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.