Words for Steph

 

Words for Steph

 

from the Dougans

 

Well Steph, we’re going to miss you not least because you’re just about the best babysitter in the World, and you do it all for a Chicken Korma from Marks’s!  Ben says any other babysitters would just be ‘pants’ and Jack says ‘Stefna’s the best!’

Seriously though we are all sad to see you go but happy for you too.  You have been a good friend and we will miss you.  We all wish you every happiness in the world and we’ll keep in touch through e-mail.  Hopefully too we’ll come and see you next year by which time you will no doubt be talking in a languorous southern drawl and referring to the rest of the population as ‘them damned yankees!’

Meanwhile yippety dang and howdyeedoodee, keep a weather eye out for rustlers and liquored up commanches and watch out for Evil Eye McNeevil one of the wickedest meanest outlaws in the whole South.  And if, while wandering around the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains you should come across a small boy shouting ‘Shane!  Shane!’  Please strike him several times about the head.

Lots of love,

Tony, Ben and Jack.

We never saw her again!

The Kitchen-The Soul of the house!

The problem is not with the World.  The problem is with me-in that I cannot bear it and what it sees as important.
TD.

It's a Popup Pallet Modular Shipping Container Office of the Future : TreeHugger

It's a Popup Pallet Modular Shipping Container Office of the Future : TreeHugger

Those moment's of impending transformation.

BROKEN GLASS

I’m stuffing all the sheets in the machine

When, reaching for the detergent, I strike

A gentle, glancing blow against a glass,

Which topples and then smashes on the floor.

A curse is gently breathed, and then I stoop

To bring some healing back into the day.

Then I slice my thumb on a sharp shard,

And pull back quickly-cursing once again.

Struck then by the nature of this glass-

This new glass of a hundred razor shards;

None could hold a drop of the dark blood

That even now is leaking on the floor.

This glass is nothing like it used to be;

Not vessel, container, chalice or cup.

This glass has embraced chaos with a crash-

A moment of transformation has just passed.

As if a sign’s been written in the sky,

The essence of the moment is revealed-

Just as the glass is falling-does it scream:

‘I did nothing wrong! So why me?’

Or does it smile into the falling day?

Knowing no power on earth can intervene

Beyond the hit and miss.  It sings, ‘I go

                                                   With all my glassness! I say yes to this!’

Ernest Hemingway with substitute phallus.

Happy New Year to all my lovely readers! Success and Peace to you and your loved ones!

If you can see it, Poetry is to be found in the most unlikely of places!

Poem-'FATHER' A dark meditation on the Father.

FATHER

Father Fa-ther Farther
The lips must push apart to make the sound
The jaw knocking/unlocking like a skull at play
Nestlings calling for the warming milk

Father Fa-ther Farther
And at the sounding of its screw, it scores
Its rings like scars within my tubes
Ringlets of its turns jangle in my jars

Father Fa-ther Farther
An infant growling in the god-stopped gash
A curlew wailing in the winding of the day
A blind thing mewling in the moon-sliced night

Father Fa-ther Farther
Silenced in the space of sliding time
The echo urges in a flash then falls
An insult in an un-remembered tongue

Father Fa-ther Farther

The Sunday Poem

WHISPERING WINDS OF CHANGE

A string of charismatic maidens queuing
At my gates have spoken of great portents
They have read within the marrowed runes.
The raven’s arcing flight seemed quite important,
And the crow has shrieked me as a fainted-heart.
So must I write my intent on the sky?
Shoo! And sprawk! Curse of the feathered fiend
Upon you all and let me be alone!

My curse hangs in the air like, smokey gauze.
Then, little nails of no’s the rain spits down,
And anger swells within colliding clouds.
Even the squirrels mutter at me and frown.
The disapproving trees shake fingery leaves-
This raging of the whispering winds of change.

Response from Norman Baker MP to Leveson Inquiry.

13 December 2012
heartofbalance@gmail.com Our ref: CW/TD/13122012/SDM

Dear Mr ******,

Thank you for your recent email regarding the recommendations made in the final report of the Leveson Inquiry.

The Lib Dems have led the debate on media accountability. In 2010 we were the first party to call for a judicial inquiry into phone-hacking, which led to the Leveson Inquiry. We have also been calling for a stronger Press Complaints Commission (PCC) since 2003.

Lib Dems have also never been in the media’s pocket – while other parties pandered to media moguls, we have consistently been the only party to raise concerns about media accountability and ownership. Politicians and the press have, in general, been too close for too long. We need to end these cosy relationships so that the press are free to hold politicians to account.

It should not be up to politicians or media proprietors, who both have vested interests, to decide how the press is regulated. That is why the government commissioned the Leveson Inquiry in the first place. We said we should implement his findings, provided they were proportionate and workable – and by and large they are.

I was therefore pleased when, breaking with parliamentary convention, Nick Clegg, Lib Dem leader, stood at the dispatch box and offered an alternative view to the Prime Minister from the government benches. I have enclosed a copy of the Deputy PM’s statement, for your information.

Cross-party talks are just now beginning to discuss the findings of Leveson and I hope these will lead to draft legislation being published in the near future, which I very much hope to be able to support.

I hope this is helpful.

Yours sincerely

{LICENCENAME}

Two Siegfeld Beauties with Ukulele!

Response to Cameron's Mendacious Volte Face on Press Regulation!

From<heartofbalance@gmail.com>

To Norman Baker MP

Subject  Please implement Leveson
Message  Before Lord Justice Leveson’s report into press behaviour was published the leaders of all three main political parties broadly agreed that his recommendations should be supported on a cross party basis and that they would implement them as long as they were proportionate and workable.

Lord Justice Leveson has recommended independent regulation of the press guaranteed by law, this has been supported by Nick Clegg and Ed Milliband. David Cameron does not agree. He announced that he would not support Leveson’s recommendation to give the new regulator essential legal backing, meaning it will lack the independence and teeth that are the hallmark of the current failed system of self-regulation.

As your constituent I urge you to write to the Prime Minister asking him to back Lord Justice Leveson’s recommendations as he said he would; and to guarantee the independence of the new self-regulator as independent to ensure that the press remains free and accountable.

Yours sincerely

Heart of Balance

Death with Stars by Lauren Williams

The first published work by a future comic strip giant.

Essential Reading No 11-The New York Review of Books

Excellent Post by the Arch Druid on the notion of 'irredentism' and the fate of the deep southern American states.

The Archdruid Report: On The Border: The topic of last week’s post, the likely fate of Israel in the twilight years of American empire, makes a good example of more than one co...

Slavoj Žižek at his apartment in Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2010

 

Sunday Poem-The Ballad of Ned Kelly

I sent a copy of this to Peter Carey but he was clearly too busy to reply-Fucker!  Anyway Ned is truly one of my heroes and this poem was inspired by Carey's great novel 'The True History of the Kelly Gang.'

The Ballad of Ned Kelly

For Peter Carey


All I can say is she gave me a grievous wound,
but of such wounds it seems to me the wounded
take a goodly part. To be begrudged
of such an injury
would seem to stop
with clay and wattle,
the breathing hole of the soul

I know this:
A man’s true measure is
to stand foursquare and true
to his brief and vital calling.

Let the wild dogs run
upon the sun-bleached hill.
Let them run the pump
of their own rich hearts
down all the long days.

This rusty webley resting
in my bloodstained hand
gives me little comfort
in these dust blown days
when my heart creaks
like new boots.

That black-eyed devil
stallion kicking against
his hobbles runs me to the
range, the outer ring
of all my days.

I have lived
with a true heart
in this world of
false men.

My mother
I have honoured
down the long seam
of years binding her
to shameful death.

Your shame, you
strutting English hens and cocks!

I curse you for
the weasel scum you filth
upon the dusty plains
you whipping boys
of powerful men.

Come not near
on your wandering English horse
you who patrol the water’s edge.

This Irish boy will
fill your mouth with dirt
that you may
trot the faster
to your doom.



...and when these times have blown
into some gentle history
and I, a legend, populate the valleys
with the wind of my becoming.

Thus speaks the widow’s son:

I’ve done time in the dusty lowlands
sweating out a living.
Been through high mountain passes
searching for some meaning.

Heard the banshee wail
in the dark hour
before the dawning.

Fell for a sweet Irish girl,
took her for my wife;
lost her too,
when I stood up for something
more than living.

Stood upon a scaffold
straight and true,
noose-necked as wild men are
by outlawry and the
wiles of crooked politicians:
Noses snuffling in their
little trough of power.

Some might say:
A tale of bloody banditry!

Others: A flame raging
through the wild bush
or a son seeking love
from the stony places of
his father’s heart.

A dish of bloody revenge
and strife perhaps?

Let this be my last word
upon this adjectival world.

Such is life.

Essential Object No 7-VW Campervan! The Beautiful Gene Pitney in his new home!

1982 2 Litre Petrol Air cooled VDub and he's ours!  Amazing overlanding adventures await!

Stop the badger cull - e-petitions

Stop the badger cull - e-petitions

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SONNET BLUES

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SONNET BLUES

Last night the madness raged and gripped my Soul.
Wove blood-red mists before my road-mapped eyes,
and put an axe into my trembling hands.
Thoughts garbled to the Carrion Crow,

Blood curdled in the pits.
Stones for fists and fingers like steel claws,
hooked and chained within the burning eye.
Slow-squeezing fingers grip and claw.

 But then…a child appeared, bathed in light,
and held the space between with utmost grace,
till anger was transformed into shame.
Blind grief’s the parent of such blooming rage.

Go sing the night your sad songs!
And take your demons with you when you leave.

Trials of an Armchair Sea Kayaker

Starting off from Elgol with Loch Coruisk ahead and the Cuillin Ridge.

Often the designation ‘armchair’ is prefixed to the description ‘paddler’, ‘mountaineer’ or the more generic ‘explorer’ with an intention of scorn on the part of the writer; it is written with the corner of the mouth curling in derision. Personally I like armchairs. They are often very comfortable to sit in, are usually situated in warm, benign, environments and, in my experience, it is very difficult to be drowned, avalanched, or even to get lost while sitting in one. And I have never heard of one capsizing, which is probably just as well as I think they would be very difficult to roll back up! I have been proud to be an armchair sea kayaker for some years now and I have comfortably and safely paddled the wild waters of Alaska down to the Sea of Cortez in my imagination as well as circumnavigation's of the Scottish Isles and Ireland in the company of the esteemed Brian Wilson or Chris Duff. An added bonus on these epic adventures has been the possibility of consuming large quantities of food and beer while, as it were, underway.

It was therefore with some surprise that I found myself one fine day writing a cheque for a sea kayak expedition organised by my local outdoor Education Centre to paddle and wild camp for six days off the west coast of Scotland in a real sea kayak on the actual sea, venue to be decided.

And now back in the comfort and safety of my armchair that adventure seems implausible and remote. The sea appears to have cast a certain insubstantiality to my memories which fade with each passing day, with the ebbing of each tide.

This is how it was. Fear curdles in the pit of my stomach as the day approaches, fear laced with a liberal dose of excitement.

Me?  I am 44 in round years. My hair recedes relentlessly. I am the manager of a large Cancer Charity, possibly labouring under the illusion that I am important, pivotal, valuable, even, dare I say it, indispensable! I am about to learn a series of valuable lessons.  Things like:

• You are not your job.
• You are a tiny mote in the limitless expanse of the infinite.
• You must practice to be counter-intuitive.
• You do not HAVE a body-you ARE a body!
• The sea has no interest in your dreams.
• A paddle is an outrigger in it's inner nature.  Likewise life!
• Bacon butties become more essential with every passing mile from home.
• Squeezy cheese, salami, oatcakes, nuts, dried fruit, Soreen Malt Loaf,  much water.
• A good tent!  I use a Hilleborg. A thermarest with chair kit is essential for loftily surveying from your tent door.
• A Tarp is essential and a hammock just might be.
• A Leatherman Multi-Tool-I use the Ti Charge in Camo style.
• Use a firesteel with a bushcraft knife for fires.  Keep some back up marine matches in a waterproof case.
• Wine boxes with the box removed are made for kayaks.
• Apart from sex, a leisurely crap in the dome of the Coruisk and a good arse wash in it's freezing bidet is the greatest way to start a day bar none.
• Huge wild shit like basking sharks may not want to eat you!  They may just be going about their business.
• Sea Eagles are so huge they could pluck you out of your boat-illegally rendition you to their eyrie-and feed you to their offspring!  Keep away and don't look at them!
• Seals look like they have a sense of humour-Don't be fooled!
• Toilet paper and wet wipes combined make for happy bottoms.
• Some cream for chafe.  Anusol in case.  Yes you must have fungal cream for your bits.
• A good stove is hard to find.  I have used MSR stoves for years but now recommend wood burning stoves with the MSR pot to put it all in.  But I still pack an MSR Pocket Rocket as a back-up.

As for my physical challenges my paunch extends downwards over my trousers defeating my earnest efforts to restrain it, augmented as it is by that very same force that stirs the restless tides to action. The tides that I shall soon make acquaintance with. Though I try to run and cycle the odd time I am often frustrated by the fact that work seems to get in the way of any planned training program. Work and of course the needs of two young sons aged 7 and 11.

The result is a sedentary lifestyle, a lot of thinking, a lot of time in the head. The result is a lack of relationship with my body that I am about to be reintroduced to in a very powerful way.

So, as I say,  here it is:

Many had thought that the opening of the Skye bridge would spell the death knell for Lochalsh but it seems a thriving little town. A good place to stock up on provisions or grab a relaxing beer before or after an expedition on the islands. In addition the town possesses one of the grandest and friendliest loos to be found anywhere. Indeed, a plaque proudly proclaims that these very facilities have won the Loo of the Year Award for two years running. The addition of spotlessly clean shower facilities are an added bonus for post-expedition cheesy sea kayakers.

A local scout hut provided a camping barn experience for the first night though I judged that my snoring had been bad when I noticed the eyes of my comrades streaming with red road-mapped hatred during breakfast. Later we newbies strolled down to the harbour to practice some wet exiting and rescues. I still consider that being suspended upside down and banging on the upturned hull of your kayak is hardly a sensible thing to do at sea, or indeed, anywhere, it has that flapping of the hands quality, it's silly, I will not do it.  I'd rather drown than be that uncool.

I was shocked to feel how tippy the kayak seemed whilst being assured that the plastic Valley Avocet was actually quite stable among sea kayaks. Here for the first time I noticed that I seemed to be sitting in the kayak whereas those with the requisite skill seem to wear their boats like a well made suit responding to an esoteric mix of foot, hip, paddle stroke and the all important trunk rotation.

The price of tippiness for a beginner is tension and it is impossible to handle a kayak well in a state of tension. Indeed it is difficult to do anything well in a state of tension. Pulling our kayaks out of the water after the practice session I was hustled urgently by an American woman on a coach trip from Miami ‘You came over the sea in that?’ she exclaimed looking at me with a mix of incomprehension, admiration and yes...awe. I liked it and readily agreed to the requisite photo opportunity. Little did she know that I was not the grizzled adventurer she would no doubt dream about in the months ahead, negatively comparing her soulless yet dutiful husband to this sunburned kayaking buccaneer, knife strapped to his neoprene loincloth...Oh God stop it Tony!

The packing of a sea kayak for several days afloat is in itself a mysterious art. Fortunately I had invested in some sealine dry bags for which I was regularly to feel grateful for over the next few days. We loaded the semi-packed boats onto the trailer and headed out for our point of departure at Elgol on the South West coast of Skye.

Paddling out from Elgol into a strong headwind and a force 5 chop was a revelation. I was terrified and passing the bay of Camas Fhionnairigh the waves came abeam rocking the boat perilously and causing me to grip the paddle with white knuckles.
“Are you ok?” shouted one of the instructors. I nodded but stared at the incoming waves with wide eyed terror.
“Your mouth is telling me you’re ok but your eyes are saying something different!” he shouted back.
The entrance to Loch Coruisk was a smooth as milk but after a paddle of only 3 km I was trashed and the perfection of the Cuillin ridge painted against a blood red sky was somewhat lost on me. A saw toothed blade held against a sky of blood. The ridge itself has long beckoned me and was to be a constant presence throughout the trip. In the lovely bay at Coruisk a yacht bobbed at anchor, it’s Captain frowning at our approach.

The next day dawned cold and after a restless night populated with vivid dreams of death by drowning I emerged from my tent scared, tired and intent on withdrawal from the expedition. One of the group leaders approached me to ask if I was ok and I felt I should be sincere and honest so told him no I was not ok. My fitness level was clearly below everyone else's. I had never sat in a sea kayak before and if I had known what was involved I would never have signed up. No I did not want to continue and would he please leave me here and pick me up on the way back? He was clearly taken aback and his comment that no they would not be returning this way so I could not be abandoned left me with the sick acknowledgement that I was to continue this torture for another day.
I paddled out to sea feeling surprisingly comfortable. Soay Island lay to windward, a mild force 2 or 3 aided the journey and the short crossing led us to the impressive sea cliffs of Soay and a delightful circumnavigation of this fascinating place. Soay is the place where Gavin Maxwell and the improbable Tex Geddes set up a whaling station that hunted out the last of the great basking sharks in the area. We pulled up well beyond the houses for a lunch stop and I was hooked. Still a little scared but this is no bad thing in anyone who ventures out to sea. It’s the ones who aren’t scared who get drownded.

The kayak is a glorious craft that can go where few others might, carry all your needs for a self contained journey of a week and is only limited by the skill and knowledge of the paddler.
Some skerries lay at the northern end of Soay and we paddled from there across the break into Loch na h-Airde where we hit a strong beam wind and once again it was head down and battle into the waves that crashed over the deck, paddles low but this time a little more relaxed, a little less scared.
One of the delights of sea time is landfall. Delightful coves beckon, hidden caves, secret beaches and the Scottish Islands are replete with such magical places. As I tucked into my dried veggie curry staring over to the beckoning outline of Rum I thought how magical a world we can find ourselves in by paddling a boat a few miles.

In the morning there was little time to sit and admire the view and soon we were packed and heading across Loch Brittle and up the coast. Extraordinary sea caves and eroded columns of rock sculpted by the waves into fantastic shapes line the entire coastline here. If you are lucky you might see a sea eagle flying low over the waves or otters bickering among the seaweed strewn shore. And you might paddle a couple of hundred metres into rock passageways that open out into great granite cathedrals where gulliemots squabble and caw.
Secret beaches of golden sand delight the eye and the paddler repeatedly is thinking ‘I’ll come back one day and look at that again.’ Something in our nature makes us want to share such beauty with those we love.
Across the mouth of Loch Eynort where again a beam wind breathed upon us as we paddled in to Sgeir Bheag a beautiful cove of white stone almost like bone in the sunlight. Once the boats were secure we struggled up a rock passageway to emerge on a grassy plateau with views of the Hebrides emerging ghostlike out of the distance. Inaccessible by road, surrounded by mountains with the Cuillin Ridge to the east it was without a doubt the best campsite in the world.

The final following day we travelled further up this magnificent coastline investigating countless caves and passageways and paddling madly through the famous arch of Stac a Mheadais which acted as a kind of wind tunnel. Lunch was had in the perfect horseshoe of Talisker Bay and as we paddled into the bay’s mirror calm I sat panting in the boat feeling completely trashed. Just then a jellyfish puffed past my cockpit paddling its own mass with a strange delicate beauty, milky white at the edges it blended to a irridescent saphire blue at its centre.
Talisker Bay is beautiful and I welcomed the feel of land where we ate our usual lunch of squeezy cheese, malt loaf and sticks of salami. I was by this time heartily sick of dried food and dreaming of the simple things in life like a bacon buttie.

Ever onwards we paddled out of the glassy calm of Talisker bay into the most awful confused sea with waves coming from all directions in a kind of boiling froth. This is called clapotis and results from a mix of sea bed coastline and weather conditions and all beginners can do is paddle like hell through it.
About five kilometres further up the coastline veers gently to the east and in our case that meant into a headwind as we headed for Ardtreck Point lighthouse
and the last leg of our trip. A small chop with some white horses was visible from the point which would be hitting us abeam as we paddled into Loch Beag so I geared up mentally for another determined paddle.
Off across the stretch of water the wind hits with surprising ferocity. I grip the paddle and brace reflexively and then without thinking too much about it the skill of paddle and wave starts to come together and I am no longer simply stopping from capsizing but am in control. Against all instinct I am sticking my paddle in to the wave leaning into it with my hips and the boat automatically stabilises with the paddle acting as a kind of outrigger. The size of wave doesn’t really matter because the skilled paddler uses the wave itself as energy. For the first time I am not in the boat I am the boat.
As we paddle into the gentle harbour at Loch Beag I am filled with many emotions. Grateful as all sea venturers must be at landfall yet wanting this new world to continue, to continue paddling coastlines for ever. To live on the land simply and in contact with true reality and not what passes for such in the other world. But I am also dreaming of hot showers and fish and chips and pubs. It will take me months I realise, to integrate the experience.
Some weeks after the trip I was walking past a church billboard and noticed a quote that left me chuckling quietly.
‘A ship is safe in harbour but that is not what a ship is for.’ Likewise!

Amazing new photo's from Curiosity Rover

Curiosity rover: Martian solar day 2 in New Mexico

Millican Dalton (1867-1947)

graphyCaveQuotationsSources

Millican Dalton (1867-1947) - a man ahead of his time vegetarian, pacifist, eccentric, troglodyte, mountain guide, insurance clerk

Forsaking his job as a London insurance clerk, Millican Dalton dropped out long before it became fashionable or even acceptable. He lived under canvas, in a cave or in his woodland hut for the most part of his life. He styled himself ‘Professor of Adventure’ and offered ‘Camping Holidays, Mountain rapid shooting, Rafting and Hair's breadth escapes.’ Primarily remembered for his eccentric asceticism, Millican Dalton was a man who had the courage to follow his dreams and to live by his convictions. Dissatisfied with the life dealt him, he created his own. He had a disdain for modern urban materialism, rejecting it in favour of a life of stoic simplicity. Millican Dalton lived a life at one with nature - growing his own food and sewing his own clothes. He was a teetotaler, a vegetarian, a socialist and a staunch pacifist. Many people have considered walking out of the office and chucking it all in for a life of simplicity. Millican Dalton lived that dream. “Don't waste words Jump to conclusions”  “You can't feel lonely with nature as your companion”

Sonnet for Samuel

SONNET FOR SAMUEL  February 2005

You came today full-formed; all gear well made.

The hands upon you first were Little Jo’s,

she kindly whispered ‘welcome to the world.’

Birthed in warm bath water, aquarian babe.

Eight pounds nine when they have had you weighed!

At 2.05pm you so bravely burst your bonds.

    From the waters to sing your own life’s songs.

‘L’Enfance du Christ’ played as I cut the cord.

I stare at the swirl of you, awash with tears.

Your tiny hands conduct the music of the spheres.

The spirit of a tiger lies beneath that breast

on which you lie and then begin to feed.

From me you’ll get a heart wild as the wolf’s howl.

From her-beauty, and all the guts you’ll ever need.

Index Card Thoughts

The Sunday Poem on Heart of Balance

THEMES OF A LOST LIGHT-BRINGER

1

First, there is the forgetting; The un-

folding of the fracturing. Forgett-

ing what love really is; forgetting of

the joy and bliss; forgetting of the precious

pulse. What is this forgetting that

covers all the land? Is it The Snow

Queen come to curse us with Heart’s Ice?

2

Then, there is betrayal, that ebb

and flow of choice. Go this way or go that

way? Follow the green and hairy man:

(A strangely seductive gardener?) Tunnel

or the rockface? Path or winding

stream? That faint sound of ethereal hymns,

murmuring of wind and broken wings?

3

The clotted market with its rising din?

Choices in the moment; choices

that return on wings of vengeance, loss,

and oozing wounds upon the morning’s rise.

A hideous monster has been spawned, upon

your soul’s dugs suckling; drawing you in

to circles new, and other shapes unknown,

4

Dis-membered, dis-connected. Then…

Discovery! Cup breaks, shakes, shivers

and cracks! Re-named. Plucked in a crawling instant!

A new gestalt of lurching gracelessness.

Graceless out of Plato’s piss-washed cave

you lurch, and blink, a reptile on a stage.

Re-membering that thing a shadow makes.

5

You only have one cloak to wear today;

Let it be a cloak of ash, to wrap-

around the newly suffering skin-

tatooed with grief that cannot be revealed.

Begone then! And return when you are healed!

(The good folk cannot stand your endless tears.)

You follow the less-travelled track.

6

Re-member/ Re-gain/ Re-turn! But all the other

fools have gone and it’s too late! Poor,

lost child. So here you are; a single fool,

so brightless and despairing. This

cracked mirror affronts our eyes! We do

not like its shape or size! We think it weaves

a weird disguise. We think it tells us lies!

7

Spinning in that flaring light, the web

that holds us all; a match-strike sparks out in

the night- Forgive! Forgive it all! It is

the way of alchemy, the journey of

the hero. The Soul’s truth and the wisdom

road: Feels like a transformation!

So…fall then on your sword each day.

8

Be carried home upon your shield.

Children’s tears shall wash your wounds

And the harsh Gods will wonder.

The blood will cry out of your caves.

The good folk will wonder:

Some will say, forget, others

say, re-member. ‘Lost

Light-bringer!’ they’ll say: ‘Re-member!’

Musings upon The Monarch.

A musing upon Monarchy.

I've avoided most of the 'jubilee' (is that spelling right?)  I am no monarchist.  As a born Scot with Irish Catholic roots, that would be impossible.  I came to consciousness with the knowledge that my ancestors were an oppressed community of Peasant-warrior poets under the heel of the English Crown for millennia, they having taken over almost seamlessly from the Roman Heel, though I have always been intrigued by that period from circa 350 BCE to The Battle of Hastings in 1066 BCE known, I surmise inaccurately, as 'The Dark Ages.'
Anyway this elderly lady with her scarves and handbags and corgis always strikes me as slightly bemused by her surroundings.  She has of course discovered that the 'mystery' of royalty is best preserved by silence.  Most other celebrities could learn something from that.
So in respect of her as a being, I have very little to say.  Alan Bennett beautifully deconstructed a possible character for her as a close reader and she has been portrayed by Judi Dench and the impeccable Helen Mirren as a highly intelligent and ironic woman with a wry insight.  I very much doubt that but I'm sure they are all lovely people in Buckingham Palace, though there was a display of darkness following the death of Diana.  A manifestation of a family of spiteful and cruel toffs committing unwittingly, a marketing disaster.  The country grieved them into a u-turn and it's been marketing heaven from then on.  Not too difficult-it mainly comprises getting members of the Royal Family to say nothing or as little as possible.  The Queen is a mistress of this strategy, Prince Charles it's least competent practitioner.
No my problems are not with the personalities but with the structure.  My issues are with the very existence of Royalty as an institution.
Why?
Firstly the hereditary principle.  The idea of anyone rising inevitably to a position of power and influence as a result of the accident of their birth is absurd.  Not only because it abuses the concept of achievement through merit and talent which is a morally obvious process.  But because it almost inevitably restricts the gene pool of DNA necessary to produce smart human beings by creating a restricted elite which marries into itself over many generations.  Consider how many Shakespeare's have been born and died on this planet since the bard's death who in their lifetimes never learned to read or write.
Hereditary structures also create power elites where the children of members will access priviledged educational environments designed to guarantee access to Oxbridge Universities and to subsequent careers in Finance and Politics and the Law and Medicine particularly.
A narrow elite providing career politicians and financiers with little or no experience with quick access to leadership roles is one of the principle causes of what we may refer to as 'The Banking Crisis' or 'The Double-Dip Recession.'  It is also the cause of 'The War on Terror' and 'The War on Drugs.'  The crisis of 'The Euro'.  It was the cause of the illegal Invasion of Iraq and the subsequent war crimes committed there by the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom.  It was the reason why rendition and torture is actively supported by those supposedly liberal democracies.
For the reason for all those things is the heartbreaking lack of competence, talent and skill in leadership among the elites.
The hereditary principle based on tribalism is the cause of much of the geo-political problems in the continent of Africa.  It was at the root of the Ruwandan Massacre.  It is at the centre of the Congolese living nightmare.
At the top of the hereditary tree sits Royalty.  Royalty therefore is the living embodiment of inequality.  Vast power vastly corrupts.

Secondly I am appalled by the manner in which Royalty lends itself to a militaristic jingoism.  To an orgy of flag-waving nationalism.  Look at this...

This is the only home we have.  This one small ball in the infinitude of space.  Possibly the only home of life in our Universe.  Possibly an accidental miracle.  Does it not in it's beauty make a mockery of all the fools in their uniforms and jingling medals?  Does it not in it's gorgeous diversity mock those who would plunder and rape it so they may buy big houses and seven cars.  Royalty festoons itself with gold, all manner of precious and rare metals, and huge and impossible houses known as 'Palaces.'  Royalty officiates at the nexus of the State and Big Pharma/Agro/Military/Industrial/Political/Hyper-Capitalist Machines that turn ordinary human lives into Human Capital to be used up for it's own purposes or cast aside into poverty and ignored.  Utility as a Pathology.  Royalty is the mechanism by which the Hyper Capitalist Machine invests itself with something approaching respectability.  Royalty provides the Emperor's Clothes.

Talking about Utility brings me to my third point:  If we all actually are 'in this together' can we afford to fund the luxurious lifestyles that Royalty appears to demand.  We are talking here about a group of essentially non-productive people payed vast sums of public money to do...nothing.  Well not nothing exactly but things like travel, eating, opening things, cutting ribbons, disrupting schools and hospitals with state visits, ensuring the growth of a vast state and personal security industry.  People paid for being hereditary celebrities.  An industry awarding members of its own club peerages, titles, trinkets and baubles for all those who cherish such things.  In the Storm of Austerity can it be afforded? Should it be?  Is it not some kind of offence to the sick, homeless, hopeless and lost?  Is it not welfarism for a tiny elite?  Is it not the essence of forelock tugging and cringe making senseless ceremony?  Is it not really when it all comes down to it an almost sado masochistic uniform fetish posing as something...positive?

Fourth and final point is the abuse of these people from the moment they are born being flung into the horror of the media without making any conscious choice about it.  Is it right that children's destiny's should be so manipulated by the system that they will be thrown into a life without privacy or for what passes as normality?  I say no!  Royalty is an anachronism that needs to be consigned to the museum of history, a historical yarn spun by an idiot.  We should be looking back anthropologically upon it's strange customs and considering how quaint it all was back then! Forelocks should be grown by teenagers as acts of rebellion against their knee-locked elders.  The curtsey should become a criminal offence.  Everyone in a sane society puts their own toothpaste on the brush.  All adult humans without physical or mental impairment should wipe their own arses.

Get local!  Get involved!  Be the change you want to see in the World!  Move!

22 Minutes – Fostering Network

22 Minutes – Fostering Network

A Petrarchan Sonnet on Electoral Apathy-Practice Sessions using abbaabbacdecde

The queues on polling days are shrinking fast.

And "voting's just a boring waste of time"

shout drug-addled youths, intent on crime.

We ask who shall be first and who last.

And who should care, and how, and why, and what?

The voters are all full of Yeat's despair,

their faces set against, their noses in the air.

The few who care drop votes into the slot.

But then I look at Cameron and Clegg!

Their motley crew throwing bread rolls in 'The House.'

Choked with self-entitlement I'd say.

A question starts to form inside my head.

When the choice is cockroach or louse,

the wisest choice might be to stay away!

Cardinal Sean Brady has aided and abetted the torture and rape of hundreds, possibly thousands of children. So how is he still Primate of All Ireland?

This priest is said to be a good man. Yet he repeatedly failed to disclose to parents or the police his knowledge that innocent children were being abused by the monster-priest Brendan Smyth. Does he therefore belong in a Cardinal's palace? Should any followers of the gentle Nazarene live in palaces? Yet another disclosure that reveals the Catholic Church as a haven for paedophiles, bigots, the sexually dysfunctional and the dead-at-heart. The enemy of life and hope! How long can this organisation be tolerated?

Am I saying that Catholics should be burned at stakes?  No, far from it.  I am saying that their temporal organisation is corrupt at it's heart. It is organised along medieval methods and systems.  It is corrupted at it's centre.  But most of all, it is scared of the Feminine-of the magical, scary, wondrous, sexy, moon-cycled, bitchy, relate-focused, boob-juggling women that, sadly for them, in their dusty robes, constitute 50% of the species.  It's a goddamm bitch.  But...Who you gonna call?  Cardinal-Resign with at least a modicum of honour man!