FiftyFive ~ # 11

And so the year ends, cold again and yet optimism abounds. I feel I have passed the age where a lament will be sung for me if i crash and fall, though I do like "The Lament for Icarus" by Herbert Draper (in the Tate). It has a certain charm and who could resist the assistance of... well a couple of sea nymphs. Though once again the image of tragedy serves to remind us how fragile life is and indeed how tragic it can be. So in the spirit of happy new year and the welcome for 2010 - stay well and forever young. I will try too, for I have much to do in the coming months and my enthusiasm is undimmed by the cold weather. Once again the fire is on, the Chateau Neuf is breathing and there is a banjo sitting in the corner waiting to be played - am I blessed, absolutely... but I have just heard Rowland S. Howard has just died, and that is such a sad event in the world of music - so I think this could play out the year, a couple of guys doing karaoke, ideal for a new years eve singalong:

FiftyFive ~ # 10

Yesterday I pondered, did Icarus fall or was he pushed and I had some correspondence in defence of Daedalus which is fine because it is conjecture. For all I know here is Daedalus sending him off gently, or even trying to pull him back as Icarus reaches out in that interminable search for jouissance, but then that is what is so great about storytelling, how the full stop ends the sentence without ending the story itself (as wise Harold Rosen would say). But I was reading up on the Icarus effect and following trails left by Damian Hirst, Slavoj Zizek and Karl-Heinz Stockhausen and there are so many twists and turns that it is clear you can't close the shop on the debate, in fact choosing one line is the temptation that is to be resisted. Art and terror collide as our gaze follows the images being offered and the immediate reaction is one of Dialektic im Stillstand - dialectics at a standstill (to paraphrase Walter Benjamin) - because that seems to be what what happens at such an event. At the point of surprise and disbelief we stop and gaze before we react... it is (is it) a brief point before description, before language, which comes after the realisation and then becomes the story and the story of the story and stories... and jouissance well that is part of it and something else and...

FiftyFive ~ # 9

Yesterday I was thinking about delightful chaos and today I spent the morning looking at a combination of W.H. Auden's poem Musee des Beaux Arts and Brueghel's Icarus and I was thinking how the chaos of Icarus' fall from the sky becomes just another event in a life that goes on - for life does indeed go on, and people survive and stories survive in the most primitive way - and I adore this poem and seeing a picture of the painting at the same time. Which I am happy to pass on here, mostly because I have been thinking a lot about representations of war which seem to dominate our front pages. Yesterday someone tried to blow up a a plane - a potential martyr and the ideology that goes with martyrdom and the promise of those seventy-two black-eyed virgins. That whole idea never ceases to concern me. And yet here is Auden's response in a textual alliance with Brueghel:

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the plowman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,

Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

But then I got to thinking about Icarus and here's a conundrum - did Icarus fall or was he pushed? From Ovid onwards it has almost been a given that the story of Icarus (in its many re-tellings) is a tale of folly; the folly of the boy who didn’t listen to his father’s advice; advice gleaned from experience long stored as memory. Icarus’ folly, as if we needed reminding, was that he flew too close to the sun, from which a lesson can be learned. And the lesson is as much about not getting above yourself as it is a warning against reckless behaviour. Yet this troubles me.

If we think about it seriously, Daedalus was the survivor who witnessed his own son falling into the sea. But a very real question remains; was Daedalus a credible narrator of the event which led to the death of Icarus? Lets raise a couple of questions here. Daedalus, the known murderer of Talus, creator of the laberinthe hic minotaurus, the great conjurer who gifted flight to Icarus, only to put a restriction on it: can we believe a word he says? Moreover, can we subscribe to the proposition of the implied message in Ovid’s narrative, that we should all live a humbler life? And humbler than whom? Humbler than Daedalus is, I suspect, a mere hypothesis but let’s consider it. When Icarus was flying he ignored the height warning and, reckless as he may have seemed, he was already experiencing a high his own father never would: thus, Icarus was now the knowledgeable one. Having previously relied on the vicarious experience being passed on by his father, Icarus was now the one who knew what it really felt like to be alive and flying. Then when he went into freefall he was gaining a further, heady experience, something else his father never would: the freedom of it, the sheer exhilarating, reckless freedom. Therefore it’s easy to suggest that Daedalus may have murdered his son because he just couldn’t stand being the inexperienced one - Icarus had usurped the father figure. Icarus now had more knowledge than his father - surely a cause for jealousy (perhaps). After all, Daedalus had already shown what he thought of such and action.

Prior to Icarus' fall, Daedalus had envied his nephew Talus because he, Talus, the apprentice who became more skilled than the master! Might he not feel likewise about Icarus who was flying solo so high? Ultimately, Icarus was already rising. He had already left his father’s charge to experience his own highs. He was in charge of his own destiny and he made his own choice. Perhaps he did fly too close to the sun, as his father indicated, but perhaps Daedalus, conforming to type, simply couldn’t stand to see Icarus flying higher than himself. Certainly, the murder of his high flying nephew reveals he was capable of jealousy therefore some doubt about the legitimacy and the prescribed morality of the story of his son’s death must exist. Did Icarus fall, or was he pushed? But what of Icarus himself, we see him described by his father as: “… a wretched youth… now a dire example… for those who aspire to be supremely great…”. A wretched youth: is this all Icarus was for Daedalus? You can almost hear him saying, "...that'll teach you..." as Icarus fell. Or is there something else for us to consider? For where in the narrative of life and suicide does Icarus take us?

It used to be said that the pen is mightier than the sword, a cliché, perhaps, an artist would say the brush, a singer the voice, but if it is mightier the artist, the writer, could surely help to adjust the inner life of a civilisation. What we saw on 9/11 was the role of the artist being taken over by the terror art. It was an artistic act and that cannot be denied. For all its horrible consequence, watching it unfold had a rare macabre impact, which, because of the media used to record and reproduce it, forced itself into the soul of mankind and changed the inner life of the culture being attacked. That kind of flying terror relied on the Icarus effect. High on adrenalin for the audacious act, which would be witnessed, not just by the unstable narrator but all over the world just as it happened. Planes crashing into buildings, people throwing themselves out of buildings, buildings and planes and people crashing out of the sky, the big gesture… if only they could see the Brueghel, though. For surely the futility of the action will eventually become clear, unless of course we are all too vain to stop and learn and read the Auden... exercise that mind...

FiftyFive ~ # 8

I didn't get this Hockney for Christmas but I put it out there for anyone to admire - you can even steal it if you like. The Christmas day itself left me unscathed, unlike the Christmas roses which are wilting in the vase perched on the table I am writing on, though the sprigs of holly around the candle look sprightly enough, their shiny leaves and red berries (grown in my own garden) are like me, still bright and shiny, for I am hangover free and with that epiphany feeling all over again - which kind of suggests an epiphany is a lasting experience - and long may it last for I will be in the gym today. Had I known I was going t live this long I would have taken better care of myself earlier (still it was a lot of fun). But now I swear I am getting younger. Mind you that may have more to do with the Basil Hallward painting I found in my attic - go on, work it out. working up to Christmas has been a kind of treat too. For I edited my inaugural address paper for publication and that too was immensely cathartic - because it lead me onto much more and thoughts about a book in the style of Italo Calvino's Six Essays for the New Millennium (which I love). Back on the 20th December I wrote about Delightful Chaos and that got me onto a theme of textual intervention, criss-crossing narratives and how books and ideas and stories all rub against each other; sometimes as lovers; sometimes as enemies; sometimes as friends; sometimes as rivals; sometimes as indifferent bystanders and sometimes with a hint of a smile; or a brief brush of the lips; lingering lightly, not knowing whether the narratives will survive to compliment or collide, crash and die. And then the paper itself twisted from a light jaunt into a defence of modernism in the face of the postmodern debate - and yet completely jargon free - or at least free of the overloaded rhetoric that supported such debates in the past, or at least it has to be hoped for it made perfect sense to me on Christmas eve when I dotted the last sentence. And then when I realised how easy it had been to write an eight thousand word chapter, perhaps I could write six of them with different themes - and then I was thinking, perhaps based around the sense, sight, sound, touch, smell - and the sixth sense of being, of self and other, of strangeness and familiarity, of passion and love and hate and devotion and rejection and broken hearts, broken bones, broken promises and then I thought, goodness that sixth would take some doing. And so, at least I approach 2010 with a quest, pass me that ring Frodo/Luke Skywalker... and then what music could accompany it? And then this clip came to me - I adore this - and if I ever played in a band again it would be like this because it is just like the band I played in when I was eighteen or nineteen:

But now I am taking this great advice from a real hero - at the beginning of this clip Joan says, "...exercise that mind..." and I swear she gets younger every year doing just that - hard to believe she is now sixty-seven tears (sic) old:

FiftyFive ~ # 7

It's Christmas eve, the day is still dark and I am in the kitchen, facing the back door - and this is the only view I can see for the window, it is obscured by a "light" curtain and four instruments of pleasure - well they may not do it for you, but hey, I get a lot of fun with these babies sitting on my knee. I wrote a new song yesterday on the banjo and that is the nice thing about different instruments, you write in different ways. The banjo gave me a sub-Steve Earle kind of sound, the mandolin (depending on how I play it) can be more Italian, the little guitar on the right is a travel guitar but is great for blues and slide. And indeed I am itching to play the slide now and will in a minute but the house is still asleep for it is just gone seven and there is no work or school to be done, just the turkey to be collected. The kitchen itself looks very seasonal. It is painted red for a start and that helps, and the laptop I am writing on is sitting on a red tablecloth, stitched with swirls and shapes of holly leaves and berries. The fruit bowl smells fresh and full of clementines and apples and bananas and am drinking a combined fruity confection of Green tea supplemented by another teabag containing cranberry, raspberry and elderflower - exotic, yes/no? Definitely a Christmas smell - a fruity start to the day and I like it, though I have just eaten a mince pie too - gluten free and rather tasty, except I found them in the cupboard and it was only after I had eaten that I noticed the box said, best before 30 Jan 2009 - oops - this blog might be my last. The picture left was the first I used in this blog, looking all studious and working. It was about 7am in the morning, for I am a morning person and we were in Turkey on holiday. I guess I look fairly respectable, but I am actually the great unwashed for it is pre-shower time and I am sitting in my boxers drinking fruit tea, as I am now, writing before the day kicks in proper, as I am now, though my top half is wrapped in a huge wool jumper. The morning is still and quiet here, there is barely a sound in my kitchen except the creaking of this Georgian house as it grumbles and stretches its aching bones to greet the day. Strange how easily you get used to the creaks and groans of a house. And this evening will be spent in someone else's kitchen because every year my neighbours to the left, to the right and across the street have drinks before during and after Christmas and no one ever gets beyond the kitchen. The only thing that changes is the jumpers -Christmas eve has last years offering, Christmas day has the new one you will never wear again because its a Christmas jumper and then Boxing day it will be the nice cashmere one - there must be a philosophy treatise on that some where, jumpers of yesterday, today and tomorrow - the aesthetics of the postmodern domestic life hmm, have a feeling i won't be publishing that one in Philosophy Quarterly. So let's do pop music instead - I heard this when I was driving in the snow the other day and I liked the freshness of it:

And yesterday I received an email from Ian who is the person outside of family I have known longer than anyone. We have known each other for 50 years - which is unbelievabubble really. We met on our first day at school and that must have been in 1959 - goodness - and we played football together for Newtongrange Star, went to gigs, a school cruise to Norway on the Devonia and I wish we were sitting down with a beer now - hopefully that time will come next year - but not before I dump the mince pies I have been hording, I wonder what else is hidden in there (having a different diet to everyone else in the house means I have a different food cupboard and that does tend to mean things get overlooked - even if I do buy them myself).

FiftyFive ~ # 6

And today is the shortest day to be followed by the longest night - and the moon is still little more than a slice and the stars are out and while this song is out of sync and all a bit silly on the video there is a line that has haunted me since was a child and that was a very long, long time ago. Chucking a song together is the easiest thing in the world because you can sing anything - as I proved to my students this year by singing their module handbook. But then sometimes a line comes along to make you sit up and think and this song has that - the darkest hour is just before dawn. I always thought the band were a bunch of stiffs, what a strange crew, OK Michelle was cute and Mama was, well Andrea Dworkin would object to me even talking about her - and goodness, isn't Dworkin a scream, she sincerely believes boys don't cry and the whole world is a penis waiting to slice through everything, strangely odd woman. But this is a seriously good song and the darkest hour...well:

FiftyFive ~ # 5

This is my Hockney which he sent online via the BBC (I don't own it exculsively) and I like it - he has, as his life has gone on, become someone who still manages to fascinate me. The easy accessibility of his work can often be mistaken for a lack of depth but if I can travel to Nottingham to see the major exhibition there I will. Made a new acquaintance today, an intelligent and utterly stunning young woman (barely more than a girl) by the name of Kirti (I think) - which is Hindu and she told me it meant "creation". She was immensely interesting - had just completed her MA in Human Rights and I just thought, wow and what a great subject to study! Anyway she is going back to India to work, in February, and said she would send me an email from Delhi and let me know how she is getting on. Which is great and all because I asked her about herself while she was checking my shopping out in the supermarket. That is not unusual in a University town, students working in supermarkets, supporting their studies has become the way of the world. But I always like to speak to the checkout assistants, especially when their names reveal they are from a different culture, for there is so much to learn by asking rather than just watching the price of bananas or haloumi or satsumas or... or... or whatever as they ping past. And I was glad we had that chat - all too often words are wasted on nothingness and we shook hands and I wished her happy Christmas even though she is Hindu and she smiled back the most wonderful smile in response - which was such a pleasing part of the day, and I hope she does write to let me know how things are from across the world - especially knowing she is going back home to work in human rights.

FiftyFive ~ # 4

I have this friend who has tidy book shelves, everything in its place, alphabetically ordered and but much more than that, poetry here, fiction there, philosophy in its own place and it occurred to me that deconstructing book shelves could be a good sideline for a tired academic. Rather than writing the kind of books no one ever reads I could write a weekly column or do a weekly radio show. We speculated on what would happen if she switched her iPod onto shuffle and then by some Scrooge-like, Christmas ghostly trick she came home to her books all jumbled up like her songlists. She said, "...I'll come home to poems muddled in with philosophy and fiction in with reference books all in promiscuous juxtaposition and chatting about things they shouldn't even know about, and then what delightful chaos ..." And indeed, it does sound "delightful chaos". I suspect she would start tidying them back immediately but I like the idea of them all talking to each other for in some ways that is what I spend my life doing - making connections, making links and trying to make sense of the "delightful chaos". And as I look back at this year, I gave my professorial, inaugural address (5 years late but that's an other story) and it was a story about making sense in the face of chaos. I am now re-writing it to be published (by Text Journal) but here is a clip: In December 2006 I was sitting in an Airport lounge in New York with my son Dan, waiting for a connection to Miami – yes, I know, we lead such exotic lives but we plant lots of trees. Anyway, Dan was working on a laptop computer, writing his epic novel and I was re-reading a novel. Waiting around for connections isn’t such a chore, I like airports. I like the anticipation of travel as well as the cross-cultural-continent-crossing mingle of people carrying stories to and from somewhere else. Just try to picture that idea if you can, buses, boats, cars, trains and planes criss-crossing countries with all of their passengers and crew carrying stories of some kind; a holiday memory; a business meeting; a chance encounter in a Manhattan restaurant, a haggled for bargain in a market in Marrakesh…! And it’s not all just good stories of course, though we don’t need to dwell on those others here – goodness knows there will time enough in our lives for them. For the point is that we are a storytelling species, stories define our existence and separate us from the other life forms on this planet of ours. The rich intertextuality of life, which we all experience daily (in the good, bad and other more mundane times) is part of the narrative that sustains our continuing sense of being, in the communities in which we co-exist. Of course being in a busy airport lounge provides a different sense of community, but as a storyteller I never feel disconnected from it. Invariably, when I am in public spaces I pause to look up at those fellow travellers, the constantly changing faces who might form the basis of a character in a story of my own. And indeed so it happened. No sooner had I peeked over the pages of my book when I spied a nun. Nothing remarkable in this, of course, nuns fly just like everybody else - except that I noticed she was wearing a pair of “kitten heels” I wasn’t shocked or anything, I was just intrigued and I found myself smiling and asking, “…what’s the story, there, then,” because that is what this life is about. It’s about “story”; it’s about “story telling” and “telling stories” in this new and exciting, 21stCentury. But it’s also about making connections, seeing how the world is pieced together because it’s the connections that give us the sense and rationale; it’s the connections that make the difference between knowledge and ignorance, between innocence and experience and like the nun in kitten heels, and like life itself, the connections are full of paradoxes and surprises. And I love this image and the way it it tells its own story:

And if I am honest I have to say I loved 2009, its been a very good year and if 2010 is better than I am going to be a very lucky man - perhaps ageing has brought this on, I don't know, but if they can bottle it I will let you know. In the meantime the story goes on, like the time I was driving south from Orange County, Los Angeles, following the Pacific line down through Southern California, into San Diego, taking the Tijuana crossing into the North West of Mexico. Like I say, I have lead a charmed life... in delightful chaos... ps - the picture at the top wasn't taken yesterday - I was so much wiser then, I am younger than that now... though I am delighted to say I still have those jeans, they are a bit more ragged now - fashionable holes in the knees but the good news is they still fit... so here is a song to celebrate:

FiftyFive ~ # 3

Not everyone has a fairy grotto at the bottom of their garden - but I do. It is full of stories and songs and poems and all kinds of writing just waiting to be unleashed. Though you have to be careful because it is guarded by the wordsmith - known in New York's TomTom Club as Wordy Rappinghood which takes us into Little Red territory and what are words worth? "words of nuance/ words of skill/ words of romance are a thrill..." And yet the wordsmith does seem to have his problems. It would only take a few words to agree on a remedy for climate change, stop a war and bring us peace on earth - as the song says but for some reason saying them and meaning them appears to be more difficult than most world leaders can manage which is a bit of a shame. As a good friend once reported to me, a scientist being interviewed about the leader of the Australian opposition (in climate change denial) said, in dismissive terms, 'Look, it's easy to be a condom on the prick of progress...' - what are words worth? I love that phrase...

FiftyFive ~ # 2 @ 10.30pm

And so the day came to darkness, the snow is still on the ground and icing over, glistening in the moonlight. There is a new moon, not much more than a slice of pale melon, but the sky is full of stars. If ever a picture captures the town I call my home, this is it. A bycycle by the sea, the pier in the background and just a wee hint of silliness - who would cycle in this weather after all? The temperature is set to hit -7 tonight and I can confirm it is getting close to that now. The log fire was on, the lentil soup simmered and I wound my way to the end of the working week - its been a good one. But the world is a big place and Christmas down under is also going on, and indeed will go on before I awake - I was sent this and I love it for its difference (to differ and defer) - not jingle bells but white wine in the sun - what fun while we watch the snow, to know there is a life going on elsewhere - though quoting Conrad: “The mental feeling of being in two places at once affected me physically as if the mood of secrecy had penetrated my very soul.” It can be strangely affecting, sitting here in the comfort of Brighton while the problems of the world still rage. And while that may be there, and not here, the resonant traces of the sorrow and pain of others is ever present, lest we should forget. And of course the Copenhagen Climate Summit has been going on too - fill a room full of important poeple and they still can't see the light switch - the BBC report: Key states have reached what they call a "meaningful agreement" at the Copenhagen climate summit. Five nations, including China and the US, reached a deal on a number of issues, such as a recognition to limit temperature rises to less than 2C. US President Barack Obama said it would be a foundation for global action but there was "much further to go". However, the deal could be rejected as a number of nations expressed "dissatisfaction" with the contents. "Can I suggest that in biblical terms, it looks like we're being offered 30 pieces of silver to sell our future," Tuvalu's lead negotiator Ian Fry said during the main meeting. "Our future is not for sale." But surely that is the point, it has to rise above price, for the only legitimate thirty pieces of silver are these - with no firm target for limiting the global temperature rise, no commitment to a legal treaty and no target year for peaking emissions, countries vulnerable to climate impacts are not guaranteed the temperature targets they need. This is not about thirty pieces of silver but the slow suicide that followed and will surely follow... och, as we Scots might say. Soon we could all be singing this Christmas song called White Wine in the Sun...

FiftyFive ~ # 2 @ 12.30pm

And then the snow begins to look like Japanese cherry blossom - nestled here on the fig tree. If you look closely enough you will see the buds that will become next year's figs. But for now they are the memories of last year as this one coasts to a close - but linger a while, tarry with a thought of what the year held, hold it in your palm and breathe it back to life for that was your life past, seen in the present as you reach out to the future. I am looking forward to that future, as I always do, for each new year brings new delights: taste, touch, sights, sounds, smells and the sixth sense that holds feelings and hope and love and smiles and marshmallows... across the great divide - a new year song:

FiftyFive ~ # 2 @ 9.30am

Can you spot the fairy grotto anywhere? Buried deep down at the bottom of the garden is a shed load of stories which I pillage from time to time... so watch where you tread for some may have spilled out or spilled over or even tried to escape my clumsy clutches... of course that might just be a flight of fancy - a bit like this song - nothing like parading paradoxes - this is not a winter song - take it away Michael:

FiftyFive ~ # 2 @ 7.30am

FiftyFive ~ # 2 @ 6.30am

epiphany 2: its snowing - for what is snow if not an epiphany of sorts. It is 6.30 in the morning and the snow is as thick as I have seen it here in Brighton. Being on the south coast I can only remember it snowing around 3-4 times in twenty years. This picture here has been taken from my back door. The sun isn't up yet but see how the snowflakes catch any speck of light they can - magical really. And as we gear up for Christmas it can't get more traditionally seasonal than this, its a confection of that chocolate box picture that is the northern hemishpere's much wished for Christmas story, santa and snow and reindeer and all that goes with the yule log and the icing on the cake - but log fires and hot chocolate vie for space alongside bad news on the radio, we are still at war in Iraq and Afghanistan and I find that troublesome. Let us hope the 2010 will bring us peace. And then we begin to realise, it will be 2010 and we are entering the second decade of the millennium. Goodness its hard to believe, after all the anticipation. As a child I used to wonder what it would be like in the year 2000. What would I be like, what would any of us be like - Nancy Griffith sang a song about Neil Armstrong once and I tried to put it here (to no avail). I was thinking about Armstrong walking on the moon and what a moment that was last century - why did they never send a woman - how the world has changed. But I like this Bob Dylan song from her - love the sound of a Dobro - and her singing and that is Danny Thompson on bass:

FiftyFive ~ # 1

epiphany:a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience or a literary work or section of a work presenting, usually symbolically, such a moment of revelation and insight. And then it begins - the first official 55@55 blog post, for the day came and fifty five became real. And it started with a memory of another day in my life when I had a five in my age. When I was fifteen I remember thinking, I wonder what I will dress like when I am middle aged. Back then I was dressed in a way I really liked, Levi 501s, a woolly jumper and desert boots on my feet - for it was winter in Scotland (is there a logic to that - desert boots in winter?). And then this is a picture of me now, still wearing the same boots and jeans and jumper and indeed in the same size too, which only goes to show - I have only changed from the neck up - its an old head on a young body - or is that an old head in young jeans. I didn't play the banjo then. I only took that up aged fifty five - and this is me practicing Foggy Mountain Breakdown (relegated to the winter garden for the purpose) but these guys take the biscuit - I so love this happy, happy music and Earl Scruggs isn't just the best banjo player ever, he has the best name too - but what a band - Albert Lee, Steve Martin (yes him), Marty Stuart on mandolin - I could do the harmonica bit - and I learned to play that when I was fifteen so some things have survived:

FiftyFive

I meant to write last time - that this is the time of year when the "murmering" starlings gather over the place that is now my home town - Brighton, England. This picture captures one of those perfect moments which I have witnessed a number of times. And like all stories it appears like atrace elsewhere - I once wrote this into a novel: Michael and Jess cast a last glance back at the pier. The flames were now dropping into the sea and it was like a fireworks display gone wrong. A flock of fifty thousand starlings flash-mobbed the Pavilion and then swooped over the sea, like a chiffon shroud waiting to fall on the West Pier. It was a sight Michael had seen often and had never understood how or why it happened. Like so much of life, the strangeness of it was beginning to outweigh his knowledge of it. Far to the south, where the Brighton lights had stopped leaking into the sky, they could see the stars winking at them.
‘Did you know,’ said Michael to Jess, ‘the light from some of those stars actually left the star millions of years ago; all that travelling just to get to our sky.’
Jess stared up at them, ‘so really, they could be dead, then.’
‘Sorry?’
‘The stars, they could be dead for all we know. In fact the sky might not look anything like it does, not really.’
Michael smiled at her, he knew about this but wanted to hear it from Jess and probed, just as he would do with his students. ‘You’ll have to explain that one to me.’
‘Come on Michael, you’re supposed to be the brainbox. If the light from a star takes a million years to get to us, then it stands to reason that if it died say five-hundred years ago we still wouldn’t know about it until the year dot.’
Michael just smiled again.
‘By which time you’ll be too old to care.’
‘Not only me,’ he piped back.
‘Sure it will be. I’m young and everyone knows we live forever.’

The young live forever - aye well - that was then and still the starlings continue with their murmering - flash-mobbing the pier - time for this too. The great thing about pop music is the way it continues to re-invent itself and to find new ways of telling the story - in this case, love... here's power to their elbow

FiftyFiveCountdown

This is the last weekend before I turn 55 and its amazing how quickly it has come around. And I suppose I am thinking, well this is it then, into the last third we go. But its been a blast thus far, though no reason why it shouldn't carry on as such. I still do all things I did when I was thirty and forty and indeed fifty so... anyway something very strange happened last week. I don't write poetry, its just not one of my things and yet having written one for my Inaugural Address the National Association for Writers in Education published it - which is remarkable because the Journal is read by some of the best writers I have ever come across. Philip Grose and Bob Hull, for example, and so it would be silly not to publish it here too, while I am still young enough not to care what the critics think - lol, young enough:

Mind yersel’ Jonah

It wisnae a trawler
wi’ a net an’ a hold
fuo o’ fish dryin’ in salt

Nor Para Handy’s puffer
puggie fou
o’ Isla’s best malt

It wisnae a twisted wreck
wi’ a hole in its deck
unco fou o’ bones an’ brine

Nor an auld clipper
carrying tea frae the east
wi spices an’ silks sae fine

Naw this wis somethin’ ither
Somethin’ mair muckle a’ the gither

nowt a mere man wid sail

And ah said, “Mind yersel’ Jonah
for she’ll swallie ye hale
yon bloody great whale… "

The poem was a reflection - me thinking about the time when I first heard John Lennon’s album, Imagine, I was sitting on the dock of a bay… in Oban in the West of Scotland. It was 1971, I was sixteen and instead of studying for my ‘o’ levels I had been hitch hiking around Scotland. The songs from the album were wafting out of a little yacht moored nearby. The owner of the boat saw me and shouted over – he said he was taking a trip to Isle of Iona, did I want to come along. Well – can you imagine? And to cut a long story short, later that day, with the tape still playing on an 8 track loop – remember them - we were sailing round the Isle of Mull toward the Sound of Iona when I saw something so unbelievably incredible. Out of nowhere this huge whale rose to the surface alongside us and spouted water high into the air: Can you imagine? You see stories go on and on...

A good friend sent me this link and I love it - Tim Minchin:

FfiftyFiveCountdown

Sometimes when you are writing you remember things in odd orders, like this bear which was illustrated by a friend of mine for a picture book, that I wrote, entitled KYOTO - a little story about global warming and a big story about a little bear. Hopefully it is about to be published. But as I was writing this I came across two heroes of mine singing together on a YouTube clip and I needed to link that stuff together - because what is life if we cannot connect. And as I approach 55 I am connecting more and more - curious that, isn't it? though why I am asking you I have absolutely no idea... I mean who are you anyway that reads this? well whoever you are here is Joni and James - its alright...