David Starkey .. wait an elephant…? nay, Banksy did it first…

There is a huge elephant in the room. It is bright pink.

David Starkey is dragged into the public square by the squalling mob and put in the pilliary.

Meanwhile, footage of Banksy’s rats raiding electrical goods stores is shown.  Everyone watches, peering around the big pink elephant stood in the middle of the room.  There is an soft hush of quiet voyeristic awe as the rats crawl all over everything; swift, efficient, working together, getting the job done and demonstrating a level of organisation that would make a local authority quake in its boots.

David Starkey is now covered in rotten cabbage leaves. The witchhunt has begun afresh, the peasants are waving their torches and their pitchforks.  The big pink elephant stands quietly in the midst of it all.

More footage.  Reality TV at its best.  Banksy’s rats again.  They’re trying on shoes; scurrying about the streets.  Consuming.  Consumed.  Consumers.

Politics polarizes. The big pink elephant quietly stands in the centre of Westminster as each side says its piece.  Someone mentions animal rights, half agree, the other half disagree.

David Starkey watches one of Banksy’s rats throw a cabbage, just to be part of it, just because they can.

The big pink elephant stands right in the middle of everything.

 

 

 

 

 

Have you got a weighing scales…?

I’m cooking.  Well, if you can call it cooking.  It’s not what would set a pallette on fire, it’s just bubble ‘n’ squeak and baked beans.  That’s all I can afford.

I’ve spent the last 3.5 hours at the Job Centre attempting to sort out the crap that some anonymous person has caused to my life by pressing a button on a computer and like a butterfly flapping its wings, caused a maelstrom in my life.

I’m staring at the frying pan, waiting for the kettle to boil some hot water so I can do a little washing up; my vain attempt at actually trying to bring order out of the debris that is my derilict kitchen.

Even then I’m not permitted peace.  There’s a knock at the door.  I answer. It’s the tennants upstairs.  “Have you got a weighing scales?”

“No.” I reply.  “I don’t bake.”  I have got a weighing scales.  They’re antique tip brass.  They sit on a single random shelf half way up the wall in my kitchen.  Why there’s a shelf there I don’t know.  Some previous tennant thought it was a good idea no doubt.  I don’t have a screwdriver to remove the damn thing so the scales live there as there are no other shelves.

I close the door after having a brief conversation… well it’s not a conversation, they tell me they’ve tried to judge 50grams and I just nodded.

I go back to my meagre late afternoon lunch/dinner.  It’s the only food I’ll eat today.

Several things are in my mind right now; I refused because my immediate thought was ‘I don’t trust you’; if ever I wanted to weigh something I’d go and buy a weighing scales and in fact…. I actually walked past you on the way to the Job Centre in town and you could”ve gone and got yourselves a weighing scales; I would never knock on your door or anyone elses in fact, and ask for anything; I just want to eat my dinner; it’s easier for me to say no…

I sit down and shovel the food into my mouth… pretty tasteless… and I contemplate how exhausted I am, just from trying to keep my life in balance… and that I don’t have anything left in me to give.

You can do everything right…..

So here I am again, sat in the Job Centre…

Same shit different week.

There I was pottering along scraping through on part time work, being dutiful and submitting my timesheets every week until ….

Some person pressed a button…

Suspension….

I didn’t know about this until the Council sent me a letter saying “We want information…”

Off I dutifully trot to the Job Centre and just because I’m doing all the thinking take a copy of everything I’ve already submitted…. and submit it again…

Does it have an effect….. No.

I get another letter from the Council… still haven’t received anything from the Job Centre yet at all in writing…

Off I dutifully trot and ask the question again today…

They ring some distant office…

“If you fax the information over we’ll send it off….”

Question: How is it that information is sent through twice and yet has no effect..?

Question: What difference is it going to make sending it through again…?

Question: Why would I have the information with me again today when I didn’t even know whether anything had happened or not because you haven’t told me, didn’t know until I asked and ….

Question: Why is it…. that I do everything right…. and….

And one day you shall diversify….

It was just a bit of fun.  A curiosity day out kind of thing.

I wandered around, really wanting to pet the owl; yes, a live one, soooo beautiful and immediately I’m thinking ‘poor thing’ sat here for our entertainment…. but like everyone else I wandered off meekly.  The guy behind the table had glared at me.  “No you can’t touch it.”  In my mind I heard the unspoken “It’s mine and I’m really getting off on the fact I’ve got it; oh… my ego,… oh, yes that feels good… oh… ”

I shuddered as I walked away.  My heart going out to the owl.

I wandered about the room, mingling with all the others there.  There was a sort of pensive vibe to the air; whether it was coming from inside me or whether I was picking up on the general feel of those around me I’m not sure.

It was difficult to make a decision as to which to choose.  Always my problem.  Would I choose the lady draped in purple crushed velvet with her eyes blacked with khol? What about the ordinary looking guy dressed in khaki jacket persistently twiddling the ring on his little finger and then glancing at himself in the mirror across the room?  It’s only a lark, a bit of fun… eenie, meenie, mine’ee … mo.

I sat down at the table in front of the ‘I can’t remember his name but he had some Native American “thang” going on’.  He put a blank tape in the tape recorder and took both my palms in hand.

I engaged in the process immediately, obviously.  He rambled a few things and then a few things more.  Then came the statement: You are going to diversify.  If you ever get the chance to write a book, do it.

I walked away with the tape having dutifully paid my money.  I wandered about a bit more and left. I listened to the tape only twice, where it has gone to I don’t know.  I probably threw it out.  No matter.  I have a vague memory to keep me company.  And those words…

… they haunt me, they …. are just there.

I kick myself from time to time.  I really should’ve asked him ‘when’.

 

 

 

Confessions at Nerds Anonymous…..

*stands up* Er…. hello…. er…. my name is…..*coughs* …erm… and I’m, I’m a Nerd.

What? You don’t have anything to confess today?

Are we not feeling comfortable right now?

Would you not like to ‘express’ yourself… your inner self?

I know how you feel.  I walk around all day too with my secret selves inside.  Standing in queues in shops, battling with my anxiety symptoms that make my whole body vibrate if I stand in one position too long.

Do you have those little conversations with yourself too? Those, imaginary friends that keep you company and the worlds you dip into when it all gets too much.  It’s ok, other people call them books and films, or theatre or opera.  Those are accepted aren’t they, aren’t they?

So, shall I go first? Would that make you feel more comfortable?

Shall I say that, I like science fiction.  Yeah.  That’s good.  That’s not too bad is it.

Shall I say that, I’m … a Trekkie?  That’s sort of edging towards the ‘shifty in the seat’ sort of place isn’t it?

Shall I say… I’m a role player? That I pretend to be a character and speak like them, and play with other people who do the same.  How you feeling right now?  Shall I continue?

Shall I confess… or is it your turn?

 

 

Some things are inevitable….

It was, one of those days…. another one.

I won’t go into the gory details of the minutae of my life but suffice to say I ended up in the kitchen, a pathetic …. *searches for the right word* ..representation, image, call it what ever you want but it lacked enthusiam and ‘effort’.  ‘It’ was doing the washing up.

Off the draining board bounced the only sharp knife I possess.  The standard bare foot tippy-toe dance of a thousand possibilities of averting disaster ensued.  Disaster averted.

Nerves still jangling with the echoes of the ‘clitter-clatter’ of the beastly knife I was immediately interrupted by the phone ringing.  I was doing so well too….

I answer the phone.  A family member on the other end launched into a usual “Oh what a day … wait til I tell you this…”

And that, is where the inevitable came into play….. juggling the crappy handset under one shoulder, trying to roll a cigarette, baccy pinched between my fingers a filter tip fell to the floor.  I instinctively reached down.  The twisted phone cable pulled the receiver off its precarious perch and set in motion the heavy pair of garden scissors I’d left there (why is another story).

I can assure you the pain was considerable.  The blood profuse.  The family member on the other end of the phone never paused in their litany as I gripped the big toe of my right foot.

Several hours later my usual late night starvation kicked in and I’m in the kitchen again.  Toast.  Toast and marmite.  A second-thought-turn-away from the bread board to answer my neurotic need to check whether I’d turned the grill off brought me full circle back to the bread board.  Back, to the rather disconcerning image of ‘the’ knife perched precariously on the edge of the kitchen work surface; pointing, right at me.

My eyes widened.  I stood stock still.  My toast filled mouth formed a whispered “No…”.  Time blinked.

And then I experienced a strange peace, then a little excitement, then a little.. don’t be so fucking stupid, no-one would believe you any way.

But I can’t shake this thing, this little, tiny piece of doubt: that maybe, just maybe, some things are inevitable….

 

 

So, you haven’t told us anything yet….

I should make myself more interesting.

I should throw it all out there shouldn’t I. Shouldn’t I?

Everyone else does.  Or appears to.  Everywhere I look there are “self styled”… “writer of..”… “keen enthusiast..”…”utterly successful knowing what I am and where I’m going, just try and keep up with me, oh look I’ve just achieved even more..”…………………….. *sighs, is exhausted already, slumps in the chair*

*stares at the screen*

Shall I say… I’ve …done acting.  Stood on stages.  Got applause.

Shall I say… I’ve… painted pictures.  Received commissions.  Been paid.

Shall I say… I’ve… written stories.  Been told I’m “one hell of a writer”.

Shall I say… I’ve… just sat… and….doubted everything.

Shall I say… I’ve … stood up in front of a group of people, talked and been told…”You are your art.” by some quizzical faced person with a Phd who didn’t understand a word I said when I asked… “Do you understand?”

Shall I say… I’ve failed.. at everything I’ve ever tried.

What are you waiting for?…… “But…”

“What are you waiting for?” asks my little voiced friend in my head.

It is immediately replied to of course by that strange opening void inside the centre called “BUT”.

‘But’ is a great personal friend of mine; we chat often.  Many a happy hour we have spent together, yarning away.  Oh, I could tell you stories …. “…but…”.

Like, like, like… like I could tell you I just walked out of my house to buy a paper.  Why? Well, because my computer is so shit invariably this means I have to find something to do while I wait, tapping my foot, WAITING for the damn thing to … sorry… I digress….

So off I go, aaaand immediately I am presented with the usual… full bins.  The new tenants upstairs have filled both mine and theirs…. but…

So I continue on, off to the shop just round the corner, buy a paper, buy some cigarettes…. “That’ll be £6.87..”…… but….

So I wander back to my home, turning the corner to see three guys in a triangle throwing an American football across the road, pausing their game as traffic goes by whilst at the end of the road the public parks, neatly manicured are empty this day and I’m about to say….”Why are you….?, Why don’t you….”….. but….

So, I return to find my little computer has stopped dicking about and sit down to write and I really want to get something off my chest …. but….

Once upon a time……

Once upon a time…. that’s how most stories begin isn’t it, or are supposed to?

So where does this one begin?

“A beginning is a very difficult time” (FrankHerbert, Dune) pops into my head immediately, and therein lies the first problem.  The head, the brain, the mind…. the bane…… now, where was I? Oh yes….

*pauses* Gosh, so many choices, so many places to begin.  “Choose, choose.” My mind is screaming at me again. “Nobody will be reading from THIS POINT onwards, they will have got bored and fucked off to do something else.”

And there you have it.  Shot myself in the foot again. My own worst enemy, my own personal torturer, my own keeper drip feeding minute morsels of hope and crumbs of ‘might just be this time’.

*sighs* Guess I’ll have to do what I always do, and just begin again…

Hello world!

Well here we go…. or rather here I go.

I’ve no idea who is going to read this, or whether indeed I shall write another (as you can probably tell there’s a theme developing here already *rolls eyes*).

So, Why?  I think that question shall be answered if I ‘blog’ again………..watch this space….