Friday, 27 August 2010
Monday, 16 August 2010
Saturday, 14 August 2010
Playgirls
Feast your eyes on this. It's one of the best things I have seen and heard in ages.
Step away Charlie's Angels....the Playgirls are here and they are gonna kick some puny male ass! I love it!
Step away Charlie's Angels....the Playgirls are here and they are gonna kick some puny male ass! I love it!
Thursday, 12 August 2010
Cosmic
Tonight if we look to the skies we can see a beautiful meteor shower. Which makes me want to post the following clips...
Wednesday, 28 July 2010
Wednesday, 21 July 2010
The sounds of childhood
Some sounds are typical:
the tinny mechanical rendition of Greensleeves from a distant ice-cream van. (I can almost feel the sticky penny in my hot little hand as I think about sitting on the edge of the kerb waiting for the van to arrive)
Raindrops tumbling heavily onto a windowsill
The school bell
Winds rippling through trees
The silence white world of snow
More specific to my world:
Sunday League football. Our garden bordered onto a 26 acre plot of land with football pitches, cricket pavilion and wooded dell. On Sunday mornings I rose to the sound of footballs being booted and men shouting.
Arguments
Grandma sweeping the garden path
My dad counting money when he was an insurance man
The rumble of a train line
Myself. Singing.
The sound of late night television programmes leaking up from the living room to my bedroom. I once lay on the landing and cried when my babysitter wouldn't let me watch The Sweeney.
Tales of the Unexpected elicited a similar response.
This tune always made me feel like crying...
Schools and colleges programmes are much cooler now than they were at the time.
the tinny mechanical rendition of Greensleeves from a distant ice-cream van. (I can almost feel the sticky penny in my hot little hand as I think about sitting on the edge of the kerb waiting for the van to arrive)
Raindrops tumbling heavily onto a windowsill
The school bell
Winds rippling through trees
The silence white world of snow
More specific to my world:
Sunday League football. Our garden bordered onto a 26 acre plot of land with football pitches, cricket pavilion and wooded dell. On Sunday mornings I rose to the sound of footballs being booted and men shouting.
Arguments
Grandma sweeping the garden path
My dad counting money when he was an insurance man
The rumble of a train line
Myself. Singing.
The sound of late night television programmes leaking up from the living room to my bedroom. I once lay on the landing and cried when my babysitter wouldn't let me watch The Sweeney.
Tales of the Unexpected elicited a similar response.
This tune always made me feel like crying...
Schools and colleges programmes are much cooler now than they were at the time.
Wednesday, 14 July 2010
Organazized
That day has arrived. Like Travis Bickle, I'm on a quest for clarity, simplicity and order where there's now nothing but sprawling chaos.
I have already cleared my spare* room and am currently sifting through paperwork, some of which is 10 years old and has been extraneous to my needs for at least 5 of those. Why do we keep stuff? Why do i find it so hard to let go of a bus ticket from 1985? I know that if I don't excise the surplus I will end up like Mr Trebus.
Anyway, I know that this blog posting is my little avoidance technique for today. So, back to it.
And when my paperwork is up-to-date....my computer folders really need work.
Then....my desk.
*junk
Tuesday, 1 June 2010
In between things
By the time Pearl stirred from her slumber, darkness had descended into the motel room and through the grubby fingerprinted windows a large Harvest moon drooped heavily at the end of the street. It was so low to the earth it looked like they were going to collide in the night.
Wednesday, 26 May 2010
In the beginning....
Chapter 1 – Field Song
Hazel ran ahead through the rippling high meadow grass, her body long like the dark shadows the gentle sun burnt into things. It was one of those lovely autumnal days that one clung onto, in the knowledge that winter was just a cold breath away. It would not be long before these rolling green ocean fields would be stilled by the cool season. The green swards and wildflower stems that now lashed Hazel’s legs like untied shoelaces would soon sleep quiet underneath, first mist, then frost.
Tuesday, 27 April 2010
Excerpt
Chapter 14 – The Offing
Instinctively, Clive started to run. His parents called after him, yet still he ran. Gorse and brambles grabbed at him snagging his clothes, but still he ran. The wind blew his tears across his cheek, and still he ran. Until he arrived at the house in the hill. The door squeaked ghostly on its hinges and a broken shingle clattered off the rooftop. There was no boat, no Edwin, and no end in sight to Clive’s anguish.
He slumped, breathless, onto the edge of the grassy bank and surrendered himself to the tears that wracked his whole body. He had not cried for a long time; so long that he couldn’t even remember what he last cried about. Now he cried, not out of self-pity or shame, but out of true grief for Edwin, who was all but lost to the world. No-one else might ever notice him gone, let alone mourn. It was too sad.
Instinctively, Clive started to run. His parents called after him, yet still he ran. Gorse and brambles grabbed at him snagging his clothes, but still he ran. The wind blew his tears across his cheek, and still he ran. Until he arrived at the house in the hill. The door squeaked ghostly on its hinges and a broken shingle clattered off the rooftop. There was no boat, no Edwin, and no end in sight to Clive’s anguish.
He slumped, breathless, onto the edge of the grassy bank and surrendered himself to the tears that wracked his whole body. He had not cried for a long time; so long that he couldn’t even remember what he last cried about. Now he cried, not out of self-pity or shame, but out of true grief for Edwin, who was all but lost to the world. No-one else might ever notice him gone, let alone mourn. It was too sad.
Monday, 19 April 2010
Monday, 5 April 2010
A Railway Sketch
Image kindly reproduced courtesy of Michael Tanner.
The track scores rustily through the countryside exposing the backs of things; the backs of houses with windows that rattle with each passing train; the backs of timber yards, factories and scrap yards, where rows of pallets, crushed cars, mangled metal, timber and old bricks breed. We pass piles of burning things and watch as the acrid grey smoke floats towards us like fleeting cataracts covering blind eyed windows. We pass, we pass. And the dull thrub of the engine is our afternoon lullaby. We glide along tracks that shine when the sunlight hits them before we enter hushed through tunnels. Our eyes get accustomed to the darkness a split second before the sky returns. As does the landscape blur of quarries and fishing ponds, allotments and flytipped furniture. Next to the new housing development; a selection of three and four bedroomed homes with ensuite bathrooms and off-road parking. And rattling windows.
All a pattern of disorder. A jungle garden tries to encroach upon a clipped elderly garden, filled with riotous bedding plants and more than one shed. We pass by two empty deckchairs positioned to take advantage of the afternoon suntrap. Although, the sun has disappeared behind flat clouds for now. There is unfinished paving, unloved furnishings, overwintered outdoor toys and washing lines dripping with threadbare towels.
The views flatten; now there’s just the occasional spire or poplar tree to pierce the firmament. A row of willows even dip down to drink thirstily from a river. And here, we are fast now. Whirring empty stations into the past. Charging past rolls of hay and dead farm machinery, past barbed wire fences and guard dogs, past soot, dirt, mould and the dying of things. The truth of things.
April 2010
The track scores rustily through the countryside exposing the backs of things; the backs of houses with windows that rattle with each passing train; the backs of timber yards, factories and scrap yards, where rows of pallets, crushed cars, mangled metal, timber and old bricks breed. We pass piles of burning things and watch as the acrid grey smoke floats towards us like fleeting cataracts covering blind eyed windows. We pass, we pass. And the dull thrub of the engine is our afternoon lullaby. We glide along tracks that shine when the sunlight hits them before we enter hushed through tunnels. Our eyes get accustomed to the darkness a split second before the sky returns. As does the landscape blur of quarries and fishing ponds, allotments and flytipped furniture. Next to the new housing development; a selection of three and four bedroomed homes with ensuite bathrooms and off-road parking. And rattling windows.
All a pattern of disorder. A jungle garden tries to encroach upon a clipped elderly garden, filled with riotous bedding plants and more than one shed. We pass by two empty deckchairs positioned to take advantage of the afternoon suntrap. Although, the sun has disappeared behind flat clouds for now. There is unfinished paving, unloved furnishings, overwintered outdoor toys and washing lines dripping with threadbare towels.
The views flatten; now there’s just the occasional spire or poplar tree to pierce the firmament. A row of willows even dip down to drink thirstily from a river. And here, we are fast now. Whirring empty stations into the past. Charging past rolls of hay and dead farm machinery, past barbed wire fences and guard dogs, past soot, dirt, mould and the dying of things. The truth of things.
April 2010
Sunday, 21 March 2010
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Jigsaw
I dreamt that there were thousands of jigsaw pieces. Lying in a ditch someone had dug in the ground. I was tasked with scooping them all up.
Friday, 8 January 2010
Album Art
When I was many years younger I would sketch my own album covers even though the only musical instruments I can play (and at that very poorly) are the recorder and a paper and comb.
Yet I still get excited by album covers to this day. 
Yet I still get excited by album covers to this day.
Sunday, 3 January 2010
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