The phone call.

Rusty in lockdown with a sharp knife.

Rusty video-called from Lizard Bend Idaho.

I said: Hi Rusty. He said: Back at ya.

I said What goes Rusty and he said America has gone to shit since the feds decided to protect Trump rather than shoot the fucker. If the virus don't get us Trump will.

I said that it goes like that here with Johnson.

We both said "We're fucked" at the same time. We are too old to say Jinx.

Talking of fucking, I said, talking of fucking, how is Babs.

He said: Loving her is like loving a very sharp knife with a mind of it's own.

I said: You could leave her Rusty.

He said: Never turn your back on a very sharp knife.

Blunt but true.

Dead nurse.

She is gone, dead. Died,
not in the line of masked
and gloved duty
but in Poundland
shocked mortally shocked
her box of stale Matchmakers
two pounds
not one

And the sudden heart stopping realisation
that Tesco was better value

and none of the cashiers
were trained in first aid.

Panty liners. A poem:

:

She said: write me a poem
write about panty liners
I said: Nothing rhymes with that.

She said: Nothing rhymes with shit
but you manage it.

I wiped my quill on a strange
but absorbent thing.

Obsequiously.

Scarves, Masks and Sestra Moja.

Let's face it, Coronavirus is going to be with us for some considerable time. Face masks will become automatically worn, rather like seatbelts, and accepted.

Sestra Moja normally creates wonderful dresses, I'll be buying one for the muse if she will allow me to, but is making mask/scarves in the same fabrics as her clothes. A friend showed me her green number a couple of weeks ago, I asked if I could have a blue one, It arrived a few days later.



It is wonderful, comfortable and can transform me from Lawrence of Arabia to boho poet in seconds. There is a pouch in the mask bit for extra material or small marsupials. Oh, and it is washable.

It will be my constant accessory from now on.

https://www.instagram.com/sestramoja/?hl=en

The Tin Lodes, Andy Brown and Marc Woodward. Oh, and the magic of poetry.

This arrived in the mail today:

Then I needed to drive a friend to her home to sort some stuff out. I took the book with me. when she saw it she said: 'Good, you have a book'. Meaning that she knew she could take her time, no pressure, I was happy sitting in the car listening to Dylan and reading something keenly anticipated.

The Tin Lodes is a delightful book, the authorship of each poem is unknown but that very quickly becomes irrelevant, here are two minds in tune, they know each other well, they must. They know their river too.

By the time I had got to page 25 I put the book down, ripped open a CD cover on which to write notes of a memory from years ago, when anchored in the lower reaches of the Deben late one moonlit night waiting for the tide to take us over the notorious bar and out to sea. The water surrounding the boat became alive with small fluorescent fireworks; ragworm dancing at the surface, something I had never seen before and have never witnessed since.

The power of good poetry to invoke memory.

A wonderful book.

The colour of her eyes.

She said: Stop it, you are staring at me.

It is creepy.

I thought: I am memorising your eyes so that when you accuse me of not knowing what colour they are

I can tell you with absolute certainty

and hope to mend whatever it is that is broken.

Bad B Bop in the hood.

Last week a group of young people arrived outside and started dancing in the street. I went out and asked them what it was all about.

I was told that they were a bunch of dancers, who, during lock-down, were putting together a video. The asked if they could film outside the house.

You bet.

I watched from the safety of the first floor balcony. I was impressed by the hand sanitiser being used constantly, the respect the showed and the burst of joy that they brought into the day.

Coronavirus tales.




This is the result:

When PPE kills. Coronavirus.

I cannot wear a mask for any longer than a few minutes. My lungs do not have the strength to drag sufficient air through the fabric or filter. After 5 minutes in a mask I require an hour recovering my breath. The only mask I can wear long term needs oxygen piped into it.

This is why I am shielded and considered high risk.

This is why the place in which I self isolate is a sacred place. It is the only place where I can lead a normal existence whilst any trace of the virus exists in the community.

I have lived, and learned to enjoy living this precarious life for ten years and thanks to the stunning kindness and generosity of good good friends may continue do so in this Haven.

There are thousands of people in similar circumstances who do not enjoy such privilege.

Lifting shielding too soon is sentencing them to death.

Trump Loyalists, Beat the eye, bedroom ceilings.

Rusty McGlint (blog passim) writes from Lizard Bend, Idaho:

Tristan, hope you are safe, America is doomed and I'm packing a gun 24/7.

Met a woman today, said she was a Trump Loyalist, asked if I would like to look at her bedroom ceiling.

Ok. I'm a man with needs but my needs do not need that kind of need.

Just learned from a friend that she is a Tromp L'oeilist. Hot damn.

What lifting of shielding means.

At present I am Shielded. I am shielded because I have a chronic condition which would guarantee that the virus will kill me.

As I live in a RBKC flat where it is impossible for me to be able to self isolate I am living elsewhere. My landlords are pleased that I am doing this because, under shielding, they have a duty of care and cannot carry out that duty.

When, on an arbitrary date - August 1st - with no evidence that the Virus will cease to be a danger to me, shielding is lifted, my landlords will no longer have that duty of care.

My tenancy dictates that I MUST live at my flat, failure to do so will result in my eviction.

Therefore, on the first of August, I must move back into a building that the owners feel is not safe for me to live in. I will not be able to self isolate if I so chose. If I do not I will be making myself intentionally homeless and cease to be of any interest to RBKC.

If I decide to remain away from my flat my possessions will be put into storage by RBKC at my expense.

I would be delighted if Boris Johnson, Cummins and co lift not only my shielded status but also my condition, therefore rendering me safe to go home.

The virus is still in the community, there is no cure, a second wave is expected but it is safe to leave the trenches in order to protect the economy at the expense of human lives.

I am lucky. I have somewhere safe to remain and good friends.  Millions of others are not. They are being thrown to the wolves.

Alarm in the time of Coronavirus.

I have always hated alarm clocks and would always avoid setting one if I could.

Now, even when there is no need I set one. For the joy of tomorrow, what it will bring.

Dentures. Snow. East Croydon.

Snow in East Croydon,
turns to rain by Haywards Heath,
heading down to Eastbourne
in search of second hand false teeth.
Train grinds to a halt at Lewes,
flooding on rails ahead,
now a taxi ride to the seaside
and the dentures of the dead.
There is no snow on Beachy Head
nor on the strand beneath,
just one solitary fossil
in search of fallen false front teeth.

A law perfectly broken. Coronavirus.

I turned my computer and phone off late this afternoon. We drank cheap fizz on the naughty bench in the last of the sun.

Sudden weather change drove us in to cook and momentarily up onto the roof for herbs, I picked and gave her thyme and a strawberry in the rain, it was bitter she said, we laughed. I said it was about the giving and the eating not the taste.

The dying sun built a perfect double rainbow over Westbourne Park Road. We patted ourselves down for camera's we did not have.

She said 'We do not need to photograph it, we have seen it'. We left the roof and the perfect rainbow singing.

Downstairs we happily bickered over who should cook and then ate.

Found a fondly remembered mutual friend and more. There was no room for silence.

She left before dark after socially distanced goodnights and plans for tomorrow.

A law perfectly broken.

So shoot me. My armour is now perfectly seamless and inviolate.

In the time of Coronavirus.

She passes the window each day
Pre-Raphaelite hair new penny bright catching the sun
catching my eye.
In this strange time of isolation
she is my only constant
when once it might have been

the morning ferry on the Dart,
the night-bus on Chepstow or church-bells.
she clicks away the days day in day out
heels, halyards tapping idle masts, on cobbles
I do not watch for her
I simply sit writing at the window that she passes
and as she passes
mark another day happy in her constancy.

I do not know her and for that reason can imagine,
invent a life and circumstances
watching her walking in the rain
talking on a hidden telephone,
(she has an American accent),
Laughing and happy

oblivious to the drenching of her hair
perhaps to a lover caught elsewhere, planning a reunion,
a parent in New York, Agent in L.A.
or a comedienne in St Louis
practising new material for want of a live audience
Maybe there is no phone at all
she is an actress learning lines for a show that may never go on
or a schizophrenic happy in her own company

I do not know her name
I shall not give her a name of my making.
In naming something a sense of ownership sets in;
I could no more name her than name
a wild palomino or the salmon that did not rise
or the raindrops on the glass

She does not notice me
I am too old to be of any interest or threat
like a piece of street furniture, or a bicycle
chained to railings slowly losing component parts.
I am invisible and benign
free to count her daily passing
marvelling at her loyalty
happy to have this constant reminder of time and place.

I will leave this place soon
and return to my home not far away
but not close enough to be on her daily route.
Perhaps I will catch sight of new penny bright hair
on Portobello Road, clumsily smile,  remember fondly,
lock-down in the time of Coronavirus.

On living in a bubble. Lies and bliss.

Her life was a disco ball constructed from shards of shattered bliss

Lies

the blunt but self sharpening things

you brought into the bubble of bliss.

The knife you hold to your wrist

should I threaten to leave.

The new man you prefer to the last man

all forgetting to leave a forwarding address when they 
meeting cheerfully in pubs discuss

the blunt but self sharpening things

you leave lying around

Amid shards of bliss.

On line Video Confessions. The First Church of New Purism.

The Irreverend Jan Nieupjur of the First Church of New Purism.

Now available for on-line video confession. Guaranteed absolution and fast-tracking to heaven.

Free NHS mental health test for all Tory voters.

Due to the Government's handling of the Coronavirus crisis along with Boris Johnson's licking of Trump's arse the NHS has announce that it will Test all Tory voters for the 'I'm all right Jack' Virus as well as their ability to think for themselves.

Trump orders removal of Statue of Liberty.

The Orange Squatter has declared the statue: "No longer relevant" in his America and sends out the wrong message to the World.

BREAKING NEWS. Johnson tests positive for Coprophobia.

Scientists have discovered that the reason for the prime minister's inability to comb his hair is a direct result of, until now, undiagnosed Coprophobia. A symptom of which is the inability to look at himself.

He may have passed this virus on to the whole cabinet plus 'Driver' Cummins.

Trump's America: Deathspot/Despot.

Tinpot
tosspot
crackpot
despot
pisspot
crockpot
Tinpot
despot
blackspot
drosspot
hotspot
deathspot
baldspot
blindspot
blackspot
deathspot

Strippers against police brutality

Photo: Chris Scholey

Photograph of the Year.

Look into the eyes: A hundred million stories told.

When I look into his eyes I see my own guilt reflected.




Photograph courtesy of Christopher Scholey. http://www.christopherscholey.com/

'The Naughty Step'. The most exclusive pop up private members club in London.

For one month only the Naughty Step will offer socially distanced exclusivity; a place to meet no one save the Bouncer. Facilities are non-existent, hats compulsory and the welcome effusive. Bring your own conversation.

Social distancing is fiercely enforced.

Applicants, who must be known to the bouncer, a virtual post card please. No Tory MP's admitted.

Another day up the PM's bum, toxic policy and survival.

'Another day up the queen's arse' was a common 'end of day' refrain in England's prisons.

It was a statement of defiance, resilience and survival. It ticked off another day towards freedom.

During these days of chaos and Governmental incompetence in which the sensible part of the community remains 'banged up', Another day up Boris' arse has become my end of day mantra.

As the General Amnesty begins; an elitist gamble which will cost many lives in a drive to restart the economy, much to the horror of all common sense, along with most scientists and Doctors, even those advising Johnson and co, the mantra: 'Another day up Boris' arse will remain valid and necessary to mark survival during a doomed idiots selfish and ill advised toxic policy.

The amnesty will also disguise the fact that, since the Cummins crime, no-one is listening to Johnson nor following lock-down rules.

God help us all.

Sad bloke in the kitchen. Sugar during lock-down.

Fret not, you do not need bags of different sugars. All you need is unbleached granulated sugar and the following tips:

1. Caster sugar: Bung granulated sugar in a blender and blitz.

2. Icing sugar: As above but blitz for longer then sieve.

3. Brown sugar: Add some gravy browning.

4. Sugar cubes: Cowboy up cupcake and get over it.

Sorted.

Auto Dontist's breakfast amuse bouche.

Ice cream

Strawberry & black pepper
Mandarin orange & pineapple
Passion fruit & Pommegranite
Vodka & Ginger beer

Cummins, driving and eye tests.

Cummins could have walked from his cottage at Dad's place to the golf course next door to check out his driving ability or failing that walked a little further to the Driving Test Centre, where they have an eye chart for that very purpose.

Electronic Social distancer, Marcel Marceau and cctv

Sad bloke in the Kitchen. Led by the roof.

A lovely day today up on the roof mucking about. The roof dictated dinner:

Omelette fines herbes. 

2 eggs beaten, salt and black pepper. Nothing else.

Heat an omelette pan, chuck in a knob of butter let it melt and sizzle. Eggs in, muck about with a fork a bit. 

DO NOT LET IT COOK TOO MUCH. 

when nearly there, ie when you still have runny bits, chuck in a child's handful of herbs, I had parsley, chives and thyme, straight from the plants chopped roughly.

Fold it, plate it, eat it. I had homemade bread and a bottle of Valpolicella to hand so that did. Garnished with JJ Cale.

So simple, so quick and so redolent of that cafe lunch on the trip south to Bordeaux in 1973 with the woman you loved then but later hated & now find yourself thinking of fondly.

Strawberry and black pepper ice cream after that.  Ten minutes between Strawberries leaving the plant and hitting the freezer. Sounds like an odd combination but Try freshly ground pepper on strawberries and cream and you'll get the idea.

I was going to post a photograph but didn't.

My cheats ice cream will remain a secret until patents have been granted.

What crisis?

Two tales of a city.

It was the best of times if white and privileged, it was the worst of times if not.

A small quiet street in Notting Hill, once, until gentrification, a no go area for all save the MP's and socialites looking for drugs, kicks and low escapes. Now an expensive enclave, gated at each end by the sheer will of the parvenu residents.

Picture this:
One daylit evening during lockdown a local guy, working on a repair job on a restaurant close by, a restaurant he looks after during this crisis (I often see him watering the planters late at night) needs a hammer. He goes home to pick one up. On his return to the job he is stopped for no reason save that he ain't white and middle class and that The Police have declared that the area be bounded by a Section 60 order, allowing them to stop and search without reason. He is surrounded by police officers, I counted 12 at one time. His hammer is bagged for evidence, you bet he got pissed off, so would we all but when have you ever been threatened with a tazer because you were going about your job with the tools of your trade.

Having been handcuffed, arrested, vanned to Charring Cross police station, banged up, then finally released with no charge, he gets home in the early hours the next day.





Compared with:
Just metres away a few nights later a bunch of over privileged white folks hold yet another party in the street complete with ping pong table and chairs blocking safe passage. I called the police at 9.00 ., Nothing happened. I called the police an hour later, nothing. Yet both times (I have the reference numbers) I was told that an officer would attend and advise the revellers that they were in breach of social distancing rules. I then went online, reported it again, nothing.



When I tried to talk to the revellers they sneered, even the guy my age who told me that the rules were too difficult to understand (I kid you not) even the woman who told me that because they all lived in the street it was OK. What she wanted to say was 'because we own our homes and are rich we can do as we please, Boris and Dom say so). I told them they were killing their parents generation with their selfishness. They sat there in scornful silence, mentally counting the inheritance once daddy was dead. Inheritance spawned by empire and slavery.

I went home to let this all sink in, to write about it, to write about it close to tears. Tears of horror at what England has become.. A country in which the poor pulled together and the wealthy pulled apart like wolves at a carcass.

Thinking: Anywhere would be a far far better place to go, anything would be a far far better thing to do.

Kill me now. I'm sick of my country.

NOTE: I have photographs of both occurrences and know the names and addresses of those concerned. I shall photograph them all in the light of day  then publish them on this post. The only way to deal with irresponsible idiots  is by being responsible, remaining cautious and  pointing out why they are potential killers.

Dream.

Like Ginsberg's cougher
singing in his dreams
I dream of filling lungs
diving deep

to listen to the mermaids singing.

Simple guide to BBC political bias.

The BBC, Formed on 18 October 1922 by a group of leading wireless manufacturers including Marconi. It was established by Royal Charter in 1927.

The license fee was introduced in 1946. Issued by the GPO which was the regulator of public broadcasting at that time.

Now, the fee is collected by the BBC itself and is primarily used to fund radio, television and online services of the BBC itself. 

The money does not go directly to the BBC, it is paid into the Govt's Consolidated fund and passed back to the BBC after the annual vote on the Appropriation Act, to pay for the running of the BBC's services free from  advertisements.

CONCLUSION:

We, the license fee payers, own it having paid for it. We pay the wages.
. 
The Governors of the BBC must pander to Government demands regarding content and bias or lose funding
.
The Governors therefore are inclined towards a Government bias.

The journalists, producers, announcers etc who work for the corporation can and do think what they like provided they do not voice their opinions. If they do they are punished.

Anyone over the age of 70 currently makes no financial contribution to the BBC, is therefore beholden to the fee payers and should have no say in policy. Giving over 70's the vote in General Elections allows them a say in BBC policy and should be stopped immediately.

Alternately the BBC should be freed from Government control of freedom of speech and propaganda and allowed to speak to,and advise, us of the facts. 

Dealing with Chronic lung disease.

PLEASE DO NOT MESS WITH YOUR PRESCRIBED MEDICATION WITHOUT CONSULTING YOUR GP.  I talk to mine and I spent years researching my condition.


If you are looking for a new age vegan organic macrame prophylactic, move along. there is nothing for you here.



Photo: David Petch.  He was hoping to shoot a Warholesque death bed scene. I was obliged to disabuse him of that notion.


I acquired a chronic lung disease ten years ago. To this day neither I, my GP nor specialists have a clear idea of what it was, but whatever it was it reduced my lung capacity by 70%, stripped me of my immune system and left me permanently exhausted, breathless, stressed and occasionally hospitalised. I also have a morbid fear of flu in winter, a dose of which would kill me without touching the sides. They tested me for AIDS.

Hospitals, those places designed to cure are for me a threat; bugs lurk there. I try to avoid them but the advice from my GP is to dial 999 rather than calling him when I get a flare up. I prefer to sit it out with a combination of drugs and CBT.


I know my eventual killer well, I have been studying him for the past ten years, I know where he lies in wait, in dark damp places, we meet from time to time, play Russian roulette with an air gun ( one chamber of which is empty) before moving on. My GP recognises my knowledge of my condition and allows me the driving seat in prescribing, changing or stopping medication.

 Although in itself it will not kill me, pneumonia will do that, stress is my biggest enemy, it is the finger-post for my piper at the gates of dawn. Stress causes breathing difficulties which exacerbate the stress which exacerbates the breathing difficulties leading to collapse, sometimes in public places which is uncomfortable as passers by frequently mistake my condition for 'social problems'. In the early days I would call an ambulance, get put on machines and oxygen until things calmed down.

These days, being wiser, I do nothing of the sort.

I call a good friend who drops everything, picks me up from wherever I am incapacitated, tells me I look shit, drives me to a calmer place, invariably offers his personal panacea (a beer and an appalling bad joke) then lets me get on with stressing in.

After having been drawn graphs and charts by specialists ten years ago I gave up smoking. I kept that up until stress got the better of me. I now self medicate with a cigarette.

Stress is the enemy, keep it at bay and there is a good chance that: A. The hyperventilation will not start, or B. The hyperventilation will abate... Fuck brown paper bags give me the fags.

After a chat with a GP this course of action was quietly endorsed but not officially. I asked him how much longer I would live by quitting smoking and would I have that extra time at the beginning of the rest of my life or at the end, bedridden and artificially aspirated. He told me: 'The latter'. Pass me a fag.

I was prescribed anti-depressants for the stress after I found myself living in the shadow of Grenfell Tower at the time of the Government backed arson attack by cost cutting councillors waging their social cleansing campaign ( a story for another time). Once prescribed I was left taking them for years.

My new regime, which works for me, is as follows:

I kicked the antidepressants into touch a few weeks ago, I weened myself off them, having spoken to a GP, slowly over a period of a few days, Yes, during lock-down, replacing them with a request for Diazepam, which was happily prescribed. I would take one or two now and then as needed. I've given them up now but keep a stash in case of serious problems. I must take the daily steroids and bronchodilator for the rest of my life.

I have a rescue pack of serious Steroids and antibiotics at hand.

I have given up the blue inhalers synonymous with asthma relief... I do not have asthma so why do I need it. It is prescribed as a matter of course for anyone who's condition is dumped in the COPD file. I take a drag from one from time to time, I like the placebo buzz. The remaining inhalers in my possession I shall use to fill balloons come Carnival's return to sell to unsuspecting seekers of incremental brain cell death. Or hand out to children at Halloween (they all seem to have asthma these days).

I no longer worry about anything outside of my control. I don't give a shit about shit. I take half my originally prescribed drugs but take half an hour for them to kick in before even considering action, smoke, write poetry in my head and no longer attempt any physical exertion that might have my lungs rattling like an ebb tide on shingle. Friends know the score and do not mark me down for it.

I've been in solitary lock-down since just after Christmas, the past twelve weeks of which have been spent in a delightful friend's equally delightful house. I cook, eat, water the roof garden and write in rotation and feel healthier than I have done for a long time. I experiment with arcane ice cream recipes. I'm ready for Hell.

Lastly, I like myself these days. Enjoy my own company, laugh at my jokes. Living alone in isolation is difficult unless you are happy in your own company and can look yourself in the eye. I'm lucky my head is full of stories, anecdotes, memories and poems, I awake mentally reciting unwritten verse then pounce upon paper and pen. I am in part my own best medication. It took a long time to find out and I aim to take my time enjoying it.

I no longer wake up and smell the coffin.

Coronavirus. Projected path.

A guest post by Professor Jan Nieupjur of the Institute for predicted pandemics. Barnards Castle.

After much research on the part of myself and Dominic  Cummings; Doctorer of predictions.Westminster, I can safely predict the following events might occur:

Ist wave. Already here as predicted with 2020 hindsight by Dr Cummins.

2nd wave. Next.

3rd Wave. After that.

Marcel Wave (France only)  Apres cette.

Royal Wave. By Royal command.

Mexican Wave. (USA only). Whenever dude.

Elite's prosecution Waiver. Immediately.

Severn Bore. Monthly.

Pub Bore. Constant.

Flat calm in conjunction with the alignment of Uranus and Swan upping.

Jan Nieupjur, Gloaming, marshmallow dreams and a bonfire of Tory vanities.

Rudely awakened from my, post liquid luncheon snooze, by an helicopter chattering overhead like an Inuit naturist's teeth, I peered, in an old fashioned fashion, from the front door only to notice old friend Jan Nieupjur, standing on the corner, looking nonplussed, in a myopically challenged kind of way, at a discarded tailors dummy.

'What ho! Jan'. I cried in greeting. 'What ails thee?'

He limped, his Zimmer frame rattling like a pox doctors clerk, over the cobbles to the six foot perimeter barbed wire.

'Just taking my post Covid libido out on a test run. Judging by my groin's response to that charming young thing on the corner and her reaction to my Seventh Avenue come on, I am fucked... Or not fucked. If you get my drift'.

I handed him a glass of the funeral sherry I keep to ward the barflies off my good stuff and pointed out that she was, in fact, a dummy.

'You bet'. Ejaculated Jan. 'I have three florins in my pocket itching to be spent. Enough to get her back to Estonia and still have change'.

I gave him the address of a wonderful sex therapist in Barnard Castle I had once had the pleasure to consult.

We talked on into the burgeoning gloaming of our lives. Toasting marshmallow dreams on a bonfire of Tory vanities.

Taurus Trakker. Auto Gigs.

Taurus Trakker, Martin Muscatt & Allison Phillips along with Wigsy* on bass (they have had more bass players than Spinal Tap) are THE local band. Before this shitshow Coronavirus started they could be seen and heard often in the neighbourhood (as well as further afield), especially in Mau Mau; a bar on Portobello Road, the last of the real live venues round here. Mau Mau closed a few months ago for refurbishment, whether it ever opens again is now very much in the air but I was told that it would only be featuring DJ's with their dansettes. Who knows.

The band have started playing live gigs in their car during the crisis. They are 20 odd minutes of pure joy, fun and rock & roll. It is streamed live on facebook HERE Catch them, it is well worth it.


The bands website is HERE

Bandcamp thingy HERE

I could tell you more about the band but it is all on their website in glowing technicolour. Their CV is impressive.

I'll update this in a day or so.

*Wigsy used to run 'Loco'; an often chaotic weekly music pub thing. The scene of many of my poetry intermissions. See earlier blogposts.

Notable dates in History. !2th April 2020 Dom Cum Dur.

On April 12 2020:

My 65th birthday

Dominic Cummins' wife's birthday

Dominic Cummins whilst suffering from the Coronavirus drives his wife and child 30 miles each way to Barnard Castle to 'test his driving skills and eyesight'. What a curious and thoughtless birthday present for the missus, a potentially lethal drive whilst suffering from the virus and no doubt pilled up to the eyeballs. Surely one tries out this kind of thing alone in order to protect the lives of one's loved ones.



I spent the day, like many others abiding by the lockdown rules set by Cummins & co in order to protect myself, protect others and help the NHS, missing friends and family and missing the glorious sights of Barnard Castle.

If I were a conscience I know who's conscience I'd rather be...

Borth. The end of it.

Be quick my aching feet
and rid this place of me
flat matt black smear of sullen land
wedged between rugged beauty
and liquid gun metal sea

the only road a stair rod of leaden hopelessness
finialled with village namesigns
umbilical from way in
giving life to a way out
that veers off, set square true
between graph paper fields of
itchy footed mobile homes
rooted in their own unhaphazard nightmares.
Towards a horizon beckoning relief

Borth beach slate grey
skid mark on the unwashed underpants of Wales
caught between a hard place
and unforgiving sea
grey upon grey upon grey upon grey
populated by innocent children, whom, having seen no better
assume that this is what life is and
gaggles of Whistler's Mothers;
arrangements of grey on black.

the tides are bullied in

hang around like a bored teenage
goth dreaming of Whitby
on his last family holiday ordeal...

then race away with glee

Of all the beauty of this Principality
what brings me here to this
to triage at the waiting room of romantic health tests
sitting, beach benched, uncandyflossed
as you walk out into the limp bara lafwr mor.

Watching and willing you to keep going
Knowing the prognosis to be terminal.

Knowing that I no longer want you in my life
nor me in this unhappy place.

That Johnson Cummins conversation in full.

Many thanks to Andrew Ryser Szymanski for this:


BJ: "I'm sorry Dom, but you know I've got no alternative. This is going to bring the whole administration down. I'm afraid I've got to let you go".
DC: "No you haven't fat boy. You know I've got the full file on you. Everything. The lot. Do you think I didn't know this moment wouldn't come one day? Just call it little me taking precautions".
BJ: "You wouldn't. Surely you couldn't sink that low. I'll deny everything. That's bloody treason".
DC: "Your choice, fat boy. Less than 6 months from hero to zero, my little Churchill.
BJ: "But you just can't. I'll deny everything".
DC: "I've got it all fatboy. Photographs, emails, corroborating statements. You're toast fat boy".
BJ: "Look Dom. Be sensible. We can spin this. I'll make a public address. Greatest regret at losing you and all that, doctor's orders, ongoing condition post Covid forcing your brave resignation. Heroic service re Brexit, possible knighthood. How's that?"
DC: "Do you want to see these emails and photos"?
BJ: "OK, OK, I'll tell 'em you did nothing wrong and have my total support. I'll tell Baker and anyone else making trouble that they're finished. I'll do that today. You the boss, Dom, baby".
DC: "Excellent Prime Minister. A man just has to know his limitations".

Boris' Coronavirus advice (In parentheses).

Work in progress...


Gonna get up in the morning
Gonna take a drive up north
to see my dead dad in Durham
or my gran in Perranporth (weather permitting)

Boris says it's fine by him
(for I went to Magdalen* too)
Boris says don't do what I say
Boris says doo be doo be do (don't bogart that joint)

Boris says cut me a line
says hey man bring out the pot
Gotta persuade the country I'm high on drugs
before my career is shot (got any downers?)



*True fact.The rest is fiction.

Peter Rachman's library steps.

Mein Kampf:- Adolf Hitler
10 steps to a better body:- Charles Atlas
On Narcissism:- Sigmund Freud.

The Dominic Cummins Coronavirus trip inconsistencies.

So far I am able to ascertain that the following statements are true:

Cummins is not telling the whole story. No surprise there.

Mrs Cummins did not tell the truth in her Spectator article of 25th April regarding her and her husbands Virus experience.

Grant Shapps defended Cummins' actions before even talking to Cummins or ascertaining the true facts.

The Government described stories of further Cummins breaches of the lockdown rules as 'Innacurate'. Not 'false' or 'untrue'.

Cummins must go but Boris must be saving that until he has some nastier news to hide.



to be continued

Transport of delight.

I'm going to heaven in a handcart
I'm going to Dedham in a wain
I'm going to Paris in a tumbrel
there to meet my darling Louisette.
I'm going to Nashville on the last train
to Frisco on a street car named desire
having crossed America in a Conestoga
with Cat Balou, but have not set out yet.

I'm going to a fire in a Green Goddess
I'm going to church in a yellow Rolls Royce
I'm going to Alexandria in an aeroplane
with John Mills, to drink an ice cold beer.
I'm going my own way with Mick Fleetwood
I'm travelling light with JJ Cale
I'll send you postcards from each destination
All saying: 'My love, I wish that you were here'.

Cummins Durham Coronavirus saga.

I wrote a silly ditty on the subject of the Cummings idiocy:

Kids, stay home, stay mum about Dad.

Play candy crush saga on your mum's iphone

while she's drunk amid pots and pans

not Covid cruise saga on Dad's spy phone

as he drives up to Durham to Gran's.

I sent it to the conservative party fb page. Their reply is priceless.

Extra Bank Holiday announced in UK.

The UK Government has announced that an extra Bank Holiday will be created later in the year in order to give weary Brits a day off after months of days off.

It will be named All Virus' Day.

Street parties will be compulsory for all UK residents save immigrant workers and their families who will be obliged to service the nation for the day prior to fucking right off to where they came from. Priti Patel will be excluded from this condition.

Yellow flags and bunting will be flown to signify both the Prime Minister's cowardice and the state of quarantine that the entire country will be obliged to live in until the Chernobyl environs are safe for habitation.

It is hoped that the day will kick start the second hand spam industry as well as provide a use for  High Streets, empty since the failure of all retail outlets throughout Britain save Poundshop and Greggs.

Pentimento.

If asked: Should he have the opportunity
to live his life over again,
what would he paint over,
what would he change?

He'd say: Nothing.
Despite the pain, the hardship, the mistakes.
Nothing,
that life brought me here
to what and where I am now.

Grateful for the memories
content and at peace with my demons.

The ripening of the pods.

It was a glorious day, one redolent of impossible childhood memories. I took the old dog for a mutually laboured stroll on the heath, each of us wheezing, lungs rattling, ebb tide on shingle.

We stopped to rest on a well remembered bench, not one of the popular seats on the hill frequented by  crowds but a shaded seat on the path to Ken wood beside a strand of enormous beeches with their elephant skin bark, pock marked with the initials of generations of lovers, the ground felted with a thick layer of beech-mast. A majestic stand of trees, one of nature's cathedrals.

As the old dog panted in the shade of the bench a man a little older than myself approached and seated himself. We traded good-days. He placed a blue and white canvas bag at his feet then opened it, removed a Tupperware box.

Opening the box he proffered it  and said: 'Have a broad bean'.

The beans were peeled and coated in mint sauce. I told him thank you, took one and added: 'I can only eat them peeled'.

'Me also'. He said with a sigh. I sensed that there was more he wished to tell me so I presented the opportunity by saying: 'Go on'.

He looked at me, smiled then started his tale:

'In my youth my parents and I lived on a farm in Kent, an idyllic place, surrounded by oast-houses strawberry fields, cherry orchards and hop gardens. In a cottage beside the un-metalled lane to the village lived the farm manager, his wife and their daughter Tilly. Tilly was tall, as tall as I and had a jumble of perpetually errant golden hair. We became good friends, we went to the little primary school in the village and walked there together daily. We explored the surrounding countryside, sometimes walking miles, chattering away. I spent a good deal of time at her home, in the kitchen with Tilly and her parents or in the vegetable garden.

One summer, quite early in our friendship, she offered me some broad beans, the first of the season. She was sitting, podding them at the kitchen table. I told her, rather precociously, trying too hard to impress, that I could only eat broad beans that had been peeled by a virgin princess.  She laughed, her parents eyebrows raised, then soon handed me a small bowl of peeled broad beans. She added a dollop of mint sauce.

This became something of a ritual each summer upon the ripening of the pods. My virginal peeler of beans. My accomplice in dreams.

Years passed, we moved on to different secondary schools but remained close friends. Met daily.

Just before my fifteenth birth day tragedy struck.

Tilly's mother was diagnosed with a tumour. It was savage, voracious and quick. She died three months later and everything changed.

Tilly's father became withdrawn and unwelcoming, his clothes dirty, he smelled of whisky and tobacco. He didn't actually chase me away but Tilly and I chose to meet elsewhere. In the barn when it rained; the beech hanger behind my house or her garden in good weather where she would innocently, knowingly, peel me broad beans. She changed too, less talkative, less unbridled. Sadness crept in.

The following summer we sat in the garden podding broad beans. She said my name, I looked up, she told me in a foreign voice and with full eyes  that she could no longer peel my broad beans. She ran then, ran into the house and I walked the quarter mile home. Telling myself I was confused but I was not confused, just sad, angry and disappointed. I did not see Tilly again.

A few days later a rumour spread through the village quicker than the tumour that took Tilly's mother. Tilly and her father had done a moonlight flit. I went to the cottage, it was empty. The owner of the farm called in at our house to ask if we had seen them. Apparently they had left one night, left most of their belongings. Had vanished. No forwarding address. Someone from social services visited to ask if we knew where they had gone.

Since then I have had to live with my guilt. I knew what was going on but said nothing, did nothing. I was afraid of the grown up enormity of it all. I should have told someone, anyone, or confronted him, done something.

I have trawled telephone directories ever since.

All I have of her are memories of broad beans'. He pointed at the beeches. 'They remind me of those days'.


He proffered the Tupperware box again, I took one, then he closed it, placed it back in his bag, stood up, doffed his hat. We said goodbyes.

After a few steps he turned, stood for a moment as if deep in thought, then said:

'I should have killed him you know'.

Turned and walked away..

Coronavirus nonsense for children of all ages.

Ware Container

Ice cream for breakfast

porridge for luncheon

elevenses in the afternoon

all day sprinkles to munch on.

Fruit soup for dinner

more ice cream for supper

sherbet for a late night snack

I keep it in a tupper

ware container.

Garden lament.

.

The bugs have eaten the cherries
the birds have eaten the bugs
the cats have eaten the birds
but nothing is eating the slugs
damn things
nothing is eating the slugs.

Gonna catch them at midnight
catch them in a beer filled trench
gonna force them into empty snail shells
and sell them on to the French
damn things
I'll sell them on to the French.

They will cook them with garlic and parsley
add some dry breadcrumbs for a crunch
for a tasty Parisienne hors d'oeuvres
or a chic low calorie lunch
damn things
a chic low calorie lunch.

My true love is eating the cherries
As we indulge in Parisienne honeymoon hugs
She's just ordered a plate of escargot
but I know the fuckers are slugs
damn things
I know the fuckers are slugs..

All the ships that pass have black sails..

Isolated in exile I am my own Napoleon
but longing for no Josephine
and confusing my Arras with my Elba as
waiting and watching The Empire Strikes Back ad nauseam
talking loudly to myself, reducing this island's population of donkeys
to sad creatures dragging themselves along
by their front legs.

All the ships that pass have black sails.

I turn my eyes inward
scan that horizon
whilst indulging in fantastic orgies with hope, faith and patience.

London nature note

Dawn. Pigeons are everywhere, no longer fed by tourists in Trafalgar square and elsewhere and, no longer able to find the detritus of streetfood, they are having to revert to medieval practices; they have eaten the unripe cherries and figs, they congregate like extras in a Hitchcock film waiting for Tippi Hedren to pass by. Blue tits visit the bird feeder I have put in an olive tree outside on the street, unthinkable 3 months ago. The parakeets no longer fly en mass overhead at dawn and dusk, again no tourists to feed them in parks and squares.Morning coffee outside is serenaded by birdsong. No traffic noises, no planes, and then churchbells taking my mind back to Rupert Brooke and Grantchester and his sentimental cynicism.. Eerie if I did not know why.Foxes are around as ever, having to work harder for food. I leave them scraps at night which are always gone in the morning. I hear their barking often. There are reports though of cubs dying due to lack of food.Magpies are taking advantage of the crisis. They stalk the mews here for pigeon eggs and chicks, the pigeons are nesting in places that they would not dream of in normal times and being less cautious.

We have a proper dawn chorus reminiscent of my childhood. It wakens in me the idea of thinking of my mother in long past gardens where the sun always shone, no-one had coronavirus and there was always honey for tea.

Heaven in a handcart. Thinking of Thomas Hardy and an as yet unmet travelling companion. work in progress.

I'm going to heaven in a handcart
I'm taking a piglet in a poke
gonna trade it with the mayor of Casterbridge
for his wife and a lime green mini-moke.

I'm going to heaven in a handcart
leaving worldly hell well in my wake
gonna sell my mini moke to the angels above
any blessing that they offer I will take

I'm going to heaven in a handcart
I'm waving to Lilith...... Lil  goodbye
gonna wrap my new companion in a handkerchief of love and
tell her when and try to explain why...

We are going to heaven in a handcart
the mayors discarded wife and me
both of us were victims in our own ways
both of us victors now we are free

both of us were victims in our own ways
both of us were victims that is sure
she was bullied by the mayor of Casterbridge
I was bullied by myself    but no more

We are going to heaven in a handcart
the road is long and goes on for evermore
because heaven is surely in our journey to come
and the handcart just a handy metaphor.

Sad bloke in the kitchen.No 5. Goldbait

                                       

















Donald Trump.


Get drunk.

Scoop goldfish from bowl

Dredge in flour. This can be messy, they kick.

deep fry.

Eat.

Sit back and plan the lies for the kids in the morning.

NB. Probably best to starve the fuckers for a day or two before you try this, less likely to be full of shit.

Sad bloke in the kitchen No: 4. Memories of scampi provencal.

When I was in my teens we would go often, as a family, to La Cantina di Capri; a restaurant in Oxford. Three memories of those visits remain: The wonderful Maitre D,  Campari & soda and Scampi Provencal. This is my lockdown take on the latter.



 Peel and dice finely one small onion. Chuck it in a shallow pan with some olive oil. Let it sweat at a low heat until softened and translucent, add a clove of garlic (bashed with a rock and finely chopped, garlic presses are a nightmare and take longer to clean than this takes to make) sweat it until you get an admission of guilt.

Open a bottle of white wine, no need to be up yourself: Wine, white, that'll do. Decide how much you want to drink then add the remaining half a glass to the pan. Crank up the heat and boil off the alcohol. (Top tip: put your face over the pan while doing this and you get a hit of evaporating 100% proof).

Turn heat down.

Peel a couple of ripe tomatoes. Easy to peel, just nick the skins with a sharp knife then drop into a bowl of boiling hot water for a minute. Remove from the water and they peel like a redhead's back in August. Remove the seeds and hard white bit in the middle and chop up. Add to pan. you might want a bit of sugar... Suit yourself.

Simmer for a moment, I like the freshness of almost uncooked tomatoes.

Season with salt and white pepper.

Add whatever seafood you have. Scampi is perfect, uncooked prawns are good, Lobster to die for and failing all of those Monkfish tail diced works brilliantly. Works with cod and sticklebacks too. All I could get hold of today was big prawns.

Cook until the fish is cooked, no longer, seriously, overcooking ruins it.

Turn the heat off and add some chopped fresh oregano. Thyme will do at a pinch if you don't have oregano. Let's not be pedantic' or Pedante as our Italian friends would say.

Serve with plain boiled rice and Zucchini fritti (which is actually a piece of piss to make perfectly if you take your time. I'll write about it another time).

Open another bottle of wine.

Eat and drink.

Feed the Lert.


NB. I do not have time for quantities or temperature or exact times. I rely on the fact that you possess an instinct for what is needed.