Wednesday, February 18
We have just experienced a journey of 800 miles, sandwiched between 2 domestic crises. Sandwiched between the two 400 mile legs of said journey was a great weekend in Welshland, chez Nick. On thursday 12th just as we were about to pack for our venture we experienced a radiator burst in the back room. This is quickly rectified by turning off water at source & isolating said radiator etc, but as it was hidden behind a large couch it was not noticed until gallons of water had leaked! Well that evening we got showered up at Stoker Mansions and fed a brilliant real Indian style fish curry by Becky & Ronan. So the next morning bright & early Big Dave arrived with a Nissan Almiera I believe it was called. Motorway travel & rest points represent a weird kind of interspace reality that I cant quite get a handle on. The enjoyable part was singing along to Randy Newman, Van M, Ian Dury, Velvets, Dylan, Eagles etc.... and the length & breadth of sub-Scotland Britain just slips by. We made great time due to judicious speeding by Dave and found our B&B without help from Nick!
Nick books us into a little place in Uplands, the Jesmond of Swansea, run by a lady called Jennine (whose husband works at Heathrow, but is really a novellist), and her 3 year old daughter (with some elf name that is hard to remember) plus their toy poodle of great vigour, Mitzi. We had the Spanish themed room and Dave the African themed as he is wont to hang from the ceiling from time to time. Luke was doing the studenty thing by crashing on Nicks floor on a pump up thing, at least that's what he tells us. Dave dropped us off at Neuadd Dyfed halls where the B'lind one has his residence at the crest of the Townhill with its amazing view of Swansea bay, then went back down to Uplands and parked the car only to leg it back up the hill with N&L. This was because intoxication was to follow.
I dont know which Mohammed to bless for mighty biffage, but blessings were uttered as my conciousness alighted on a thouroughly asian experience. Examples... a loud bang in the corridor had me thinking we were in Beirut or Baghdad, and later when walking along the crest past the Townhill housing estate to go get a curry in town, we were shot at with something like an air rifle, ricochets of car etc.... I felt myself entering some John Simpson type war correspondant scenario where I didn't break stride but had the thought "well if the next one has my name on it......"
The thing is that Swansea is such a striking & usually friendly place that all this just seemed like Biffertainment and soon forgotten! The curry was great and restored some familiarity to my data input system. Our trip down the Gower to Rosshili the next day was magic input of a much more organic & magical order. The sun battled with a muscular sea-fret to produce some spectacular effects. Damnit but my camera chose our arrival to run out of juice, and no batteries were available to rescue me, so I had to attempt to freeze as much of it in my head as possible. The causeway to the Wyrm was uncovered (low tide) but only intermittantly visible. Luke & Dave made a mighty attempt across stratified rockpiles & pools to reach the Wyrm, but visibility down there was dire (I only half attempted and Jan & Nick sensibly sat watching on the multi-mottled grass!). Walking back along the spit to the car we all looked like some weird form of amphibious fashion victim, as the mist had aggregated into myriad droplets on our hair. We repaired back in Swansea to Nick's room for wine & gay soup, a fine evening in great company.
I could not understand why the seagulls at Mumbles (Swansea's Whitley Bay) refused fish from our pre-return lunch the next afternoon. They however went arial acrobatic crazy apeshit for our upward tossed chips, catching them mid-air with aplomb! I wasnt expecting much from the Mumbles, but I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. There was no evidence of noise and light polluting amusement arcades, and the view across toward Neath & Port Talbot is quite something.
A wrong non-turn on the M4 back took us somewhat out of our way across the Severn Estuary bridge which is really quite an amazing piece of engineering and cost us little in time home. Night driving from Leics onwards a curiously hypnotic experience, God but what a busy little island we live on! Exit Luke at Durham and Dave dropped us off in Newcy before returning Gatesheedward. Just downloading photies and making some food & radiator two in the front room was discovered Gushing like a geyser all over our one attempt at civilised grown up living in our front room! Just what kind of slap/sweeties/big slap scenario was the universe trying to rub our face in?
Answers on a Spark please.
Nick books us into a little place in Uplands, the Jesmond of Swansea, run by a lady called Jennine (whose husband works at Heathrow, but is really a novellist), and her 3 year old daughter (with some elf name that is hard to remember) plus their toy poodle of great vigour, Mitzi. We had the Spanish themed room and Dave the African themed as he is wont to hang from the ceiling from time to time. Luke was doing the studenty thing by crashing on Nicks floor on a pump up thing, at least that's what he tells us. Dave dropped us off at Neuadd Dyfed halls where the B'lind one has his residence at the crest of the Townhill with its amazing view of Swansea bay, then went back down to Uplands and parked the car only to leg it back up the hill with N&L. This was because intoxication was to follow.
I dont know which Mohammed to bless for mighty biffage, but blessings were uttered as my conciousness alighted on a thouroughly asian experience. Examples... a loud bang in the corridor had me thinking we were in Beirut or Baghdad, and later when walking along the crest past the Townhill housing estate to go get a curry in town, we were shot at with something like an air rifle, ricochets of car etc.... I felt myself entering some John Simpson type war correspondant scenario where I didn't break stride but had the thought "well if the next one has my name on it......"
The thing is that Swansea is such a striking & usually friendly place that all this just seemed like Biffertainment and soon forgotten! The curry was great and restored some familiarity to my data input system. Our trip down the Gower to Rosshili the next day was magic input of a much more organic & magical order. The sun battled with a muscular sea-fret to produce some spectacular effects. Damnit but my camera chose our arrival to run out of juice, and no batteries were available to rescue me, so I had to attempt to freeze as much of it in my head as possible. The causeway to the Wyrm was uncovered (low tide) but only intermittantly visible. Luke & Dave made a mighty attempt across stratified rockpiles & pools to reach the Wyrm, but visibility down there was dire (I only half attempted and Jan & Nick sensibly sat watching on the multi-mottled grass!). Walking back along the spit to the car we all looked like some weird form of amphibious fashion victim, as the mist had aggregated into myriad droplets on our hair. We repaired back in Swansea to Nick's room for wine & gay soup, a fine evening in great company.
I could not understand why the seagulls at Mumbles (Swansea's Whitley Bay) refused fish from our pre-return lunch the next afternoon. They however went arial acrobatic crazy apeshit for our upward tossed chips, catching them mid-air with aplomb! I wasnt expecting much from the Mumbles, but I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. There was no evidence of noise and light polluting amusement arcades, and the view across toward Neath & Port Talbot is quite something.
A wrong non-turn on the M4 back took us somewhat out of our way across the Severn Estuary bridge which is really quite an amazing piece of engineering and cost us little in time home. Night driving from Leics onwards a curiously hypnotic experience, God but what a busy little island we live on! Exit Luke at Durham and Dave dropped us off in Newcy before returning Gatesheedward. Just downloading photies and making some food & radiator two in the front room was discovered Gushing like a geyser all over our one attempt at civilised grown up living in our front room! Just what kind of slap/sweeties/big slap scenario was the universe trying to rub our face in?
Answers on a Spark please.
Tuesday, December 16
Stock Market Report. 16th December 2012.
The pound fell against the aspirin yesterday, but rose against the marshmallow and
the Miss Selfridge brand of clothes. Urban views of the moon rose to a new high against
a basket of cute animal shots, but the FTSE 100 just scraped into positive ground as
Australian reality receded to a distant memory. Words were very flimsy and the Japanese
authorities took up the braille standard. Flatus Systems did not make any headway as
bisexual fish futures came in for a lot of criticism from the stock market authorities.
Media stocks soared as news that a hyper-date for the Hitler trial was set at long last,
but the weather in the bathroom ensured that Boots the Chemist went into receivership.
Ponies faded as a generic memory to a raft of little girls, as the market tried to decide
what kind of woolly animal news reader Moira Stewart had become. Earlier information
that the Dow Jones, Dax and Manchester United were refusing to accept the stabilising
plans for Dr. Who resulted in Lloyds TSB abandoning their ethical investments portfolio,
so negligeable change there then!
The Church of Latter Day Saints had even more incontravertable evidence of Jesus'
investment strategies, and apparently He made a killing on the bread & circuses market,
which resulted in the accountants for York Minster announcing a gaping hole in their mid-
year figures. The climate has been removed from the gold standard for the first time in
Virgin Travels' history. Loyalists to suspected political insurgents finally got the film rights
to their crimes, but Euthanasia took a set back yesterday, as poor people were allowed
first dibs on the Brussels Sprouts.
Beauty went into receivership as expected, with very little chance of re-floating the issue
in the near future.
So much for the City. The T-shirt of choice this week on the square mile states
"LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR, SHITFACE".
The pound fell against the aspirin yesterday, but rose against the marshmallow and
the Miss Selfridge brand of clothes. Urban views of the moon rose to a new high against
a basket of cute animal shots, but the FTSE 100 just scraped into positive ground as
Australian reality receded to a distant memory. Words were very flimsy and the Japanese
authorities took up the braille standard. Flatus Systems did not make any headway as
bisexual fish futures came in for a lot of criticism from the stock market authorities.
Media stocks soared as news that a hyper-date for the Hitler trial was set at long last,
but the weather in the bathroom ensured that Boots the Chemist went into receivership.
Ponies faded as a generic memory to a raft of little girls, as the market tried to decide
what kind of woolly animal news reader Moira Stewart had become. Earlier information
that the Dow Jones, Dax and Manchester United were refusing to accept the stabilising
plans for Dr. Who resulted in Lloyds TSB abandoning their ethical investments portfolio,
so negligeable change there then!
The Church of Latter Day Saints had even more incontravertable evidence of Jesus'
investment strategies, and apparently He made a killing on the bread & circuses market,
which resulted in the accountants for York Minster announcing a gaping hole in their mid-
year figures. The climate has been removed from the gold standard for the first time in
Virgin Travels' history. Loyalists to suspected political insurgents finally got the film rights
to their crimes, but Euthanasia took a set back yesterday, as poor people were allowed
first dibs on the Brussels Sprouts.
Beauty went into receivership as expected, with very little chance of re-floating the issue
in the near future.
So much for the City. The T-shirt of choice this week on the square mile states
"LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR, SHITFACE".
Monday, November 24
: Some November 22nd's.
1923
On thursday 22nd November 1923 Calvin Coolidge, president of the USA pardoned the WW1 Greman spy Lothar Witzke who had been sentanced to death in the aftermath of the events that had so unsuccesfully been terminated 5 short years earlier. Co-incidentally in an increasingly disordered & inflationary Hamburg, Bert Kaempfert the future "king of easy listening " was born. His immigration to the States some 10 years later can be regarded as one of Germany's subtler revenge strategies following the sell out at the treaty of Versailles!
While these events were taking place Howard Carter, who in the imperialist way of the British at that time, had opened up & "discovered" Tutankhamun's tomb exactly a year earlier wrote this in his diary of the ongoing operations:- Thursday, November 22.
Burton took some records of the interior of Store Chamber.Sir Lee & Lady Stack & party visited tomb 3 pm.
Made plan of objects removed from front of shrine.Burton photographed objects N. of shrine.
Commenced draughting the plan of the Sepulchral-hall and Shrine. Burton finished his records of Storechamber and objects between N. side of shrine and wall.
Made plan of objects removed last season from front of shrine.
And on the same day:- Towards the end of the Irish Civil War , three young Volunteers died on hunger strike ~
Andy Sullivan , from Mallow, in County Cork, died in Mountjoy Jail in Dublin on November 22nd , 1923 , and is buried in Mallow.
My maternal grandfather who had escaped the relentless poverty of Ireland some twenty years earlier had just got a job in a new chemicals complex on Teeside called ICI, which was just as well as my grandmother had just found out that she was pregnant for the seventh time with a baby that was to become my Aunty Pat. Jan's father was 6 weeks old on that day, he was the seventh child in his family! My father had just started school in the september of '23. On the 22nd of November he was supposed to have picked up some meat & sausage from a german pork butcher (whose business was on Morpeth High Street), on his way home from primary school..This butcher had been pilloried & blackballed by Morpethians just 5 years earlier! My forgetful 5 year old father wolfed his lunch then did the errand and by now being a bit late set off for school at full pelt. He tripped on the stepping stones across the Wansbeck river and hit his head. Concussed, he lay face down in the water for some seconds before a travelling cutlery salesman dragged him to the bank and took him home coughing and spluttering. My grandfather copped for a whole load of my grandmother's worry and distress later that night when he came in late, and much the worse for wear with alchohol. The reason for his celebrations was that he had just aquired a flute which he intended to play in the orchestra pit of the silent cinemas of Morpeth! An extra source of income in lean times!
This was the weather report from Keswick on that day:-Very cold (3.3C CET), and often windy and unsettled. There were some snow showers and sharp frosts early in the month. -8C was recorded in the west on the night of 22nd.
1943
On monday November the 22nd Roosevelt, Churchill and Chiang Kai-shek met in Cairo to plan Allied operations in against the Japanese in Asia. It was a day of honour for luftwaffe ace Joachim Brendel, On November 22nd, 1943 as an Oberleutnant he scored five victories in one day including his 100th and was awarded the Knights Cross! George Amos, a british serviceman training in America at the time, had this to say about the day in his war diary:-"Dentist this morning - no treatment - good as cured, no pain any more Bofor gun training this morning - then aircraft recognition. P.T. on bench in afternoon. Answered a questionnaire for public relations officer - such questions as, favourite city, state, Americnn food, sport, favourite entertainment on tour, best looking women in what state. Stayed in in evening - wrote a few letters".....people were getting on with their lives!
Some notable people who entered the world on this day were:-Steve Miller born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.1943(musician), Billie Jean King Cal, tennis pro (Wimbledon 1968, 72, 73, 75) and Floyd Sneed, Calgary, rock drummer (Three Dog Night-Joy to the World).
I have no family mythology to dispense about this day, my father was serving on the arctic convoys around Murmansk and Northern Scandinavia. My mother was delivering children into the world cycling through the blackout on Wearside & Tyneside making domiciliary visits. Jan's mother was working in a factory making bullets for our lads to kill the axis with, and her father (a coal miner), was sick of being in a reserve occupation and was applying to be in the navy. He wanted to see the world, but by the time he was called up in late 1944, there was only time to see Portsmouth!
1963
On Friday, November 22nd, 1963 the 35th President of the United States of America, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated. This unfortunate tragedy has created more controversy than any other single event. Today, people from all around the world are asking the same questions that the people who witnessed this tragic event.did Who did it? Why did they do it? Was there a cover up?
That evening the Rolling Stones performed at Greenwich town hall, a gig that enhanced the reputation of the young R&B group bigtime and propelling their first single up the charts. The radio Times of that week heralded the showing of a new sci-fi drama called Dr. Who to be screened the following day (Saturday). It was the day the Beatles released their second album "With the Beatles", a cut above their first LP for sure! "She Loves You" had just reached number one in the charts cementing the Beatles place as the happeningest thing in pop that year. It knocked "you'll never walk alone" by Gerry & the Pacemakers off top position.
These were the concerns in my head as I came back to my locker from the chemistry lab to secrete a test tube of nitrogen tri-iodide away; (it remains harmless in solution but when painted thinly onto books door handles etc. it crystallises out and the slightest mechanical disturbance makes it go crack like a banger but with sharper attack & instant decay!). As I was unpacking my shit into my locker I heard a boy some two years my senior say "have you heard the news?". He then told all present about the Kennedy assasination, several people asserted that he was shitting, but I caught the look on his face and went into strange days land! It was like the world had suddenly turned epic. I mean this was news of biblical proportions, this was the man who just one year earlier had fronted out Kruschev during the Cuba crisis which scenario had presented me with the greatest ontological wobbler of my existance thus far! After a few minutes quiet stunnedness I started acting the goat with a lad called Perce Jordan, we were laughing hysterically as the world seemed no longer to make sense, and were playing the fool with penknives, I received a stab just above the webbing of my thumb & forefinger, the scar of which I carry to this day! I dutifully made my saturday phone call home the next day (I had been farmed out to boarding school in Durham that year), and remember thinking how weird it was that my mother, a lapsed catholic of some 25 years standing, saying that it was just as well the Kennedy family had their faith, as they were going to need it!
Jan, four years younger than I am, remembers that she was home from junior school when the news broke. She remembers thinking that they were making it all up, and that it was a very sick joke. She thought if she had to live through fiction, it may as well be fiction of her own choice and climbed under the living room table with a Jack London book. It wasn't until her father came in from work and talked to her about it that she really believed that it had happened!
Another fact about the 22nd Nov '63, is that two leading literary lights died the same day as Kennedy, they were both English, C.S.Lewis & Aldous Huxley, it is said that Huxley (appropriately enough for the man who wrote the dystopic pharmocracy classic "Brave new World"), went out on a massive LSD trip, it was legal then you know!
1983
R.E.M. made their first appearance outside the US when they appeared on TV's The Tube on Channel 4, the following night they made their live UK debut when they played at Dingwalls, London. November 23nd.
Jan and I were not married on this day, but we'll pretend for the sake of exact continuity that we were. In fact the bizarre occurence was 72 hours earlier! Here is the world that forced us to huddle together in matrimony! Windscale, UK - A stretch of coast near the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant has been contaminated by radioactive waste. ("Financial Review" "The Age" 22nd November 1983). The 22nd must have been a peculiarly uneventful news day as google won't uncover much and I've lost my History of the 20th century book. I can only give a feel of that time. Nuclear devastation was much on our minds. Thatcher had steered the Tories to even greater electoral heights earlier that year, due to the spin that accompanied the Falklands war & labour imploding & splitting etc. In certain parts of the country unemployment was endemic and Newcastle was one of them. We had earlier in the year got on our bikes & moved to London, where we found there were jobs, but no affordable housing, so we returned North to find that a tyneside flat in Jesmond was only £65 a month! Jan started working for "youth & Community" and I started musicing again. Jan got me a part time at the playbarn she ran and it didn't look like nepotism as she had a different surname then! We decided to marry as we hoped to acquire a washing machine, we already felt soul mates and this seemed as good a reason as any. (Do things for the wrong reason and you get laughed at by the universe, the washing machine never appeared for another 6 years!). I can only say that we made the decision without realising that our son was on the way. The world of Globalisation & Commodification was being rapidly invented back then by Reagan & Thatcher. People being turned into economic units with no sense of communal commitment seemed to be the straight worlds way of punishing us lazy sixties generation, join us or disappear they seemed to be saying To hell with the old, the weak, the developing world. They really misunderstood Darwin when they coined the term "social Darwinism". A nice touch to our Nov 22nd story is that Mrs. Thatcher had to resign on that day 8 years later! There were some good films around though. Terry Gilliam (born 22nd Nov), had just finished making the final python movie, " The Meaning of Life". He was editing "Brazil", a fantasy starring de Niro, on his 42nd birthday! I would recommend both!
2003
I decided to do a blog of this day, but 20 years apart as I am increasingly developing a sense of historicity about things, and the lives of many of the people who will read this will average about this length of time. I am certainly less IQ intelligent than I was at 20. I have had time to temper my feelings & emotions with a feedback system of thoughts that keep me on an even keel however. Maybe because of this I now feel as optimistic as I did at the age of 20, for the first time since then. Don't get me wrong, I think that the world we inhabit is in an incredible state of disorder, and by now I can't see it getting any better before it gets much worse! My sense of optimism lies in the fact that the important stuff can be recovered and that the information cat is out of the bag now with technology such as this.The acquisition of new low impact skills could be arriving in an exponential rush if the will were there to make it so!
So on the day that the gutter press claimed that England was world beatingly great again on account of having won a rugby match, Jan & I went to Manchester EN arena to see Radiohead. Here is how we ended up there.We were going to see Nick in Swansea sometime, as we had not had a holiday away this year. Then Ben asked us if we were interested in Radiohead tickets as he knew of our feelings about them ( that rare thing, a band who actually made new music in the last 13 years!). Well it struck me that it was very near to our 20th wedding anniversary, and that as we havn't celebrated it up to now, maybe we should, so we decided to join the two things, especially so as Nick was also going up to Manc.We had a magic couple of days down in Swansea, a city I love the slow pace of. I for one will desist from cracking the Welsh jokes in future! I admire the way they seem to be being selective about blanding their town out into global Britainsville. You can travel for miles all day on the buses for £2.50 for example, and its taxis (needed because it makes Sheffield look flat!) are really cheap too. The outlying Gower peninsula is beauty crammed with geography, the views are immense!
Anyhow, as the aforementioned Rugby match went into extra time we left our guest house (gresty bach) and went to the station to get the train to Manc Picadilly. Time flew as we all sat with sponge rollers in our hair defying comment. It must be noted that during the Welsh leg of the journey no one said a damn thing, only once heading through the English west midlands did anyone challenge us! Manchester seemed massive & fast to me, an exciting happening place & incredibly photo-opportunistic.Our exposure to 21st century stadium rock was quite a blast and Radiohead proved that they are not just inventive in the studio environment. The power of these 10,000 plus venues does have certain Nuremberg resonances, but that of course is not the fault of this group, and the overall feel was far from Nazi. I would really like to thank Ben & his flatmate Tim for their hospitality and consideration. Their flat is in a strange combination area of Coronation Street and big time Victorian granduer. well it was all too short a time really, I would have liked a chance to natter a bit with Ben & Aaron both of whom have areas of expertise I love to milk for info! Tim seems a really interesting guy, and I thought he is handling life post trauma quite masterfully.
Ben saw us off one by one yesterday morning a bright chill Manc morning, I think I got some good shots of the Mancness of the environs. We said goodbye to Nick as our train left 5 mins before his, but it was so crowded that we got off again at Manc Victoria and watched as Nick's Brum bound train sped past. We got a seat on the next train through but getting back involved drivers not showing up for work etc...so same story as Ronan & Becky on their return from Wales, 'cept I kept tight hold of my camera!
1923
On thursday 22nd November 1923 Calvin Coolidge, president of the USA pardoned the WW1 Greman spy Lothar Witzke who had been sentanced to death in the aftermath of the events that had so unsuccesfully been terminated 5 short years earlier. Co-incidentally in an increasingly disordered & inflationary Hamburg, Bert Kaempfert the future "king of easy listening " was born. His immigration to the States some 10 years later can be regarded as one of Germany's subtler revenge strategies following the sell out at the treaty of Versailles!
While these events were taking place Howard Carter, who in the imperialist way of the British at that time, had opened up & "discovered" Tutankhamun's tomb exactly a year earlier wrote this in his diary of the ongoing operations:- Thursday, November 22.
Burton took some records of the interior of Store Chamber.Sir Lee & Lady Stack & party visited tomb 3 pm.
Made plan of objects removed from front of shrine.Burton photographed objects N. of shrine.
Commenced draughting the plan of the Sepulchral-hall and Shrine. Burton finished his records of Storechamber and objects between N. side of shrine and wall.
Made plan of objects removed last season from front of shrine.
And on the same day:- Towards the end of the Irish Civil War , three young Volunteers died on hunger strike ~
Andy Sullivan , from Mallow, in County Cork, died in Mountjoy Jail in Dublin on November 22nd , 1923 , and is buried in Mallow.
My maternal grandfather who had escaped the relentless poverty of Ireland some twenty years earlier had just got a job in a new chemicals complex on Teeside called ICI, which was just as well as my grandmother had just found out that she was pregnant for the seventh time with a baby that was to become my Aunty Pat. Jan's father was 6 weeks old on that day, he was the seventh child in his family! My father had just started school in the september of '23. On the 22nd of November he was supposed to have picked up some meat & sausage from a german pork butcher (whose business was on Morpeth High Street), on his way home from primary school..This butcher had been pilloried & blackballed by Morpethians just 5 years earlier! My forgetful 5 year old father wolfed his lunch then did the errand and by now being a bit late set off for school at full pelt. He tripped on the stepping stones across the Wansbeck river and hit his head. Concussed, he lay face down in the water for some seconds before a travelling cutlery salesman dragged him to the bank and took him home coughing and spluttering. My grandfather copped for a whole load of my grandmother's worry and distress later that night when he came in late, and much the worse for wear with alchohol. The reason for his celebrations was that he had just aquired a flute which he intended to play in the orchestra pit of the silent cinemas of Morpeth! An extra source of income in lean times!
This was the weather report from Keswick on that day:-Very cold (3.3C CET), and often windy and unsettled. There were some snow showers and sharp frosts early in the month. -8C was recorded in the west on the night of 22nd.
1943
On monday November the 22nd Roosevelt, Churchill and Chiang Kai-shek met in Cairo to plan Allied operations in against the Japanese in Asia. It was a day of honour for luftwaffe ace Joachim Brendel, On November 22nd, 1943 as an Oberleutnant he scored five victories in one day including his 100th and was awarded the Knights Cross! George Amos, a british serviceman training in America at the time, had this to say about the day in his war diary:-"Dentist this morning - no treatment - good as cured, no pain any more Bofor gun training this morning - then aircraft recognition. P.T. on bench in afternoon. Answered a questionnaire for public relations officer - such questions as, favourite city, state, Americnn food, sport, favourite entertainment on tour, best looking women in what state. Stayed in in evening - wrote a few letters".....people were getting on with their lives!
Some notable people who entered the world on this day were:-Steve Miller born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.1943(musician), Billie Jean King Cal, tennis pro (Wimbledon 1968, 72, 73, 75) and Floyd Sneed, Calgary, rock drummer (Three Dog Night-Joy to the World).
I have no family mythology to dispense about this day, my father was serving on the arctic convoys around Murmansk and Northern Scandinavia. My mother was delivering children into the world cycling through the blackout on Wearside & Tyneside making domiciliary visits. Jan's mother was working in a factory making bullets for our lads to kill the axis with, and her father (a coal miner), was sick of being in a reserve occupation and was applying to be in the navy. He wanted to see the world, but by the time he was called up in late 1944, there was only time to see Portsmouth!
1963
On Friday, November 22nd, 1963 the 35th President of the United States of America, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated. This unfortunate tragedy has created more controversy than any other single event. Today, people from all around the world are asking the same questions that the people who witnessed this tragic event.did Who did it? Why did they do it? Was there a cover up?
That evening the Rolling Stones performed at Greenwich town hall, a gig that enhanced the reputation of the young R&B group bigtime and propelling their first single up the charts. The radio Times of that week heralded the showing of a new sci-fi drama called Dr. Who to be screened the following day (Saturday). It was the day the Beatles released their second album "With the Beatles", a cut above their first LP for sure! "She Loves You" had just reached number one in the charts cementing the Beatles place as the happeningest thing in pop that year. It knocked "you'll never walk alone" by Gerry & the Pacemakers off top position.
These were the concerns in my head as I came back to my locker from the chemistry lab to secrete a test tube of nitrogen tri-iodide away; (it remains harmless in solution but when painted thinly onto books door handles etc. it crystallises out and the slightest mechanical disturbance makes it go crack like a banger but with sharper attack & instant decay!). As I was unpacking my shit into my locker I heard a boy some two years my senior say "have you heard the news?". He then told all present about the Kennedy assasination, several people asserted that he was shitting, but I caught the look on his face and went into strange days land! It was like the world had suddenly turned epic. I mean this was news of biblical proportions, this was the man who just one year earlier had fronted out Kruschev during the Cuba crisis which scenario had presented me with the greatest ontological wobbler of my existance thus far! After a few minutes quiet stunnedness I started acting the goat with a lad called Perce Jordan, we were laughing hysterically as the world seemed no longer to make sense, and were playing the fool with penknives, I received a stab just above the webbing of my thumb & forefinger, the scar of which I carry to this day! I dutifully made my saturday phone call home the next day (I had been farmed out to boarding school in Durham that year), and remember thinking how weird it was that my mother, a lapsed catholic of some 25 years standing, saying that it was just as well the Kennedy family had their faith, as they were going to need it!
Jan, four years younger than I am, remembers that she was home from junior school when the news broke. She remembers thinking that they were making it all up, and that it was a very sick joke. She thought if she had to live through fiction, it may as well be fiction of her own choice and climbed under the living room table with a Jack London book. It wasn't until her father came in from work and talked to her about it that she really believed that it had happened!
Another fact about the 22nd Nov '63, is that two leading literary lights died the same day as Kennedy, they were both English, C.S.Lewis & Aldous Huxley, it is said that Huxley (appropriately enough for the man who wrote the dystopic pharmocracy classic "Brave new World"), went out on a massive LSD trip, it was legal then you know!
1983
R.E.M. made their first appearance outside the US when they appeared on TV's The Tube on Channel 4, the following night they made their live UK debut when they played at Dingwalls, London. November 23nd.
Jan and I were not married on this day, but we'll pretend for the sake of exact continuity that we were. In fact the bizarre occurence was 72 hours earlier! Here is the world that forced us to huddle together in matrimony! Windscale, UK - A stretch of coast near the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant has been contaminated by radioactive waste. ("Financial Review" "The Age" 22nd November 1983). The 22nd must have been a peculiarly uneventful news day as google won't uncover much and I've lost my History of the 20th century book. I can only give a feel of that time. Nuclear devastation was much on our minds. Thatcher had steered the Tories to even greater electoral heights earlier that year, due to the spin that accompanied the Falklands war & labour imploding & splitting etc. In certain parts of the country unemployment was endemic and Newcastle was one of them. We had earlier in the year got on our bikes & moved to London, where we found there were jobs, but no affordable housing, so we returned North to find that a tyneside flat in Jesmond was only £65 a month! Jan started working for "youth & Community" and I started musicing again. Jan got me a part time at the playbarn she ran and it didn't look like nepotism as she had a different surname then! We decided to marry as we hoped to acquire a washing machine, we already felt soul mates and this seemed as good a reason as any. (Do things for the wrong reason and you get laughed at by the universe, the washing machine never appeared for another 6 years!). I can only say that we made the decision without realising that our son was on the way. The world of Globalisation & Commodification was being rapidly invented back then by Reagan & Thatcher. People being turned into economic units with no sense of communal commitment seemed to be the straight worlds way of punishing us lazy sixties generation, join us or disappear they seemed to be saying To hell with the old, the weak, the developing world. They really misunderstood Darwin when they coined the term "social Darwinism". A nice touch to our Nov 22nd story is that Mrs. Thatcher had to resign on that day 8 years later! There were some good films around though. Terry Gilliam (born 22nd Nov), had just finished making the final python movie, " The Meaning of Life". He was editing "Brazil", a fantasy starring de Niro, on his 42nd birthday! I would recommend both!
2003
I decided to do a blog of this day, but 20 years apart as I am increasingly developing a sense of historicity about things, and the lives of many of the people who will read this will average about this length of time. I am certainly less IQ intelligent than I was at 20. I have had time to temper my feelings & emotions with a feedback system of thoughts that keep me on an even keel however. Maybe because of this I now feel as optimistic as I did at the age of 20, for the first time since then. Don't get me wrong, I think that the world we inhabit is in an incredible state of disorder, and by now I can't see it getting any better before it gets much worse! My sense of optimism lies in the fact that the important stuff can be recovered and that the information cat is out of the bag now with technology such as this.The acquisition of new low impact skills could be arriving in an exponential rush if the will were there to make it so!
So on the day that the gutter press claimed that England was world beatingly great again on account of having won a rugby match, Jan & I went to Manchester EN arena to see Radiohead. Here is how we ended up there.We were going to see Nick in Swansea sometime, as we had not had a holiday away this year. Then Ben asked us if we were interested in Radiohead tickets as he knew of our feelings about them ( that rare thing, a band who actually made new music in the last 13 years!). Well it struck me that it was very near to our 20th wedding anniversary, and that as we havn't celebrated it up to now, maybe we should, so we decided to join the two things, especially so as Nick was also going up to Manc.We had a magic couple of days down in Swansea, a city I love the slow pace of. I for one will desist from cracking the Welsh jokes in future! I admire the way they seem to be being selective about blanding their town out into global Britainsville. You can travel for miles all day on the buses for £2.50 for example, and its taxis (needed because it makes Sheffield look flat!) are really cheap too. The outlying Gower peninsula is beauty crammed with geography, the views are immense!
Anyhow, as the aforementioned Rugby match went into extra time we left our guest house (gresty bach) and went to the station to get the train to Manc Picadilly. Time flew as we all sat with sponge rollers in our hair defying comment. It must be noted that during the Welsh leg of the journey no one said a damn thing, only once heading through the English west midlands did anyone challenge us! Manchester seemed massive & fast to me, an exciting happening place & incredibly photo-opportunistic.Our exposure to 21st century stadium rock was quite a blast and Radiohead proved that they are not just inventive in the studio environment. The power of these 10,000 plus venues does have certain Nuremberg resonances, but that of course is not the fault of this group, and the overall feel was far from Nazi. I would really like to thank Ben & his flatmate Tim for their hospitality and consideration. Their flat is in a strange combination area of Coronation Street and big time Victorian granduer. well it was all too short a time really, I would have liked a chance to natter a bit with Ben & Aaron both of whom have areas of expertise I love to milk for info! Tim seems a really interesting guy, and I thought he is handling life post trauma quite masterfully.
Ben saw us off one by one yesterday morning a bright chill Manc morning, I think I got some good shots of the Mancness of the environs. We said goodbye to Nick as our train left 5 mins before his, but it was so crowded that we got off again at Manc Victoria and watched as Nick's Brum bound train sped past. We got a seat on the next train through but getting back involved drivers not showing up for work etc...so same story as Ronan & Becky on their return from Wales, 'cept I kept tight hold of my camera!
Tuesday, November 4
The small boy was dragging his feet through the fallen leaves, the spaniel was straining, quivering to take a dump on the public footpath just behind him. Up ahead the harassed head-scarfed woman was wrestling her full shopping bag through the fierce gusts of a vicious November squall. “Hurry up You lirrul shite” she yelled back naturally I thought she was referring to the defaecating dog, but the small boy buffeted by the gusts from across the Tyne broke into a run. Upon catching the woman, she then turned back to the dog, which was now snuffling around his latest creation. “Howay Colin, good boy!” she shrieked encouragingly, and the dog loped forth without enthusiasm.
The following is a list of B.N.P. power words. You what! Poofdah!
Annoyance! Wanker! And wog, nigger, coon, yid ad nauseam.
Watcha John! Did you know that Peter Tatchell is a mammogram of Mark Thatcher?
Double Meaning, “I was brought up in a secure home,” ”Loving family or detention centre?”
YOU TOO CAN BECOME INVINCIBLE WITH COHEN’S FISHFACE BARABUS GLASSES!
Institutionally induced specific anxiety syndrome and social iatrogenesis. (By Smallway MacAstleyhamster.)
In the 1950’s the school dinner lady said unto us, “Beware, for we bring you hitherto ignored austerity measures, and they shall be called Sago, Semolina and Tapioca. The worst of the three is Tapioca, which shall hereon be known as Frogspawn and Beetlesblood, or some variant thereof. It shall stick to the craw but thou shalt stay in the dining room, among the rotten root crop and cabbage fumes, until thou eatest it up.”
Jan says that she just refused until they panicked and let her go...
I will put up some what's been happening stuff, it's just that it's been such a long time.
The following is a list of B.N.P. power words. You what! Poofdah!
Annoyance! Wanker! And wog, nigger, coon, yid ad nauseam.
Watcha John! Did you know that Peter Tatchell is a mammogram of Mark Thatcher?
Double Meaning, “I was brought up in a secure home,” ”Loving family or detention centre?”
YOU TOO CAN BECOME INVINCIBLE WITH COHEN’S FISHFACE BARABUS GLASSES!
Institutionally induced specific anxiety syndrome and social iatrogenesis. (By Smallway MacAstleyhamster.)
In the 1950’s the school dinner lady said unto us, “Beware, for we bring you hitherto ignored austerity measures, and they shall be called Sago, Semolina and Tapioca. The worst of the three is Tapioca, which shall hereon be known as Frogspawn and Beetlesblood, or some variant thereof. It shall stick to the craw but thou shalt stay in the dining room, among the rotten root crop and cabbage fumes, until thou eatest it up.”
Jan says that she just refused until they panicked and let her go...
I will put up some what's been happening stuff, it's just that it's been such a long time.
Sunday, July 6
Well it seems that a new phenomenon called "cake" has invaded our shores so I am a bit befuddled (Chris Morris "Brasseye" reference).
I would like to thank everyone who came to the barbie. yesterday and hope that in the ensuing chaos everyone had a good time. I would particularly like to thank Alan (Nick's dad) and Ben (kitten) without whom 90% of those served food would not have been. Barbecued trout was a revelation as was the "Hawkshead" mustard. I was amazed how much booze remained unclaimed and am planning to become an alchoholic over the next few days, (I jest, been there, done that, got the serenity message!). Linda's dog Merlin taught me something of the nature of canine conciousness, as he set himself tasks such as worrying balloons and barking at late arrivals to what he must have seen as his pack for the day. We all make it up as we go along and everyone must ascribe meaning to their existances, so yay for Merlin!
I had planned to hose down the yard and put out a carpet, but the weather remained such an inclement clement. Still the rain held off but it meant a somewhat more spartan environment than would have been good. I will post again soon when my brain function is a little less lateral, but until then thankyou to all who came.
I would like to thank everyone who came to the barbie. yesterday and hope that in the ensuing chaos everyone had a good time. I would particularly like to thank Alan (Nick's dad) and Ben (kitten) without whom 90% of those served food would not have been. Barbecued trout was a revelation as was the "Hawkshead" mustard. I was amazed how much booze remained unclaimed and am planning to become an alchoholic over the next few days, (I jest, been there, done that, got the serenity message!). Linda's dog Merlin taught me something of the nature of canine conciousness, as he set himself tasks such as worrying balloons and barking at late arrivals to what he must have seen as his pack for the day. We all make it up as we go along and everyone must ascribe meaning to their existances, so yay for Merlin!
I had planned to hose down the yard and put out a carpet, but the weather remained such an inclement clement. Still the rain held off but it meant a somewhat more spartan environment than would have been good. I will post again soon when my brain function is a little less lateral, but until then thankyou to all who came.
Friday, June 27
Just had a visit from Andrew B. who is our friend that intersperses putting the Newcastle Journal to bed with trips to Nigeria. He has been studying trading in Africa prior to colonisation and has found out some fascinating stuff. Some of the earliest explorers (from a western perspective) were women, the wives of servicemen who were hanging around Egypt after the Napoleonic wars. One merchantman was complaining that it was almost impossible to get his goods very deeply into West Africa. He came up with this solution. How's this for an Imperialist idea? Just below the 30 degrees latitude, south of Agadir, there is a land bar behind which lies a huge chunk of Sahara which is below sea level. Yes, I Know you've got it, prior to the Suez or Panama canals, but from the same type of mindset, he wanted to flood that section of Sahara and then by way of canals, the Niger river, and lake Chad, he'd have a navigable traderoute right through Western Africa! Not a thought about the millions of nomads who would have their aquifers salinated etc. He also related a poem which a small child had written following a film in class on the whaling industry...
The Whalemen catch the giant whales,
And they make use of every part,
Except the whales beauty.
We had a great interchange (as usual), about fundamentalism, he thinks that it was ever thus, and that only in the UK, and a few other isolated places (like big city Aus & Canada) do people who reject and even mock certain religeous mindsets reside. I think he feels that for a while back there in the 1960's & 70's people imbued with these mindsets kept shtum as they were well impressed by what the scientists were doing. Maybe they thought that God would reveal himself to man on the moon. Anyway they got tired of waiting for the scientists to reveal god, so they regrouped. In the west under the god of money and Judeo-christian fundamentalism, and in the rest of the world under the god of poverty and Islam/Hindu/Christian fundamentalism. He thinks that the wishy-washy Anglican memes let us in Britain off the hook somewhat but frightened people will get into any strange shit if it simplifies things.
While we were talking I got a phone call from Global Video on Scotswood road. The manager told me I owed them nearly £70 for unreturned videos. I told them I didn't often rent videos, and never from them, that it must have been someone else furnishing them with my details. He said that he doubted that etc....It wasn't until I heard him relate the titles of these missing movies (Hammer Horror I believe, the Day of the Dead, The return of the Giant Fruitfly & the Attack of the Stir Fried....) that I realised it was a wind-up. Phil Walton, something of a sax genius, was yanking my chain in the most professional way. I berated him with some choice scatological bon-mots and he told me this joke. "What is the difference between a jazz musician and a pizza?......You can feed a family of four with a pizza!" Yay for reciprocal self-depracation. He's off on the liners again next week playing cheesy music for rich fattoes.
Had an interesting visit yesterday from Ronan & Becky who had been co-opted by the slave trade, but will say no more as they are going to blog about it. Also Becky (Salty) came round and got some snaps of the solstice from our HD, it's always nice to see her with or without Luke. Nick also dropped in to show me how to potato shop said snaps into a blogform. This is what the Great Blogmeister showed me how to do... press here for solstice piccies. It's a first feeble attempt, and I will endevour to get better, thanks Nick!
The Whalemen catch the giant whales,
And they make use of every part,
Except the whales beauty.
We had a great interchange (as usual), about fundamentalism, he thinks that it was ever thus, and that only in the UK, and a few other isolated places (like big city Aus & Canada) do people who reject and even mock certain religeous mindsets reside. I think he feels that for a while back there in the 1960's & 70's people imbued with these mindsets kept shtum as they were well impressed by what the scientists were doing. Maybe they thought that God would reveal himself to man on the moon. Anyway they got tired of waiting for the scientists to reveal god, so they regrouped. In the west under the god of money and Judeo-christian fundamentalism, and in the rest of the world under the god of poverty and Islam/Hindu/Christian fundamentalism. He thinks that the wishy-washy Anglican memes let us in Britain off the hook somewhat but frightened people will get into any strange shit if it simplifies things.
While we were talking I got a phone call from Global Video on Scotswood road. The manager told me I owed them nearly £70 for unreturned videos. I told them I didn't often rent videos, and never from them, that it must have been someone else furnishing them with my details. He said that he doubted that etc....It wasn't until I heard him relate the titles of these missing movies (Hammer Horror I believe, the Day of the Dead, The return of the Giant Fruitfly & the Attack of the Stir Fried....) that I realised it was a wind-up. Phil Walton, something of a sax genius, was yanking my chain in the most professional way. I berated him with some choice scatological bon-mots and he told me this joke. "What is the difference between a jazz musician and a pizza?......You can feed a family of four with a pizza!" Yay for reciprocal self-depracation. He's off on the liners again next week playing cheesy music for rich fattoes.
Had an interesting visit yesterday from Ronan & Becky who had been co-opted by the slave trade, but will say no more as they are going to blog about it. Also Becky (Salty) came round and got some snaps of the solstice from our HD, it's always nice to see her with or without Luke. Nick also dropped in to show me how to potato shop said snaps into a blogform. This is what the Great Blogmeister showed me how to do... press here for solstice piccies. It's a first feeble attempt, and I will endevour to get better, thanks Nick!
Monday, June 23
We (and this is we), would like to thank everyone for a most enjoyable solstice evening. It was refreshing to see everyone in person and are aware of the hard work that must have gone into making it so. We especially enjoyed watching the communal effort resulting in the erection of the gazebo. I'm sure that we can all agree that its arrival saved the evening until the elements abated. There were moments in the evening where for us the experience passed from party atmosphere into the realms of the transpersonal, solstice magic indeed. The other night, our Mr Bloglocal representative, Nick, showed me that it was possible to put photo's into my webspace and link them to this blog. Now the problem is I've forgotten how to reduce them to manageable size, but when I find out again, I'll attempt to post them along with some other thoughts on the evening.
