Monday 2 September 2019

Books at the end of the road

I'm starting to dismantle this blog. A book will be published this autumn containing some of it plus other stuff. Another book is planned for the spring.

It has all become unweildy and infathomable and other tales cannot be told here. I'll post details of the books in due course.

Sunday 25 August 2019

Carnival 2019

A beautiful dawn.
6.00 am. The streets are quiet save the guys setting up sound systems and stalls and the the high vizzed police already patrolling the streets. There seems to be more of them than previous years but maybe that is my imagination.

 

Screening arches

Considerate grafitti. 


Guardians of the urinal.


Chillin'

Thursday 22 August 2019

Mangrove steel band rehearsal All Saints Road. Carnival 2019


Setting up for tomorrow night in All Saints Road. For me and many others the best part of carnival. A pre-party party.

Saturday 17 August 2019

Defying medical science with a trombone.

Ten years ago, when I first became ill with lung disease, I lay on a hospital bed irrigated and oxidised by tubes, fussy nurses drawing blood and being fed miserable things.
A doctor sat, tears in his eyes, at the foot of the bed and informed me that I would never play the trombone again.

I am not one to take this kind of thing lying down and within weeks I started the process of proving him wrong and now, ten years later I am able to share this photograph with you:


I am about to go on stage to perform John Cage's 4'33.




How wrong was that doctor.

Monday 5 August 2019

The Bishop admits to his domestic habits.


Once the subject of egg quality had been exhausted.

Bishop: I enjoy nothing more of an evening than mulling over my sermons whilst washing the dishes but often find that the maid has beaten me to it.

William Spooner: Your wishes dashed so to speak.

Bishop: I often imagine that one day there will be a machine invented for wish dashing. One would just fill it up then sit back in dissapointment. Of course I would still have the fine crystal and Wedgewood.

Spooner: Ah yes, Wedgewood, there are no two ways about that.

With apologies to Gerald Du Maurier.


Sunday 28 July 2019

Graveside phantosmia


 

Imagined scents, 
spring magnolia walks
missed birthdays
vanilla
wet dog after rainy walks
pine needles and orange of lost christmasses
bicycle oil
antiseptic cream
playdo, paint and glue
summer gardens
caged tigers
autumn woods

that a child, dancing, scattering confetti on her mothers grave
makes real.







Wednesday 17 July 2019

The elastic in my ironic pants.

The elastic in my ironic pants is broken
I call them my ironic pants
because they are my favourite pants
but were given to me
by the person I dislike most on this planet
the pants are dark blue with pink spots
and fitted well when new
I cannot say that they are lucky pants
for I have had not much luck of late
pants on or otherwise
save her departing from my life

Walking home this evening
the elastic broke
they do not fit at all well now

I have thrown them in the bin

Closure

Zion filming the video for 'Lay you down'.

Monday 1 July 2019

A poke in the eye for Britains Celts.

Eamon O'Kelly
Eamon O'Kelly, History enthusiast
Your question is based on a mistaken assumption. There are no Celts in the British Isles. Celtic culture flourished in continental Europe from about 800 BC until the beginning of the Common Era, by which time most of the Celts had been Romanized to varying degrees. In other words, the Celts have been dead and gone for about two thousand years.

Sunday 23 June 2019

The Nero complex.*

It seems that everyone is now on the fiddle
politicians are fiddling the facts
Catholics priests fiddling with choirboys
most of us fiddling our tax
Boris is fiddling with everything
including other men's wives
while the cuckolds at home in their kitchens
are fiddling with very sharp knives
the orchestra's are all on the fiddle
including those without violins
unlike poor maligned Nero
(fiddling was not one of his sins)
brexiteers are fiddling with figures
remainers playing with sums
all of them fiddling with cushions
beneath uncomfortable bums
violinists are legitimately fiddling
as are children with all of their food
unlike poor maligned Nero*
(who was frankly not in the mood).

As society now burns with resentment
as are the genuinely revolting youth
The rest of them just fiddle on fiddle on
to avoid stating the horrible truth.



* Nero did not fiddle while Rome burned. violins did not arrive until 1500 years later. If he was playing an instrument it would have been a harp, he was known for his virtuosity on the instrument.

Source: Gyles, Mary Francis. "Nero fiddled while Rome burned."­ The Classical Journal. January 1947.












Saturday 8 June 2019

Muse know thyself.

Work in progress


All evil has, within itself, the seed of that which will destroy it.
I will not hate you, evil feeds on hate.
I will pity you, pity nourishes the seed.
The seed of doubt that germinates within you
feeds off your flesh
leaving nothing but a hollow skin
as that discarded by a snake
pock marked, scabbed, livid.

Sad. 

Monday 27 May 2019

Fraudulent beauty.

























all colour and no scent
the bloom of a suicides freshly cut wrist
look at me
but don't look too closely








email archaology.



sherds of broken promises
shadows of dreams
shattered tesserae of hope and joy

the meadow where we were once happy
now scarred and unrecognisable
hides shared archaology beneath

Impossible to delete







Wednesday 15 May 2019

Murder in Notting Hill.





Murder in Notting Hill – A book by Mark Olden



Police and council workmen search a drain for the murder weapon.
Copyright: Mirrorpix.
"For anyone interested in justice in modern Britain this is an important book." Brian Cathcart, author The Case of Stephen Lawrence

At around midnight on May 17, 1959, a white gang ambushed Antiguan carpenter Kelso Cochrane on the corner of a Notting Hill slum street. One of them plunged a knife into his heart. He was never caught. Murder in Notting Hill is a tale of crumbling tenements transformed into a millionaires’ playground, of the district’s fading white working class, and of a veil finally being lifted on the past.
Mark Olden is a London-based print and broadcast journalist. He has worked for Channel 4 and the BBC and written for publications including The Guardian, The Observer, The Independent, The New Statesman and The Sunday Times.
Click to buy: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Murder-Notting-Hill-Mark-Olden/dp/1846945364

Saturday 11 May 2019

BBC news website airs fake video of multiple lightning strike.

Naughty BBC or gullible BBC?

Click on the link and watch the video of supposed multiple lightning strikes on the same spot. Look closely and you will see that it is the same strike repeated a number of times.

Sloppy BBC.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-48235462/lightning-strikes-twice-and-again-and-again

An ormolu stool for the new Royal baby.

From the archive.



A nation rejoices
a nation is happy
for a baby from Wales
has filled up her nappy

no signs of austerity
in her posterior dexterity
yet for her no diamond
or other rare jewel

no silver
no pearls
but the perfectly formed whirls
of a
golden hued,
curlicued
ormolu stool.

We wrapped it in tissue
sent it off to the issue
of the issue
of our dear Queen's eldest son
With a brief covering word
to authenticate the turd
as a born and bred, dressed in red,
Welsh number one.

Suggesting that
when they unwrap it
they have Gilbert and George snap it
for in turd matters they
are certainly no fool
And will quickly identify
reasons aplenty why
(in the words of the hip)
it is undeniably cool...

To be blissfully happy
with the contents of a nappy:

A golden hued, curlicued, ormolu stool.


Lines written on failing to become poet laureate.

Passed over for the laureateship again
god knows I've tried

written poems about royal weddings and babies
odes to wildlife, urns and joy
tedious blank verse self indulgencies
doggerel
mentioned Amy Winehouse
declared my black moods mixed race
allowed my inner child a voice
played fast and loose with convention
written stuff that rhymes
churned it out by the metre
and the foot:  iamb, trochee, dactyl, anapest, spondee, and pyrrhic

all to no avail 



Friday 10 May 2019

Dart morning.

Fat lazy salty whore
Rolls brassily into the river’s maw.

Under a counterpane of mist
A blanket of oaks cloak the valley
Down to limpet pocked rocks
Teased by the lardy tarts petticoats.

On, in, swell diminishes to lap.
Fox and otter quarter the shore

The rising tide and sun
dressing the mud in sequins.

Working boats steam seaward
Gulls dogging ploughed wakes.
Sip and plat of my oars
As they turn the meaty water like spaded sods.

Wednesday 8 May 2019

Rare Sumatran pygmy elephant discovered trapped in Notting hill basement.




A very rare pygmy elephant has been discovered 'trapped' in a Notting Hill basement. the animal is unharmed and seemingly quite relaxed about the situation.




Due to the rarity of the creature and the fact that no such animal is registered in any UK zoo it is assumed that the elephant has escaped from one of the many illegal sub-basement menageries that are suspected to exist in the affluent west London area. This would also explain the animal's laid back attitude to its current situation. It is assumed that the owner will not come forward to claim the illegally imported beast.

Sumatran pygmy elephants are only found in Sumatra and on the island of Mauritius where they have been kept for centuries as an ornament to the famed bonsai Baobab gardens, where they stand motionless for much of the time, that are unique to the Indian ocean island.

The owner of the house where the elephant was found and who prefers to remain annonymous stated that she would prefer it if passers by would refrain from feeding the animal buns as the crumbs were difficult to clean up.

Although the creature, now named Elaphant n daroum by local schoolchildren, seems happy enough a rescue attempt will be made in the next few days.


Tuesday 7 May 2019

I became your mirror.

I remembered your conversations
about a child losing innocence
as we walked on the heath that day
long after he had gone
I instinctively picked up a stick
pointed it at you
shouted bang
and killed the woman who chased him away
you snapped then
snapped the stick, snapped at me
you would not blame yourself of course not
that day I did not lose my innocence
YOU gave me guilt.
and I became your mirror.

Friday 5 April 2019

Discerning mice give thumbs up to local bakery.

This made me chuckle, found on the MyLondon site:


"A Ladbroke Grove bakery was given the worst possible hygiene rating after an inspector found "one of the heaviest and mouse extensive mouse infestations" they had ever seen.
After an inspection on February 21, St Helen's Bakery was given a 0 out of 5 food hygiene rating by Kensington and Chelseacouncil, meaning that urgent improvement is required.

There is more HERE

I imagine that the mice gave it a very high rating.

The Portobello Gold has had a facelift.

A few weeks ago I was asked to sign a petition to RBKC regarding the facade of the gold which is currently undergoing refurbishment. I was happy  to sign the petition, the building is an unattractive piece of 20th century utilitarian architecture totally out of place on Portobello road. I was also surprised to recieve an email of thanks from the new owner.

I assumed from looking at the proposal that the brick facade was to be painted with a fragmented looking mural, nothing remarkable but an improvement all the same.

I walked up  to take a look at the progress today and was very pleasantly surprised, far from painted bricks the entire face has been rendered and painted then the render nibbled away to form the image. I imagine a port fed stitlon attacked by a bunch of artistic mice might look similar.

Well worth stopping to have a look. Now we must wait to see what incarnation a well liked local pub returns as. It opens soon I understand.












Thursday 28 March 2019

Meaningful Vote 3: The legal implications of separating the Withdrawal Agreement and the Political Declaration

Found this on the interweb on the Public law for everyone blog by Professor Mark Elliot:

 'The Government has confirmed that tomorrow, Friday 29 March, it will lay a motion before the House of Commons seeking its approval of the Withdrawal Agreement — but not of the Political Declaration concerning the UK’s future relationship with the EU. It has further indicated that if the Withdrawal Agreement is approved, it will introduce into Parliament the long-awaited ‘Implementation Bill’, which would be needed in order to give effect in domestic law to the Withdrawal Agreement. As far as the legal implications of this proposed course of action are concerned, three issues are worth mentioning."

More HERE


Wednesday 27 March 2019

Brexistential angst.

"Brexistential angst", sometimes called existential dread, anxiety, or anguish, is a term that is common to manybrexistentialist thinkers. It is generally held to be a negative feeling arising from the experience of human freedom and responsibility. The archetypical example is the experience one has when standing on a cliff where one not only fears falling off it, but also dreads the possibility of throwing oneself off. In this experience that "nothing is holding me back", one senses the lack of anything that predetermines one to either throw oneself off or to stand still, and one experiences one's own freedom. Angst, according to the modern existentialist, Adam Fong, is the sudden realization of a lack of meaning, often while one completes a task that initially seems to have intrinsic meaning.
It can also be seen in relation to the previous point how angst is before nothing, and this is what sets it apart from fear that has an object. While in the case of fear, one can take definitive measures to remove the object of fear, in the case of angst, no such "constructive" measures are possible. The use of the word "nothing" in this context relates both to the inherent insecurity about the consequences of one's actions, and to the fact that, in experiencing freedom as angst, one also realizes that one is fully responsible for these consequences. There is nothing in people (genetically, for instance) that acts in their stead—that they can blame if something goes wrong. Therefore, not every choice is perceived as having dreadful possible consequences (and, it can be claimed, human lives would be unbearable if every choice facilitated dread). However, this doesn't change the fact that freedom remains a condition of every action.

Sunday 3 March 2019

The greatest poet the world has ever seen.

For Jan Nieupjur. RIP.


Dressed in ermine he ransacked wardrobes for rags,
combed hedgehogs for fleas.
Eviscerated boots for spores of poets foot
and got down with the homeless and the poor.
He shaved Schrodingers cat with Occams razor
then taught it Braille
in order to better understand his acne
acne that did not respond to Keats or Byron or any of the other guitarless lyricists
but responded to his doggerel
as he slavered on the ointment labelled 'keep away from children, they grow into critics'
and watched as the pustules subsided.

How many other poets, he mused, can cure acne with verse
I must be
The greatest poet the world has ever seen.



Wednesday 27 February 2019

The forlorn hopes of the brides parents.




































The forlorn hopes of the brides parents were crushed when the groom arrived with a chop saw and they realised that they were giving their daughter to the man they had spent a lifetime warning her about.

Saturday 23 February 2019

Pendulum

She asked me: 'What do you do?'
I said I am a pendulum.
She said: 'So am I'.
We held hands full of hope....

Thursday 10 January 2019

A tale of two West London pubs.

I used to live next door but one to the Cow on Westbourne Park Road. It was my local for12 years and I still pop in from time to time.

I pop in because it is, for many reasons, the best pub in West London.

I pop in because Petro or Luti will always be pleased, or pretend to be pleased, to see me, Petro especially knows what I want before I do. Mid week there will always be people I know from years back who have the same liking for the place and the food is the best in any pub that I know of; it is not 'gastro bollocks' it is good food.

Tom, who owns the place has a very good idea of what is what and what should be. He has made it a destination rather than just a local. This can be annoying at weekends when the place is rammed, but I guess that is the price you pay for a bloody good pub down the road.

I called in tonight, walked in after a long absence to see that all was as is should be and on top of that Ian has grown facial hair, Janek looks even younger, Colette has cut her hair but it is still the colour of new pennies and Jake looks the same as ever and the place was full and vibrant.

Later, after a trip to Tesco I popped into the Italian Job on All Saints Road, just off Portobello Road, surely a 'cool' place for a pub but without any soul. Of course it is a 'chain' pub.

I'm going to let a picture tell a thousand words:


Saturday 5 January 2019

There is a dog


Got up, dressed to kill and someone to kill but Someone whispered 'NO'.

I knew none of this until I took another look at this photograph. There is a dog.


There is a dog. And the dog whispered : ''No Tristan no, I know the woman you want to kill  deserves to die but she should not die by your hand.

There is a dog








Sent from my iPhone

Thursday 20 December 2018

White pebbles.

 


I watched you being led into that dark place
led by a creature forged from lies and hate
In time you will find the first of many
white pebbles
that will lead you into the light.

Wednesday 19 December 2018

Brexit to cause shortage of contract killers in UK.

According to a goverment source Britain will experience a dire shortage of skilled assassins as a result of our departure from europe.

Since the 1990's both MI5 and the Army have stopped training programmes for hit men preferring to use freelancers, the majority of whom are from Eastern Europe. The idea of a tuxedo clad old Etonian armed with an automatic, a martini and a smooth line of patter is pure fantasy.

Such is the concern within government circles that plans are well advanced for producing home grown killers.

My source told me:

'Department of education and DWP heads have been approached and asked to come up with a viable scheme for fast tracking competent killers within the next few years. It is hoped that more women can be trained up. 'After all'. He said. 'Women have innate skills that make them first class Assassins''
                                       Villanelle

The government recently commissioned the BBC to produce the Series 'Killing Eve' complete with female killer Villanelle in order to make the occupation more attractive to women.

I understand that applicants with personality disorders will be extremely welcome.

Interested individuals should contact their nearest Job Centre.

Monday 26 November 2018

A bag for life... After death.





















It will not be the cough
that carries me off
nor will I go down
in a coffin
But a bag for life
... After death
that I shall finally
go off in.    

Friday 16 November 2018

Portobello Panto 2018 at the Tabernacle.


 

Yes it is that time of the year again.

Early Bird tickets for this year's Portobello Panto Presents: "Snow White and the Seven Runaways" are now available to purchase via this link:
https://www.tabernaclew11.com/whats-on
Grab them while they're hot!

Wednesday 12 September 2018

The brainwashing of children.

From an article on the BBC website today:


"When parents separate, where the children live, how much time they spend with Mum or Dad, can be hard to agree.
Sometimes a child starts refusing to see their other parent.
This autumn, social workers who look after a child's interests in the family courts are being given new guidelines to help with these cases.
For the first time this will consider the possibility a child has been deliberately turned against one parent, by the other
 Parental alienation, as it's called, will be just one of the options a social worker might consider.
It's a controversial concept which the courts have been trying to grapple with for years in cases where the parents are locked into entrenched legal action over contact.
There is no consensus and not a great deal of research, so how might it be considered by courts here?
The intensity or frequency of behaviour might be one of the ways this is set apart from the disagreements that are often part of separation.
"Think of a child experiencing a separation, the mother or father bad mouthing, or withholding warmth and affection unless they agree with an argument," says Sarah Parsons of the Children and Families Court Advisory Service.
"If it's repeated it can have an invasive, intrusive effect on wellbeing. A child can think the only way to stay safe is to side with one parent and reject the other."
".

See more HERE

Monday 4 June 2018

Andrew O'Hagan: Grenfell Tower. Piss poor journalism.



The publication of this thing does no one any favours except RBKC councilors, Pagett Brown and Fielding Mellen in particular and  of course O'Hagans bank account.

What is wrong with it:

The timing of this publication, before any inquiry has been concluded and before any results are published demonstrates an arrogance of monumental proportions on the part of O'Hagan.

It is biased conjecture at best.

It fails to acknowledge absolute facts regarding the cladding of the building in favour of defending the councilors who. for whatever reasons, allowed the work to be carried out. The argument that RBKC's use of dangerous cladding was ok because everyone else was doing it is laughable.

It casually lays blame on the Fire Service for the number of deaths. It does not point out that, but for the cladding mistakes, the Fire Service, having put out the fire on the fourth floor would have gone home. Job Done.

O'Hagan is so keen to defend and praise Pagett Brown and Fielding Mellen and others that he has completely missed the big story. I would point him in the direction of Companies House records.

I could go on and on but I won't beyond saying that the entire thing is so flawed and biased that it even casts doubt on the facts that it gets right.

It is a monumental piece of 'up my own arse, look how clever I am, journalism' with no concern for truth or justice and a very keen enthusiasm for Town Hall brown nosing.

For the record, I lived in the shadow of Grenfell at the time of the fire. I watched it from the start. I experienced first hand the horrors and I experienced first hand the inadequacy of RBKC in its response.












Tuesday 22 May 2018

Tesco to remove dates from stores.



Tesco is to stop stocking dates in its stores.

A spokesperson said that this would stop uneaten dates being thrown away by consumers.

etc etc etc

The many faces of tax and benefits fraud.

It is easy to assume that benefit fraud is perpetrated by 'pond life and scum'.
This is not the case.

I've spent the past 12 months looking into the abuse of benefits in this area and find that the benefit cheat is more likely to be someone in work, who, rather than being on the breadline feels that they deserve more than they earn and to that end fiddles council tax or single parent childcare benefits.

Benefit frauds and council tax frauds are frequently carried out by individuals who think that they are above suspicion and therefore free from detection.  They are 'nice' educated folk whose nasty habits (they hope) will never come to light.

The chances are that someone standing next to you at the school gates, sitting accross the table at a dinner party, living two doors away or up the street is abusing the system. Even that nice police officer next door.

It is easy to do.

Thanks to the internet and Open Source information it is now getting easier to detect.

more later....




Thursday 17 May 2018

Fleur Dumal, the muse from hell.

 
 Illustration for Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire. Odilon Redon 1890.

Jan Nieupjur paid a rare visit yesterday. We sat in the sun, shared a few beers and a few memories but it wasn't long before he turned our thoughts to the muse:

"I've met a new muse ." He informed me.

"Her name is Fleur Dumal, she is the most selfish human being I have ever met; lies constantly, would sell her mother for a glass of wine and is totally untrustworthy... In essence the perfect muse.

She is an artist without a shred of creativity or talent but has a phenomenal delusional self belief in her greatness."

Hmmmm. Sounds familiar

"She wants to write Tristan and to that end could she perhaps pen an occasional post for the blog. Would you indulge her, it might be fun."

I of course, in the interests of equality, agreed and will be posting her occasional thread entitled: 'Life in the pits'.

Should be interesting.