Seeing out the old.

Haunted by the ghosts of children
as they pre-decease
taunted by returning conscience
ageing ain't a piece of cake.

Death…

Release.

Road trip No. 2. Naked Road Dog.

13.50. M4. As two and a half litres of volvo thunders beneath my thighs the steering twitches as we stray onto the cats eyes…. and a small boy asks: Are we still in London, and we can't say no because the minute we do we know the next question will be: Are we at the bridge?

Are we at the bridge yet?

Knock it down a cog, give it some throttle, catch me white van man if you've got the bottle.

Are we at the bridge yet?

And tramps like us... Baby we were born to motor down to cardiff in a Volvo estate at a sensible speed due to having children on board.

Road Runner Road Runner doing sensible miles an hour.

Are we at the bridge yet?

And I drift into a maserati drop top two lane black top full head of hair kind of reverie.

Are we at the bridge yet?

Then we ARE at the bridge and I realise the purpose of the high fences either side… They are to stop parents (Crying. 'Yes we are fucking at the bridge') from flinging seven year olds from cars as they cross.

Are we still in London?

I promise you that this is a genuine question asked by a seven year old as he crosses the severn Bridge.

I mentally dock his pocket money £6.20 to pay for the troll reminding him that in fairy tales they just ate you as you crossed, they didn't fleece you beforehand.

You wanna see a road dog naked?.. Just stand downwind of the Severn bridge.

TBC

Road Trip. For road Dogs everywhere, empathy man!

11.00 am West 10. Head on down to Sainsbury's Ladbroke Grove to gas up. They only have City Diesel but we are heading off piste, will city diesel work in the sticks?  We are road dogs and will chance it. The air machine ain't working; gonna have to wing the rubber then.  Shit! No boiled sweets at the checkout… Don't they know that road dogs don't do fudge or jellybabies!

12.00 Midday. Car loaded with 3 kids and their toys, little room for essentials apart from 6 bottles of Evian. In light of the oncoming storms I have packed 5 chocolate chip cookies and tobacco; cigarettes is the only way to deal with the cries of freezing children. it would be criminal to share my smokes with them so at least I have something to rely on… I may be a road dog but I care for my children's welfare as they freeze in the snow bound wastes of the M4.

We are off.

12.10. Hammersmith. London. ten minutes into the trip boy number two vomits copiously, refusing offer of gumboot or window as target chooses to vomit liberally throughout passenger compartment. We are road dogs…

12.12. A4. Garage stop to hose down boy number two. Boy number two seems pleased with the attention gained. Good news though, garage has boiled sweets. Bad news: Baby wipes left on car roof. Good news for someone else: Free pack of baby wipes found on A4.

12.27. A4. After a smooth transition to gear 5 we are Westbound.

Me. I'm the king of the road in my vomit scented chariot, wondering how many times I can put up with a seven year old asking if we are there yet.

I feel like telling him that he is closer to hell than to Cardiff.

And then the baby cries and I know it can only get worse.

But we are road dogs.

TBC

A Christmas tale.

Dear Mummy, I hope you can read this, it is really hard to write because it is hard to hold a pencil with a webbed hand.

It isn't really my fault. I want to blame you for trying to maintain in me a belief in Father Christmas. but it isn't your fault either.

I blame the jelly beans.

I awoke at four this morning and found a stocking at the foot of my bed, it was full of stuff that I don't really need but which makes you feel like a good mum but you don't need to do anything more than just be to be a good mum. Jelly beans are good though and if you find a box of jelly beans at four in the morning you are going to eat them and as one in ten jelly beans taste like poo you are going to eat them ten at a time to hide the taste of the poo one.

Sometimes when you eat ten jelly beans at once one escapes and that is what happened this morning. I hoped it wasn't a poo flavoured one that escaped otherwise if you found it you'd think I had poo'd in my bed. I couldn't find the escaped bean and then I fell asleep.

I woke up a bit later, I don't know what time because the watch you gave me last Christmas is broken and I haven't yet got the new one I am no doubt going to get this year.

Anyway.

I woke up to find a jellybean stalk growing out of my bed and then out of the window. I know enough about fairy tales to know that I had to climb it and would be rewarded by stuff like harps and gold once I had defeated a giant.

I started climbing but it didn't go up. It went horizontally out of my window and down the gardens at the back of the house but I climbed it anyway. I climbed it all the way down to 37 Oxford gardens where it disappeared into a window. I sat outside and looked in.

There was a really fat woman sitting in a kitchen, there was nothing on the table except an empty white bowl, there was a goose walking around and the really fat woman was crying but if I were really fat I would cry a lot too, either because I was fat or because I was hungry. Or both.

I climbed in through the window and asked her why she was crying and she said she was crying because she was a vegetarian and the goose had eaten all her sprouts and sprouts was all she had had for Christmas.

I did some really quick thinking and said don't worry, my mum has some sprouts at home, I'm sure she can spare some, I'll go and get them. I climbed back across the beanstalk to our place and got the sprouts. I also picked up a bag of carrots which were in the fridge. I climbed back to the fat ladies house.

When I gave her the sprouts she was pleased and her wails turned to sniffs. When I gave her the carrots she beamed, there was a loud crash and a flash and she turned into a beautiful thin woman with red lipstick.

She said 'Thank you so much because I was put under a spell by a wicked witch and could only be changed back to a kitchen goddess by an innocent boy giving me a carrot'.

She also said that she was no longer a vegetarian and she eyed the goose in a lascivious way.

I liked the goose. I grabbed the goose and ran.

I was used to the beanstalk by now and could move pretty quick but I knew that the kitchen goddess was hot on my tail. I made it back to my room then cut the beanstalk with my Alladin sword I got for my birthday. Jellybean stalks are cool because the minute you cut them they turn to jelly and I heard the kitchen goddess falling into the ornamental pond at number 16 causing the frog who lived there to croak a bit.

I was left here with a goose and I didn't know how I was going to explain a goose in my room but that was the least of my problems because the goose turned to me and thanked me before kissing me on the forehead and then flying out the window before I had time to explain that I had been turned into a small boy by a kind witch and the only way to turn me back into a frog was by being KISSED BY A GOOSE.


So mummy, It's me.

Not a frog.

You could try kissing me. It might work.

Ikea Allen Key and the role of 'flat pack' in the nativity.

In Sweden the giving and receiving of flat pack furniture (especially cribs) at christmas symbolises both the role of Joseph in the Nativity and the role of the father in general at this time of the year… Sitting in a corner half pissed, fully enraged, wielding a cranked allen key, surrounded by MDF and with a crucifixion already on his mind!

It is important also to remember that January brings with it 50 million discarded, unwanted Allen keys.

An Allen key is for life, not just Christmas!

And sentences can't start with 'And'. And the dinosaurs ate all the pens.

And I was informed today that sentences cannot start with 'And'. And I've just done that very thing so obviously sentences can start with and.

And another thing, punctuation was invented by printers not by writers, who in the early days were just recording the spoken word.

And the spoken word pre-dated everything.

Because the dinosaurs ate all the pens.

There is something wrong about Christmas. Ask the trees!

150,000,000 trees will be cut down for christmas in Europe alone. god knows how many in the USA and the rest of the world. These trees will then spend two weeks dying in living rooms in order to honour a victorian fad which has absolutely nothing to do with the fanciful notion of the virgin birth of the son of a non existent god. (The truth is more likely to be that Mary was shagging a neighbour while Jo was away, got knocked up and decided the best explanation was that she was visited by a randy god. People were more gullible back then... Did Jo then go out buy a tree, smother it in tinsel and lights in order to advertise his wife's infidelity? I don't think so).

At the same time we in the West scream blue murder over the evisceration of the rain forests elsewhere on the planet. Ironically the eradication of these forests  is necessary in order to feed our endless need for burger meat and palm oil here in the West.

It should be an absolute law that for each conifer (most of them non native) cut down and sold, the purchaser should either plant or pay to have planted a deciduous tree native to their country.

The idea that christmas trees are a sustainable resource is nonsense. Of course the suppliers will grow more for future years but they make little contribution to the well being of the planet.

Plantations of non native conifers on Welsh and scottish mountainsides have long been an unnecessary eye sore.

You want green stuff in your house for Christmas? Do what the ancients (who knew far better than us) did and pick some holly, ivy and mistletoe!

Westway Development Trust to open 'refuge for junkies and alcoholics under the west way'?

A guest blog from Jan Nieupjur.

My mole under the Westway has been hinting at a new radical proposal by the Westway Development Trust. The rumour is, that, after the success of last years initiative to turn Portobello Green over to the junkies, winos and vicious dog troupe, the new year will see the opening of a designated doss space beneath the flyover in the bay which presently houses the pop up cinema.

Facilities will allegedly include some tatty soft furnishing gleaned from the local pavements, a brazier, a designated fighting space and a corner to piss in. A booth will be open 24 hours a day offering crack, spliff and cheap alcohol, either for cash or in return for stolen phones and computers. I am told that W D T are pissed off that they cannot 'earn' from the street people and that this is a way of making some sort of income from them and which will provide additional funds for their holiday homes abroad.

There will be an on-site retail outlet for the sale of stolen technology, manned by unpaid assistants provided by the job-centre. It is hoped that the 'receiving stolen goods' experience will be a big hit with the tourists especially as a 12 months 'immunity from prosecution' guarantee will be provided.

There will be a curtained off 'mugging area' so that street criminals may avoid the stigma of being seen at their work and provide a more comprehensive 'mugging experience' for the tourist and local alike.

The doss space is also designed to cater for the increasing number of 'care in the community' victims who are at present under catered for in the neighbourhood. It is hoped that, by putting them all together they might actually start getting some care… From each other.

Dog owners will be obliged to let their animals bite children and shit everywhere.

It is hinted that, if the scheme is a success, a licensed brothel will open in the neighbouring bay, operated by a bunch of Eastern European human traffickers and staffed by friendly girls brought in for the purpose from around the planet. I'm told that although this may sound odd, even though they are illegal immigrants and victims of crime at least they have a roof over their heads and a source of income which can be taxed. It will also bring this kind of activity into the open where it can be monitored more easily.

In the summer months it is hoped that a kasbah styled bedouin brothel tent can be operated on the Portobello green itself for  frisky, al fresco fornication fun!

good to see that W D T is working for the community.

A Christmas poem.

Friendless sheeting december rain
falling on autumns unraked leaves and memories
and last years christmas cards
promising unblemished snow and peace on Earth.

The loan shark calls
the only friendly face among
the retailers of misery and the uncalled for.
A loan the only necessary thing this christmas.

A child's voice cries out "give"
three billion not so wise men
oblige with tat at the cost of starvation.

Three billion not so wise men
horrified at the desecration of the rain forrest
for our burgers and fuel
destroy forests of conifers
in celebration of a Victorian fad.

The Green Man cringes
amid the holly and the ivy
as the world gorges on its own intestines
in the name of legalised inhumanity.

Humanity and ethics died
with Mickey Mouse
on that cross.

& the friendless sheeting December rain
nothing less than the anguished despairing tears of the one and only god….

Earth.

Westway Trust Ice skating scam on Portobello Green. Notting Hill.

Bollocks and criminal. It is not an ice rink!

There is a criminal offence in gaining pecuniary advantage by deception, it is the act by which con-men are prosecuted. The Westway Development Trust, in calling their scam on Portobello Green an ice rink and charging people to use it as an ice rink, fall into this bracket. It is a plastic area whithout a sign of ice, except the icy glare of the hooded con men running it, described as an ice rink  and costing kids £3.00 a pop to be seriously disappointed by fuckwit grown-ups making a buck out of deceiving kids. No wonder kids don't trust adults and rebel.

Westway development Trust, you are not only a joke but a bunch of criminals conning anyone who comes your way. It is not an ice rink, it is a bit of lino. Kids would have more fun sliding around their kitchens in their socks.

It is yet another example of self important inadequates deceiving innocents in order to flatter themselves and then bringing in a bunch of thugs to help out.

We want our money back and an apology Westway Development Trust. Shame on you, you are stealing from and letting down the community you claim to be helping! If there were a Santa Claus he would be coming down your chimneys with an axe.

Harp in isolation.. Abbey Road Studios.

Don't be depressed about being bitten by a Gila Monster.

A guest blog from Rusty McGlint.

Hi y'all. you know when you are out in the desert getting bit by a critter can piss you off some… Getting bit by a Gila Monster shouldn't depress you though. Research shows that there is Seratonin in its venom, so it may hurt like fuck for a week but you'll hurt laughing.

Also they have found stuff in the saliva that helps Alzheimers and memory loss so if you get lost in the desert get yourself bit by a gila Monster and you'll soon remember the way home.

Oh and merry Christmas from Lizard Bend. Idaho.

Were Damian Hirst paintings taken from Notting Hill Gallery stolen to order? Or was it 'The Swallow'?

Art Correspondent Jan Nieupjur writes:

One of the stolen paintings which were taken off in the back of a car. The police curiously say that they are surprised that the paintings were not spotted in the car… How did the spots disappeared is perhaps more of a mystery than the disappearance of the paintings themselves as the perpetrator was caught on CCTV.



Two Damian Hirst paintings have been nicked from the Exhibitionist Gallery in Blenheim Crescent. W11.

As an artist myself I do understand the need to generate a bit of publicity when one's name has been absent from the press for a few days. there are a number of ways one can go about this: Drunken loutishness in public; Marriage to an unsuitably young girl; open drug use in a palace lavatory; having ones work stolen from a gallery or 'bidding up' ones own work at auction.

One could of course produce some noteworthy original work but I fear that where Hirst is concerned it is impossible to imagine him ever producing something original.

So did Hirst order the theft for publicity purposes?

I have however been sent a photograph of notorious local art thief known only as 'The Swallow' seemingly rolling around on one of the paintings in question.

'The Swallow'


Answers are needed:

Who is The Swallow?
Why did he not use his normal MO; creeping through cat flaps?
What unscrupulous tattoo parlour did the tattoo?
Is Damian Hirst that desperate for publicity?
Who cares?

Rice cake.

Nelson Mandela… Free at last!

Photo: Nicky Newman.