Ghost Story In Fragmento

It is only now, some twenty years after the event that I can bring myself to record the terrible events of that grim November night. Recently I found myself stranded at Southampton station having missed my last connection to London. I booked into a rather shabby hotel nearby fully intending to depart for London first thing in the morning. I could not have suspected that a late night conversation over a single malt would alter my plans so dramatically.
The owner of the hotel called Three Roods was a rather rough looking chap called Henry Diggins. I could see from his sunken eyes and the burst blood vessels in his face that he had too much of a liking for the drink. He was not the kind of man with whom I would normally engage in any deep conversation. So when he casually mentioned that he had been a pupil at Dauntless College in the nearby village of Romsey I was amazed and it was with genuine surprise that I explained that I too had been a boarder there and we exchanged memories like the survivors of some grisly accident bound together by shared trauma.
Diggins, it transpired was some years younger than I and when he remarked that he was the pupil who had stayed over on the Christmas holidays at the time of the Great Fire I was greatly intrigued to hear his story and he only too keen for the telling of it.

New motto of the Day: Grace Under Pressure

Grace is my favourite word. Grace under pressure is my motto and despite my clumsiness. Only the other day...It doesn’t matter.
There have been some very strange things happening in this neck of the woods of late. Me? I’m a watcher. I see what goes on-it is after all my purpose. It is what I have been trained for. To the untrained eye it might look like ordinary people going about their business but I know better. I have, as I say been trained to see beneath the surface of things.
Dr Chaudhuri is not a watcher. She thinks she is but clearly she is not. In my experience psychiatrists rarely are in fact watchers though clearly they are intelligent people. Very intelligent people or they wouldn’t be psychiatrists though there can be too much emphasis on that cleverness. The intelligence of a watcher is different. We must have endless supplies of patience.

Ramblings from old Notebooks Pt 1V

Dreams ideas and strange thingies

30/12/00: A fragment after watching Luc Besson’s Jean of Arc and lit like the film-dark and brooding. There is a barman-tall, swarthy insolent and arrogant looking. Long hair and a dirty unshaven face. He is completely naked and sports a huge erection and is strutting up and down behind the bar.

15/7/01: The Social Worker-first chapter done////
Reiko & Shinji/ The Questors/ Sea Kayak trip/ Barcelona trip/ Cephalonia trip/

20/9/01: Reading The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy on the train I am struck repeatedly by images of profound horror. The German officer sucking the eyeballs of the revolutionary out of their sockets and leaving them to dangle on their cords and the retelling of it with the blind man saying how he could see his chin and body from another angle which gradually dimmed as the cords and eyeballs shrunk like grapes.

A phrase from Prospect Magazine OCT 2000 “The void of Pre-Birth.” From essay The Eggshell by Paul Broks

Wherever was it that I heard that phrase? I just cannot remember. What was it now? The distribution of sadness as opposed to the distribution of blame.

The stigmata of perfectablility- From a documentary on Dusty Springfied-The trait of artists to always wish for everything to be absolutely perfect.

If I create nothing else but am at least declared to have been a good dad then I will consider my life to have been worthwhile. Lover, friend, husband-these are all important but Dad is best of all.

I do not believe in love at first sight. I believe that to be an error that confuses an immediate sexual or magnetic attraction with what arises from the slow casserole of relationship. Anything else is fast food. Now there isn’t even any time to fall in love.

Speed dating? Because they need time to do what exactly?

A day doodling in the Downs.

I went out for a bike ride on 'Rocky' on Monday. He's like his owner-a bit old and cranky and prone to unexpected breakdowns these days. He needs a lot of tlc and some new parts (again like his owner!). Being from Cumbria and now living in the South East one is continually struck by how, well...flat it all is. But the rolling hills of the Downs are just a 10 minute ride from the front door and thus I ventured out to do a bit of exploring. It was beautiful and empty. I saw two people the whole day and hit the main path to Ditchling Beacon which is just beautiful gently rising singletrack. On the way I came across the Chattri War Memorial to the fallen in the first world war from India and Pakistan. Quite an amazing thing to see in the middle of nowhere. These were wounded soldiers hospitalised in Brighton who died of their wounds. The dome is the actual site where the bodies of the dead were burnt in accordance with their custom. It was a beautiful silent and meditative space where I enjoyed a cup of steaming minestrone. Heading off towards Ditchling I came across a rather splendidly handsome sheep with an impressive set of horns. She was not entirely happy about being photographed and, I think, suspicious of my motives. The sense of space was amazing and much needed. I don't do well in cities! Swinging back through Lower Standean I came upon a little piggery. These little beauties are where our bacon butties come from! It's enough to turn you vegetarian. So there we go. You get out and ride and never know what you might come across.

The Archdruid Report: A Gathering of the Tribe

This is another great post from the Arch Druid of America, John Michael Greer. I think he's right. There is never going to be a wonderful river of cheap renewable energy-not now, that should have been planned for since the early 70's. No the oil and gas are on the way out and as fossil fules run out geopolitical instability will multiply. It's going to be a bug-out, survival future. Get a wood, Yurts and tents, a food and fuel stockpile, some allotment type vegetable production, a filtered water supply, dogs, horses, bicycles, windmills, solar panels and don't forget some weapons. Oh and a spiritual and ritual space. Mmmm...it sounds ok ish!


The Archdruid Report: A Gathering of the Tribe: I walk half a mile through a chill autumn morning to the bleak little cinderblock building that serves the old mill town where I live as a t...