Can someone tell me how to stop believing
In the silent, hidden deity
Who said, ‘I love you.’
Once, so long ago,
Leaving
Me:
A Blind drunk,
Shadow boxing,
Lurching and screaming
At his demons?
Will no-one rid me of this troublesome
God?
Just a quick, bullet-pointed, ramble for the end of lunch time.
- I’ve moved house
- I haven’t got the internet set up yet
- Work’s kind of busy
- Life’s not entirely rubbish
- That’s all I have time for.
I used to be in the habit of making notes on my mobile phone of ideas which struck me whilst out and about - ideas that I fully intended to follow up on later, and never have to date.
This is kind of a half-way house between that archive and potential follow up, and obviously a lot of work will be needed to get them into a serviceable condition. In no particular order:
•
Write an edgy, post-apocalyptic comic book about a masked killer, apparently on the search for revenge after years of bad ice-cream. Call it V for Viennetta.
•
I could breath your perfume all night, I said,
Swim in your scent ’til I drown.
She poured out her bottle,
All over my lap
And went for a night on the town.
•
Wiper of the Crack of Dawn
The cracks have always been there, holding everything together - it’s only recently we’ve put stones between them and told ourselves the stones are secure and we shouldn’t stand on the cracks.
•
The announcer on the train was just like the ‘tell us what they won’ guy off quiz shoes - particularly the conveyor belt guy from the Generation Game:
Calling at York, Durham, Darlington, Chester le Street, A Cuddly Toy, and arriving at Newcastle with an all expenses paid holiday for two in the bottom of the garden…
•
A sign at Manchester bus station: “All drivers must turn off engines at all times” At all times? Surely not! I must have missed the poor teams of driver-assistants pushing the switched off buses back out of the station or into designated “you can switch on your engines now” zones.
•
Write about a character called Forename Surname.
•
Possible title for a decorating based murder mystery: Strippers and Painted Ladies.
•
Possible title: Trampoline Row
[inspired by the daily sight of garden after garden along my Metro route, in a cheap council estate, every single one of which contained a giant trampoline]
•
How I’ve longed to take you in my arms.
Returning only to find
Three days ’til they take you down
And I can hold you again.
Was I gone too long?
How could you forget?
I was always coming home,
To hold my love once more.
So, now I sit beneath feet,
To scare scavengers away.
Still vultures come to stare and laugh.
Another two days, my love.
Was I gone too long?
How could you forget?
I was always coming home,
To hold my love once more.
My belt fell apart earlier this morning, leaving me with a worrying saggy feeling around my waist.
My trousers aren’t so baggy as to fall down immediately, but the looseness is disconcerting.
That will be all.
Every month*, I host a writers’ group at the flat. Somewhere between eight and fifteen writing folk descend, drink coffee, eat cake and talk about writing. We also write stuff.
The sessions are led by Fiona Veitch Smith, and, after the discussion of what we’ve been up to since the previous meeting, generally focus on some aspect of good creative writing practice.
I’m not going to tell you what the theme for this month’s session was, but the first exercise was to re-write a basically written paragraph to describe what’s going on rather than explicitly stating it.
“Blanche felt like she was going to lose control at any moment. She tried her hardest to hide it from the unwelcome guests who had dropped in for a cup of tea and a chat. Blanche wished they would just go away.”
(Which can be found here in the course notes).
Thus became:
“Blanche’s pulse raced and her vision started to blur. Why wouldn’t these damned guests take a hint and leave? She’d put salt in the sugar bowl, opened the windows, turned off the heating and had even considered going and changing into her pyjamas. It would make no difference - the kids were here for Christmas.”
Which admittedly changes more than just the tone of the story, but never mind.
Exercise two was to write a paragraph or two demonstrating one of the “fruits of the spirit” (a bit like the seven virtues which are the opposite of the seven deadly sins), the name of which had been handed to us on a card, and hopefully the rest of the group would be able to work out what it it was we were talking about without us having to tell them in a many words. Thankfully I wasn’t stuck with something lame like gentleness, or I’d have been stuck writing about hulking great brutes being surprisingly good with babies or something.
“Finally, after many long years, driven before the Furies, George stood before his father’s killer and spat in his face. The killer knelt, as if in some strange, imploring supplication, and held out his palms, wrists together.
“‘Kill!’ screamed the Grey Ladies in George’s head, ‘Kill!’ But George had not been brought up that way - what would his father think! His stiff upper lip trembling, he dropped the knife, and cuffed his brother’s hands.”
Which was as good an example as I could think of on the spot of…
But that would be telling not showing.
*Unless I’m away, or ill, or busy somewhere else, or nobody else can make it, or the flat has been over-run by the ravening hordes we call “other people’s future in-laws”. Which is a bit of a mouthful of a qualifying statement for what I prefer to leave as a short and punchy opening sentence.
The boys of the NYPD choir were singing ‘Galway Bay’…
This evening I went to two parties. The first was a very informal, drop-in-any-time party which served mulled wine and traditional Christmas Party food (including some lovely chocolate-covered gingerbread shapes). Which was kind of cool, but I was too tired to mingle properly with strangers and ended up spending most of my time with my flatmates and chatting to the hosts and their kids.
The second party also served mulled wine - this after a very nice bottle of Caledonian 80/- - which went down a treat - and a share in a roomful of assorted puddings, hot and cold. I retreated to the front room and the surprisingly barren comfy chair. The hot wine arrived, passed over the heads of the guests between me and the kitchen. Also very tasty, thank you L. - happy birthday!
Then the entertainment began. The room was full of beautiful people with angelic voices, so playing ‘Sing Star’ (a computer console game, in which people sing along with popular musical classics (through a microphone which is hooked up to the system) and are rated on their ability to match the tune) on a shiny PlayStation 3, wonderful surround sound system and with the latest Abba expansion pack was a good idea. Like I said, the room was full of beautiful people with angelic voices,
and me.
I am not a beautiful person with an angelic voice. When I open my voice to sing, what emerges is an ugly croaking sound that makes young children run for the comfort of a bottle of gin. I can string a few notes together to try and explain how an old advertising jingle sounds, but beyond that, my singing voice leaves an awful lot to be desired.
Which may help explain why Christmas, with it’s sense of jolliness, good cheer, and (in particular) the communal singing that goes along with it, often fills me with dread, and why, as Sing Star was reeled out this evening, I felt my spirits fall (and called for more drink).
E. asked me if I didn’t feel like singing along to ‘500 Miles’ by The Proclaimers. I’ve sung along to this song many times, and the previous night had even been bouncing away merrily to said tune and singing away to my heart’s content. Of course, last night, the music had been so loud that nobody could hear anybody else. This evening, my singing would have been measured against the scrolling blue line that represents the ‘on tune’ goal of perfection - I would have fallen woefully short, and only hit the right notes by flukish accident.
I used to love singing, but I wouldn’t feel confident enough to attempt a Shane MacGowan even if I could find a Kirsty. This evening, I enjoyed sitting in the room, listening to and watching the singers, but I often come close to wishing with all my heart, that, just for once, I too was one of the beautiful people with angelic voices.
So, now I’m home again, and nursing a large whisky whilst trying to keep the green eyed monster at bay. And Christmas, with it’s merry singing, looms ever closer.
Bah! Humbug.
…for my church’s website. I’d been asked to write something to promote discussion and also introduce the idea of online writing to the unblogged masses. I had thought it was launch the blog section of the relaunched website, and had anticipated comments and whatnot (hence the title). However, this was not the case, and for a variety of reasons the final paragraph ended up being cut altogether, which was a shame.
It’s basically a trawl through some of the church-related blogs which would appear on my roll, but I haven’t updated that in ages either. (I thought I’d said this, but wordpress ate half of what I wrote.)
First Post
I have been asked to write the first post on the new Church Blog and it seemed like it might be a good idea to immediately point you in the direction of other blogs by way of an introduction to the medium (not just to distract you from the amature nature of my contributions). For now, I’ll only be including Christian and church-related sites, although there is a vast amount of good, thought-provoking, controversial, entertaining, well informed, but not specifically Christian writing out there for your delectation.
First up, I take great pleasure in introducing The Ongoing Adventures of ASBO Jesus - a blog in which Jon Birch produces cartoons commenting on various aspects of church life and the Christian Faith. His most recent post, features The Daily Mail, Quentin Letts, Graham Kendrick and the top fifty worst people for Britain.
Jon is a creative artist, who along with Jonny Baker, runs proost, a company providing multi-media resources for churches,
From ASBO to Absolute Story, written by a friend of mine in Germany. He runs a drama-based ministry team in his local church, and talks about his experiences with that, his life in general, and also his cycling habit - at the time of writing, the most recent post rabbits excitedly about how much shopping he can fit on the back of his bike, (but does regularly feature posts about spiritual and church stuff).
Letters from Kamp Krusty is a blog written by a guy somewhere in Florida (I think - he’s hard to pin down). He also writes about life in general, and is American, but don’t let that put you off. Gasp as he explains how he can single handedly neutralise Al-Qaeda, be thrilled as he tackles deep ethical, moral and theological issues in a clear and easy to understand fashion, and marvel at his grasp of Biblical Scholarship.
He might not be entirely serious most of the time, but in all the time I’ve been reading the blog, he hasn’t mentioned the Simpsons once.
Mad Priest, the author of Of Course, I Could be Wrong… turns out to be somebody I used to know, nearly a decade ago. He’s a priest in a church north of the Coast Road, and his computer has just broken down. Until then (and hopefully once it gets well, things will pick up again) he wrote prolifically, on a number of subjects: faith, justice, sexuality, humour, music, community - in fact, I’d almost say that all life was there. Oh, he likes dogs too.
Dave Walker, author of The Cartoon Blog was recently Artist in Residence for that quaint gathering of our Anglican brethren, the Lambeth Conference. He draws more gentle cartoons than Jon Birch, most of which are centred around church practice. Following recent controversy pertaining to his coverage of the new management of the SPCK bookshops link Dave has been blogging and cartooning away merrily.
Please let us know what you think, and if you have any recommendations of your own, please leave a comment below.
Happy reading
Since this post went up, Jon Birch’s internet connection broke, leaving ASBO with no entries for quite some time, Dave Walker vanished, Brant - the guy who wrote from Kamp Krusty - went full time with his radio show and had no more time to write, and Mad Priest’s computer died leaving him stranded in the frightening netherworlds of the web. Dave is still missing in action.
11/11/08 23.40 edited to put in a bit which wordpress ate.
Poker & The Power of Bad Analogies
A lot of people seem to labour under the misapprehension that a Royal Flush is a different type of hand to any other Straight Flush. It isn’t. That would be like saying that Ace High was a different kind of hand to any other High Card. The Royal Flush and the Ace High are just the supreme examples of the particular value of hand they represent.
Which is not at all anything like Jesus…
Why I can’t join the “I care more about ending poverty than about the Facebook redesign” group on Facebook
It sounds great, but I’m not sure that I could join and still maintain any sense of being an honest person. Whilst recognising that, in the grand scheme of things, poverty is a far greater problem than the mere irritation of not seeing the three most recent status updates from my friends, I must admit that Facebook intrudes upon my life to a far greater degree, and that my friends talk about it (how far society has come from the days when people would look down their noses at me when I so much as mentioned “chatting online”) much more frequently, and that it’s easier to worry about stuff like how horrible a website looks because, really, it doesn’t matter.
If I join this group, I’ll be setting myself up for getting involved in more than buying fairly traded coffee and chocolate (but not tea, because I can’t afford Marks and Spencers, and the rest is nasty, and anyway, the “we’re ethical, honest” blurb which Yorkshire Tea put on the bottom of their boxes has set my mind at ease), and trying to bring myself to buy the Big Issue (I’m quite happy to accept the Big Issue stance of “We’re a business, not a charity.” since it reduces my levels of guilt for not forking out ever increasing amounts of lolly for an decreasingly worth reading rag - which might the difference between the vendor eating food or gravel that night).
In effect, I’d be saying, “I’m part of the problem too.” Which is no use at all unless I’m ready to whole heartedly do something about it…
Things Which Are Important in my Life and Worth Keeping Hold of
Basically a big long list of everything I own, and do, in a valiant (yet ultimately unsuccessful) effort to reduce the amount clutter in my life.
This could be followed up with a series of humorous posts reporting on how the sorting is going.
There was another piece I was thinking about, concerning the difficulties in talking to people, particularly members of the opposite sex, and especially giving them compliments without sounding like I’m cracking onto them. But since the long and the short of it is that these problems exist, and I can’t really condense the idea down into a title-sized title, then it’s just going to have to wait here as a footnote to the rest of this ridiculous post.
There is a man in the street, outside a party. The sounds of the party are spilling out into and washing over him: laughter, glasses clinking, music, conversation - the general sounds of revelry. The only light in the street comes from the party and the man is lit dimly as most of the light is blocked by people inside, enjoying themselves and casting shadows onto the street. In the dim light, the man casts a dimmer shadow as he kneels at the foot of a broken lamp post, screaming.
He has been screaming for a long time and is utterly alone - just the man and his scream. He cannot remember a time when he hasn’t been screaming. Sometimes he curls up in a ball and sleeps and, for a while, there is blessed silence, but he is unaware of this - he is screaming as he falls asleep and the sound of his screams wakes him up.
The party has been going on a long time and he would love to go inside. But he can’t stop screaming and he knows this would disturb the others and he doesn’t know how to stop.
One day, he feels something different. He feels an arm across his shoulders and the warmth of somebody kneeling next to him. He has no more idea of how long this stranger has been holding him than he has of how long he has been screaming. As the stranger holds him, the man notices that his screaming is becoming less intense and is giving way to sobs and tears and sniffles.
The stranger carries on holding him.
Eventually, the man is silent. He has no more tears, no more pain, no more screaming. “Come inside.” says the stranger. The man is reluctant - his clothes are dirty, his trousers torn at the knees from years of kneeling, he can’t face the people inside, his voice is hoarse, it’s all too much for him - too soon. “Don’t worry,” says the stranger, “come in the kitchen and we’ll have a cup of tea.”
Together, they stand up. And, holding each other, they shakily walk inside.
Closer
“I love you, Tim.” she said,
And I pulled her closer to me.
That night,
It was impossible to tell
Where I ended and she began.
It was just as hard to tell
Where the sex stopped and the tears started.
God was there, and
Understanding,
Wept too.