Inside. Tom. Inner space. Remember keep it simple. The super-ego. The macro. Forget it. For now. We must focus on you. Tell me how you felt when you father introduced you to your first peep.

- It was in our actual kitchen, doctor. The ladies’ changing room. It was all done out like a cowboy saloon bar from the jazz age. Lo-fi art deco. Very 1970's 1930's if you know what I mean. Great Gatsby with Lionel Blairs.

- Forget aesthetics Tom. Dimensions. Form. Shape. Tell me about your emotions. What happened in the changing room? Tell me about the women you saw.

- The changing room was where we ate our meals. The lads who worked out back. They came in for a bacon butty and a blimp. Smoko decko it was called.There was an Aussie guy there. But all the men used to take a look.

- You Tom. Tell me what you did.

- I looked. I used to come down and look when all the lads were gone. It was innocent. I used to like the secrecy.

- What is attractive about the secrecy? Describe the semi-clothed women to me Tom.

........

- Tom?

.........

- Where are you?

...............

- Tom?

[ - Down here Doctor... Aaargh! The cat!]

- Felix! Felix! Shoo! Bloody cartoons! Get out of here. 'S ok Little Tom. He's gone now. ... Why don't I pop you in the jar wee man, out of harm's way.... But you are going to have to wait until I've finished with Big Tom, I'm afraid.

[ - No No Doctor. It's me! I'm one and the same. Just smaller. DOCTOR!]

- It's no use squirming and bawling Little Tom, I can't hear you. So wee. Dear me...

.................

- Now where were we? Tell me about the boutique ladies. Did they wear mini skirts? Tom? Big Tom? Where the hell are you? Blast... He always bloody does this...

BUZZ. BUZZ. BUZZ

- Dear me Ms Heinklesteiner. The Tom's have gotten themselves all meshed up again. This post-modernist nonsense is beginning to grate on my parmigiano.

- Your next client is here Dr Finkelburger.

- Suppose you'd better send him in. We'll get an early start.

- Certainly, Doctor. Should I serve elevenses?

- Why not? And fetch my laudanum Heide. I couldn't handle Pinnochio and sobriety.

2011-11-20T22:40:00.001Z

SOMETHING FOR THE CAT

Rinky dink. She was probably the best. Not for the sex, but for the humanity. They can be very human at times, even the so-called worst of 'em. And this one, she was dregs, supposedly.

Humanity wasn't something I could aspire to. She, on the other paw, had it in shovelfuls in spite of everything. She wasn't impressed by the pink-mobile either. I liked that. Ain't even sure she knew who I was. Cool by me, in the circumstances. Could've been she recognized a fellow traveler in pain. She saw past the animal thru' to my inner core.

Big cojones! She was just glad of an easy-going punter, wheels and a safe, convenient place to do drugs. Or perhaps it was on accounta she was just out of Holloway that day. That's why she was so serene; it was the thought of seeing her two kids-in-care once more.

Serene. Something I was supposed to be. But not that night. That night I was on one. I was 120bpm at least and then some...

I needed the comedown as much as the sex. That and the human stuff. The stuff that makes us go prrr prrr. Rinky dink. Even you guys know that much I know.

I'd been on the razzle dazzle with the guys. Which ones? Who knows? Don't take this wrong, but all you Funny Little Men look the same. One walking-squawking hooked-nose job looks pretty much like another. Same tache. Same squat stature. Identical bottled rage. Blowing steam outta their over-sized heads, except when painting & decorating, or operating machinery. Then FLM's attain an inner peace. That's when they sing, smile and most of all, whistle. Least ways I think it's whistling. It's not in my range. But I can see the musical notation. All them floating crotchets and quavers. Never had recourse to mouth bubbles personally. Cumbersome.

Sure I've used signposts, anthropomorphically, which ain't easy for a cat. See you gotta reach out to your client base, as any working girl'll tell yer. The odd exclamation mark over the head - and boy! can I not resist looking at it, gets a canned laugh every time. Or the dangling mid-air interrogative, invariably with a scratch and ponder. Usually tho' I'm a cat of action. Mostly body semaphore and eyebrow movements. I do like a mobile eyebrow. Lets a cat know what's happening inside.

My insides were racing that night. Brain and vitals in overdrive. I was pissing more than a pensioner in a yard-of-ale contest. My jaw was aching the ache of a vice squad rookie on his first hide-out. My brow was sweating like the twitchy hush puppies of a strung-out low-life gambler crippled by the grotesquely criminal compound interest of an Italian New York gentleman name of Domenico "The Slice" Giannotta. My imagination was stretching verisimilitude to breaking point....Boing! Thwang!! Billy Whizz... Base amphet had just flooded onto the narcotics market. It ain't easy telling how much of that stuff to take. Stings like a bitch up the nasal passage. So dabbing's the thing. With regular sulphate a half g, or even a whole g and you feel frisky, perky, up for action - even if little pinky don't. Know where you are with sulph. But base, jeez! You sherbert dab the teeniest tiniest smidgen on your paw; you're Buzz Lightyear for the whole god-damned weekend, well into Monday tea time and beyond. And in combo, it can get real messy.

The base was only top-up. I'd had a coupla three old skool MDMA caps. That was my regular tipple. But that night, I was an all-pawing, all-jiving, all-action alley feline. Lovin' it. Brought out the show cat in me. The comedian. The acrobat. The scholar. The groovy gymnast. The all-round rinky dinker. The all-American unAmerican super-speed freak.

That night I met Dale on the dance floor. Mincing around in his sparkly crop-top. All coke head narcissism, powder and paint. The repressed short step action of happy handbag. He bugged my pink hind no end. Don't get me wrong. Ain't got nuttin' against a men-only human. Even us cool hetty bi-curious cats've been known to swing it across the urban jungle. Fact, that's why I was there. Those amyl nitrate boys cut a rug on the dance floor. Not this self-conscious mincer tho'. Maybe he felt inhibited by his own C-list celebrity, who knows.

At first we got along fine. Then his showbiz cheese wobbled like Linus' mouth in Charlie Brown. Pets don't always win prizes Dale. And my copy cat Harlem bum shuffle didn't go down well. Fact was, I was freakin'. I'd stripped my skin down to my waist. It hung there like a half-unraveled sausage. Raw and sweaty. Too much. Too hardcore. A couple of big nose-jobs bounced me out on my tail. Totally wired in the wilds of King's Cross.

Not King's Cross King's Cross. Nowhere near the station where the beggars and desperate pimp-run whores hover like concrete mist. No sir. This was The Cross. Up the hill aways toward The Angel and Cally Rd, over by the good's yard sides. That's where the funkier nose-jobs hang. Where the cannier working girls and private hires pick up trade. Fewer jellies, barbs and skag. More cool runnings and your actual joined-up conversation. Conversation. That's what a cat needs when the base speed's veining its way round his race-course at 125 bpm and counting. Conversation. Of the non-verbal kind of course.

I'd left the pink-mobile off of Pentonville Rd, by one of them super-stretch white limos that make mine look like a bubble car. I strode up the hill, hip-hopping and doing 360's, radar fully on. It was too late for post-pub business. Too early for post-club trade. I was headed back to my ride without much expectation of any action. Less than a hundred yards from the pink mobile, I sniffed one out. Whiskers reverbed, snout twitched and tongue rolled out. Animated histrionics. Didn't have to say a word, the word, even if I could. She said it for me.

- Business?

- .....

The trouble with pink comedic felinity is that no-one takes you seriously. Seriously. All they see is a kooky day-glo leopard with a ring-pull cord and a wacky auto. They have no conception of what it's like. They do not know the power of the dark side of the pink.

Deep-veined purple thrombosis. Varicose lavender clutches. Recurrent color fade. Massive ontological self-enquiry. I mean. The shifting sands of transient episodic existence is no basis for solid relationships, let alone run-of-the-mill contentment. Hey! nosejobs, there's a soul in here. There's an animus inside this violet puma. You two-dimensional slapstick schmuck. There's an existential malaise that cannot be contained in this comic shell, despite what the tattoo on my butt warns. The one they never show you. The one next to the Made In USA stamp. The one that reads Contents Fragile: Keep Right Way Up.

None of this concerned the working girl. She wasn't bothered 'bout that stuff, any more than she was impressed by the car. For her we were just a means of transportation. Her intentions were pure, direct, honest and clear. Her goals were set low and achievable: find a glass jar, some aluminum foil and a lighter, and transport that twenty quid (next to my AmEx card in my fanny pouch) into her delicate professional hands. Yep. In spite of jail, the care system, hyper-masculine malevolence and illegal narcoticism, this young lady was more focused and centered than my over-active animalistic antics could ever be. Period.

That's not to say she didn't have class. Her serenity was as contagious as cat leukemia. We didn't touch soul. That would've been too much. Yet we cathected, connected, bonded physically, and stylistically.

- Business?

- .....

- Business?

- .....

- A no-talker hey? You gotta car babes?

- .....

- Pink?

- .....

- Don't worry I won't tell.

- .....

- Twenty pound.

- .....

- Ah weed!

- ......

- And fish?... Fish!

- .......

- S-A-L... Ah salmon! Snout. Right.

- .......

- Round the corner? Upper Street. Nice. I like Upper St. Let's scooby doo pinky.

- ......

- Nah. Sort me the money later babes.

Her Nikes gleamed toothpaste white. She was black, twenty, sticky-out butt, pretty, full-lipped and low key black t-shirt, black jeans casual. She was inconspicuous, an extra in the background. Had a way of lookin' and talkin' at you like she'd lived in your neighborhood all your life, but without the over-familiarity of the neurotic street walker, the crack piper's pimp paranoia, or the massage girls corporate tedium. She was a natural. Just outta juliet that morning. Still in the honeymoon zone. She looked outta the window at main street like she'd never seen one before.

I was still twitching like a savannah cat jacked up on hunger and need. I was glad of the automatic cruiser control. We climbed the stairs to the pad. And got down to business. Drink and drugs business. I made tea. Tea for chrissakes. She pulled out a little glass jar, a hole carved into it. And, once I'd handed over the necessary (cigarettes, foil, clipper) she set about the intricate task of building a pipe. I tried not to look as per, so I wouldn't know how it was done. I had enough vices already. But she was so watchable and skillful I couldn't help but. She snatched glances around the pad, eyeing the books and CDs. She strained up her chin to see outta the window at the smart Upper Street shops. All the time fixing the hit. I offered her the twenty again.

- 'S OK babes. Plenty of time. I like this place. Can I crash the night?

- .....

- Wicked.

- ......

- You read a lotta books pinky. Got any music?

- .......

For a split sec, I thought about playing my theme, dance remix of course, but I'd start cavorting and freakin', so I put on da kool chunes mix: Ibiza Girls (Remix) and Something For The Cat . She smiled.

- Funky acid jazz. Wicked.

- .....

- You look like you need a hit. Been on the disco biscuits babes?

- ......

- 'S right. The Cross is sorted. Thanks for the tea.

Tea, weed and tobacco have magical properties in the wee hours post-Class A dance apocalypso. Ordinarily I go from pale violet, to bright rose, to flashing indigo and finally to ghost white after a cuppa and a spliff. Colour drain is good for a cat. It's kinda the opposite for you guys. For just for a second , she noticed that something was not quite right, like the spell check had been left on British.

- Ok babes? You havin' a whitey innit? ...Alright?

There was to be no meltdown tonight. I'd be jiggy and cranked for at least another 48 hours. I was back in the dark pink before you could say Henry Mancini's Greatest Hits.

Then it happened. The weirdest thing. She passed me the pipe. I sucked. And I faded away. From top to bottom. Like someone had just pulled down the blind. But real slow. An inexorable tide of animation drain. My eyebrows popped away first. Then ears. Snout. Neck. Torso. My slinky butt. Them sinewy thighs. Knocked knees. The curvy calves. The long heels. The arches. The outsize toes. Vanished. And. No sooner. All back. Toes. Feet. Waist. Chest. Head. And last, the eyebrows. Re-materialised like in .. lik... well, like a cartoon.

And I'd been there. I'd been there. I'd been humanized. Just for the merest moment. I'd touched something real. Authentic. Profound. Then it was gone.

But now I felt good. Real good. A cool cat. A sexy jaguar. An erotic psychotic explosion of lusty euphoria, as deep as it was fatuous. We got down to it. Slow but purposeful. Sensual but slightly urgent. Rhythmic. Focussed. Driven.

The rest is just detail. Except for the eyebrows.

Her neat brows stood erect over deep brown pools that threw back my yellowy glare with the cold fire of D.H Lawrence's modernism. I could gaze into them no more. I withdrew. I unsheathed. I raised my left eyebrow and she knew to fellate me. I could resist no longer. I angled the desk lamp from off the floor to see the better. After all, I could feel nothing. My pleasure is purely visual. Aesthetic sublimation replaced the animal physicality I longed for. Like an artist I admired the shifting spectrum of shades. Dark brown and thick pink gave way to languid rose and sheen white. Inevitably, splotts of watery cream splashed against mottled chestnut and the sharp glint of a smile like quartz. I imagined an eruption from somewhere deep down within me. But this time none came. It was just like she said: crack was better than sex.

She cleaned up. Her eyes smiled the smile of a friend, not a service provider. We curled up and she slept. I held her in my arms, wishing I could smell her hair as it glistened with sweat and a drama too real for me to feel.

In a less desirable part of North London, two pairs of neatly-fostered eyebrows dance in time to the rhythms of the fluid animation on the small supermarket-bought TV screen. Their unbreakable focus fixed as the panther's black pupils pinball around the magenta half-circle of his wide eyes. The cat, to the annoyance of an irrascible carpenter, saws through the wood on which another FLM is standing, plunging him into a vat of cement, and releasing an out-of-control chainsaw that cuts the FLM's ladder in two, with him on it! Ha ha ha! Rinky dink.

Suddenly, juddered out of intense focus by the slamming of the front door, the older boy quickly switches off the cartoon. Heads bowed, they go back to their torn school library books.

When she woke up, we made out again. Her beautiful lustrous blackness arched over by the window, staring at the nice shops and well-to-do nose-jobs out on a sunny Sunday morn. I took her casually from behind. She yielded like she'd been expecting me to.

- I've always wanted to do it like this. I love Upper Street. Wish I could live here.

Then we smoked some more. Just Mary Jane this time. We said our good-byes. Pleasant and warm. We shook hand and paw like a pair who'd just agreed a mutually beneficial contract. Maybe we had. As she went down the spiral staircase, she spoke.

- OK babes. See myself out. Maybe see you again. Laters. I like this flat.

- ......

I'm glad I wasn't able to spoil the moment with speech bubbles.

Then it hit me. The AmEx. Bet you she'd been thru' my fanny pouch and cleaned me out. But no. It was still there exactly where I'd left it, next to the twenty bill that was now wending its way downtown. I felt bad for thinking bad of her. Then I smiled. I liked her. It had been nice. I went back to bed and slept peacefully till the next day.

The second I opened my yellow eyes, it started. Purple, violet, indigo: guilt, self-loathing, disgust.

Shame.'Cos it wasn't like that. Not at all.

2011-11-20T22:39:00.001Z

THE RIGHT TO BARE ARMS

He loved me more. More than anyone. More than his country. More than death itself. He never did say so, but I knew it. When he held me against his palm, I knew then. I sensed connectedness. I was at the centre of his consciousness. The heart of his darkness. The soul of his indiscretion. His passions were me, movies, more me, and music sometimes. In that order. So he was seriously pissed when he lost his job at Gutbuster Video. It was crummy by any standards, but at least he got to watch DVDs - when his line manager Carl wasn’t being shitty on account of super-concentrated hydroponic withdrawal. Despite its Frenchness, number seven loved Claude Chabrole’s The Lords Of War. He watched it more times than was healthy for any 19 year-old college drop-out who had majorly flunked life and minorly flunked Earth Sciences.

I won’t say his name. It’s not that I don’t want anyone knowing. Just wouldn’t want it pre-judging anything here. Animates could be tuning in. You never know these days. And we all know what animates are like. With their principles and values. Don’t know how they stand it. I’m surprised they don’t go off at the deep end more often.

Not that animates woulda picked them up with their lousy three-dimensional perception. But there were clear signs with seven. That thing with the scotch tape, for one. The roll was plain resistant to normal use. It was anti-functional. Recognise one of them anywhere. No matter how many times he went round it slowly with his index finger nail, he could not find where the tape started from. He scored it countless times in an attempt to knife into the roll. He went OCD on it dude. Three months later. Scarred his own forearms and peeled back the flesh like bloody scotch tape.

By no means the most self-destructive handler I ever had, number seven was definitely my first and only self-harmer. In body count he made the top three. Number one he only made in celebrity status. Not that that lasted a second longer than the regulation quarter of an hour. Barely long enough to register the horror. Do the shocked outrage thing over Cheerios. Get in a big metal box and drive to the mall to shop, or get shot at.

Number one was an obscure man. He wasn't into celebrity. That wouldna been professional. For number one, a pervasive, but generally low-key notoriety went with the territory: it helped scare the crap out of the animates. Boy did he not like them. That's not to say he loved us. Not like number seven. No, I can swear on my safety catch that number one didn’t love us. Personally, I was his tool, his piece. An instrument to get the job done and be done with. Half-Polish/half-Italian. 100% American gangster. He had a so solid grip. None of that limp-wristed, Boyz In Da Hood sideways dangle. When he took a hold of you, you knew he meant business. His business: the kill or be killed business. Not like number seven. No warmth. No compassion with number one. Badda bing badda boom! Thank you and goodnight Venice Beach. Outta here. Number one: the meat face who broke me in. Unsullied, unused, virginal. He adulterated me. I grew up quick - pistol whipped, thrust, jabbed, cocked, tossed, prodded, poked, and popped.

His dislike was tangible. I felt his desire to shed me after every kill. I was not his weapon of first choice. His true love was automatic. I was his bit on the side, his unmarked back-up, his generic squeeze. No name. No company. No brand. Nada. Enter. Scramble brains. Exit other side. No mess. Just brute power. Pure adrenaline rush. Eyeballs popping out like helicopters on anti-phase cancellation. Capisce?

Two was a one-night stand. One’s killer as a matter of fact. I never got more than a sense of nervous energy from her. Fear masks a lot. She abandoned me for a tampon tesar gun. Packing 50,000 volts, the Pink Stinger causes more agony than I ever could.

Three was the custody cop who accidentally capped himself in the foot. Just couldn’t resist it.

Four... Jeez what can I say? The question with four was this. When a murdering sociopath asks for a hug, do you give the crazy loco sonofabitch a hug or not? I resisted at first. But the mother made me. He took control. He called the shots. I never wanted to get close, to cathect, to form the oneness that me and seven attained in our finer moments. Four was a dependency based on a dark psychotic delusion. If you could hear Satan's heart, this is how it would beat. The rhythm of the lie detector. Alone. At night. In the dark. No-one around. Only me. Under his pillow. With the pulse. A nervous junior doctor. Beats per minute manic. But perpetrating wholesale pain and industrial slaughter, tranquility personified. A slow and steady 60 bpm tops, with the occasional blip. Efficient viciousness.

Five was a saint. Only used me once. Almost by accident. I felt like popping one off again to make sure. But I resisted. We got him off on a manslaughter rap - mitigating circumstances of a crime passionelle. Woulda got some serious ten gallon justice in one of the 36 states who fry, inject or gas in the name of retribution.

Six. My next port of call. Paris. The banlieues. Asalama Alikum there was not. May la haine go with you. Six inhaled Anthrax spores at a drumming workshop! Designed by well-meaning social workers to curb fundamentalist enthusiasm. He only went on the advice of his Imam, so he wouldn't end up radicalised. Ended up dead anyway. You couldn't make this merde up I'm telling ya. He'd've been better off in the riot, popping me off at les flics. Least we woulda bonded. Ended up unowned. Aa parody of myself. Unclaimed, unwanted, unloved. Roaming the streets touting the slipstream for a new number. I went the way of the French connection via military intelligence. Through the ISI in Pakistan. Back through the Balkans. Turned up in Philly Uni courtesy of a Company asset. Postgrads who didn't know where France was. Son of a survivalist nut from Illinois. Eventually, got sold on through a conduit to seven. Seven, my true love. Seven, my lucky number. Twice seven is fourteen. The fatality count. Two times seven. Me and him. I'm going to miss him.

I had the good fortune to make the acquaintance of an SKS assault rifle. Just got off of a FBI black bag job and reads animate pretty good. Claims to. But I'm not so sure this long barrel ain't stringing me along. Typical semi-automatic. It cost me some serious ammo to get even a piece of the suicide note.

I know everyone will remember me as some sort of monster, but please understand that I just don't want to be a burden on the ones that I cared for my entire life. I just want to take a few pieces of human crap with me.

Waste of gunpowder if you ask me. Doesn’t want to be a burden, whinge, whinge, self-pity bleat bleat bang bang. That’s so not what he was like. Take it from me. The other piece - some mindscan he picked up off of a junior frequency - is more curious a curio for a lonely old handgun like me. Mawkish I know.

Green tin box. He wants to see what’s in it. Grandma won’t let him. Grandpa won’t, but he doesn’t mind. He can. He can reach. Where’s his step? The bathroom. It’s in the bathroom. The box with the toilet rolls in. Lots of paper inside. If he can take out the rolls, he can get inside there. Where can he put them toilet rolls? He knows where. In the air-raid cupboard. Where the towels are. Grammy’s towels. Take them out. Where to put them? Grandpa’s room. Shouldn’t go in there. Shouldn’t go in Grandpa’s room. Smells of Grandpa’s old sneakers. Going in. The mirror closet. Never to go in there. Grandma says not to go in here, but Grandma’s not here, is she? Mummy says not to. Daddy says not to. Grandpa says only to listen to Grandpa. I need somewhere to put the towels. Put them somewhere. On the bed? OK. Open the mirror closet. Here’s Grandpa’s gun. It’s dangerous Mummy says. Grandma says. Daddy says. Grandpa says they’re all liberal pacifics. He says it’s ok to play with the gun. It’s ok. It’s dangerous Mummy says. It’s not dangerous really is it Grandpa? He pulls my trigger. He pulls. He pulls harder. He pulls it and… Bang! B- A- N- G Bang! He can't read that word, but he can wave it above his head. He likes the little United States of America flag.
B-A-N-G!

There you go again. With your judgement calls. With your facile anti-Americanism. The reading thing. How many literate four-and-a-half-year-olds you know? Such a cheap shot man. Way wide of the target. Damned animates.

2011-11-20T22:16:00.002Z

KILLER SUDOKU V. SLUMDOG GODZILLA

Beware The Killer Sudoko on the anniversary of the Good Friday agreement! forebode the old man, his wisp of grey etched gently into the grain of cultural memes for the benefit of the army of South Korean CGI-ticians who put the whole thing together and without which...

$1000s $100s $10s $1s 0$s in CASH PRIZES if you go to the IMF Dutch cap in hand bent over ready for the inevitable. Spend now for A DEBT-FILLED XMAS. Triple A Credit Rating. Thousands of billions. A financial system: a too-big-to-fail failing system, that is part-private three-quarter nationalized... and then not really, and unquestioningly NECESSARY.

DO NOT stray into Slumdog part of town with your mythical musicals of cheerful woe about tax-free trade zones of pockets of human rights-free bonded labour to produce cheap game shows and bad first world goods without rights, all wrong at unreasonably cheap high lo-cost, subsidized to the hilt, maximum boy.

Then I come to...

Scratches are still raw down my back, from when Zilla swiped me by the electricity pylon he protects for his online community. The gentle buzz throbs compulsively against his giant muscular thorax that glints like a glottal stop in the low and intense Inverness sun.

- Don’t stop for god sake or we’ll never get him back. Goddam godless labour unions. U freaking British. So freakin socialistical. Tea? What next? Welfare and strikes. Ok. Take 10 for tea. And I mean ten. And kwoffee. No more goddam tea.

Making half time 1o minutes ling was a buigging spelelin mistake for The Great Mr. Speiling Berg. And it was fitba not soccer! His Assistant-To-The-Assistant suggested humility, a Stephen King and spellcheck.

- Fo' da kiddies. Out of da mouths of babes..., WE TAKE SILVER MR.S. MR. S?

- Joe Please. Easy on the block caps, s'il te plait. I got me a headache. Bring me a Machiatto and codeine... And some goddam writers!

Back after break reinvigorated by his godzillionth quadruple expresso, MR. S. attempts to calculate how much caffeine Killer would be able to consume without ill effects, or at least with as many ill effects as the insurance policy’d take.

MR. S has his mega-dimensioned super-reptiliant adversary reach for his pencil. The reading glasses fashioned from recycled feature-length Rugrats' foetuses make it nigh-on impossible to focus his pupils amidst the reflected images of the multiplex lens tissue. MR S was oblivious to such black market sheenanigans. Joe mourns the loss of Mr Speiling Berg's common touch which by common consensus was a consequence of The Hanging Chavs Fiasco (Mala Vista 2008).

In an earlier take, Killer turns his page so suddenly, Zilla has to reach round and snap his withered left claw like a petulant polio-withered pop star with pouting poet syndrome. The line should've been straightforward.

- Zilla. Prey tell. What is the issue sweetheart? yelled Mr S through his hyper-phone direct into Zilla’s right ear.

$.... %... *…….. @...... even Mr S’s illegal immigrant adolescent cleaner could crack it. A & and a # for God’s sake. Who ever heard of two @’s in the URL? Jeez. Get the old guy back in. We’ll have to do a re-take of the brooding, portentous omen shit. My heart’s poring class lines here. From the soul. Am I getting recognition here?

- Sure Mr S, You’re a regular Mt Rushmore.

- Thanks Joe. Least someone cares. I don’t want emotions drowned in B-movie schtick. Now let’s roll again. Where’s the old dude?

The Killer Sudoko has twisted its long neck. In barely bearable pain, the thought of more stints in Taco Bell steels the creature and takes its mind off the agony. Its serrated edges, hand-notched on both sides to assist with its arduous task, sweat Irn Bru along its sinewy spine. To sever the old man’s vocal chords at the precise moment takes nano-seconds and nano-seconds of serious, rigorous cliché in Ninja at the School of Manga Management.

- Beware The Killer Sudo… ko.. ko… ko… The echoes are CGI'ed as a smooth pebble thrown into the matrix, whose ripples of pain encircle the actual physical movie theatre with 3D-blast rings at the behest of the shareholders of the worldwide executive's Empire of Film, the planet’s 12th largest economy since the burn-up of King Kong in the subprime fall-out.

The seventh Ko is suspended in animation. In fewer seconds than it takes to say famous for 14.54444 recurring it adorns e-posters on moving billboards at Shinkansun stations the length and breadth of Japanese pre-teen markets. A camphone image finds its way onto Zilla’s disposable contact lenses which flash with the exact same shade of greeny grey as the old man’s goatee-bearded moutain wisdom.

- Kill honey, back to the line for Steve.

Lights, computer, action!...

Clicking its neck like a titanic roladex, Killer whips round and delivers bang on cue.

- The name's Ness, Lochinvar Ness.

Passing off hackneyed as iconic, the line was neo-classic.

- You are SO going to oscar in this one. I see interstellar Killer. Inter-freakin’-stellar!...

2011-11-20T22:14:00.000Z

THE INCREDIBLE SULK

- Don't make me angry. You...

- I wouldn't like you when you're angry? Mr. Bulk, you've no idea how many times.

- ...

- Listen, let's get you that coffee.

- You got decaff?

- Naturally. Come and lie on the coach. Incredibly comfortable, isn't it In..credible?

- Mmm

- I hope you don't mind first names, Incredible.

- It's David. Gammon.

- Dr. Francis Frankleberger. Gammon? Cured already hey.

- Was that a joke?

- Apologies. Psychologists are notoriously unfunny. You know David. I'm not sure why you're here. I mean you're a blue-collar comic strip kinda guy, I didn't know you had pretentions to literary fiction?

- Well...

- Please David. Don't start sentences with well. It's so comic book sloppy and they invariably get edited out. 'Sides it annoys the hell outta me.

- Look Doc. Maybe you might need an anger management counsellor.

- Why not? I got issues. I feel like a two-dimensional foil here. An innocuous note-taking trope while a string of mythical clients take centre stage.

- No more than an off-the-peg psychologist?

- You want that I do the outrageous Austrian accent?

- Well...

- Aargh. Don't well me you schmuck.

- You're stressing... relax man. Take the couch.

- You're not the only one around here who feels rage!

- Now calm down Doc. Don't go making me angry. You wouldn't like me when...

- Oh here he goes. You make me sick. So goddam predictable. Two transformations every 30 minute episode. Regular as the tea time schedules. Help help. Ooh I'm turning green. Ooo ooh I'm tossin' my toys outta the pram. Ooh ooh! Doctor Doctor. Please fix me with your X-ray vision. Look into my eyes and cure my anger 'cos I'm such a lazy ass scaredy cat wuss pussy who misses his mumsy like a great big green-turning asswipe!

- Oh I get it.

- What do you get you David?

- Reverse Psychology. Instead of my anger, we focus on you. Very clever Doctor.

- Frank.

- Well, to be frank. A bit too clever. I can see right through it. And it isn't because of the toxic radiation I've been commercially exposed to.

- No David. I'm sure it's because you're incredibly perceptive...

- Don't patronise me.

- It is you who patronises my friend. Reverse psychology is just one way we might...

- Just listen to yourself. Och you read the books. You talk the talk. You sit in your leather chair and you run the clock down at 50 minutes on the hour. You care little what happens outside this room...

- Tell me about outside this room.

- A man's got a right to be angry. Goddam Pixar putz.

- Do you feel resentment towards The Incredibles, David?

- Man, they just took over the brand. They ripped its balls off. Domesticated it. Turned it into safe family fare.

- Anger is an energy David. Do you sometimes miss psychosis?

- I miss the old days if that's what you mean. I had the ratings. Back in the 70's and into the 80's. I was THE man. The trophy wife. The cars. The coke. The adulation. The money. The pussy. Cliche after cliche. And now. The biggest cliche of 'em all: a bedspread in the Argos catalogue.

- Look I'm sorry about the angry pantomime earlier, David. I thought it was worth a shot.

- 'S ok, but the green paint Frank. Wrong shade. I so do not turn khaki.

2011-11-20T22:10:00.000Z

DISLOCATION DISLOCATION DISLOCATION

Lorelei Lodestar found herself in generic paradise. She particularly liked the rainbow. China it said.

She'd recently replaced the desktop background photo of her ex-husband, in her father-in-law's pool in the south of France, with an off-the-JPEG coastscape. Geological features, ambient light, exoticism and panorama replaced actuality for a while. Thank The Heavens! A good tagline for monetised paradise, she thought.

Found herself. What a curious phrase. Was that why she was there? To find herself? The distance between location and self-discovery was vast. She half-wished she'd downloaded Rio instead, but Sugar Loaf mountain had put her off, even if getting down was easier than the climb up.

Up? She was more often down. There were issues: dissatisfaction, communication, sharing, personal responsibility, self-control, etc, etc, etc. Etceteras came in three's these days. And there was her to do list, of course. A list of self-help solutions. She'd been helping herself to self-help for longer than she etc, etc, etc.

Apparently, love was the answer. Don't just cathect. Love. Without co-dependency. And love yourself most of all. Get closure. Move forward. Self-care. Be contained. Content. Centred. Anchored. Defer gratification. Don't californicate. Love done, not made. Do the do's, not the don'ts. Lists were long. Life was short. It was an epic struggle: mens sana in corpore sano versus carpe diem versus etc, etc, etc. Latin fogged her thinking. She needed a blast of country & western to clear the nebula.
I moved like Harlow in Monte Carlo
and showed them what I've got
I've been undressed by kings
and I've seen some things
that a woman ain't s'pose to see

I've been to paradise
but I've never been to me...
Crystal? Charlene? Tammi? Dolly? She didn't know, still less care. Unusually she remembered more than the title. Normally it was titles only. Central premise stated. Main theme laid on the line.

She liked the irony of the sub-text more than the music. I married her just because she looked like you. Gender politics and romance. The hard liquor of love. The hangover. Love is the drug. The comedown is a bastard. She ain't no lady, she's my wife. Personal Jesus. The Road Less Travelled. Men are from Mars, women are etc, etc, etc.

In China there's no man in the moon. He's a hare. A her. Lorelei liked that. She didn't like not having mastered the language. She'd been trying to learn it for 12 years, the length of her second marriage, but her Chinese-speaking students never seemed happy with her intonation. The Arabs on the other hand smiled and understood. Masalam, Alikum allasam, Allasam ali etc, etc, etc.

She inhabited Chinese grammar like a refugee. Her syntax was unstable. Its reach extended beyond her grasp. Subject, verb, object, time, place. None of that applied here. Here verbs had no tense: no difference between past, present or future. Context helped the Chinese, but she wasn't sure how any of this helped her right now. Right then. She had to find her bearings.

She headed up the hill into the town: a holiday resort, not a real town. Everything that wasn't natural was collectivised in concrete. The aesthetic worked. This wasn't Harlow (Essex or Jean), this was paradise.

On her left she saw two children and their grandmother on a terrace. The boy stood playing on a DS, which reminded her of her own eight-year-old, while his younger sister sat eating noodle soup. They looked up and stared. A giant cockroach scurried out and with its antennae ushered the kids inside. The grandmother turned away and spat. She spoke. Was it English? Lorelei didn't know. The insect definitely wasn't.

Her smarter newer than usual sensible working shoes were beginning to chafe. Then at last she saw the hotel. A corporate signpost at the top of the entry steps read: Integrating TOEFL and TOEIC Conference: 1st Floor.

Was that US globish English first floor, i.e. ground floor in British? Or standard European business English first floor, as in second floor in American parlance? An excessive attention to detail. The first sign. She needed another JPEG. She logged off.

However she got there these days, paradise didn't last long.

I've been to paradise but I've never been to me lyrics reproduced without kind permission of Charlene.

2011-11-20T22:09:00.001Z

CRYSTAL PALLIATIVE

It's the worst day in the world. Ever.
Mrs Deal has been horrible.
It's the best day in the world. Ever.
Mrs Deal is leaving.

Today is the worst one in his life.
It is time we went straight to the top
and lodged a protest. The head needs to know.
Something needs to be done about the present situation.

No. An email will not do. Nothing
but an audience with her in charge will do it.
If the head is busy, it will have to wait till Monday then.
It is still the worst day in the world ever.

There is bitter glee on the subject of Mrs Deal's leaving.
The end of term can't come quick enough.
All the teachers hate him.
He hates all the teachers.
Except Mr.Turner.
But he was last year.
And Mrs Clutterbuck of course.
And Mrs Osterly, the headmistress
you have to call the head,
is nice enough
when you can actually get to speak to her.

Messi!! I got Messi.
AR-GEN-TINA... ENG..ER...LAND...

I want to tell how
it's a game of two halves
and that the hollow distractions of football and sugar
don't last forever. But now
is not the time.

Curly Wurly! YISS!!

2011-11-20T22:08:00.001Z

KLAUS THE COWBOY

The fastest draw in Osnabrück. Neither of us knew where it was. Bavaria? Westphalia? Norfolk? He was eccentric and audience-needy. If interest was expressed, he pulled you in. So people steered clear. He had country and western pointy metal tags on the tips of his shirt collar. He smelt of Black Forest and Lucky Strikes. He looked magnificent, even in the rain. He shot at the swallows when the rain stopped. I wanted him to stop. I wanted him to shoot Bim instead. Not kill him. Just paralyse him temporarily. Till we got home. Immobilise his miserablism. The rain was to blame. That and his being 15. Easier to staunch the rain than rouse the spirits of a 15-year-old miserablist on a German campsite in the wet.

Klaus showed me his gun. It was real enough. I’d imagined a cap gun. Bim was afraid of the bang guns made. He was afraid of a lot of things. When he wasn’t afraid, he was bored. I can’t be bothered was his favourite thing to say. It was good to watch the swallows when the rain stopped. The rain didn’t stop enough. I wanted to see the swallows. I needed to. Bim didn’t. He couldn’t be bothered coming out of the tent.

“What’s the point? It’s only gonna start again. Get out. Leave me alone.”

I did. I watched the swallows swirl this way and that like thoughts in water. It started again. I went to the log cabin near the campsite entrance. It doubled as a café and games room. I played cards and draughts with Klaus. He called them checkers. He smoked and hummed Johnny Cash. He had one eyebrow bushier than the other. Whenever he shifted in his seat, something clinked: his gun-belt, his rings, his studded soles, his Zippo, his hip flask. It stopped. We went walking. He gave me a swig of his schnapps. He said George Hamilton IV gave him the flask in Tennessee. I didn’t think he had. It didn’t matter.

- Is it live ammo you use Klaus?

- Ammo?

- You know, the gun. When you shoot, do you use real bullets?

- Yah. I have killed many cowboys in Osnabrück.

Klaus smiled at me, the bushy eyebrow raised.

- Bim is scared of guns. He's 15 and he's scared. He's scared of life, scared of living.

- You want that I speak with him?

How did he know

- He’s only a boy.

- I know. Let me take him into the forest and make him a man.

- In the rain?

- In the rain.

Klaus came and took Bim away that night. I didn’t see them go. I didn’t see them all the next day. When they strode back into camp following morning, Bim was soaked to the skin. But he wasn't bothered. He had on Klaus’s gun-belt, Stetson and leather chaps. He seemed different. Initiated. Manly. A true cowboy.

It was our last holiday together.

2011-11-18T12:53:00.003Z

NATIVITY PLAY

Once in the city of Bethlehem there was a cruel ruler. Feared by those whose territories he had taken in the days after the second great war, he governed with a heavy hand. The potentate had made an alliance with powerful friends in the west. To the east lay great economic miracles of boom and bust the likes of which the world had never seen. To the south spread popular malcontent among the peasantry. To the north the great ices were about to melt as Armageddon drew near. In the name of the ancient scriptures, the will of the people was surpressed, they were denied their land, their water and their human rights. Schoolchildren had to take their lessons in the streets under armed guard. The threat to the local community from the potentate's soldiers was clear and present.

In spite of this, Mary and Joseph were determined to have a well earned winter break there. Not since he played the third wiseman in the nativity play at school had Joseph thought of Bethlehem. It was a Christmas thing. He still wondered why he hadn't been chosen to play Joseph. The kid they picked had these feet. Jesus! When he took his socks off... You could smell them the other side of the classroom. Joseph thanked God that he'd been given the frankincense.

Mary had played Mary, funnily enough. She adored Joseph, but she didn't think much of his romantic Christmas break idea. She was due in two weeks and didn't really want to tempt fate. It was their bloody names! Had they been called Frank and Sally no one would've given it a second thought. But every Christmas they get the same thing. The funny-you-being-called-Mary & Joseph brigade have been worse than ever now that Mary was eight months gone

- It's a lovely idea and all Joseph, but don't you think it's a bit dangerous at the moment.

- This is Israel not Palestine Mary.

- That's not what it said on the other website. They said it's in Palestine. Then there is the bloody wall. Oh no Joseph.

The journey to their double room (booked in advance, online) in the Bethlehem Hotel had passed without incident until they reached the edge of the city. There, they were detained by the keepers of the gate. The walls of Jericho were guarded by the Israelite Army, who had stopped a suicide bomber. Stripped to his underwear, he turned out to be an unarmed suicide bomber. The Israelites slaughtered him anyway. His wife had ventured to intervene. She too was slain.

In the bar the next day, while they were sipping non-alcoholic cocktails, they met a couple from Little Rock, on their first ever trip outside Arkansas. They were premillenial dispensationalists who had decided to retire to Zion. They had come to Bethlehem, to visit the birth place of Jesus and check out the real estate.

- Frank and I were headed for our Lord's birthplace, Sally was saying in between sips, when we saw a real neat duplex apartment just across the street.

- Ideal nativity location. Prime real estate. Great views of the barn, her husband added.

- Stable Frank, stable.

- Look Frank, can I be frank? Joseph interjected.

- That's a good one Joe. Never heard that one before. Sure. Shoot. What's your beef?

- Why would you want to move to a location you believed was the setting for the end of the world?

- Well, you see Joseph, Sally explained, this is where the end will be. But it is also the site of the ascension in the moment of truth. The time of the revelation will be here. If you're not here then you'll miss out. There will be no afterlife for the unchosen.

Frank looked at Sally, his eyebrows raised towards the(ir) heavens.

- There's no point tryin' explain to an non-believer Sal'.

- Quite frankly, it all sounds like a bit of a long shot Frank.

- Now I have to agree with you there Joey. That's why Sal and I, the kids and the grandkids have got access to the government thing under the Colorado mountains. The President's got exactly the same plan. You gotta have insurance Joey.

- Joseph! Joseph! Mary suddenly erupted. My waters have just burst.

Thanks to a private medical insurance scam Frank had going, Mary went through the hospital records as Noemi Goldberg, an employee of Frank's. She had her own room, TV, fresh flowers, fruit and water. They named the baby after the doctor, the father and Frank's attorney. Little Mohammad Joseph Goldberg was born at 1.03am on 25 December 1999AD.

Frank and Sally are still waiting for ascension in Zion. Joseph got a job as a French polisher in Barcelona. So, they're moving there in the new year. Mary's got a feeling there's a second on the way. This time it'll be a girl. Madonna she'll call her.

2011-11-18T12:52:00.001Z

THE COELIACS’ PSALM

Arjuna’s my shepherd for I shall not want
wheat, barley or rye
Arjuna, be my spirit guide should I want
to buy
flour-free pie.

Lead me not
to non-tropical sprue
which could lay me down to die
or maketh transglutaminase:
an awful pain in the ass
for days.

Fear not the cultivars’ reaction
Arjuna offers you protection
from inflammatory enteropathy
an unnecessary misery

Cast out the proteins of the tribe gliadin
Let the gluten-free gluten in
Let zero-tolerant wheat-sensitives
break out in smiles
Safe from gluten-contamination
as you walk down these aisles
Rejoice as the enzyme tissue
is no longer an issue.

You need not panic
It’s green and organic
Maize, quinoa, millet and rice
Sorghum, potato, banana… nice.

Even if your affliction’s goddam difficult to spell
Dietary restriction need not be hell.

Amen & Awomen.

2011-11-18T12:51:00.001Z

THE OCCASIONAL BARBER OF PRADA

At Prada de Conflent, an ancient town of Catalunya North, West of Perpinya, dominated by Canigou Mountain, once the highest in the Pyrenees, there dwelt several persons of quality, great status and exalted fortune, of whom (save one) we shall not talk further, their noble parentage being of no more consequence than the colour of Emperor Haile Selassie's eyes, or the sleevenotes on a unputdownable, over-achieving, best-selling, Harvard-educated, award-winning novelist, married with two children, or for that matter this long-awaited full stop.

Among the proletariat was a barber, named Arsesio Casals, son of a barber, and son of the son of a barber, issue of a biological liasion between a sculptor on the margins and an Anglo-Saxon genitive's untimely intervention. Having taken early semi-retirement at 45, as he was wont to quoth, on account of his own prudent economic management, but in reality due to the excellent husbandry of his wife, a woman of such low standing she was not even worthy of a name in the Italian Renaissance original, Arsesio Casals - no relation to the celebrated cellist and composer - was loathe to style hair, trim barbs or treat dental afflictions of those whose cut-of-gib he liked not. The barber shop displayed sketches, drawn by the talented and overlooked Mme Casals, of every head he had had the displeasure to have known, for Arsesio violently hated his ill-chosen profession with all his tiny, black-and-red, anarcho-libertarian, self-employed, Catalunyan heart.

This being so, many were the haughty and scornful physogs the barber of Prada crafted for the benefit of patrons who did not engender the utmost satisfaction in his soul.

By way of local colour, the word SCALP had been graffitied in red paint, on the wall of the tapas bar opposite the barber's. Its creator had been badly drawn and quartered by the local socialist major, who had been ignorant of the future import of the aforsaid acronym (Section Carement Anti-Le Pen) since it preceded the invention of fascism by several hundreds of years.

In the shop itself there were three signs. The first sign, written in Catalan, read history at the Universitat Catalana d'Estiu, and was therefore indescifrable. The other two read:

FORTUNE OFTEN EXALTS THE UNWORTHY AND LEAVES THE WORTHY IN LOW ESTATE

and, the more pithy,

NO POLTROONS OR POSHIES.

Now it happened that a certain Dagobert Clement-Ferrand, after he was brought low with terrible teeth, caused by an excess of feasting one afternoon, and thus suffering great distress, found himself in the premises of the occasional barber and ertswhile Golden Age dental surgeon. In the pockets of his leathern doublet, he carried a locket of his secret low-born lover's hair, a quote from Boccaccio's Anastasio ("...all the women of Ravenna were ever after so terrified with it, that they were more ready to listen to and oblige the men than ever they had been before") and, in small change, more money than 95% of Prada de Conflent earned in a decade.

- Oo er. Stayta dis one Arse. Lux likke we gorra poshie ere. An' 'ow may we 'friggin' 'elp yer, mate?

- Madam, I am in haste. Have the barber perform an extraction and I shall reward you and your husband with riches beyond your wildest dreams.

He emitted the gravest of lamentations without changing countenance, so that his discomfort did appear amusing to the good lady of independent mind.

- Whither are you going? demanded the hyper-wealthy, and not altogether unbrave gentleman, whose loud and grievous lamentations had sunk into the background like a Flaubertian barometer.

- I'm gonna gerreez nibs arnai? 'Old yerorziz, noble balls.

- Excuse me Madam. I speak not the local dialect. Can you...?

- I am resolved to do what you ask, my liege.

- Ah you speak the King's tongue, I see.

- Only wen I yafta.

A half minute later, Mme Casals returned.

- Yer dead jammy you are. Eez just got bakk from dat Paris. Eezina gud mood.

- What should I forfeit for having my affliction attended to, good lady?

Now it happened that right on cue, entered stage left Madamoiselle Casals, a young lady of stereotypical beauty whom the classical novella convention had endowed with inherent matching intelligence and wit, but bestowed with little in the way of verbal expression - destined as she was to play surrended wife in the sticks. Her mother, in contrapuntal relief, had attitude writ large over her unfeasibly contemporary speech patterns.

- Yer afta marry r Grizelda if yer want r Arsesio ta do yer gob, quoth Mme Casals straightforwardly.

- Madam, I have neither the inclination nor the desire to wed your daughter on account of my proclivities being somewhat classically Greek in this regard. However, such is my oral affliction I shall consent to such a match provided your daughter takes life joyfully and affably.

- Moreover, such is her apparent beauty, I may grow fond of her on condition that she don't go all Mme Bovary on me, madam, added Dagobert ungrammatically, in an attempt to ingratiate himself with the feisty wench before him.

- I beg yer pardon, you dirty b....

At this outrage, the barber came out into the shop and quoth from the Diccionario general de la llengua catalana that Sr. Pompeu Fabra had entrusted to him in 1939, after Generalisimo Francisco Franco exiled the learned professor of the local tongue on account of his proscribed use of criminalised Catalan lexis during a cock & bullfight, which the toro won, and then some.

The author, who in some misguided fashion had originally intended to start an elicit affair between the spikier Mme Casals and Dagoberto, had by this stage lost the plot somewhere between Cancer Research, the British Red Cross and the Chinese economic miracle. The author's wife had, in any event, branded the illicit rendezvous predictable, and vetoed it on the grounds that it constituted an affront to the probity and good wifery of Mme Casals, who had initially been supposed to take on the matriarchal impregnability of Ursula in Garcia Marquez's A Hundred Years of Solitude combined with the problem-solving abilities and scrape-avoiding tendencies of the cat in Hong Kong Phooey in tandem with all the post-modernist cheek he could muster. However, Arsesio himself put pay most violently to these meta-fictional designs.

- I know I told you were largely a 16th linguistic construct existing only in cyberspace, but soon you shall be hard copy, of sufficient substance to take upon yourself the government of your own autonomy, Arsesio, began the author via a Deus Ex Machina he'd picked up in a charity shop in forfeit for a change of tense and a small sum of money. The author detested barbers with all his tiny, red-and-black, anarcho...

- Oi yew Pirandello! Do us a fava. Piss off backk ta yerown side an' leave uzalone. Summavuz av gorra livin to makk ear sunshine. Go an' debunk in yer own time will yer. An' shut dat fourth wall on yer way out.

The classic confrontation betwixt convention and creation ended in stalemate, but was captured, for a posterity that had shed pounds in light of rapid climate change and socialist surrealism's underproduction, by Mme Casals in a sketch very reminsicent of the style of the author's wife.

Dagobert and Grizelda were last seen descending the unacceptable face of capitalism, south of Eus en route to Marquixanes where they were to be conjoined in unholy matrimony by a Las Vegas lay preacher who'd been doing mixed marriages of heterosexual peasant stock and aristocratic friends of Dorothy ever since Judy Garland was a boy and Pablo Casals, no relation to the tale, wore certain garments at the weekend. Or so they say.

The mismatched, star-crossed lovers threw their arms around each other and kissed like they never had done before, or since.

LE FIN ENFIN

This story has been accepted by thecerebralcatalyst.com Well worth checking out.

2011-11-16T11:11:00.001Z

OF MOUSES AND MEN

NO PILLS! NO PUMPS! NO EXERCISE! Conrad Self promises it all with minimal effort. All I have to do is click on the mouse. One click will deliver me from dysfunctionality for good. I’ll be able to compete, to hold my head up, to stand out in the crowd, in the shower, in the locker room, in the board room and win on points every time. One click and I’ll measure up against the best. One click and others will stand in the shade, cower in the corners and cry like little girls. The size of my manhood determines everything else. It is as simple as that. Simple, but effective. Girth, length, strength. These are words to be wielded in public like mighty pork swords of the lexicon. Shlong. Dong. Rod. Packet. Weapon. Monster. Tool. Cock.

Conrad Self himself doesn’t even exist. He’s merely a multimedia construct. An email name. A piece of spam cast into cyber-marketing space, designed to entrap the atomised, emasculated, feeble-minded, penilely-challenged, weak-willed mouse clicker. So I’m surprised when he talks.

- We only count ourselves. We never look at the other guy, he whispers cryptically.

- What do you mean?

- You want meaning? Look in my pants you’ll find all the meaning you can handle.

Conrad Self zips down, whips out his Wondercum © and slaps it over his outsized testes. It’s a serious socio-political statement. His lengthy shaft speaks volumes about alienation in the workplace, mid-life andropause, the liquidity crisis in commercial banking and the neglect of interior life in normative male behaviours. No matter that the latent racism of his Japanese businessman’s eye vies with the institutionalised prejudice of his policeman’s helmet, both are at odds with the liberalism of his libido. His enormous erection discriminates only on the grounds of size and sex. Creed and colour don’t come into it. Girth, length, strength. That’s all that has to be said.

My scrotum contracts, my urethra stings and my prostate gland secretes. I swallow down sputum. The projected thyroid cartilage of my larynx moves up. I wet my dry lips. My index finger moves over the mouse. Click! It’s the manliest thing I’ll do all day.

2011-11-14T18:07:00.001Z

CORPORAZZI

A pound of Nicole Kidman's flesh, Bob Newhart's spleen, Emma Goldman's detached retina and Arthur Scargill's right hand - not bad for a Tuesday. I'm on my way to the 327th floor. Doing my best not to listen to the political podcast that's on, I am unable to ignore the acrid lemony chemical that passes for fresh air in lifts these days.

There's a small minority of people letting us down. Everyone else is doing their level best not to take more than their fair share. Except me and my friends.... You can choose to do nothing but... you will find doing nothing for a long time very boring. You will not receive an income. You could miss out on all the benefits of wage slavery.... Conventional wisdom dictates...

I don't think I'll get much for the retina and the spleen's for the retro market. All in all, comme seeh comme sah. I'll get at least a donkey for the hand - enough to buy lunch - and bank the flesh in cryogenics. That much is going to be worth at least an archer, on credit alone. I still have a couple of events to attend this pm.

The lift stops. And so does the podcast. Floor 97 announces the lift in female. A classy strawberry blonde in a scarf and dark glasses gets in the lift. She's wearing shiny red heels and a crisp white dress. The podcast starts up again as the lift moves off. It helps me drift off. Lifts make me impatient.

... You could miss out on economic servitude. You may find it difficult to get credit or become a job serf in the future.....

Floor 112 says an Australian male voice. The gender voice activator matches sex and passenger.

- Australian eh? says the American. At least it got my sex right. Last time I was a Nigerian woman. Shouldn't complain. Not as if I can vent anymore is it? Not since...I didn't think I'd miss venting so much. You don't really, do you? It's not something you'd ever think about until it happens to you ....

... and so he goes on until the 227th floor. I am almost beginning to miss the podcast. I even consider giving him his abdominal organ back just to shut him up. But I can't. It wouldn't be ethical. It goes against the whole no devueltas organicus code. I can't stand this much longer though. It's doing my noodle in. It's not even an earner.

- Look Bob. I know it's unprofessional, but the way I feel right now, I wanna give ...I start pleading for time. I'm interrupted by the announcer

- Floor 227: a female American voice with a late 19th Century Russian accent. The new passenger has wild grey hair and looks you right in her eye. She's short and slight but strong and balletic. She has a skull & crossbone on the patch that covers up her recent wound. She has an instant calming effect on Bob's venting; he has stopped bleating about his spleen at last. But the silence means the podcast has automatically recommenced. The grey haired woman seems slightly amused.

...the nuclear deterrent is a real political virility symbol. The next generation of nuclear missiles have been designed with this in mind. The new Phallix System, which at a cost of 500 trillion Euros comes cheap, if you think it through...

The strawberry blonde has been dripping blood since the 196th floor. No one else has noticed. As I look up, the grey haired woman lifts up her eye patch to reveal the eye of a Japanese manga character wearing a fiery dragon contact lens. Bob's immune system has started breaking down all over my shoes. He reeks of piss. A sharp lemony tang burns the back of my throat like an effervescent razor.

- Only 75 floors to go, I say. Arthur's taking his time. When I got some of his hair in the 80s, he was first on. Nearly deafened me with his bleedin' loudhailer.

- You talking to me honey? asks the grey haired woman. You'd better make it quick if you're going to apologize.

I offer no attempt of apology.

- At least keep talking, so this politician s.o.b gets to shut up.

- Come on people. I'm only earning a crust innit?

- Ah! Moral justifications based on filthy lucre. That's a good one for a parasite.

- OK. I admit it. I like what I do. It's more important than food. It's the first thing I think about when I wake up and the last thing... Scargill!

The strawberry blonde removes her scarf. It isn't Nicole Kidman. Lurching forward and rubbing his wrist stump right into my eyes, the ex-NUM leader is insistent:

- Did you take a ballot before you did this?

Floor 303 announces a no-nonsense Yorkshireman. But it clearly isn't a wirey-haired Trades Union militant; even through the blood, the pain and the triple vision, I can still spot a babe. She smelt like the back of a baby's neck.

- My agent'll be in touch darling, she says, jamming her agent's business card into my mouth. You are so lucky you took the pound off my hips. You people give fleshsucking leeches a bad name.

As she turns into the corner in a Hollywood sulk, she mutters, "But you'll never get me to repeat that in a court of law."

Then, several seconds of silence. Dreading the return of political podman, I hazard, "Is that the best you can do?" They cower. I grow bolder.

- Is that the best you can do? You expect me to start blubbing with remorse with that poxy display of psychological surrealism, I shout. I've had worse flashbacks off a dodgy Ruby?

I'm full of front at this point. I'm more affected than I let on. The doors open. Floor 327 announces an airline pilot's voice. The Cashiers: Chief Executive's Office.

I flatten down my hair using Scargill's hand and knock with my own. You shouldn't let the day-to-day stresses of business get to you. I laugh quietly to myself before going in.

2011-10-29T12:04:00.003Z

POPPY HIPHOPCRISY

When we remember
the people who were killed
killing the people we forget

We forget to remember
that right now
there are people who don't count
being killed
by people who won't count the people
they are killing

So that most people will forget
to remember
most of the dead
most of the time

and Remembrance Day
is when this should be most forgotten

http://www.spiderednews.com/GeorgeGalloway.htm?vid=192711
George reads it out. It's 29 mins. 30 secs. into his Fri 2 Nov show from 2007.

2011-10-13T11:10:00.000Z

BLOOD DIAMONDS ARE A GIRL'S BEST FRIEND

The supermodel catwalks into the courtroom, dripping of blood diamonds and oozing the stench of dead child slave labourers, from the Zinc mines of Namibia, which she has drenched in a £28,000-a-bottle eau de cologne, gifted her by one of many hyper wealthy sociopathological sycophants.

Zinc mines? Do they mine zinc? The supermodel isn't sure. But then, she doesn't have to be, innit? She is a supermodel, not a geology student. The only two things she has to remember... She pauses to reflect, using a small compact mirror, encrusted in the discarded spleen of tortured secular socialists, and donated by Sheikh Mohammed bin Deirdre Langton Rashid's billionaire second cousin, twice removed from responsibility. ...are looking airbrush beautiful, and not getting caught out lying through her haute coutured pearly whites.

In portraiture of the artiste in midlife crisis, the writer, wolfeyes shining, sidles purposelessly into page 433 of Ulysses leaching stale vernacular, and reeking of self-opprobrium, stolen literary devising and Dublin whores at ten shillings a maidenhead. Sixtyseven is a bitch, he snorts. Seeking his pleasure, his goal, as he perspires unhealthily, is to moralize in respect of Rio Tinto Zinc's exploitative working practices and the sanguinary minerals of The Patriotic Republic of Peckham, especially the flawless 200 carat Millennium star traded to fund the career of nefarious supermodels the length and breadth of the South London Diaspora. Yet he knows precious little about gems, particularly those conflict diamonds converted by the National Popular Front of Tooting during its 70s heyday. Little my precious, save what he has gleaned from the 8th Edition of Eric Partridge's highly salacious Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (Ed. Paul Beale). He hasn't even so much as glanced at the documentary record, let alone taken in the promotional film poster dedicated to Edwerd Swick's commercial triumph, Those Basterds De Beeres. He has merely hoovered up the detritus of uncut drivel from the propaganda drip feed that poses fashionably as a free media. The potential, but unfeasible, two-year prison stretch for perjury has piqued his pencil into sarcastic activism.

In point of hard actuality, he is scarcely more au fait than the straightened-haired human coat hanger that clings to her contested testimony, despite the prevailing loathing of the fat and the ugly, like a stick insect in a cracked glass tank of a failing inner city comprehensive.

A lazy metaphor tears the arse off the writer, leads him by the nose and sits him down with a nice cup of char and a distinct lack of etiquette. A not unrare form of gonorrhoea contracted in Samuel Johnson's London provokes in him the most violent of scratching fits till his bald-headed hermit bleeds the greenest of secretions that he has ever had the misfortune to clap his filthy whoremongering Liverpudlian hands on. By sheer dint, he forces his focus back on the courtroom melodrama at The International Court of Injustice for the vague, the vain and the vacuous.

The supermodel takes green tea daily. It is filled with anti-oxiwhatdoyoumacallits that guard against free radicals, of the sort prone to engage in wanton acts of mass slaughter of the innocence of supermodels charmed by the hyper violent dinner guests of canonized ex-terrorists, named after English sea lords, former Balkan totalitarians and overpopulated Asian megacities. And against long sentences.

The subpoenaed fashion accessory recounts how Nelson Theresa of Albania's invitee passed her the dirty rag wrapped around three dull wisdom teeth that excited the supermodel no end coz she'd expected them to shine like crazy diamonds. Her own mandibular and maxillary third molars, implanted by the most generously remunerated dental surgeons in the Western Hemisphere, at no obvious cost to the taxpayer, but at great personal expense to the supermodel's agent-oblique-pimp, sparkle the sparkle of paparazzi flash photography at a celebrity snatch shot extravaganza. As the prosecution probe, she licks trace remnants of the dead cells of East African infants from off of her perfect lips, exfoliated only twenty minutes earlier in the back of the administrative capital's whitest stretch limousine, in the midst of the most redundant security operation in modern history.

Meanwhile, the writer, whose contentment at the cleverness of his own creative intelligence is barely contained, sips his own green tea, brewed to take the edge of his self-opinionated bile, as he struggles to fight back the desire to execrate, the urge to excrete and his penchant to express in rules of three. From the off, the turtle has been poking its head back and forth against the crusty, unholy cloth skid-marked in the proverbial with which his briefs and prose are tainted.

On a besoin de chier!, he exclaims in what passes for French, thus avoiding the first person as per, not to mention the word shit. Mais ça c'est typique.

2011-10-04T11:23:00.004Z

WELCOME TO THE APOCALYPSE

Este verano
un pueblo caera
una mujer
se elevara en los cielos
un viejo loco
por la alquimia
una vieja ciega
y decrepita
y su hijo el coronel
estan dementes
proximamente
en calles
ingleses

Bienvenidos al apocalipsis
queridos camaradas

This summer a people will fall
a woman will ascend to the heavens

an old man mad about alchemy
a blind and decrepit old woman
and her son, the colonel
are demented....

COMING SOON
to a street near you

Welcome to the Apocalypse
Comrade amigos...

A SpaghettiFactionalization
(ie Translated from the trailer to
One Hundred Years of Solitude)

2011-10-03T14:21:00.001Z

UNDERCOVER WOOKIE

"Look dear chap. Simple matter of keeping tabs on these abominables. Strictly need to know as per. Your P.O.V. is upper-middle income strata /slash/ classic manufacture of consensual apathy. These fellows can't even string a sentence together Chives. Pity you can't take Chewcoca along. He passes. Does the whole groan and grunt, to a T."

Snodgrass stressed the last three words by tapping his manicured forefinger on the desk top. He spoke with the slow measured rhythm of his class, but something bubbled under the conditioned tempo.

"However, he's still at psych-ops camp in the Outer Quadrangle."

Snodgrass rose and started circling the desk, like an eight-year-old in a Lego Star Wars figures e-bay auction.

"Our growing dependency on these covert hairies in the light of clone expansion is the rub. You know how these creatures operate. One squirt of pheromone attachment spray; and they'll be confessing mother's maiden names and PIN numbers; and handing in weapons as a trade for counselling and hugs. Like taking mineral ore off an African. Report back 21.30hrs. If you do a good job, then, young Chives, you can have me."

Sexual overtures played in the background. Miles Chives paid little heed. He wasn't a Carry On fan. He was more distracted by the unnecessary semi-colons. Grammar was serious business. The Star Wars brand at least provided a structure to the latent racism. Wookies. Everywhere. Unemployed, under-resourced and thus far un-united. Chives' brief was in school boy latin. Nil illegitimae carborandum. Situation extant: potential only. The status quo must be maintained. The modus operandi: nip in the bud. Q.E.D. Surveillance. Chives was an old hand. He hated Wookies. Over-emotional, over-sexed and over-acting, badly. And lookeelikees, even worse. Playing to type. More ham than Denmark. Still, without undercover support...

The Unemployed Wookies' Union (UWU) Public Rally turned out to be a meeting. And there was an Ewok there too. She looked elderly (She said so. "I'm 23 you know.") and dishevelled, even for an Ewok. Chives got the distinct smell of wood alcohol. Luckily, she came with subtitles. As for the Wookies, the babel scope was a nice piece of hardware, but Chives relied mainly on reading body language. It was a bit like talking to a scouser.

The Wookies sat in the round, on plastic chairs purloined from a skip from the early 21st century, design classic. Consensus around ergonomics is a lot easier than agreement on economics.

Three Wookies had their legs crossed, but most sat hunched forward, business-like, straight-legged; that's to say, crooked as hell. In the middle of the floor was an unlife-like life-size Indiana Jones snowman-bot, in Lego. It was burdened with Zapatista style ammunition belts and the Ewok's out-sized bonnet.

Undercover as the cleaner droid, a sure way of being ignored in nearly every society known to beast, the stiffness and mechanoid accent came naturally to Chives (ex-Fetters) who was brushing up Wookie hair as he monitored for levels of dissent amongst the dispossessed and inarticulate. Seething groans reverberated around the meeting dome. Chives swept as he snooped.

- Aren't the Rebel council meant to eliminate poverty? she ewoked.

- ggfwptyy bdywwq dpkkkl consonanted the chairwookie. Diplomatically but effectively, his grunts reminded the Ewok that she was merely streaming back official propaganda. That much even Chives could see.

After each contribution, there were rumblings. Collective gut ache. Massed malaise. It echoed from floor level across the dome, like late 20th-century surround sound.

Our 24-7, or rather 28-7, propaganda feeds didn't work on every Wookie. UWU was against the new working time directives of the longer day, which had been modernized six months ago. Most had accommodated. But for UWU, it meant more time to cause trouble. The usual list of whinges. They were entitled (sic) to benefits from the welfare fund. They shouldn't be driven into forced work details for space credits. Less than two an hour in some cases. Well below minimum wage. They'd operate a workfare go slow. Uncivil disobedience. A winter of malcontent. Upshot. The Wookies are more stubborn than the rest of us. Resistant to the process. As always.

The chairwookie called the meeting to order in Owen Meaney capitals.

- MMTNPP T DRD UWU!!

Then chanting started.

- UWU! UWU! UWU! UWU!

Chives switched on his babelscope. It did Wookie fine, but the device was jammed on Pickwickian.

- sd tnth gttrwh... nwsb y.

The smallest, greyest, deepest-voiced Wookie was planning some kind of direct action, Chives surmised. He pressed English and read:

"I used to on the gutters when I was a boy. Simple as winking."

The chair wookie shifted his body towards the older Wookie and looked him straight in the eye.

- KKL KKL mmn mmn prss mnn...

"Capital. Dear Mr.Pickwick... Ain't go no stones in 'em."

Then a Wookie with long brown hair and bigger eyes started passing round dates and grunting. Her report was from the feminist caucus. Gender equality. Wookettes could wail with the best of them. Chives read again:

"Fellow Wookies, these are specially hard times for mothers and carers. The sanctification of commodity. The abolition of welfare. The mysteries of Chronos have been violated. The surveillance of very particular friends of the Empire and therefore the gutter, comrades, shall not deter us."

"Capital, sister. Wery good."

Agreement had been reached. But where was the hit? Chives pressed again. Nothing concrete. No places or times. Just more babel drivel. ("Knockin' at the cobbler's door. It's roast fowl directly children.) It was no use. He would have to tell Snodgrass he needed Chewcoca. Bloody budget deficit.

http://www.cambridgeaction.net/index.php?title=Cambs_UWU

2011-09-29T10:35:00.002Z

CHOMSkY DON@T DO SLOGANS!
CHOMSkY DON@T DO SLOGANS!
CHOMSkY DON@T DO SLOGANS!
CHOMSkY DON@T DO SLOGANS!
CHOMSkY DON@T DO SLOGANS!
CHOMSkY DON@T DO SLOGANS!
CHOMSkY DON@T DO SLOGANS!
CHOMSkY DON@T DO SLOGANS!
CHOMSkY DON@T DO SLOGANS!
CHOMSkY DON@T DO SLOGANS!
CHOMSkY DON@T DO SLOGANS!
CHOMSkY DON@T DO SLOGANS!
CHOMSkY DON@T DO SLOGANS!
CHOMSkY DON@T DO SLOGANS!
CHOMSkY DON@T DO SLOGANS!
CHOMSkY DON@T DO SLOGANS!

2011-09-23T10:28:00.000Z
WIDE-EYED LOCO FAN

On the streets of Salford grass is a verb. On the streets of Cambridge green grows on commons, where cattle pasture and the dark fractured psyche of malevolent intent seeks solace in the cracks in the pavement.

Then one day, handlebars burdened with the brimming guilt of Tescopoly carrier bag man, you see him. He's there on the other side of the road. As regal as his Embassy cigarette, as real as his Wikipedia page, as large as life likes him to be, the abrasive presence of opinion on the back of an illiberal consensus awash with red wine and privately-educated brat packs of stripey-blazered lacrosse players, the one, the loner, the uniquely universal soldier of malcontent and poetic dyspraxia, MARK EEEEE SMITH!!

What the...?!!

You brake too sharply and the shopping you did goes Burton-On-Trent all over the Trumpington Road sidewalk. Twat! Bugger! Bastard! Frig! and all the other Bury-based vernacular you can muster emits distress signal to your anti-hero, who travails to assist.

"Alright scouse. What brings you to these affluent parts? You got an appointment with your brief?"

He's asking YOU. What the...?!!

The nasality is warm; the bonhomie authentic; the helping hand genuine. His enquiries are amiable, but ill-placed. In panicky response, you stutter to the person you've waited 31 years to meet.

I'm workin... Teacher... Sort of.. Lived here since... Gotta say hello... And then... All over the friggin road... !

What the... !? Why are YOU being asked questions? STOP.

You breathe and take stock.

The grim North's answer to Anglo-Saxon roboticism is before you. More than three decades of stifled moan, long-suppressed punk pang, skewered on a bed-sit of grotty Abba-esque grotesqueness grips the inside of your duodenum like fire cement hardened by craven envy and persecution mania and you SCREAM!!... at the mean street preacher that stands before you, a minor deity of faithless grace, a once during class wartime occasion to commune with the head of Promethean humanism and amphetamine sulphate stream of consciousness before you have to go back to the toxic reactivity of marriage and job and aarrgh!!

Fiery jack is here! You are the Diceman, your balls on the line man, you take a chance man. You halt Mark EEEEE in his tracks and shush him. He pauses, his left eye twitches with tobacco and irreverence and one-minute 56 seconds of independently recorded vitriol. And you blurt,

"I love you, Mr. Smith".

2011-09-18T13:54:00.000Z
A LIFE IN THE DAY OF IVAN YANUKOVICH

I normally wake up at half five and knock out 14 novels and four large volumes of poetry before Karlov brings me breakfast at seven thirty. Breakfast nearly always consists of a French quail egg omelette the size of several football pitches, countless rashers of bacon, a coffee lake, a raft of toast and 14,000 cigarettes - low tar mostly. Only then am I ready to face off the world.

My drive into the office usually takes five and half years, and burns up enough fossil fuel to contribute substantially to the warming of the planet - I like to do my bit. I sometimes work from home, but more often than not, I prefer to intimidate people with my actual presence. In the car, the size of a CEO's second home, I can stretch out and catch up on my correspondence. It's here where I often make the first really serious business decisions of the day. If I am in a kick-ass mood, I will fire half a million employees, have a few worked over and one or two poked in the eye - just for fun. I can afford it. I sleep well.

Midmorning. I like to get together with the guys. I belong to Club 365/50. We meet online and/or in person every day, come economic rain or shine, although seldom does the weather get that inclement up here. We are so-called because we, the 365 of us, control 50% of the planet's capital assets. Being a team player is not important. It's a show of power. Three hundred of us are worth three billion of you. Do the math. Today I have moved several trillions of dollars and set up shop in your deregulated capital, Londongrad. I have not had lunch yet. If I am having a working lunch, and I frequently do, I will not eat meat. It dulls the senses. Slows you down. No. No. Shark steaks. Big juicy shark steaks. Gives you another edge. Washed down with a couple of swimming pools of frozen vodka and a cigar - I get mine from Fidel. He's worried Havana's going back to the Mob. I told him not to worry: we would take care of them.

After lunch it is off to the Ukrainian farm where I keep a million female sex slaves. Shark makes me horny. I always get Karlov, my faithful cloned retainer, to lassoo me a couple of hundred. He has just enough cowboy DNA in him (more than most wannabe US Presidents) to do the job with panache and elan. This is what it is all about. The aesthetic of la terreur. The blood. The pain. The fear. It is much more difficult to fill people with dread if you are wearing white socks under sandals.

The afternoon. It is on to South Moulton Street and Saville Row to see my manicurist, a blunt Swiss woman, whose ex-husband is the best tailor I know. Suited and booted, as you say, I have paraded before me an endless procession of lackeys and toadeys who massage my ego and build-up my self-esteem. I have found business meetings and counselling sessions get in the way. Thus, I am able to give free range to my full sociopathic tendencies. This makes me feel good. It is easier to change the rest of the world than for me to change to suit the world: a Club 365/50 maxim in fact. So today I think I will consume football clubs. Sport. The real opium of the people. Religion is good for starting wars and maximising profitability, but if you really want stupefaction: competitive sport. The Americans do this very well. Ask the average Joe to tell you who were the winners and losers on the markets, no chance. It is just a meaningless mess of numbers. Swap the company titles for the names of baseball or basketball teams and your John Doe is a regular sporting George Soros. Their propaganda is a slick well-oiled machine; ours a cranky oil-welled bag of broken bits.

I especially like the way they can become World Champions at most sports by not letting the rest of the world - except Canada - take part. I am hoping to do something similar with Real Oligopolistic FC in Europe. (Thank God for your Posh and Becks and your Eltons and your dead Princesses and your Big Brothers.) It is truly beautiful the way it deflects attention away from my less socially acceptable activities such as the shark farming. If it was not for the Ukrainian agri-sex-business venture or my soccer team, I would have no public credibility at all. As your Tommy Cooper was wont to say, it's not the principle, it's the money.

Why do I need so much? You cannot take it with you when you go. Money cannot buy you happiness. Sure. But it buys you dynasties of power, the structures of prestige and respect, the spoils of honour and love, nations of oil and gas and electricity and water and air and life and death. I use power to accrue more wealth, which of course begats even more power et cetera. What is great about modern PR (which is American for propaganda) is the way it reveals it own process as it wreaks globalised intellectual havoc. There is more spent here than on WMD. Money manufactures consensus. Capital creates its own golddigger, to paraphrase Marx.

My capital is London. My soul is American. My passport is Russian. I am globalized. By making A Life in The Day of Ivan Yanukovich, we (feel the distancing effect of the first-person plural already) shall be informing the world how we are screwing them. And like a serially-battered wife, they keep coming back for more. No matter how Orwellian or Warholian or Kafkaesque we make this post-industrial neo-liberal political nightmare, they cannot get enough of it. I am not talking about the people. Clever power still fears and loathes the mob. I mean the purveyors of lies, the peddlers of myth, the spinners of yarn we employ. They like to call themselves intellectuals I believe. Like the one I have to ghost write for me. What? You think I went to the trouble of learning English?

I pay to turn profit into prophets. Lo and behold: I am the bastard son of the Carlyle Group. Harken Enron Angels Sing. Hallelujah flight of capital. Karlov will take you round the back and pull out your eyes. You will find no meaning here, no answers, no hope. Goodbye. Hey diddle dinkety poppety pet. The Merchants of London they wear scarlet, silk in the collar, and gold on the hem, so merrily march the merchantmen.

2011-09-16T08:07:00.001Z
A LA RECHERCHE DU PUMPS PERDUS

This insane thing. Burn it up. Love in an early sense. The kiss in The Metro. The way she always avoided eye contact because she was nervous made him love her all the more. Haircut one hundred times better in those days 27 years before. Still burns its low-level flame-grilled Whopper. Allez-hop! Pris Unique! He and the English boys went busking. On The Metro. Got more when they sang in Français. Michelle Ma Belle. Le Paris Match. L’allumette qui porte ma flamme. The old flame now. The flambée burnt to a treacley crisp like Tarte Tartin. Tin Tin and Le FNAC bookshop where the French would read for hours like it was a bibliotèque not a librarie. Maybe they got confused by the vocabulaire. We did. In line outside the cinema. The queue where Herman The German plied his one-man band. She didn't remember now any more than she did the kiss. No matter. It lingers still. Version originale. We always looked for the V.O. We preferred original with subtitles in Français. We enjoyed laughing at the funny bits two to three seconds before the French. Gave us an edge we lacked outside. We spoke mainly English. We spoke snippets of French to entertain ourselves mostly. We were lazy language students. Life was a better subject of study. Pure living. Introspection was light. Outward was the focus. After all it was 1984. Sex crime in the bedroom with the other room mate in attendance across the way. Simple satiation. Sleeping together. Smooth skin. Interlocking of lips. Her small mouth fit well. Smokers both. It was ok then, then it was cool. Peter Stuyvesant. Pall Mall rolling tobacco. The bloke in the tabac always made the same joke. Oui, c'est pas mal n'est-ce pas? He switched to Chesterfield in the end. Way cooler. Especially in a French brogue.

The cream jumper. Long and shapeless. Her mother gave her it. She hardly ever took it off. When she did, we had sex, or not. It didn't matter then. Life was a pimple back then. Big loopy earrings in front of the U2 poster. Me, her and Alpha female. We drank wine meant strictly pour la cuisine. Me and Alpha talked politics. Marxism. Liberalism. Yonks before the Neo- arrived like Beaujolais Nouveau Labour. Thatcher bombed. Miner's struck for gold. Work was less. Style was more. Style was our substance. The head scarf. Part WW2 land-girl. Part indie Marine Girl. Part Simone De Beauvoir. Part Tracey Thorn. My baseball jacket. Red & blue Happy Days kitsch that I gave her in the end. She has it on downstairs on the windowsill in the photo with her mother in. Back in the Midlands. Divorce. Bi-polarity. Middle-age. Depression. They were just words then. The unhappy coincidence of words without music. Words were something we sometimes wrote in blocs of squared A4 paper. Squared like the French used. The English used only for arithmetic. We liked its impracticality. Because it looked cool. Like shoes with no socks. Hair. Always the hair. Highlighted. Spiked. High on the head. Backcombed. Laquered in hairspray and gel and lemon juice and sugar. Coming out from The Metro up the wide staircase. Two, three times wider than The Tube. Into the Plâce Des Invalides. The Style Council in attendance. The other side of Napoleon's mausoleum in sight of La Tour Eiffel. Or was it Le Tour? We might have known had we gone to class. Sitting around the coffee bar looking all 27-years ago and slumping and posing and chewing and chatting and smoking, always smoking. In school pumps. Black canvas pumps. Pumps never used for gym. Ever. Pumps mum used to despair of. £1.99 at Woolies. When Woolworths' was a shop and not an economic crisis.

Her best Alpha-female friend's father had been caught having an affair. There were intense conversations about what would happen next. How did her brother feel? Who would live where? A mother she’d only ever get to see occasionally. I mean. Who would want to go to Manchester? It wasn’t Paris. Madchester was still several light years away. Like children. Surrogate pregnancies. Mortgage repayment schedules. Pizza on a Tuesday. Over-aged Kerrang! reader seeking solace and respite from dominant personality disorder in three chord changes and banging heads against air guitars that have taken almost three decades to solidify. It happens to us all, in all eventuality. But not yet. The neuralgia of nostalgia. And pour quoi pas?

The kiss in the metro is sickly sweet with sentiment. It tasted like the cassis in the top of his Monaco. A hint to take off the bitter continental flavour. Croque monsieur, monsieur? Ah oui. Oowei. The way the Parisian's said it. Like un stylo. More stylish than a biro. They edged the word out of the side of the mouth. Till it lost its sharpness. Mais pour quoi? Because it was cooler that way. Way cooler.

We never did read Marcel Proust.

2011-09-15T10:36:00.001Z
A WHITE VAN OF MANY COLOURS

Joseph drives a van of many colours, but to the unknowing eye it looks white. Dirty white with Clean me! and Also available in white finger graffiti’ed on the back doors. It has a sliding door that rattles along on its cranky journey from closed to open.

Joseph’s van is inviting. It has carpets in, and cushions to sit on. A woman could give birth in there so amply furnished is it. For a white van. Of many colours.

Joseph’s woman is pregnant. But she is late by six days. There are no roomy inns available. Out in the forest they have decided to drive. They’ll pitch up a make-shift shelter like Joseph has seen former members of the SAS construct on commercial television and they’ll wait it out.

Having elected Joseph's soul mate as His earthly fuck buddy, the Lord has incurred the wrath of the driver of the white van of many colours. A wrath that leads to pain and misery and futility.

Futile. How exactly does an under-employed chippy with reactive depression and a chip on his shoulder the size of Jordan exact revenge on the Almighty? Simpler to acquiesce, surely to God.

First person occurs. I am not going to get over being in love with the mother of God for a very long time: the guiding star of Joseph’s motivation. Joseph aches like a dry spark plug. He has Mary, mother of God and divinely-inseminated best friend. But he misses Mary, wife and lover.

He's just a giant invisible hippy, for fuck's sake, Joseph refrains for the thousandth time that day. Exactly. For fuck's sake. That's the extent of his Lordship's intervention. You'd think He'd be able to procreate the first time, but apparently the mother of Christ is required to be an extra virgin who needs on-going divine seeing-to's.

It seems Mary's womb is all too human. Either that, or Jehovah's sperm count is a bit on the low side.

Joseph goes through another red light. The third in as many minutes; enough to snap his immaculately conceiving life partner out of her amorous reverie.

- Joey!! For fuck's sake, slow do...

The articulated lorry is much larger than the white van of many colours. The lethal collision unleashes a rainbow towards the heavens that liberates the saviour of humanity from two thousand years of pain.

Thank God.

2011-09-14T12:21:00.001Z
EIGHT OUT OF TEN TEACHER/S

Indoors marking books alone.
Separated now innit?
Wife @ boyfrend's again.
Lonely, sir?
Boyfrend & wife in same sentence.
Must b sum kinda mistake.
Bloody txt. St.s can't spell N E more.
Not in full sentences these days.
Note form better.
Lessens ache.
Lessons unbearable.
Sphincter tightens.
Boyfrend penetrates wife.
Deep. Pain.
Does she do Greek, sir?
Or just French, sir?
O-level and A-level, sir?
Bowels vacate.

Drop emotional load.

Four powerful adjectives.
Tick box.
Hemingway would never have.
On couch. Son sleeps upstairs.
Toxic pencils sit on bookshelf. Lead paint.
Health & Safety these days.

Want to kiss her.
Look at lips.
Hold hands.
Safe again.
It's ok.
At one.

Use metaphor, young Morrissey.
Sing your wife any fool can think of chords that chime.
Word play? Effete, fey, gay, lame.
Dog outside barks like goose.
Goose your wife, sir.
Sir sweats like pig.
Boyfrend pl8's da missus.
Performs cunnilingus you peasant.
Change of register.
Less hypermasculine.
Still hurts.
Sgt. Major Malloy Mahoney McWifeporker.
That's alliteration innit?
Comparative adjectives. What?
Like taller, bigger, better,
longer-lasting,
more satisfying,
more pleasurable?
Not the same with condom, sir.
They won't be using them now.
Bet you.
Bet you.
Bet you.

Personification makes the bed squeak
like a giant South American rodent
in a East Leeds council house
without the appropriate article
Definite
Lusty pleasure.
She masturbates in memory of his touch now.

The bed squeaks like a bed this time.
Caretaker uses WD40.
Must have word.
Stop that rusty bastard.
Oxidisation of penis.
If you don't use it enough, sir.

Shouldn't have to wear a condom. Feels better.
Stretched across his stomach lining, a taut hymen.
Googles suicide without critical sense of catastrophe,
but with impending tide of dangerous opportunity.
Black & Red website. Strong block capitals. Le rouge et le noir.
Focus outward. Literature. Sublimate.
Focus on narrative.
Work toward cliffhanger.

Leave image dangling atop closet in American Superhero Garb.
Garments make him ridiculous.
Threat when naked.
Write now.
Primal later, in the woods.
Alone.
Not lonely.
Private sir?
Short sentences.
Clauses lead to pain.
Clipped.
Cut back.
Solitude trumps loneliness.
Knockout wistfulness.
Jaws of shark snap shut on big fat tuna of love.
Metaphor or simile, sir?
Smile. Let go the hate.
Abstract noun from context.
Teacher gets to end of exercise.
Goals achieved.
Risk assessed.
Boxes ticked.
Success criteria fulfilled.

Finished sir!

2011-09-11T13:58:00.000Z
DEMOLIZIONE CONTROLLATA

It is the worst of openings; it is the best of openings. The faltering column failure theory gives way (What the Dickens!) and crumbles into myriad conspiracies ranging from paint peeling off automobiles and unconvinced transsexuals bearing slashes after his/her off-the-peg gender disphoria that do not stand up to primary scrutiny, but have nonetheless been insubstantial enough to build an ideological superstructure worthy of the names Rubicon, neo-con and big fat American con, confidentially speaking.

As a work of craft, it is under inconstant danger of solipsism. Yet that is the point, surely Shirley. Propped up by business society, its four-pillar strategy has four quadrant appeal. The first jet stream of awareness has flowed the course of the Hudson River as far as Fazakerley, dropped its load bearing tensile steel and has now turned leftfield into friction, fractions and factionalism: a morass of spaghettification, misconstrued sound bites and fragmentary zeitgeist. Hence, the instruction to buckle up and extinguish all minarettes, despite the rogue state of spelling in public miseducation. English Language Defense is in league with the State Department, as the Federal Aviation Administration sits out of the way and looks at its hands.

Titles protrude. Substance eludes. Sexsomnia in the City. The Devil Wears Primark. Positive money.org. Complicate the obvious. Sanctify the banal. Straighten up the metaphorically inclined and make them literal minded. Suze Rotolo, a red-diaper baby from Greenwich Village, cedes she has no skin growing over her nerve endings, so Dylan Thomas swallows her up like Robert Zimmerman's alter ego on the pull. It ain't me, babe. It's the ghost of 9/11 you're looking for. The timed pull-down theory. Much more creditable. Boris Voorsanger is a case in point. The conservatively dressed structural engineer asks her urbanely, "Suze, can you hand these around?" The blueprint for a successful Martin Scorsese docudrama if ever there was one.

Building 7 is the smoking gun. WTC 7 disintegrates at 5.20pm New York Time, seven hours after the BBC and CNN announces its demise. “Couldn’t they have just made a mistake?" queries the social housing manager from St. Alban's. Well DUH! To infinitely naive and beyond. She is too set in her ways to believe. Belief is not what we are after here. An act of reason not faith. Richard Dawkins is a prick, but never listen to him. Read him, for God's sake... Stop! Go to your happy place. What I'm thinking is not (necessarily) what I think.

Pyroclastic-like plumes escape from WTC 7 and the narrative arcs back on itself into an iambic pentameter any fool recognises as fact. He's not the man she married, that's for sure. North London gets pregnant at 38 and moves to Herts. He has become an ism in his own lifetime, resisting the forces of vice like William Godwin did Malthusianism until it overpopulated his psyche and sucked the life force out his fleshy renewables. Less energized for Anarchist tracts and subversive love, Godwin waned until demanding the impossible of the new millennium, as the century of the self drew to a close shave. Hope Street springs eternal. In point of hard economic myth, zombies are much better in a recession anyway.

Once more unto the breach in the Pentagon building, dear bhoy. Ours not to do or die, ours but to reason why... Why the hell would a whole airliner not leave an airliner-size hole? Holy conspiracy theory Batman! Gotham City has been wiped off the map to prise money outta Congress to go on a Zionist spending spree. The Long Kiss Goodnight leaves him cold and lonely and middle-aged. He sleeps alone again. He misses her like a left arm misses a clenched fist salute on the first whiff of an all-out strike since 1926, General Sir St. Michael de la Bilious. Don't make me sick you scab.

Time conspires against him. He has to clock on soon. Work under the radar of false consciousness, neuro-mimickry kicks him in the Anglo-Saxon cojones as the cosmic microwave background interferes with his nano-sense of proportionality. Robert's your mother's brother is never that easy, especially if your name is Mugabwe: the BBC's African totalitarian of choice in parallel with Solidarity, the only independent working-class action that manufactured consensus ever favourably critiqued. Titular turbulence encore une fois, monsieur. Fasten your seat belt, s'il vous plait. The military intelligence asset is about to spontaneously combust into thin airplay like so much conveniently disseminated Anthrax in a secret state-sponsored black psych-op. Here they come again. Brace yourselves, madames et messieurs. Controlled Demolition. The Dalai Lama's on the Dole. Love in the Asylum. Open Art Surgery. Operation Merkin. Royston Evasion. Penalty Fayre. Jesus Loves You (Everyone was else thinks you're Alistair Crowley.) Hell's Angel ideation. Inside Blow Job.

next stop. cafe @. i gave her an ecstasy generation effusive hug. she gave me a petit-bourgeois kiss-kiss-kiss and asked, "why the lower case, darling?" The grammar of personality disorder and an evacuation of bowels in time for irreverence, your reverend. Afternoon tea and scones with the Wimbledon Ladies. Oops vicar is that your fellatio?... At the risk of coming over all scatological, the first timely emission of hijacked cognitive dissidents explode across his baby-oiled moobs as salad cream in an advertisement for taste and restraint.

NIST, tasked with mopping up the dripping jism from the end of the barrel, is an anachronism without a clause, an acronym without an ending in the schemata. Infantile regression takes 10 years to develop synchronistically. Timed to go off year by year from the bottom up, vertical symmetrical collapse of primary narcissism until enormous clouds of pulverized cac emerge from the toddler's arse. End of.

The second the second hits notes bleed from the cockpit, a plasma of confetti that misses WTC2 completely, but works well enough as a holding mechanism till closing time. I'm not a conspiracy theorist but... The literary device has failed us utterly, irretrievably and irremediably like a prial of redundant adverbs from the unedited discourse of Jo KKK Rowling's drivelling public school-lite twitter. The added value K's offer no clue, annotated in addendum to shift units to latent racists. A Phillip Morris spreadsheet across the cankerous corrosion of 9/11verisimilitude.org

Spotted by distinguished investigated correspondents from all over the Ground Zero Diaspora like a gaggle of meeja whores, they oughta've come down like a 500,000 tonne skyscraper on top of the official invention of version, unexpected but anticipated and closely monitored.

Kiss my big journalistic but...

The suspension of disbelief hangs in the airwaves like a hijacked Korean 747 over a politico-media complex made simpler by the day as the smoking gun clears its throat and SCREAMS BLUE MURDER!! Neo-condemnation leads to alienation less and less as the re-invigorated attend to architecturally engineered truths that dot the eyes and tease the implausible deniability out of the teetering tower of consenuality, as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Frightening Conclusion of Jenga! smashes against floored understanding with barely 25 minutes of nay saying remaining before END SESSION and LOG OFF. Game over flashes before Donald's frontal lobes as poetry in The Watchtower. Jehovah's Witness is called before the non-tribunal to testify that the one nation under God bullshit is fallible. One day our time will come yet, believe me, Stevie. Tiocfaidh ár lá! yells the Republican from the wrong Edward Said of the pond.

Meanwhile, as the last of the debris lands, unheralded dialogue is rescued from the secreted FAA tapes that intranet operatives (a.k.a Al- CIA'aeda) have inadvertently re-released into the wild, as feral beats dance across the Manhattan skyline nowhere near Capitol Hill, bang on cue for a happy meal and a line of Charlie Sheen to go, please. Go to commercial break... NOW!

"You see officer, the all-new, all-American Big Apple Meltdown with extra motzi is free trade, organic, biodegradable... and low lo-fat! So it isn't really littering at all," quips the brown-eyed heart-breaking dreamboat for the benefit of the dispossessed.

The previously Mancunian brunette of the drop-dead gorgeous adjectival compounds and the newly broken-in Californian mores remonstrates with the Eyetalian-Merkin highway patrolman in mirror shades whose character delineation is lost in a welter of lazy epithets and half-arsed hackneyed cabriolets en route to Nowhere Fast, Montana.

"Ma'am, I couldn't give a cake-sucking flying frig, if it's vegetation, mineralization or mother-freaking alien! It's still littering," replies the cop, chewing on his consonants as if moist with intent. "And I'm gonna have to book you for dissent," he adds, brandishing a cartellino giallo he's been saving since Franco Barresi challenged the fourth official line of enquiry with a trademark cynical credit crunch tackle from behind the Green Zone.

The lack of sheer naturalism on the face of the former Miss Whalley Range 1982 is as true to life as needs must to shift mass production to Vietnam, Indonesia and Shanghai in the name of profitable gullibilities, expunged from online dictionaries by the implosion of social intelligence every bit as signifying as World Trade Center 7's untimely demise, bro'.

As the closing credits roll, pairs of identical Swiss bankers keep schtum, close the account, but have still to count the cost.

2011-09-08T10:07:00.002Z
SEAL OF PAIN

Seven stages said the woman/man you speak to, to help ease the pain. Relief from grief. It’s not as if anyone’s dead. So most of the time you feel a fraud. You mask the pain with a smile you acquired at the Buddhist Centre where talk of anything dark and painful is frowned upon. Not metaphorically, only literally. They furrow their collective brow in supine sympathy and move on to the next meditator who says something lighter more positive and happier. Furrow the brows, look concerned and then relax. This is Buddhist meditation not shamanic healing in Glastonbury where the last man/woman who broke your heart now lives. Not literally, only metaphorically. Your heart is in perfect working order. As fit as any other a few years shy of fifty.

This is a story of a saxophonist on the sand, not primal scream therapy. It makes you feel heroic raw hardened: this screaming at the top of your voice in the hope of letting out the rats that gnaw at the rim of the happy cheese. It gives you a raspy edge. Not metaphorically, but literally. In the football sense of the word. They actually do scuttle around your gut gnawing away gnawing away gnawing away. But nothing really goes away. The nothingness sits in your stomach. Tighter more toned and more supple than it’s been for years. There’s even been talk of a flat-pack/ six-pack developing. The boyfriend/ girlfriend appreciates it. But it is not meant for their benefit. It is part of a programme of denial and re-directed anger, an anger that wakes up every morning to smell the coffee and run away. Jogging on caffeine. One of the last little addictions around which to drape your primal pain around. Too many arounds. Time to get to the point. The Pain.

The Pain. So important it gets its own capital. Paris is not the capital of France. P is. P for Pain. Greater Pain. Outer Pain. The Municipal Authority of Pain. The Pain Residuary Body. The Pain in the insane falls mainly in the brain. The second brain: the one in your stomach. The tensile knot forms a kernel at the core of the taut centre that was not meant for the stand-by girlfriend/ boyfriend but was meant for her/ him, however many times you say the words moving on going forward getting on with. It is ok to feel. It is inevitable to feel. So you run. You run the full length of the beach.

Time for outward. Outward description. The showing of the pain is telling. El espuma de la mar. Lloret de Mar. You didn’t go. You went East though. Norfolk and pain. Your little golf ball of hurt. The one after ANGER! and the one before acceptance. You say acceptance like a Buddhist and smile. It smells sweet. You feel its oxygen inhabit your lungs. You inhale its hazy lazy waft of sandalwood. A shrine to nirvana search. Smells like weaned spirit waiting waiting waiting for the time soon when.

The saxophone sings along the shore. The musician has sought out a spot near the dunes away from the sea. Stranger on the sand. His tenor sax sounds a sweet and sour note like his/ her lithe slinky tanned body wrapped around his/ hers on a Saturday morning. The groynes mark off the space in between the sand. You pick up the pallet. It is heavier than you anticipated. The shale makes a good line in between the sinking sand and the fluffy sand that sap up your energy. The sun is as obscure as her/ his tenderness behind clouds of… Of what? Of everything that goes wrong every time you try. You need not to try any more. Stop the try. You run. You run harder longer to get fitter. You get fitter to turn the Pain to accept.

The seal pup looks dead when you first clap attention on its beige corpse as you jog closer. It takes the form of a large tail-less dog-like rat bloated on happy cheese, and now inert. Stuck too far up the beach away from mother, snappy tourists and curious toddlers restrained by firm arms around torsos. Firm love, strong care. The love that dare not form its own synapse. You try not to think of him /her so much the sierra of muscles along your shoulder blades vulcanizes. Relax. Breathe. Run. The seal moves. Its brown eyes look at you. Neutral animal blank brown. They only seem to crave help. Its eyes spill into wide pools of chocolate like a Beatrix Potter mass production. Sweet bitter cocoa. Anthropomorphic industrial brown. You run on. Let it go. Don’t go there. It will bite. You run on.

On the way back towards the camping site. You find a two-litre water bottle. You fill it with spume and salty water you use to bathe your running wounds with. The brine will buy the pup time. You run back. You pour it over the seal. It soaks into its dry pelp. As it darkens the skin, it writhes. It turns its sharp teeth towards you. It snarls. You don’t flinch. You look more coldly. The compassion leaves your stomach. The bite would hurt more than the Pain. You remember that as you run back to the rest of the world. What’s left of the Pain blisters under your skin until another Saturday morning. The seal will die. It is a natural process. On another groyne nearer the cut-through to camp, teenagers have scrawled an arrow on the plank of wood pointing to a seal skull.

R.I.P DEAD SEAL. An ironic memento mori? A statement of fact? Facts of life. Pain dies. Love lingers. Sentiment shifts in the sand.

Buddhist bollocks. It hurts like a bastard. Run. Run away. And scream AAARRRGH!!

2011-08-28T17:23:00.002Z
PARDON MY ANGLO-SAXON

Pardon my Anglo-Saxon, but that is a fucking great opening sentence:
it breaks the rules hilariously
and would make a great opening line to a story.
I tell you what. As a homework assignment. Try this.
Write a 500 word story using that as an opening line.
One rule; the one you have self-imposed already;
it can't be about you, because that's too close at the moment.
I'm gonna've written my 500 words by then too.
Another self-imposed deadline when we next meet.
Organic optional homework assigment. Anarchist homework.
If you don't do it, then you're teacher will.
In a non-hierarchical horizontally-structured class,
then I also must do homework surely.
After all, you pay for the kaffe und kuchen comrade.

2011-08-25T12:54:00.002Z
WRITERS' BLOC

Couldn't get a thing written this morning. It started when the Israeli defence minister asked to use the bidet. Nice enough chap. Urbane. Clean finger nails. Half-decent English. That's more than can be said for the Arabs in the bath. Didn't get much of what they said. Mouths full of beans. Something about this proportion or that proportion. Couldn't get the gist. I was more interested in getting to the PC.

Turns out the Israeli was expert in Krav Maga and neutralised the Arab threat single-handedly. Plucky. He said I could shower, provided I provided breakfast. As he squashed the Arabs into the airing cupboard, we agreed terms. Eggs (free range), salt beef and challah.

I had to fiddle with the shower setting . In the mêlée the hyper-sensitive controls had been skewed. The Defence Minister said he'd get me a power shower, "if we would sell some of illegal contrabands in shed."

- Contraband? I asked as I stepped over a narrative arc and into the tub, which smelt of lavender and leather.

- What contraband? And who put all these shoes here?

- Muntadar Al-Zaidi, answered the Minister.

- Do what?

- The shoe-icide bomb...

- Do you mind waiting till I've finished before you bidet? ... Where's the soap?

- May I help with your morning regime?

- Give my wife a hand with breakfast. She'll insist on feeding everyone, including the Arabs.

- Sure.

- And the mobiles have been going haywire again. Can't you do something about your spy drones Yitzhak.
- Euhud. Yitzhak's Tuesdays and Thursdays.

I went into my sock drawer, dripping wet and shivering. A flight of conscious-ness whizz-banged over my shoulder towards Sderot. Two odd ones. One from a Gazan student at the Islamic University. The other, a football stocking from the 70’s (Man City Away). Clean underwear was at a premium. Since the air raids, I'd worn the same pants for three days to save on washing. Shorts would do.

I could hear my wife at the top of the stairs, arguing with one of the F-16 pilots who had been omitted from broadcast news bulletins for days. He was standing on their side of the 1950’s Armistice Line, he maintained.

- The only difference between you and the so-called terrorists are the airplanes. You kill with ruthless efficiency... And you always leave the seat up!

- They have to stop firing rockets, ma'am. It is...

- Excuse me, I popped my head around the bedroom door. Are there any clean boxers, Angel?

My wife popped her head into the airing cupboard and was handed a pair of Y-fronts by a nine-year old Palestinian, who brushed keffiyeh strands out of her mouth as her eyes grasped at the light gratefully.

- These do?

- Under the circumstances.

As I went back inside, the pilot ducked sharply. A man's size 10 (US 11) grazed past his left ear from the direction of the airing cupboard. Unfortunately, the defence minister was climbing the stairs with coffee. The heel landed and splashed hot Lavazza over his spectacles. He held onto the tray and stepped aside letting the remnants fall past. He caught my eye via coffee stained lenses.

- We need to talk, he dripped.

Negotiations. More neutralizing to be done. I'd never get to start writing at this rate. It was already gone half nine. It'd be Woman's Hour soon. And we still hadn't gotten rid of Pinter's corpse off the kitchen table.

2011-08-25T12:37:00.001Z

MUSTN'T GRUMBLE

In the days when PE meant clean knickers for gym, her orgasms were still a source of wonderment. These days they are shallow, irregular, solitary. Wedlock has not been a panacea. Hey ho. Chin up. Mustn't grumble. Not these days.

These days grumbling is what you do if the take away delivery takes longer than the guaranteed three-quarters of an hour (tops), if the 17.45 from King's Cross is delayed due to staff sickness, if the cat has slept on, and so moulted all over, the just-washed duvet cover (again), if the postman with Shirley from Montana's parcel comes 11 minutes after you've given up waiting in for it, if the WiFi connection keeps going down the second you are about to post your complaint to Virgin Media in the comment box that no-one ever answers, if the replacement shower head that Clive The Handyman, you've had since the North London days, has recommended at £140.47 (excl. VAT) is £100.47 more than you imagined, even if you pay him in cash, if the TV detective thriller you've not long ago fallen asleep in front of, before the end of (again) is nowhere near as good as the book because the character actor playing the private investigator is not quite as curmudgeonly and funny-looking as you pictured he would be, if - quelle surprise! - planned industrial action by militant trades unionism coincides with the opening of Wimbledon, or should any number of if conditionals in the sentence of suburban routine not quite go to syntax, then...

But, on the other hand, however, in the familiar face of a potent compound of red wine, oxytocin and inertia that has ejaculated him, snoring, towards instant obliviousness seconds after he has just squirted inside you, merely seconds after he entered, leaving nothing more than a sharp yeasty tang, never.

She pushes him off, switches on the reading lamp and skips forward to the denouement that she missed on the couch.

The book is always better.

2011-08-20T11:31:00.003Z
KEEP CALM & CARRY ON

Emperor Nero fiddles
the tax returns are late
corporation corruption
off-shore offset off-stage
hypocritical banks
a rank rogue state of play
Russian roulette
casino kleptocracy
boom and bust away

Quantitive unease
feel the greed
let the needy die
Monetization
marketization
bleed the workers dry
commodity mistrades
on ancient Greek rage
Malaka!
Stop
Ask why

Deter-ocracy
demo-democracy
Yes, we camp! we cry
If the Spanish can
So can we
Let the BBC lie

Gadaffy ducks
Mubarak's chucked
Barack Obama smiles
Michelle ma belle époque is clocked
choking on cigarettes
As Tokyo burns
in shame and pain
Syrians take a stand
and little Facebook Jamal Ibrahim
holds her daddy’s hand

KEEP CALM & CARRY ON KEEP CALM & CARRY ON

Berlusconi Boloni
spaghetti housewives
launch sex strikes against the state
as the price of pasta
grows faster than Silvio’s waist...

Cards are dealt
excess express
less is more, more or less
On the deck of the Titanic
there's a bucket marked FIYAH!

Babylon carbon on an emission
The right to burn is
Bought and sold
with Nazi gold

A nuclear disaster
in an earthquake zone
Tainted love radiation
for the Nippon nation
Fukushima? Hiroshima
Chernobyl's a picnic now

Re-arrange the deck chairs
as the white elephants roam
Nero calls Libya on his mobile phone
Home loans for the loony, they moan
Muamar ain't no mad Mullah, they know
He was their boy once upon a while

Export trade licence schemies
from the foreign officer class
knock back tequila & coke
And joke & grease palms

We pay for the weapons they sold to Gaddafi

KEEP CALM & CARRY ON KEEP CALM & CARRY ON

Gore Vidal’s Maxim Gorky
Capitalism for the poor
Socialism for the lucky
The madness of King George’s speech
as the ship goes down
Up to the eyeballs
with up-the-garden psychopaths
economic hitmen
pimp the planet for profit
cankerous capital
kills our kids
They re-mortgage our future
for short term pain

Let them re-arrange the deck chairs
as their ship goes down
And kiss their elephant good night
Say Ciao Ceauscecu Nero
And switch off their light

We have got work to do

KEEP CALM & CARRY ON KEEP CALM & CARRY ON

THERE IS PLENTY MORE TO SEE HERE. PLEASE RETURN IN YOUR DROVES AND REVOLT.

2011-08-19T11:07:00.003Z
DEAD IRAQIS

Selected Short Stories Of Ellis Sharp

Ellis Sharp is very funny. You could waste thirteen quid down Jongleurs on 17 minute-slots of push-button sangria-jug corporate funny, or buy Dead Iraqis and get deep subversive funny.

Ellis Sharp is deadly earnest. Post-modernism and Marx make not strained bedfellows. To the Wormshow (from The Aleppo Button 1991) debunks the cozy Fabian myth of the Atlee era. No deconstruction for its own post-modernist sake here. A left-wing point well made. The idea that your Trotskyite mother might conspire to hold you in the womb is wondrous, despite, or precisely because of its sheer implausibility.

Ellis Sharp is very clever. There is a delightful contrarian engagement against hyper-naturalistic verisimilitude. Sharp's technical tour de force is pulled off through total control over the language. The pull-back is utterly convincing.

I can't wait to read the rest. Neither should you.

2011-08-18T14:26:00.003Z
DIXIE'S MOONLIGHT FLIT

The early 90's flash front of brain. Drain off the gender fluid, rematerialise as neutral and let Dean Seattle do the talking in a pub in Brixton, past his heyday, but before yours. You settle down, brush off the Angel dust from your leather satchel and take out your nascent shorthand in readiness for steady notetaking of the most famous person you've interviewed to date. Harry Cross whose real name eludes predicted stage time for you once upon. Now you are embarking on a narrowboat marked journalist with all the conviction of a petty car thief. Half a lager later, Lunette appears and marks out the territory on which the interview is to be conducted. She has the accent straight out of film noir, a craggy blonde with world weary Marianne Faithful eyes and a protective love for bipolar disordered soul singers with a waning physical prowess in the bed dept in tandem with an increasingly bifurcated karmic resonance about as manageable as a teenage mod on a Dexedrine-fuelled midnight run to oblivion and back..

- Oo la la. Dean will not like that you talk about the Dixy song. He is not a stable man. You are lucky he has not drunk today because I forbid it before gig, but do not push him on the Dixy record. You understand?

The dark matter of 80's revival will not be broached. You look around for an escape from the intensity of the stare that Lunette, Dean's wife/agent/counsellor/life coach/alcohol controller, exhibits like an usherette's torch and find that you crave another half lager and cigarette and your short hand is shaky. You switch to craggy longhand and drain the remnants of your glass. You switch track and thank Lunette for this opportunity to interview the great man, that you are a big fan, that your friend is from Ipswich and was also a performer in the 60s and you are only a trainee journalist and you have no axe to grind and anyway the question about the Dixy's record is not that important, even though it has been the basis of your entree into the entire piece you have been composing in your head ever since you knew the assignment was going ahead and the words Ooooh OOOOOH Deano!! Oh Deano!! are still passing thru your brain like a neuro-linguistically programmed soundtrack to the entire 80's like it was only yesterday which you can no longer recall with much clarity due to your own battle with alcohol and drugs demons on the borderline between midlife relaunch and relapse, especially as you can hardly distinguish between what actually took place that day and the memory of the scores of embellished versions of the interview you have since recounted as recently as that morning on a barge on the river you took refuge on when the pain receded and you learnt to breathe again. Stop! Refresh oxygen. Take another full stop and listen to the Frenchified voice in your head. This is not nostalgia. This is a remembered link to a living past you never experience except by vicarious proxy almost 20 years later.

Then the standout line (Wow!!) from the Flim Flam Man emerges from the hypnotic mist, a guerrilla in the rain forest.

- I didn't wanna do no soul revue show shit. In the late 70's it was all punk and new wave shit, and soul revue show. I stoppped for a while in the 80's. Got into my hypnotist show.

- Why was that Deano?

- Why the hell would I wanna sing out my goddam heart & soul to some mother fucker eating chicken in a basket? I ain't no mother fucking wind-up monkey. I am Deano. We are the Flim Flam Band! This is get down soul music... They got Lanzarote to watch the goddam Drifters if they want that shit... And that goddam Colin Growlan' Dixy's mother fucker....

You are drenched in Lunette's calm smile and sense her guiding star. Just a half second later, she appears from outta the mid-afternoon gloom of tobacco smog and stale ale fumes. You gather your notes and intuit that the interview is over even before she reaches over to switch off the brand new mini-tape recorder that Deano likes and insists you got from Radio Shack even though he has lived in a country that calls it Tandy for nigh on 30 years.

Later, on the Victoria Line north back to Islington and white people, you work out the story you're going to tell your friends in the pub. The real story. You'll save that for two decades later, on the back of a marriage break up, a breakdown and an embrace of humanity and positivity worthy of a Shaolin monk with a speech defect and a dark Northern past.

OooH oooo Deano! ....

2011-08-18T14:21:00.000Z
CARRY ON PICKETS

OrkoIduy#3 of the Deltoid Confederation’s Mission statement: in alien caste disputes the Primal Directive prerogates comprehension before intervention.
The one they call ThatBastardCrozier has an insatiety for formal evening wear and feasts on the placenta of unborn underlings, from those who call themselves of the social group, known as producing. In contradistinction to the managerial chieftans, Barbara nets 12,273.67 of the sterling units for each orbit around their star, known as The Scum or The Sun (?). This is unverified. What is apparent to my thermal sensors is that Barbarella from the Windsor branch is barbecuing her cone structures over by the brazier. Crumpet Phoarrh!! articulates Syd over the capitalized text of the hegemonic power bloc which stokes the embers of socio-class struggle to the background anthem of several millions of their Earth sterling for just one of their postmaster generals. (Note to M: manufactured opinion is malleable planet-wide. The evidence base for horizontal/oppositional currents generally obfuscated in their vertical politico-media feeds.) Frequent issues of mucal matter (a common contempt reflex to the mind control periodical known as The Soaraway Scum) emanate from the hooded work-units huddled around the radiant source inside the rehabilitated mechanical clothes washing device. Occasionally referenced as the free press to the self-amusement of the units, populist journalism combusts so rapidly it encourages heatflashes, but generates neglible warmth. It is burnt nevertheless. The solider of the fuel is provided by raft-like structures of dead stripped tree flesh. They last much longer. Smoke I have learnt is known as a top ten killer. Or is it smoking? (Note to M: their noun system is intricate and confuses the BrendanBabel Monkey.) I place an antenna in the fire in order to demonstrate, but this produces some consternation. In consequence, I extinguish it with laserwash. The pyrotechnical flashbacks impress the assembled work-refuseniks, trotskyists and secondary pickets - an arcane pre-millenium term. Arbitration, concilliation, mediation, negotiation. Their language is strangely vague and abstract. Concretely, my task is to hoverwalk between two rooms crystalizing beer, sandwiches, methamphetamines, caviar, Morning Stars, Cuban cigars, show tunes, the collected works of Wilhelm von Humbold, and bananas for the Monkey. They recall to brain the Marxians of Jnfuise 0trei9rg whose leftist monetarists de-mystified surplus extract light-millennia ago. The MonkeyBabel gets excited at the thought, and scratching his ball bearings, reads: Le valuer ajoute c'est nous!! but without the accent, it is uncertain what is signified. Monkey refuses to decipher until we deposit more bananas into his House of Lords Account. I introduce more added value to the brazier.

- ‘Ere. What you up to me old gggggggggggggggggggggreenie?

Windsor's g’s are prone to stick between her comedic cones.

- More hot infusion, vicar? I resonate pseudo-passionately in a male-bond.

- Phooarh!! Crumpet missus! You don't get many of them to the kilo. Kilo? Pahnds mate. Pahnds. What a lovely day for posting a cucumber on the blog! The Marxians are comin’ missus, echoes Syd, viciously his hands cusped around his sex pistol.

- Never mind the bollocks, asserts Windsor by means of a point of order - an official framework for structuring dissent. The mouthy comrade (antiquated class-rooted lexis) from South Africa via South London (via Tony Hancock) is reprimanded on account of his diabolical liberty taking with gender conditioning, not to mention the laugh.

Barbarella is angered and saddened by lumpen dialectology. The cockernee sparra fears she may stray from the shining path and veer into criminality with something called The Craze, a reference to crustaceans, underworld activity and brain disorders. This is uncertain. Less undefined is the importance of economic mythologizing in their cultural discourse. I postulate to Babs as she places her two forearms under her baps in imitation of a camp aesthetic employed by their political right from Ezra Pound to Larry Grayson. I am minded by my database memo alarm to dialogue. I engage The Brendan Babelmonkey for contributions. But we're low on bananas and batteries (bloody Asda!) and the breast it can muster is a Carry On pun and a politicised catchphrase from the Jurassic Period: Shut that Class War! Windsor closes her proletarian newspaper and attempts to comprehension the postulation. (Note to M: I am contracting the human’s deadly abstract noun virus. I must re-confibulate the fabulation stick back on the QiPod.) From the outer reaches of the galloway, the Talk Show of All Mother Ships has begun its regular emission. I am blocking it for now, but traces are consciousizing intermittently. It passes the time on a sweaty picket line. I am increased difficult control of language the paragraphing)

and brackets. I switch to loudspeaker. Better.

It's Plaistow Patricia from KarlMarxStadt. I tune out and encapsulate for Babs.

- The paper sheets therefore represent the fetish over which this struggle between the master class and the slave class...

-‘Ere. Who you calling a slave? Round 'ere, consciousness is too aware to be enslaved I should coco, love a duck, me old ggggggggg......

- In respect of the sterling, I would opine that your socio-economic tribe are less concerned of disproportionalities betwixt incomes than you might be. This discrepancy is unjust cause contravening conventions of intersyndicalist space articles enshrined in science fiction tropes since the GPO days.

The one they call ThatBastardCrozier has officially requested more English breakfast tea and a piece of Poland. This assignment is in danger of overloading my circuits. I might have to ask for back-up.

- This is Ork calling Mandy. Come in Mandy. This is Ork calling Mandy. Come in Mandy. This is Ork call...

2011-08-18T14:20:00.001Z
THE MISANTHROPIC PRINCIPAL

There was the one about the inflatable pupil at the inflatable school getting told off by the inflatable headteacher who had a pin in her hand.

- It's not just me you've let down, you've let the whole school down, but most of all you've..., she was saying.

Then attention waned. The push bar to open door was ajar and liberated consciousness fire escaped. There had to be more to life than this. Was it an absence of empathy? A lack of dynamism? A passing aberration? Or a deep-rooted need to ask rhetorical questions? Who knows?

She had let herself down. That much was clear. Recycling old jokes, regurgitating worn-out lesson plans, anything to get through the day. She wanted to grab herself by the shoulders and shake the living daylights out of herself, but... The economic consequences would be, well, there would be. Regrets too. Not to mention the ethics, which of course you don't. It was a transition period. She was peri-menopausal. It was constant inconstancy. Was that even a word?

There were milestones. Ten years of marriage. Or rather 10 years of being married. At least three of those had been in separation. Ten years in the classroom. Ten more years as head. Twenty years of hearing the same excuses, the same responses, the same sameness. She was so stuck in her rut the rut had laid down foundations like a.. whatever. Clichéd metaphor was also part of her rut. She needed change. But change meant trouble. And trouble led to anger and frustration. And frustration and anger concealed fear and anxiety. And anxiety led to panic. And panic led to...

For now. She would stop them. The one student who had irked her had been irking her for months. He still resisted her strategies. She couldn't subject the rest of the school to punishment on his account. Inhale and grit teeth. Re-focus. Lift back shoulders and force out a half-smile of partial contempt and plough on. She'd already tried all other options. Love. Stress. Mental collapse. Meditation. Mediation. Counselling. Religion. Cynicism. Only resignation was left. Psychological not professional. Resignation and 55 minutes left. Another old joke?

There was the one about the middle-aged principal and the nervous breakdown...

2011-08-18T14:11:00.000Z
A BREAKDOWN OF COMMUNICATION

The Peruvian-maoist burnt dogs SUENA SUENA LA REBELIóN! are strung out along the River Cam while pot-bellied stoves line the perimeter of the stonewall protecting inner space from the onslaught of her attack which porks and probes and prods like a snake with a stick up its prostate. Her fervour is contagious. Her fever unnerving. Her dedication to the cause profound. She has right on her side. She recites. She recites from the book she has memorised like all good martyrs to the cause, the cause that dare not speak its name, from the book that dare not spare its stock options. Dedication and drive coming out like drain water from the sluice gate under the riverside road. Her recently shaven beard is also an indication. That and the up all night again red eyes. Sleeplessness before blowing yourself up is the norm they say. She's slinkier than most. Her lithe sallow-skinned body and dark complexion have often been taken for extremist. That's enough these days apparently. Open up the box and let it go. This is his new strategy for getting her to reveal her narrative. It is early in: an entanglement near the bridge, she sets off the first improvised device, an arm, left, from the elbow down. Sinews sticking out like Robocop stopping the traffic with a fist full of blood red spaghetti.They often spoke cod French so that the boy wouldn’t understand. He went on to become reader in Cod Studies at Brian Cloughborough University (ex-Notts Poly). Souvent dans le midi d’un attacque psychotique ils parle un francais bizarre pour rallentir la velocite de son brain fucking mentalist radio rental doo doo dah old macdonald was a lunatique moulinex! Lost it again. Viagra falls. Niagra balls waiting to expire like a packet of hot frozen peas. He’s had the packets so long we're actually in the same year as the bye-by date which never happens, even though it's still October and they don’t technically explode till Saturnalius, or so her witch says, five months after Pagan new year, which actually makes it 2010, but no matter. Such trivial minutiae are like excrement from Aztec gods, little pieces of irradiated defenestrated Nescafé for the soul: deeper exploration of inner space is guaranteed by the injection of those three little tiny midgets (the boffin/nerd, the babe/scientist, the pilot/sports jock and the evil English dude not included on the inventory) into my left arm with a uranium-tipped corkscrew ($3.95 Walmart) around the same time hers blows off across the bridge over the River Cam. It's like Therma Wrap, extremely thin explosives concealed in space blankets made of mushy pea-green dye, made of extract of northerner. She's more portly, stouter, euphemistically fatter than any former thin homocide bomber. Attacking with the limbs. Genius. She bends down, picks up her ex-left forearm and savages me. She stuffs it in my mouth screaming Stonewall me now! You prick, you balding, pasty, hairy, impotent, perverted fuck. Stonewall me now! KERBOOM! KERBANG! She’s brought along big placards with cartoon explosion words for the hard of hearing. She herself is blind in the third eye from a grenade she tossed into her father’s SNAPPLE CRACK PIPE and POPS when an adolesent on the HOMOCIDE BOMBING FOR TEENS 101 course in a previous story from Captain’s Log Star date Michael Flately Stephen Gately. Johnny Come Lately is her ironic name. PE is the shortened discreet initial for it, but when you get to the counter the check-out girl always sniggers and shouts: Premature Ejaculation (capital letters and all) is the highest compliment a girl can get. She should be grateful, sweetheart. After all, saves on all that chaffing doan it? As long as you’ve had a shave. I love a good plating I do doan I Joanie? Joanie? Where’s Joanie? She’s having a Brazilian. Emerson Fitzerpaldi. Is that how you do the ciccane Madonna? Those are a bit big Emo. She puts the scissors down and catches her right forearm with her left leg and right knee. She flips it over her left shoulder which comes off and forms a two-pronged attack which has him stapled to the side of the boat before he has a chance to leapfrog the railings balletically and jam open the Toni Hatch (with an I the pretension tosser). She hops away to get more Therma Wrap (ex-RUC/ UFF/UDA/BBC) and semtex (ex-Sinn Fein/ IRA/Vanessa Redgrave). He reverts to the safety of wordplay, tetrapacks and THC. ¡AL FIN Y AL CABO CABRóN! She’s written a goodbye lovenote on the back of the reflective vest he stole for her on their first date laying fibre optic cables outside William Waldegrave's second home those heady March days around St Patrick’s Day/Week. Slàinte!

2011-08-16T14:48:00.000Z
HOODWINKED

A gang of hooded youths was loitering with intent outside the launderette. Underemployed, undereducated and under the influence. I crossed the road to avoid missing them.

- Oi you lot! You make me sick.

I shouted at them. It felt good.

- You shiftless, pusillanimous packets of puke.

I shouted some more.

- Why don't you turn your white trash baseball caps round the right way, pull up your baggy arsed socks and get a fuc...

- And what was their reaction?

- Don't know? You lot turned up and brought me in. And I tell you something for nothing. If I...

- Look sir. It's better for you, we arrived when we did. Now back to the questionnaire.

- Bloody forms.

- The sooner we do this, the soon...

- Ok Ok.

- Do you watch a rolling news service? Please don't tell me which one. It'll invalidate the result.

- Yes. Almost every day. 'Cept Sundays when I go...

- And do you read a newspaper?

- Yes. The Daily...

- No names.

- And do you take a local newspaper?

- Which one?

- Any local paper at all.

- I read the ones that come through the door. The Week...

- Please...

- Sorry.

- Talk radio?

- Radio?

- Yes, do you regularly listen to a talk radio station?

- Well as it happens, I listen to one of them through-the-night shows. It helps me sleep sometimes.

- Thank you. Well... according to this, Mr. Mentality, you're a high risk category.

- Is there anything you can do for me?

- How long has this pattern of anti-social behaviour been going on?

- Ever since I turned 40.

- Youth offending is a growing social problem and one of the major causes of distress in the over 40's. I'll be frank. Unless you can break your cycle of offensive behaviour, then your chances of being able to fully re-integrate into the wider community are slim. Have you ever considered voluntary work with teenagers?

- ....

2011-08-04T11:11:00.000Z
PLEASE STAY OUT OF THE NEUROSIS
AND TAKE YOUR KINDNESS WITH YOU

Get your elbows out of the neurosis
and sit up straight
when I'm trying to obliterate you

Remove your lust from the cortex
Take your compassion out of the cognition
and watch your desire doesn't hotwire
the neuro-transmission again

Please, stay out of the neurosis
and take your kindness with you

Wash your hands & face of memory
while I clear the neural pathways
and take out the bins

Careful not to spill your heart & soul
onto the tablecloth
It's only just been washed

Please, stay out of the neurosis
and take your kindness with you

How many times have I told you?
to switch your sunshine to silent
And to only leak joy & beauty
when I'm out of the house

Please, stay out of the neurosis
and take your kindness with you

Do not use your sticky fingers
to pick bits of ego from any trace of dignity

And for self-pity's sake!
Go easy with that empathy
that I was saving for Glastonbury

Please, stay out of the neurosis
and take your kindness with you

STOP making me mistake
respite for progress
and elasto-plast for cure

And please, please, PLEASE
tell that boyfriend of yours
to keep his cunnilingus to himself

And to not leave orgasms all over the place
I've not long tidied up

MIND THE GAP between the peaceful and the pain

Remember to take all obsessions with you
when you leave the carnage...

And please do me a favour
Fuck off now, Angel

Love, Magic x

2011-08-04T11:09:00.001Z
DEAD TIME

The End
Credits have rolled
Audience gone. All except one.
In the shadows at the back
The End. Two words
That's it then? The End
Just like that
Finito. Adios muchachos
Exit stage left
Exits? Where are they?
In the corners as usual
The unlit EXIT signs hover over doors no longer there
You turn. The screen blank, black
You move downslope to the front
Is it there still?
Lean forward
Hold onto the back of a seat as the floor shifts
Hold tight. Steady yourself
One by one the rows dissolve
In the gloom you grip the seat
It slips away
The figure from the shadows is suddenly close
Rank breath. Hollow teeth
Cloudy grey translucence
Star Wars. Bergman. Bill and Ted
Laugh it up, fuzzball
The cinema screen presses
against the space where your nose used to be
The ceiling lowers. The walls throb
Darth Vader's smell of burnt plastic no longer lingers
In deathly deadly silence. Senses switch down
Back catalogue fades. Black space. Twilight Zone
Soundless, tasteless, breathless
Nothing
No vestal virgins
No celestial succour
No harp-playing toga'ed angels
Nothing but trapped thought
Locked up thought without context, without corporeal form
Conscious consciousness
Extended beyond the confines of body
Spirit
Really?...
The panic button is pressed
Panicking doesn't work anymore
You don't "feel" anymore
Short and long sentences
That's all. Text
Rhythm of thought
Language and pictures
Spliced edits
Moving pictures
in between what passes for thought
The power to disturb, remind, torment
Mindfulness. Stuffed into a living nothing
Forever
Full stop.
Period

The End

2011-08-03T15:04:00.013Z
NOVELOPOLY

This is a flight of confabulation. This is midlife relaunch.

The oil spillage in the Gulf was calamitous for BP's share price. Every inanimate object is potentially deadly. Lettice Curtis, a World War 2 ATA pilot, lived in Danbury Manor and had a thing for Frankie Francis. Neo-junglist breakcore is compositionally liquid. Bunny Austin was the last Englishman to reach the Wimbledon semis in the 1930s. Selwyn Bass, her dentist, made her toes curl.

Lorelei Lodestar had to sift through fool's gold to sparkle the imagination these days. It was a struggle knowing where to start. Overloaded with Wikileaks, she felt her wings twitch in tense tandem with trepidation and alliteration. Breathe in. Breathe out. Shake it all about. Contemplate the wonder of the day and compose. Yet which to choose. There were so many. Random she could handle, random she embraced. But this was eclectic turned overdrive and then some.

She scanned down the site. There is a vulture advocacy programme launched to prevent the scavengers dying of gout caused by the ingestion of uric acid. All life depends on unseen microbial creatures that eat at the core of self-expression turning eloquence into footballese at the drip of a tap.

Lorelei's critical overview was more acute than most. She had, after all, learned to fly before she knew how to dream. The distribution of winged incidence, however, came with downforce. Where many had flying dreams in which they soared above mundanity in transcendent mystical union with the metaphysical, Lorelei had visions of gutter level encounters with sewer rats, double yellow lines and dehydrated chewing gum. As a youngster at Danbury, she wafted away many a happy hour drunk on angelic waketime; the observing self tipsy with skybourne etherea. Dream, in contrast, was concrete, rigid, atrophied.

In current moments, skydiving off social housing high-rises knee-deep in unnatural expression of time and space, Lorelei was si malade comme un perroquet that no amount of footballer's comedy French could lift her out of the nadir she'd been in since her 1430 trial for FC Twente. That ball across her own back four. Sheer heresy. Her Joan of Arc ideation surfaced for air.

She logged off, popped her wings back on and floated off for a spot of class tourism. And why not guv'nor cor blimey. Wet Wednesday morning and all. Excitement, adrenaline, hypomania, rapid cycle. There were different names for it. Hardly the time for tempus fugit. The streets it was then. Disjointed synapse connections. Novel cognition again. Some call it imagination, Lettice.

Two likely lads from the municipal lido she frequented in late summer bellyflopped into consciousness. She'd just taken out and folded open her wingery in the wooden changing booth, and was waiting for the hoi polloi to finish changing before she re-attached, when boy talk broke out.

- Let's go for one more beer, buddy.

- And a cig.

- Aye.

- We shouldn't really. Have a ciggie. After all that exercise.

- I'm still breathing fucking hard.

- It's good for us though.

- It is good, I know.

Polyester, khaki baggy shorts and skinny latte legs. Mixed race and Scottish, or rather, dual heritage and Northern British. Recreational drinking partners. Needy souls desirous of companionship till the late afternoon when they would most likely stab each other over possession of half a purple tin. Lorelei shifted her prejudice into cruise control and kicked back. She'd need her kit on for this one. Allowing them time to vacate the lockers, she winged up and hovered directly above them, all the better to remain out of their line of vision. In any event, once the session got underway, they would rarely look up. Guttersnipers tended to cast their gaze down. Grey-sky thinkers to a man.

Lorelei tailed them to a ramshackle bench in an obscure piazza frequented by lumpen proles of the parish. They'd just shared a box of Tennessee Fried Chicken wings, onion rings and Irn Bru in subconscious backlash against the rosy glow of aquarobic activity. Purple tins and roll-ups for dessert.

- So, I'm in the doctors waiting room by the way. And the voices start.

- What? In your head.

- Nah man. Oot the radio. They always have that fucking radio on. Tae catch oot the schizos and tha'

- You sure?

- Why else would they have the fucking thing on? And there's a note telling ye to nae switch the fucker aff til ye have a wee word with the bird on reception. Tidy she is an'all.

- The MILF with flat chest and glasses.

- Aye. Anyways, likesay...

The vernacular was far from authentic. Not being fluent in Welsh (Irvine), she zoned out. Ascending to just below the nimbocumulous, flapping smartly, she was able to maintain visual contact. Context would be less successfully managed, but that was always more fun.

(DIS)CONTINUITY TO FOLLOW

Wings off made cycling and walking easier natch. T'other thing was t'epidemiology of uponground observance. She remembered the slight ethical abrasion betwixt whether to shop him to the shoddy hobby bobby or to give him the nod as to his best means of escape out of the other side of the cycle park 'neath the Grand Arcadian shopping Mall Conglomerate plc. Contact with everyday roguery was always simpler without wingery.

The as-of-yet un-accused had a shock of jet black stand up afro somewhere between scruffty natty dread and Fido Dido. His bright purple hoodie with white logo wasn't the best attire to go tea-leafing in, but there you go. Compared to his nimble fleet of flight around the corner into the complexity of the shopping mall, the proper coppper looked out of condition; his jingle jangle of accoutrements vied with his radio ham voice for the passer-bys attention.

- STOP THERE NOW!

The urgency of his capitals made Lorelei chuckle, snort and smirk in no particular sequence. The law was out of order. The community support officer was without community support. The victim himself brought up the rear of the PC in front, shouting.

- STOP HIM SOMEBODY!!

Dickensian farce prompted ironic guffaws from the cappuccino sippers front of terrace. Lorelei felt alienated by the student detachment, and less antipathetic towards the constabulary than she would've liked. The pull of authority was strong. She had to master her inclination to grass. A colloquialism from a Radio 4 play helped steady her nerves. She trundled down into the underground cycle park thinking it was the funnest situation she'd encounter all day long when he re-appeared trying to gain access to the changing rooms kept locked from chavdom which never shower after cycling on the pavement with their seats too low and their under-inflated tyres. Yet she couldn't hold that particular prejudice against this one: he was bikeless and in need of ideas, fast. She morphed into a middle-aged scouser with a working class chip on his shoulder the size of the Duke of Westminster's property portfolio.

- Yer wanna go that way out, mate. That fat cunt'll never catch yer, she found herself saying, out of the safety of her own gender and ingrained conditioning.

The giggly elation, akin to an amyl nitrate and nitrous oxide buzz she once combined in a night-club comedy set in Vauxhall's Strawberry Sundae, was exhilarating. Connivance in the escape plot liberated her, as did the use of the contraction of her cunt with a third person, a simple future form. Ordinarily she would have preferred a shall. But with cunt never. Appropriacy was important to Lorelei.

Mumbling something about institutionalised pig racism, the young chap cooly removed his mauve hoody and black cap to reveal a brilliant white t-shirt. Bagging his ill-gottens into a similarly plain carrier, he flattened down his curly barnet and sauntered along the side road that ran parallel with the multi-storey. All in a day's work.

Lorelei couldn't resist the notion that he would get caught anyway. Easily ID'ed away from large metropolitan centres, mixed raced street thieves couldn't be that hard to catch. She smiled at the hobby bobby as he puffed out his podgy cheeks to trudge upstairs, and away from the cycle park escape route. His adoption of a formal register of English, which he would only ever use to impress superior rank, made her feel instant animosity towards the fat cunt (number 2), and therefore less guilty about not pointing him in the right direction. She resisted the temptation to divert him. Had she been winged, she might have allured him sexually. But that was so not where she was at these days.

- I'm continuing on up the staircase to level two, having already cleared level one, check, he radio'ed bombastically.

He was a big lad, but out of condition. Time for a work out. Hello boys. Donning her low-cut party wings, she sought out her drinking companions in the windswept Chekovian concrete below. As she did so, she recalled Danbury and a young Frankie Francis.

Meanwhile, on the 19:16 flight from conventional miserablism, in wafted noted 90-year-old World War Two pilot, five years retired, but not yet past her sell-by, Lettice Curtis, aviator, flight test engineer, air racing pilot and sportswoman. She rolled her eyes skywards in response to the very notion of penile dysfunction:

"This is the sort of imagination I am very much against. Back in the day, there was no question of it. It was simply not a question one asked. It just never came up."

Undeterred, Lorelei was romantically bound to rendez-vous at 18:00hrs with a randy young Frankie. Wingless, her sex drive was wayward, off piste, 4X4. The wrong side of menopausal before 45, she knew the purported loss of libido to be fictional.

Frankie wasted no time cutting to the thrill of the chase.

- Hey Angel Face, you still knock me out, after all these years. Would you care to bunk up with ol'Frankie?

She had ample time before she had to get back to the kids and the old man. But what of continuity? Surely the convention demanded, if not linear, then at least nothing less than an attempt at joined-up writing.

- We'll see, she responded coyly, as she brazenly licked her ruby reds.

A prial of asteriks appeared to signal her approach.

* * *
Continuing on her flight from verisimilitude, she landed atop an ivory tower amidst dreaming spires on the sunniest October Monday since Boy George's criminal record began. She quickly lost her footing and flapped down to a more manageable lower tier of purpose-built private language schools and internationally funded aspiration. Lorelei felt the need for deviation, diversion and distraction. From out of the thin end of the wedge, somewhere between her mental notes and sense of impropriety, she broke wind. A loud but far from fatal histrionic trump of a fart that established her credentials as a grown-up tom boy with attitude. From the resultant updraft of methane and mild opprobrium, she produced a former Windsor border who had dropped out of Cambridge to flog chemicals to the locals and wax far too suspiciously eloquently about jungle than was appropriate for cred.

A stream of air brushed against the page. Timely. Persona. Empathy. An other. Just what she needed.

Tarquin, who wasn't called Tarquin any more, drove like a Danny meshed up with just enough Darren to give his cut-and-shut identity a bit of edge. His habit of forsaking the foot break at roundabouts in favour of crunching down from four to two, as he switched discs in the CD player from the stack he had wedged under his chin, made Lorelei grip the rim of the passenger seat as firmly as she dare. She feared exposing herself as a flightly girl unused to vehicular transportation under the influence of seriously proscribed narcotics and conventional linearity.

Once in a while, Tarquin would be so into a track that he wouldn't think of changing it at a major junction. But this was rare. Lorelei wished she'd flown home from the festival just outside Ely. She swallowed hard and breathed deeply. Outwardly she smiled and asked questions. Typical female behaviour, and so her panic went unnoticed by the BZP-toting Tarquin and his skunked back seat passenger.

She longed for the power of nonlinear travel. But then she also craved character, even though it always ended up disappointing her. The flightless nearly always seemed to be stuck in either, or both forms of linearity: that of narrative, and of competition.

Drug dealers like public school boys are sequential constructions strung out by means of superimposed rules or free market logic. Lorelei was in conflict with narrative: never an essential element of an Angel's existence. Only when coming down to earth, did a narrative layer form. Grounded relationships between humans had a disturbing tendency to create character and story.

A roundabout was coming up far too fast. Lorelei gripped tightly and asked a question in an attempt to avoid a CD change. Too hard, she kicked in her cosmic scene-changer, a leftover from her fairy DNA, remnants of which still clogged her personality purity. Retail therapy. That's what metrosexual conditioning intended. What Lorelei Lodestar really wanted however was a beautiful man with a pair of dreamy brown eyes and a powerful calm strong centre and to live with him and his tribe in a green and pleasant valley near Abegele. But a new pair of shoes might just plug the gap. Let's shop. Let's shop till I drop. Ha! Let me drop then I shop, Lorelei laughed, as she changed scene and lowered fictively to the saintly city.

Lately Lorelei Lodestar's mini-crises have coincided with late capitalism's rapid cycling. Ups and downs. The bi-polarity of boom and bust. And the simultaneous denial/ control of which involves a massive injection of lithium into the financial psyche. Faith in the Godhead known in reverential capital as THE ECONOMY.

In the gold standard we trust. The fiat system of today's monetary variety is the Seat Panda of currency. OK until you're half way up Mount Teide with nowhere near a tonne of Tenerife & Lanzarote Holiday magazines so that even in first gear it is difficult to stop the backslide.

Freaked by on-line likes and recommendations on her new funkier exposed happier enthusiastic self she has parascended into despair as a moth flapping backwards against the narrative updraft.

The squirt of the frother frothing up the milk, the tickle of the crockery on tinkling china and the cymbaline clink of spoon and saucer and the next bit she couldn't read. God! She hates that she can't read her own writing sometimes. Time for aromatherapy, hot bath and masturbation. Twice. DIY mini re-hab then back to flight of fanciful just in tandem for uncivil disobedience and anti-establishment: a sense of place essential for any winged creature of the printed word. Holding down a job or a pen and doing something familial and domestic on paper in a voracious business society is viable for only intermittent animals like humans, traffic lights and Lego mini-figures.

Let's stop. Let stop. Let's drop. Let's drop. Till you stop Top Shop and stop shopping. Shop less. Do more. Half a million consumers have stopped passivity and have created March. Her left eyebrow arches at an oblique angle to the Embankment. A soft bellied landing no less.

Time for observations of dissent and creative repulsion to the economic mythologies of ground life. She landed behind a mobile trolley-pulled sound system under Hungerford Bridge and switched down to third so she could put some flesh on the bone.

- Magi Magi Magi... Die Die Die!

Millions remember the damage done. Needle is still deserving and forthcoming. A breakaway group bear placards bearing the witch's picture, the accompanying message: Liverpool Remembers. The 74 year-old farmer, Daily Mirror reader, Unite member, here because solidarity is not a right, it is power. The Workers Powers' comrades from well, Workers Power, we, she, they... meet on Westminster Bridge under the shadow of The House of Ill Repute, The House of Amoral Spin. And other favourite parliamentary anagrams. She is delightful. He is pleasant. But intense. A strategist of the 5th International. He inhabits his role adroitly.

Lorelei begins to tire. Her overweight public sector lardage and undercover Daily Telegraph class traitor cover is not sustainable for another second. An Alphabetised male is a leading contender for a coronary if she doesn't rest her-only-just-on-the-cusp-of-morbidly obese butt on a bench soon. She wishes she'd gone under the auspices of Dykes on Bikes via the Black Bloc...

For the rest of the duration she chooses female, continental, so unfair blonde out of the Susan Penhaligon/ Bardott mould, an amalgam of blondes past, a la recherche de la femme fatale. Hair, complexion, body shape, physical presence, movement, smile to welcome enthusiasm on the part of the flirty, the middle-aged, the desperately lonely, and those whose everyday proclivities are ...

...suspended due to mythologies of the Budget Deficit. The economy, code for Class War, bothers the comrade from Socialist Appeal with the mujahadeen Operation Cyclone beard going on so much that he complains. She has already grown accustomed to open declarations of thoughtful opinion. It is going to be that type of day. She feels herself hedged in by good humour and British civility, if not reserve, and has caught herself on more than occasion using the word comrade without a shred of irony.

Generalized contentment has broken out on the streets. The mob, massed and calm, poses as the Great British Public for the benefit of the cameras save a few in extremis who act at the margins via thought-through, targeted, well-organised, mindful violence, actively directed at the directors of financial capital and their assets.

The March folds like the many-headed serpent of capitalism of the Anarchist Federation poster she has just accepted. The public, chaperoned by the forces of social orderliness, is cajoled and obligated to back up along Aldwych and Fleet Street to the official start of the March Against Commodity Capitalism's Austere Pants...

Slow to detour around the front of the Royal Courts of Justice due to the heavy irony. The Courts of Justice have been labelled sic for the day by a second generation Glaswegian Leicester City fan and religious educationalist and his post-psychotic partners. More common than asthma, chips in newspaper, banking spam and dirty finger nails, the words keep breaking through the kettle despite the cops.

Lorelei's left-wingery twitches: there is a radical sense of place and character developing. The imitation compassion of the institutionalised vampirical process has been ravaged by a definite article. Attack of the Forty Foot THE! The vampires of the twilight series stutter in retreat. THE THE The stakes are too high, they cry. And for just a moment of real time, even after taking off her glasses and letting down her hair, even the stunningly attractive Ugly Betty looks truly grotesque. Lorelei puts it down to bitch blonde brunette envy, but she knows she is wrong.

With one fell swish of the curtain rail, Lorelei lozenges London-by-the-Sea in her clocking-on card and Nouveau Labour health & safety fascists let off controlled explosions near a new narrative seam in a Can-Can dancer's Victorian high-ceiled des res. She has a 15-man a year habit and a lust for sailing only an upper-middle class nautical caricature would ever understand darling...

Verbal entropy near the equator for two weeks waiting for the fucking Doldrums to blow. Non-linear loops in from thje Scandinavian \fjords via an & from SKolhyrse. She latches onto character if only to get out of the train. She has her wings disguised as skis! In April! In Brighton!! We'll see about that ...

Meanwhile, while we wait for fresh discourse, another meanwhile shows up with left overs from the march. The public sector lardage is taking the flak from the infantile Left Opposition by the manifest disorder of midlife crisis by entire sections of the mobilised movement, the crusty contingent, libertarians and unwaged slaves.

Meanwhile again, a train passenger discusses a tense cut from a more simple past to a less than perfect present on account of the budgetary bollocks made up by George, real name Gideon, and his posh made-up Lord Snooty pals for the benefit of the Andy Capps who no longer read The Daily Mirror in droves nor vote Laborista capitalista reformista, nouveau or old school. His fellow worker, aka passenger, aka customer, aka male member of socio-genetic conditioning in size 15 shirt commuting to Hertsfordshire and back utters some nutter mutter unworthy of reported speech. But no time for that now Greta, the strudel is ready!

Meanwhile, the third.

- Isn't it about time we had some dialogue?

- Shh, you said, pointing to the Quiet Zone sticker as you return to your reading, head down, privatised, atomised, but blissfully not in the present like only reading can do, darling. His lookalikeness to the England left back we've never had, but with the hiddens depths of a Che Guevara, is remarkable isn't it?

[We'd never know.]

Get me out of here I'm a wannabe office drone with latent cooperative tendencies and reservoirs of range of compassion stifled by the celebrity cultural revolution, tendencies the rest of my life need never hint at.

[We'll never know.]

The stripes on polyester and cotton send semaphore to Lorelei's retro-regression, and so she decides the South Coasters need liberating from their own mist and Spring fug. She, as a mid-twenty-something-male-someone that she'd once inhabited and went cottaging, was wholesomely propositioned in the morning mist and knows of what she talks. The mingers mist. The munters' fog on the Tyne. Fat Geordie in leather chaps. Not a good look. But the fug of the sea mist and fission of fused sexuality it all got a bit nebulous, hazy, fantazee, John Wayne big leggy.

Time to don Lennon's trousers, red nose, St Ormond's Children's Hospital heart and Rosa Luxembourg's sense of psycho-geography. She'd never carry it off. A mini-break? A nano-holiday? A micro-staycation? A fissure in the Monday-Friday nine-to-fiveness of it all. That. And sex. She had to acknowledge it hadn't died inside. Far from it. Actively seeeking satisfaction for her Susan was an essential part of an Angel's anti-ideation kit. Sex was how Angels did real. Real raises its smiley face, strips off its merkin and relax don't do it! when you want to c... ahem vicar! More jism/ End of the line. Brighton. Rockola coffee bar. Rockola Vegan Rock and Roll Coffee Bar! About as authentic as. Ended up in. Note form only. Cappucino. Carrot cake. Cream and non-corporate smile. Genuine local locale. Blonde, fair, British. Cute in a gawky way. Next day. Back to St Alban's Major Tom to Mission Control.

- Come in Buzz, this is getting way too random dude!!

- I wish. The scary bit is I know exactly what I'm doing...only not yet.

The next bit:

One sunny day, and England is popping happy pills like never before. Lorelei appears in the sky and stops gravity. Forty dabs! to defuzz her Raoul Moat and get an email.

Forgetting detail is fine. The broader-brush-thinking involved in keeping it together when you forget the detail is more cosmic. If you only remember three things at any one moment, one of them is unlikely to be: now where did I put the little gizmo that bleeds the bleeding radiator, it's full of air! More likely: her/his face makes me smile whenever I think of it, remember that. What do we remember? But they know he's not dead. How can the stream of consciousness survive death?... 250 words please by Monday on my desk!

i am a long time dead. but it's not true. i've been dead for years. dead men can't write of course, but this is not writing... this is ticker tape stream in lower case.. connected ... by a series of suspension points posing as a dead man's stream of consciousness.. not quite the same thing... but close... maybe.. that's a very theoretical position.. let's see...

End of Brighton Pier for a brake on the RANDOMNESS of it all and a steadying sense of milieu. Pier. Up on the next level looking down on the promenade. Snap shot of grafitto. Baghdad Country Club. And Cafe Lodestar on the sea front next to the pub where they had their most successful conversation. Their third. Dialogue must ensue Shirley? Stop calling me surely. Break dance interlude and haiku... resist the temptation to count the syllables and...

La crise certain des hommes d'un age certain:

He stares into the faces
of younger women
though the answer is elsewhere

You could always razz them with a joke or two kidder!

Q: What's the difference between a Nintendo DS and dog shit?
A: Getting dog shit off a kid's a lot easier.

Q: How many folkies does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Electric!! You bloody Judas!

Give up the day job and return to the dramatic present, for now.

Once in a twitter, Lorelei twongs the venetian blinds to peek at the incipient daylight threatening to crack through the murk that passes for Saturday. She craves early April freash air, she tweets.

Like fresh air, only with 20% more spelling. Aarrgh! Typojokes in cyberspace. Lodestar feels her chest contract and her pulse throb. A student of Jean Paul Braudilliard, trapped by her own metafiction, she leaves facebook suburbia for St. Alban's town centre.

A Rocky Road and a cappuccino @ Cafe Roma hint at self-admonition and introspection worthy of a fully rounded personality. She counts to ten. Slowly. Her inner turmoil subsides. She glances at the sign in the Vintage shop across the misplaced Hatfield Road. It reads in perfect WW2 MOD RP: Keep Calm & Carry On...

Opposite St. Alban's museum. A churchyard. Cod is with us, so there is hope. Three recently emancipated young women, though in 1940 twenty year olds looked like forty year olds, so it's hard to be sure. Three women stride contentedly to the Ballisto factory turned from patriarchal oppression and hosiery to feminism and shells, from male dominance and peace to female liberation and war. War work can set you free sisters, it reads over the entrance of the munitions factory that used to make stockings replaced by gravy and eyeliner in the struggle for freedom. The personal is politicized. Not yet. Too soon. Lorelei's got her dates mixed up again. She wishes she'd insisted he'd worn the last condom now, though in post-feminist 2041 he'd've just twatted her round the mush and done it anyway. Bloody rationing!

2nd floor. Medieval St. Alban's. On the left: Marriage the Mantrap myth. And an old Herts. saying: "(S)He who buys a house in Herts. pays two years purchase for the air."

Luton Riots 1919. Just after the last war to end all wars sisters. Case #4 Attempted suicide brought before St. Alban's court, caused by drink and loss of work, tired of cutting her throat to save face, she wanted to self-immolate, but her WW1 lighter wouldn't work lest the Kaiser Billy's boys blow her head off. After the coming of the railway, women took in washing for Londoners who sent their laundry by rail to have it dried in the clean air of "healthy Hertfordshire". Broken fallen cross. Pathological shoppers take short cuts. Wood pigeons coo. Collapsed headstones. Family graves. Grave family relations. 1880's love ties like chains. In between the cracks in the narrative. Strips of emotionality. Impressionistic language that attempts to foster radical counter-current labelled EXTREMISM!

Cemetaries. Home to nutter mutter. Young trippers. Writers note down names from gavestones to use later. Ambrose Massey. Algernon Groot. You couldn't make these up; rogue semi-colons; Special Brew crew have polite 10.30am chat; their little fingers curl up around their still half full cans; angels take sanctuary from the mainstream; solace; solitude. Full stops.

Pre-fabs: prefabricated bungalows built at the end of the war (no, not Iraq) THE war... outlasted the 20 years they were designed to last. If anarchism breaks out in St. Alban's, all residents should, as far as possible, remain indoors or in a shelter, until the social revolution is over. It started in the Blitz, Londoners with social-economic capital escaped the capital to the Home Counties. All Terry Thomas League of Gentleman good clean healthy fun don't you know? As workers in Sarf Lahdan dwelt knee high in knees up knees Mother Brody blinky blonky blimey banter and miserablism and monochrome. Luckily for the healthy outdoorsy surburban petit-bourgeoisie, military intelligence had cracked the German codes, so they engineered the bombing of the East End instead of Harpenden. Operation Class War as it never came to be known... oh change the record you ranty leftist oaf.

Sacred to the memory of Vera Similitude
who died January 13th 1941
aged 58 years and of
Miserabilism
widower of above
who died Oct 31st 1963
aged 47 years
both greatly unloved and overly lamented
Also of Samuel (Mr. Blobby)
their infant son
who died in flagrante delicto
aged beautifully as a leather chair

Suddenly, [insert missing clause from first draft], Lorelei realigns the sensations of her imagination and her cognition whatever that means and realises the joy ride (TWOKing in East Leeds; Whizzing a Danny in 80's Liverpool; carjacking in Colombia) is the perfect vehicle to ab/use to circum/de/scribe her car crash of a second marriage.

DELAYS INEVITABLE: DUE TO ECONOMIC MYTHOLOGIES CLOGGING UP ANGELIC FLIGHT PATHS...

There's always time for a DIXIE'S MOONLIGHT FLIT

The early 90's flash front of brain. Drain off the gender fluid, rematerialise as neutral and let Dean Seattle do the talking in a pub in Brixton, past his heyday, but before yours. You settle down, brush off the Angel dust from your leather satchel and take out your nascent shorthand in readiness for steady notetaking of the most famous person you've interviewed to date. Harry Cross whose real name eludes predicted stage time for you once upon. Now you are embarking on a narrowboat marked journalist with all the conviction of a petty car thief. Half a lager later, Lunette appears and marks out the territory on which the interview is to be conducted. She has the accent straight out of film noir, a craggy blonde with world weary Marianne Faithful eyes and a protective love for bipolar disordered soul singers with a waning physical prowess in the bed dept in tandem with an increasingly bifurcated karmic resonance about as manageable as a teenage mod on a dexedrine-fuelled midnight run to oblivion and back..

- Oo la la. Dean will not like that you talk about the Dixy song. He is not a stable man. You are lucky he has not drunk today because I forbid it before gig, but do not push him on the Dixy record. You understand?

The dark matter of 80's revival will not be broached. You look around for an escape from the intensity of the stare that Lunette, Dean's wife/agent/counsellor/life coach/alcohol controller, exhibits like a usherette's torch and find that you crave another half lager and cigarette and your short hand is shaky. You switch to craggy longhand and drain the remnants of your glass. You switch track and thank Lunette for this opportunity to interview the great man, that you are a big fan, that your friend is from Ipswich and was also a performer in the 60s and you are only a trainee journalist and you have no axe to grind and anyway the question about the Dixy's record is not that important, even though it has been the basis of your entree into the entire piece you have been composing in your head ever since you knew the assignment was going ahead and the words Ooooh OOOOOH Deano!! Oh Deano!! are still passing thru your brain like a neuro-linguistically programmed soundtrack to the entire 80's like it was only yesterday which you can no longer recall with much clarity due to your own battle with alcohol and drugs demons on the borderline between midlife relaunch and relapse, especially as you can hardly distinguish between what actually took place that day and the memory of the scores of embellished versions of the interview you have since recounted as recently as that morning on a barge on the river you took refuge on when the pain receded and you learnt to breathe again. Stop! Refresh oxygen. Take another full stop and listen to the Frenchified voice in your head. This is not nostalgia. This is a remembered link to a living past you never experience except by vicarious proxy almost 20 years later.

Then the standout line (Wow!!) from the Flim Flam Man emerges from the hynotic mist, a guerrilla in the rain forest.

- I didn't wanna do no soul revue show shit. In the late 70's it was all punk and new wave shit, and soul revue show. I stoppped for a while in the 80's. Got into my hypnotist show.

- Why was that Deano?

- Why the hell would I wanna sing out my goddam heart & soul to some mother fucker eating chicken in a basket? I ain't no mother fucking wind-up monkey. I am Deano. We are the Flim Flam Band! This is get down soul music... They got Lanzarote to watch the goddam Drifters if they want that shit.. And that goddam Colin Growlan' Dixy's mother fucker....

You are drenched in Lunette's calm smile and sense her guiding star. Just a half second later, she appears from outta the mid-afternoon gloom of tobacco smog and stale ale fumes. You gather your notes and intuit that the interview is over even before she reaches over to switch off the brand new mini-tape recorder that Deano likes and insists you got from Radio Shack even though he has lived in a country that calls it Tandy for nigh on 30 years.

Later, on the Victoria Line north back to Islington and white people, you work out the story you're going to tell your friends in the pub. The real story. You'll save that for two decades later, on the back of a marriage break up, a breakdown and an embrace of humanity and positivity worthy of a Shaolin monk with a speech defect and a dark Northern past.

OooH oooo Deano! ....

Back to basics. The dilemma, like her wings, is two-fold. And as they unfold, the second-person narrator drops out, lands on its feet and shuffles off, exit stage left-wing. Her wingery each present another double-sided facet of problem. The first is the constant urge towards self-indulgent onanism. That might be ok retrospectively. But she is not Beckett or Joyce. There are whole passages of tedious post-ish modern-ist drivel congealing as hardened snot on the top lips of literary critics as we live and breathe and defecate and toil in late capitalism, utterly unread and unrecalled and unquoted and unmemorable. Yet who careth dude? The blurb says classic. The body of oeuvre solid as plastic cac. The reputation signed sealed delivered first-class degree reading classics at Oxbridge Trinity Dublin thank you very much. The student annotations from university lecturers notes in the margins of the second-hand copy you read from the charity shop tell you what you should make of it all as your eyes roll to the back of your head and you skip forward in your imagination to a good bit somewhere surely. Or should you just re-read Waiting for Jean-Luc Goddard or Ulysses S. Grant again and be done with it begorrah!

Secondly, she of course is a she, with personal identity issues to boot. Big Doc Marten's with red laces in tied like a Tom Boy to the tree of Father Nature growing out of Mother Earth. Binary bull. Ovarian Acquarian acquiescence or some such.

Secondly, for a second time. Time is our enemigo amigo. The suspension of the sentence across a prial of midlife tick-box bollocks is a prime example. Shopping at Homebase... Fifty lengths down the municipal baths... The washing that is always in need of being hung out to dry like a string of metaphor that never quite...

Then a notion. A cognition dropeth into place. Three words anchored in her flighty headlock. Hypnotherapy. Language. Change. Change: the only inconstant constant in her life. The price of Winston Churchill's survival. Change comes thru the barrel of Mao Tse-Tung's rhetoric. Change comes from without. Change the mind. Change direction. Change is issued below the scanner.

Meanwhile, THE POLITICO-MEDIA COMPLEX gets complicated: its internecine internal dispute passes off as consensual. Poppy cock for nincompoops. The evil emperor pretends to squirm for the masses.

Light. Positivity. Happy. A three-word anchor brings her down to earth. Grounded. Rooted in a frame of reference as real as any other. Love and kindness is worth a trial at Liverpool Crown Court. FC Twente is a long time ago now.

SIGN OFF along the dotted line ..................................................

So many things signed away like that. Commitment to an entire lifetime of commitments she would never indulge herself in. Experiential existence. Below the water line. In the guttersnipe where the low-life lived and the rats gnawed away like phobia. Pure notes now. Rapid fire delivery. Till later. Danbury Manor had been a red-herring along the watchtower. Will E. Kelly the one-legged cat burglar was wanted on the manor. Wil E Coyote. The worst pun in show business. The Spanish tongue twister she lost in translation. The sky is bricked up whoever will unbrick it; the unbricker who unbricks it good unbricker he will be. PIT WIT AGAINST CAPITAL AND WAIT. There was sense in not saying or writing anything. The absence of words. The active listening. The wait. Give em enough rope. Learn to hang back. Idle. Composed not compose. The happy coincidence of words. The neuralgia of nostalgia. Poetic prose. Prosaic poetry. Put it all in. As half-inched by a scouser in Paris in the autumn of her life la.

The intimacy she craved with another receded into the mist the more frantic the attempts to get closer to it. As she drew nearer intimacy inexorably moved away. Wait. Preserve energy. Wait. For Godot's sake. It will come around. Just put it all in. Go to sleep. Wait. Wake. Smile. Breathe. Content. Calm. Confident. Confident on the cusp of ego. Maybe, who cares? Leave nothing out. Keep including the process.

Once upon. There was a note about rats. Wednesday was rats day. No matter it was Tuesday now. Billy Kelly the one-armed cat burglar switched missing limbs for the hell of it. It confused the fuck out of the council. Residential care workers went temporarily insane. Good work Billy boy. The rats have escaped from the pages of Homage To Catalunya. They swim across the Cam. They can run ragged through the back streets of the Dingle. They paw across Orwell's sleeping face and into the dreams of every phobic in Room 101 until the fear subsides like their shrieks and squeaks. The 20 years old Espanish woman. Is bootiful. In CamBridge with an extra B for to learn speak good the english for to do MBA. Must Be Accountant. Marry Big Alpha-male. May Be Arsehole. Muy Bien Ahora. Monday Buy Anorak. The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plane. No good. The POUM militia is here 75 years too late for May 15th comrades. Might Be Anarchista!!

Big fcuk off rats the size of Diamond Dogs that the Colombian student saw. Too late now. We are all middle class. AND we are all poor. USA is the largest debtor nation. AND America is the wealthiest country on the planet. Rich Dad. Poor Dad. The current financial crisis (sic) masks the greatest transfer of wealth in history. Like a News International Apology, it is staggering in its hypocrisy. We are appalled by the allegations that some individuals at the Screws Of The Whore failed to uphold the values of decency and the rule of the poor law. For a business that prides itself on holding the powerful in Swiss Bank Accounts. We failed. Like fuck they did!

Don't write Watch This Space!...it's such a cliché.

The Lode Star is a navigation aid. Hair-dye (strawberry blonde), pesto, cat de-flea powder and something else she can't remember. Like the intimacy that she used to feel towards him. It's on the tip of her tongue. She used to roll it around the end of his urethra and let him watch her in the full-length mirror as he splashed over her out-stretched tongue and let it dribble down her chin. A memory that stood proud and erect with a smile on its face. The real story is the meta-sex, not the sex. The spaces in between the intensity of the fleeting moments of intimacy.

A piece of pretension drops out the back of a lorry the League Of Gentleman once used to deconstruct Jean-Paul Sartre's nausea after one too many magdalenes and espressos.

Lorelei is our spirit guide, a navigator though narrative, a postal worker on strike for less overtime in the drive against asset stripping and covert anti-Unionism on behalf of the brutal class. As our members have already made clear, she is at odds with the convention of linearity and competition. The crisis of post-complexity and the interrelated unconnectedness of hyper-unnaturalism is her honeycomb. Busy Angels live in mythical imaginations where discarded tropes, memes and other detritus of critical apparati vie for attention, so many mewling voices amid the overly anal analysis.

Angel ideation flits restlessly in search of le bon mot. Just right. Just write.

The act itself is enough. Go to work on un oeuf. Quit your job. What fucking job! The right for the fight not to work. To sit there and do nothing a la Tracey Emmin. And wait. Wait for the creative to land. She clipped on her wings and took a line from the second paragraph for a walk. Selwyn Bass, the dentist, turned her wings to lettuce.

Back in the day, before Swedish, Romanian, Portuguese dentists were ten a penny, or ten for ten billion badly spent NHS pennies, she had a thing about Selwyn Bass. He was progeny of a comedy Yorkshireman who, as part of an opening sequence, once wrote a grafitto about Arthur Scargill's appropriacy for the upcoming papal vacancy, and a can of almost non-alcoholic syrup her dad used so as to ply the gap between proper parenting and pub car park, when playing stud poker and getting plastered in the conservative Club with a small working-class c, because it could equally have been the socially conservative Labour club with one big L of a working man's northern chip on her fried shoulders, sore from sunburnt excess in General Franco's newly polyfilled Torremolinos, years before the nationalist's fascist's front's facade of missing cedilla's and catastrophic apostrophe's New Laboured to hoodwink the workers into voting.

As John Maynard Keynes once wrote down for posterity with the perchance of forethought that he would be quotable one day, on the 18.55 to Krappy Rubsnif, Nodnol. "The difficulty lies not in the unknown of the new, but in leaping from the fire escape in the fullsome knowledge that it might only leave you partially vegetized."

She was long past that stage these days. The short-sleeved white tunic and powerful not-too-hairy arms lead down to the second most important attractive feature in a man in all heterosexual fictions: his hands. Hands she likes to ideate stroking the mole on her inner thigh as a jewel of the Nile leading to the oasis of oral pleasure, drinking from the furry plate, without the dental dam that only right-on dickheads from Westminster City Council's HIV awareness team deem necessary in such an armless flight of fantasy.

She was just getting into it, when she realised Selwyn Bass was actually a solicitor and about as sexy as a spreadsheet when. An untimely period masquerading as an American full stop put an end to. Masturbatory was distinctly non-you anyway, young lady, she could hear her mother's voice moan in her head as she hovered over to unload the front loader that didn't contain her father's pristine white work shirts any more, any more than the Prishtina Sessions would make enough money for the near-Nobel prize-winning cosmologist's Liverpudlian spouse to retire on however much like Ira Gershwin and Brian Wilson he might sound like, when the wind was in the right direction. She had't the heart to tell him. She had't a heart. Period. She had clipped negation. She could only say YES! to negativity these days. She had only positive radiance in her fictive heart. She was Angel. She did menstruate though. Like a bastard. All over the page. Sticky brown splots of blood, dense thickets of cloggy claggy bloody adjectives that left scatology everywhere.

The off-the-wall English Language test question for those foreign nationals desperate enough to marry into post-Norman conquest Anglo-Saxon robotics was this, posed as intractable as the cricket conundrum for British Asians:

Q: What is a dense thicket?

Answers on a postcard please to the Immigration & Nationalism Department of the Ministry of Unsound Language Proscription before the trees, bees and plankton die out and make absolutely everything we say, think or do utterly irrelevant for all time unless you take up the smart arse position and declare that the planet couldn't care a tinker's flying threepenny bit what the fcuking hell humanity might or might not do since it will survive on a Gloria Gaynor of a whim like a stegasaurus eating a pasty in a school disco it never asked to be invited to anyway.

Anyway, the speech markers were drawing in on Lorelei. A lorra lorra linguistics led to Lodestar's navvy's equipment packing up and her Cilla Black psychological operation software kicking in. She had to go and have a word with the big boy upstairs. God was notionally from the East End of Glasgae for comic effect and always supped on Tenant's Super in homage to the spiritual properties of the old purple tin.

Anyways, Lorelei likes to blether with the big man in first person present for the benefit of the Dept. of Work and Pensions, neither of which she will ever truly have again, not in the sensory perception of the words.

"Are you an atheist, Lorelei?"

"How the hell can I be an atheist? I've just spoken to God..."

"Yeah, but before you met me?"

"Well, sort of."

"Sort of?"

"I'm an atheist, but I'm losing my religion, so to speak. Let's say, a lapsed atheist."

"Ah don't give me that, Lorelei love. You know what we say up here, don't you? 'Once an atheist, always a...'"

"...'always an atheist?' "

"No... always a pain in the erse.' Now clip your wings on hen and get tae fuck! There's another offy that needs tae be emptied before that cunt Dawkins gets back from the library."

Lorelei left God to explore his emotions, both of them. She has decided to seek out updrafts of positivity via Fatboy Slim's back catalogue. Revert to Brighton. St. Alban's 4 Hell O. It was after all happy hour again! The all-spring-summer-autumn long festival season. The collectivised attempt doomed to avoid commercialism maybe but destined to prolong alternative lebenstraum to the phoney war of deferred wage slavery until the punchline in the woods with the jolly jester's hat on. All power to the soviet of festival time, comrades!

A: A dense thicket is slightly less intelligent than a clever thicket.

Ha bloody ha!...

2011-07-31T08:37:00.000Z
THE FATHER, THE SON AND THE HOLY ROAST

SUICIDE BOMBING! was completely out of character for Jesus. But that's the point. It isn't something you make a habit of. Character profiles of suicide bombers can hardly be based on previous.

This appeared to be beyond Jehovah's ken. Jesus had tried explaining. Would He listen? Would He Hell as. Me and your mother are upset. This is not like you. You've never done anything like this before. Dios mio, all the usuals. He was just pissed cos he wanted to go with the drawn out suffering on the cross thing. Iconographic. Symbolic. Old school. You know what He's like.

And Mom? What did she ever know? She couldn't conceive of anything alone. Everything she did smacked of His Heavenly heavy hand. Her Divine Immaculation comes at a price. It's hard to develop real empathy with these mortals as it is, without Him & His Omnipresence & Capitals & Ampersands Everywhere.

God, is he on a downer or what? Resurrection's gonna be a real bitch to pull off now dude. All liddle biddy supernatural bits to pick up from out of the melange of chariot shards and Roman flesh. Apparently mine and Ponctius Pilot's spleen are almost indistinguishable. Luckily pigboy Pilot'd been stuffing his great gubernatorial gob with pork.

Jehovah half-thought about cloning up another half-man/half-deity hippy, but His Biblical Hebrew software developed a bug. My illegal music downloads I shouldn't wonder. His own downloads have gone right Emperor Nero. All powerful, my arse. Why not just magic Me and PP apart beardy? What exactly is the problemo Mr. Omnipotent?

I think He's been watching The Matrix on the laptop. Finally. Wake up and smell the chicken soup, Big Man. It's 2010 already. The Witness programme got millions twitching to get on board the big heavenly paradise space ship. He might oughta stop messing about with revelations and apostles and shit and work out a more believable reality paradigm shift. We need bigger than Bible Class.

For Chrissakes, more people watched me and a chosen elite blown to Kingdom Come on You Tube than go to church all decade. And even I still don't beat Miss South Carolina's hits. It's a digital market. We need to stage an event. Create brand awareness. Instant gratification. Hit after hit. We're selling a dream here, not shelling plastic fucking crosses.

God just don't get it. If I would’ve known you were gonna get all political on me, he said. I may as well've begotten Mohammed. Can you believe Him? Jeez.

Originally posted 03/08/2010

2011-07-23T00:39:00.001Z
EASYDEATH

- Ah! Mrs O’Ryan. Er please. Take a seat.

- Thanks.

- That’ll be £1.99, please.

- But ...

- I'm sorry Mrs O' Ryan. It's policy.

The usher-attendant accepts payment with credit or debit cards, in cash, in pounds sterling, Euros or any of the many $100 bills that are currently in circulation outside the US.

Mrs O’Ryan hands over the plastic. She uses her husband’s. She has little in the way of her own money. It was – or is it had been? - a traditional economically arranged marriage, she thinks. Leo, her politics tutor at the college, had used the phrase. She breaks down sobbing each time it springs to mind, which has been often lately.

The inexperienced usher-attendant mistakes it for true grief – an EasyDeath top five mistake of the month-type mistake, if ever there was one.

- Here at EasyDeath Funeral Emporiums we were saddened to learn of your late partner’s recent demise…

- Thank you.

The usher-attendant swings round the PDQ keypad again.

- Official condolences are £2.99 each. There’s a further £1 surcharge to be added should I happen to express personal sorrow in relation to your husband’s passing away, Mrs O’Ryan.

- OK. Whatever. That’ll be fine. Can we just get on and choose the coffin? requests the widow impatiently, as she PIN's in.

- Of course, Mrs O’Ryan, of course. May I offer you a glass of water?

- Please, she replies automatically. A second later it dawns on her that yet another expense has been incurred.

- Still? Sparkling? asks the usher-attendant.

- Or will you be inviting my active disapproval by specifying tap water? he adds.

He realised he'd said what he was supposed to be thinking. Another top five error. No matter, he’d got away with it.

- Sparkling, if you have it.

- Sorry, madam. I’m afraid we’ve only still left, says the usher-attendant, rote-like, as if reading from a staff development prompt card. Then he swiveled round on his black leather chair to get the water from the mini-hearse cooler behind him.

- Whatever you have.

- Chilled?

- Yes, that’d be nice, thanks.

- That’s an extra 50p then.

The widow puffed out her cheeks, raised her eyes and finally shook her head like the usher had already seen many times.

- Sure, replies Mrs O’Ryan, drying the corners of her eyes under her dark glasses with a piece of tissue from an EasySneeze box on the mahogany table in front of her.

Catching sight of the transaction, as he swivels back, the usher-attendant asks, “Have you just taken one or two sheets, Mrs O’Ryan. I’m afraid only the first sheet is complimentary, courtesy, I am contract-bound to add, of EasySneeze.”

Finally, she can stand no more. She lowers her dark glasses. She leans across the table and lodges a perfectly reasonable complaint about the mercenary nature of EasyDeath’s core activity.

- LOOK YOU THIEVING BASTARDS! MY HUSBAND'S JUST DIED! she articulates vehemently and clearly.

The inexperienced attendant-usher presses the red button. The red button marked on no account press without first charging the customer.

From a coffin in the corner of the reception room, her late husband’s business model sits up like a vampire, puts down the rat it’s been biting and beats her senseless until she agrees to pay for the tissue. There the EasyDeath training DVD finishes. The staff development officer signals for the lights to be turned back on.

It takes a second or two for the trainee ushers to get used to the brightness of the in-your-face orange décor. By way of an attention grabber, the trainer claps her hands sharply. Then adds, as she usually does at such a juncture, “It’s a zero tolerance approach to customer service. But it’s effective."

- Any questions? No? OK. We’ll leave it there for this morning. On your way out, don’t forget to pay the cashier if you're coming back for this afternoon’s lesson.

2011-07-22T23:53:00.002Z
ANGEL ON A PEDALO

You know a helluva lot of people, she said. I do, yeah. I fuckin' love people. People are better than lithium. You look so coolly beautiful, like someone not even trying. My phonebook is full of numbers. None do that as good as you. I've heard all the lines before, golden bollocks. I'm 45. I shit you not. I can't believe that. Look, you're shitted up again. But... but... What's that in your hand? I'm besotted. You're not. I am truly in love. You're full of shit.

The Angel on the pedalo had spoken truth.

The pedalo slowed to a halting grind. The blades, clogged with peanut butter and stale white dog turd left over from an old 70's joke about Leeds United, hadn't been cleaned since the last evening's supper skirmish. He brought in the pedalo and upturned it on to the dining table. With a spatula, he started to scrape off foetus, which built up biologically each time they went anywhere near the past. The base revealed its original yellow. He then set to work on the blades, using a folded-up bran flakes carton, he scooped off the crunchy shells of Whole Earth goodness filled with the flaky crap of Billy Bremner's cynical crunch tackle.

The Mr. Whippy slop he'd been squeezing out of his backside since an ill-advised Brick Lane dhansak lacked the consistency to do a proper job. The previous night's onslaught had required improvisation. Next-door-but-one's Rhodesian Ridgeback was a handy source of faeces when stocks were running low. The weekend was fast approaching. At this rate he'd have nothing in the tank for Friday night's prime time shite fight.

The unsteady tick of the Dr.Who police box clock tocked into his frame of reference. Dimensions of time and space are relative to capitalism's second-hand chronology. Poo! William Morris was right. Toil beckoned. The TARDIS had been tinkered with. The boss class had contracted the job out to Sir Digby Jones's personal head-fuck ninja who had wiped off 30 minutes. Literally. Half the clock face was missing. Actually 8.20am, in what passed for the real world, he'd surmised it was 8.02am. His guess was far from Accurist, and though he didn't like using sponsored adjectives, it would monetize his time, till he got his shit together.

Dipping into added dialogue invariably cost him brownie points with the missus. Negative energy drain. Far from ideal. However, the dark matter did compost into a serviceable jobby, aerodynamically and psychically speaking.

The Angel's pedalo was fit for purpose. Ding! Ding! Round 2.

Shit, that the time! Right, let's get this boy up then eh? Can't you see I'm up to my elbows in cack here. What!... and I'm not? I'M BUSY!! You fuckin' get him up. You shit!

2011-07-22T23:51:00.002Z
UNEXPECTED ITEM IN
THE BAGGING AREA

(A Tescopological Tantrum
of Melodramatic Proportions)

There's an unexpected item in my bagging area. I don't know how it got there. I didn't put it there. It's not even my bagging area. I didn't put the machine here. I wanted a human being, not a machine. Except I didn't really.

I've seen the faces of the check-out girls and boys, and the older checker-outters, back in through the out door after a long career in public administration or accounting, forced to degrade themselves as bar code scanners, shelf-stackers and exchangers of pleasantries to glassy-eyed shoppers, tanked up on cheap lager and loose change. The machines came and the checker-outters receded. And then the unexpected item in my bagging area came.

I don't know what the unexpected item in my bagging area is. It won't tell me. I have to press another button. The light on the end of the thin belisha beacon starts to flash. A warning to the world. A signal to those behind me, in the front of the queue. A reminder of just how incompetent I am at shopping.Why doesn't he just remove the unexpected item and get on with it so we can go back to out BLTs and Diet Cokes and Pringles.

I don't know how to act. I am paralysed. I know that if I do anything, I will do stuff, stuff like screaming and shouting and slamming: a mad-eyed Luddite smashing consumption-driven cultural icons of technology with my puny fists like a rock 'em sock 'em boxing robot with Parkinson's. So I don't. Instead I wait. I wait for the woman who used to be a checker-outter, who is now a self-service check-out supervisor, an upgrade in prestige and responsibility, but without the concomitant renumeration. I wait. I wait until she checks the ID of the 25-year-old Geology postgrad, who does actually look 17, and okays her bottle of sangria with an alcoholic content level lower than most shandies.

Unexpected item in the bagging area. Unexpected item in the bagging area. I push another button. Yes, I do have my own bag. No, I don't have a loyalty card. Yes, I would like to pay in cash. Yes, I am prone to sudden outbursts of rage against the machine. No, I don't think Every Little Helps. Yes, I am waiting for assistance. Unexpected item in the bagging area. Unexpected item in the bagging area.

I stop. I expel air loudly. I look behind me and shrug: the international body language for It's beyond my control, What can I do?, so even the language student from Tripoli gets it. I give a tight smile of embarrassment and turn around. Unexpected item in the bagging area. Unexpected item in the bagging area. I press another button. It asks, Does anyone expect full employment in an era of neo-liberalism? I press. Of course not. You shall just have to wait until the economy grows. This is only natural and right, isn't it? I press no. This is not a viable option. Please press any other button. There are two options: Yes and Oh! Yes. I wait for further assistance. Unexpected item in the bagging area. Unexpected item in the bagging area.

I wait. But in the queue behind they cannot wait any longer. Two pin-striped suits from the back of the line rush me and start lashing me with rolled up copies of The Economist. I defend myself with my thin 12-page Morning Star. But to no avail. I am beaten back and restrained. They force my palm down on to the Oh! Yes button and I relent. I concede. I press Oh! Yes. Oh! Yes. Oh! Yes.

Unexpected anarchist in the bagging area. Unexpected anarchist in the bagging area. Unexpected anarchist in the bagging area.

2011-07-15T20:28:00.001Z

CARBONARA EMISSION STATEMENT/
Salutti Espaghettis

We have come to the frightening conclusion
we have a lust for Goethe, linguini
and Adam Ant.

Adamant that our passion
for punk, politics, pasta
the Guns of Brixton
- and spaghetti westerns
creates the magic climate
in which we both operate.

It is our daily pannacotta
that shows us the way
out of San Jose
It is our Paolo Rossi
that makes us smile

It is Lennon's trousers that we don
to break wind at the discreet charm
of the bourgeoisie.
Custard pies
in the eyes of those who cannot see.

We MAY '68,
We might even '77,
We could '92
and we will always '83

Can the Can-Can and dance
like we mean our revolucion!
compadres,
colegas
and comrades!

We have come to the frightening conclusion...
that we haven't started yet.

2011-07-09T13:53:00.023Z
CAGEY TIGER

He woke up without an idea in his head. What to do next?

He knew what he should’ve done. He should’ve told her exactly what he desired. "You’re so wonderfully wonderfully pretty and I really want to kiss you, love cat." Love cat! Who was he kidding?

He’d already been warned off romanticizing. His allies had told him not to go there. A kiss? Too intimate. Even working girls didn’t kiss. No. Better to touch her arse and see how she reacted.

Instead he shot off an uninitiated double entendre that misfired. A surprise invasion up the Ardennes! What the…? A face full of smoke, the bullet slid out the end lamely. Plop! He should’ve created a moment. Instead he painted a picture. Adverbs and adjectives hung like canned party string over the bloody raw flesh of missed opportunity. He longed to scrape them off the prose and fill the page with mood music.

Ba-ba da-da da-da da-da. Ba-ba da-da da-da da-da. You missed, hissed the love cats. The cure? Recreate the moment here and now like it should’ve happened then.

This is nowhere near D-Day. Not by a long stretch of concentration. Yet the planning is critical. Over-planning leads to piss poor performance. Under-planning, though potentially perfect, is imperfectible. The plan then is to appear unplanned, spontaneous and relaxed, even as the unilateral sexual tension runs across the muscles in the tops of his shoulders.

He asked her how she felt."Unrelaxed", she told him tellingly.

Choice lexical item. Not tense or nervous, but unrelaxed. Like it was his fault. Like he’d put the prefix there personally. His machinations, his manoeuvres, his manliness. His men’s work prepared him for testosterone depletion, but not for this.

The subtlety of persistent low-level paranoia was all part of the chase. It had been so long he'd forgotten. He remembers now. It was ok. This wasn't psychosis; this was mild obsession with a younger love cat. Purr-fectly healthy purr-suit. Pussy footing around the tender centre, an old leopard with spots in front of his eyes.

“I know the cure for that,” he mewed.

She looked back at him, narrowing the eyes and smiling. The smile said one thing. The eyes another.

Then her mouth said, “More alcohol”.

No. No. Not that. Massage. Making love. More cream. Mmm.

He remembered how he hadn’t looked at her mouth. He’d been too verbal as usual. The invasion tactic had been intellectualized and turned into a bon mot, un esprit d’escalier in the moment that would sweep her arse off her feet and into his bunk.

She drank too quick. She got drunk too quick. She sobered up too quick. She told him all this. Not stable. Unrelaxed. And other negatives he couldn’t remember now. Now that he re-engineered the moment. The lost moment. She also told him the name of the man she actually desired, but that passed well under the radar.

In the actual lived moment, it'd been good enough. Improvising, he'd pressed the gentlest of explosive devices against her cheek. Their faces close, their noses approached intimacy. All was not lost. The bomb was primed, or so he thought.

The dips into the armoury of paranoia have so far been fruitless. Good. These days his mood is lighter; his modus operandi in transition. Yet like the cat that paws at the jelly, he has to let go. Sooner or later.

He left the pub, took an anchor from a different reality and reflected. Another younger male was on the prowl. At this stage of the campaign, compassionate leave works. Dignity is a vital weapon in the war for peace of mind.

Later he stumbled through some apologia along the lines of intensity and depression and cannabis not being a good friend, which doesn't help because the brain doesn’t hear the word not, since you can’t say no to negativity, better to say yes, and you cannot be serious about levity, so it's better to wipe a smile upon its face, trip the light fandango, Fernando and be happy.

Her gaze glazed over, however. By definition, definitions fail to impress. She sought instinct. Intuition. Animal. Body. Thrust. Power.

Instead he overcompensated with physical prowess in front of the dart board. He felt sleek poised confidently over the oche; his forearm arched in smooth muscularity; his round-the-board dexterity more deft than his love cat chat-up. He hit the target as often as not.

This is what he would do. Next time. Hit the target. Hit the beach. And turn Dunkirk into Normandy. The happiness of conquest. D-Day inevitable. After all it had already happened. A mere re-work. A historic historical re-enactment. Simply a matter of chronology.

She said she'd maybe picked up whatever it was that was going round the office and couldn't come. That she'd phone him the next day, if she felt better. That much was true. It had to be. Trust is important; unrealistic ideation of conspiracy unhelpful.

Maybe she was just sensitive, bashful, insecure… or bored more likely. Read the signs. It does exactly what it says on the can. Unrelaxed she’d said. Take her at her word. Then take the words, wrap them up in a blanket and throw them in the bottom of the river. With innocence and wonder. Because the cagey tigers thrive best without the guilt of words to clog up the cream.

- What’re you writing, daddy? asked the only child of the ex-wife’s second broken marriage.

- Nothing, little man.

D-Day planned, the bionic piano man played out as he padded into the pub. Back to launch a renewed attack. He'd grab her heart and see what happened. Fuck the flak. This time baby he'd be bulletproof.

2011-07-03T22:02:00.001Z
ADAMSKI & EVE

Dum dum bum dum dum bum dum dum dum... No, not enough bums, monologued Adamski outloud. Might need a couple more bums and a brumbum. He wasn't sure. There was no-one else in Club Eden yet. Dum dum bum dum bum bum dum brumbum bum... Adamski adored the early evening. The anticipation of the high. The come-up. The pre-preparation. The soundcheck. Just one man and his keys. Paradise. 'Course the engineer was there too, omnipresent, though rarely visible. As knobs slid and fingers fiddled, his dislocated boom-box voice emanated from a black hole at the back. Adamski couldn't see him, but he just knew what he looked like: bushy beard, regulation smiley t-shirt, smiley bandana and smiley socks. Succinctly uncool. Smiley overkill. He smiled. Adamski smiled a lot. A precursor to gurning. Dum dum dum brumbum bum dum dum dum bum bum.

He had to concentrate. He'd necked a cheeky little half, pre-soundcheck. It helped with inspiration, but focus was wavering. In out, in out, shake it all about. You do a disco biscuit and you jump around. That's what it's all… He needed to sort out his bums. He needed reverb. He needed a sample. I'VE GOT THEM ALL, the engineer had boomed. JAMES BROWN, HENDRIX, NINA SIMONE, MOTOWN, OLD PUNK. Adamski needed something late 60s/early 70s, psychedelic, cooky, a bit dark, anything on Apple’d do. But it'd been no-no’ed. I GO BACK TO BEFORE THE ARK MAN. YOU NAME IT. ANYTHING 'CEPT THE BEATLES. AND CATEGORICALLY NO APPLE. RIGHT? Sure. No probs. This was Electro. There wasn't much that wouldn't sit in the mix. But now, he had Apple in his head. He wanted Apple bad geez. Dum dum bum brumbum bum dum dum dum... Then he saw her. She hovered down the main entrance stairs to Eden. It was her. The one. The only one. Solitary lover. Under her arm? A record. 12" of Apple. Helter Skelter. When he asked her name, he mouthed it to himself a split-second before her reply. Of course, Eve knew who he was. Who didn't? Adamski was the guy who started the whole Electro-Ufology craze. Spaceman. I always wanted you to go, into Spaceman! The first righteous babe in Eden. She’d had to promise the bouncer the Earth before he'd let her in. Get the DJ to play the Beatles at an Acid House night and get her kit off! Fat chance fatty. As for Adamski, in the flesh, she'd seen more meat on a vegetarian's biro. Yet there was a connection there. Something tangible. Like part of him was already in her. Like her whole being had been fashioned out of a little piece of him. Like they were at the beginning of 900 years of togetherness. They'd have 56 smiley kids called Alpha Centauri through to Zeta and back again and then some...

“God Almighty! Those Rhubarbs are pokey. I'm talking complete poo again. Hope I haven't necked too early. Better get him to play this LP 'fore I get too loved up.”

WHOA! WHO LET YOU IN? boomed the voice. THAT ONE’S A PROPER SNAKE IN THE GRASS ADAMSKI. YOU WANNA WATCH HER. Too late. He laid the Apple platter on the deck and moved the stylus over. When you get to the bottom, you go back to the top of the slide, where you turn and you stop and you go for a ride till you to the bottom and ...

Oh no Yoko! It all went Pete Tong. It suddenly dawned on Adamski and Eve. They were fully clothed. They felt odd. The weighty garments restricted their breathing. Their pupils dilated. Their breathing quickened. There was only one thing. KIT OFF!

The doorman bounced down the stairs. Christmas had come early. Bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum…

2011-07-03T14:50:00.023Z
RISK ASSESSMENT

Potter pushed open the door and entered the room. He strode over to J.K.'s desk and said:

- So, Rowling you voracious little bookworm you, how much are you worth then? How much filthy lucre have you screwed out of Babylon on the back of my literary success then Rowly Wowly? Prey tell.

- I don't have to answer to you. You little shrimp. You'll do as I say wizard boy!

Potter huffed out of the room to pursue a gang of hoodies. He'd watched them as they scratched his next-door-but-one neighbour's Vauxhall Frontera. It was metallic chrome/grey like most of the 4X4's, Mercedes and Quidditch sticks that were parked up on the suburban pavements. He didn't like the look of the tall one. That lad smelt of trouble. He reeked of skunk and Special Brew. He knew he knew the others from somewhere. He would end up a D.O.A at Fazakerley General one day.

Harry fell out of the sky. It wasn't the first time he'd been tanked up in Prague. Three pints of Budvar and three whiskey chasers later, he and two EFL teachers went bunjee-jumping in the car park. The cord was being used for the 451st time. It had been purchased at a knock-down price. The previous UK owners had to stop using it after 300 jumps so as to comply with health & safety. It could get used another 150 times or more in Poland and Czech apparently. His friends had a moment of lucid dread. The blood was like Hungarian Country wine. The bottom of their trousers smelt of vomit. The wet puddles in the car park reminded them of home.

It took a quantum leap of the imagination to make the link with US foreign policy (1945- ). Kim Jong Il's nuclear bomb fails to detonate. The conventional explosives designed to set it off caused 3.5's worth of register on Richter, but failed to ignite the atomic device and cause an actual nuclear test explosion. Meanwhile, Harry Potter is allowed not only to have nuclear weapons, but carry on his brutal military occupation of Palestine with impunity. JK Rowling scored a 6 on the likelihood that Harry would have a fatal accident in Seething Wells Wood, lying horizontally on his back, away from the tree, according to original eye witness reports.

Just what exactly were the chances of a genome being cross-fertilised by military intelligence. The prestidigation DNA has already escaped from Glaxo Smith Beecham Kline Monsanto. So who knows?

2011-06-28T11:31:00.001Z
RED SQUIRREL STRONGHOLD

Emily (nee Henceforth) and Dover (Thrift) cut as fine a pair of characters as any single sentence opening could hope for: Thrift has a suedehead/feathercut mullet and mutton chop/70's footballers' sideboards fashioned off of a Morrissey B-side, a dark, unhealthy obsession for Jamaican music, consumes out-of-sell-by date processed product, and since his late teens in a collection of Swan Vesta matchboxes has warehoused his nasal hair clippings, and polished his Doctor Marten's with five, at least, different types of resin; Henceforth, known as Hence to all, save Dover, who invariably calls her Em, after his favourite printing term, is a Madam Curie of a woman without the Polish background or fatal interest in radioactivity; her interest lies in fine art, crafts, horticulture, music, drama, and the red squirrel, above all, the red squirrel - whose dilemma is such that it is down to its last three remaining strongholds (Northumbria, Cumbria and Liverpool) - in which cause she has invested as much emotional leverage as late capitalism and post-nuclear familiarisation has thus permitted her. So far. But...

But first nothing. In classic late-19th scientific bourgeoisification, Dover and Hence, his wife, have time on their hands. They are inspecting a wristwatch, bequeathed to Emily from her paternal grandfather when she was still being pimped as a child model for Patek Phillipe watches. They sit close and directly opposite each other as if on the set of er... that Brookside like, sipping wholly unnaturalistic kitchen sink PG tips, despite their vague aspirations to versimilitude and upper-middle class respectability. They are too posed. Their hands touch, yet there is no spark between them, save the static charge of commerce and lucre.

A lame pun hobbles into paragraph and hobbles out again as the writer pans in. Puncture mended. Dishes less than half done. Bunk beds disassembled. Em and Dover anticipate expectantly nonetheless. Waging war on miserable ideation is not their concern. Their immediate existential actuality presses upon their souls. Souls? New Age backlash. Relish the material. The physicality of the now. The matter over the mind. Mind you. He has a point. Dr Janov. The brain feels. It doesn't talk. What is that voice in my head then? What? It's me Dover!. Remember? Yes. So sorry. Now where's the Nikolai Gogol line I had lying about. Thrifty my boy, be a mate and fuck off... She'll be round in ten minutes. Look, why don't you spin up a doobie and go get laced while I develop the plot I'm clearly in danger of losing... Doctor you don't understand? This is not normal. Me and Em can no longer feel, touch, believe in each other. We no longer feel real anymore. We are flat, two dimensional objets d'art for your amusement... Hence hoped you might suminstrate a tonic. A tonic? Who do you think I am? It says Janov on the door I only very recently painted, not Kellogg. Suddenly, I have a hankering for breakfast cereal. You see? I am prone to free associate and cravings. Authenticity! This is what you and Hence lack Thrifty. Appetites. Get back in there and crave for it. Go get jiggy before I take it away from you. Knoworrean Dover? I am getting through to that Victorian idialect of yours my good man. Let's say, at this junture, the continuation of the tale has been put on hold whilst your realism is stretched to bulging point. How's about that then? Henceforth, Dover, you two will be busy getting your third dimension away and your existential mojo working, eh? As for me, I need a paragraph break and a cup of tea...

I'm bushed.

2011-06-27T19:21:00.004Z
SEMIAUTOMATIC WRITING FOR THE PEOPLE
(for Rantin' Richie not Michael Stipe)

This is semiautomatic writing for the people
This is political poetry

This is political poetry
for the repossessed
for the underexpressed mass
for the lowermiddleaged
overworkingclassed
littlemiddleEnglander

This is political poetry
This is symptomatic of the people who write
for the people who listen
and care and share ideas
and help other people
and who think we deserve something better

These are rampant unfettered letters of mass deconstruction

This is political poetry

This is poetry performance for the underperformers
the misconceived ill-believed pre-occupiers
who don't see eye to eye
with the all-consuming overachievers
who hire and fire
and hotwire ideas from the mainstream
steering Chelsea tractors
through blackholes of utter contempt
of the climatic conditions of common humanity
in the name of a self-preservation society
that is nothing of the sort really
because we're all shit up eco-creek
- paddle or no paddle

This is political poetry

This is the poetics of politics for the people
because Victoria Beckham's got more important things to say
about how lucky she is to be rich and famous
and about how money and celebrity
can't really make you're happy anyway
if you're crippled inside and anorexic
and desperate to have a third baby
... while Third World babies starve to death every day

This political poetry is not for sheeple

it's for additive-free thinkers
chomskyian muckrakers
indymedia makers
the non-movers and shakers
singleparented backachers
underwaged slaves of desire
idea-inspired wide-eyed
political imagery junkies

This is people poetry for the political

because not all the people are all at home
all the time
all watching other people
trying to keep it real
on reality TV
on unfeasibly widescreen telly
while other people write poetry
and come out on strike on a Thursday

This is political poetry
for all the people who are here

Thank you, comrades

2011-06-27T13:06:00.001Z
KAFFE UND SCHIZOPHRENIE

Unduly led astray by his star for so long, the German teacher wandered lonely as a clown into a maelstrom of cross dialogue, kaffee und kuchen and a delightfully crisp conversation with a pair of schizophrenics who were as solvent as could be expected given the prevailing psychological climate.

Fritz Leipzig from just outside Munich spoke first. His eyes were so far apart it was difficult to know which one to make eye contact with first. No matter however, since the halogen blondeness of his facial hair made such visual niceties as redundant as a prosthetic arm on a table fussball figure.

"I asked Uncle Google, but he wouldn't tell me," continued Fritz, as he wiped the Krautertee that was dripping from his beard.

"You were about to expound upon your philosophy of all things, Fritz", the German teacher hinted.

"Nein. In actual point of fact, I said that following many years of painstaking meditation and empirical research, I have indeed discovered the secret of all things, indubitably and beyond any shade of doubt. But I did not say that I shall be divulging aforesaid secret to all and sundry over a Windbeutel, as if it were of no import in the grand cosmological schemata of the multiverse. The significance of my findings should be lost like a kuchen in the Black Forest. You shall have to be your own metaphysical spirit guide, Hanzel."

"Indeed Fritz, indeed", nodded the teacher, before turning to Karl Heinze Duddelburg for a second opinion. "Your colleague is quite the wag, nicht wahr?"

Karl Heinze, who had a tangent all of his own to develop, and who preferred double espresso to the insipid filter coffee of the library mezzanine, yawned in mock agreement. His glasses needed cleaning badly, which is how they were accustomed to being cleaned, in common with everything else he wore: matted black hair, Czech army parka, third-hand zipped cardigan and borrowed boots. Mental hygiene was a higher priority than sartorial orderliness.

"I have a favourite cake now. I never used to have a favourite cake. I never used to give a flying strugel, but nowadays I have a favourite cake. It's..."

"...the world famous Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte?", intervened the teacher.

Classically, he couldn't resist finishing off the statements of others. It drove his students crazy. In present company, such an outcome would hardly have been noticed.

"Pah! The simple Käsekuchen is a design classic, worthy of the Bauhaus, and weighty enough in intent to defecate all over your Schwarzwälder. The Schwarzwälder is the whore of cakes", soapboxed Herr Duddelburg.

Herr Leipzig seized upon the other two men's discord to weave in another feral comment from the margins apropos Italian lager beer.

"Bah Duddelburg! What do the Italians know of pilsner? This is not Pietro Gnocchi or Lambretta or even Gina Lollobrigida. This is weiss bier! Hubris. Sheer hubris. I have had my basin full of Italian beer. It is an outrage that it is even allowed to enter Bavaria at all, above all in such proximity to OktoberFest. My abhorrence of the municipality is without bounds. The loathing in which I cover Alderman Krautzberger has no equal in contemporary brewing circles."

With fewer than ten minutes remaining before he was obliged to return to his classroom of precocious preoccupied preteens, the German teacher attempted to rein in disparity, diversity and deadlock with a final Latinate flourish he had been saving for just such an occasion.

"I fear that I must leave you to your ruminations. My class awaits. I concur that the ugliness of the Schwarzwälder is classic. It sweeps aside clarity and embraces ambiguity. As for the town council, there is no contempt worthy of the name. Therefore, let us pose no further questions to nature and, as Francesco Totti, the Italian Serie A footballer, once remarked, when the sports reporter that was interviewing him, observed: carpe diem, Herren Duddelburg und Leipzig, carpe diem".

"We should seize the day for life is short?" proposed Karl Heinze and Fritz, in harmonious unison for the first time in years.

"Nein", replied the German teacher.

"In actual point of fact, the aforementioned Herr Totti apologized for his ignorance, adding I am sorry signor, but I do not speak English."

The two friends, neither of whom had succumbed to schizophrenia in some time, regarded one another with all the distrust of a pair of sleighted Latin scholars at a Poundstretcher closing down sale.

The German teacher smirked as he rose to leave. The tinge of residual paranoia would help take the edge off that afternoon's Deutsche Verbe Konjugationen.

"Guten Tag, gentlemen. Enjoy your kuchen."