Lollipop
September 17th, 2009All trains delayed
September 16th, 2009All trains delayed
Overhead line problems
At Peterborough
Huge queues milling
On the platform
At Kings Cross
It isn’t quite the same
As the spirit
At Dunquerque
Adversity has not yet
united us – we are not
At one with each other
The commuters are tired
This is the last thing they need
At going home time.
The passing of a passing acquaintance
September 15th, 2009I saw him in a bar in the City. He was stood on his own with a newspaper and a beer, dressed casually at a time when most others were pouring out of their offices in their city slicker suits. Although we nodded at each other as I caught his eye I made no effort to engage with him. I was in the company of business associates with a specific discussion to be had.
I had heard that he had moved on from his job with one of our competitors “to spend more time with his family” or some such motive. He was outside my threesome and suddenly it felt as if he was a total outsider. I no longer saw him at industry gatherings. He was completely out of the picture. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to him. I just had other priorities and now very little in common.
I continued with my closed conversation and when next I looked he had gone.
What happened to the lollipop man !?
September 15th, 2009All last year he was there, ushering, waving, shepherding. I got the occasional nod of acknowledgement as I stopped at his polite but firm behest. Sometimes I stopped before he had even asked. I felt in tune with him. If I was early he would be there leaning against the hedge, waiting for his punters to turn up. Dressed in his bright yellow coat and carrying his lollipop he was always there. It was comforting. You felt good to be with him, albeit for the few short seconds it took to drive past, or to slow down and stop, then pass. You felt you were part of his community and that his short working day was a wonderful contribution to that community.
This morning as I drove to work it occurred to me that I didn’t see him on the first day back to school. Then I didn’t think about it for a few days. I must have been away for some of that time and so as I drove up to the traffic island opposite the school today I looked out for him. There he was, or so I thought from a distance. That bright yellow coat and black hat. However something didn’t seem right as I drove closer. It wasn’t the old lollipop man! It was a lollipop lady and not him. It depressed me. I have nothing against the lady but I felt that my links to that community were suddenly strained. I became concerned..
His was another walk on role in my life. Really a background piece of transient action as the tapestry rolled on.
Lilyana – flower of the Wiltshire plains
September 14th, 2009Deep down amongst the grasses green
That grow on the Wiltshire plains
There’s a flower known as Lily
Who blossoms whenever it rains
It’s an odd way around I’m sure you’ll agree
But Lily’s no normal plant
Her golden petals and beautiful scent
Warm the heart of each passing ant
The beetles all love her and bees simply swoon
Each time Lily pops out of the ground
Every year in the spring when the sun comes again
In the meadows is where she’ll be found.
The cows are her friends and they leave her to bloom
Without adding her leaves to their cud
Though they have to take care not to tread on her stalks
When the ground all around churns to mud
Because Lils likes it most when the rains come to soak
– it’s the sky shedding tears of delight
At the thought of young Lily beginning to smile
What a beautiful, beautiful sight.
Have ye heard of the White Stag of Arran ?
September 11th, 2009I’d taken the opportunity afforded by a flat, roadside patch of gravel to stop and capture the view back down the valley through the black clouds to the sunshine and blue sea in the distance below. I was in a buoyant mood having seen my first golden eagle an hour before. Heading back to the car I was approached by an old gentleman and his grandson who’d been quietly sitting in their car on the same patch of gravel, watching for wildlife through their binoculars.
“Have ye heard of the White Stag of Arran ?” (read with Scottish accent). I could hear the capital letters as he spoke. I fetched my own binoculars from the car and followed the line of his pointed finger past the white stones on the hillside opposite, and past the sheep until my eyes alighted upon a white(ish) red deer with a pair of the most enormous antlers I’d ever seen. Admittedly, they were probably the first set of antlers I’d ever seen that were still attached to their owner, and for this reason I was more impressed by the headware than the colour. I turned to the old gentleman who was by now heading back to his car, and gave him a smile and the thumbs up, and went on my way, his voice receding into the distance “Ye’re probably one of only a handful of people in the world (heavily rolled ‘r’) who’ve seen that’.
I checked later with people at the campsite, and it seems that albino red deer can be seen on Arran, but they are very rare. I’d like to take this opportunity to apologise to the gentleman, who deserved a more emphatically impressed response than he got.
A golden eagle and a very rare albino red deer within the space of an hour !
The passing of the passing place
September 11th, 2009Remote though they are, even the Outer Hebrides are not far enough away to escape the far reaching tentacles of European legislation. It seems the quirky, rhomboid shape of the passing place sign has offended the Keepeurs of the Livre de Standards (see Note 1), who have dictated that they must be replaced by square signs, an example of which below.
Locals remain phlegmatic.
Note 1 – No attempt is being made to single out the French for blame, I just can’t do any of the other European languages very well.
The Passing Place (Noun)
September 9th, 2009
Ubiquitous feature of travel in the Western Isles of Scotland. A transient meeting place of generosity, where people wait for oncoming vehicles to pass, or to allow people uninterested in photo opportunities to overtake. Invariably involves a smile, a wave, or a short, polite parp of the horn.
internet dreams
September 8th, 2009I dream my internet dreams
asleep surfing the screens
that lay inside my eyelids,
long slammed shut.
my brain clicks,
flits its way webward
visiting the sites that,
wide awake, I meander,
pondering the theft of
my most precious days.
my internet dreams
take an ethereal existence
virtually to new heights
but all too soon I wake,
history wiped clear,
no bookmark beneath my pillow
and my journey starts again.
The harvest is in
September 8th, 2009fill yer bellies
The harvest is in, except for a few cornfields, left for the sweet anticipation of another day. The stubble that remains provides an interesting contrast with other textures in fields adjacent. The pale green growth of next year’s early season crops. Magnetic brown, newly ploughed terrain, full of seagulls.
The farmer slumps across the wheel of his hi tech controlled-environment crop processing machine; tractor to me and you. Although the air conditioning does away with the need for sweating its soul is there, metaphorical perspiration.
Barns bulge and granaries groan. Tables bend under the weight of produce served up to open eyed families and wider circles of friends, privileged guests for the forthcoming feast. Corks pop, laughter pervades then slows to a silence. We slump into hibernation.
You are now entering the congestion zone
September 8th, 2009You are now entering the congestion zone
6th form college enrolling now
High Quality Offices To Let
Marks and Spencer – Simply Food
Paul Ponsonby Specialist Distribution
The Firm – in cinemas September 18th
not completely confident female cyclist
Crouch End Number 91
London Euston
Internet Phone Booth
Dorian Grey – in cinemas 090909
Going Green for London
Mayor of London’s Skyride Sunday 20th September
OMG! my chunky just got funky?
Skegness by the sea
September 4th, 2009sand blows in my face as together on the towel, we huddle,
a solitary woman sits with a bucket and spade whilst her kids play at the edge of the waves
no sharks sneak up and snaffle
a child spouts ad hoc poetry:
armpit hair
underwear
people who don’t care
boys who won’t share
4 people sitting in a row on camping chairs facing outwards
a young mother struggles with her pushchair over the sand and shouts “Tylor James wait for me!”
windmills out at sea
windbreaks wrap around their people and red and yellow flags brace themselves in the breeze
a fairground in the background dips large, rolls along the coast, big wheel sliding off the pier
lifecrew
my hat blows off in the wind and I envisage equally windswept coasts opposite in Germany and Holland
plenty of photographic opportunities:
two red and blue kites flying in breeze
donkeys turning
towels flapping
a basketball bounces on the path behind
a man appears out of the water wearing long white swimming shorts and a white old fashioned vest contrasting with his black skin
icecream, lollipops, burgers, whelks, crab sticks, doughnuts, haddock and chips with fluorescent mushy peas, cups of tea
flat stones skimming
seagulls squatting, floating
large clouds hovering, watching
smaller clouds higher up move more quickly
children fleeing chased by brown waves
slot machines, twopenny falls, horseracing
international bowling
out of the bushes comes an explorer
he says”cor blimey mate”
and back to the car we go
Quality
September 2nd, 200920mm tonight they said on the radio.
Doesn’t bother me I said,
Then I went to the grandstand
And saw people mud-wrestling,
Hang on, no, they’re walking to their tents on the old pitch and putt.
A joke in there I thought (dimly).
Can’t imagine doing this any more but
Perhaps in a different country, like Robert Pirsig did.
My second time through the book was finished today.
It’s the later edition with the postscipt.
Memorable. Like the MGP but more upsetting for the majority.
Let us know if you’ve read it as a parent or a son or a daughter.
flatpack dreams
August 27th, 2009here dreams are sold
registered on the system
and brought through
for home assembly
in the comfort
of your living room
chose a colour
pick a pattern
fabric feels good
shut your eyes
sit back and relax
flatpack dreams
aaahhh!
self assembly dreams
float on by
discount dreams
50% off
for this weekend only
dream on
Celestial Pallet
August 26th, 2009As I drove down the Lincoln bypass last night there was a wonderful picture in the sky. It merited a 1000Megapixel photo taken with a panoramic lens. The problem was I didn’t have my camera with me and in any event I don’t think they make them yet to quite that high a spec.
I mulled over in my mind how I would describe the effect of that sky using only words. I couldn’t see how I could come close.
The rain had not long moved on and the sky showed the remnants of that activity. Shreds of clouds, strays and waifs of irregular shape and disposition. The pallet that was the sky consisted of eggshell blue, dark grey blues, clouds both grey and white and a white crescent moon suspended amongst it all but looking out of place.
I don’t think any art survives for ever. It all eventually is lost or dies. Last night the painting in the sky lasted until it was almost dark and then disappeared. On my way home it was gone. There will be another but it will never be the same.