Golden Newt 4.1% £2.95
Batemans Rosey Nosey 4.9% £2.95
Titanic Iceberg 4.1% £2.95
Phoenix Snowbound 4.3% £2.95
Monkey Town Mild 3.9% £2.85
December 5, 2009
Guest Beers at the Victoria 4th December 2009
December 2, 2009
ancient church 100yds from railway lines
I must have passed it dozens of times but had never noticed it before.
It was a church. The usual sort of ancient edifice, as scattered by the hundred across the ancient land. Surrounding it was the graveyard, fairly full and over the road stood the Vicarage.
The road itself was a small country lane that will have once seen the occasional horse and cart and a flurry of activity on a Sunday though rarely what might be called a good crowd.
The nameless resident cleric will have led a life of rural nonentity, his mechanical existence ordained by tradition and poverty. This was not a rich living. The parish sparsely populated. In return for a small stipend he administered a menu of rites and was not required to contribute with original thinking.
His small flock ruminated acceptance of this with equally unthinking obedience as they had always done.
The church was a few miles outside town and looking round from my vantage point I could count three or four other spires that will have represented the same countryside cameo, a fearful society ruled by the exploitation of ignorance.
I was on a train which passed within a hundred yards of the church across a field. The building of the railway line must have come as a huge shock to the parish, or at least to the clergyman. His peaceful existence shattered by progress, probably concurrent with a dwindling attendance caused by the move into town to the “railhead”.
The big silos of the sugar beet factory gazed down in contempt at the scene whilst dense white smoke emitted from tall chimney stacks.
November 20, 2009
Broken words
Broken words lie impotent upon the page
Dysfunctional vocabulary – hyphenation won’t fix
Anagram no antidote to illiterate ailment
Inarticulate phraseology a lacklustre lexicon of tricks
A short introduction to the Broken Words poetry night at Decimal Place, Burton Road Lincoln on 28th November, 2009.
November 14, 2009
A nomad I
A nomad I, wandering these flat, people-scorched streets of sunless stone. Infinitely deep puddles crater the roads, obstructing my senses, confusing an endless search which already, unsignposted, makes no sense. Tall buildings obscure the vision and without a map make impossible a plan.
I pass brightly lit front rooms with televisions flickering through uncurtained windows, the occasional canned roar of a compliant audience sometimes audible. Not stopping in case I’m seen looking I move on and leave them to their entertainments.
Further on I come to the pub. It too is brightly lit and I can see faces leaning forwards at the bar. A log fire dances in the grate and some drinkers sit at tables either side of the hearth, warmed inside and out. More occasional laughter.
It is a Sunday and I walk by a church. Dim lighting shines through the multicoloured stained glass above. The door is open and another column of light illuminates the entrance. One of the faithful scurries past, enters and is consumed.
Arriving home at last with cold hands I fumble with my keys at the lock and open the front door. The house is dark but I switch on a light and then prod the heating. I make a cup of tea, sit in my chair and think.
November 13, 2009
Caledonian Double Dark Oatmeal Stout
life suddenly appears in slow motion.
the brain, inspirational but ephemeral,
leaves the body and floats above the table before us.
conversation, with no physical evidence of existence
remains a permanent fading record
slowing as the battery runs down.
the door shuts and the lights go out
freezing us in no time, timelessness that is.
finishing the glass, the reality of responsibility
raises its unwelcome head and leaves for the door
which, open, sucks me into the cold wind outside.
my coat buttoned up and collar raised I, head down,
return to normality and the noisy heart of the family.
Guest Beers 13th November 2009
Brains SA 4.2% £2.95
Copper Dragon Best Bitter 3.8% £2.85
Stonehenge Pigswill 4.0 % £2.85
Oldershaw Regal Blonde 4.4% £2.95
Caledonian Double Dark Oatmeal Stout 4.6% £2.95
November 12, 2009
A one way street named Hopback Entire Stout
Sometimes life comes at you full on. Maybe it can’t get any better or perhaps you get handed one of those hospital passes that smack you in the face and leave you wondering…
One sinking sip, another inhalation and a deep palateal reflection. Mesmerise into the darkness of the caramel. What a disguise! There is music but no road out. The talk flows around you just as the flavour rolls across the tongue; sensation penetration. Gentle inebriation.
A one way street named Hopback Entire Stout.
November 8, 2009
A golfer’s eulogy
When his game is up,
And prompts no more debate,
And life’s unerring drive,
Ascends the green of fate,
It will I’m sure be said,
By crowds that filled the gallery,
That upright was his stance,
Whilst stood upon the final tee,
And when the last put drops,
Stewards will murmur from afar,
In marking of his card,
He played his round in level par.
sediment
Brussel sprout flavoured isosceles triangles
available from a good gastro geometric outlet near you,
banana trapezium, its full flavour slips down well at the gymnasium,
merry go round in toffee apple infused circles,
square noises chop through imperfect ponds and
glass fronted hurricane shop windows stir up
enthusiasms not yet tempered in pink.
Estate agents spin their ceramics on
bamboo pole extensions, losing the pattern
as simply as arboreal baby castanets,
discretion being valued as highly as
enthusiasm amid the placations of the assuaged.
The fire crackles on and the guitar rests
calmly on the spots of the sofa,
notwithstanding the variously striped cushions.
Passing conversations
Passing conversation in the queue at one of the mens toilets in the Millenium Stadium – one person coming out talking to another going in. It lasted five seconds.
Hey how’d the MOT go?
Not bad thanks – only forty quid.
Good, got away with that then!
They continued on their separate ways.
He turned to me and said – that was my dad.
November 5, 2009
Looks like AA Gill
Smart grey suit with dark lapels, grey silk Liberty handkerchief, crisp white shirt & expensive watch on his right wrist
Effeminate voice.
Completely out of place at the buffet bar on the 7.29 from Newark Northgate to London Kings Cross.
November 1, 2009
Dark outside
It’s getting dark outside. The clocks went back last week and the nights have closed in on us. I like this time of year. This afternoon I cleaned the grate out and set the fire ready for a cosy evening on the settee.
As I fetched in some kindling from the woodpile at the bottom of the garden a small bird flew across the lawn and into the hedge. Getting ready for a quiet nestle in the nest for the evening no doubt.
We are all at it. All is well.
October 30, 2009
IOM 2009
Then. Island living. You make your own entertainment. Long winter nights radiating around coal fires in smoky-dark front parlours of elbow-worn public houses.
The road outside leads grimly to the tidal harbour, lashed full of herring boats battened down against the storms that visit now as regularly as tourists in summer.
There is little movement during the shortened days. Beds stay occupied when there is no fishing and the nets have been seen to. Oil lamps supervise the weekly news from the rest of the island. Shadows are cast and the narrow cobbles between the houses rarely see direct sunlight.
Quilts are stitched and there is the unvarying routine of keeping the household going. Fireblack, scrubbing the doorstep, breadmaking, the Monday washroom mangle, the gossip over the doorstep with the neighbours.
Sundays present little variation to the theme. Some tidy up and in their best suits pay homage to the All Powerful, praying perhaps for a gap in the weather.
Now. The jungle is long tamed and grows tidily in pots and on trellises seen through French windows. Concessions are made to island life. The internet brings a choice of entertainments and world news updated by the minute. Virtual escapism.
Beds stay occupied when the storms lash the golf course though nowadays the Church only half fills. The occasional sortie to Safeway replenishes supplies and the hatches are closed again.
There is little fishing except in the long summer days when generations come to visit and chaos reigns. The noise and the laughter evokes memories of other times.
Walks down to the promenade and the lifeboat lead to a spot of rock pooling around the castle. Ice-cream parloured sticky- faces complain about sandy feet and want lifts back up the hill.
Maturer beer-stirred relaxations outside the marina facing Creek Inn are followed by gourmet dinners back at HQ.
Visits all too short though as long as anyone can cope with.
After early morning goodbyes, it grows quiet again and a deep peace settles over The Grove. Old friends, the couple, fifty years young, reflect on the harmony of their half century together and smile.
For Alun and Eileen Davies
Dolgellau 1961 – 1967
They made it. Across the Cambrian divide and with it came total immersion for her in the language of the hills. The lush surroundings a fertile backdrop for the young couple with a growing family.
Friday night out with the boys, Saturday mornings refereeing rugby matches. Nursing, the stroll down the hill into the village, post office and corner shop, Christmas came with Babycham and bottle top badges proclaiming Pale Ale by the crate.
Mountains were climbed, sandcastles built and long, cross country journeys spent in the car back to the coalfields.
Machynlleth, Aberystwyth, Aberaeron, Lampeter, Cross Hands, bus trips into Llanelli, Carmarthen and Swansea.
Carwyn James, The Farmers Arms. Slack coal on tips picked with Rachel Mary drws nesa’. The shed with the gas mask and world war two helmet. Bryn’s pop factory; coloured bottles that could never be successfully hidden from small prying eyes. Welshcakes, visits from Uncle Glan and Anti Lilian, Cei and Clarice.
John the baker and the co-op van vied with the mobile library to provide distraction. Tenby. Cricket in the back garden, hide and seek in the front. The tin bath in front of the fire, the cupboard under the stairs and the cold, dark, downstairs toilet out the back.
For Alun and Eileen Davies
London 1959
He set off, it seems like yesterday. A valley born boy from the western edge of the South Wales coalfield, the census reported religio-mill-working-mining stock with a farming heritage.
A strong community held together by hard work, hard living and a religion. The green valleys scarred indiscriminately by industrial activity shaped his mindset. Echoes of the chapel pulpit bounced off the walls of the cottages lining the road to the pithead where he lived.
He arrived. The dirty, humanity littered streets didn’t feature in the ad. Still it was an adventure. An adventure mapped out by a job offer and piece of paper with an address to hide in.
Everyone succumbs, for at least a part of their lives. Some make it, some don’t. Those that don’t stay trapped, cage-bound in suffocating concrete, bars gripped desperately through which the stares of the lost meet but don’t see.
Outside these prison bars was a jungle. Stark inner city schools and hospitals, emerging still from a bombed-out, war-ravaged London. National service fresh in the mind, petrol rationing a periodic feature, grey surroundings with splashes of occasional colour relieved the monotony, the smog smothered red of the Routemaster bus.
Nurse! An Irish country girl with a strong character that the convent couldn’t kill. A large family meant farming out the kids. Childhood meant driving the donkey and cart into the town dairy to deliver milk. Green fields the playground unaffected by the war that waged on outside the dream.
Country migrants with eyes open wide and gaping mouths learned the language of the streets. They found new words that spelt feelings. There were moments. Cliff Richard, Tommy Steele and the Two I’s coffee bar, rock and roll and the sound of skiffle.
They met and lost touch. An age sped by and the jungle forced them together again. Age old instincts cut through the formalities.
19th December 1959, Ammanford Roman Catholic Church. Interdenominational with a hint of inter-racial. It rained. It could rain all it liked. No-one cared. Then back to reality and the return to the city. The time stamped struggle of a young family fighting their way upriver.
For Alun and Eileen Davies