The Monday Poem: In Exile

I first kissed a boy at 12 years old, on the school ski-ing holiday. We, a “naice” London all-girls’ school, were accommodated with two boys’ schools, one from the heart of Glasgow and one from the Isle of Man. So it was to Joe Birrell I first gave my lips, if not my heart. He taught me to sing “I belong to Glasgow”, for in truth we had little to talk about. Every week for three months after our week away, he sent me letters detailing the fights he’d had, or was hoping to have. I never, to my shame, wrote back.

Yet something had lodged in my lizard brain, or else I was cursed by the bad fairy as a child. I have stumbled over Scots when I least expected to, always end up drinking in some shabeen at 3am in the morning with Scots when away from home, and was requested twice to go up to work in Glasgow, which is how I met husband. I am now the proud owner of what are making every appearance of being Scottish children.

Monday, November the 30th is St. Andrew’s Day. Traditionally, SNP members meet at 11am outside their local hostelry for the stirrup cup, and then go with their pack of Westies and Scottish Terriers on a foot hunt for Englishmen.

Ready. Aye. Ready!
So to celebrate St. Andrew’s Day (hooray for Regulus!), the Monday poem.
Which is all about surveillance. Over a hundred and fifty officers worked on this operation; I got Andy.

Union

Andrew Hamilton, red brick wall of man,
rugby-ruined face, you scared people.
“Call me Andy”, you said, “the Animal.”
Incomprehensible, the Edinburgh bloke translated;
I had blanched as your vowel sounds mauled my ears,
but my mouth smiled, and accent aside, Andy,
you never made much sense anyway.
Condemned by some clerical error
to a fortnight at your side,
you, Andy Hamilton, were my partner.
I made the best.
After the briefing day (I made the notes)
we hit the town, you, the pavement,
for you could drink, big man, you could drink.
Which meant, every morning, you could not drive,
so I did; but it also meant, every morning,
you could not read the map, so I did;
but it also meant, every morning,
you could not operate the radio,
so I did. Mornings were not good,
and that’s omitting the vomiting.
From around mid-afternoon, however,
you came into your own
and could do things with a car
I could only dream of.
At 140 we sang together, your head clear,
your soul good, I cried out the route,
you raced it and the speed and the song
made me love you then, and life.
Remember you saved me at Chesterfield?
Nowhere for me to disappear,
but you spotted the dossers,
grabbed a can, and God, Andy,
you were good in the gutter.
I don’t think the tramps even realised
you were not one of them.
We were different, Andrew Hamilton, you and I,
but together we made a team, solid.
You were sick into my handbag once,
a Mulberry; I never left you then
and you, big man,
you have never left me.

ArtSparker's Illustration Challenge #2

A fair while back ArtSparker issued the second Illustration Challenge, here:

http://artsparktheatre.blogspot.com/2009/10/illustration-challenge-2.html

Anthony was amazed when he looked out the window and observed...........

The challenge being to complete the caption and reveal what Anthony sees.

Belatedly, here are our offerings.

Anthony was amazed when he looked out the window and observed...

a disco-dancing burning bush.

Anthony was amazed when he looked out the window and observed...

two monsters, a man-eating plant, some eyeballs, some ghosts in a bathroom with a wall cut off with wings and a very weird telegraph pole in his front garden.

Anthony was amazed when he looked out the window and observed...

his own brick wall. Well odd, don't you think?

No parental interference in either drawings or captions. Mine's the first.

Happy Thanksgiving! And, Ade & Melissa Cancer Dance

I just want to say Happy Thanksgiving to everyone and thought I'd post the Cancer dance that Ade & Melissa did on the show So, You Think You Can Dance. I thought we could count our blessings today and remember those people who are less fortunate in our prayers and maybe even reach out to someone. If you haven't seen this piece, it's a must see. There isn't a dry eye in the whole audience. This dance is beautiful. I posted this on both this blog and my other blog because I think everyone should see this.

The Truths And The Lie

The ten statements about me, of which only one was false, were:

1. My best friend's name is Adora Dick and she has a brother called Ivor.
2. I was Captain of Rowing at a boys' public school.
3. I believe all sea-food except fish is the spawn of the devil.
4. I have streaked on Bristol Downs.
5. I have a tattoo of a tiger.
6. I used to be the singer with a jazz/blues band.
7. I ran away from home as a girl and thought the safest place to go was Inverness.
8. My mother has appeared at The London Palladium in sparkly costumes.
9. Parts of me are made of metal.
10. I was in a film with Mikhail Baryshnikov.

1. True. I have a beautiful friend called Adora Dick. She is real, though married now: and yes, her eldest brother was called Ivor (he was a bank manager and tragically died just a few years ago).

After ten weeks of “initial training” in a hell-hole called Chantmarle in Dorset (so far from civilisation no one could hear you scream), followed by three weeks “force familiarisation” training in Taunton, I was ready to hit the streets as a W.P.C., lucky enough to have been posted to central Bristol. I was told by a training Sergeant that my Tutor Constable (for ten weeks on the streets you are not alone – you are “puppy-walked” by a more experienced officer) was a black policewoman called Adora Dick.
I thought , “I may be a police officer now, but I’m not stupid”. Black officers were still very unusual in the eighties, and no one, no one, could ever be called Adora Dick.
So I failed to believe in Adora, and she was filled with horror at the sound of me.
Yet, on a fateful Monday morning in the everlasting corridor on the ground floor of Central Police Station, Bristol, we met, and in approximately two hours realised we had known each other forever.
I thought little of the fact that she was black, having had a very multi-cultural childhood; my father’s biggest customers were Asian Muslims, Mr Haji was our most venerated employee and African-Caribbean Tony ran the gut shed. Every Sunday, and especially at Eid, the yard was filled with what seemed like every African and Asian Muslim in London, from Embassy staff in diplomatic vehicles to machete-wielding madmen who insisted on lighting fires on the tarmac to cook the sheep they had purchased there and then.
But I had never worked, hand-in-hand, 12 hours a day, with a black person and the everyday, ceaseless, casual racism that Adora endured was a sad education. No one ever addressed a question to her, always to me, who knew nothing. The coffee-coloured bad girls of St. Pauls called her “Blackie” when they were in the cells and we were on wardress duties. If she went to John Lewis in her lunch-break in “half-blues” (putting a civilian jacket over your uniform) she was followed by the store detectives. There was some very ugly, overt racism too; sometimes from officers we worked with.
Adora has sisters and another brother, but it was her and Ivor that got the, well, noticeable, names. I knew Adora’s father, and mother. Why do I think he gave two of his children these names? To make their skin a little tougher; to get them ready for the world he knew was out there.
I am godparent to one of Adora’s children, we try to get together at least once a year and if I had to call anyone at 3am in the morning because my world had collapsed, it would be Adora. A star.

2. True. I had the privilege of going to The King’s School, Canterbury to do my “A” levels (don’t ask why, it was just all the rage for would-be posh girls in the late 70’s, and my youngest brother was already a pupil there). It is a school steeped in history, in one of the most beautiful locations you can imagine – within the precincts of Canterbury Cathedral.

“The King’s School, Canterbury is often described as the oldest school in England. Such a claim is impossible to verify, but there is at least some justification in associating the School with the origins of Christian education in England. St. Augustine probably established a school shortly after his arrival in Canterbury in 597, and it is from this institution that the modern King’s School ultimately grew.
The fully documented history of the School really starts in the sixteenth century. With the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the School was re-founded by a Royal Charter in 1541. This established a Headmaster, a Lower Master, and fifty King’s Scholars. The name ‘King’s School’, now used for the first time, thus refers to King Henry VIII.”

The Norman Staircase (leads to the library)

Former pupils include Christopher Marlowe (plays), William Harvey (blood), John Tradescant (gardens), W. Somerset Maugham (books) and Sir Carol Reed (films). There are many ancient rituals and traditions, the best and most apocryphal being that the Captain of School (Head Boy) is allowed to keep a goat on the Green Court, grow a beard and take his wife to lessons.

Looking across the Green Court

It was at King’s that I learnt three things.

First, don’t waste learning and beauty on the adolescent. Why don’t we all go off to mundane yet productive jobs at the age of 15, so that all our mental energy can be expended on thinking about the opposite sex and what we’re going to do that night? Then we can go and do it each night, with money in our pockets not sponged from parents and without the worry of homework, essays or exams. At 25, once we have calmed down and can appreciate things, we could go back to school and then university, or stay at work if we choose. Simples!
I spent two years in the most beautiful, historic, magical surroundings surrounded by highly intelligent men, the teachers, who wanted to share their learning with me. What did I do? Me and my fellow pupils seemed to spend all our time clambering over ancient walls in order to find somewhere to “butt” (public schoolese for “smoke”). None of us actually smoked, we just waved cigarettes around to look cool. Meanwhile a thousand years of history and learning were all around us and our one preoccupation was how to mask the smell when we got back.

Second, I learned I didn’t want to be a scientist after all, and changed after a year to all Arts “A” and “S” levels.

Third, I learned that rowing was my sport. You do it sitting down! I took to it like a duck to … no possibly not … and I was good at it. So I ended up Captain of School House rowing, and we fielded the only mixed team in the inter-school competition. I went on to row at University and to captain the Avon and Somerset Ladies rowing team. So thanks, King’s, maybe I didn’t waste all my time.

3. True. I will brook no argument. Seafood is the devil’s work. Squid? Oysters? Cockles? Mussels? Winkles? Have you looked at them? Not for human consumption.

Bad for taste buds and tummies
4. True. I have streaked, in daylight, on Bristol Downs. As an adult.
I have no defence. The less said here the better. Ooh, look, what’s over there?

5. The lie. I do not have a tiger tattoo, or indeed, any tattoo. I have nothing against tattoos, it’s just that:
a) it would have to be either on my hands or my face, as these are the only parts of my flesh I expose willingly (totally contrary to any impression no. 4 may have given you)
b) I wouldn’t like it after a year. I’m not fickle, but the Led Zeppelin “Four Symbols” I would have chosen at 15 would be passe by the time I got to 18, when it would have been a barbed wire armlet just like Pammy’s, which I would have tired of by 21, when some pretentious phrase in an ancient language may have crept in, which I would have tired of… etc.
c) I’ve seen old people in swimming pools. Skin does not stay taut.

6. True. Ah, me and musicians. As per no. 4, the less said, the better. But I can sing, and have done. Live and everything.

7. True. Once, when I was young, I didn’t come top in an exam. Did OK and everything, just didn’t do brilliantly. I felt so ashamed and guilty I thought the best thing to do would be to run away and live in the wild. Obviously, that meant Scotland. More importantly, so in awe of my father was I that I thought if I was within a 500 mile radius of our home he’d find me, so obviously that meant Scotland too.
Thus I stole away, caught the night train to Inverness, avoided the weirdo guy with the sexual overtures on the train, arrived in Inverness, bought a rucksack and set out with my copy of “Food for Free”. Lasted one night. City Wuss.

8. True. Pearl’s a singer, Mum’s a dancer. From the Edna Bull School of Dancing to the Italia Conti Academy (ex-boyfriend of that time was Jeremy Brett, second best Sherlock Holmes - ever) to the Flying Ballet to touring Great Britain in numerous shows (Chu Chin Chow my favourite, for the name alone) she peaked as a Tiller Girl and then… met my father, married and gave birth to my eldest brother in suspiciously quick succession.

Mother during her career. This photograph appeared in the Daily Telegraph.For those who don’t know,
“The Tiller Girls were among the most popular dance troupes of the twentieth century, first formed by John Tiller in Manchester in 1890. Whilst on visits to the theatre, Tiller had noticed the overall effect of a chorus of dancers was often spoiled by lack of discipline. Tiller found that by linking arms the dancers could dance as one; he is credited with inventing precision dance. Possibly most famous for their high-kicking routines, the Tiller Girls were highly trained and precise.”

Tillers in training of around the right eraSo yes, she’s been on stage at The London Palladium, and virtually every other large theatre in the land, in sparkly costumes.

She despairs at my lack of formal training in the dance arena.

9. True. I clunk when I walk, as a result of the mother of all car accidents when I was 21. Full details here for the strong of stomach.

http://titusthedog.blogspot.com/2009/08/in-response-to-stevens-meme.html

10. True. I really was, White Nights, starring Mikhail Baryshnikov.

Not a Calvin Klein advert

I have never seen the film, which also features Gregory Hines and Helen Mirren by the look of things, but I have found a Youtube clip with some mean, moody and magnificent dancing in it plus me at the end! It’s here.

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

I am part of the huge audience clapping at the finale, for the audience reaction shots were filmed at the Bristol Hippodrome. I can't actually remember seeing Mikhail himself on the stage, though I do remember the lady in the grey cape-effect thing, but looking at clip it does seem as if he appeared before us for the filming of the curtain call. Anyway, got paid handsomely for the work, though it was a very hot midsummer’s day, we all had to be togged up in evening gear and there was a lot of fainting and heat exhaustion going on.

My thanks to all who guessed, I make the winners steven, Kat, Lizzy and hope. Jane, you can't have a prize because you didn't follow the rules and choose just one! And Rachel... so close, just fell at the last high jump.
Should you wish to collect your prize, please e-mail me your addresses (see my profile) and I shall dispatch it forthwith-ish.
On the ‘flu front, husband is now vertical occasionally, though coughing rather a lot (annoying) and small boy much better. Me and the second one have escaped thus far.

I salute you!

ABC Wed. "S" = Snack

I made up a snack for myself. I sliced a cucumber long ways, added some tuna and mayo mix on top, then sprinkle on some dill weed and add some crushed pistachios on top. It was really good.

To see more ABC Wed. participants, go here: Mrs. Nesbitts Place

The Edifice Is Crumbling ...

I'm afraid the Samson of Sickness is about to make my temple fall down; with two patients I don't have time for anything, let alone everything.

So I shall away for a few days, leaving you with some stills from Samson and Delilah.

Victor Mature was ideally cast as the macho-arrogant-violent-sexist-dumb-but-not-an-idiot Samson, and Hedy Lamarr possibly the perfect Delilah.

But I'll also leave you with the quiz that's all the rage in these here parts.

Which one of the following statements about me is not true?

(i.e. one of them is a lie)

There is a prize of a hand-made bookmark for all correct answers!

I must be getting delirious myself.

1. My best friend's name is Adora Dick and she has a brother called Ivor.

2. I was Captain of Rowing at a boys' public school.

3. I believe all sea-food except fish is the spawn of the devil.

4. I have streaked on Bristol Downs.

5. I have a tattoo of a tiger.

6. I used to be the singer with a jazz/blues band.

7. I ran away from home as a girl and thought the safest place to go was Inverness.

8. My mother has appeared at The London Palladium in sparkly costumes.

9. Parts of me are made of metal.

10. I was in a film with Mikhail Baryshnikov.

Good luck, and hopefully I'll be back soon...

The Monday Poem

Not such a good last few days; somewhat chaotic with the travel and the weather and the work, then when I got back from Stirling the rock of this family promptly succumbed to 'flu, so instead of being allowed to wander around exhausted from work myself and then go to the Book Fair I had been invited to participate in - well, I have been Florence Nightingaling instead. Managed to get the boys to Church though, and their readings went really well (Isaiah, chapter 9, verses 1 and 2, then 6 and 7 - take a look, not easy). We laugh at Nebulun and Naphtali!

All of which is by way of explaining I ain't had no writing time, so today's poem is unformed and just from heart to page. A police officer died on duty last Friday. Police Constable Bill Barker, of the Cumbria Constabulary, was directing motorists to safety off Northside Bridge, Workington, which was in a dangerous condition due to the floods, when it collapsed. He was swept away and drowned.

There are many debates to be had on the role of the police in society, and whilst I am more than happy to engage in them, I am not trying to initiate one here. When I joined the police I swore an oath of office before my Chief Constable. It was beautifully King James Version-esque, I undoubtedly swore it by Almighty God, and it centred on the primary duties of a police constable, which were the protection of life and property, the preservation of the Queen's Peace, the prevention of crime and the detection of offenders. In that order.


I swear

If you have died, unexpectedly,
I will be there.
If you think you’ve found a bomb,
I will walk up to it and look,
think, decide what to do
in order to protect you.
When you create merry hell
on a Saturday night
any city centre fight,
I will stop you.
Choose to rob a bank
in a Sherman tank?
I’ll still pursue you.
Every train crash,
motorway smash,
I will be there
to try and save you.
There is no horror
there is no terror
there is no danger
there is no one
from which you’d run
that I will not run toward, for you.
You will not like me,
may not want me,
but when things happen
I will be there.

Camera Critters -Tucker Getting Awake

Here's my dog, Tucker, just getting awake after a good nap. Obviously, he's not wide eyed and busy tailed right now.

To see more participants of Camera Critters hosted by Misty, go here: http://camera-critters.blogspot.com/

Ancient Things

Tra La La, as Captain Underpants would say. I have got to drive through the floods to get to Stirling for work first thing this morning (should have gone last night but the roads were just too bad), don't get back until Saturday evening and then Sunday has got three events programmed into it already, one of which involves a six-year old boy reading the words "Nebulun" and "Naphtali" out loud. I struggle with that last one!

Anyway, I shall leave you with all things historical again. A post from The Weaver of Grass, here:
http://weaverofgrass.blogspot.com/2009/11/biblical-kings.html
reminded me of something about the dim and distant past that I posted in the early days.

For poetry is like a glamorous mistress that I can give a few hours attention to; but I have a wife, and that is prose. Unfortunately I have no time for my wife at the moment, as she requires a far greater level of commitment from me. Once I sit down with her, I am there all night. The mistress allows me to drop by for a couple of hours and leave.

So here's some prose for a change.

The benevolent–faced winged bull
from the palace of Sargon II.

When you visit the British Museum run straight to room 10c, Assyria: Khorsabad. Here, in one object, the museum’s intention to “show the world to the world” is realised. Look at it. It will fill your eye, so gaze on it. It is the colossal winged bull (that much will be obvious) from the Palace of Sargon II.

Why this object? Why did I run to this very spot on every childhood visit, and why do I come to this spot still?

Well, it’s big. It’s the biggest thing in the museum. OK, so the Greek Temple (room 17: Nereid Monument) is actually the size of a ….. temple, but that’s built of separate stones. This is one solid object. Or rather, it was, before Henry Rawlinson, the British Resident in Baghdad, sawed it up so that the sixteen tons of alabaster could be transported to Bloomsbury. Now, every person in the world under the age of ten knows that the biggest is the best, just as the Americans do. Why, it could have been made in Texas. It’s the heaviest object in the museum as well! If Barnum could have got his hands on it, he would have – “Peerless Prodigies of Physical Phenomena featuring the Most Colossal Ancient Artefact known to man!” How well General Tom Thumb would have looked pictured between the bull’s great forelegs.

Should that event ever have occurred, and been sketched for the front page of The Illustrated London News, its novelty would not diminish one more shining fact about the winged bull. It is beautiful. The alabaster itself is a soft brown, darker, more burnished, at the bull’s legs from where ancient Assyrians passed by it daily and where the hands of awed visitors to the museum could not help but reach out to touch. Your hand will reach out, how could it not? Did you expect it to be warm too? Those massive legs, massively sculpted, and see the vein on the inner foreleg? Then follow the gracious line made by the outer foreleg and see how it continues into the wing, which sprouts from that point so low on the breast, then sweeps upwards and backwards so that the feather-filigreed limb seems ready to flap at any moment. Then step to the front and look up at that face. A human face, yes, but a face of benevolence, truth and beauty. Look and see. La belle et la bête combined. Who but the French could have dug this wonder up? And who but the French would have been content to fill their eyes and then leave it behind, as it was too much work to move it, and they would not defile it with saws.

Yes, wonder, but what exactly is it? To go further will, I’m afraid, require a history lesson, but have no fear, as the cat might say, “I can balance these books!”. The bull is Assyrian, and just over two and a half thousand years old. Oh, it has seen history, you will reply, but no, actually, it hasn’t. The city from which it came lasted little more than twenty years: alas for Sargon, who built Dar-Sharrukin (“Sargon’s fortress”) as his new capital, death in battle followed shortly after and his successor decided to decamp back to Nineveh. How resonant with its current resting place, for archaeology was born of man’s quest to discover the lost cities of legend. Those early searchers and excavators, filled with the stories of Homer and King James, filled this museum.

The bull is a lamassu, which is an Akkadian word. Akkadian was the language of Mesopotamia (cradle of civilisation, Tigris, Euphrates, you remember) and thus the language of the Assyrians and Babylonians. Lamassu itself comes from the earlier Sumerian word, lama: a lama is female. You may do a double take, understandably, for you see nothing of the feminine in those muscular alabaster flanks. And certainly not underneath them, for the lamassu is unquestionably a bull, moreover, a bull with a beard. However, this is no boy named Sue: the Assyrians did not seek to engender ferocity in their beast by use of a female appellation. Look up at the lamassu. He is comfortable with his name, for the Assyrians were no fools. An empire, occasionally interrupted, for nearly two millennia: their kings still hold the record for the longest lived dynasty in history. The Assyrians knew that the closest watchman, most vigilant guardian and fiercest protector of all she holds dear is the mother of the young. This was the lamassu’s job, to protect and guard an entrance from the forces of chaos and evil. Who is not weak before these two adversaries? Even the mighty Sargon II was as a child before them. So stand behind those great hind legs, shelter under that outstretched wing and remember the time you held onto another’s leg for protection. Return to the front of your guardian, look up again to his face. There is only love here for you. Yes, lamassu is fitting for this male demon.

Demon! When were demons ever benevolent! Relax, for Christianity will have its turn – just call it a spirit if you must, an intermediary. For it is as a spirit that the bull pulls off another continental shift. Perfect for the North Americans, who love size and venerate history, ideal for the Western Europeans because it combines beauty with learning, it is surely to the West Africans that the bull’s self means most. The Yoruba, who number a mere thirty million in Nigeria, Benin, Ghana and Togo, have a supreme being but their worship and rituals are centred on the Orishas, spirits and emissaries of their God, who rule the forces of nature and the fortunes of mankind. One of them is Eleggua, guardian of crossroads, doorways and gates: effigies of Eleggua are used to protect homes. In Africa there are people who live with spirits, people who can recognise the bull’s power for that which the Assyrians themselves intended. These people, this object, connect further yet, for the Yoruba have travelled as far as the lamassu from their home, with as little personal volition and with much violence too. The Yoruba made up the majority of the enslaved peoples of Africa, so Eleggua now guards gates and homes not only in that continent, but in Cuba, Brazil, Haiti, the Carribean and in the very Land of the Free itself.

An abomination, but a part of our world. And if the bull would turn his head and look to his homeland now, he would see complexity and tragedy just as surely as the black diaspora do: this too, our world.

But do not despair. Look up at this work of the mighty Sargon and you can see the glories, hopes, histories and humours of the world too. Just like demons, the lamassu is legion. Turn around. His twin is ten feet from you. Walk ten yards and there are two more (Room 6b, Assyrian Sculpture). The Louvre has the pair the French could be bothered to move. In fact, it’s hard to find a major European or American museum that hasn’t got a lamassu or two (they tend to come in pairs, being gatekeepers). The same was true for Iraq, of course. So Henry Ford’s process, adopted by every industrial nation, perfected by the Japanese, stands before us. Picture Special Grade Ashur-san at the quarry, the bull rough-hewn by the 3rd and 2nd grade workers after their mass exercise session and then shipped by river to Dar-Sharrukin, where more 3rd grade workers haul it into position (there is probably a Special Grade to supervise this, as it can’t have been easy, see “French”), to be finally finished by the 1st grade workers (minimum, six years experience). Again, and again and again. And again, for there were a lot of gateways in this civilisation. And after all that glorious, unified work? That final touch that shows us the bull really knows our world. Some ASBO’ed Assyrian youth or indolent gateman (the one’s presence deterring the other, obviously) graffittis a gaming board onto the plinth (yes, go and look, between the front and hind legs, it’s right there). How we relish the chance to take a chance on chance. It could be you!

Ah, humanity. But goodness, do we not have religion? Actually, Yoruba and Vodoo (N.B., not P.C., use Vodoun) are now classed as religions. Oh, you mean the Great Religions. Of course! The Jew, and all Boney M fans, will see a potent image of the Exile: the Christian, manna from heaven itself, as just when Darwinism was challenging their Creation, Khorsabad was unearthed, and with it the name of Sargon. Look, it’s there, incised in cuneiform, between the bull’s front and hind legs. Prior to the digging, this king was known only from the Bible, and thus discounted as merely fabulous. But Sargon was real, so the Bible was history. Soon after, cuneiform tablets that detailed the flood were found. Apes, indeed! And for the Muslim, here is their history prior to the Prophet (may the peace and blessing of Allah be upon him). Yes, the one God who resides in the hearts and minds of all these children of Abraham is here.

So you see, this single object in this singular museum can show you the world. But wait. Look again. Gaze at it, it will fill your eye. The great bull stands still, untroubled by association. It is what it is, a breathtaking masterpiece that can move your soul. For Shelley was as wrong as his imagined king, there is no despair or futility here. For this, look again, this wonderful thing, was created by man. From a lump of stone in a desert land made fertile by water, man has made this. Here is our divine spark. Here is the absolute.

Have a good weekend.

Finally, let's get one thing clear. I have never kissed Shane MacGowan. And if the boys from the NYPD choir start singing "Galway Bay", it's Fort Apache, The Bronx, all over again.

Sky Watch Friday - Movie Train

It was exciting for Centre County to have this train here not long ago that was brought here for Denzel Washington playing in the movie Unstoppable. It is coming out in Nov. 2010. They brought in alot of crew members, somewhere along the lines of 250 people. I didn't get to see Denzel but my son did. I can't wait to see the movie and recognize all the places we're use to going to.

To see more participants of Sky Watch Friday go here: http://skyley.blogspot.com/

Black Days

Aaargh!

Arms

I have stood at the brink of murder
several times now.
It is the dog that comes closest,
for that would be a transgression line
more easily rubbed out.
If I start to hit I do not stop, beserker:
one brother wears my story still
beaten carelessly into now-stretched skin.
Whatever magic ember lay in Him
He passed to me by some genetic fate
so that, if the wind is in the wrong direction
(North or South, depends on me)
and the breeze, zephyr, gale not just right
(for me), I do not smoulder, do not flare
I erupt, and it is oh,
so sudden.
Of course, at puberty, the world expects
so I reined in, reined in,
and learned instead to cut myself
when that East of Java moment comes.
It is not pretty, but it does a job.

Strictly Come Browsing

I am not someone who begins their Christmas preparations in January, or who shops for their Christmas presents in sales throughout the year. Christmas in our house starts about the week before the big day, with two notable exceptions.

The first is that the younger children write their letter to Santa on December the 1st, in order for it to reach the North Pole in time (especially with the postal service these days).

The second is the lovely Malcolm Sargent Christmas Fair, which comes to Dumfries each November. It's held at the Easterbrook Hall at the Crichton, and it's basically individual stalls of independent, and very individual, retailers, artisans and craftspeople. With every sale made, 10% of the purchase price goes to the charity CLICSargent, who provide care to children with cancer and leukaemia, and to their families. You also pay to get in, and the entry fees all go to CLICSargent too.

The Fair is wonderful. I was there today, so do come browse with me.

Christmas-y bits

Provisions

Designer Dressmakers

Tried this wool/cashmere jacket on. Very nice. Very expensive.

Embroidered Jackets (sorry, out of focus)

The black ones are hand-embroidered, the coloured ones are machine-embroidered.Huntin', Shootin' and Fishin' stuff Children's clothes - Girls...and boysKnits

Artists ("Always banging on about the ancestors")

Alcohol (Grapefruit Vodka, Damson Gin, Rhubarb Gin, Gooseberry Vodka etc.)

And oh, loads of stuff

This is isn't even the half of it, and there was a luncheon room too (for the necessary coffee and cakes in between browsing and trying on).

I left with two fleeces for the boys, chocolate and a substantial quantity of rhubarb gin, plus the necklace, book and apple jelly I won on the tombola. And we are going mob-handed (one of our tight-knit bunch is recovering from an operation at the moment) to "Utterly Bespoke" whose shop is in Edinburgh, to have some clothes made for us. I really do fancy that jacket.