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.

Brown rice and Joy. A vegetarian fairy tale.

Brown rice and Joy. A vegetarian fairy tale.

Joy lived with her mum on the edge of the village. Joy was 13 and had a faint memory of a father who disappeared years before leaving her and her mum with a little cottage and a field of pigs.

Joy's mum tried to make a living as a pig farmer but it was difficult, most of the other villagers were vegetarians and didn't like pork and whenever her mum tried growing vegetables in the field the pigs ate them. Times were hard.

One day Joy's mum gave her the last of their money and asked her to go to the market to buy vegetables so that they could invite some neighbours round for supper.

On her way to the market Joy met a man leading a cow. The man with the cow asked her where she was going and when she informed him of her errand he said: 'Look no further young lady, I have just the thing for you.'

Come off it said Joy. If you think I am going to buy a few beans from you you are mistaken! The man with the cow explained that he had just traded his last few magic beans for the cow with a young lad called Jack but that he had the answer to all her problems.

He pulled from a sack a cage, in the cage was a small brown mouse.

I could spend an age describing the haggling that took place but you've heard it all before… Joy walked home with the mouse who she decided to name Regret.

Joy's mum was, of course, mightily pissed off and sent the girl to bed without supper… No hardship to Joy who was fed up with her daily intake of pork products.

The following morning Joy rose early and went down to her chores. she was surprised to find that all the pig scraps lying around the kitchen had been cleared up and that there was a pile of brown rice on the table. She scooped the rice into a bowl before going out to feed the pigs. The mouse slept in his cage in the corner.

When Joys mum arose she showed her the rice and declared that there was enough for a proper banquet for all their vegetarian friends.

The banquet of course was a success, a mound of steaming brown rice infused with herbs from the hedgerows and vegetables borrowed from neighbouring gardens had all of the guests singing its praises. The brown rice had a flavour previously unknown to them. It was magnificent. It was heaven.

By the end of the evening each of the guests has put in an order for brown rice which Joy's mum accepted while secretly wondering where it was going to come from. She need not have worried for the following morning there was a mound of brown rice waiting on the table.

Over the following weeks Joy and her mum discovered that the more pork they left in the kitchen the more brown rice appeared on the table the following day.

They made a lot of money from selling that brown rice to the village vegetarians and lived happily ever after apart from one small glitch when the inspector from the ministry of food tested the rice and declared it 98 percent pork and 2 percent mouse spit but by then it was too late, the village rabbi had already koshered it as fit for vegetarians.

And the mouse… Joy changed it's name from Regret to Regretta who lived long, fondly watching over her burgeoning family shitting on the kitchen table as it grew fat on pork products.

Exile, bananas and crysalides.

I left these bananas on my dining table 9 weeks ago before going into exile. Last night, on paying a hasty visit, I discovered that the bananas had flown leaving the desiccated husks of their crysalides behind.

Coronavirus musing. Intentional infection?

This may sound bizarre but I am absolutely serious. Due to my situation (high risk, shielded, total isolation blah blah) I could, like many others, be forced to self isolate for at least a year.

It occurs to me that it may become an option to intentionally catch the virus during any lull in Hospital occupancy and hope to survive it (40% chance I'm told) and achieve immunity.

Seems rather extreme but at the moment due to the lowered pollution and a rather better lifestyle/diet I'm feeling fitter than I have done for years and I'd rather catch the virus when in this condition than next winter during the flu season.

Just thinking aloud.

Shielded self isolation: A cell on death row.

To use Government speak, The 12 week self isolation period for those of us in the high risk category is quite frankly not fit for purpose.

In three weeks time my 12 weeks isolation ends. What then? Due to the floundering and dithering of the Government during the period of my lockdown nothing will have changed and I suspect that I will be advised  to self isolate for another 12 weeks and again and again ad infinitum. My feeling is that 12 months is a more realistic timescale and even then only a vaccine will make a return to any semblance of normality possible.

As far as I am concerned I can cope with this, at present I am in a friends wonderful house while she is stuck overseas, I can sit on the roof among the plants, I have kind neighbours and friends. When I go back to my own home in June things will be harder but I do have a balcony for getting some outdoors of a kind. More importantly I was an antisocial bugger before this all started and enjoy my own company. I also have sufficient IT to video chat with family and friends around the world.

I feel for those who are older and more unwell than myself or less used to isolation. To them this situation must be starting to feel like a cell on death row. Imagine the horror of contemplating a future that only comprises of isolation followed by death.



This is not acceptable.

Coronavirus what have you done.

For Victoria.

Coronavirus what do you want
what have you brought
what damage have you done
what havoc have you wrought

A daughter close
grandchildren too
impossible a year ago
now impossible to undo

Clean air and clearer lungs
traffic stopped in its tracks
mornings filled with birdsong and
jasmine jasmine jasmine

mankind re-humanised
neighbours sharing names
and bread and good wishes
some rekindling old flames

Coronavirus what do you want
what have you wrought
what good you have done
what heaven you have brought...

Auto-dentistry during lockdown.

Not for the squeamish.



I'm one of the many who are designated 'Shielded' and under strict self isolation. One side affect of the medication I need for my underlying condition is that I have a greatly reduced immune system and over the past few weeks my teeth have been under attack and have become the source of great pain.

It was necessary to remove two rather mobile front teeth. Of course I cannot visit a dentist. The process went as follows*:

1.  Eat 3 paracetamol washed down with copious quantity of Vodka.

2. Wash hands for length of time it takes to sing 'All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth'.

3. Wrench tooth from jaw ditherlessly.

4. Sigh with relief.

5. Drink Vodka to celebrate.

6. Receive call from kind dentist who took the time on a Sunday afternoon who advises that I have done exactly the right thing under the circumstances.

7. Start course of Amoxicillin.

8. Eat two Diazapam and 2 paracetamol washed down with Vodka.

9. Sleep like a filmstar.

* I AM IN NO WAY ENCOURAGING ANYONE TO SELF MEDICATE IN THIS WAY. I took advice before proceeding.

STAY INERT.

Politicians are lying, stay alert
Advice not worth buying, stay alert
Too many of us dying, stay alert
The NHS is crying, stay alert
Conspiracies are flying,
as are planes
accusations
drones and
speculations.

To save more of us from dying,

Stay INERT.

Psychic portrait that got it right.

Photo courtesy of Chalkie Davies.
 Little Boris in Pink With a Goblet Filled With Coronavirus by Joshua Johnson 1805.



Johnson was the first and only member of the American School of Psychic Portraitists. Founded by himself in 1803.

This portrait shows his great great great Grandson Boris in 2020.