Fish, Barrel, Bang., c/o : Ally Chisholm.,

Dear parents of Kimberly Patterperson,

I begin this letter by correctly quoting Edmund Burke. “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
That quote does seem to be in vogue and I can only imagine it is so because a lot of people are doing nothing. However, a lot of those doing nothing aren’t good men in the first place and they are doing their great amounts of nothing in reaction to things that aren’t particularly evil. The quote is soon to be wrongly remembered as: All that is necessary for the triumph of anything I don’t like is that average people do nothing in response. There are fears and worries that soon people will be found sneezing and no one will say bless you and said sneezer will be pointing at all and sundry claiming them to be evil, under the false misunderstanding that good men surely would take the action of saying bless you.
This is of course something that you yourselves have brought up in the media in response to the tragedy that befell your daughter Kimberly. You felt that no one did anything to help her. I am sorry to say that the truth may be worse. Half the crowd were afraid to help. I’ve checked with our psychologists and this is common world wide. And half the crowd seemed to rather delight in your daughter’s demise. I on the other hand am not allowed to idly stand by and am compelled, by my sense of what is right, but largely by my seniors in the company to try to put you right with what you have misconceived about our city. Perhaps in doing so we can all better understand what happened to your daughter whilst here. I hope we can give you some peace and understanding.
The London tourist corporation are very sorry to hear of your loss. The death of Kimberly was a horrible incident and we must assure you that it is very uncommon to hear of anyone being eviscerated and eaten by a pack of hungry teenagers.
I understand that Kimberly had recently survived Thailand and didn’t get conned once. She did better than I did. I was trying to find the Royal Palace and somehow got whisked off in a Tuktuk to go shopping for three days against my will. And yet she, in her letters to you, stated that she found London harder to deal with. I can only suggest that she came ill prepared and perhaps we can tell you where she went wrong. Let us clear some things up for you to assure you that we are doing all we can to make this city ever better. Hopefully in the future, armed with this knowledge you will feel confident enough to send your friends and family here and feel safe in the knowledge that most people on the streets of London may not talk to you but they certainly will not consider ripping you open and eating your innards.
It transpires that the high stress levels within Kimberly had attracted the feral like teenagers. They don’t like stressed foreigners complaining about their home. They certainly won’t help you with your shopping if they don’t like your temperament. I’m sorry to report that onlookers had found your daughter to be really whiny and that won’t sit well in harsh parts of town. I have found that the best course of action is to not speak. This was my usual practice on the New York subway, thinking that a posh English accent would not have aided me in the Bronx at all.
So, stay calm. Don’t be stressed as Kimberly was. Here are some of the things you need to understand that your daughter didn’t:
I think her biggest gripe was that the cost of living in London is too high. I’m not sure what your daughter was used to but perhaps she would have felt comfortable shopping in pound stretcher or Iceland. Both these chains of shops do great deals. This way you can make your money go further. Department stores are really rather bloody expensive. I once bought a watermelon for twenty pounds simply because I could.
London has tried to price out the poor in recent times as we feel that it is the poor that tend to be the ones killing and eating tourists. Those high prices are our way of rooting out the undesirables. But unfortunately they keep coming and all they do is complain about the prices, which in turn makes them mad and more dangerous. We make the galleries and museums free in full knowledge that the poor don’t want culture. Your daughter could have had a very cheap day shopping in pound stretcher and touring all the museums. It is also worth adding that if you live here you don’t go on too many madly expensive shopping sprees. Who does? I’m sorry she was not well informed with regards to this.
I was once asked how much it costs to enter the parks in London. I know from my travels that Tokyo for instance charges to enter some of their lovely parks. For the grand cost of nothing I would suggest a lovely walk to the top of Primrose Hill where the view is oh so nice.
Now, such a day out would be dependent on the weather. Some information regarding this: We have seasons in this country. Yes, the bad weather does get us down and make us drink more alcohol (More of this in a minute). If you arrive in this country in what we call winter, which used to be from November through to February but is now extending to April or May due to larger countries causing global warming and strange weather patterns, you can expect it to be cold. If you arrive in summer it might be warm but not Pacific Northwest type warm. Sometimes we have autumn and spring but these are getting rarer. People on a whole don’t come to this small island for the weather. It is possible to stay here for a short period, say one month, and never experience even reasonable weather. If this bothers you then check which season we’re in. The weather here is not extreme. It’s just crappy. Downside is the crappiness. The upside is a lack of earth quakes, tornados and blizzards. The London tourist corporation has started to produce t-shirts that are readily available on our website printed with the slogan: “Live with crappy weather. Die with extreme conditions. Choose London.” I designed that one and I’m rather proud of it.
However, all public transport will be affected by any changeable weather. See this to be a great excuse to skip work and treat it like a bank holiday.
With regards to public transport: I am sorry to hear that your daughter had a lot of trouble understanding the social nuances of the London Underground. Let me tell you that there is no queuing system in place. If you want to witness the best queuing system in the world I highly recommend the Wimbledon tennis championships that take place in the last week of June and the first week of July. You’ll never see such civilised and organised queuing. We are trying to rectify the underground problems and have been experimenting with zones to stand in whilst awaiting trains so that people can safely get on and off. Of course no one takes any notice and people stand wherever they want and it quickly becomes a free for all. We have tried announcing in ten different languages to let people off the train first but this has changed nothing. There are a few simple steps to deal with this. Firstly: Who the hell would travel in rush hour anyway? Don’t do it. It’s silly. If you do have to do it then you have a choice of not getting on a busy crowded train and waiting three minutes for the next one. People seem to forget that they have this choice and prefer to fight for inches. Try being polite and ignoring rude people. There are so many rude people in the world and you can’t teach them all a lesson by standing on their toes.
We still can’t get everyone to stand on the right on the escalator, despite being quite sure that this is in fact a universal law of escalators. We are pushing for escalator training to be placed in the national curriculum but the problem seems to be multi national.
We have long since thought that we have a smiling problem in this country. We’re not very good at it. We are excellent at and have perfected the friendly moaning, grumbling and complaining but still rarely smile in a carefree way. I just got back from Borneo where they are all grinning all the time. It was something to see. We are trying to instil such spirit here but we think it will take time.
Smiling seems to take place in the pubs a lot. Kimberly wrote to you saying that she had encountered a lot of junkies and, as she put it, eight pm drunks. We are not proud of our junkies but we do revel in the idea that we are leading the way in what we call free thinking drinking. Free thinking drinking will be the next slogan on a t-shirt. It’s cool to get hammered at any time and any day of the week. This may have upset your daughter but with this many people in a city it’s good to spread the alcoholism across the week. Every Londoner knows that only the tourists go out in the West End at the weekend. To avoid the weekend madness I recommend a good Thursday session. In recent research I have personally spent time in San Francisco on an exchange programme talking to heroin addicts to see how they make their town seem more glamorous. The secret is to be scary in a laid back fashion. When we brought our heroin addict friends to London they were appalled at the extraverted aggressive scary behaviours they witnessed but they understood that alcohol makes you crazy in a very different way.
For a long time we were indeed worried that we have a drinking problem here. People seem to be spending too much time in pubs. There was a sharp incline in recent times. We put that down to a natural reaction to the US’s foreign policy and their desire to mess up the world for some years now and before that it was the acceptable answer to being stabbed in the back by what we thought was a left wing government that turned out to be just as bad as the right wing one it took over from.
Further research will show that this is widespread throughout the world. Check out the price of vodka in Moscow. All is not lost. It turns out that people drink a lot but they also go to the cinema and theatre and museums. Sometimes they stay in and play scrabble or read a book.
Do not make the two crucial mistakes that Kimberly made. Drunken people come out at night. This too is universal. People like that in London there is night life any day of the week. Ignore drunk people that you don’t want to deal with. They get bored and go away. Don’t get stressed by it and don’t get aggressive. We seem to be having a growing problem of tourists getting drunk and telling each other to fuck off and saying how horrible London is. To real Londoners this is funny. The last rule again is simple and universal. If you live in a crappy part of town bad things might happen. Choose where you live carefully and then act accordingly. Several witness statements said that Kimberly’s last act was to stick her middle digit up at the pack of teenagers who were actually minding their own business.
In London, more than anywhere else, if you mind your own business you get by. People come here for the anonymity and there certainly are a lot of people coming here. There is nowhere in the world that is problem free but sitting here in this office overlooking one of our many parks it’s hard to imagine where the problems start. It all depends on what you come here looking for. I’m not sure what Kimberly was looking for but she was looking in all the wrong places. You tell me that she thought people were ill mannered. I use the underground every day. People rush about and get to where they’re going and never say a word as they hurtle around town. Poor Kimberly, she didn’t understand. No one wanted to be rude. I doubt they gave her much thought as she was just swallowed up by the city.
You’ll be pleased to know that we now hand out flyers at the airport to deter people from going where Kimberly went and behaving as she did. There are Londoners who want you to keep on thinking this town is crap. The more you say it and the more people you deter, the more of London they can have to themselves, tourist free. It would be considered churlish to try to shoot down your way of thinking, to expose your misunderstanding, and point out how little you know. It would be easy. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel. But my job is to convince you how wrong you are, to shoot away. We wouldn’t be a very good tourist corporation if we didn’t. Once again I offer our deepest condolences for your loss.

and the devil went to georgia... c/o : hesq.,

And the devil went to…

well well my sweet friend world, what is it that i see as i look out from the window pane., what do i see through the rain falling or the shining sun., what i see is rarely the truth, for that is always hidden, misted over with lies and fabrications... in the modern world of politics "lies" have been rebranded as "spin"; just as "propeganda" was rebranded "P.R." or "public relations" by the legendary master of deception and manipulation, Edward Bernays., see http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/bernprop.html for the full text of Propeganda (1928) by Bernays (the book that shot him to both infamy and big bucks...)., so truth is something that we must seek out between the lines, but once on the trail of it the lies and misinformation become laughable in their hollow translucence, ah, thank Buddha for the gift of sight, not seeing which eyes give us, but sight, which is how we see the truth amongst all the rest of things, half truths and lies litter the pathways of our sight but still the truth is as a beacon. More often than not the truth is also simpler than the misinformation. For instance, over the last few weeks and years the UK population has been persuaded that, despite appearances, the Labour Government is a socialist one, it is, the people are told, a Socialist movement, a true Labour goverment, albeit a New Labour government, but ultimately, a traditional Labour government. Now, particularly within the field of politics it is bad for the health to split hairs (just ask the deceased Dr. Kelly about that one...), however, in this case it is not hairs being split. The so-called Labour government is Not a socialist government. Now, the spin (for "spin" obviously read "media-accepted-lies") dictate to us that it is a Socialist movement, fighting for the people, for the poor and the socially emancipated; and if anyone got another impression they are mistaken, oh pardon my French, in the Politically Correct NewSpeak, truth-seeingly-challenged... What a load of horseshite, and i mean fox hunting style horse shite, not that poor stallion stabled by the London-Edinburgh train line in a tiny paddock that screams every time a train goes past at record breaking speeds... Most recently we have seen the true colours of the government of the UK. Gordon Brown has increased the taxes on the poorer parts of society while at the same time lending something in the region of £50 billion to the banking sector. So Gordon Brown and his Labour government have lent the banking sector somewhere in the region of £50 billion – and we can’t be sure as to the exact amount because the government refuses to tell the tax payers the truth… Now, it seems that a very important point has been forgotten in all this, namely that the government exists to SERVE its people, that means if the people want to know where their tax money is going they should be told straight out, and if the government refuses to tell them, then it would be NO moral crime to refuse to pay any more taxes until they do. The government in the UK seems to forget that Taxes are Not obligatory. The government does everything in its power to make people think that they are, but they aren’t, and that’s just that. It’s simple. You see already the Truth is so much easier than all the lies.
With regards the relationship between a government and the people there exists what is often called a “social contract”. This means that there exists a deal between the governed and those who govern. If either of the those two parties defaults on the deal the deal is off. The deal can roughly be summed up as being; the governed obey the laws of the land, i.e. pay their taxes, don’t steal murder or commit treason, give some of their children to die in the armed forces and so on; while the Governing classes are obliged to tell the truth about what they are doing and basically seek to serve and benefit the populace that elected them. When this does not happen the social contract is Off, and no obligation remains to obey the rules set down in the metaphorical contract.
Well, when a government gets itself elected as a Labour government, then proceeds to finish off the Trade Unions, increase taxes on the poorest in society while offering untied loans of tens of billions of pounds to the banking sector (the same sector who has through fast and easy debt establishment made some of the poorer in society yet poorer and even sadder poor for life…) then somewhere along the lines that government has deceived its people. One of the most tenants of democracy is freedom of information and thought. Obviously if the government is LYING again and again to its own people it is undermining this most basic tenant of any functioning democracy.
It is a fact that the average council (i.e. localised government) spends over one million pounds a year on Publicity. If you add that up around the whole country that’s a lot of dollar… That publicity is in effect an attempt to counter balance the negative press the government gets from being caught out lying, it’s an attempt to regain trust (one of the things Brown said on coming into power, we need to get back the people’s trust in politics, well, that’s easy to do, stop Lying to the people, stop Stealing from the people, just stop deceiving your own electorate and over time they learn to trust their government once more…) but it doesn’t work. Just as no one in real life is really fooled by that poster in the Human Resources Dept that reads “we’re here to help” no one is going to believe a politician who is constantly being caught out both Lying and Stealing while in a public office when he says, no honestly, you can trust us Now…
It all comes down to the question of what kind of society we want. And the answer to that question lies with the people and not with the governments. The governments exist to serve the people, this cannot be emphasized enough. One argument that is often given against this point is that people do not know what is best for them. This can only be true if the education they receive is second rate. The answer is simple : increase education as a priority in our society. As sad as it may be, in our society, importance and priority are rewarded by the $ . Given this, one may wish to ask why a private in the army receives a higher wage from the government than an NHS nurse. It should be that the answer is a soldier is more valuable to society than a nurse. Do we really feel that a hired killer is more valuable than one who is hired to heal? If so, perhaps there is not much hope. But personally I cannot believe this. The answer is more along the lines that a soldier can make more money for the government than a nurse. Don’t feel that a nurse does not increase the GDP of a country. Obviously by keeping folk alive they work longer and pay more taxes, produce more wealth and in production increase output and thereby GDP quite directly. Also, anyone earning is consuming and this also generates vast wealth. The soldier however, and an entire army, can be thought of as a mercenary force. When profitable they will be sent to a particular region under any politically suitable guise and used to reap the rewards nationally. N.B. how the corporations of America have benefited from the offensive campaign in the Middle East, not only the defense industry but the logistics industries too. Bottom line : it’s big bucks. Bottom line : any competitive economy only Needs so many well educated people…


To return to the original point; Gordon Brown has lent at least £50 billion of tax payers’ money to a group of people who have of late been exposed as having, among other things, cheated the charity system (think of Northern Rock's comedy Granite tax free scheme based in Guernsey) and given huge pay offs to executives who have fucked it up as well as profit from their scabby mortgage schemes - carefully designed to rip off the under-educated working classes... (just for instance the sub-prime mortgages...)... Well, thanks Gordon, you sociopathic fascist, what exactly is it that you have in mind? Is it a job like Tony’s got now that is really causing you to fuck the British populace up the @$$ with your metaphoric £ock..? Well thanks anyway you lying scumbag... I have never personally had any contact with Gordon Brown the man, but one story i was told in Edinburgh of his student days really stuck. Apparently he had bet with a local in a small pub on a game of darts they were playing. When he lost the game he refused to pay up, at which point the pub local broke his nose... Well, it's a damn pity he didn't break his neck... but seriously now, it wouldn't have made any difference since he would only have been replaced by some equally uninspiring and insipid little robo-politician, as bland and completely devoid of true good or moral character as this slug that we have in power right now... and the Labour Spin (for Spin read Lies...) machine can tell the UK public till its blue in the face that it is a socialist movement but it just won't wash, well, except the whole blue in the face thing because to be fair the Labour party are Bluer than the Tories these days...(that was a smart move : to out-maneuver the opposition party, just become more right wing than they are, beat them at their own game, perfectly souless example of Spin at work...)... Well, after another pointless political rant, what next..? Action. That is what must be next if we are to honest with ourselves. The political machine in the UK has such a tight grip on the media that any kind of wide spread information campaign is impossible. This doesn't mean to say that the proliferation of the Truth is worthless, it just means that we cannot rely on it completely to solve all things. So, action remains. Though obviously Action too is subject to a media translation. When people peacefully protest on the streets they are branded extremists, in fact, various members of the Muslim community in the UK have faced criminal charges and even prosecution due to their saying the wrong things, speaking out against a fundamentally racist society (remember that the BNP are legitimate political party who preach “no immigrants” and “send them home” and “white is right”…), while when the leaders of the UK consistently LIE (and are proved to do so) about the reasons and justifications for the invasion of a sovereign nation (which was, by the way, illegal under international law) we are told that God is on our Side... well, if that's the case he ain't no god of mine... however in this department there is at least hope, for there is a certain movement now in the international legal circles to bring to international tribunals certain key figures in this aggression to war crimes tribunals... (as an aside, note that this did not occur until it seemed as though the economies of the offending nations were going down the pan, yes, the bed pan not the frying pan... i.e. they are going to shit...). In fact, i have to confess that only the other night i awoke in the midst of a wet dream (rated by the UK censorship board as an 18 and over...) in which George Bush was fleeing to Venezuela seeking political asylum... jesus, he'd have less luck than the damned Nazis... which kind of puts things into perspective. Oh, i just can't resist the parallel, as George W. Bush got into power less legally than Adolf Hitler... ah shit, how to spin that one.? ah, i know, get your brother to count the deciding votes... which is something i never understood about the Democrats, how they never really made a fuss about having the election stolen from them, how they never really mentioned much since the event that they were the rightful party to power... unless... they were in on it too, and were paid off, Nigeria style... no couldn’t be, although looking at the recent democrat race for nominee it does seem tenable… oh sorry, we're straying like rabid dogs off the point here... the point was, what to do about this. well, what to do is boycott the shites, boycott all major stores, all chains, all fast food retailers, all high street shops without exception. buy all your clothes from charity shops, or better yet, learn to make them yourself, boycott all supermarkets and buy your foods directly from farmers markets until your own crops have grown, give up all jobs and employments that support the heartless machine of the cities, and that means giving up all jobs that make nothing except profit, take out as many loans from the banks and legalized loan sharks as possible with no intention of ever paying them back and what’s more don't pay them back, or better yet, go into work one last time and trash the whole fucking joint before you leave laughing that you are no longer subject to the total bullshit that has gone so far as to be near on a total war against humanity conducted by those who feel themselves to be above it - it's the old "mirror mirror, on the wall, who's the (INSERT APPROPRIATE FLATTERY) of them all..." syndrome... yes that's what we need to do, but hey, gee wiz, that's only if you actually give a fuck about it all... otherwise, enjoy it, and keep reading the newspapers you fucking idiot...

the devil goes to georgia... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qepv1mtYdx0 .

(oh yea, shit, i know, youtube is a scumbag corporation making money out of advertising revenues... ah, but i so nearly had a point...)

from the sports desk.,

hesq.,

Blues n' Trouble rock n' roll.,

well, we stuck up a link, and here is the Blues n' Trouble in action, Honey Pot Blues and a couple of other classics c/o : one of the great bands still alive and kicking @$$.,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qTEkOMIZ4g .,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydr13E2eoJU&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHyMO1op9Fc&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzU1-Pjrs2k&feature=related

and these guys are no amateurs, having recorded with B.B. King among others.,..
enjoy., we always found their gigs of the highest variety and once upon a time were invited into a back stage slumber party with them, well, slumber might not be the right word, exactly, but come on, use your imaginations now..,..

the gonzo sports desk.,

wonders of the modern age., c/o : Rebecca Priddle.,

within countless sets of four white walls
days pass with increasing monotony
hands of the clocks in never decreasing circles
pass slowly the minutes as they rush into the past
eyes screwed tight to screens
fingers on springs
endlessly recoil from plastic keys
for miles rows of mannequins extend
bleached to scour any garish individuality
whitewashed figures to the left and right
as

far

as

the

eye


can



see...

india in an instant., c/o : Rebecca Priddle.,

The cacophony of horns buffets my ear drums in relentless waves as we join the morning traffic that is clogging the one road leading west out of Delhi.
Through the open window, hot, sticky air enters the car. It is heavy with the sickly sweet smell of spices and closely packed people that beautifully characterises the city. I am almost sorry to leave the persistent clamour behind.
The queue’s initial absence of speed gives poverty stricken children the opportunity to dart amongst the traffic, performing acrobatic tricks in the narrow spaces between cars and trucks, narrowly avoiding countless collisions with impatient drivers.
As I watch them back flip, my head is nearly caught up in a travelling tangle of limbs and I quickly withdraw it to safety as a rickshaw shucks past, slipping between the disorderly lines of traffic. Its tiny engine is protesting against the weight of the ten teenage boys that are clinging to any of the vehicle’s graspable surfaces - arms are linked through the flimsy bars across which the tattered roof tarpaulin is stretched, feet are precariously placed on anything that juts from the rickshaw’s frame.
Close behind comes a battered looking moped, carrying a middle age Sikh couple - the husband with only his turban to protect him from a confrontation with the dusty road, and his wife with less than this! I cringe as I imagine the worst. When I lean into the front of the car to ask how aware people are of the dangers of poor road safety - being an eternal pessimist I am fascinated by this apparent flippancy - our tourist driver, Sammy, confidently informs me that there are only three things required to survive the mayhem of these roads, “Good Brakes, Good Horn and Good Luck”. He says this whilst looking back at me in the rear view mirror and overtaking five vehicles at once by crossing to the relatively empty opposite lane. My stomach leaps up dangerously close to my mouth, head and neck lean as far back as my seat will allow, and I press the imaginary break to the floor under my right foot as we swerve back into our lane, and almost into another car, to avoid the brightly painted truck that steams past us, horn blaring and dust rising in its wake.
I am inclined to agree with Sammy on this instance, although I am afraid that “good luck” may play the biggest part in our survival!
As the jumble of vehicles finally begins to gather speed, I ponder the long journey we have on these hairy roads. Leaning back out of the window, this time more cautiously and very much aware of any further hazards coming my way, a thrill of excitement runs through me. I am home.

without you., c/o : Rebecca Priddle.,

The station swarms with commuters, the after-work rush creates a frenzy; ‘‘9 ’til 5’ workers hastening towards their designated platforms, eager to reach the trains which will lead them to freedom.
Partners wait for them at the other end, the children strapped into the car in their pyjamas. At home, a glass of wine whilst the pre-prepared meal is heated in the microwave. The latest news from the office is relayed over chicken in a white wine sauce with mushrooms, laughter is inputted in the correct places, as are eye-rolls and gasps.
Twenty minutes later the dishwasher is whirring in the kitchen and they are curled up on the sofa with a second glass of £5.99 Merlot. The television is tuned into a documentary about the blind and armless wunderkind who has miraculously taught themselves to play the piano with their feet and is set to conquer the world of classical music, as well as the hearts of millions. This story, which serves to remind them of how lucky they are.
Retiring upstairs, they look in upon their child, sleeping peacefully, the cartoon-character shaped nightlight glowing from the plug socket beside the bed, each affirming to themselves that they are indeed the lucky ones in this cruel world.
In the bedroom they undress each other with a lazy familiarity that is comforting at this time of life; they have sex in the manner reserved for a weekday night, the process more of a nightcap taken for medicinal purposes than the vigorous and experimental kind displays they used to put on before; when they didn’t have to wake up in the mornings to get the train, or to take their child to nursery school, or do the housework, walk the dog, or in fact have any responsibility other than to the pure and animal passion that they had for each other. Yet they are not nostalgic for these carefree days - their lives are still fulfilled, they are sure of that.
I stand, in the midst of this - the futures of strangers - frozen to the constant buzz that saturates the atmosphere. I remain here, outside of temporal effect, long after my train has departed. Somehow, I cannot bring myself to begin the journey to my other life.
Nobody knows. Not one person.
They can see the repressed flicker of agony in my eyes when I make contact with theirs but they could never guess the true depths to which I am travelling, or how the nadir approaches with every breath.
I have kept my secret for an emotional eternity; my only confidant my jailer, to whom I have become irreversibly bonded.
It started as a match struck in the darkness. The illumination was instantaneous. To guess that such beginnings could reek the destruction which now lays in our wake would have been an inhuman feat. It could not be imagined in dreams, or impeded in reality.
And now it is only separately that we may re-join society; this is one truth that cannot be escaped.
Without the other we must build our lives.
One will have a child, the other will be married to their career. Both will find another to fill the abyss.
In old age, we shall have fond and distant memories of the short time we spent together, defying the world, and we shall be glad we learnt our lessons and decided on the safer path.
Even now, whilst I stand here motionless, I am ripping apart the memories of the union for which I have waited lifetimes, which has pieced together the fragmented structure of my previous self; a sadistic self-mutilation that shall leave scars only those who dare come close shall see but which shall be obvious to all.

alone on a saturday night., c/o: Rebecca Priddle.,

I could have been somebody. Like, really somebody. Someone amazing, fantastic, the person people want to be.

I would have been an artist.

Is this fiction or am I thinking on paper? Sometimes I feel like I have been chosen for some other task. That there is something in me that is unique. Something is living inside me that is not wholly part of me but is the life source by which I survive. In the centre of my chest it swells, invisible and often unnoticeable…it grows when I am alone and silent and random patterns of thought possess my mind.

To be sure in the knowledge that I am here for a reason would be entirely peaceful. If I were able to put my faith in the idea that I am here for a purpose, that I am here to help, to save, I wonder if it would change my life. Would I stop drinking excessively, which makes me the person I want to be, and sometimes a person I despise? Would feel security in myself and not hide behind my fears and anxieties.

Am I that person already? Do other people see what I do not? Why am I so…miserable? That is not the right word. Depressed? Emotionally sensitive? Paranoid?

I seek recognition for all that I do. I am proud and boastful, like a peacock who has recently discovered that behind him he drags a tail of exquisite beauty. Although I lack the tail, so really, what do I have to found my pride upon? Dreams and stories. Great plans and unkept promises. The membrane I have built between myself and the world shimmers with opalescent light but allows no view into the hunched and deformed figure it shrouds.

I’m so conceited that I am even writing about myself.

More classic Artwork c/o : Enzo.,

Flesh for sale c/o : James P Honey

Behold my neon golden halo,
enflaming the fabric of the buildings quilting my master’s front door.
All looks the same to me, do I look the same to you?
Hell, who knows anything for sure, anymore, anyway?
Seems to me most tragedies
happen in slow motion……
Through my window I can float to wherever I wish to be,
go see the sea sing and prompt the tides to swing with magnetic attraction.
A tattoo of a gramophone lassoes me.
Perched on the fragile throne of one right foot,
I know I want to know her,
I think the petals know I know too.
Achingly
obvious.
One grows in an awkward burst of flames, alterations and repairs.
Any loathing is stained by many shades of curiosity.
Each punishes
the other in the company of others
while together all alone they embrace.

theatre mask., c/o : the deep blue dream.,

they met outside a café. The benches outside were swarming with people smoking and drinking, laughing and moving about. It was colourful, bright and had a hectic sense of relaxation. She was smoking a hand rolled cigarette, and was looking the other way down the road as he approached. Her long black hair tapered to a point half way down her back and was every now and now shifting from the light wind with a few strands caught up in the air. She had thick heavy hair he smiled to himself. He could see, even from behind that she was waiting, expecting, he could tell by the way she held her shoulders and smoked her cigarette in quick nervous puffs, almost pneumatically. She jumped slightly as he touched her shoulder saying “heya”
“oo”, she recovered “I think you’re late?”
“let me see that” he said pointing at her watch.
“there” she said with a feigned triumph, “you see five minutes late”
“ oh no my dear” he said also with a feigned emphasis, looking at the clock tower behind her, “its slow, which means that you are late as well…”
“ah” she exclaims again with a mock horror and she’s grinning – “anyway, my love, how are you”
“not as good, haven’t seen you for an age, wherever have you been darling? I missed you.”
“good, but I’ve been here…”
“here, here? Really, I’ve passed this way by ‘here’ so many times and I never once saw you!”
“not here here, I mean here in the city, I’ve not been away.”
“yes, I know just teasing”
“as ever..” she said smiling coyly.
“so what have you been doing then anyway, off on another one of your feminist tantrums I bet.”
“feminist tantrums!!” she says holding back a smile, “feminist tantrums, you know I don’t do tantrums, I just don’t do them!” she said inflating herself and pouting her lips devilishly, “tantrums, I’ve never had tantrums…”
“I mean exclusively seeing your lady friends, spending all your time theorising over cups of bloody mochas and …”
“mochas! I don’t do mochas, lattes dear, I do lattes,
“of course you do, sorry”
“and anyway, that would make two of us, for no doubt you’ve been seeing plenty of your lady friends too,”
“oh, ok, you win, but..”
“and anyway, a latte is so much better than that gutter water lager you are always drinking…”
“ok, but what have you been up to?”
“ah well, a bit of that then I guess,” then smiling hard and more seductively “well, that’s exactly what I have been doing, spending all my time with lovely ladies of leisure, mmm” she said licking her lips deliberately and throwing the cigarette down in a flurry of hair and turning, “and wouldn’t you just love to know what all us ladies do after we’ve finished our lattes..”
“well yes, actually I would..”
“well I am afraid that that’s a secret, ladies’ pact, but what else am I to do if you simply disappear for weeks at a time…”
“me, oh I’ve been very busy, and I knew you girls were up to your feminist tricks again..”
“busy, ha, I know what your busy means…”
still laughing they embrace tightly “I’ve missed you” he said, then suddenly she squeals as he pinches her behind,
“yes, I know what you have been missing my dear, “
“mm,” he says innocently looking down, “oh yes, I’ve been missing them too…”

they walk into the café laughing, arms about each others’ waists.

Some time later, as he spilled out of a busy late night club with the rest of the people, he saw her, stumbling out among the crowd.
“hey cat” he called out to her, “how are you?”
she turned slowly, narrowing her eyes to recognise him and then hissed “you bastard, fuck off.”
“what?” he said dumbly, “wait a second babe..”
“you bastard” she said over her shoulder as she began to walk away, but he caught her by the wrist, it was thin and soft in his grip, “what’s up, hey, what’s ..”
“you bastard, I loved you, I though you loved me, leave me alone you bastard..”
she broke free and went to run across the road but he pulled her back again just before she went into a taxi driving past, “taxi.” She shouted, “taxi, fucking taxi..”, it didn’t stop, “oh fuck you then.. fuck you..”
“what’s wrong?” he is asking,
“I’m leaving,” she said defiantly, “I’m leaving in two days and then you’ll never see me again, o.k., now leave me alone.,” but she was beginning to cry, the thought of leaving her alone did streak across his mind but her tears were real enough and so he pulled her and held her closer to him, she nuzzled her wet face in his shoulder, still whispering bastard, you bastard, bastard, then suddenly she broke free, he made no effort to stop her this time, he understood, and just stood and watched her stumble half run down the road until she disappeared into the crowd again, but at the last moment she turned to him and mouthed the words you bastard one more time, he understood., she was gone.

love and poison are the two roses red and white:
but in the end nothing of them will be left
for love is but a form of innocent theft,
and poison, in all its naked and intoxicating arts
tastes sweetest, only, to the unbroken heart…

Refusing to Show I.D. ., c/o : David Dees.,

So What., c/o : David Dees.,

So fucking what?

Artfully c/o: Silvio Cristo from his Landscapes collection.,

to see a fuller collection of Silvio Cristo's work either follow the link in our Linking Arms section, or else, follow this link : http://www.silviacristo.com/ .

Pictures c/o : Equilus.,

" a poisoned mind "

" fall from grace "

Here's just a few pictures from Roland du Preez, a.k.a. Equilus., to check out more his work, please follow this here link., http://equilus123.deviantart.com/gallery/# , you won't be dissappointed, there's a whole host of unearthly bodies and graphics there., enjoy.,

p.o.w.'s., c/o : the deep blue dream.,

Artfully c/o : Silvio Cristo.,

one more tune please miss mitra...

some music from sara mitra w/. viper's dream.,

waster boy blues : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j33uz8yWS_A

enjoy, we did.,

Into the Gloam: c/o : Ally CHISHOLM

As I expected the protest was a vile putrid nightmare. A couple of hundred people were gathered not too far from where they used to hang people. Large well decorated banners were held with unimaginative slogans, a testament to art overpowering the message At the gist of it all was an anti drug movement. In a twisted fashion the woman, with or without a grasp of the meaning of her words, was quoting a drug anthem to emphasis her point.
“We stand here today because we know what drugs can do. In song we are told of the dangers, we are warned, of the magic swirling ship that will strip your senses and your grip. Yes, your grip, your very grip on reality will be stripped. You will be left chasing shadows, shadows through all that is left of the smoke rings of your mind.”
The last word is left hanging.
“My son, my son escaped. He escaped everything we gave him. He escaped to a drug induced death. He was escaping on the run and now he’s dead.”
As you think it won’t get any more evangelical it does but as it does a strong arm tugs at my sleeve and jerks me away from the crowd.
“I know you.”
I know him too, from the Hospice club. I had seen him with those Doctor Zimm loving freaks. I don’t struggle as he pulls me away and down into the underpass. I miss the bottom step and stumble but proudly don’t fall. I remember the club crowd, paying members only, recommended by other paying members for their great artistic qualities. They thought they were out there. The height of intellectual weirdness was to write an interview they’d dreamt up with an inanimate abject. Any one can ask an egg for his opinion on global warming or when we can expect the moon to crash into the earth. Strange juxtapositions of serious nonsense are easy to write. They should meet the underworld who are way beneath out there and far beyond the lot of us. They were nuts. The Hospice club were folk singers trying to pass as thrash metal. They thought they were making weird cool sounds but it was all too polished. The rule has always been simple. Writers are poor. If you have to pay your way in then you’re walking through the wrong door.
Although I knew this man from the Hospice club, now looking at him, I wasn’t sure what he was doing here. The Hospice had made no move towards getting involved in anything. He looked like he worked out in expensive gyms, his t-shirt clinging to a well worked body. His short back and sides made him look like hired muscle or club doorman. He wore a cheap green army jacket, the type I’d buy from the market. The Hospice only dealt in expensive clothes made to look poor. This was authentic market product. Who was this guy? Who was I to him?
“Why do I know you?”
“The Hospice, you know me from the Hospice.”
“You’re a writer, aren’t you?”
Now is no time to split hairs. It is useless to tell him that I used to be a writer but I’m now retired and solely practice research that the monkey in my living room writes up for me. Best not to mention that and the fact that I recently turned down the club’s offer to write for them.”
He drew me near.
“They were trying to recruit you weren’t they? You were the one who turned them down. Right?”
He really had been watching that day. And he said they and not we. He isn’t in the club. He was like me, not one of them.
“Who sent you? Are you here for the same reason I am? Did Doctor Zimm send you to stop these people from perverting his name?”
I now fully appreciate that this guy is most likely a literary terrorist and wonder how he sees it best to stop a bunch of dumb middle class yuppie parent anti drug protesters from promoting their cause with a song that every free thinking literati considered a pro drugs hymn revelling in melancholy.
“Doctor Zimm didn’t send me. I’m an independent. I’m here to write.”
He pauses and loosens his grip a little but does not let go.
“Of course the doctor would never double book a job. You’re here to observe. Is that the deal? He sent you, an independent here to observe. He didn’t send one of us, he wanted an impartial.”
Now I’m sure he’s not from the club. Maybe Underworld but I don’t dare tell him how independent I am. I nod.
“You understand this is my job?”
I nod again.
“My job, you don’t get involved. Right? You can observe and that’s it.”
I shake my head. I don’t want to get involved.
He pauses in such a way that worries me. It feels like a deep breath you would take before delving deep under water. The shouting and protesting has not dulled. The irritating noise of the crowd, a polite riot, continues.
“What is wrong with this scum? How can chasing smoke rings and escaping on the run be a bad thing?”
“Yeah, I feel sick too.”
“This is our generation’s ode to a nightingale.”
I try to imagine this man reading poetry and even if I can’t I can feel his anguish and conviction. I tell him we are indeed fucked. We are fucked when no one can see what we see. Our thoughts and memories turned to someone else’s fiction, no longer anyone’s collective idea of truth. If enough people feel it, say it, does it make it true? The truth? A truth? Is this how we shape our reality? Did too many people believe something different? Is that how we got here?
Dragging me with him along the subway footpath he says, “Let’s deal with it.” Somehow I don’t think he means we should deal with it in a coming to terms sense but rather a more drastic course of action.
We rush up the steps out of the underpass and as we hit the air, the Underworld’s hired lover of poetry, rushes toward the crowd. The crowd is now chanting, “No more smoke rings. No more smoke rings.”
The underworlder lets go of me and I do not want to be around to see him complete his mission. I hope he doesn’t see me turn and run. I imagine him seeing me, cursing me as a coward but too focused, too charged to bother doing anything about me. I run and this time I do fall down the underpass and at the bottom bounce, the way kids do when they fall. I am straight back up and pushing my way through a toilet door. As I stop the other side of the door I hear nothing and will have no memory of hearing anything. Thirty seconds later I hear the explosion.
I enter a cubicle and sit on a toilet seat. I will stay here for a while. I do some of my best thinking on the toilet.
A few moments later another bang startles me off the shitter. What must have been the noise of a door being half kicked off its hinges is followed by scuffling sounds of a group of men dragging a struggling figure. Wet slaps of punches, followed by muffled moans and grunts resonate from not so far away. I open my cubicle door to peaking proportions but see no sign of anyone in the same washroom. I could leave and know nothing more about it. Wherever the noise is coming from it isn’t in my line of vision.
At first I think it must be some fallout from the chaos above. These people have started a war amongst themselves, let them fight it out. I go back to my cubicle, I don’t know why, perhaps to check I’ve left no trace of myself here. Whilst there I notice a small spy hole through to another room. It may once have been a shower room, now muddy white and disused. Without getting any closer I know that this is where my raucous noises came from. I try to view from a distance, to see little pieces of the scene, to only know small pieces of the jigsaw, one at a time. At first I only see shapes moving and then I focus and at the far end of the room I can see a rag doll of a man, slumped in and tied to a cold metal chair. As I see him, I press closer to the wall. All thoughts of hygiene are lost. I press close to the wall, feeling the scent of this place rub off on me. I feel stuck to this spot, seeing clearly and unable to move because of that.
The rag doll man no longer moved. He had a black sack over his head and would have been better off staying that way. As soon as the bag is yanked from his head he’s greeted by a bright light thrust into his eye. This elicits strange mumbling sounds, perhaps a curse or two.
His attackers do not seem like rabble and they do not seem like the organised polite protesters either. They were well dressed and organised. They looked like the Spanish inquisition gone night clubbing. Their captive looked like parts of him had been put in a blender. It looked like someone had stuck a knife into the side of his face and had endeavoured to slice it off but had given up on the notion only to leave a gapping flap of skin. The man shoving the torch into captive eyes seemed to be the ring leader and looked the best dressed of the lot. His jacket was blood splattered but his hair, immaculately sculpted in spiky bed head fashion, remained untouched by it all. He was obsessively well groomed; you didn’t need to see in detail to know. He was clean at fifty yards.
“What the fuck did you think would happen today?”
The ring leader spoke softly and as he did the bloody mess in the chair already looked dead. A kick in the shins was needed to diagnose any signs of life.
“Fuck you,” was the whispered reply as blood spat from his lips.
“No, fuck yourself because you were the one who wanted this. You were the one who walked into Smith’s books and set fire to Smithy’s top ten paperbacks.”
This very memory, in a broken man, ripped to pieces, conjured a chortle from deep within. Whatever happens now he’d have that memory and he’d die with it on his mind.
“Have you seen the sort of shit that gets published and into the charts?”
It must have been such an effort to say it and he must have hoped it would be the last thing he said. He wanted to transform at that point from a human full of words and thought to a bloody mess of beaten meat swimming in a nightmare of pain, in a flurry of violence spiralling to the end.
But he wasn’t there yet. As the ringleader pulled hard on his fingers, dislocating a whole hand full of digits in one pull the screams heard were horrible gurgled sounds. I did not move. I closed my eyes but could not and did not move.
“We would have let you live and overlooked your other discrepancies. We would have sent you to rehab for your other crimes.”
Sounding more official now, “You were caught in possession of illegal banned product X-b-o-x 360 with the intent to make money.”
The dead man said nothing. There was no repenting now.
“You’re a grown man and you play computer games? What the fuck is that about? This shit rots your mind. Are you trying to destroy the human race with this crap? Have you ever even read a book.”
The answer came in a nod.
“If you loved books you wouldn’t want to settle for a lesser form of entertainment, let alone the base worst and criminally sick.”
The answer is a dying man’s conviction. The room is silent in appreciation of the fact. He’s able to slowly and defiantly say, “I do both.”
And as he does the noise, the quick explosion of two bullets punctuates those words, the noise and the ringing in your ears wipes out all other sound, the doubtless wet squelch of bullet through skin and bone lost in the echo.
And I understand. Rooted to my toilet, ready to spew, I understand now that all media sucks, there is nothing left good enough to die for and with these people around soon there will be no good books left to read. This isn’t the gloaming. This is not the creative death of everything. This is way beyond the gloam.

Rehab is for Fannies., another c/o : sofia de lockhart.,

I am quite sure that most of us feel the same way when, sitting on a tube or bus on the way to some soul destroying workplace, we glance across the pages of a free newspaper to find that another pampered celebrity has been having way too much fun and simply needs to chill out for a while in an expensive clinic. Because, the truth be told, a lot of people enjoy excessive pleasure. Let’s face it, lots of people drink too much, plenty of people take drugs and we all like a good orgy. Hearing that earning filthy amounts of cash whilst drinking too much champagne in exclusive bars constitutes some kind of disease is like being told the Queen has been rushed of her feet of late and is going on the sick with stress.
Turning up at work still pissed from last night typically receives little sympathy from your boss. This, I believe, is a good thing. A hangover is the perfect reminder that you acted like a complete gizzard the night before and without them it is possible that everyone would be completely hammered all of the time. The negative effects of this would quickly trickle down into all aspects of society and we would become vulnerable to attack from aggressive seagulls, communists and major corporations. One hazy morning we would all wake up to find that somehow Jim Davidson had been voted into power and Tesco had bought the NHS. Shit jokes about foreigners and gays and 50% off Onion Rings with every hip replacement. It would be a nightmare.
Going back to the Rehab issue, I wonder what on Earth they tell them in there? Don’t worry, it will be alright. Maybe stop taking drugs? I know what I’d tell them. Get back to work you little Fannies! Because there is nothing like the paranoia of looking your colleagues, who hate you anyway, square in the eye and talking about spread sheets when you are in the midst of the existential crisis that is, a good speed come-down. Going to the toilet cubicle to eat your sandwiches through fear of small talk is my idea of rehab. I should start my own clinic. I’d wean the Notting Hill gimps of coke by making work a 14 hour double shift on a checkout, or a production line next to a man called Tony who has dermatological problems, scratches his cock when he thinks you’re not looking and is probably, in broad terms, a paedophile.
Call centre paranoia is unique and luxurious punishment. You might think that being on the other end of a phone, when the customer cannot smell the cider on your breath or see your squinting red eyeballs, protects you from metal breakdown. This assumption is quite naive. There is something really special about ringing someone you have never met, shivering and with a bone dry mouth, and trying to convince them to buy an encyclopaedia when you know that your boss is probably listening in from his office. It is a strange and unusual method or torture. I have heard rumours that the phone calls you may have received from Indian call centres are actually from Guantanamo Bay, where Marines hold terror suspects at gunpoint and force them to sit with telephone headsets, hands immersed buckets of cold gravy, and make them to sell insurance. It takes on average 3 full package life policies before you crack, dribbling and sign any gravy stained confession put in front of you.
I am no expert, but I having a feeling that would bring any drugged up ex-boyband member crashing down to Earth. I would oversee all of this personally of course.. Not that I’m sadistic or anything. I just care, that’s all.

PROBLEMS - PASSENGER INFORMATION c/o : sofia de lockhart.,

It is important that everything should always be spectacular, exclusive and available to everyone for a small fee. This keeps things ticking along nicely. Unfortunately, the management is unable to respond directly to any problems you are having. It seems you will have to sort them out for yourself.

It should be noted that information yielded from generations of research into science, thought and theory can be useful in solving your problems. However, such information is useful for solving only very specific problems. The problem with this is that some people are more specific than others. It is equally viable to look instead to cultural traditions, such as religion, or binge drinking, to find comfort within your own non-specific lives.

Some will declare that there are in fact no problems at all, other than those which exist inside a persons own mind/soul. Everyone knows that really these people suffer in silence, around campfires, and we humour their misguided views.

It is also very important that we do not despair. To show signs of desperation goes against the natural law of keeping up appearances, and should be viewed with extreme shame. And to be honest, it’s probably not that bad.

To see others prosper in circumstances much more adverse than our own can bring relief, and a sense of relativity. Sometimes, Business People will give large amounts of their hard earned cash for permission to do manual work, like digging ditches, and talk about spirituality at hippie communes around the country. Whilst in theory they might despise each other, both groups enjoy the benefits of this interaction. This is another example of the way things keep ticking along nicely.


Since The World offers many opportunities, it is important to find the things you like doing and do them as much as possible. Some might find they enjoy sex, sausages and shopping, whilst others prefer chess. Conversely, many people find great joy from not doing certain things. They real joy in not doing appears to come from telling other people that you are strongly against, for example, sex, sausages and shopping, and that all who follow such past times are sick/wrong. In keeping with the nature of things, the two states of mind cancel each other out electromagnetically, and prevent the ice bergs from melting, the sun from exploding and the dead rising from their graves. No one is quite sure why this occurs. Some things are best left alone.

EVERYONE should be aware that whilst we are all born as innocent children of the universe, the behaviors you display begin to define you as an individual. Behind the twitching mock-Venetian blinds nobody cares about your intentions.. Especially when Mrs Darnell from next door but one heard from the lady in the laundrette that you are nothing more than a dirty little sausage-eating sex-shopper. See the note on keeping up appearances above.
We hope this will provide you with some rough guidelines to a pleasant existence.

गराज स्कॉट्स a.k.a. gArAge squAts., east end london., c/o : the deep blue dream.,

The Martyrdom of the GarAge squAt…

Everywhere pockets of autonomy, not in space so much as in time today, but is freedom just to give it all away, to hold no value against it other than the joy of its escape? With the endless increase in technological surveillance and control, all satellites of some vague philosophy centred about so called security at the cost of civil liberties and ultimately personal freedom, almost all space has been lost to the equally vague Authorities,.. with the cones of its all seeing eye everywhere, CCTV, the military, the police, the community wardens and support officers, the helicopters, unmanned drones, the star wars space race the nuclear arms etc…the over zealous sexually perverted headmaster with his cane leaning over the young boy bent before him with arse bared for the beating to come, thrash thrash thrash rings his cane as he beats the boy, welcome to my world boy, thrash, thrash, are you sorry yet, thrash thrash and outside, in the corridor the timid, curious other boys listen through the closed study door,..thrash thrash as a self righteous non-smoker boards another jet plane and the hypocrisy is Rude, and rife.

But there are always enclaves in this tight web of control, and under a rail way bridge in the east end of London I thought that maybe I had found one, but martyrdom is never distinct from the law it sacrifices itself in the face of, and yet why the admiration for the martyr by all peoples..? is it because the martyr re-affirms every notion that he apparently rails against, proving that ultimately resistance is futile..? by his death does he become one of the very pillars of injustice that he rallied against? Does the immortality he is gifted in return for his martyrdom over shadow the meaning of his life…is the meaning of his life translated or re-branded in death to re-affirm all that he stood against in life..?

The martyrdom of the garage squAt : the garage under the train bridge is a dusty dry cement place, with a high ceiling where the pigeons roost and breed their strange swollen footed young, those crazed pirate souls that plunder the city right under the noses of the people, so relentless that there is no defence against their tide, cleaning up the loose crumbs and change, dissolving the wasted. Under the bridge there are carpets, laid out on the concrete, sleeping bags are stacked neat in a corner, and here sat squatting on their heels are these figures in the warm summer dusk passing about the tin foil chalice, chasing its tail back into their minds, chasing it into their own receding genius, always a chase, always on the run until it’s the sudden silence of the perfectly emptied, a perfect non-action, all things weighed against the depth of the flight within, that manic need to internalise the whole unfathomable world, it’s a kind of replacement for the daily loss and loss of pride and the way this city world sneers at a homeless man, a replacement for the quite shame and the trying never to think of home, or families, or meals at kitchen table, or a whole universe of things that the people who sneer at the homeless forget to be thankful for, and so here in the twilight that rejection plays itself out, here squatting in this dusty dry cement place, and the flame darkens at its tip and the glitter mirror of the foil makes a dark glow, and in the dim light you can see the figures eyes go out, just as the streets lights start to come on outside, and so another night begins in the train bridge garage squat. And more people arrive, talking excitedly about the days raids, the begging borrowing stealing, the prices of canned larger, the giro payments, the parks and what happened where, and why maybe, who’s that someone will say, he did what.. and the chatter is not hurried as the little chalices appear in the hands and the pipes chase the fumes and the talk is not hurried., then a quiet settles as all are contentedly unwrapping sleeping bags, maybe rolling a cigarette, then very quickly those who wander the streets at night leave, while others sleep., and there I laid down on the damp carpet and slipped into the dream haze of the silent cinema of my eyes.,

I wake early, chilled to the bone and numb feeling all over despite it being july and a hot summer. The sun is only just stretching its first blue grey tentacles of day across the street outside and there hangs in the air the strange unexplainable feeling of calm in a busy city, and the day is still translucent it seems.

D__ is still asleep, his head inside the sleeping bag with only a few thick locks of his hair showing at the top., somehow it is a comfort to see him rest so peaceful, yet still I get up and walk out onto the street and smoke a cigarette.

Later D_ introduces me to a friend of his. D_ is Jamaican in origin and the soft drawl of his voice is quite charming. She is a young looking girl, who is laughingly telling us how she sold her shoes to someone on Brick Lane for a ten pound note. She is high now, flying and dancing about in black socks with silver flecks on them. The silver flecks dazzle in the bright sunlight. Soon she is settled and says not a word for hours. Her eyes are heavy with large rings that hang right down into her hollowing cheeks. She has an almost innocent air to her I think as we sit on a park bench drinking cans of lager, till she turns to me suddenly and out of the blue asks if I want a blowjob for a tenner, or anal, she adds as an afterthought as though judging my secret tastes, for twenty. I refused. She looked almost sad, not offended by disappointed not to get another note… I looked down at her small feet wriggling in the dirt under the park bench, the silver sparkles less bright as the evening was settling, and the sun was a feeling instead of a blasting force. There was a game of football later, and many people came from all over to play. It was a great event, half of the players running about with cans of beer in their hands. D_ scored a disputed goal, there were cigarette buts like a carpet on the thin dry grass, the park is surrounded by grey buildings full of windows with colourful laundry hanging from the small balconettes, some had green plants, the air was thick and dusty., and all the while the Square Mile is only ten minutes walk from here. I kept thinking of her socks as we played and she sat on the bench drinking my beer, but I didn’t care about the beer, I had another can in my hand.

These hot streets harbour a lost masses, children of Babylon (..?) or just the freak products of a melting pot where grief and friendship are spontaneous without great long complicated histories, where theft and generousity wear the same coat and where innocence is not conspicuous even in the face of all the vices.

now i really don't know what to make of this but...

i really do not know what to make of this but... does anyone know if this came out on 1st april ? and if the expression "pigs might fly" seems cliche its because it is, for apparently, or so the bbc is telling us, penguins do fly, and in fact they fly thousands of miles to spend time relaxing in tropical rainforests...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrxmpihCjqw .

well, you heard it here first., and jesus, what the f*ck..?

I Hate London c/o : Kelly N. Patterson.,

There. I finally said it. For the record, out of the 25+ countries I have visited so far, I have only whole heartedly given the single-digit salute to “Seouless”, Korea (which I refer to as “The Land of the Morning Qualm”), and most of Honduras (the towns of Copan and Tela are exempt.) I consider Honduras the armpit of Central America (and note: I am a fan of Central America.) Now I offer my thin, long middle finger to London. Nevermind the gap! I now understand why the English flock daily to the Holy Pub and worship the Hops gods. The only way anyone could possibly cope with London life (without resorting to acts of violence), is drunk (or stoned); I speak from experience. When one is “pissed”, there are three standard outcomes: (1) the happy, goofy, tube-dancing, badly-singing drunk (like me!), (2) the disgruntled, “aggro” drunk (usually males from Essex, “City Boys” and the “Sloane Rangers”) or (3) vomiting-optional catatonic phase, or passed out anywhere (which is just about everybody else.) I encounter category 2 and 3 drunks EVERY day! And I am not talking about 2 AM on a Friday or Saturday night (like anywhere else in the world), but 8:00 pm on a school-night, every day of the week. I have already witnessed two alcohol-inspired fights on the trains (in which fellow witnesses/passengers watched with heightened interest, but said and did nothing.)

One night, a menacing drunk followed me too closely for my comfort, in which I used telepathy, in combination with my most stone-cold “Bring it on” stare: Dude, I know Tai Chi; I could meditate you to death. He decided to suddenly walk on the other side of the street. I will be honest: London is not working for me. I have been here a month now and my experience is not getting any better. Every new day adds more substantial evidence that London is grossly over-rated and over-priced, or as we say in America: London sucks. First of all, I do not think I will ever be able to reconcile with the weather (cold, wet, rainy, windy, wet, repeat cycle)—no wonder these people are visibly miserable (rarely smile—in public, at least) and chose to invade just about all the warm tropical nations! Thank Pele, they never discovered Hawaii! I do not think I will ever adapt (or want to adapt) to the Tokyo-esque pace of life here (without Japanese grace): running up and down escalators, pushing/shoving people in and out of lifts (where are the English manners you people boast about?!), running to catch a train (unless you are taking the Victoria Line—you may not have a train to catch at all!)

Green Park Station: A 30-something British woman jumps queue (just in front of me) in order to get into an already human-packed lift (elevator.) Simultaneously, I am shoved ungracefully from behind. This causes me to step, accidentally, on her foot. Queue-Jumping Woman screams (with a posh accent, I might add), “Ouch!” So I project in my clearest, booming Jack Nicholson-esque accent: “Well, if you hadn’t cut the queue that might not have happened!” No one on the lift would make eye contact with me the rest of the ride; they gave me wide berth to exit the lift. Good. One night, when the Victoria Line (underground route) closed early (not a surprise, but the norm, in fact), subsequently my train was “out” (out to dinner? Out where exactly? Were people out in the train as well?!), and then, when my “bus replacement” never arrived, well, I went autistic. I just short of hijacked another bus to Walthamstow, demanding the bus driver take me as close to Wood Street as possible. I handed the bus driver my lipstick as “fare replacement.” Bus Driver just let me on the bus, without a word (or fare)—smart man, he knows psychotic when he sees it. I resent having to pay first world costs for fourth world public transport systems—for the record, I pay an equivalent of $60 USD a week for this abuse! I do not think I have unrealistic expectations of London—this is not Nairobi, Mexico City or New Delhi. For example, when the sign says the shop will open at 9 AM; forgive me, but I expect the shop to open at 9 AM—not 10 AM. Basically, I am living in third world living conditions, but paying first world costs: I have to wait an hour for the water to heat up. And when the water does actually heat up, the banging pipes make the flat sound as if we are on a construction site. We use clotheslines and radiators to dry our clothes. And yes, I have had to use a chamber pot more than once. And the whole separate faucet taps thing is maddening: you either get ice cold water or skin-scalding lava. Perhaps, this is the root of all English psychoses: they have no concept, or experience, of warm? “English customer service”, “tube-etiquette”, “English manners”, yes, these are all oxymoron’s that have been well documented by me, and others. As a gift, I will save you my growing list of mundane annoyances, but I will share the incisive incident in which I lost my faith of ever adapting to London, much less liking this city.

The incident, which I will now refer to as “The Crack-Head Incident”, occurred in Brixton. I was raised in Washington DC, the Crack Capital of the Universe. Our infamous mayor, Marion Barry, got busted on film, smoking crack with a prostitute, during his term in office. Mayor Barry’s historic response to the DEA (our federal Drug Nazi’s) and local DC swat team: “Bitch set me up!” “Bitch set me up!” is now a household term, or catch-phrase, throughout the DC Metro area. Whether you are loosing backgammon to your grandmother, or receiving a parking ticket from a meter-maid, chances are, if you are from DC, you will respond: “Bitch set me up!” Please note: that despite the drug charges, Marion Barry was re-elected as mayor the next term. This would suggest, that we “Washingtonians” are not at all phased by crack. So to run into a crack-head in Brixton, is not anything shocking to me at all. This could be DC, New York or Soweto. Actually, I saw him coming, assessed he was “cracked-out of his skull,” well before he realized I was even standing there, with all my groceries. But I had nowhere to go. Basically, Crack Head smacked into me (either running from someone, or possibly the demon voices in his head), on a wet, cold street corner in Brixton. My newly (expensive) purchased groceries exploded into the street. I did not expect Crack Head to apologize, much less assist me in gathering my produce, but when I looked up and made eye contact with three Caucasian (assumable British) witnesses, standing not 3 feet from me, not one of them said a word, much less even started to help me pick up my groceries. They just stared at me, most likely thinking, “How horrible.” I looked around and everyone, of all races and ages, just stared at me. No one attempted to help me pick up my groceries. No one shouted at the Crack Head (which certainly in DC or New York, people would have spewed an unconscious stream of indignant obscenities at the Crack Head.) I looked at the white woman and said with a touch of venom, “Can I bother you to hand me my milk?” She obeyed wordlessly. The two blokes with her did not even blink at me, much less make a move to assist. I trust that if this same scenario occurred in an American city, or even in Jo’Burg, Guatemala City, or Bangkok, that witnesses would immediately assist me in picking up my groceries, at the very least.

Here, as I witnessed again and again, during drunken brawls and teen gangs taking over the buses: people say nothing, do nothing. And they call this behavior civilized? Is this what “polite” means? It brings to mind a quote from an Englishman, ironically, Edmund Burke: “Evil exists because good people do nothing.” I find it difficult to reconcile my affinity for British music, literature, art, and especially, humor, with how people (British and not) behave here on a daily basis. I do not see their admired humor on the tubes, or in their shops and restaurants. Most disconcerting, is that I do not see enough examples of their humanity. But not all is lost, just yesterday while walking to the Wood Street Train station, listening to the Stone Roses, two pre-teen girls walked towards me. One girl, of Middle Eastern descent, was wearing full Muslim girl gear (head-scarf and all) and the other, a white British gal, was dressed in trendy jeans and a sparkly shirt, wearing what looked like a rosary around her neck. They were giggling like all girls do. This suggests there is hope for London after all.

This is Kelly Patterson reporting from the Gap .

a piece of music for our age...

a piece of music for our age., a tom waits classic.,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaLjwSpZ6Cs&feature=related .

happy hunting.,

And a dream Crashes... Art c/o : David Dees., text c/o : gonzo media editorial.,

It has been said before that competitive capitalism destroys the collective unconcious. This is certainly borne out today as "the Crunch" starts to "pinch". It is estimated that in the UK alone there will be upwards of 120 repossessions a day on average during 2008. Each repossession brings with it such unhappiness and despair, to have the roof stolen from over your head by a bank because of changes in the markets is a sad shame. Well, as "the Crunch" plays itself out, perhaps we can try to remember that we do not need to forget all about the collective unconcious, an unconcious that naturally deals in feelings such as empathy, compassion and unselfish love. Perhaps as we see the whole big grandoise LIE crumble before our very eyes we will see through the myths that CNN and the BBC will create to try to keep us believing in the great big LIE and maybe, just maybe we will not allow ourselves to be divided so much ever again, perhaps we will not let ourselves be turned against one another in pursuit of personal paradises that only exist in the advertising executives imaginations, perhaps we will admit to ourselves that we are better off sharing even with folk we do not already know, perhaps we will remember that we are part of the human race and the animal kingdom and not a part of some stocks and shares performance chart, perhaps we will remember that there are no pockets in shrouds and that when we come to die money and material wealth will be of no comfort to us whereas companionship, love and human warmth will make even death seem a minor thing... perhaps we can only hope, but perhaps we really do have a chance again to reunite ourselves as a people and disregard the poisonous Lies of the divisive system of repression that capitalism with all its ugly greed and possessiveness represents.

The Art of David Dees.,

what reallly happened ? c/o : David Dees.,

milligan's saviour... c/o : the deep blue dreams.,

Later, as we sat in the locked up bar sipping drinks with cigarettes lit, that was the straw that broke the camels back, says milligan, that fucking man sitting there in the fucking urinals, going on about the floods, I’m going to tell my probation officer about this, and my alcohol councillor, and my drugs councillor, all of this, I’m going to say I’d rather be in jail., the straw that what said the woman beside in a half shriek., broke the camels’ back., and he recounts again the details of the scene before while all along behind him over his shoulder I can see his saviour hanging on the wall., his saviour was in a frame on the wall, it was some tie that someone had lent him for the court case he had recently attended and got off with community service, although it was a big dose of it, somewhere in the region of two or three hundred hours of CS. The tie was badly framed. Someone had used a staple gun and too much silver rig tape to force the frame shut. They had managed not to crack the glass but still the knot in the tie bulged out at the back corner. In a bad and clearly drunken attempt at some sort of calligraphy some idiot had scrawled “milligan’s saviour” above the tie with an arrow pointing at the tie as though no one would guess it referred to the tie and not the picture frame. Also in the frame was a news paper cut out of the article in the local press titled “pot factory to fuel drug habit busted”… well, that was about what happened.
Things were beginning to look up for milligan of late though because recently he had managed to get himself on an educational course instead of doing the community service. It was more than one could believe though to know that the course he had got himself onto was a horticultural course… so it has transpired that the government is paying milligan to go on a course to teach him to grow plants better because he got busted growing dope, a lot of dope in fact, nearly a hundred plants under lights. Milligan laughed that he could probably teach them something about growing techniques… is that karma or what he says? It shouldn’t even be fucking illegal!

But right now Milligan is still spitting about this guy who had passed out in the urinal complaining about the flooding, jesus, what kind of cess pit is this place he said? Looking at the manager…

The frame didn’t last long on the wall. Later that night milligan tore it off to rack up lines of coke on, then took it home as a memento…I guess he had a point.

A tale of a City Second.,

In Edina, sharing finger snacks and drinks with cream suited lawyers of the city in their warship hotels then fleeing through the cellar kitchens with bottles of wine we rounded the corner to share our next course with the beggar man smiling, with hippies in barns and on beaches and with the city ‘tranced-out’ ravers in warehouses factories dis-used and in cavernous basements or in small nestling flats high above the skyline, with Marxists and students quoting poetries and with the college artists on the scenes of drag stars and queens tattooing reminisces of their nights in semi permanent inks onto their skins, and even once against the stone wall of the street with a cute braided frenchie…
With radicalised activists on horse tranquilizers guarding tree house compounds like ships out at sea, with marchers at protests and the PR barrage that both follows and proceeds, with actors at bars and behind theatre scenes, in jazz bars foot tapping in festivals with the whole summer blossoming, under bridges and in the innocence of tunnels in amongst the acts
We all danced that dance
Which the spiral streets weaved
Into the march of our feet
Keeping its own ancient beat,
Till next morning we meet
And after all that,
At that,
Its simple leaving.

anon.,

So long, It's been Good to Know You., c/o : Mark Foster.,

“I was sitting on a couch somewhere, watching VH1,When I learned that Bruce Springsteen is his mother’s only son,I’m my mother’s only daughter; we were both Born to Run,But even he says it’s amazing raising babies in the place where you come from”- Kimya Dawson

I’ve always tried to avoid being confrontational when entering discussions with those who define themselves by the places they’ve visited, largely due to the fact that I tend to leave people to their own devices, unless they are being overly offensive or blocking my way. Yet it’s always seemed a little illogical to me that someone would travel halfway across the world to ‘find themselves’, and for a group that defines itself through a sense of adventure through ‘living on the edge’, it seemed somewhat contradictory that the majority of these people had affluent and stable middle-class families to go home to after their ‘triumph’ over adverse conditions faced in encountering ‘alien’ cultures.
To an extent, travel is often undertaken so that we can return home and tell ohers about it, thus elevating our own status in a society in which, in modernity, status is increasingly dictated, not by the position we hold in our employment, but by how we spend our leisure time. Despite these factors, I was never really able to claim a clear-cut distinction between their approach and my own, and it would rather hypocritical to claim any kind of superiority on my part: the journeys I’ve taken have become a significant influence in my own personality. Yet, these encounters were always interesting to me, and recent events have led me to question my transitory nature.
I spent a lot of my time travelling in my youth, partially due to the fact that I lacked either the ability or the inclination to support myself in the traditional ways. It wasn’t that I didn’t do well in school: the sense of rebellion that I possessed wasn’t aimed at anything as concrete as the education system, I just didn’t find that the things I learned at secondary school had any practical application in my life at the time. As a result I spent my time working menial jobs to save enough to travel, and playing guitar for beer and loose change while on the road. It was when the cheap Japanese guitar I had been carrying around with me finally disintegrated, that I was forced to take a job at a chicken factory in order to raise the funds for another. My job, as best as I could understand it, was to make sure the hundreds of chicken carcasses that periodically tumbled through the ceiling fell onto the correct conveyor belt, to be hacked into pieces and packed into Styrofoam trays by the team waiting below. Understandably, I absolutely detested going into work in the morning. Before you got within half a mile of the factory, you were suffocated by an animal stench that was so foul, that it made me nauseous. My fellow workers assured me that after a while I would cease to notice it, a fact that offered me no solace at all, given that it came from the mouths of people that seemed the fact that their lives were resigned to being a miserable drudge, dictated by the wail of the alarm bell that signified that the conveyor belts were about to start rolling. I would see them in the cafeteria during the strict 15 minutes breaks eating discounted chicken nuggets. Grey faced and dull eyed, they sat in silence staring catatonic into the middle distance, while I sat outside and watched the crows that had taken up residence around the building. Every day that I finished was a major triumph in that place, despite the fact that seeing as I was loathe to extend my sentence by paying for luxuries…like rent, I had elected to sleep in a tent a couple of mile away from the site. Simply staying clean took up a great deal of my time.I found myself at my usual position in the factory after an all night party in a field, and was feeling more than a little fragile, after listening to trance all night after taking acid. I figured I could hold it together: the work was repetitive, but simple, and given that the noise of the machinery made it difficult to speak to anyone while on the factory floor, I assumed that my state would go unnoticed. It was going well until the moment where there appeared to be, not chicken, but hundreds of decapitated human heads tumbling down the chute. After the initial shock on discovering that reality had finally decided to tear itself apart, I simply turned and walked towards the exit, hardly pausing to register the chaos that leaving my post had caused.Thankfully, I had managed to save enough to buy a new guitar, and after a couple of days of franticly arranging my departure, I decided to spend my last night at a pub that had an open mic night, which I knew was easy enough to drink for free if you were prepared to get up and play a couple of songs. Towards the end of the night, I had stepped outside to get some air, and was half-heartedly trying to clamber into the WWII planes that stood in the car park (1) when man I’d been talking to earlier joined me for a cigarette. He started spouting the usual spiel I had heard a thousand times before by frustrated executives that would pick me up in their Mondeo’s while hitchhiking: The joy of the open road, the freedom of youth. I listened politely for a while, until at one point I felt compelled to ask something like:‘When do you stop? What it is it that makes you decide that this is the place that you want to spend the rest of your life?’
He thought about it for a moment and then claimed, that it was when you found something or someone, that you love so much, that you couldn’t bear to leave it behind.
I hit the road the next day.
(1) I’m not kidding...

sofia de lockhart., a mystery post.,

Choke it down

Sit back in the chair, cross my heart, hope to die, a martyr, a waster, complete procrastinator, bullet through the heart, needles in my eyes.
Everything so merry all around me. Pretty well controlled on the medication. Crack open a cold can of satisfaction.
You made it. But you already knew that. Feels good, doesnt it? Success.
No need for revenge when you got friends like that guy I know. I love the way he sees me coming down the street, holds out his hands, asks me for some tobacco.
Always never there when I dont need him. Must be telepathy. Or telesales induced neuropathy. Same thing if you ask my friend. But what would he know?
Too many cooks spoil the celebrity cooking show. Too many celebrity cooking shows spoil your appetite. I mainly eat tinned foods for their lack of asthetic value. Dont want to tuck into anything better looking than me. The maccaroni last night is a fine example. Had to take the whole plate out into the garden and bury it in the soil, near that old tree where the cat shits. No one will ever suspect. I was dressed as a bus driver and everybody knows I dont even have a costume. So keep it between me and you.
Got it?
Good.
Seriously though, im losing it.
Running on a treadmill lined with disposible coffee cups and condoms full of salt. I hate these people because I hate myself more. The reason being, I should know better.
I was really clever.
I know this because I took a test when I was a teenager and the results were summarised into pie charts and graphs.
Im in the top 5% of the country.
They just dont want to let me get ahead.
You can never hold a good man down. And I never was a good man. Not even really a man. Even that carries it a bit to far. If you are man you have wisdom, a car and a house, a life partner, a knowledge of your own sexually transmitted infections, a good set of teeth, savings, a haircut, a football team, stocks and shares, neatly trimmed toe nails and a secret admirer next door. Any room for a little one on the end?
Let the love in, but make sure it wipes its arse before it sits down.
Got that.
Good.

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