Patrician Families

Watching breasts.
Spent all of 2003 watching breasts new breasts firm breasts slack breasts non-existent breasts. I formed bodies from breast components, they were my Archimedean solids, one for the shoulder, elbow, ear-lobe, cheek, nostril and ball of foot. They became breasts and breasts became them. I was an architect, in best modern taste, obsessed with curves. Each container I wished to smooth of burrs and round, mould and encompass in human constant y=sinxes.
The ratio of a river’s length to it’s distance straight (as the crow flies) from source to mouth is defined by π, with modifications based on the hardness of the environment through which it runs. From mouth to vagina via the skin is surely ruled by the same calculations. If you could take a route straight down the esophagus, with a cutting through the gut – no detours, no taking a racing line down the small and large intestines but burning straight through with some burning beak - it would be much quicker.
Π and Sine is what I was after all along. I thought it was the roundness I was looking for, a depression, a dimple a press on skin relates to the amount of vitamin C you have been taking in recently? When, as a smoker, you go to the dentist, hey find it difficult to make you gums bleed - they have to push and scrape the probes vigorously to confirm that you are starving your mouth of oxygen. But it was the intrinsic inhumanness of curves.
Sitting in the conservatory of a pleasant villa in northern Italy - LIE, seaside cottage while the wind howled - LIE, the wind was audible periodically and he was in a suburb of a large post-industrial conurbation - BETTER.

Smoked Fish

So there I was, surrounded by stiff tissues and trying to get to grips with the similarities between 'Scarborough Fair' and 'Girl From the North Country' when my head was flung around by the sound of a long reverberating squeak at the window. Dressed in only a white towel at the waist I gripped it tighter and faced the window cleaner who was 3/4 profiling his face and now focusing on only the dirty pane his length of rubber was strigiling. Had he turned as I did? Which of the two lyrics below is the most pleasing? I decided to leave the room for a glass of orange from concentrate and smoked mackerel, perhaps with some of the fruit loaf I knew I had left. I closed the window on the west-facing wall to help the cleaner, to give him a bit of resistance, and to hide from his ears the lines:

Remember me to one who lives there.
She once was a true love of mine.

Remember me from one who lives there,
For she/he once was a true love of mine.

A'wonder how many stories window cleaners; and gas men, telephone-line installationists, paper-boys, septic tank-diviners - what sort of stories they tell each other. A'wonder how many variations on the teenager wanking, the au-pair fucking, the cleaner sucking, the dog shitting, the husband throttling they come across and tell their friends in the work. A'wonder if they decide that the stories are boring and start to discuss the changing tastes in wallpaper and dado rails. A'wonder if they have physician-style tradesmen's oathes, or a butler's discretion, never to see and certainly never to tell of.

I'd finished the mackerel and washed down the oil with orange juice when the window cleaners knocked, they wanted paying. What I really needed was an audio recording of 'Scarborough Fair' and 'Girl From the North Country' and a working-class upbringing.

I Hope My Darling's Phone's OK

I really miss that boy. I wish he loved me. There’s nothing I can do though, I’ve already sent him a message today. Maybe I can just call him and not say anything and hang up. But he’ll know it’s me, it comes up on the phone. Damn mobiles. It’s ok, I’ll just:
He picks up “Hello?”
I wait one and a half speech turns. I say “Hello?” I say “Hello?”
“Hi Nora? Hello?”
which I overlap with “Hello? Steven? Can you hear me?”
“Hello yes. Can you hear me?”
“Hello?” I say. I hang up and he looks at his phone as if it’s gone odd. His voice is beautiful.

Plans

SCENERY: balloons in the pub Doctors

‘I hope those balloons are for Easter. No other pubs celebrate Easter.’
‘No-one celebrates Easter.’
I widen my eyes at him.
‘Except…’
He widens his eyes at me.
‘They might take Easter away, you know. It said on a newspaper in Debenhams. Forbid it.’
‘How can they take it away?’ ..
‘Imagine if they banned ALL eggs.’
‘It would make it difficult to cook them.’
‘Pretty near impossible to cook them, actually. It’s, like, the definition of impossible. Trying to cook eggs that are forbidden.’

#THREE WEEKS#

‘Do you remember my middle name?’
‘Of course. I don’t forget the things you tell me. I’ve been writing them down.’
‘I don’t believe you. Why would anyone write down the stupid things that I make up?’
‘It’s true. Go and look up ‘impossible’ in the dictionary. I’ll prove it.’
‘Should I really?’
‘Yes. Go on, whack the dictionary over; it’s over there on the desk.’
There follows the estimation interlude where a person goes back and forth over the top of the word in question, each time narrowing in on the letters they want. Closer. Close. Found.
At the end of the entry for ‘impossible’ it says ‘cooking eggs when you are not allowed them’ in my wriggly handwriting.
‘Awww. Brilliant. Thanks.’
‘I’ve started slowly editing my dictionary. It’s so, in many years’ time, I can say “Over the last years I’ve been slowly editing the dictionary”.’

#60 YEARS#

One day when I am dead one of my friends with whom I have shared egg proverbs will look up ‘impossible’ in my copy of the dictionary. That’s how I’d like to be remembered.

Demon Means

Those demons up there, the head office heads, have long since developed a means of control so pure and so very simple, a transplant patient could quite contentedly eat her dinner off it. Truth be told, it almost had me, of all people, flummoxed. That could never have lasted, though. Their method is as follows:

Multiple organisations (at time of writing, these number seven), ostensibly rivals, enter into a wretched, underhand agreement regarding espionage and counter-espionage policy. Their first move is to insinuate, semi-publicly, that sensitive information has been leaked/acquired nefariously from their respective organisations. Next, over a period of, say, two months, they institute, in seeming reaction to each other, variants on the following policy:

“Any person/persons, be they employees or visitors, whether authorised or not, found in a situation deemed by Security to compromise the integrity and/or property (intellectual or otherwise) of the organisation, will be brought before a tribunal selected by the board of directors, and may be liable to prosecution under applicable laws in the jurisdiction governing head office.”

Needless to say, the combined clout of the various organisations in the aforementioned jurisdiction is more than sufficient to draw out legal proceedings for protracted lengths of time, indeed, indefinitely. This is the key to their control, when coupled with the following nugget of secret policy:

“As a member of this organisation, you accept that, should you be caught by a rival organisation in a situation that would seem to compromise the integrity of your intentions towards them, and by extension the integrity of this organisation, it is our policy to deny knowledge and involvement, as all and any infiltration of rival organisations is contrary to policy. You must therefore expect no assistance should charges be brought. Since all and any infiltration is contrary to policy, it will be assumed, should you be found in such a situation, that you are acting on behalf of a third party, and you may consequently be liable to disciplinary action before a tribunal selected by the board of directors.”

That’s right, people; the only aspect of the demon means to control that lies beyond their sphere of control is the assumption that orders, specifically orders to spy, will be followed by employees, or colleagues, as head office prefer to call them. This, however, is a safe assumption; we all know that. I got wise, though, and forewent the auld job security thing. I last ate seven days ago, and that was three beans in a salty sauce, but at least I’m free from litigation, and from paying attention, and from ever having to think about it, really. In fact, the above was never written.

Prince of the Undergrowth

There is, somewhere, a little village; a tiny dot on the maps of history. It has a post box, a telephone booth (not one of the nice red ones), a tavern/impromptu post office, a modernized farm, a burnt-down hall, a cold church with accompanying overgrown graveyard, a very small council estate, a scattering of cottages, a large vicarage, some houses-on-the-hill, a small village hall and a lifeless caravan site. There is a quaint yet thin river inhabited by lazy fish, startled waterfowl, the occasional heron, smokes of midges, miscellaneous man-mind disposable plastic paraphernalia and watercress.

One of cottages has an allotment, the one-time pride and joy of its former inhabitant; now an overgrown nettle-ridden jungle of blackcurrant bushes, bramble, briar and mysterious rhubarb. If you were to crawl on your belly through the loamy wet earth of this forgotten allotment, scratching yourself on botanical teeth and unknown matter as you do so, you would reach a small patch of moss covered soil. An unseen thrush cackles in the holly bush overhead somewhere, and if you gaze upwards you can follow the flight of wielding gulls as they drift in the currents and dream of the ocean, and of tractors ploughing fields. Someone, perhaps as much as ten or twenty years ago, has stacked up some terracotta roofing tiles. Nettles spiral out around the back of this small pile, and snails hold silent moots, perhaps in mourning.

This pile of tiles conceals a secret. There is something cold and manipulative lying in wait in the cool soil underneath. Woodlice bravely loiter on the under surface of these cracked orange tiles, tracing glyphic patterns in the dark and lonely world of rotting leaves. Underneath the mulch and fungal roots and waiting in the dark he sits, brooding. He has been there since late October, but now he feels the new warmth seeping through the earth to his skin like oil. His large filmy eyes slowly open, glistening in the darkness. A slow grin spreads across his soft face, thick tongue pulsing out in an experimental taste of the stale air that encases him beneath the ground. He is ready for worms, and slugs, and beetles. For he is bufo bufo; Prince of the Undergrowth, and he’s ready for spring.

In Bed With The Man From Marks&Spencer

The following is a cover version of Wolper’s Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, The Inventing Room scene:

Late in the dark of the night Val lay in bed with Marks who part-invented Marks & Spencer, talking.
“I simply love your apples” she said sincerely. “I wont buy them from any other shop.” Then she paused for a moment to let wonder form, then asked “Why ARE they so special? Is it all down to the soil in the place where they come from? Do they have really caring farmers?”
“Aaaah my friend” said Marks, which Val heard with her face as well as her ear, for her cheek was on his chest. “I have something rather special to tell you. But this is the most secret mechanism in all my enterprise. I can only give it to you if you solemnly swear to keep it to yourself and never show it to another living soul as long as you live. Agreed?”
“Agreed” said Val predictably and happily.
“Good. Because du komme jetzt in den interessantesten und gleichzeite geheisten Raum meine Fabri. Meine Dame: Der Inventing Room.
Now people are very funny about fruit flavours. As long as it’s sweet, you can almost replace their orange-juice with apricot-, so long as they don’t see the label. Asked to articulate, they will often tell you ‘It tastes fruity’. And so it does. But, now, why would you want to replace orange with apricot (except out of mischief)? well now I’ll tell you. The fact is, apricot is simply a special variety of orange. It’s at a different value on the circular Fruity Spectrum; nevertheless, it IS a spectrum, all items are gradual; and the flavour of apricot is extreme orange. So if you give it to someone who thinks they are drinking orange-juice they will taste that it is special extra-tasty orange-juice. The imposter fruit IS registered, but only in as much as yum. It gives it a little kick,”
“I see.”
“Now take this to our apples. We realised that they needed a little more jelly fat to have the edge on other shops. So, one day, way back when, we take a syringe to an apple and extract all the apple-taste. Then. We take a number of strawberries (it depends on how big the skin of the apple is), and repeat the operation with a new syringe, sucking out the strawberry flavour. Then swap the syringes and insert the imposter flavours. A little coloured ink and voila. Testing this sort of experiment on yourself is inpossible so I gave one of each to my stepmother, unsuspiciously. She eats and all is fine – remarking ‘What a nice juicy apple’ or some such. We use this method on every single apple that comes through our stores, every year. Fantastic invention. Revolutionised our industry. People can eat ‘em and eat ‘em until their dying days and never know any wiser. Never realise. Never. Least I don’t think they do. And as a bonus we also get tastier strawberries.”
“Oh wow wow wow.”
“I know. Isnt it scrumptious?”
“It’s marvellous.”
“But now remember: no touching, no tasting, no telling.”
“I swear, Marksy.”
Talking stopped for a while while the pair thought of apples, what had happened to them earlier in the day, and the prospect of sleep. Marks had rolled over and later quietly said “Where is fancy bred? In the heart or in the head?”
Val said “Did you say ‘fancy bread’ or ‘fancy bred’?” This writer does not know the answer.

Coleopterism

I want to live inside a beetle.

You can attempt entry into beetles via special tunnels, I hear.

Hundreds of people live inside beetles.

They like it there.

I want to live with them.

Beetles are filled with light though, you know.

They eat special leaves in special forests.

They are large…but not big enough to live in, by any means.

But...?

Hence the tunnels: They make you extremely small.

I want to live inside a beetle.

Beetles contain quiet forests and dark lakes.

The beetle worlds are maintained by ethereal spirits.

These spirits are greatly feared and should be revered.

I fear! I revere!

They are dark, dark and wet,

Dark and wet and lonely.

I want to live inside a beetle.

True Storybook

Retiring from the dancefloor, Darla was checking that he remembered when she’d asked “Do you think it’s possible to be someone who’s supposed to be a storybook but they’re born in the body of a girl?”
Mr. Bingley had said “No.”
“But people who are supposed to be boys are born in the bodies of girls. What if this book was just trapped in the wrong object?”
Mr. Bingley said “That’s completely different and you know it.”
Now, Darla had an announcement to make, and she had brought the old conversation to his attention.
He said “Yes, I remember” (a little exasperated).
Darla said “I knew the answer all along – it was one of those type of questions”
“Those type of questions should really have a different name – TESTs, perhaps?” (a little theatrically infuriated).
“Yes! With a different marker, maybe – an upside-down question-mark at the start of the sentence…?? Anyway. I knew the answer all along. You were quite wrong. I gave you several chances to reassess your judgement. I asked it many times when I’d had a bit to drink, didn’t I?”
“Yes”
“ – so it must have been an important question. Each time, you reaffirmed what you said the first time. And you were wrong. And I knew for sure.”
Mr. Bingley put his arms around her waist in an attempt to knock some sense into her.
But all of a sudden, what he held moved like waking up with a hard object from your dreams when your hands collapse into each other. And a book fell onto the floor. Mr. Bingley was stunned, but he didn’t say anything to the book.
It was a storybook about waves, salt and perfume, and scratching messages into hard surfaces. It had a very nice cover of smooth rubber made-to-the-touch like soft leather. It wasn’t entirely new but it wasn’t old. Mr. Bingley kept it on one of his shelves for many years. It never changed back into the girl, which was a shame, because Mr. Bingley had just decided he quite fancied her.

I Found This Writing At The Back Of My Oven

I found this writing scratched into the back of my oven, at the top, to the right:

I WASNT SHOUTING I WAS JUST ASKING YOU
WHAT Y - WANTED FOR TEA

It was a bit late, but before I finished what I was doing I went back and swapped for the lemon-flavoured oven cleaner, it being the more edible of the two.

Playing With Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs were never a great passion of mine; I never quite fit that archetype. I didn’t, don’t and never will dislike them by any means, far from it, I’ve always had a real fondness for the things. There was the red tyrannosaurus rex that wouldn’t fill with water because his throat was sealed. The dinosaurs at the museum were skeletons, which was great. The tyrannosaurus made for an imposing figure, all teeth and tail and what have you; you had to respect the tyrannosaurus, you’d be a fool not to. This was before I knew he was a scavenger; I can empathise far more readily now. He was never my favourite, though. The stegosaurus is to this day a role-model of sorts, and the pterodactyl is a far out lizard-bird. Excellent skeletons too; the pterodactyl was suspended from the ceiling. I’ll always love skeletons. I liked the diplodocus’s neck, still do sometimes, but dinosaurs were never a great passion of mine. I always preferred to play in the woods. They were much bigger in those days, and darker.

Of course, it wasn’t playing; it was, dare I say it, adventure. Disbelief wasn’t a concept I was familiar with, and I’m not a great fan of it now. There was never much doubt that we’d find gold eventually, or the ghost train in the old abandoned tunnel. Our camps were bona fide settlements; there was some serious improvised engineering a little later on, and I’d be proud of it now. Prouder, maybe, and less capable. I was secretly rather excited at the thought of the gypsy girl who lured little boys off to an unspecified fate out there in the woods. Never did encounter her, though, more’s the pity.

Is it true that all such things, the dinosaurs, the woods, are part of what makes an adult, that’s to say, a fully grown human, to whatever degree of development, and that that’s their principal purpose? That the inquisitiveness, the naked wonder and the joy of children are functions of the formative years? I think someone told me something like that somewhere, sometime. I’m thinking about that red tyrannosaurus now (I called him The Tyrannosaurus). I don’t want my throat to be sealed.

The Church

Sadly it was the rather stupid Charlotte Church that instigated this evening's thought processes.
I want to talk a little about religion. I want to, but can't. I know literally nothing about it. Well, not literally. What worries me most though is that I'm joined by about 6,578,257,375 people. 6,578,257,375 know nothing about religion. On a side note I had this theory once, or more of a fantasy, that women had a huge secret, and its such a deep hidden secret that they can't ever tell a male, without destroying everything. So not even a lesbian could break the vow...not even riddled with drugs and frying in a pancake oils. I don't know what the secret would be, obviously. Probably something to do with machines... maybe the world is hollow and lined with little rubbery handles, so that when the menfolk go to sleep (after a hard night hunting amphibious birdlife?) they drop down specially crafted tunnels that they dug as part of their initiation. They slide down these hand crafted tunnels and drop into the hollow earth, wildly grasping for a handle as they plummet into the innner void. If they manage to catch hold they can swing around, so that from a distance away into the space and turning back their shapes make important concentric patterns. That would explain magnets. If they miss they just drop...although the problem is after they have dropped for say, a thousand or so miles they'll be approaching the 'core' of the empty space. If they dropped any further they'd actually be flying, if you get my drift. So obviously they come to an abrupt stop in the centre....where surely thousands of women from all around the world will be dropping to. Exactly the same point. At high velocity too... no doubt creating intense heat. A huge boiling fleshball of oestrogen, and er, hairstyles and screaming and mangles.
I forget my point.