Walls, by C. P. Cavafy (1863 – 1933) translated from the modern Greek by John Cavafy
Without reflection, without mercy, without shame, they built strong walls and high, and compassed me about.
And here I sit now and consider and despair. It wears away my heart and brain, this evil fate: I had outside so many things to terminate.
Oh! why when they were building could I not beware! But never a sound of building, never an echo came. Insensibly they drew the world and shut me out
Social Mobility
Erected by silent degrees, the hollow Membranes form a set of walls We see them etched with symbols in forgotten tongues Designed to look like curtains made of stone The legendary rules Have always been in place And so we shuffle, ankles chained Past a door that no-one’s ever dared to try.
Journal Entry, 10 June 2023: It’s Saturday morning, and the Legend Channel is showing ‘Gunsmoke’, a fairly tepid western series where rugged men ride around on horseback, throw punches, shoot at one another and dream of their far-off womenfolk while sitting round charming campfires. No Brokeback Mountain drama here, then.
In the news: huge wildfires have been raging for weeks in Quebec, Canada, causing vast clouds of smoke to drift across the Northern US and turning the skies a sinister orange colour. It is almost as if Donald Trump had been turned into a supernatural monster and embarked on a journey of global destruction.
Also in the news: Donald J Trump, deluded millionaire TV personality and failed politician, has been indicted on 37 counts of wilfully hoarding boxes of classified documents at his home in Mar-a-Lago. The orange one has popped up on social media to denounce the federal charges as being irrelevant and petty, oddly failing to mention that it was he who introduced these regulations.
Meanwhile, here in the UK, failed politician and TV presenter Alexander ‘Boris’ Johnson has resigned as an MP after having been told that he faced being suspended from the Commons for ten days. The Parliamentary Privileges Committee spent two years looking into allegations that he had ‘misled’ the House. He maintained that he did not know if any meetings were being held, and whether or not these could be regarded as ‘parties’, and that anyway, all of his actions were strictly within the guidelines.
His resignation Honours list granted titles to some of the most disappointing specimens ever to haunt the corridors of Westminster (Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, Dame Priti Patel?) but alas, nothing for his most gushing fan, the lovely Nadine Dorries. Stunned by this betrayal, Dorries also resigned and will now spend more time writing her lewd romantic novels.
And in Ukraine, thousands of citizens have been forced to flee their homes after an explosion at the Nova Kakhovka dam(blamed on Russia) caused widespread flooding. Russian forces are also accused of targeting industrial infrastructure, such as chemical pipelines.
Latest Covid-19 figures: US: 107.18 million cases, 1.16 million deaths UK: 24.61 million cases, 226.3 thousand deaths
“In the frail pauses of this simple strain”, says Shelley towards the end of his long, lyrical poem Alastor; or, The Spirit of Solitude. This tale describes a poet who wanders the world, exploring the realm of nature and indulging in flights of fancy where he imagines mysterious pagan temples from lost civilisations. The descriptive passages, where Shelley tries to conjure up the image of these majestic chambers, seem to be a forerunner of the CGI realms in role-player games:
“Nature’s most secret steps He like her shadow has pursued, where’er The red volcano overcanopies Its fields of snow and pinnacles of ice With burning smoke, or where bitumen lakes On black bare pointed islets ever beat With sluggish surge, or where the secret caves Rugged and dark, winding among the springs Of fire and poison, inaccessible To avarice or pride, their starry domes Of diamond and of gold expand above Numberless and immeasurable halls, Frequent with crystal column, and clear shrines Of pearl, and thrones radiant with chrysolite.”
And again, later in the poem:
“His wandering step Obedient to high thoughts, has visited The awful ruins of the days of old: Athens, and Tyre, and Balbec, and the waste Where stood Jerusalem, the fallen towers Of Babylon, the eternal pyramids, Memphis and Thebes, and whatsoe’er of strange Sculptured on alabaster obelisk, Or jasper tomb, or mutilated sphynx, Dark Æthiopia in her desert hills Conceals. Among the ruined temples there, Stupendous columns, and wild images Of more than man, where marble daemons watch The Zodiac’s brazen mystery, and dead men Hang their mute thoughts on the mute walls around, He lingered, poring on memorials Of the world’s youth, through the long burning day Gazed on those speechless shapes, nor, when the moon Filled the mysterious halls with floating shades Suspended he that task, but ever gazed And gazed, till meaning on his vacant mind Flashed like strong inspiration, and he saw The thrilling secrets of the birth of time.”
Shelley wrote Alastor in the later part of 1815, and readers will recognise the phrase ‘gazed and gazed’, together with ‘vacant mind’ as being inspired by Wordsworth’s Daffodils, published in 1802. Perhaps Shelley wanted to acknowledge that contemplation of a simple domestic flower – or the happy memory of doing so – leads to the same transcendental awareness as exploring the grandest religious monuments or ruined sites.
Hardly a ‘simple strain’, though; the lofty, intoxicating narrative would have given many readers sleepless nights, with its conjuring of epic drama and legendary landscapes.
But here in Salford, we do not have soaring alabaster columns or epic vaulted ceilings with ornate baroque frescoes; instead, we enjoy dented oil-drums caked with rust, aerosol graffiti with bright red obscenities, and gleaming handfuls of scattered silver capsules, the nitrous oxide chrysalids that keep young boys awake all night. I overhear women saying ‘Don’t, please don’t, I don’t want you to, it’s not nice’ while their menfolk grunt and promise not to stab or slice too eagerly this time. Tired-looking weeds emerge from the cracks in vulgar brickwork, the arches have been waiting for decay to take command.
One the way home from work, I pass vivid scenes of degradation; slumped in doorways, shapeless figures in filthy blankets stare at passers-by, unable to beg for change. Some have been drinking cheap wine, others fell prey to the customised technology of Spice. All these people could have been brothers, cousins, workmates, friends: but a twist of fate snatched away some critical aspect of support, leaving them unable to cope with life.
Just a few minutes’ walk away, we see new apartment blocks under construction; epic upright towns of silicone and glass, unaffordable to anyone outside the top 0.5 percent of earners. We are desperate to attract new businesses, new creative sectors, ambitious young creatures, so we erect luxury dwellings and five-star restaurants where anything goes.
But solitude is essential; as much as companionship provides support, so being alone gives time to think without ideas being interrupted or diverted. On a calm summer evening, gazing out across the canal, the only sound a distant murmur of traffic. We need this chance to drowse among the fading light, and let our thoughts meander where they otherwise would not. Modern life is a frantic whirligig of social activity, online and in the flesh. Perhaps a global power cut, while causing misery and distress, would also give us all the chance to rest.
To relax, I head off into town on Sunday morning and sit in a quiet café with my old paperback copy of The Longest Journey. There are four or five other people here, reading the papers or playing with smartphone screens. The streets are silent, the calm elevated by awareness that in just two hours everything will be busy.
Chapter ten opens with a scene where the woman writes something about ‘Wolverhampton’. Possibly Forster was trying to be sarcastic; according to his intellectual friends, anything outside the Home Counties was wretched and debased. Rickie would have hated Wolverhampton; his narrow strip of ivory was more bleak and constipated than anything Austen ever brought to life; he hated himself and he hated the world and the people in it, the streets where he struggled to ignore the smiles of pity.
I enjoyed Wolverhampton; we used to go to Gavan’s nightclub once a month. At exactly 10.59 the dancefloor would be plunged into darkness, with just a single green laser drifting across the crowds, a floating cone of energy. Then the DJ would play the opening to Strauss’ Zarathustra, at whose climax the lights would flare up again and people would rush to start dancing to M People or The Shapeshifters or whoever. We turned up one evening to discover that it was Bill Gavan’s birthday – 40 years, hurrah! – and all the drinks were 40p each all night. He had even lured Sandie Shaw out of retirement to perform a cabaret set. Oh happy days…
I even attended a job interview at Wolverhampton – Crosbie Coatings, who never bothered sending me any reply. Perhaps I should write to them; a postcard, asking ‘Have you reached a decision yet?’
29 Apr 2023: Friday 28 was my Rota Day Off – since I was scheduled to work on Sat 29 – our central heating has been playing up, possibly a duff connection in the control panel, which meant that the heating would turn itself on without warning. But not only that, it would override the thermostat.
Worried that it might come on by itself during our absence and burn the flat down, Paul suggested we turn off the mains electricity. So we emptied the freezer and turned it off at the consumer unit outside.
Managed to connect to the WiFi and did a 7-and-a-half hour webchat session.
Looked at pictures stored on my camera – Castle Hill in the fog, the Carding Shed, ruined warehouse, abandoned stairway, and old vehicle-trade memorabilia, ‘50s and ‘60’s petrolhead nostalgia, enamelled steel signs and wall-maps of the UK.
Mon 01 May: Yesterday went to Julie’s for Thea’s welcome party, lasagne and homemade choc sponge cake. On TV we watched ‘The Windsors’, a sort of live-action Spitting Image taking the piss out of the Royal Family.
Next week’s coronation has stirred up resentment and apathy, and it was proposed that every UK citizen should declare allegiance to the new King. This morning I saw the sky over Castle Hill, streaked with gold at 6.a.m. We toyed with the idea og going to watch the Morris Dancers greeting the dawn, but it was cold and damp so we stayed in bed…
Tues 02 May: Decadent start to the day, croissants for brekky, then take Boris and Ruby out for a walk, then collect medication from local chemist, then go to the Odeon to watch ‘Pilgrimage of Harold Fry’ starring Jim Broadbent. In the news, UK still trying to evacuate citizens from Sudan after initially advising them all to stay put. Yesterday we went round Meltham and saw the scarecrows in various gardens and shops – Charles and Camilla, Harry and Meghan, Ant and Dec…
Four imaginary albums by a fictitious band – ‘Landscape’, ‘Portrait’, ‘ Still Life’ and ‘Figures’. News – Gordon Lightfoot died.
Weds 03 May: After the cinema yesterday we went to the Lord Wilson for lunch. Lots of sauce and mayo bottles, but all empty. Cost-of-living crisis. In his book ‘Down There on a Visit’, Chris Isherwood describes his time working as a Hollywood screenwriter, and remarks that ‘one day they will probably get a machine to do this job’. The real screenwriters are going on strike today because their careers are threatened by the development of AI systems that can actually write.
Thurs 04 May: Today local council elections in England. Some Tory councillors have been producing campaign leaflets using green rather than the traditional blue, and avoiding any clear mention of their party name.
Paul took dogs out and left me in bed, cos I was tired, being an old man. Boris is an old man, and ambles along in a sedate fashion, always on a lead. Ruby is an old lady, and runs ahead, trotting eagerly. Sometimes her grey-and-brown fur blends perfectly with the colours of the stony path, and she disappears from view. On the walks we see sheep, cows, and goats. Sometimes there is a dramatic aerial ballet from the lapwings.
Sat 6 May: According to one US-based news website, King Charles III is due to be ‘coronated’ today in Westminster Abbey. You don’t need to be a raving pinko republican to wonder if this glorious pageant (estimated to cost 100 mill) is really appropriate for a nation suffering from a cost-of-living crisis. The ceremony, and the gold carriage, and the street parties will soon be over, but the fuel bills, student loan repayments, food shortages and sky-high house prices will remain with us for years.
On Radio 4 we have the Grand High Lord Chief Chamberlain wittering on about the elaborate constitutional hereditary position he holds and the complicated, archaic ritual he is expected to perform.
To mark the occasion, I bought a quiche (but not the official broad-bean and seahorse coronation quiche) and a bottle of pink fizz. Later on, I rang Andy to ask if he had enjoyed watching the ceremony, since he is a keen student of Royal History and possesses a huge library of biographies by Antonia Fraser. He said it was very interesting but dragged on a bit too long, so he would catch the highlights on the news.
Sunday, 7 May: the Coronation has been and gone, our rosé Prosecco remains unopened. Glorious sunny afternoon, short walk with dogs down to the Meltham Rail turntable.
Monday, 8 May: Happy anniversary! It’s exactly X years ago I started my job with the YZ, during which time I have moved between several teams and worked for different managers – Ala, Alwen, Claire, Tai, Gary, Martha, Calvin, Rosie and Zaheer…
Of course, since it’s a Bank Holiday, everything is cold and damp and grey.
In the afternoon we drove up to the Tolson Memorial Museum where they have a collection of ancient vehicles and industrial artefacts together with a half-stripped horse and pig. Went to the Rusty Bull for coffee.
Weds, 10 May: off to Sheffield to visit the exhibition at Site Gallery. A single darkened space with hanging fabric sculptures in the middle of the room. At one end, a video shows a dance performance related to microbial archaeology. In the other corner, a set of slide projectors show pictures of insects against bright coloured backgrounds. The data cables run from the lamps to the ceiling, rather like the feeding tube of some alien monster.
I take refuge in the café and burn my mouth on a delicious almond croissant. It’s raining again, and across the street I can see buildings taking shape. These buildings will remain aloft if we go on believing hard enough.
Wandered round town and spotted the Fullard sculptures in the grounds of the Upper Chapel. When I enter the Graves gallery I encounter the portraits of the founder and his daughter, remarkable lifelike paintings. There are more Fullard pictures and statues in the gallery, along with lots of modern stuff that we are not allowed to photograph. There are some huge blocks of pure colour with built-in shadows called ‘C-Type Prints’ in Red, Green and Blue.
‘Convalescent’ by Tissot, ‘Kiss’ by Marc Quinn, Grayson Perry’s ‘Comfort Blanket’ – will the portrait of Charles III fill migrants with reassurance? The mahogany statue of’ Eve has a navel. Edna Manley must have understood what this means…
‘Polyndrome’ by Richard Hamilton is a Nimslo shifting self-portrait. A picture by Clive Barker shows David Hockney’s US Driving License. And one of Turner’s most famous paintings (‘Vintage at Macon’) is a synthetic assembly of disparate elements so we can create equivalent hybrid composite landscapes, leading to an exhibition by the Heavy Water Collective: https://heavywater.info/exhibition/postnatures
There is a lot of Georgian and Victorian architecture scattered around the city…
Fri 12 May: Mass Observation day!
“Dear Diary, today I am not at home – I am looking after the dogs while Sue is away on hols. Breakfast consists of toasted crumpets and coffee and a glass of fresh orange juice mixed 1:1 with tonic water. The house is neat and tidy with pot-pourri and ornamental seashells arranged in vintage ceramic bowls. Unlike my own dwelling, where tiny black insects scamper over the window sills from the tubs of rotting soil.
This weekend is the Eurovision Song Contest, being held in Liverpool on behalf of last year’s winner Ukraine. Military conflict still rages over that part of eastern Europe. From the kitchen window I can see the artificial ruin on top of Castle Hill.
Transport issues; after endless months of delays and cancellation, Trans Pennine Express has been taken back into public ownership.
Ongoing discussion…the Bank of England has raised interest rates to 4.5 percent in order to curb inflation. This has caused widespread pain and distress to homeowners. Except for Count Luca Padulli, who owns vast amounts of land and property across the UK, much of it controlled via opaque offshore trusts.
I smoke not, neither do I vape; Each bead of water calls to us The shapeless victims of today
The shower makes me think about the thermal baths at Budapest, those green-tiled chambers of delight. But there, the water-jets were much hotter and more violent. Outside, the weather is cold, grey and wet, and a single snail is waiting on the garden path. A couple of rooks have just swooped down to collect the stale bread from the bird-table.
I spent about 13 years living without a TV set, during which time travelled around on my bike, went to camping weekends, and had numerous trips to the cinema. Now I do have a TV – the programmes are strange, with a remarkable attitude towards nudity. We have Naked Attraction (dating), Naked Education (body awareness), and an odd survival show where people are abandoned naked (except for footwear) and expected to approach strangers for help in making their way back home.
We also have adverts on telly, glossy commercials for charities – the National Lottery, the Donkey Sanctuary lottery, the Omaze Million Pound home lottery, and the People’s Postcode lottery.
And there is a nationwide campaign to have Smart Meters installed in every home – these meters allow the energy provider to control your supply and change your tariff without warning. The TV adverts use an Albert Einstein lookalike to tell everybody that this technology will enable people to save money. But if you can’t afford to put the heating on, you won’t put it on – regardless of whether you can see the hour-by-hour change in your energy bills.
And we have endless commercials for fast-food delivery services, or stairlifts, or mobility scooters, or walk-in baths for elderly or infirm people. We have created a nation of Brits who can’t cook, can’t walk, can’t see, and are unable to enjoy a normal life unless they have an unusually high household income.
Currently showing on TV at this very moment Jamie Oliver telling us how to make meals for about £1.50 per head. Compare this with Tory MP Lee Anderson (deputy party chairman, no less), who claims that jobless people can eat simple meals for just 30p per head. Shopping channels telling us how to purchase Tupperware containers. Old episodes of ‘Casualty’, ‘Friends’, and a Rick Stein cookery show.
And many modern programmes – even the repeated episodes from years ago – are sponsored by (or ‘in association with’) big companies. These include the Argos retail chain, or the Meerkat financial service comparison website, a firm that produces nothing by way of goods or services, but which simply allows other insurance companies to list their product range.
During the day we went to a small local shop to buy the legendary Dixon’s ice-cream, then off to the Bolster Moor Farm shop café for a sausage roll and a pot of tea. Later in the evening we went to an Indian restaurant for a meal: the place was nearly full, so it appears the locals have a decent level of disposable income. Many of the dishes on the menu were based on chicken, lamb or prawns, even though most Indians are vegetarian.
And I am still living in a rented flat, working in a low-grade office job, without a couple of stylish hybrid electric vehicles to impress the neighbours.
[Note: electric vehicles are a hot topic at present, with the Government having committed to reduce CO2 emissions by phasing out petrol- and diesel-engined cars. There is furious debate about the lack of charging facilities for the growing number of battery-powered vehicles, and it was recently announced that a huge Gigafactory is to be constructed in Somerset to manufacture lithium-ion fuel cells. However, a few months ago it was announced that the proposed ‘Britishvolt’ gigafactory in Northumberland has been cancelled, showing a complete lack of industrial strategy in the UK.]
Journal entry, 5 May 1997: Went to Nott’m, bought BSH and New Scientist. Vacancy in Sinfin – they want science graduates to work on new battery technology. Must go through all my old issues of ‘Chemistry in Britain’ and look for articles on battery tech. My electrochemistry module included non-aqueous corrosion, diffusion of ions, thermal expansion and oxide fracture. Electrode kinetics, Evans and Pourbaix diagrams. Plating technology. Conductive polymer electrolytes.
13 May 2023: Last week I was wandering round Sheffield (or was it Barnsley?) looking for interesting things to photograph. There were some old buildings, ornate and enigmatic, with dates and names carved into the stone. Then I came across an abandoned shop whose interior was just a gathering of dusty white chairs and a white table and white shelves. I saw a set of small dark objects lined up near one end of the table, and thought at first that the girls (isn’t it normally young women called Chantelle or Missouri?) had been playing chess to kill the time between clients, bored housewives and their teenage daughters.
Looking closer, I realised that the objects were bottles of nail varnish, which immediately told me that the shop was one of those pop-up-and-vanish-overnight nail bars where bored housewives and their teenage daughters go to have their talons extended. Young women sit behind the desk and offer a booklet of designs, but everybody ends up choosing metallic midnight blue with gold veins. Wearing disposable paper masks (which offer no protection) the young girls blend hydroxyethyl methacrylate with an isocyanate hardener to create a tough, glossy enamel which becomes rock-hard when bathed in the strange purple glow from the curing lamp.
The shop was so bleak and white it looked like an installation for an A-level art project, with the cluster of small dark objects a set of film canisters or spent bullets.
Later, I made my way to the library, where a glass display cabinet held a group of pale blue paper face masks on which had been written various messages of despair or encouragement. I fancied creating a large-scale replica paper mask carrying the design of a cheque, payable to Baroness Mone, for £200 million. The lovely Michelle has made her way over to Honduras – or somewhere else which has no extradition treaty with the UK, so she cannot be dragged home and charged with fraud.
Journal Entry, 28 May 2023: It’s Sunday, and the Legend Channel has been showing ‘Escape from Mars’, a fairly routine sci-fi thriller which may have borrowed heavily from ‘Total Recall’.
In the news: TV presenter Philip Schofield has resigned/been sacked from ITV following a series of allegations/revelations about his private life, involving a young man who managed to land a job in the entertainment industry thanks to the support and encouragement of old Phil.
At the same time, a protester was arrested after using a hammer to inflict damage on Eric Gill’s statue of Ariel and Prospero. The statue, which adorns Broadcasting House in London, shows a sprite with distinct male genitalia, which prompted a Question in the House. After his death, Gill’s diaries revealed that he had sexually abused his own teenage daughters, and a muted campaign has been running ever since to have his work removed from public buildings.
Latest Covid-19 figures: US: 107 million cases, 1.16 million deaths UK: 24.6 million cases, 225 thousand deaths
Saturday 15 April: The Legend Channel is showing a proper movie called ‘Primal Force’ about a plane crash whose survivors fall prey to genetic disaster wildlife. In the real world we have enough genetic tragedy: the Coronation of King Charles is due to take place next month at a cost of 100 million. He has spent his entire life waiting to take on this role, not knowing when the call would come.
In the news: President Biden has visited both Ireland and N Ireland, celebrating his Irish roots and posing for photos with Gerry Adams. In France there have been weeks of violent protest after President Macron proposed a change in the law to raise the state retirement age from 62 to 64. Meanwhile, in the UK, a think-tank called the Centre for Social Justice has suggested that the state pension age should be gradually raised to 75, even though men in some parts of Britain have an average life expectancy of 73.
Sunday 16 April: The Legend Channel is showing ‘San Andreas Mega Quake’, a cheerful action thriller about…well, you know what it’s about. The movie has just started, but I am expecting to see falling skyscrapers, burning warehouses, vehicles swerving to avoid sudden cracks in the road, and pretty blonde girls screaming in distress.
Fortunately the UK Government has just announced that a mobile phone alert system is being launched, with a test run planned for 23 April. According to the BBC news website, “The alert system will be used to warn of extreme weather events, such as flash floods or wildfires. It could also be used during terror incidents or civil defence emergencies if the UK was under attack”.
If you glance at the Daily Express you could easily imagine that Britain is being constantly threatened by some Epic Disaster; their front page headlines warn of millions of pensioners being plunged into poverty by ‘stealth taxes’ (a modest increase in tax liability caused by the personal allowance not being raised from last year) or national infrastructure collapsing under the burden of illegal immigrants, or EU bureaucrats interfering with UK holidaymakers’ freedom of travel.
So the idea that we have an alarm on everybody’s mobile phone is likely to provoke yawns rather than a stampede.
Ended up in Liverpool again; instead of driving rain, we had a fine mizzle, a drifting cloud of moisture that wandered into my coat and down my neck, making it impossible to use my camera. There were so many fine buildings begging to be photographed, splendid banks and embassy chambers, their pillars and windows saturated with grandeur.
Disaster Cadenza
I’m on the train when boredom strikes The weather has been tranquilised, and watches us As we sit, the journey paused Waiting for a platform to become available. We’re waiting in a cool grey silence, and Through the window I see once more The office blocks; I watched Them being built three years ago, a tangled upright mass Of skeletons and cranes, of hope and possibility Where swarms of neatly-dressed executives Will buy and sell, and rise and fall, and Never have to see the ruined lives That hold their glowing balance-sheets in place.
We’re waiting still, the days And months roll past and seasons change, the Landscape twisted by the steady rain, the Office blocks and trees and roads Unstable, insecure, delocalised Are turning into pictures of themselves Perhaps one day the train will start to move once more And we can start the journey once again.
I’m listening to Radio 3, where they are playing a selection of pieces for brass ensemble (Dukas) together with Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet. I work for the Civil Service, so we always have bank holidays free – when I was a shelf-filler, we were invited to apply for overtime shifts working on Good Friday or Bank Hol Monday.
Outside the weather is grey and damp. The government is in a state of panic because junior doctors have decided to take industrial action – after a decade of frozen pay scales and malicious under-investment in the NHS, they are seeking a basic catch-up pay rise. Health Minister Steve Barclay keeps popping up on TV news programmes, telling us that he is always open to discussion with the BMA. But the doctors’ union claim that whenever they request a meeting with him, he insists that they accept 4 percent before any discussion can take place.
Bank Holiday Monday, 01 April 2013:
It’s a Bank Hol Monday but I have to go into work, to shift kA testing samples and assist with sample rotations and adhesive pick-back tests. Planning new WordPress blog post: debate an article in Ye Sunne newspaper about our Olympic competitors, some of whom are now signing on for JSA or working in supermarkets. The readers’ forum includes lots of dismissive remarks about “Why do these people think they deserve special treatment?”
Be interesting to compare this with the approach taken by other nations. And does this tie in with the economic policy adopted by the UK; George Osborne’s budget has no connection with the German or French economies.
[Note: ‘sample rotations‘ involved taking 72 small coated panels out of a salt-spray chamber and transferring them into a freezer for 3 days and then back again. ‘JSA‘ was Job Seekers’ Allowance, a state benefit paid to help with living expenses while people searched for employment. ‘George Osborne‘ is a millionaire businessman who served as Chancellor in the Cameron government, and who spent a lot of time touring factories and building sites to try and drum up support for manufacturing…]
I went in search of the intersecting phase; the shopping centre in Walkden is huge and white, a set of gleaming avenues and balconies with helical stairs and motorised walkways. Most of the trade units are empty, thanks to the ginormous Tesco supermarket which forms one half of the mall; small retailers of food and clothes and basic houseware are unable to compete with the high street behemoth. A few scattered pilgrims wander through the arcade.
The Ellesmere Centre, as it was then known, opened in 2010. My last visit to Walkden had been back in 2004, when I bought a copy of ‘Lullaby’ and a pair of silver hologram Doc Martens from a charity shop. Back in those days I had no camera, so I didn’t bother trying to capture the Edwardian architecture, or the church with its library of ivy-covered tombstones.
It’s Saturday morning, 1 April: the Legend Channel is showing ‘The Devil-Ship Pirates, a sixties action movie starring Christopher Lee. Part of the drama involves a tavern brawl between two shirtless hunks; modern viewers will never be able to understand how erotic this scene must have appeared to a cinema audience back in the day.
I listen to YouTube – Elgar’s piano quintet, wistful and evocative on the way to work each morning.
‘Desert Island Discs’ is a fiercely-protected format, owned by The Estate of Roy Plomley. I fancy creating a drama about this programme, disguised as a fictitious radio programme called ‘Sand in my Grooves’, which ran for just fifteen episodes before being closed down due to pressure from a Cabinet Minister, backstage corruption and studio rumours.
Sand in my Grooves would involve a theoretical debate about the practical side of desert-island music, the problems of keeping records safe and clean. And playing them; would you make a gramophone needle from the thorns of an exotic bush? Or use the fangs from a tarantula? I think about being in the Walkden shopping centre, safe indoors among the gleaming white tiles; but still falls the rain, with numerous plastic buckets placed to catch the water leaking through the roof.
Perhaps on a desert island, you would grow bored listening to familiar songs. Why not invite strangers to nominate a piece of music that would take time to understand, something elusive and abstract? I imagine a wind-up gramophone set in the middle of the deserted shopping mall, the music so heavily distorted by the crude techniques of both recording and playback that you cannot make out the words or even identify what instrument is being played. The sound echoes from the tiled walls, before being captured by the waiting buckets.
Sand in my Grooves
Escaping from the mall The old café no longer stands Where I would dine while waiting for the bus to come To live alone mean having time to think, to write, to Tease apart the hidden textures One day I’ll burst the membrane of hostility and ignorance The vaulted chambers, white and silent, a Monument to poverty and shame
I drink my tea and browse The red-top pages, expecting To be bored. But that Was twenty years ago, another me, that self no longer stands.
So many buried memories, the music Is a vessel that ferries me across with time to dream And time to drink, sometimes it’s hard to think That these two things are no the same Waiting for the clean white corridors to speak The echoes from another overlapping dream
The end of solitude is near; A line of buckets waiting for the rain to come
I saunter like a random brigadier in vacant mood Along these sterile white pavilions Looking for somebody to believe But still the shallow victims of corrosion help us Navigate these porcelain arcades
Borrowed from a spider’s mouth The chitin dagger waits inside Its languid, logarithmic sweep Ready to release the music sleeping somewhere Deep inside these vinyl grooves Elegant yet brutal Scraping the forgotten tunes and letting them unwind
And after many years Trapped in this artificial destiny Wanting to hear only silence, or The wind that passes through the dunes The sand no longer falls; am I the same person Revolving through the same old circuitry?
Yesterday went to Bury; about 20 years ago I enjoyed visiting the Market and the charity shops, buying secondhand books and shirts – back then it was very fashionable to wear garments in neutral, nondescript shades made from soft-feel hybrid polyester fabric.
Journal Entry, 18 March 2023: The Legend Channel is showing ‘Orca, the Killer Whale’ – Richard Harris and Charlotte Rampling and Bo Derek in the everyday story of a shark-hunter pursued by a whale bent on revenge. The movie industry had still not recovered from ‘Jaws’ which had terrified audiences the previous year, and everybody was eager to milk the marine-horror franchise.
The UK’s financial horror story continues, with the first budget from Chancellor Jeremy Hunt. He removed the cap on lifetime pension pots, supposedly to discourage senior medical professionals from taking early retirement. And he proposed that over-50s should be enticed back into the workplace by offering ‘skills bootcamps’, a bizarre idea which ignores the fact that older workers have less stamina and poorer coordination than their junior colleagues. And he proposed an increase in funding for childcare, to enable more women to return to work. Hunt also announced 12 new Investment Zones which would be treated to lavish tax breaks and treasury support; according to the FT, “Investment zones will operate within current regulatory frameworks and be expected to maintain high environmental standards” which seems odd considering the marine vandalism currently being inflicted on the coastline near the Teesside enterprise zone.
In Plymouth – another location for enterprise investment – a team of council workers chopped down dozens of mature trees under cover of darkness.
Fractal Sponge II
A scattering of random circles on the floor These spots of gum can’t hurt the tarmac any more I search for points arranged this way to match The spread of towns that I once flowed between Trying to decide which fragments of my life To jettison, so eager for escape velocity to come
And so we see these spots, these holes, these points The addict likes to count his needle scabs, One for every chapter he defeats Six raindrops, each holds A twisted copy of the world outside
Three points define, but six words will explore The grains of dust all borrowed from The pages of a vintage almanac The spots of mould that dance in stillness on A petri dish, or superficial beads of rust that Threaten to descend a fighter jet into The ruins of another burning field.
Journal entry, 25 March 2023: The Legend Channel is showing a 1976 Technicolor Epic called “The Fabulous Journey to the Center (sic) of the Earth” starring Kenneth More and assorted period costumes and whiskers. Modern viewers might see this title and expect a Drag Queen extravaganza, but back in those days it simply meant ‘visually striking’.
Here in the UK we have our own Legend, the one and only Bojo the Magnificent, who appeared last week before the Commons Privileges Committee to explain what he knew about social gatherings in Downing Street during the Covid lockdown. After press reports that staff at Number Ten had partied into the night, the then PM assured the House that guidance had been followed at all times. But he informed the committee that he was not sure whether or not any of the parties (sorry, business meetings) were actually in breach of the rules, and therefore he may have misled the House – but, had he done so, it was an innocent mistake and all in good faith.
And if you believe that…
Later on, I went to the Manchester Poetry Library where they had an exhibition called ‘Questioning the Form’ consisting of numerous zines, chapbooks and concertina-type folded booklets by Ugandan writer Gloria Kiconco. Several of the display areas had signs saying ‘No Photography Please’ and ‘Do Not Touch’. Some of the small booklets included spidery handwriting, while others were word-processed and carried small, stylised illustrations or musical notation.
A miniature coat-rail carried clear plastic folders with neatly clipped zines hanging in a row.
A few of the exhibits carried a warning: “This display includes references to sex, self-harm, blood, slurs, assault, hate speech and/or death.” This was frustrating, since the actual writing was only partly visible, and large chunks of the narrative remained unseen, if possibly obscene. Perhaps we could create another zine, using the text from ‘Tropic of Cancer’ but replacing all the female pronouns with ‘he’ and ‘him’ to blossom forth a slimy privet-maze of lust.
There were two copies available to inspect of ‘Return To Sender’, a hefty-looking A5 book which turned out to be remarkably light; perhaps the covers were made from some kind of porous bone from an endangered reptile, and the pages of thick cartridge paper? One shelf had a collection of zines, A5-sized, with plain covers each bearing a single huge typed symbol – “?”, “&”, “;” and “!” against a uniform coloured background.
Perhaps the various dialects in Swahili carry shades of meaning that English-speaking readers can’t approach. The poems talk about identity and loss, brutality and theft and tender lies from figures hidden in the mist. We shall consume your relics, your ancestral myths, the culture of your tribal chemistry, imperial aggressors on the run.
After this I went to the Whitworth to see the Althea McNish exhibition, ‘Colour is mine’ – a tremendous archive of designs for fabric from the past 50 years. Some of her private design notebooks and paintings were on display for the first time.
Journal entry, 11 March 2023: It’s Saturday morning, and Legend Channel is showing the 2012 movie ‘The Philadelphia Experiment’ (again) where a navy vessel is catapulted through space and time causing serious problems and small-town upheaval.
There is plenty of real horror in the world – the war in Ukraine is still raging, with numerous Russian attacks targeting occupied areas and nuclear installations. One target site is Bakhmut, a city where between 20 and 30 thousand Russian soldiers are thought to have been killed.
The government has launched a new programme to deal with migrants crossing the channel in small boats to enter the UK. The Illegal Migration Bill is set to prevent those arriving illegally from claiming asylum, and will block them from returning or seeking citizenship.
However, the Home Secretary Suella Braverman admitted that the proposed legislation may not be fully compliant with the Human Rights Act. Cruella (who was sacked by Liz Truss for inappropriate use of e-mail) went on to say that there are hundreds of millions of asylum seekers around the globe, all of whom might seek to enter Britain.
This affair took an alarming turn when TV football pundit Gary Lineker (“The Queen Mother of football”) posted on Twitter, saying that he thought this was a cruel policy and the language used was ‘not dissimilar to that used in 1930s Germany’. Since Gaz is a BBC employee (on a pseudo-freelance type contract) he was accused of compromising the Beeb’s reputation for impartiality, and has been told to apologise and give an assurance that he will make no further political comments on social media.
The BBC have now announced that Lineker will not be presenting MOTD tonight. His co-hosts, Messrs Wright and Shearer, have declined to appear on the show, and some players have said that they will refuse to give post-match interviews to the BBC.
This is now the lead item on the news, largely because the Beeb has tolerated other aggressively political presenters (Alan Sugar, Jeremy Clarkson) and because Richard Sharp helped then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson secure an £800K loan. By an amazing coincidence, Sharp was shortly afterwards appointed as BBC Chairman. However, this loan arrangement slipped his mind, and he failed to mention it during the appointments procedure.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the new arrangement was “fair for those at home and those who have a legitimate claim to asylum”, overlooking the fact that there no longer exist any safe routes to claim asylum.
In The Octopus, Frank Norris described the chaos and upheaval caused by the emergence of the railroad network in rural America. The UK, meanwhile, is also having a crisis thanks to the proposed HS2 Rail Network. Originally proposed in 2009, the plan was to create a high speed rail link from London to Birmingham, and then on to two more significant destinations – Manchester and Leeds. The company propaganda claimed that all of the UK, including Glasgow and Edinburgh, would enjoy economic and cultural growth from the improved travel links.
Originally costed at £55bn, the project is now expected to cost over £100bn; and to save money, the eastern branch to Leeds was cancelled last year. We have also just been told that the Birmingham – Crewe leg of the network will be suspended for two years. Cynical observers have pointed out that this will make it much easier to completely cancel the northern branch, leaving only the Birmingham – London track in place.
Latest Covid-19 figures: US: 105.6 million cases, 1.14 million deaths UK: 24.4 million cases, 207.7 thousand deaths
Fractal Sponge
The moon was setting somewhere over in the west When I woke up at six o’clock today
I’m soaking up the sad remains Of yesterday’s experience, the same old journey Into town, the kids in polyester black Smooth Anglo-Saxon lips and Bluetooth ears, unsteady With the fumes of early-morning cannabis and fizzing With a caffeine-coloured rage They sway along and stagger in untidy seats.
Jennifer said she dreamed last night Lined up outside the church, a neat parade Expensive cars in shiny black Or British Racing Green; it must be nice For God to see how well his followers have done
Skeleton framework of coordinates, places Etched on a sequence of ideas Soak up a legion of despair and then Squeeze out a random splash of quantum hope.
The dots are towns, suspended on a map The dots are stars that occupy another dreamer’s sky
And then each town in turn is made to ring The same collected notes And then each building has rooms And corridors to run between The dots of glass, each bead Engraved with holograms of ice.
Divide and multiply? These nested cells Don’t feel the urge to occupy another space Safe in the frozen dark, their catalogue remains intact Until a single ray of light escapes and turns These priceless circuits into so much steam.
Steve Harley is famous for a jaunty seventies anthem; but his preferred medium appears to be the oblique, sprawling ballad such as ‘Sebastian’, or ‘Nothing is Sacred’. I wish my schoolmasters had encouraged us to spend time listening to these songs and trying to uncover their meanings. Of course, the references lurking in these songs were completely unsuitable for a bunch of 13-year-old boys…
I copied two verses from the song ‘Nothing is Sacred’ (from the 1976 album Timeless Flight) and tried to craft a poetic response to them, called ‘Every Man for Herself’.
From Nothing is Sacred (Steve Harley, 1976)
“We went out to the balcony, the Danube a glorious flame We took Polaroid pictures and swore that we’re never again gonna be the same It was a moment when nothing was stirring, save these two and me And the clouds were beginning to gather and crash overhead from the glorious sea
We swayed to and fro and talked of Michelangelo And of how there was too much beauty here to take it in one go Then from a corner a tap on the door put the room in a flood There was God in my mind but the problem was water, not blood”
[ Note for younger readers: back in 1976, it was usual to take pictures using a camera loaded with a roll of film, which would need to be sent off to a lab to be developed and printed, which typically took up to four weeks. The ‘Polaroid’ process allowed instant pictures to be printed without letting strangers view the images…]
Every Man for Herself
It’s Monday night; set out the framework / For our molten rendezvous Back in the hotel with paper walls and plastic beds / Where somebody forgot my name again / I can’t go on, the chalice permanently tainted / By the hot blood of the infidel
Each note belongs to its neighbours / Without them it would make no sense / We lit a candle, pulled the blinds / To stop the daylight breaking through, while / Beyond the marble balcony, a skin of neon keeps the river safe / Upon this drift the music floats / Before the songs converge on paper walls
Swept up once more in paranoid indignity / I recite the notes and numerals of pi / Over again, like a magic charm / Whose utterance will keep me safe / And then I count the pages of a book / Whose random words are just / A sequence of transcendent shadows without end
Last week I was reading ‘Living the Charter’, a guide to the operating principles for HMRC Staff and Civil Servants. It gives a breakdown of the responsibilities of HMRC, such as ‘Being open and transparent’, ‘Treating you with respect’, and ‘Getting things right’. But one interesting feature was the customer profile – community served by HMRC includes small and medium businesses. And it mentioned that in the UK there are about 7 million small businesses, along with 200 thousand medium-sized businesses.
And while small businesses are able to be more agile and flexible in their response to client needs, it is possible that the economies of scale and scope would make medium-sized businesses more efficient; and this kind of corporate structure is cited as one of the reasons for Germany’s industrial success.
However, some larger businesses are allergic to change – consider the heroic efforts made by big firms to stop James Dyson creating his bagless vacuum cleaner. Perhaps the UK should offer incentives to medium-sized firms to carry out development, and protect them from predatory market leaders. But having a vast number of one-man bands, all duplicating the same procedures and services, does not make an effective economy.
In the news: PM Rishi Sunak has solved the problem of the Northern Ireland Protocol by launching something called the ‘Windsor Framework’ which proposes a two-channel freight system between GB and NI. There will be a ‘green lane’ for merchandise intended for sale within NI, and a ‘red lane’ for items that will (or may potentially) be transported into the ROI. Mr S has brazenly announced that this arrangement is perfect, because it give the residents of NI unfettered access to both the UK markets and the EU.
This has not gone down well with many British citizens, looking anxiously at bare supermarket shelves and escalating fuel bills. If access to the EU single market is so marvellous, they ask, then why can we not also enjoy this benefit?
Also in the news: a huge cache of WhatsApp messages from Matt Hancock, former health secretary, has been published in the Telegraph, after their recipient Isabel Oakeshott handed them over (in breach of a NDA). Question: Hancock was a cabinet minister dealing with public expenditure to deal with a national crisis. Why should he be allowed to claim that these messages were private?
Journal entry, 25 Feb 2023: It’s Saturday morning, and the Legend channel is showing ‘Rock Monster’ (again), a frightful piece of tosh that makes Sharknado look like a BBC Wildlife documentary.
Latest Covid-19 figures: US: 105.1 million cases, 1.14 million deaths UK: 24.34 million cases, 206.2 thousand deaths These figures may be out of date… The war in Ukraine has cost tens of thousands of lives, with energetic propaganda on both sides clouding the actual number of casualties. In the news: fluorinated monomer compounds are causing extensive pollution of waterways and the food chain.
Journal Entry, 23 Feb 2023: We have a delirious mixture of the tragic and the funny. Tomorrow is the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In County Tyrone, DCI John Caldwell was shot several times by assailants as he left a football training session. This has been linked to the ‘New IRA’ and has been condemned by politicians on all sides in NI.
Two teenagers have been arrested and charged with the murder of Brianna Ghey, who was stabbed at a park near Warrington. Some of the papers describe Brianna as a 16-year old girl; others mention that she was a transgender girl, and some have included mention of her ‘deadname’, prompting furious accusations of hate crime from trans rights campaigners.
UK shoppers have been posting pictures of empty supermarket shelves on social media; apparently there is a shortage of tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce, widely blamed on Brexit and the arduous paperwork needed to export foodstuffs from Europe to the UK. Thérèse Coffey, environment secretary, gave an interview where she said that British people years ago would not have expected to eat tomatoes in winter, and that we should instead look at home-grown produce such as turnips.
Naturally, this has provoked an avalanche of sarcasm from the public. Grocery stores in France, Ukraine and Germany are all well-stocked with abundant fresh veg from Spain and Italy. Coffey is now being merged with the hapless Baldrick in twitter feeds and tabloid headlines, and has been described as the gift that comedians could only dream of.
Last week I visited the Lowry Gallery to see their exhibitions; one is a mixed-media collection called ‘Narratives’, while the other is an expanded display of Lowry works including the picture ‘Going to the Match’, which was sold at auction last year and fetched £6m. The exhibition includes some of Lowry’s pencil sketches – which display no corrections, or adjustments, or any sign of hesitancy, but are a neatly executed set of images in confident black lines.
Smethwick Towpath Blues
“I’ve been here once before”, she said And went on to describe the railway arch The studio where every week Another picture started taking shape. This nude was just too busy to recline, With dreaming structures galvanised And colour-fields that wait to be designed.
In just eight years a set of tower-blocks Was planted, grown, and started to decay Into the random patches grey and green That eat away the pylons’ dirty skin.
Finding an address in another town, she moves From one job to the next; begins To settle down and build another life, her personality remains Unstable, insecure, delocalised until one night, she Begins to organise the aspects of identity Until it’s time to move along once more.
‘The bomb site’, that’s what it was always called A patch of land across the road from where I lived, the Fractured bricks and broken glass and craters that Filled rapidly with mud. No drama or interest haunts this place Which in itself was just enough for me.
She handed me a 90-minute tape cassette And just said ‘Tell me what you think’. A catalogue of swaying noise, the Backwards voice of Eliot, the crackle of uranium And shadows cast by a luminous guitar I still recall the dusty books that lay Behind a wire grill in that abandoned shop And a rose whose colour no-one could describe.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from A random city where the lights, one by one, went out As I walked past on that night years ago. A holdall full of scruffy clothes, some Paperbacks and a forgotten pen, I didn’t know Who I would have to learn to be But I was the one who never reached escape velocity.
When she travelled to this place to live, She knew what treasures lay in store A state of mind, an icon of desire We’ve seen this film a dozen times before, where Bright young things in evening dress Admire their reflections in expensive cutlery And conversations saunter to intoxicating heights Before we make our way beneath the city lights towards A languid, perfumed well of destiny.
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