but she breakfasts like a little girl

Thursday 26th May 2011 11:33 PM

On Tuesday night I took part in a gig in York to celebrate the life and works of Bob Dylan. I'm sure that there were thousands of other similar events taking place all over the globe that evening. People write university theses on him and there's been over a thousand different books written about him, and amazingly he's not even dead. Not only isn't he not dead, in the last picture I saw of him he looked like Douglas Fairbanks Junior playing Zorro.

I've really enjoyed all the Dylan related media stuff this week and especially the Martin Scorcese documentary on BBC2. Bob was variously referred to as having the ear of a generation, the voice of a generation and the conscience of a generation. Some even said he was the heart, lungs and urogenitary tract of a generation, but to be honest, not many.

It was also widely acknowledged that he had his finger on the pulse of a generation. The documentary showed a wild assortment of bohemian, beatnik, artists, musicians and poets, all wandering around New York's Greenwich village in the early sixties, all desperately searching for the pulse of a generation. Of course none of them could find it, mainly because Bob had his finger on it, and he wouldn't let anyone else look at it.

I once met a genuine beatnik in Afghanistan in 1975. He'd gone there from New York in 1963 and had unfortunately got preserved in a local jail for twelve years. Although his soul and spirit had evolved during that time, culturally speaking he was as fresh as the day he was canned. I had the good fortune to drink sweet mint tea with him in the Pardeeso restaurant in Herat, and am delighted to report that he wore a beret and referred to humans as 'cats'. At the time that felt more exotic to me than the nearby Buddahs of Bamian.

Seeing footage of Alan Ginsberg in the documentary, I think he might have been a beatnik as well. He was on a stage intoning stream-of-consciousness poetry dressed only in a pair of off-taupe underpants. He had quite a following apparently, although they say he didn't get much work in schools.

Standing out from the array of often tubercular talking-heads was a refreshingly robust Irishman called Tom Clancy. Interviewed forty years on he didn't look much different from the sixties clips, and I think he might have been wearing the same sensible, white, heavy with lanoline, cable-knit, Arran-style sweater. He reckoned that Bob was a shaman and that all his songs are channelled from the fourth dimension. (It's said that Chris de Burghs songs are also channelled, but sadly from the second dimension).

The way that Bob bobbed in 1965 has endured as a template for cool for over 45 years, and since then, despite an involvement in born-again Christianity and a recording with the Frog Chorus, I think he's stayed pretty cool. I didn't bother buying him anything for his birthday this year, because he's got everything he needs, he's an artist, and he don't look bad for 70.

Posted 11:33 PM | 21 Comments | Permalink

may may be mighty

Wednesday 25th May 2011 9:34 PM

In a blatant attempt at crowd-pleasing, May has not only brought us some balmy weather but also a royal wedding, the beatification of a pope, and a to-the-death fist-fight between Henry Cooper and Osama Bin Laden. The latter event, which I didn't see because it was only available on Sky, sounded a very unlikely scenario to me. There's strong evidence to suggest that our 'Enery actually died years ago, either from injuries sustained in his last fight against Joe Bugner or possibly from the great smell of Brut. It's said that all subsequent public appearances of the great man were played by either Bernard Bresslaw or Bernard Cribbins.

Meanwhile my caravan is in a state of high revolution. It started last month when the winds of change blew half the conservatory roof off and smashed the heavy glass door into a glittering pile of safety crystals. After re-roofing and replacing the door I've introduced some sweeping, dusting and cleaning reforms, and, watching this through connecting windows, my front room, bathroom and bedroom have all gone crazy with the whiff of freedom and have risen up against me. Acceding to their demands, I've had to redecorate the front room, bottom out the kitchen cupboards and de-scale the toilet. Mm, tidy!

I wrote the previous about three weeks ago and intended to finish it off and post it but I'm afraid to say that non-cyber life took over again. Osama's death now seems to be old hat and Kate and Wills could be in the throes of divorce proceedings for all I know. The beatification of Pope John Paul George Ringo was a lot less high profile than expected, so all in all this blog lacks a bit of topical tang.

Despite the fact that it's a bit stale and was at best only half-cooked in the first place, I'm still going to serve it up, because I haven't blogged since who knows what knows when, and there might be some of you out there who were wondering about my continued existence. With this last paragraph being fresh, I hope it's acted as a sort of green side-salad, and that these last few words are as escaped pea-lets running from a freshly-snapped mange-tout.

Posted 9:34 PM | 18 Comments | Permalink

stirrings

Friday 11th March 2011 11:25 PM

Spring spring……spring spring…….spring spring….

Will somebody answer that?

Spring spring ….. spring spring …..spri….

Hello?...

One moment please…..

…….it's for you.

It's not just the funnely spiralled catkins wobbling in the wind outside the caravan window that tell me that the coiled spring of spring has sprung. Everywhere speaks of it.

'Well, well, well', it gushes.

Even though Brian Cox, the new floppy-locked TV sexy-face of scientific reductionism, would disagree with me, I believe that the moon and stars are looking especially bright at the moment because our diligent, creation-proud God has been polishing the silver again. He, God that is, not Brian, has to start spring-cleaning in early February due to the sheer amount of dwelling places he has. It's on record that he lives in a house with many mansions, and, according to some early desert fathers, he's also got a caravan in Whitby.

It's not just out there, in the garden and the frothing churned milk of constellations, that Spring is making herself known. Inside I can feel a surging tide-change in my blood and hear the rush of soul-shingle as it roars up Mystery Beach into the light of consciousness. I believe that the goal I scored last Sunday against Pannal, (arriving from deep and without breaking stride sweeping a left-footer into the top corner, from the edge of the box), was a direct result of this cosmic outpouring of love, although at the time I didn't mention it to any of the lads. (If truth be told I was actually trying to make a tackle, and my first reaction on seeing it go in the net was to think I'd scored an own goal)

Besides catkins, and delusions of Scotty Parker, Spring has also brought us bloody revolutions and devastating earthquakes. It's brought Bob Diamond of Barclays bank a six million pound bonus for some really great banking, and yesterday it brought a cheery bullfinch and two green finches to my bird-feeder. The sensory overload of so many gifts at once can be overwhelming, and if it wasn't for al-Qaeda spiking my cigarettes with cannabis, I don't know how I'd cope.

Posted 11:25 PM | 16 Comments | Permalink

a day in the life

Friday 28th January 2011 9:56 AM

I read the news today, oh boy! Four thousand blackbirds dead in Arkansas, and though the birds were rather small, the US army had to count them all. A top blackbirds-falling-out-of-the-sky expert, Professor Merle Plummet from the KFC University of Endlessly Repeated Unquestioned Knowledge, said that the birds had been disorientated by New Year fireworks. No, me neither. The professor's six year old son, Robin, who wanted to know why it didn't happen every July 4^th, was unavailable for comment, having been sent to bed.

Forty thousand 'devil' crabs, anemones and assorted sponges die suddenly off the coast of Kent and are washed up onto local beaches along with a mysterious deposit of black sand. Despite the fact that 'devil' crabs live quite happily off the coast of north Norway, the deaths are attributed to hyperthermia due to the recent cold weather. Having hard shells and a naturally sunny disposition, 'devil' crabs are not easily susceptible to suicide cults, so I think the most likely explanation is that some type of experimental micro-wave weapons technology has fallen into the hands of sea-gulls.

Contradictions to the theories and certainties of official science happen every day. As John Michell once said, 'The real world is quite different from the way our teachers describe it, and it is a great deal more interesting.

Posted 9:56 AM | 18 Comments | Permalink

bumps in the knight

Wednesday 5th January 2011 1:13 AM

On reading Fridays Guardian I notice that once again me, my Mum and I have all been overlooked in the January honours list. When we saw that our names weren't among the MBEs or OBEs our hopes of recognition started fading, but Mum's friend, The Fabulous Betty, who was round delivering old issues of Hello! and Tawdry! magazine, said there was a whisper going around that I was going to be made a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order. Apparently, Sheila and Dawn in the hairdressers said they thought that it was a straight run off between me and the Duchy of Lancaster and Lord-lieutenant of Lancashire, Charles Geoffrey Nicholas Kay-Shuttleworth Shuttleworth, who incredibly is only one person. Unfortunately, despite her best intentions, The Fabulous Betty's gift of false hope only served to prolong our disappointment.

We noted with mute pleasure that Annie Lennox had deservedly been made a civil officer in the Order of the British Empire for her services to androgeny and pop-songs, while Lady Antonia Fraser ascends, on the wings of royal approval, to become a Dame Wing-Commander Rear-Gunner in the Royal Order of Gandalf, presumably for her services to poshness.

In a disappointing season for the football world, only Howard Webb, who was a criminal judge in the World Cup Final, secured any sort of honour. My own ungongworthy contribution to York Corinthians season was poor and lacked any sort of quality or consistency. It's no good having a great engine, and being on fire, if it only happens when you're in the car.

That magnificent, mighty, melty God, Thaw, came round to the caravan on Saturday and finally got my water back on after a month, but being a fanciful God he didn't mend the leaks before he left. Cosmic beings rarely shop at B&Q, so I suppose it'll be up to me to find a push-fit fifteen millimetre plastic elbow. Although the Gods possess many and varied miraculous powers it's a strange truth that none of them are any good at plumbing, possibly, some say, because their hands are too big.

Last night at 9:03 I felt the caravan move as though it had been given two big shoves by an elephant, so I went outside to shoo it away. However, when I couldn't see any elephants, or indeed any of their distinctive droppings, I presumed it to be an earthquake. I learned later that there had indeed been one, epicentred on Ripon and measuring 3.6 on the Rickety scale. Having survived the great Lincolnshire earthquake of 2008 as well, which at 5.3 on the Rickety scale was almost fifty per cent more devastating, I'm beginning to feel that I must have been born under a lucky star.

Last night, at 9.03, I could have been indulging in the lapidary arts, perhaps at the critical moment in the cleaving of a rough diamond. Following the natural shape of an octahedral raw diamond crystal is tricky enough, especially after a couple of spliffs, but with the added distractions of an earthquake, the results could have been literally shattering.

As luck would have it I was sat on the settee reading the sports section of the Guardian and recalculating the top of the league one table in light of Huddersfield Towns' recent 1-0 win over Sheffield Wednesday. When the quake hit it was instant chaos. Without any warning, Brighton and Southampton just simply disappeared and I couldn't see Charlton or Bournemouth anywhere. Hartlepool and Brentford were all over the place and for one awful moment it looked like Town had actually dropped out of the top six. That's when the adrenalin really kicked in.

In that split second, every instinct I'd ever had, every woman I'd ever loved, every mountain I'd ever climbed, every star I'd ever wished upon, every badger I'd ever kissed, they all told me what I had to do. If I was going to successfully recalculate those top six positions I was going to have to wait for the trembling to stop. There was no other way round it. I was just going to have to ride it out.

The whole event only lasted maybe three or four seconds, but under those circumstances, and with the eerie background rattle of tinkling tea-cups, it felt more like four or five. In the end, I reckoned Town were in a place of automatic promotion, not unlike the Duchy of Lancaster and Lord-lieutenant of Lancashire, Charles Geoffrey Nicholas Kay-Shuttleworth Shuttleworth.

Posted 1:13 AM | 16 Comments | Permalink