It’s time...

to restart the old blog. Dust the keyboard, arrange the pencils, tidy the desk, empty the bin, crack the knuckles, polish the worn leather swivel chair that creaks and groans. And we’re off...

The late afternoon...

winter sun infused with colour soothes the weary eye.

Above Heptonstall Moor on a cold Saturday in January.

A view from Sutton Bank, North Yorkshire...

                      A poem from Kelly Deschler.

                                     "Melting snows begin to fade.
                           As a newborn season arrives.
                              Refreshing our lives grown dull.
                                Cradled in green budding leaves,
                                    Hushed by the winds of spring."

Gravitational waves...

that stretch and contract the universal fabric have been discovered which proves once and for all that everything, including us stretch and contract with the cosmic chop. To paraphrase Prospero, "We are such stuff as dreams are made on and our little life is boundless with toing and froing."

Dawn...

over La Gomera in the Canaries.

Pitcher plant in France eats only foreign...

hornets reports BBC. Evil Asian hornets with talons like Fu Manchu and a taste for the saintly European bee have finally met their match in the pitcher plant Sarracenia. "Asian hornets are a menace to beehives." Says an unnamed bee lover.

A spokesbug for the Ancient Order of Asian Hornets replying to the charge said, "We are a menace but we're also part of a growing movement to eat more insects. Call us a green menace if you must. Yes, yes I know we're really yellow and some other colour that's not black but you catch my drift." Asked to comment on being eaten themselves the spokesbug said, "With us it's a ying and yang thing. One day you eat the bear the next day the bear eats you. We're not remotely like your European bees, always whining, never happy. For us it's an honour to be eaten by Sarracenia. Know why it's called a pitcher plant? One whiff and you'll pitch into anything. Ha ha ha. That's a little hornet joke. No? Ah well, please yourselves. Any more questions, comments? "Good, because I'm late for a beehive party. Harry, fetch the car round."

OMD...

Souvenir  (link to crackly old vid on youtube but a great tune nevertheless)

Ancient Sperm...

found hidden in rock, shock. On seeing daylight the aged Sperm blinked and said. "I got lost, it was dark. Hey where are the guys? Billy, Trev, Arthur. We were swimming, down a long tunnel, it seemed long at the time. We were excited. We'd even practised... My God this place has changed. Last thing I remember was hitting my head. I hope the others are okay."

Depressed chicken loses will to live...

reports the Renfrew Gazette. This sad tale of maltreatment by a nasty farmer might have achieved another ending but for the vet who then broke it's neck. Freed from a lifetime of shit the poor bird glimpsed salvation for the briefest moment cradled in the arms of a kindly grey haired gentleman with warm but firm hands. A little too firm as it turned out. Squawk!

I'm inspired by my friend...

Guyana Gyal to post a link to the marvellous Penguin Cafe Orchestra. I'll say no more, just follow the link for a tiny bit of joy.

Oldest man in Tokyo...

been dead for 30 years reports the BBC. Local officials became suspicious after not seeing Mr Sogen Kato for 30 years. "30 years may seem a long time to some," Said one official, "But we've been busy."

A spokesperson for the records office said, "Mr Kato has now been stripped of his title and sash though he can keep the sash because it's holding him together."

A further spokesperson told Associated Press. "When dealing with the dead it pays to be on your toes. In this case we failed but then again so did Mr Kato whose toes fell off some time ago."

La Grande Bellezza...

or, The Great Beauty is a blisteringly good film about an elegant 65 year old Roman journalist specialising in art, culture and the ocassional catty put down. Rome looks, well, ravishing if a little wrinkled at the edges not unlike Jep himself. An event from the past reaches out to shake Jep's urbane cool and we then follow this quizical comical man who likes to party but wearies of partying. A living saint arrives in Rome whom Jep has to interview but instead she sleeps on his floor. Sipping coffee on his balcony the following morning amidst a gathering of strutting and preening pink flamingoes this dessicated diva archly suggests to Jepp that what he might lack is roots. Watching in astonishment Jep wonders if she might be right.

October...

in West Yorkshire and a bit of Basho...





autumn colors
without a pot
of red-brown soup






"Autumn is marching on: even the scarecrows are wearing dead leaves." -  Otsuyu Nakagawa

Vatican doves...

in release horror reports the BBC. Pope Francis who likes to be known as Francis last weekend released two peace doves from his bedroom window that were promptly devoured by a seagull and a crow. Microphones recorded the following.

Dove one: "I'm free, I'm free. What the fuck!..."

Dove two: "My god they've got Bertie. Fucking hell... Arrrggghhhhh..."

A spokesdove told Associated Press, "No one saw that coming."

Falling into a Black Hole...

is like falling into the fire, or so reports The Belfast Telegraph.

Ruminating over astronauts tumbling into black holes some chap called Polchinski "hypothesised that instead of being gradually ripped apart by gravitational forces, the event horizon would be transformed into a 'highly energetic region', and anyone who fell in would hit a wall of fire and burn to death in an instant - violating Albert Einstein's theory of relativity."

Rather than ripped apart you're burned to death. Phew, and here's me worrying over ripped apart.

Glucose in tears to be...

measured by Google or so claims today's Observer. I understand they plan next to measure orphan's tears for viscosity as a fall back for when the oil runs out. From weeping orphans to fuel security the bastard Tories will salivate even more the moment they grasp the connection. Hmmm, wonder what might be mined from saliva? Quite a lot given the amount currently drooling from the ruling class's sagging jowels.

I don't feel better for writing that... and it's only day 19... grrrr...












 

507 year old clam...

killed on birthday, shock. Or so reports yesterday's Independent newspaper. Having spent the previous half a millennium scratching beneath the cold Atlantic waves off Iceland Ming the Clam died in a pan surrounded by his friends. Chief Scientist Bill Chowder told the waiting press, "Ming gave his life for the advancement of both science and a good lunch. Some think it cruel to eat such aged creatures but we know from previous experience that hot crusty bread and a robust Chardonnay deadens any guilt. And let's not forget that Ming died knowing how old he was. So, another plus there then. Thank you all for coming. There'll be time for further questions after the second course."

Bio-degradable electronics...

only short time away or so predicts some clever professor in today's Observer. 

A simple wafer, swallowed as if at communion will open our innards to scrutiny. Innard data will pour forth with such uncontained force as to place passing children at risk of being bowled over. It will become impossible to stand in proximity to a radio or speakers or someone wearing an ear piece for fear that vital information from our vitals leak across. And who among us would want that?

Awash with tiny devices, up our nose, down our throat, in those hard to reach crevices we'll broadcast like a fucking beacon. What we eat, drink, excrete. Who we slept with, if it was good, if we were good, if we were shite. The particularly sensitive will no longer have to contend only with the chip on their shoulder.

Every morning a dilemma over what to take, every evening a crisis about what we gave. I'm bloody exhausted just thinking about the whole process. Finally though, and happily, these silicone slivers have limited life and dissolve inside of us to be then pissed away. Pissing away ones troubles, ah, if only.

And the madelaines? Apparently next month is the 100th anniversery of something Proust did.

To Manchester Jewish History...

Museum where a section of the Chagall Exhibition currently entrancing visitors to the Tate North in Liverpool is staged. Prior to WW1 Chagall spent time in Paris mixing with others of the Eastern Europe artistic diaspora and the tiny exhibition hosted by the MMJ shows works by Chaim Soutine and Sonia Delaunay and others, as well as Chagall.

By happy coincidence Elaine Feinstein about whom I know very little was also present and reading from her recently published memoir as part of Manchester's Literature Festival. Mrs Feinstein told anecdotes that made us laugh and read some of her poetry but she also read 'An Attempt at Jealousy' by the Russian Poet Marina Tsvetaeva which I thought wonderful. Here it is...

How is your life with that other one?

Simpler, is it? A stroke of the oars

and a long coastline—

and the memory of me

is soon a drifting island

(not in the ocean—in the sky!)

Souls—you will be sisters—

sisters, not lovers.

How is your life with an ordinary

woman? without the god inside her?

The queen supplanted—

How do you breathe now?

Flinch, waking up?

What do you do, poor man?

“Hysterics and interruptions—

enough! I’ll rent my own house!”

How is your life with that other,

you, my own.

Is the breakfast delicious?

(If you get sick, don’t blame me!)

How is it, living with a postcard?

You who stood on Sinai.

How’s your life with a tourist

on Earth? Her rib (do you love her?)

is it to your liking?

How’s life? Do you cough?

Do you hum to drown out the mice in your mind?

How do you live with cheap goods: is the market rising?

How’s kissing plaster-dust?

Are you bored with her new body?

How’s it going, with an earthly woman,

with no sixth sense?

                                                         Are you happy?

No? In a shallow pit—how is your life,

my beloved? Hard as mine

with another man?

1924

I loved the sarcasm and caustic wit but the poem's real power lies in the wrenching finale where Tsvetsaeva's gaze turns inward.

It's not often I'm introduced to two exceptional poets in one day. Lucky old me.