Charity begins at home.

The current situation reminds me of an old folk tale:

John Albion was a woodsman. He worked hard for his living and then worked harder still to support his wife and six children. They were poor but fed and clothed; for that they were happy.

One day John came across a group of lost children in the woods, he took them home with him and instructed his wife to feed them and house them. She complained that they had barely enough to support themselves let alone newcomers.

'Let our children go without for a day or two. It will do them no harm'.

So the newcomers were fed and clothed at his own children's expense and months passed.

Eventually, out of despair, the wife departed, taking her children with her leaving behind a very unhappy John Albion surrounded by his waifs and strays who continued to eat him out of house and home.

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

I am not a member of the BNP nor do I support any of their policies. I have voted Green all my life. I have worked (as a volunteer) for charities supporting and helping the homeless and the disenfranchised. I have acted as peer advocate to a number of Immigrants and asylum seekers, taking on councils and government agencies on their behalf. I have always considered myself Liberal.

It is not the 'waifs and strays' that I am criticizing but John Albion's policies.

But enough is enough... This country has become the laughing stock of the world.

Am I being unreasonable? Be kind enough to let me know by commenting on this... You can do it anonymously.

The deerhunter

Dead gorgeous

I found this on the Vintage Scans blog:http://vintagescans.blogspot.com/ I paticularly enjoy the strumpetry.

Postcard from Rusty No: 34

Rusty writes from Mountain View, California:

Damned if Lula Mae ain't left me for good. Packed up her pie tins and other baking stuff in a red gingham tablecloth and gone off with a virtual snake oil peddler from Silicon Valley.

I asked her did I make her that unhappy and she said no Rusty, you made me very happy a lot of the time but that just makes the unhappy times impossible to bear.

Rusty.

Norman Mailer wrote: Happiness and absolute sorrow flow from the same wound.

A poem for the muse.

I would like to say that you are enough

but that is never enough

and I end up writing a poem

with a gun held to my temple

your finger on the trigger

can you do it

without military backing

I would like to say that you are woman enough

Scallops.Botticelli and nurse Caz.

A difficult day.

Tristan's Event at the Tabernacle has been cancelled, a double booking fiasco. not his fault. He now has to go back to scratch and re-plan.

Nurse Caz left six scallop shells on his doorstep today.

I sense that the scallop shells are more important than the cancelled event.

Looking at him now I see disappointment as if he were looking at Botticelli's 'Birth of Venus' but seeing nothing but an empty shell.

I know Tristan. the Event will take place in it's own time and stuff will happen.

And nurse Caz will say hello... Probably.

Patti Smith - We're gonna have a real good time

Virginia the milliner.

Virginia the milliner makes a nice hat

in terms of accomplishment that's about that

A hat is a hat and a hat is a hat

There is nothing much else to Virginia than that.

Neil Young - Harvest Moon (with lyrics)

Question answered.

Many years ago and I mean a long time ago (something over 4,000 years if the Old testament is to be believed) chickens (indeed all birds) did not lay eggs.

They, like mammals, gave birth to almost fully formed offspring. Not an easy thing for a chicken; you try pushing a broiler through your letterbox.

Until one day an incredibly stupid bird was born, a bird that could not distinguish between seed and grit. She would spend her days pecking at anything remotely seed shaped, much to the amusement of the other birds.

They mocked her something rotten, even the birds across the road would come over for a closer mock.

All to no avail, she carried on doggedly; she had true grit, that bird.

Until one day she met a mate. Or rather she became the victim of avian lust and (with grit between her teeth) she conceived.

21 days later, on her newly made nest, rather than forcing out a bird shaped thing with much grimace and cluck, she smiled, sighed, then eased out an egg. which out of ignorance she sat upon for a couple of weeks (A well earned bout of maternity leave) before the egg hatched to reveal the cutest thing imaginable.

The other birds looked on in disbelief and envy until, when hunger took them, the scuttled off to find some grit.

Yes! The chicken came first.

London spring.

A beautiful London day. A blue sky that still constantly amazes after such greyness.

This evening I walked down Portobello Road without a coat without a care but with great attention to detail.

music squirting from the bars and hardly a word of English in earshot but many smiles.

the view from my window where I write is straight out of Blade Runner... Vehicle lights on the Westway, the trains and tubes below. The planes are back; they slide behind the tower blocks on Harrow Road.

Police sirens cut with precision. The busses roar as they turn into Chepstow Road.

London is a great place to be.

The unzipping of the sky

While it was all very pleasant having no aeroplanes overhead for a week I did enjoy watching the first arrival unzip a perfectly clear sky.

The excitement didn't last long though.

The poet at work