So there I yam, inna my kitchen, makin’ breakfast for kids afore school. Pouring milk over puffed and cracked rice, spreading congealed milk on toasted beigels and muttering prayers of hope that my rag won’t get lost before the drop-off, when….. SHAZZAM!!! A mighty and slightly weighty pidge comes SMACKER! Right onto my window! Scared me half to death my friends. Milk on the floor and soddenkrispies! Him? (for only a bloke could be so bovine in the morning) He peeled himself offa the glass in record time and winged it back to the squadron. His mates who’d undoubtedly pissed themselves with raucous peals of snidey laughter, as he winged it back with tales of derring-do and the bug that got away. Either that or he’d been sorely tempted by the rice of another and got a thicker head for his troubles! Either way it got me to thinking…

            Are pesky Vermins not getting a little uppity these days? The squirrel that has breached my bird feeder, the pidge that wants my baby’s breakie and the buzzards that soar invisible and beady-eyed above us, are they not threatening our peace of mind and freedoms with a far more audacious confidence than before? Youbetterbelieveit! And now I have another enemy for ya. Those with a feline disposition might wanna turn the page now ‘cause this is gonna get ugly! My bird feeder, my little globe, with which I satisfy my predilection and predisposition for the tiniest of  feathered friends, hangs from a bough that allows a steady queue of the small and beautiful to eat at leisure and feed their young. But let us not venture into regurgitation… The globe has been breached as you know by the rapacious Grey, the squirrel of my worst nightmares. The weightiest pair of Pidges you ever did see set up camp on the floor below awaiting the merest cracked nut. And  Buzzards wait for mice or moles. Or me! This has been the way of it lately and the tiny birds have learnt to deal with the unwelcome intrusion of the larger parasites far better than I. However, a new enemy has breached the new equilibrium of the garden and lurks, evil amongst the flower-pots. The Fat Cat!

            Bloated by years of sub-urban living and the steady diet of appetite accelerants and shite teevee, he stalks my garden in the early hours of daylight ready to hurl his considerable heft at any bird engrossed too eagerly in the sating of a migrated hunger. More than the pesky squirrel and his mendacious, winged friends I do despise the Cat; cool to the point of freezing; sneering behind its constantly upturned nose; smug with murderous silence; the ability to steal my breath without effort, all of this renders me eternally antipathetic to your feline friends. And now this, this studied saunter up my garden path, the parking of it’s voluminous arse amongst the struggling bulbs, its surreptitious eyes darting one way and the other, am I supposed to tolerate this? My window sails wide, again, a warning shouted and… and… it sits, settles its lardy arse and purrs “Yeah? What?” I lift a stone (one of them white ones again) and it starts with a too well-concealed stealth, makes a break for the hole in the fence, gets there and turns “Yeah? What?” I fling the stone, right handed and contorted from my left-handed window, it hits dirt and bounces… a palpable hit, right on the flank, piercing the cellulite, hitting a nerve and off it streaks! Victory is mine in the world writ small of my garden! Chalk one up for the little guy. Come birds, feed at my globe, fear not the bullies and predators. I shall keep you safe. All is swell again. But then…

            Another day and the Cat comes back!! Sauntering again, swinging the lard of its arse with pomp and circumstance: The squirrel flees: The pidge struggles for elevation and the buzzard waits for carrion. Cat stares me straight in the eyes, its flickering, vertical slit against my bulging, enraged orb. I fling wide the pigeon-caked window, (for his cataclysm with the see-through pane has left his grease stain of pain) and shout. And shout again. The lard settles and the sneer returns, the smug ask; “Got anymore?” and so I select the same, retrieved stone (never give up a lucky pebble!) and it runs, recognising the missile as it narrowly misses the moving target  of its buttox and hits wood with a ringing SMAK! Let that resound in its pointy little ears as it settles down to a saucer of unleaded milk substitute and bird flavoured soya chunx.

It didn’t return this morn. I could think it down to my re-stocked armoury and improving accuracy, but should probably recognise that inclement weather and blustery wind mighta prompted a lethargy and a vanity that precluded wet paws and ruffled fur. Such is the stuff of the Cat. And so I ponder the Ghost of a Pidge upon my window pane and think; despite the dirt and worse contained in the caked grease of his outline perhaps there is a valuable warning written there. The protection of the weak and hungry demands constant vigilance, unerring accuracy and a regimen of fitness. Such attention repays with joy and wonder. The variety and iridescence of plumage that befalls my eye delights the day. And so the Ghost stays.

Now, if I can just do something about the solitary Magpie that flounces about promising sorrow and thievery at every flap perhaps I could reach a new peace. I could do with some help from the little guys, I don’t speak Mag and know instinctively that the escalation to weapons of barrel and bullet would rid my sanctuary of all creatures great and small as well as the greedy and large. A price to great. And so the Ghost stays.

Cardorowski is back, as mad as hell and he's not gonna take it any more

     You’d haveta stretch yer Waitin’ allowance a long way to catch a glimpse of Tom in the Big Smoke these days. So pronounced seems his aversion to Lunnun’s finest auditoria that your intrepid correspondent hopped the Not-so-Easy flier to Ol’ Praha in hope of catchin’ the Raindog hitchin’ a rear leg, spinnin’ his yarns of death, dreams and delirium and flailin’ them wild, windmill limbs, and bugger the consequences.

     Briefly, on this scandalously erratic and audaciously exotic tour, there is a defiant note of bewilderment in the Republic that The Glitter and Doom Extravaganza should visit Prague not once but twice. The furtive glances of those of us who’ve shuffled off the workaday chains in parts disdained and coughed up the coupla quids for to see the Eyeball Kid only add to the bristling tension.

     And even if it was more than a ton of squids, y’gotta hand it to the Man, he knows howta lead a band, to put on a show. With a Johnny Cash suit and a Glitterball Hat, Magic Tricks aplenty and perched atop his very own Dirtbox, The Scarecrow Maestro reeled in his band of multi-instrumentalists and the multi-national crowd alike with hard earned ease, letting us all out with a well exercised will, an accomplished understanding. And tho’ the oddly named Borman 6 (did I count 7?) might not’ve been of the Taylor/Ribot Marque, they allowed Mister Waits the full scope necessary to exercise a Sudeten range of songsmithery in a panoply of tempi and dance patterns.  And tho’ the pace and rhythm were always at the beck and call of his spread-eagled extremities, the palpable delight of those in attendance, the seething volcano of encouragement and joy, must’ve been a boon to one not prone to hit the road with any frequency.  In a set that couldn’t’ve hoped to contain anyone’s, let alone everyone’s, faves the standouts for this ‘dog were “Hoist that Rag” “Innocent” “Eyeball Kid” “Jesus gonna be here” and “Dirt in the Ground”. Truth be told, everything was received with fervent joy and rapturous applause and these were not the uninitiated.

     Waits is a man who’s music and public persona seem all jagged angles/ shattered fractures, of both acute and obtuse divergences, and yet within are curves and arcs of grace and hope that spin and weave through the fractured weft with a wit and style that’re both headstrong and deft. You will not catch his like elsewhere: The marriage of Vaudeville and Beat, the intertwining Afro-American sounds with loquacious wordplay, of  warped and forgotten Dances to subconscious Frightmares, the telling of Truth through atrocious lying and all of this allied to a performance style stolen from the Circus Gimp when he was still able to ply his trade, make Tom in any incarnation a Unique event.

     If y’haven’t seen the Man in a while you’d better hope ‘n’ pray he returns soon, if y’ve never seen him then heed this refrain:

              “See Tom Waits afore ye die,

                  And with a smile you may lie.”

Back in the day when poor folk still lived in cardboard boxes, licking road clean for two bob a week, and I was keeping my lice ridden head down in the cream of the English Public School system, avoiding buggery and worse, in the years following the Summer of Love (when paedophilia was the predilection of Rock Gods); back when the lines were drawn more clearly than at present; back then, a somewhat loose-tongued and over-eager teacher let slip the truth that the petty and puerile rules that we  were so energetically trying to subvert were merely a distraction from really major deviations that they didn’t even want us to encounter lest we  seriously transgress. Y’know the kinda rule: Hair length, the cut of yer jacket, tie width, the shape and hue of yer shoe. Fashion rules really.

     Didn’t work. The trail of drug addled rich kids dribbling from squats around the country into heavyweight, raucous demonstrations demanding (with futility it turned out) an end of the class system and its limiting status quo ended, where all junkiedom always ends, in the gutter and the morgue. Somehow they musta known that long hair and serious drug taking weren’t a very good rebellion, but it was a good two-fingered salute to those who perpetuated the myth of respectability, whilst bending all manner of private morality to suit. And, the Junkies might well have had a better time of it than their straight-laced cousins who took the City shilling, bought the suburban domicile and settled for Valium and Viagra. A gutter and morgue all of its own, but with prettier curtains.

     The point here tho’ is; not much has changed. Except that, the edges are less distinct and we have become more complicit in the fudging and transgressing. Bob says (and he’s right, of course) ‘To live outside the Law you must be honest’. We can no longer delude ourselves that our Society is anything more than a flatulent, wasteful generation of Obese Onanists receiving mediated prescriptions with barely alert senses, wanking before the Big Screen and gorging ourselves on obscene quantities of fodder, organic or otherwise. We have allowed ourselves to slide, without resistance, into those terrible Sci-Fi movies of old where Troglodytes eat space food from plastic tubes and march like lemmings through the 7 ages into the furnaces of Oblivion. All our delights along the way emblazoned with guarantees of unending joy, price reductions, bright smiles and tiny waists. And They LIE. All the time.

     It was brought to my attention recently that, because we can not bear the hideous truth of our lost, formerly svelte, selves, clothing manufacturers have taken to lying about the girths of their pants, trousers, skirts, jackets etc by a coupla inches, few centimetres, maybe entire feet. The jeans you buy that say 34” are in fact 3 foot wide, and then some. Because they know that if they told the truth we’d become too distressed to visit the shops and wave goodbye to our youths, so they came up with the stunning Master Plan of lying to us! And we BUY it. The lie, the trousers and the complicity.  We want to be the tight, bright teenagers we probably never were and will listen to anyone who’ll perpetuate the myth. Anything rather than give up the dream. Who was it said that dreams are fine for those who are still asleep? He was probably talking about the Yanks, but let’s face it, we’re blithely following them into the very same Frightmare. Anything wrong with growing up, may I ask?

At the same time I have become aware that no-one’s getting busted for driving at 80/90 mph anymore. People sail past me, on any manner of road, hitting the ton and over and there’s never a flashing blue in pursuit. None of my mates, and let’s face it they all like a bit of virtual rallying, has ever been done by the camera except for breaking a 30 in the ‘burbs. And so my suspicious mind starts to wonder; given the proliferation of Buzzards in the sky and their Pigeon serfs on streetlights, is it because we are actually travelling within the limits, but are being allowed the illusion of rebellion and recklessness? Have Car-makers colluded with the Law and rigged the speedoes? Are we so addled in our motorised sedans that we have forgotten what speed feels like? Do we actually only want the sensation of breaking the law, in the same way that we like the idea that we can still squeeze into the pair of jeans that lies so sweetly? You could ask such questions about any number of consumer goods; the food we eat; the homes we furnish; the news we hear? Do they actually do what the say on the tin? You’d probably haveta come to the conclusion that the answers are lost in a fog of statistics, advertising and celebrity; camera angles, opaque lighting and the digital airbrush (Photo-shoppery, I believe they call it).

And the conclusion to all this? All this conspiratorial, paranoid, jive-talking? What good does it do? Where’s it all heading? Am I suggesting home made clothing, garden shed skunk and marathon speeding sessions down the M1? Wanton carbon emissions, allotment poppies and a wardrobe to make that f@*kwit Clarkson proud? Well, allow me a few more seconds of your valuable peace before yer train stops and disgorges ya at your place of servitude. All of the above is only possible with our tacit agreement: Our unquestioning acceptance of all that is given to us so readily and comfortably (some would argue too readily and much too comfortably). If we stopped to think about the true measurements of our clothes, we might begin to realise that we don’t actually need more clothes. If we would ponder our need for the sensation of speed, p’raps we’d let the train take the strain. And so we must wonder why we don’t ask those questions. Why do we remain complicit in this rampant deceit?

And it seems to me that our complicity is borne of dissatisfaction; with our surroundings, our colleagues, our standards and our selves. Of these, the one that we can most readily take a measure of control over is the self. If we take a long hard look at ourselves and re-member all that we have been through; the grief and pain, the miseries and joys, failures and successes, the wounds and scars, without blinking, we might realise that we aren’t half bad. And that that much goodness is worth nurturing, fostering and sharing. As we do that we might find that our observations on our environment, friends and families are transformed and we don’t need to be that person that squeezes ourself, berates ourself, deceives ourself anymore. A song I never much liked has hoved into my mind, so I’ll steal the melody and change the meaning ‘if you can’t be the thing you love, love the thing you is’. It is, in the end, the best revenge and our only hope. (There is, of course, a part of me that would much rather sing: “I fought the Law and The Law won. But it was a damn good fight!” but where’s the Hope in that?)

In retrospect I should never have kept my head down, I shoulda looked potential buggerers straight in the eye and said ‘No thanks’. I read recently that the Poetess/Singer Patti Smith suffered rape at a tender age, let alone the stigma of not meeting the Prom Queen criteria for beauty that that land holds so high. She shrugs it off saying that it all gets channelled into something else. I thank God that I have this opportunity to unburden myself and turn it into something else and I thank you for reading. Love the Thing you is, you are beautifully and wonderfully made.

 

 

My Mother said

I never should

Play with the Gypsies

In the Wood.

 

            For those of you Johnny and Joanna-Come-Latelies new to all things Other Sidey, perhaps a little explanation might be in order. Your correspondent was once an habitué of the Ol’ Ink Line, albeit of an Edgware variety, and has yet to shake off the safety of his old sub-urban self. He currently resides in a room with a view of a garden, that reveals to him all the world writ small. The Fat Cat, the bullying Squirrel, The pestilential Pigeon and lately the portentous and malevolent Magpie, not to mention the beady-eyed Buzzard. All of these he wages war on, on behalf of the littler boids whose perilous existence is blighted by the ravenous appetites of the aforementioned. To those of you hardened Othersiders, no such explanation is necessary. So, to work. Oh yes, one other thing, your correspondent was recently hauled before the Judge for terming those peripatetic purveyors of pestilential pigeon food with a word beginning with P. I vowed that it would not happen again…

            Today being a Sunday that opens to a week that has more holidays than weekdays for those with school-age kids, the evidence of The Travelling Show is hard to miss. These Romany Folk sure know how to slide under the skin of a 9 year old. The little red posters dotted around on knee-high railings and the flailing arm that throws squawking teens to heights the trees cannot shade are veritable beacons to those with a predilection for cheap thrills and cheaper goods. Except that as a parent I know that there’s nothing cheap about a visit to the Fair! I offer all sorts of events not normally on offer to distract or divert. To no avail. So today, I declined my Mother’s well-worn advice and took the kids down to the Fair beside the Woods, knowing I was gonna get royally ripped orf!

            Mine eye, that is normally on the alert for displays of rampant greed and weight throwing in the Garden, was refocused on the more blatant Commercialism on display down the Park. The coffers were stocked carefully and folded with an embrace. As in; ‘you can kiss that lot goodbye!’ and orft we strolled to the gaping entrance. You had to pay to get fleeced!!! That was a new one on me; coughing up to take a gander at the means of one’s own bankruptcy! They’ve been watching the mercantile activities of Mister Squirrel and his stupefied Pigeon Pals. We pays our money, we’re deemed fit for entry; all the usual is on offer, aimed at the kids but demanding the wallet of an adult. We place our limits and put the notes to the touchpaper. Dodgems still work. Also there’re a few more death-defying rides that might warrant the venture weren’t it for the gourmet burger that has barely entered the spreading, middle-aged gut! (Is that a new diet? Eat what y’like and then visit the funfair. Not fun for those below and not fair for the poor P… Travellin’ Man, that hasta clean it up.)

            So the kids choose their rides: 9 year old has to be restrained from dangers that he isn’t big enough to qualify for: Middle still throws himself at bouncy castles with joyful abandon and Youngest will ride anything with Barbie on it! Thank God she’s a girl. (Todd Haynes notwithstanding). And being a caring-sharing kinda Guy I haveta be on the Dodgem Mat to prevent bullying and injury. And then it strikes me. This is actually all quite tame. Do any of you remember when the Fair had an Edge? When there was the threat of actual bodily harm. Sure the rides are still a little rickety and the veneer of safety is pretty thin but, didn’t it used to be that the guys who operated the Dodgems would ride around on the backs, chatting up your girlfriend and dropping their ciggies down your pants? That the Gangs would come out at night and cruise for a bruise?  Maybe that’s all gone as we eradicate the Travellers right to roam and plant a caravan. Seemed today that all the Fairsmen and women were of a foreign extraction. And, no, I don’t mean Romany. Maybe, with kids I just go at the wrong time, but it did always seem to me that the Fair carried danger at all times; Setting Up, Playing and Moving on.

            Now, as with most of the interesting jobs, seems that none of the locals wanna do it. They’re more interested in the dull stuff that pays the wonga, thinking that they can experience the wilder ways of life with a vacation. I sit and bemoan, in written and oral word, the encroachments of the Bully, the Spying Eye, the Swarming Gluttony, Rapacious Commerce and those that will not create but only steal in Black and White knowing nothing but detail. And with all their increasing heft comes the disappearance of a certain freedom to take it to the edge. A liberty that encouraged investigation and trying your luck. Now, all seems a little (actually, a lot) sanitised, safe and stupid. It’s all done for our own protection I know, but it ends with us merely plasticene in the hands of those who would profit by keeping us scared and stupefied. Enough, back to the Fair.

            So we get to the end, a long traipse, and the kids’ve been good so we allow them an extra. An opportunity to win. To take home a memento of the visit. The Girly gets help to snag two princesses that provide her with enough shite plastic jewellery to festoon her naked body at bath-time, Middler takes his opportunity to avail himself of Bart and a Green Bloke to get his hands on a dart-shooting gun that’ll last 2 days. Max. Eldest tho’ is determined to chance his arm at the new variant of the coconut shy; tin cans and sponge balls. The prizes look bigger and the task at hand more mature. I explain that this is no ‘Everybody wins’ scenario, that if he doesn’t knock ‘em all down, offa the shelf, he gets nothing at all. Nada. He’s up for it and I’m pleased he’s having a go. So pleased I join him. We both leave ashamed at the staggeringly poor aim of our throwing arm and I think of the “fixed’ balls.

And I get a second Hit. This is all money well spent. Better than any institutional education, this is an opportunity to educate on a profound and very basic level. This is basic survival in the Urban Environment of the 21stC. If they promise that you will win, then the product must be crap, made in that shite-making factory in Asia. If they promise you that you cannot miss, rest assured, you will. And if they tell you that your enjoyment is their highest aim, know that their actual target is lower and much more venal. I carefully open up the economics of the Fair to my sad young man; the age old marketing ploys, the carefully placed lights and ramped up music, the precision feng shwei of all the attractions and, with a glint of smug satisfaction, I lay bare before my son the barely concealed grasping before his very eyes in all its true mendacity. And did he thank me for it? Did he say “oh I see, I feel much better now.” Did he bollox, he stormed off in a huff, jealous of his brother’s orange and black rifle and his sister’s sparkling tiara. But, I’m taking him back next year! No, I’m taking him again next week. Bank Hols. Better a fiver now on a stack o’ tin cans than thousands later on some stolen jalopy outta Loot and a Life Insurance Plan that’ll leave him starving and forlorn in the nick.

It does seem to me that Mr Grey and the Fat Cat have so sanitised our experiences, endeavours and educations that it’s time to head for the woods and roughen ourselves up with the Gypsies a little. Next time I’m gonna take him after dark; let him take a girl on the dodgems and see if he comes back with ciggie burns; give him the cash to throw puff balls at tin cans all night long; feed him just before he goes, on the richest food in the house, and not be there when he hurls! That my friends is Education and you’ll only get it if, like Little Red, you’re brave enough to enter the Woods.

Some bright wag and I can’t remember who, but it mighta bin GB Shaw, once said that crosswords were invented so that the middle classes could waste time without feeling guilty. A sentiment ably supported by a friend of mine who castigated me for becoming insufferably bourgeois for attempting the quick crossword on the back of the Bog (Standard). I was shamed too quickly from the old black and white squares to ever graduate to the dizzy heights of the cryptic, Coptic or anaphylactic. Maybe I was spared. Saved even.

            I didn’t, however, have long to wait for another bus load of distractables to steam into view aimed specifically at my middle-classy-arsey mind. Masquerading as an entirely different and utterly exotic test of mind-bending skills they came not single spies, but multifarious in their number crunching manner. Pretending to harken from the Orient, they call themselves Sudoku and Kakuro (and any other variant spellings), not to mention that one they nicked off Countdown on the back of the G2 section. Who but the terminally bourgeois or hopelessly student (and doesn’t the latter lead inextricably to the former?) has time to offer up at the altar of the Conundrum?

 I have sworn off them. Am threatening my fingers with breakage, my right arm with amputation, mine eyeballs with the plucking if they persist in twitching in that particular direction. When I think of the sweet hours I could spend doing NOTHING, daydreaming of tube journeys become flights of fancy, bus trips that delve to subterranean depths and you can smell the magma boiling or a Taxi that becomes on oldey worldey Hackerney Cab with horse and whip wielding Cabbie all stinking of shit! I shudder at the minutes, hours, nay weeks wasted in the pursuit of a clean Kakuro puzzle. And that’s all presupposing that there’s not something more interesting at hand, some mewling babe gurgling in it’s buggy, an haggard dwarf with a gnarled tale of woe, some strung out busker trying to make ‘Yesterday’ sound arresting. It all beats the crap outta figuring if it’s a 2 or a 9 third square down, fourth across! I coulda written a novel in the time I frittered away in the senseless positioning of numbers in idiotic squares. I coulda learnt the piano and written Concertos! So I’m gonna.

Might even do away with the old rags completely. Harsh measure to be sure, especially “IN” season, but the turkey must be frozen if it’s to do it’s work.. And here I must pause to congratulate Mister Levy for the banning of the Bog from The Lane. That nasty rag never belonged in such hallowed company. But seriously, how can ya ever get anything done with all that endless bleating? All them sections that pretend to offer you a better life but end with you and I suppurating under a tide of info we have little or no idea what to do with. Bin it. No. Don’t even buy it. Save a tree. Don’t read it online. Save a Power Station. Don’t care and save your heart. Do you need the media to tell you that there’s war in the Middle East? Do you need a Paper to tell you that Bush is an idiot (God please spare us another bully-boy invasion!) Need another documentary to reveal the starving millions in Africa or Asia, the internet to reveal the scale of tragedy visited by the Monsoons or Hurricanes? Methinx a little more conversation might alleviate the ignorance. And what exactly will you do with this adulterated, mediated information when you have it? Trot down to your local branch and make a donation? You might, but it might better behove ya to trot round yer neighbourhood and find some local in need of time, space or cash. Might lessen the fear instilled by the rags, might open up vistas closed off by the screen, might bring something tangible not offered by the www.com. Might take a little time, but the rewards will nourish far more than the completion of Kakuro, the smug misunderstanding of Ms Winehouse’s latest dilemma or the anger instilled by another jaundiced view of a political machination.

Sadly tho’, for one such as I, there is no treatment for the second condition of which Mr GBS so eloquently warns. I was, am now and shall always be bourgeois. (Or Morejois as we’ve taken to calling ourselves here in NW10) I was born here, raised here and, despite many and varied attempts at resituating, the sensibility lingers still. So, while so much of the world clambers to break down the doors to the hallowed halls of  Middle Classdom, I shall stand, like Canute, on the ramparts waving flags of warning, emitting shouts of hazard. “Turn back! Think again. Check your pulse. Beware, all who enter the Middle Ground. This place of middles, muddles and mediocrity, zone of comfort and conforming, of averages, acceptance and acquiescence will suck you in and bleed you dry, offering pensions that will fail, insurance that will baulk and employment that won’t employ anything but the least interesting part of you. Pass up all thought of excellence, extremity or hope of extradition, for you, your children and your children’s children. Turn tail and take your professions elsewhere. Be a Doctor somewhere without a hospital, a lawyer in a land without the rule of law, a songwriter in a land without a Pop chart, an engineer in a land without bridges or wells, an architect in a land where they build houses out of detritus, and live off your own joys and sorrows not those edited, shaped and doled out by those whose real interest is to keep you exactly where you are, moaning ‘It’s not fair’ or “That should be a 6”.

 Or: How I didn’t learn to stop worrying and love the CPZ

 

If, reading this, you suddenly come across a nmcgyhru47rthgfjdkss;s;’ or a nmdgft eu3946759[]\’/.,mkj, then you’ll know that either Milan or Liverpool scored in the Champion’s League Final, either Gattuso bit the spaghetti legs of Peter Crouch or Gerrard chomped on a bit of Kaka. The deadline has loomed too quickly and there’s a nice morejois holiday-a-coming so this might get a little rushed. Somethings have to get concertinered if they’re all gonna get done. Forgive me if the quality dips a little.

Round where I live, Norf Lunnun, but a little west of the refinement of Highgate, we’re just getting ready for the next encroachment of the Bushy Bunny and the Beady Bird. The newest tax on those of us who persist in polluting the city with our motors. Another administrative demarcation designed to limit our freedom of movement, or in this case, staying put. The money grabbing scheme that is the CPZ. BUT… I am standing with open arms, welcoming in the line painters. I applaud the swarming wardens with their digital cameras and computer tickets. I wake early in the hope of spotting a long abandoned motor swinging from the arm of a Car Jacker, I mean Tow truck. Me, I got my permit weeks ago! For too long my neighbourhood has been a dumping ground for stolen cars, the car park of those outta towners who park for free whilst living in rural bliss! Trying to have it both ways huh? Well now you’ll haveta buy and eat yer cake in Willesden, buddy! For more nights than I care to remember I’ve hadta park 3 streets away and haul my sorry arse home after a late night shindig, through rain and wind and the giggles of late night lotharios peeking from illicit bedroom windows before fumbling with cold keys in an ill lit threshold. For saving me from this late night irritation, and the early morning moan of a parking ticket given on the second of the time limit, I am grateful to the Squirrel and the Buzzard. Huh, did I say that? Well, to a degree…

            I am aware that all this is just another manifestation of the further encroachment of the Morejoisie (this glorious new noun, given to us by Mr T Lott) of which I was born a member and, despite my misgivings and other sympathies, am so destined to remain. All of us middle-classy arsey white folk, having filled the Islingtons, Camdens and Ladbroke Groves with like-looking folk and priced ourselves outta home and neighbours, are pouring into new boroughs in the hope of turning our gilt into solid gold, our mid terraced boxes into lures for the next generation of new money and eyeing up the local Church Schools. But what of the new neighbours and their many, many trucks, scratched cars and overlittered front gardens? What do they reckon to the invading hordes of posh birds, jaded menfolk and squawking bairns?

Well, I haveta say that they’ve been enormously welcoming and friendly so far. Despite the fact that this whole CPZ affair has curtailed their haphazard parking instincts, brought unneeded increase in the cost of their households Nvhgszdfg h3rt8y927qtfhw. Xabi Alonso just missed! Phew. And very likely lined the coffers of their retirements. Whenever I get the pangs of guilt over the transformation of the neighbourhood jcwvntvyw344ycghdj PEEEEEEEEERRRRRRLLLLOOOOO!!! Lucky buggers, wicked deflection! Yeah! Anyway, as In was saying, whenever I get the pangs, I remember the wise words of a mate of mine of Carrib extraction, “I wouldn’t worry mate, they look at what they bought the houses for and what they’re getting today, check the exchange rate and say a little prayer of thanks!” But still, methinks that for a brief moment there, before all the other folk like me swarmed in, their was a glorious moment of harmonious multiculturalism in action, a little rainbow coalition in my own backyard. Now it’s all becoming a little   magnolia. A little more Merc and Lexus, less dented Beemer and ancient ‘yota. And I miss the colour.

I haveta admit I dropped this particular ball and watched the other ‘til the bitter end. Bitter, I hear you ask? Didn’t the nero-rossi win? Well, yeah, but they forgot to play football, and there’s nothing worse than yer mates winning big with graceless luck, no skill and then bragging about it. Liverpool’s were the only players who tried to win it (Except Inzhaghi of course).  Also, the age those ‘ragazzi’ are they REALLY shoulda known better! I hope that tomorrow, as I peruse the swarm of Meter Men, the swing of the removed Motor and the spread of the unallowing double yellow, I will spare a thought, and show a little sympathy, for the previously grinning Lothario, the holiday maker returning from Gatwick, the Express and the Tube, beladen with souvenirs and plagued with screaming kids way early in the morn, to find his car G O N gone and then the Man who just plum forgot to get up when the alarm went, as I have so often done before but will no longer have to worry about. I hope so.

Thing is, standing on the very brink of this seismic suburban shift, it’s a heavy price to pay for a secure parking spot. The slide of a community from challenging and enriching, all open doors and neighbours out front picking through their own litter, to the safe and yet unknown, all tugged crimson curtains and winking alarm boxes. Mebbe it’s time to move again, find a new borough that is steeped in the old ways? Time is growing round my gut and choking my ankles, the fleetness of foot and keenness of eye are betrayed by a certain immobility but more dangerously an increasing weight of baggage! Sometimes the cares and opinions of others have greater force. Certainly greater volume! And so it is with football, although one’s abiding passions never sway (God forbid!), in a game of neutrals, one’s objectivity rules subjectivity and you find your mind being changed mid way, you give thanks that you’re not down the boozer with a bunch o’ gits who’d spot your switch and you cling to the wise words of WB Yeats, “Civilisation is an exercise in self restraint”. So no more wkjbafvbpapna from me!

So there I was, minding the kids, walking the Park, full of the joys of the sprung Spring and celebrating The Rising, as you do, when a flyer flew up at me! Jumped me from the pathway. Screamed to be grasped. Arrested my eyeballs, held them to the task of reading its advertising filth. An open invitation for children to attend a “Spy School” at a Museum not a million strides away. In the beat of a toddler’s heart I noticed an eerie absence of both Squirrels and Buzzards.

I scanned the lush grass in a slow, deliberate pan but the Grey’s camouflage was too fine, his agility too highly tuned, he’d found the shadows. I scoured the bright, open skies but the Birds of Prey were flying high, all eager beaks and beady eyes. In desperation I resorted to Plan D; I lobbed spent gum from mouth to right foot, volleyed it to a grassless patch of earth, passing it off as a nut (it sometimes works!). No bushy-tailed treebunny arrived, no wide-spanned boyd glid down from invisible heights to snatch, what I assumed he’d think was, a sparrow’s foetus. Aha! I thought, they’re getting clevererer. Then I had a Eureka moment. KABLAMM! Maybe they’re all at Spyskool, inculcating new strata of fear and loathing, drip-feeding doses of paranoia, perchance spreading cynicism from on high onto naïve and unsuspecting kids.

Seriously though, and I know the Skool’s meant to be a laugh but, is this what we want our kids to be spending their time doing? Mistrusting  classmates at this early age? Running to Top Buzzard with reports of covert kissing and the like? Celebrating the punishment of others and living in fear of getting caught themselves? Wearing Buzzard Badges on their uniforms? Ending up Head Squirrel at the age of 11? These impressionable sponges we propagate soak up our hopes and fears, our joys and sorrows, walk into adulthood perpetuating the same and if we fill them with notions of paranoia and deceit, the need for mistrust and a joyless, suspicious mind what kinda green, pinched adults are they gonna turn into? Doesn’t bear thinking about.

I am not sooooooo naïve as to think that we can live today in a world without espionage and covert actions. Our greeds and needs have made it a requirement. We can but live in hope of a day when we will unilaterally decommission our weapons of mass dissipation and learn to look each other in the eye. Until that heady day we’re gonna haveta live with the cctv and the phone-tap, the loyalty card and the memory banks in our lives. But are we gonna sacrifice our children’s future at the altar of this behemoth? Conscript them into an existence that we can’t be bothered to investigate? Deny them their own voyages of discovery, heartbreaks and elations to live in a Civilisation that is rapidly decreasing their avenues of choice? And for what? Automobiles will drive themselves with their slidey doors and foldaway mirrors? Widescreen TeeVees that show us every nook and cranny of our globe, sate our every sense with vistas of unimaginable beauty or horror, but leave taste, smell and understanding withering unused? If we are choosing to slide effortlessly into trepidation, obesity and loneliness then so be it. BUT, and here that terrible word Duty rears its big head …

Can we really believe that it will end with us? Do we have an inalienable right to carry this on beyond our own brief existence? Have we forgotten our duty to future generations? The responsibility to encourage; to understand more than we’ve even contemplated; to travel further, both inwardly and outwardly, than we have ever been; to see more than we’ve beheld? Or perhaps the sum-total of our Parental Duties are the emburdening of infants with the shadows of our own neuroses and trousseaus of ‘stuff’ that they must trundle to the grave?

Yeah, it’s all a bit heavy in the morning on a train to a desk, but let us stop a second and imagine… place yourself a moment in a park without cctv, no roving binoculars from the local Spy Shoppe, nor eavesdroppers all plugged into the Grid. It is spring and the daffs are out, the few clouds transmogrifying from whale to spaniel before your very eyes, the sparrows fearlessly chirruping away and bladers blading away gracefully. What would you really rather do; write a poem; sketch a flower; make a dog-calling whistle out of a blade of grass; smell the newness and the nowness, or encode a secret memo for the Buzzards, to be picked up by The Squirrelmeister from a prearranged Dogpoo Bin? More importantly what would you rather that your kid did? And then think, even if you are being watched/listened to, what would you have them see/hear? From these little choices we make our lives. From incremental changes of direction we arrive at unimaginably magnificent destinations or blank walls of fear. If we spend our brief hours and days sneaking glances at other travellers we do but miss the road we are on. Spy Skool might be a frivolous diversion and the road you’re on a little wearisome at present, but a trip into mistrust and envy will not better equip you for the avenue that lies ahead. And not your kid either.

If today, on your way to The Desk, you discover something of note, carry it with joy, for you have noted it; explain it as best you can, for then you will find it; share it with others, for then you will connect. Most of all cherish it. And if you receive but sneers and sarcasm, know this: You have added to the day and not subtracted, given and not snatched, ridden and not hidden. This is what we have found. This they do not teach you at Spy School.

 

 

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