The Sunday homage,
Split between God and mammon.
The body of Christ and
The bread counter at the supermarket
The bell calls the faithful to prayer
Whilst the tannoy announces reductions at the deli
Money changes hands as
The collection plate circulates
And the clubcard accrues points
St Peter in Eastgate Church and Tesco
They both want your soul.
The woman on the train
Would have been quite attractive
But for the disturbance
That kept the smile from her lips.
Her phone call bore no fruit,
“It” hadn’t arrived yet and
She arranged to call back
On the way home from work.
She was in her mid-30s I supposed,
Sitting there in contemplative silence,
Her long dark hair contrasting
With the creamy wool of her coat.
On the table in front was
A pair of red leather gloves
With a velvet scarf that
Matched her crimson lipstick.
When we got to Peterborough
She pulled on the gloves
And, moving down the carriage,
Left the train.
I noticed she wore black boots
As I watched her walking
Off along the platform
The rain beating heavily against the window.
The train pulled away
And I sat there wondering
What her problem might be,
Then I moved on.
I’m just going home to do some painting so that I can watch the paint dry. It is more interesting than the England v Italy 6 Nations Rugby International I have been watching!
Thanks to Huw for this idea.
From: Mark Agius
Sent: 06 February 2009 10:37
To: Trefor Davies; ‘Huw Edwards’; ‘Crow, James’; ‘Jeremy Dawkins’; Philip Clarke; James Powell; Gary Stobie;’hux’; ‘Mick’; Steven Connolly
Subject: RE: FW: Are You Interested?
As you all know I am 50 in October and thinking of doing something!
Any suggestions?
Clive is off with Steve ‘Carpy’ Kilby to Turkey in Sept for a week’s golf bender!
Too much for me, thinking more along the lines of 2-3 nights August bank hols etc. Vets rugby tour with golf replacing the rugby!!
Even settle for watching a sporting event somewhere with a couple nights thrown in for local merriment!
Is Llanberis off? I know few other lads eg Dave C****r keen to do something (must keep him away from a stage and strippers)
Jez, as a pro any ideas!!
Ajax
From: Trefor Davies
Sent: 06 February 2009 10:38
To: Mark Agius; Huw Edwards; Crow, James; Jeremy Dawkins; Philip Clarke;James Powell; Gary Stobie; hux; Mick; Steven Connolly
Subject: RE: FW: Are You Interested?
We could just do you a cake with 50 candles on it. That would be cheaper. I can get anne to bake it if you like as long as everybody chipped in for the ingredients. That will be 3 pence each please.
From: Philip Clarke
Sent: 06 February 2009 10:43
To: ‘Trefor Davies’; ‘Mark Agius’; Huw Edwards; ‘Crow, James’; ‘Jeremy Dawkins’; James Powell; Gary Stobie; ‘hux’; ‘Mick’; Steven Connolly
Subject: RE: FW: Are You Interested?
It will cost at least a tenner for all the wax that’s a lot of candles
From: Huw Edwards
Sent: 06 February 2009 11:07
To: Philip Clarke; Trefor Davies; Mark Agius; Crow, James; Jeremy Dawkins; James Powell; Gary Stobie; hux; Mick; Steven Connolly
Subject: RE: FW: Are You Interested?
Can’t we just have one symbolic candle….probably get away with a smaller cake then
Is Anne looking for a wage out of this….?
Jeremy, can we put the VAT thro’ your business..
I need to know the bottom line, if we are having a cake syndicate, otherwise I’m out.
From: Trefor Davies
Sent: 06 February 2009 11:45
To: Huw Edwards; Philip Clarke; Mark Agius; Crow, James; Jeremy Dawkins; James Powell; Gary Stobie; hux; Mick; Steven Connolly
Subject: RE: FW: Are You Interested?
The best thing I can suggest is that we give her a budget and ask her what she can come up with.
I’m sure Mark wouldn’t want us to go over the top with this one.
Can I suggest 50 pence total.
I’m happy to find an underwriter for it. That’s 5 pence each for everyone on this cc list except of course for Mark. It is unreasonable to expect him to chip in for his own birthday cake, especially when you consider he is probably going to be buying the beer.
From: Huw Edwards
Sent: 06 February 2009 11:51
To: Trefor Davies; Philip Clarke; Mark Agius; Crow, James; Jeremy Dawkins; James Powell; Gary Stobie; hux; Mick; Steven Connolly
Subject: RE: FW: Are You Interested?
Hang on, you said 3 pence per person earlier…I can’t do business like this
I’m angry and out.
From: Philip Clarke
Sent: 06 February 2009 11:56
To: Trefor Davies; ‘Huw Edwards’; ‘Mark Agius’; ‘Crow, James’; ‘Jeremy Dawkins’; James Powell; Gary Stobie; ‘hux’; ‘Mick’; Steven Connolly
Subject: RE: FW: Are You Interested?
4 pence we are in a recession no more no less
A cost cutting idea is instead of chocolate you can use cat food it’s the same colour but costs less from Poundstretcher also it could give a nice sardine or pilchard twist to the taste (Don’t knock it until you have tried it).
And instead of candles empty loo roll tubes with gold fish stapled to the top for the flame effect.
From: Trefor Davies
Sent: 06 February 2009 12:00
To: Philip Clarke; Huw Edwards; Mark Agius; Crow, James; Jeremy Dawkins; James Powell; Gary Stobie; hux; Mick; Steven Connolly
Subject: RE: FW: Are You Interested?
Who said anything about chocolate?
Either we get 3 others in on the syndicate to lower it to 4 pence or we ask anne if she can get the kids at the nursery school she is teaching at to help out. They can do the loo roll bits
Either works for me.
From: Huw Edwards
Sent: 06 February 2009 12:11
To: Trefor Davies; Philip Clarke; Mark Agius; Crow, James; Jeremy Dawkins; James Powell; Gary Stobie; hux; Mick; Steven Connolly
Subject: RE: FW: Are You Interested?
I don’t recall Clarkey being appointed chief negotiator but like his blue sky thinking
Is there a techie solution to this…what about a virtual cake
Saves messing about with cat food and contravening employment reg’s on the use of child labour
From: Trefor Davies
To: Huw Edwards ; Philip Clarke ; Mark Agius ; Crow, James ; Jeremy Dawkins ; James Powell ; Gary Stobie; hux ; Mick ; Steven Connolly
Sent: Fri Feb 06 12:23:16 2009
Subject: RE: FW: Are You Interested?
Ok ok
We will have to ditch the filling then. Mark can bring his own jam (though I prefer a creamy filling myself Mark if you can stretch to it)
Actually I think ajax should be paying for the cake as well as the beer
I never thought he would be this tight about it.
From: Steven Connolly
Sent: 06 February 2009 12:34
To: Trefor Davies; Huw; Philip Clarke, ‘Mark Agius’; Crow, James; Jeremy Dawkins; James Powell; Gary Stobie; Hux; Mick;
Subject: Re: FW: Are You Interested?
And I thought only women and bakers talked about cake making!!!!!
From: Trefor Davies
Sent: 06 February 2009 12:44
To: ‘Huw Edwards’; Philip Clarke; Mark Agius; Crow, James; Jeremy Dawkins; James Powell; Gary Stobie; hux; Mick; Steven Connolly
Subject: RE: FW: Are You Interested?
We could send him one on Facebook – though he would need to get himself a Facebook account
Trouble is we would need to say we were friends of his to do it!
It’s cold and bright in Albion tonight
Though the snow covered fields
Have little to reflect
From the greyness of the cloud laden sky.
Tonight the owl hunts in vain
As nothing else stirs,
The silence of its glide
Amplified by the hushed tones
Of the icy blanket beneath.
Trees, ghostly sentinels, patrol the hedgerows
That enclose the hunting grounds.
Smoke rises vertically,
Windless from the occasional chimney,
Whitewashed walls invisible
To all but the owl,
Which is itself seen only
By the trees and
Through the aperture of the imagination.
On the mantelpiece, gathering apostrophes, stands the jamjar
Never seeming to get full despite
A steady stream of infilling punctuations
That claim to be the real thing,
Though they may simply be
Misplaced commas.
Whence it came we know not
Nor the jam contained
Within its glass rotunda,
Spread out on bread
And washed, long since,
From the sweet of communal consciousness.
Unlikely as it is, in the jamjar
Gathers the dust of failed scribes
And victims of progress,
Sentenced to be read by others
In the twilight of expression,
The false dawn of a new age.
As it slowly fills, so dies the light…
This has been a wonderful winter. I can’t remember when we last had such a sustained period of cold weather. The snow is now falling and this time it looks as if we might get a reasonable dump of it rather than the light scattering that normally comes and goes within a few hours. Ironically the kids are off sledging at Xscape which is an indoor ski slope.
The sky feels as if it is closing in on us though it isn’t getting darker. Occasionally I see someone walking along the pavement the other side of the hedge in the front garden. Give it a couple more hours and there will be hardly anyone. Also cars are still going past.
Sat here in front of the fire I’m facing a near perfect Sunday afternoon. Anne is doing some baking in the kitchen and in a short while I’ll be cooking a Delia Smith’s recipe chille con carne. Pretty much the same as most other chilles I imagine.
This weather provides an absolutely perfect excuse to sit down and write. To some amongst us tapping away at the PC probably constitutes idleness but they have to believe this is not the case. In fact it is absolutely essential to have uninterrupted time at it.
This the weather you always deam about that gets you stranded in a pub or a country hotel. Unable to make it home for a whole week, running up a huge bar tab and dreading the moment that the snowplough makes it through to announce that the road is now clear!
The snow has stopped now but it will be back. It strikes me that my recent posts, be they prose or poetry, have very much had a wintery theme. If not winter certainly an element of bleakness. It will be interesting to see how this changes as the year progresses. I’m not naturally a person with a negative outlook.
Personal yet impersonal,
Grubby and soulless,
Addictive, without joy
Source of money, sometimes –
Swallow hard.
Herald of bad news,
Card swallower.
Watch your bent back
In litter-strewn streets
Of cloned city centres
All in all it’s just
Another hole in the wall.
At arms length from other boxes
On the outskirts of town stands a box,
Poorly protected by a flimsy slat fence
A thin hedge takes the full blast of the wind
Across the bare fields and over the quarry below.
Paper walls make for little comfort
And no cats swing here though they
Lap at saucers at the exposed back door.
The cheap settee fills the room, with the TV
Which sits on its altar next to the gas fire.
The small garden patch is shaded by the shed that
Stands large on the patio next to the rusting barbecue.
The paint peeled garage door opens into clutter
Where the car seldom fits,
Idling instead on the tarmac on the front drive.
The local pub survives, just,
Its new brick blandness mixed with gassy beer
And a desperately bored clientele.
Frozen food, fried, microwaved, boiled.
Choiceless, characterless, tasteless.
The box, uninspiring, the bulldozed architecture
Of (optimistically) a 100 years hence,
Thrown together, built with hopes and dreams,
Stands on the outskirts of town
An arms length from other boxes.
“I’m sat here pining for you.
I wish you’d answer my texts.
I aint giving up on you that easily sweetheart.
I’m sat in the Morning Star with my wolfie (his dog).
I wish I could see more of you, it’s doing my head in girl.
Is your son alright?
Where’s his next tour to?
If you want to get a taxi up to the pub I’ll pay for it and buy you a couple of drinks. I’ve got the cash.
Alright then my darling. Next time get yer fingers working and text me back to let me know you’re alright.”
Finishes conversation and talks to his dog.
“She’s poorly big guy. Any excuse not to come down to the pub. Mardy arsed bitch.”
It didn’t sound as if she was all too keen. Tref, Morning Star, 24th January 17.15pm
It’s cold, wet and miserable.
We are back to the normal British winter.
One or two smiles break the gloom
At Kings Cross station
But they are the exception.
People don’t smile in London.
The waiting room is warm and quiet.
The cleaner talks to the attendant,
With almost a smile!
An effort, forced through the boredom,
After ten minutes collecting
Three empty coffee cups.
I tap away on my laptop.
A woman brushes her eyelashes,
Another eats a sandwich
And some read newspapers,
But most just stare blankly,
Waiting…
The colours at this time of year are wonderfully dark. All variations of black and brown with only the occasional frosty white for a fringe. There is a wan green but it’s limp lack of chlorophyll offers a pitifully muddy contrast with it’s richness at the height of spring. Moreover this insipid, underexposed carpet is only really seen on the verges of roads and in the occasional pasture, empty of cows.
Green isn’t thought of as a glorious colour but when it is almost absent it doesn’t seem an unreasonable description, thinking back, or ahead to more productive times. The evergreens are dark enough in shadows cast by the low January sun to be almost black.
Normally this is a depressing time but this year the coldness has provided a surprising boost to the system. We rarely see proper winters. Winters with killing temperatures that punish the unwary, the unprepared, the weak. Winters of tradition. There has been little snow but the flat land of the East rarely attracts it. As usual there is plenty of wind and this year it feels as if the full force of the Siberian Winter has been blowing our way.
Interestingly there don’t seem to be many takers for the birdseed in the garden. I suppose hibernation must be in full swing, or the birds have already died. My friend the robin is absent. I hope he makes it through the far side. Even the blackbirds, normally reliable, seem to have disappeared. Time will tell. Spring has a way of fixing things.
The beauty of a long hard winter is the contrast it provides with spring when it finally arrives. This year I am not in a hurry. I am content with having to sit in in front of the fire, or to wrap up well when going out. Sunday afternoons spent in the kitchen, spicy vegetable soup with rustic brown bread and butter, crumpets, ginger cake and tea. Then a roast dinner in the evening before settling in for the night.
It’s freezing point
On the tennis court
Though the action is hot.
Vestigial muscles rediscovered,
Youthful opposition forces the pace,
Balls blaze a trail in the crisp January morning.
Breath hangs in the air,
The score hangs in the balance,
Youth triumphs and handshakes firm.
Finally the snow arrives.
Small flakes drift across the court
Satisfying our romantic sporting spirits.
We retire to Starbucks
For hot chocolate with a warm glow,
Marshmallows and whipped cream.
We’re in! Centre Parcs, Sherwood Forest. Anne must have clicked on the button for a villa near to the centre by mistake because we are so close it isn’t worth using a bike to get there. All we would be doing would be pushing the bike across the road.
What’s more when we arrived there was no room in the car park so they asked us to drive straight in and park outside the villa. So we got in early, were unpacked early and got back to the car park as soon as they let everyone else in which in turn meant we got one of the parking spots nearest to the centre. Result all round really.
Now we’ve settled in, arguments settled over who gets which room, and I’m settling down on the settee with a cup of tea and a slice of chocolate cake. Aaahhh.
We are here for a long weekend. It’s a perfect short break. It only takes 40 minutes for us to drive here so it is easy.
The biggest downside is that I am forced to sit in front of the TV with the kids watching The Simpsons. There is no escape. Nightmare!
Radio 4 is running some repeats of Christmas editions of Alistair Cooke’s “Letter From America”. What struck me in listening to one of the broadcasts was the breadth of subject matter he could draw on to write about. He was talking about people dying in the snow at Christmas time during the Klondike gold rush. They were buried anonymously in makeshift graves at the side of the road. Nobody knew who they were. It was dramatic.
Now Alistair Cooke was not alive during the Klondike gold rush but he certainly lived through some momentous times in history. The Second World War, the assassination of President Kennedy, etc, etc, etc.
Most of us don’t get exposed to these experiences. This isn’t to say that historic events aren’t going on around us and in my lifetime. Collapse of the USSR, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, the death of Princess Diana, 9-11, and so on and so forth. These days however our experience of these events is limited to what goes on on the television, which we typically see in real time.
My father recalls that during the Second World War he was in hospital in Swansea having his appendix removed. He was released from hospital early because they were clearing the decks for the D-Day landings. Swansea Bay was filled with warships as far as the eye could see. He was born in a wollen mill in South Wales. His own father died of a mining related respiratory disease in his early fifties. It was the fate of most miners in those days.
My mother grew up in a place called Mohil in Ireland. She used to take the milk from the family’s sole cow to the dairy, in a donkey and cart. She attended a convent school where the nuns were classic bitches, beating an education into the children. She was one of seven children who had to be farmed out to relatives because they didn’t fit into the two bedroom cottage.
These days peoples’ experiences are far more tame. They go to school, get a job, find a partner and have 2.3 kids, or whatever the latest number is. Often they lose their job. Over this they typically have no control. They will find something else, good or bad. The take their holidays, watch their inane television programmes and sink into a routine that slides deeper and inexorably into anonymity. Then they die.
Of course Alistair Cooke died. In that he is no different to the other anonymous people mentioned here. He did make a mark though and I’m sure enjoyed the process of doing so. How long the mark will last doesn’t really matter. What matters is that he made it in the first place.
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