29/8/06

A lot of it is about timing and luck and the motivation of good coffee – plus I’ve learnt to keep the curtains closed and that way I look only at the screen and think about the story – an old favourite movie often helps – you work it out –

The animals this day are in close-up – a different environment now to that of yesterday – they are kept this time in a small wildlife park; some are tethered, others roam freely in the mud and the pens – did you know a Tapir has been the same for 35 million years, evolution has found the ideal shape and mass for its natural habitat and they are cool with that – still the Peregrine Falcon sticks in my mind the most despite all the Lemurs (bonkers) and the Otters (beautiful) –

If Jesus walked the earth again they’d stick him in one of these and people would pay good money to come watch him circle his pen -

27/8/06 – 28/8/06

In the farmhouse: silence – outside, the rim of the earth across dark stretches of water – far lights echoed in the tide – complete night beyond – we are in here with the full knowledge of the animals without, they present themselves readily by day but now they are just aspects of knowledge waiting to repeat their routines at dawn; occasional silhouettes making their way to the safer ground down by the estuary cross the last pale variants of sky and give the final hints as to their movement –

up in the adjacent tower a set of giant viewing glasses bring many things near (the orange row of lights on the coast road lining the opposite shore; the spinning wind turbines at Workington where the land dissolves; the far stretches of silver mud in the day where the sea-water and land shimmer together) adding to our sense of the remote – by day the tower reveals the close flight of Martins above the farmyard, being exactly at their prime altitude one is filled with a rare sense of proximity as they twitter and urge each other on to greater feats of aerial acumen, they become familiar rather than merely tantalising –

at dusk, Curlews call plaintive on the mud-flats and in the local fields – their pairings camouflaged and delicate except where they stand in long grass and reveal their slow, loping walk and almost ludicrous beak – but theirs is the evocative music of dusk, the one and only sound of place tonight – an aching heart sound, bittersweet, definite and long-lasting – who would want to escape the enchantment of Caerlaverock they ask?

We are witness to young Roe Deer; to gently patient Herons; to the nervous power of a Sparrowhawk; and to the solitary Osprey at the water’s edge, motionless for hours on a vantage post before twilight’s signal gives him grace to move and he flies, matching the waterline East -

24/8/06

It begins with harmonious laughter and a need to belong somewhere, perhaps not geographically but socially. The recent months of relative solitude are peeling back to reveal someone far more raw and undermined than I had thought existed. Someone prepared to act.

St Bartholomew’s Day is alive with wide open skies and fortune. Auspices of the wild.

Mind you, they flayed him alive.

22/8/06

If you’re about to tell anyone let them know it has to be about patience. Can you learn that now at your age? If not, chances are it will not be a pleasant ending. Stations of the cross and all that.

The artificial is sometimes beautiful. I’ve spent twenty four hours in an environment built by modern day kings (whom usually I despise) and realised that they had created something rather special. A realm of peace and tranquillity hidden in the landscape, where red squirrel and pheasants and countless other species are provided for.

At heart however I am realising something with a far greater impact. A core emptiness that needs to be filled/fuelled/eradicated/nurtured. This in me. And I cannot name it or identify it’s source. Perhaps it is the necessary place of faith? Or solace? Or constant agony? I am not sure yet. But it remains wholly dissatisfied with life. I suspect if I delve into it, allow it to become complete, it will take me places, make me curious to find it’s ‘cure’.

21/8/06

Silence is the policy of hope – before judgement, down on one metaphorical knee; a paintbrush (of all things) in one hand and a list of wrongdoings in the other – it’s a moment of chastisement followed by humility followed by contrition of the most naked sort – chances are it won’t ever happen again which would be the worst and best thing in the world combined – still a fool is always a fool (in tarot, card zero) and this one walks with the oddest gait that leads him to gaze perpetually upward, not looking where he is going while his steps lead inevitably to his fall –

A mattress on the floor; a scattering of possessions

20/8/06

Delicacy gone – the rattlebag of bones at the roadside and the organic anger of a couple, two friends lets say, laid waste by bad communication – sleep deprived I wander – each droplet of rain is an ally today, walking with me in a way none have ever done before – these are the thoughts, the exegeses of what will be – these are the thoughts of a rambling idiot who walks and talks alone in the borders, his neck craned to the mud and his galoshes soaked through – he knows only that the lapwings are present, the shimmering estuary pools at dusk, the cloud lace on the fells above and below, the leaden feet and the memory of screaming scaly fuckers leaving their ring-pull and plastic -

19/8/06

Raincheck in the pouring, driving precipitation – an odd thing to do? Not sure. Necessary this morning; the cold, grey light of awareness is picking on me once more and showing me the way to go, if that is possible.

Open the window a fraction, want to hear the water and wipe away the sleep.

Is it possible to be in a perpetual state of war drunkenness? A kind of hangover from the effects of daily bad news? For months – years - now, as I’m sure you are equally aware, the news has been the same. There is no progress in Afghanistan, Iraq, in the supposed W.O.T. (or ‘what?’ as it should be renamed). UK army troop recruitment is up to over 11,000 new young men and women who will be inevitably sent to one of these war zones. Meanwhile, a general in Afghanistan finally uses the term ‘war’ to describe the current clashes with Taliban insurgents and guerrilla groups. This is not even to mention the utter futility of the past month’s war between Israel and Hezbollah.

It’s depressing. It proves only that the conflict nature of humanity is as strong today as it always was. That it is inevitable. Violence and destruction is our cultural identity and it is the example we give to the impressionable and the rising countries and states of the world. Who will, in turn, perpetuate.

Living here, one is subjected to the onslaught of humanity in the most all-consuming ways. Thousands upon thousands of people flooding in on a daily basis, more people than the town can actually cope with. Bringing with them the unbelievable ignorance of the holiday Brit – drinking, shouting, hanging out down the chip shop. Nothing different in their behaviour to being home wherever that may be – and they revel in it. Meanwhile, others claiming to love the country block up the roads with their cars, pumping tons of pollutants into the local atmosphere, then driving out into the hills because they are too scared to actually feel the wind against them. They want their wilderness tame.

All the while, the RAF fly overhead – Jaguars and Tomcats – howling at the fells the constant song of death –

It should all be a bad dream, a fiction, something from which one wakes and looks out of the window and says to oneself ‘no everything’s fine, I can relax’ – no such luck -

17/8/06

What is this nonsense? This consumer bullshit? Apparently Gillette have produced a six-blade razor – we’ve had two, then three, then vibrating ones and now six!! This is madness; trade madness and greed. Not only that these are gimmicks – they don’t work or make your chin any smoother than a single blade razor used properly. Surely any man worth his salt can learn how to shave properly. The question has to be asked who is this razor for? A gorilla about to take up a job in Canary Wharf? An ergonomically obsessive Sweeney Todd?

Maybe we’d all be better of living on the planet Xena? Shameful thing is we’d fuck that one up too.

Signed up to A Year Of Living Generously website in response to this consumer nonsense.

Keyword: RESPONSIBILITY

- - - - - -

The smokers line up under the yew tree in the car park for a quick, lonely fag. Middle-aged men and women with consternation on their brows.

The 'scally' boys and men in their summer shorts and shades and the ubiquitous dog on a leash – usually a Staff or Pit Bull straining and panting – off down the bookies, even here on their holidays.

14/8/06

The conspiracy continues – The Guardian reports today that ‘terror cells’ are mounting training exercises in various national parks in the UK, including here in the Lake District. Apparently groups of up to 20 men are gathering for outdoor training, and are currently being watched by undercover detectives.

How believable is this? I mean to say that I’ve lived here now for three months and if a group of Middle Eastern or Muslim men arrived they would stand out and not go unnoticed. The Asian families that work and run the Chinese restaurants and the take-aways here are already proof enough of that. This is ‘white’ (Christian?) England, believe me. Yes there are some remote areas where you might be able to hide out for a few days but even so, eventually somebody is going to notice 20 inevitably darker-skinned and probably bearded men running around the hills and presumably driving through towns and villages, even stopping for supplies.

Are we to believe the government and the security services? Can we trust their motives? Are they trying to cover their tracks for invading Iraq in the first place and finding nothing more than a sanction-stricken population and soldiers that couldn’t fight and a stupid old man stuck in the ground? And in turn bringing the war to our doorsteps?

13/8/06

Sunday – a final wash of righteousness left over from the Convention appears at the cusp of the river where it charges under the stone bridge, but other than that this one is very different –

It starts with a meteor shower around 2a.m. and a vivid half moon still screaming amid clouds which have the appearance of silver-rimmed animations; there are some folk out watching through bins and teles on the crests of hills overlooking the lake – a few are short on patience and wait maybe ten minutes or so before heading off home again having seen no more than satellites in orbit and the odd shooting star. The real sky freaks wait all night and their patience is well rewarded – heavenly blues and greens where the things enter the atmosphere, streaking through and leaving a stain on the sky and the same on the nervous systems of the onlookers and other inhabitants –

In town there’s blood in the alley behind the chip-shop where a fight took place – they haven’t seen the like for years – and the paramedics had to give aid to the concussed. Arnold blamed it on a loud mouth but witnesses said something queer seemed to come over him, like he was possessed, and he just began peppering the lad with his fists; then he took off in the direction of the river -

At dawn time is held in check, you can see it happen if you’re lucky and the market square revels in silence, lingering in its nostalgia for the quiet months before the onset of the daily invasion – the bin men sing lines from Dire Straits songs: Hey girl your boyfriend’s back - And then the growling begins, like the earth has decided to open up and throw what it doesn’t want to keep back out onto this plane; and on they come, all the hundreds in their cars and their campers and their coach loads and they swell and bloom, eager to consume, eat and destroy; to feast on as much of this place as they can in a day, to do everything in haste and blind folly –

Omens? - a golden retriever stained with green ink in its fur; closely followed by total power cut across town -

And then the Hell’s Angels come – their bikes pressed into the narrow street at the top end of the square and lined up on display outside The Dog and Gun – leather clad peacocks enjoying the attention they garner; the looks of shock and fear from some passers-by and enthralled amazement from others – Angels are always a throwback to a time gone by, approximately 1972, I never see today in them even though their bikes have changed – one Harley here has a built in stereo system that chucks out thunder rock just to keep the image whole – but it’s as if they are theme park additions themselves now; a kind of social joke, they look impressive but there’s not much to them any more, nothing radical (to quote the zeitgeist) –

I think on it this morning, the urgent zeitgeist; walking through this safe haven for the moderate lifers of northern England and the comely Yanks and the Dutch shoppers seeming to be drawn by some magnet that is Keswick; and I have to wonder why these people and the authorities act so amazed when they ask why these young ‘Muslims’ are angry enough to kill innocent civilians etc etc. There’s an odd tone to the reporting of this latest ‘terror plot’, a tone that suggests we are deep down still stuck with a 1950’s reality of what Britain should be; a nostalgia that surfaces in times of crisis which leads us to be so dumbfounded that such actions are being planned or that the terrorists had the gall to procure such resources necessary. A kind of collective Margot Leadbetter voice saying: ‘Oh, how dare they! I mean what have we done to offend them?’ I want to say that the authorities must be dumb if they think they are facing an enemy that won’t try outwitting them at every turn. That is the point of war is it not? And the authorities, at the instigation of President Blair, should be aware of that. We are at war after all, even if we weren’t before the invasion of Iraq. Perhaps his government simply doesn’t want us to panic, that if we keep the traditional stiff-upper lip all will eventually be well. But I believe that they are even kidding themselves. They, the government, have failed to make us more secure; they have failed utterly to do so and have brought the war home to us -

Everyone is asking: what radicalises these young people? That’s the wrong question. I can dig into my own past and in all probability many people’s pasts, including some members of the current ‘leadership’. The history of radicalised youth is not unique to one era or one section of society; and ironically it is a powerful product of ‘freedom’. However, freedom has (always was?) become a state of being for a very limited few. Freedom brings great powerlessness to the underprivileged and the ostracised. This realisation is often fuelled by the accompanying disorientation of early adolescence or adulthood, when one is thrashing around, seeking to belong, to find some foundation for one’s being in a world where things shift all the time and you can’t seem to get a key on it to begin your life. Often one settles on what is most appealing to one’s anti-establishment energy – in my case it was nuclear disarmament, animal rights, road protests and the poll tax; those were issues of the times when I hit my late teens, they affected me so I protested. More importantly they gave me a voice, a reason to be me. Which in some ways is one step removed from the motivations of a martyr. One learns to challenge what one finds offensive and in so doing begins to form opinions which inform the burgeoning adult self and make us what we are -

Words, and their true meaning, are becoming increasingly important. Bush has already changed the dictionary definition of the word ‘freedom’ – it should now read: ‘that state of being declared free by the elected governments of the west provided it conforms to their notion of political, religious and social responsibility’. If we make people afraid of the word ‘radical’ which we are doing by bandying it around in conjunction with the word ‘terror’ we are in danger of losing our right to speak out and to protest - placating the western governments attacks on liberty and freedom of speech, bowing to their ever-increasing paranoia. Orwell must be turning in his grave -

The real question that we should be ask (and government, though they are ineffective when it comes to social problems) and in the media is ‘what makes these men succumb to violence?’ It is not simply religious faith. That is too easy and too dangerous a reason – if we believe that then only persecution can come. No; violence is fashionable. You only have to turn on the news. Violence is perpetrated on young and old alike. It is an acquired belief supported by government hypocrisy and it makes the powerless angry. If someone threatens or harm someone you love then what will be the natural response? You will inevitably be angry and wish to attack them in return. It is the simple cycle of violence. Like I’ve said before, this is not rocket science. And yet the government stands incredulous when it ‘discovers’ so called potential terror threats among us. It is nothing to do with being British and everything to do with cause and effect. Violence gives the veneer of power to the violent; and it is addictive. But of course short-lived; like any addiction it’s need must be placated -

I’m a lucky man. For me the day ends in a beautiful meadow surrounded by swallows weaving through the air in low-flight patterns, switching back on themselves, darting over the nearby river which burbles like all good rivers should. Playing, eating, drinking and socialising with a group of mild-mannered people whose only concern is how to sort out a Frisbee throwing contest. I don’t have to deal with blood on my doorstep. Yet.

10/8/06

So maybe the theorists were wrong after all? Two of them are crying in the street today. Another terror ‘plot’ foiled; risk and security now high in the airports of the country – the country full stop -

We are paralysed by one common factor: foreign policy –

It’s not rocket science. Everyone talks about the shock that the suspects are ‘home-grown’ British Muslims and that there must be something wrong with our society to produce such radical young men. That is a deliberate red herring. Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and now Lebanon. Simple when you see it in black and white -

8/8/06

Conspiracy theorists – and there are many up here, perhaps because it is easy to hide out in the hills, obscured by clouds – some believe Princess Diana was killed because of her relationship with a Muslim; others that 9/11 was a plot by the Bush administration to give fuel to his W.O.T. and thereby give him reason to finish the job his Dad left incomplete a decade ago. The theorists will rapidly tell you these things in bars and cafes; as if they share something that no-one else has ever heard of. But then that is the way of things up here in the rarefied atmosphere of Cumbria – maybe it is too much exposure to the sun, maybe it is simply geography? Bearing in mind the recent evangelist convention here and I begin to see a pattern – a version of the 21^st century US frontier emerging in the wilder parts of this country: rednecks, bible freaks, conspiracy theorists etc. – perhaps this is the millenarian town of the UK, the locus mundi of Armageddon?

However there is one thing that many agree on and can be proven: the recent increase in RAF practice runs over the town. Yesterday they flew at least 7 missions – mostly Jaguars from what I can see, perhaps the odd F-111 – coming in low over Walla Crag and turning sharply north along the river plateau toward Bassenthwaite. It’s a nasty and frightening experience when they do – all peace is broken, you’re left with a dry taste of fear in your mouth at the shock of noise. Sweet Barbara tells me how two collided above the lake 19 years ago – killing one of the pilots ands leaving debris of one plane on the Crag itself and the other at Grasmere some 5 miles south.

Rumours; high energy thespians playing cat and mouse with each other’s emotions. In some ways it was inevitable, in others it’s just simply sad. I keep my mouth shut.

6/8/06

At the end of the day friendship is easily abused when it comes to money, no matter how nice you may have been to someone they always have the potential to fuck you over when their wallet is empty, even when they’ve promised to pay. The trouble is, what suffers in the end is not dignity or humour but history, what you shared – besides something suggested that all his conversations were performances

Some think of Anne of Green Gables as an erotic classic apparently – discuss

Should you always trust your lover to tell you everything? How do you feel if they have been in touch with an ex but not told you? And have not told the ex about you, the new lover; even after let’s say at least 6 months? And what, then, if you are told the ex is due to visit? How should you react? Should you be cautious/jealous/questioning? Or should you just let it go?

The god gatherers are there beneath the bandstand in Penrith in the rain. Mostly shaven-headed men in their thirties and a lone and slightly scared hippie woman with her acoustic guitar; I guess these are not of the Convention – but locals who prefer their praise in this way, singing songs to a dead Cumbrian town of a Sunday afternoon

Each morning this week I’m going to stare at my face in the mirror and try to come to some understanding, to see what other people see, and then clock if it has any effect on me – it could be seen as a form of meditation! The ultimate navel gazing

5/8/06

CLOUD COVER

A face from the past - she's a millionairess apparently

And in the streets too many middle-aged men wearing not enough clothes, pretending they are on holiday in the Caribbean or somewhere like it –

There is always competition; even here – why is that?

Each arc of cloud this morning most definitely has a silver lining – therefore I must assume that we are still at war –

The first moments of wakefulness are like multiple agonies at the moment – the onrush of thoughts is immediate –

There is nothing like being a little drunk and sitting at the edge of the lake gone 10pm and watching the clouds roll in over the hills, covering them gently in threads and scars of white – meanwhile wondering just what is my destiny to be

The Convention 'One World' field is clearing camp – there are hollers and prayers, many American voices saying goodbye – the confederacy makes for home - the skeletal remains of their marquee now something coarse and unprepared against the beauty of the lowest cloud I have seen here, the lake hidden and all the surrounding fells gone -

2/8/06

Three days of isolation; three days staring out of the same window at the driving, all-consuming rain. Enough to drive a man insane

The river swells; the battles still rage

Huge flocks of jackdaws criss-cross the sky above the town, calling as they go – a metallic barking sound

Bored kids play knock-down-ginger on the flats opposite and pretend to chat up girls. One even screams like a girl just for effect

Elsewhere, the lager is in full flow and the racist chants have begun. The Whitehaven Firm are up to no good again. Tonight is their night and they won’t tolerate anything that doesn’t match or equate to home. There is no cause or effect in their world, in their law, things just are

Meanwhile

I am learning to love small things, things that can’t be bought – opening eyes up to details that always made me happy but have gone unnoticed for too long

1/8/06

Castro is unwell. He has handed power over to his brother Raoul - meanwhile Bush sits in front of a huge plastic vista of Miami beaches and gloats. He wants the Cuban exiles to have a home he says. Some of these exiles are right-wing assassins with mafia connections that go back to the 40’s – these are the people that Bush claims he ‘cares for’ – no change there then -