Conflict of interests.

Mrs Young at the Elders.

Mr Smith was a retired minister. He had taught at a private school, and had been dismissed. He was now a dishwasher and a part time gardener in an oldfolks home. Every Sunday he went up to Westminster cathedral to listen to the choirboys sing. He liked their high tennor voices.

The other passion in his life was potatoes. He liked saying Maris Piper, Record, and King Edward. He knew all about wireworm and blight, and he kept a keen eye on the potato shaws, and admired the sheen and health of the leaves. He regarded potatoes and choirboys with the same rapt gaze.

Mrs Young was the same age as Mr Smith and she loved flowers. She was frail and couldn't do any heavy digging and she would always ask me to prepare a flower bed for her. She liked to surround herself with cut flowers. She liked the scent. She liked the colour. In the big house the splashes of colour in the corridors, and the fragrances over the fireplace, were evidence that Mrs Young had been about her work. Sweet peas, Wallflower, and the climbing rose Zephirine Drouhin were her favourites. She always said the scent from that rose was better than a meal.

Mr Smith also required my services to double dig his trenches for his early potatoes. There was a constant pull between potatoes and flowers, between male and female, between function and frivolity, between formality and abandonment. One day Mr Smith took me aside and said he was going to let me into a great secret and he drew me close and whispered in my ear "You can't eat flowers in the winter". Mrs Young who had been observing this took her secateurs and cut me a perfect single rose and presented it to me with a smile.

My fridge loves me

When you fall in love you are always wanting to be with the one you love. Always phoning them, writing letters, making any excuse to meet them for a date. Now that I have mended our fridge I have fallen in love with it.

When I open the fridge door a little light pops on and smiles hello. Sometimes I open the door and listen to the coolent course through the back plate. If it has switched itself off and is silent I check the thermometer and if it is at 6 degrees everything is cool, no problems.

I have given it lots of presents, well food really. Moved all the stuff I had out on the balcony into its cool belly. At night I have got up to see if it was OK. The condenser has purred at me and thanked me for stocking the shelves with food. It remarked that it had to work hard when the shelves were empty, but now that they are full things have stabilised.

It is excellent that things are back to normal.

Moves

Is moving good for you. Not really it gives you alot of stress and headache. Packing, unpacking, finding new places to stay. You start off with your family, and your mum and dad looks after you, but you might get shunted around a few times from grandmothers to great aunts if there happens to be a tragedy in the family. So the early years go like this.

Bankend Ayrshire Scotland: Rooms with Rab Wright
Glebe Street New Cumnock Ayrshire Scotland: Upstairs house (Mother and Father)
Castlemains Ave Ayrshire Scotland: Granny's house.
Glebe Street New Cumnock Ayrshire Scotland Upstairs house (Father)
Green Braes Road Ayrshire Scotland Great Aunt Marg
Glebe Street New Cumnock Ayrshire Scotland Upstairs house (Father)



You step out of the home and are on your own for the first time when you go to university, and you live the life of a tramp with no roots. It is the nomadic life as Bruce Chatwin puts it. One day you look out of the window and see a bird soaring in the blue sky, and you imediately decide to go walkabout, and like the aborigine who strips himself of all his clothes and walks naked into the desert, you leave the soot and chill of Scotland behind and head for the continent. You work where you can, and sleep in any available bed. The work and the accomodation change with the seasons. Slipping in and out of society. When you leave society behind you have to lie about where you are escaping to, and when you return to society you have to lie about where you have been. Telling lies is not good for you. And from a teenager to a young man it went like this.

Baird Hall of Residence: Sauchihall street Glasgow Scotland (Greece)
Bognor Regis Hants: Summer working at Butlins
Baird Hall of Residence: Sauchihall street Glasgow Scotland ( Morrocco )
Minehead Sommerset: Summer working at Butlins
Rochester Kent: Accounts dept for county council. (Russia)
Neasden London NW10: Macvities and Price biscuit factory on the night shift to buy a boat.
The Grange Leatherhead Surrey : Ronsons lighter factory. (India)



Living to please youself would seem to be the best you can do, but the sun becomes too hot and the body is sick of the heat. India is the last great escape, but a broken landrover and a broken relationship sends me to the cold north of Scandinavia.

William Morris had gone to Iceland to mend his broken heart. I would go to Finland, and become a christian. Mystical monastic life for me. I devour the Spiritual life by Watchman Nee. I sell bibles door to door in Italy for food. I do it all with a sheet of A4 paper with Italian phrases on it.

I then work in an old folks home and see demented old women put their petticoats on top of their dresses. I lift them out of their urine soaked beds. I dress their bed sores. I put their false teeth in their mouths. I listen to the coherent ones tell me that their son will be coming this weekend to take them home. Every week they tell me this story and every weekend the son fails to turn up. Hope springs eternal in the human breast. I lift those who have fallen out of bed and lie dead on the cold cold floor. My son is born, and I begin my life of working for nothing. Five years of not earing a penny, and living never the less.

Koski HL Jokelan Kartano Finland: Odd jobs
Italy, Pisa, Milan, Reggio Emilia: OM
Hammelton Road, Bromley Kent: STL
West Wickham, Kent: STL
Tweedy Road, Bromley Kent: STL
The Elders Ewell Surrey: Old folks home




The stink coming from the mycelium clings to your clothes and hair. You could go into the local library in Hanko and the librarian would sniff you and casually remark "So you work at Fermion do you?" I wonder how many people can have their exact jobs pinpointed from the way they smell? Viikki saw the brith of Riina and Raisa. Kontula saw the birth of Patrik and Ilona.

I was the crazy christian who was so ignorant that I knew nothing about birth control. Intelligence was stamped apon you if you had 1.4 children. To have 5 ment you were a bit loose in the head. Take 5 children on public transport and you will be looked at. I graduated as a microbiologist. Studied, worked, and took care of 5 kids. We survived, and it was not hard.

Then came kick-ass radical christianity with an emphisis on prayer and worship. The Welsh revivalist were left coughing in the smoke of our songs, the shape note singers from Boston in their singing squares were swept away in a barrage of power chords. Charles Wesley was tossed aside and replaced by Kevin Prosch. We were a flaming arrow shot from the bow of a righteous God. It ended very badly.

But I had become a bioinformatician. Not only was it a new word that nobody could spell, apparently the world was clamouring for people who knew something about bioinformatics. I applied to work at the newly founded European Bioinformatics Institute in Cambridge UK . These were the years of study and work study and work study and work.

Gentoftenkatu Hanko Finland: Fermion ( Penicillin factory )
Latokartano Viikkki Finland: Helsinki University
Ostostie Kontula Finland: Helsinki University
Stenbackantie Kauklahti Finland: CSC
Åminnenranta Kauklahti Finland: CSC
Krämertintie Metsälä Finland: CSC




The summer was hot. I let Raisa trim my hair and she having punkish tendencies decided to put a couple of go faster speed strips down the side of my head. It looked a mess so I told her to shave my head completely. However I had a 10 year growth of Raspuitin beard which did not look quite right with a bald head, so I instructed her to swipe it off as well. I did not recognise myself with this clean cut look, and neither did anybody else.

It was then that I was called to the UK for an interview for a job at EBI. I knew a few of the people on the interview panel, but when I entered the interview room in my new defoliated form they had a hard time recognising me. To make matters worse one of the interviewers had a similar bald pate. Everytime I looked across the table it was like looking in a mirror. The rhyme Humpty Dumpty kept running through my head, and instead of answering questions I am thinking about Tweddle Dum and Tweedle Dee from Alice in Wonderland. The interview was surreal and the strange laughter that was bubbling inside me threated to explode in the faces of the panel.

I got the job because I said I was a bioinformatician. Children get married and leave home.

Beck Road Saffron Walden Essex England: EBI
Johnsons house Johnsone yard Saffron Walden Essex: EBI
Cromwell Road Saffron Walden Essex; EBI
Castle Cross Saffron Walden Essex: EBI
EspoonLahti Finland: CSC




Ten years on and I am back in Finland. All of the children are on their own, and everyone of them are beginning to make their own moves. Some are settled some are on the move.

Bruce Chatwin said in Songlines that we are all decended from Nomads and to be on the move has a secret place in our hearts. Personally I have thought that God has tied me down when I wanted to go, and kicked me in the arse when I wanted to stay. I feel a bit like Abraham.

By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.

That is precisely what I have done, and it has taken me 30 moves, and I am wondering what my inheritance might be.

A little bit of history repeating

The fridge is on the blink. It will run for hours and never switch itself off, unless you fiddle with the controls and then it does switch itself off but never comes back on again. The only way to get it going again is to pull the plug, let it stand for 10 to 15 minutes and then plug it in again. Then it runs like a maniac huskey out in the frost heading for home. Thermostat problem everybody says. I believe them.

But what does a thermostat look like and is it easy to replace. I imagine it to be a little gadget that you unplug from a socket, buy a new one, plug it in, and bob's your uncle. Sorted.

I haul the fridge out from the wall and look around for something electrical and I see a small black box attached to the compressor. I remove springs and clips and the cover and it reveals a something with lots of wires atached to it. Electrical must be the thermostat. I take a photo of it, so I can show the man at the spare parts department the type of thermostat I want. It is made by Danfoss. IT looks like this.



I drive to the shop and show the man my photo and he says that it is NOT a thermostat. I feel such a fool, but I ask him where the thermostat would be then and he says connected to the temperature control knob which is at the top of the fridge. Gritting my teeth I buy a general purpose thermostat that should do for all fridges. It is a little metal thing with a long wire coming off it. That wire has to be threaded somehow inside the fridge so it picks up the temperature and controls it.

I get home have a meal and then get down to the job of replacing the thermostat. Rip off the facia. Unscrew bolts and nuts. Unexpectedly little springs and washers were pinging everywhere. Flying so fast out of the electrical guts that I had no idea where they were coming from. Plod on. Soon the front and back of the fridge looked like it had taken a severe hit with a rocket propelled grenade, and after much rattling, clipping, twisting and snipping I extracted the thermostat. If you are wondering what a fridge thermostat looks like then the old one looks like this.



That long wire has to be delicately threaded through the polystyrene insulation and fixed to the back plate of the cooling unit inside the fridge, in a place that is so hidden and obscure, that it could be wearing a cloak of invisibility, or impersonating an essential part in a stealth bomber. Even the nimblest fingers of the fastest weaver would have difficulty attaching it to where it should go.

It took me 2 hours to dismantle everything and put it all back together again. Most of the time was looking at how things were joined together, and discovering after much effort that they were not supposed to be taken apart. At the end of the operation I only had two little nuts left on the table. I did not know where to put them, and half heartedly wished I had a young innocent child on hand who would have mistaken them for sweets and eaten them.

It was then I had the flashback to the washing machine incident. Would the fridge work, or was I looking at giving myself a hernia carrying it to the dumpster. I swicthed it on. It purred into life. There was no sparks or blue electrical flashes. It was working. It ran for an hour, the temperature droped, the thermostat kicked in and it switched the compressor off. James Brown said it best. I feel good.

Washing machine nightmare

Head Junk
Originally uploaded by Drift Words.

Many years ago when my kids were still small our washing machine broke down and I decided to mend it in the living room. The fault was not electrical but mechanical. The big aluminium wheel that spun the drum was broken. To get that thing off required the removal of nut and bolts, springs and washers, and four precision bearings.

I laid everything out on clean newspaper on the floor. Everything in its place so I could put it all back together again. It was then that my young son decided that the small screws and the lovely small washers were in actual fact sweets and began to pick them up and put them in his mouth. There is no reasoning with a boy who is nearly two years old. I was torn between dismantling the washing machine, and preventing my son from choking on a delicious looking gudgeon pin.

It was a fortnight before I got everything back together again, and the nightmare memory that I still have is putting one set of bearings on the hot plate for them to expand and another set of bearings soaked in olive oil in the fridge to contract. Precision bearings are so precise that you have to trick them with hot and cold and oil to get them to fit together. I was a desperate man using desperate measures. A rubber mallet to tap them in place would also have been handy, but I used a good old fashioned Stanley clawheaded hammer to bash the buggers together.

After much pain, sweat, and effort the washing machine was back together again, though there were a few bolts and springs that I couldn't find a place for so I just left them out. That washing machine never spun again, and I nearly gave myself a hernia trying to carry it to the dumpster.

Laughter

Uploaded by deVos.

There is a wave on its way for me. None of my prayers can stop it. That is what I thought in bed this morning.

When my wife awoke I told her of a W.H. Audin quote.

Among those whom I like or admire,
I can find no common denominator,
but among those whom I love, I can:
all of them make me laugh.

I must love my son Patrik alot I thought, becasue he makes me laugh.

She said "I don't make you laugh very often these days."

I said "Would you like me to bring you breakfast in bed."

"No I would much prefer it if you stayed close by me."

"Sweet" I thought, and I said, "You know I have trouble spelling sweet. How do you do it?

"S.W.E.A.T." she said spelling it wrong.

"I am always confused by sweet and sweat. How do you spell a sweet that you have eaten?

She spelt it out "G.O.N.E."

And with that the sea became calm.

How to get from here to there?

cloud
Originally uploaded by HyperBob.

I am stuck. The tragedy in South East Asia will not go away. I find I think about it every day. I read about it. I write about it.

I find a poem or a song that I think captures the moment, and I write it down. It is as though if I could capture the essence of what has happened, then it would make things easier.

I have discovered that a mere understanding of pain and suffering, does not make it go away. It might even make it worse. For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.

What are my own heartaches compared to the misery caused by that unforgiving wall of water, that swept so many innocent people into oblivion.

I am warm. I have eaten. I talked to my children today. I have a home. I will sleep in my own bed tonight. There is some sadness in all of our lives, though nothing compared to the devastation that struck the families living on the rim of that monsterous 1000 kilometer earthquake.

Homes washed way. Cold and hungry, loved ones lost. An indiscriminate deluge, that saw tiny Alexander Lindman washed away by the waves.

What am I looking for? The same as what everyone is looking for. A word of hope to lift me up. A kind word to lighten my heart. A caring hand to ease my load.

I want the cold snow in my world to sparkle with beauty, and the warm sand in their world to feel good beneath their feet.

I want to see things differently. I want to get from here to there, and no photo and no word is helping me at the moment.

I'm falling down

Trying to find a place where I can hide away
To the fountain of youth inside my mind
Where old age can never find me.
Please excuse me I’m not doing well today.
Trying so hard to hide the darkness of my soul.
I’m a outworn heart in a time worn out.
I feel like I’m fading, I’m being tossed about.
There is a hole in my trampoline, I’m falling down.

And friendless, near a thousand friends I stand.
Who didn’t have a crumb of comfort, not even a grain.
Who were all to busy with my praise.
The distances of loneliness, how long they seem to me.
The door that is always locked, wants a key
I can hardly even say my prayers, nor can I be
Does that mean that I am fading, does that mean I am weak?
The soul of my suffering, that sucks my childhood pride
Never knew the leaves of healing, have I been left to die.

On God’s rough tumbling ground.
I’m falling down.
On God’s rough tumbling ground.
I’m falling down.

Am I a prophet or a vagabond?
I am a father and not a commandant.
And I grieve for the loss of all the prodigals.
And fatherless near ten thousand fathers I stand.
A broken little boy with a promise in his hand.
Did you see the crown, my mama crowned me with?
And he that made me bitter, also made me wise
Though I wrestled for the blessing
There was no love for me to find.
And the worlds more full of weeping
Than I can ever understand.
I’m in that place again, where the heart gives up its dead.

There is a place where tears fall
and they make no sound
On God’s rough tumbling ground.
I’m falling down.
There is a place where tears fall
and they make no sound
On God’s rough tumbling ground.
I’m falling down.

KP "Tumbling Ground"

The Red Knight of Fear (from Fisher King)

The Red Knight of Fear (from Fisher King)
Originally uploaded by HyperBob.

As I Walked Out One Evening
W. H. Auden


As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
'Love has no ending.

'I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,

'I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.

'The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.'

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
'O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

'In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

'In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.

'Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.

'O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.

'The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

'Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.

'O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.

'O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.'

It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Article 1
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Article 3
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 4
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

Article 5
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 6
Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

Article 7
All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Article 8
Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

Article 9
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 10
Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Article 11
Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.
No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.

Article 12
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 13
Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each State.
Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

Article 14
Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 15
Everyone has the right to a nationality.
No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

Article 16
Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

Article 17
Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Article 18
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Article 19
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Article 20
Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

Article 21
Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
Everyone has the right to equal access to public service in his country.
The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

Article 22
Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

Article 23
Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Article 24
Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

Article 25
Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

Article 26
Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

Article 27
Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Article 28
Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.

Article 29
Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.
In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 30
Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

Sofia asleep holding a ribbon

Sofia asleep holding a ribbon
Originally uploaded by HyperBob.

Christopher and Terhi had a christening today. The baby was given the name Sofia Edith Helena.

In Finland the names of the babies are kept secret until the actual ceremony. This saves the grandparents wondering if any of their names will be used.

So I asked Terhi what did you call her from the birth until the christening. In public she said "vauva" but in private she whispered Sofia.

Christopher was asked by friends from the UK what the babies name was and all he could say was that it is a secret, and he could not tell anyone. This is unheard of in the UK because as soon as the baby is born it has to be given a name for the birth certificate.

The dress she is wearing was knitted 27 years ago by Maija for our daughter Riina. Indeed it has been used for quite a few christenings. The pink ribbon is exchanged for a blue one when a boy turns up. The silk rose was a touch added by the other grandmother Riita.

So when I got home I decided to open one of my christmas presents to celebrate and it turned out to be Reese's Nutragenous. That warmed my heart. It is good when your own children remember what you like, and then go to the effort of getting it for you.

Joy to the World

Christmas is a time of joy and laughter. A time to sing songs together. You know it is good when you loose control laughing. When you forget that your front teeth are missing, and your mother is taking a photo of a toothless grin that you will hate in years to come. You are oblivious to the camera, and someone could push a plug, into your face, using your nose as a socket, and the energy coming off you would light up a christmas tree.

The kids wait for their presents, and if it happens that the first present out of the wrapper is a spiderman suit, a red and blue lycra concoction, that they have dreamed about, as they practised the hand movements, to shoot imaginary spider webs to swing on, then the evening is over and done with as far as all other presents are concerned.

It is just a pity that you do not become a super-hero by doning a tight blue and red suit, and no matter how hard you throw yourself at the wall, the suit does not have the power to make you defy gravity. You have to be satisfied by looking damn cool, as you strike a classic spiderman pose. It is unfortunate that the illusion of being a super-hero these days is all down to posing. The power is missing.

The excellence of a gift is in its appropriateness and not in its value

I decided to get radical with my own presents and not to open any of them. It is not being disrespectful to the people who gave me presents, it is just that I want to wait for special occasions to celebrate. Or rather many special occasions.

I believe I will celebrate by opening a present tomorrow at the christening of my grand-daughter.

Buy nothing for Christmas

Blue Aarikka Angel and me
Originally uploaded by HyperBob.

Does it take courage to buy nothing for Christmas? The kids expect it. The relations send christmas cards, and for each one you get you have to send one back. It is the season for giving and advertisements appear in the shops as early as October.

Post early for Christmas is to blame, or more specifically the American soldiers who fought in the II World War. If they were to get their presents on time for the 25th then you had to post early for Christmas which ment shopping early as well, and so it burgeoned into a full blown consumer fest.

We get ties we don't want, dresses that don't fit, coats of the wrong colour, jewelrey that is obnoxious, sweets to make us sick, and more food than would feed a small village in Africa.

The celebration is supposed to be about Christ coming to the world and bringing the good news of peace and goodwill between God and man. The three wise men brought their gifts and so we commemorate the event by giving gifts to each other. But commerce has taken over to the extent that the peace and goodwill that should be christmas, has been replaced by stress and tension. Fights, arguments, drunkeness, abuse, dissatisfaction, depression, neglect, rejection are the emotions that are felt at the festive table.

Apparently Christmas is the time when hopes and expectations are built up. Families will be together, and will show love and care for each other, but instead dreams are dashed and Christmas becomes a crashing bore. We spend so much time thinking about love, and so little time feeling it.

It is too late to make this a Buy nothing for Christmas year but next year be a rebel and don't spend a cent. No cards, no presents. Don't cook a christmas meal, don't get landed with all the pots and and pans to clean up. Give up being a consumer. Consuming is not good for you.

Here is a Buy nothing for christmas song.

Ilona's Graduation

Father and Daughter
Originally uploaded by Iita.

Attended Ilona's graduation at Plymouth University. She is now a B. Sc. in Psychology.

In my seat I silently rehearsed something that I could shout out. Something Finnish that only she would know. A phrase that would be go straight to her heart and nobody elses.

But the thought of all the precious words I could say brought the flush of blood to my throat, that thickening of the viens that is a precursor to tears.

Being proud is such an overpowering emotion.

Here's to your health

branch
Originally uploaded by Uluriansanskrit.

When I studied microbiology we were taught about a famous case of a cholera outbreak in London in 1854.

John Snow drew a map of the area around Broad Street and came to the conclusion that the disease was being spread from a certain water pump, and that people were drinking water contaminated by sewage.

He was a doctor who considered the environment as a contributing factor towards health. Bad environment equals bad health. Simple concept.

Doctors today very rarely get out and about. They remain stuck in their offices. When a patient arrives in bad health, a pill in prescribed to make them well.

The doctor does not see their living conditions, nor does he see the food they have been eating, or anything to do with their lifestyle. Whether they are extremely rich or devilishly poor. Illness is being viewed entirely from a biochemical point of view. Pop the right pill and you will get better.

Many of the major diseases have been irradicated by vaccinations, for example smallpox and polio, and pills will continue to be given for high blood pressure and depression and impotence, but you have to wonder about the real reasons for all our aches and pains, rashes and headaches, yeast infections, stomach upsets, broken wrists, cracking hip joints, acne, spots, cracked nails, missing teeth, bad breath, bad eyesight, warts, impetigo, constipation, skin blotches, sores, cuts, bruises, sprains, cancerous throats and lungs, ruined liver and kidneys, worn knee joints, asthma, runny noses.

In actual fact healthiness has got more to do with the way we live and the things we do. But then again some poeple have no choice but to become ill. If the only source of water is a pump contaminated by sewage, even with the best will in the world, and regardless of all their prayers, they will be brought low. But when we are ill, we all want a miracle to happen, a magic pill to take away the pain, to restore our well being, and make us better, so we can continue on as before.

Now if the world were viewed as London of 1885 and there was a benevolent doctor like John Snow, who would go out and plot the areas of devastation, what kind of dots would he plot on his world map. What would the world map show when it comes to disease and famine, and would anybody care to do something about it?

He would find that in many countries in Africa they have no clean water, and gastrointestinal infections kills around 2.2 million people globally each year, mostly children in developing countries. That is more people than die in your average world war.

In a world where there are stockpiles of food going to waste, people go hungry to bed every night. What pill is available to make them all get better?

Tea Time for Children

Japanese green tea
Originally uploaded by tamaki.

When we were so new
and I wanted to impress
we drank our tea green.

Having no money
I collected the leaves
of arab peppermint.

To celebrate we
put fresh red monardia
in our sparse white cups.

Lapsang Souchong was
eagerly drunk even though
it was a mystery.

Unexpectedly
when we had become older
Assam surprised us.

Children are like teas
to be appreciated
when age catches you.

Don't buy anything day

dumpsite
Originally uploaded by 2m.

In Finland they recently had Don't buy anything day. A simple idea and when I heard it on the radio I decided to not buy anything that day.

No petrol for the car, no food for the fridge, no entertainment. I decided to see the day through with nothing. It was easy, but who could do it day out day in, which is the reality for many people in the world.

It was all about awareness. The stuff that we consume it must come from somewhere, and somebody must make it, but do we care? Not really.

You see I am the logo man. I believe in brands. I've got Nike on my feet, and Addidas pants, my socks are by le coq sportif, my shirt is by Ben Sherman, my glasses by Ray Bann, my watch is a Tag, but when I wear my Armani suit, I put on my Rolex. I drive a Merc for business and for pleasure I have the BMW.

See this belt buckle it is encrusted with real diamonds, and this ring on my little finger is worth a down payment for a mayfair flat. I've had all my teeth capped, and a hair transplant to cover that small bald patch that was developing on the crown of my head. The botox has removed all the lines and crows feet from around my eyes, and of course my nose is much smaller now. The spare tyre around my waist was removed by liposuction, and I wear a very discrete corset to keep the stomach flat. No-one ever notices because my suits are so well cut they disguise everything.

Look at me I have class. You see I buy only the best, and not only the best, but the most expensive. When you look at me you add up all the price tags of all the items I am wearing you must think to yourself that I must be somebody. Somebody with class, someone with taste, someone who is well stacked.

But every night I sleep naked.

A bunch of flowers for mum

A bunch of flowers for mum
Originally uploaded by -=HB=-.

This is one of the photos that I like of all the photos I have ever taken. It is tender and fragile. No face just a small hand holding a bunch of wilting flowers with badly bent stems.

Every child at one time or another will gather flowers for their mother. They will pick the best they can get. The idea behind giving flowers is to make the person receiving them feel glad or happy.

The camera only captures the external, and it very rarely captures the heart.

For me this photo for some strange reason is all about love, and that makes me happy.

Robert G. jr and Annie B.

Robert G. jr and Annie B.
Originally uploaded by -=HB=-.

Dug out some old photos of my father and mother, and some of me as a kid. Old photos really have a story to tell. I found a couple of photos of my grandfather and his brother on horseback when they were out in Argentina. They look a couple of rough characters, ready to beat the shit out of you just for a laugh.

When we visited my Aunt Marjorie she told of some of their exploits in South America. It sounded a bit like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, busting out of jail and fleeing the country back to Scotland. I don't know if any of it was true, since they were stories passed on from my grandfather to his children. Everyone wants to make their history more exciting tan it really is. But then again history itself can make your life more exciting than you would ever want it to be.

It has been said that for any Scotsman to succeed then he has to leave Scotland. That was what was drumed into me by my father, who felt trapped in the village, condemed to a life of unemployment. Get educated and get out.

Education was the key to open doors. If you had no education then all that was on offer was a life down the mines, and you could see too many old miners standing on the corners coughing their lungs up, due to the amount of coal dust they had swallowed in a lifetime. Mining ruined your health. Education made you healthy.

Working or cooking?

Reyna preparing bread
Originally uploaded by Mexicanwave.

Freud said that a persons mental health can be judged by their capacity to work. I think a better estimate can be made if you can assess their ability to cook.

Today I watched my wife make bread. I looked at her as she kneeded the dough, cut it into decent sized portions, and formed and patted it into the shape of a roll. Flour was on the table, and on her fingertips, and a smudge on her brow.

The rolls were laid out on a grease proof paper to rise and then placed in the oven to bake. The smell in the kitchen was good.

In the afternoon I made shepherds pie. Peeled the potatoes and boiled them, and when they were ready mashed them and added butter and milk. The mince meat I fried with onions and spiced with salt and pepper. I greased a earthen ware dish with butter and mixed the mashed potatoes and mince together, and topped it off with some breadcrumbs and cheese.

We ate it together with homemade beetroot. It was a fine satisfying meal.

What can you say about people who do not cook? Those that have the money to eat out... those that can't make dough or peel a potato or slice an onion. Those that have never cut an onion in half and looked at its layers... those that have never cut those layers in criss-crosses to obtain diced onion.

The ones who never lay the table for a meal, who throw something in the microwave, and eat it off their bellies while slouched in front of the TV. Those that eat alone, where eating is a chore rather than a pleasure. Something you do to survive. Something to fill in time.

It is strange to say that there is immense satisfaction to be had from preparing veretables for a soup. Working with a good japanese knife to cut and to slice... and what do you think about as you cut... you think of shapes and sizes, you think of colour. There are so many ways to slice a carrot. The Chinese even have time to carve roses out of carrots.

My father as he got older, first of all he stoped working, and as Alzheimers set in he stoped cooking, and when he stoped cooking he stoped eating, and he wasted away. That was when we had to get meals-one-wheels for him because he lost track of time, and did not know when it was time to eat. If it was dark and six o'clock it could either be morning or night to him. He did not remember anymore. When we visited him he told the most elaborate lies about the wondeful meal he had cooked yesterday. He would describe making soup in great detail, but the plain fact of the matter he had not cooked for himself in years. We would sit an politely listen. It would be pointless to challenge him on the matter. Only the things that he remembered were real to him, and if he remembered making soup yesterday then he must have made soup yesterday, and he would not be convinced otherwise.

I remarked to Maija that I found it pleasurable to cook a meal every day, and she asked me when would I find it pleasurable to do the washing up.

I think that washing up is just a short step away.

I love a rainy day

Leonard J. Buck Garden - Panorama of Forests
Originally uploaded by khurtwilliams.

Have you every wanted to get soaked in the rain, and shake yourself like a dog to get the water off you?

There was one mid-summer we took all of the kids for a picnic in the forest. We had bread, and a rice and tuna salad. We cycled into the forest to find a good place. We climbed up some rocks and found a good flat place and as we spread out the food on the ground, a black thunder cloud rolled over our heads.

Just as we started to eat, large heavy drops of rain began to fall. The raindrops were warm, and they made a sound like bubble wrap popping as they hit the ground. There was no discussion about packing up and heading off home. So we sat there and ate our food, hoping that the clouds would pass, but the rain picked up, and soon it was bucketing down. That sheet rain you could feel when it hits you.

The kids were wondering what the hell was going on. Mum and Dad were sitting in the rain, getting soaked and eating their food. They were not moving. They were not giving instructions to pack up and head back home, so the kids got stuck into their food, and got soaked as well. Their hair got wet and was plastered to their faces. Their T-shirts took on that transparent wet look. Trousers and jeans became slick and wet. We were looking at each other, observing how wet we all looked. We didn't actually get around to laughing at the absurdity of the situation, but there was a giggle bubbling inside.

Lawrence Durrell once said that his ambition was to be very still on the outside and dance around on the inside. As we sat in that summer downpour. Not running for cover, not hiding or taking shelter, just sitting on a bare rock being drenched, it seemed to be the perfect thing to do on a perfect day.

Spoon Children

Patrik
Originally uploaded by -=HB=-.

On my birthday I went to the museum of modern art in Helsinki with Raisa. There were many interesting exhibits, and videos. The best experiance at the exhibition was a series of 27 ceramic pots streching diagonally across the room. Each pot had a piece of thick cardboard on top of it an inside was a "Scent from Babylon". Raisa was wondering which scent would make the best perfume. She liked the birch tar for some reason. Strong and earthy no doubt.

For me it was ambergris, which according to the dictionary is a waxy substance containing mainly cholesterol secreted by the intestinal tract of the sperm whale, and often found floating in the sea: used in the manufacture of perfumes. Smelling good is not for everyone. It is reported that Napoleon sent a message to Josephine, "Home in 3 days, don't wash." What a weird small man he was.

There was a series of five photos where people had their faces covered by spoons, and I decided when I get home I am going to do a series with my five children. So I took sepia coloured photos of the cloured originals with a spoon over my face.

My children look haunted having a spoon for a father.

Näätämö

Näätämö 18th Nov 233
Originally uploaded by GBH.

Today I deleted most of my photos from Flickr. What I did leave was the Näätämö series complete with mysterious alien spaceship. I deleted the Jugend series, trashed the fishmarket stuff, threw out the pike gutting series with Pat and Raisa, removed all the Seurasarri series, cabin and sunset, the lot. Ditched all the flowers, scrapped the MSD molecules. All of the montages of favourites got the heave. Elli the angel got the chop, and Ilona on Spiderman's hand made a trip over the blue event horizon.

I then went an removed all the information from my profile save a reference to Hildegard von Bingen. I have a soft spot for 12th century nuns who made music from heaven. I removed myself from all of the groups I subscribed to save Finland Finland Finland, apparently I can't remove myself from it because I am the admin.

I reduced my sets from 15 to 3 so all that is left is the greatest party trick ever, the Näätämö series, (nobody even saw the aliens I had cleaverly crafted into the photos... jokes are not jokes if you are the only person laughing), and a series of photos about benches in Heitaniemi graveyard.

Now I have to wonder what order to put the sets in. TRICK, ALIEN ABDUCTION and DEATH seems to be the order of the day.

Now I must away, and finish off that Los Monteros red, that I bought myself for my birthday, and play a game of scrabble with the wife.

Big Billy and the rhubarb wine

Miekie enjoying her rosé [Photoshopped]
Originally uploaded by deVos.

My father was a great gardener. In the winter he would get manure delivered from the Castlemains farm, and he would work it into the soil ready for the spring. At one end of the garden was a couple of rows of rhubarb. We had more than enough rhubarb to give away to anyone who wanted it.

My dad hit on the idea of making rhubarb wine with the stuff. No matter that it was as bitter as hell with lots of oxcalic acid. It was red and therefore would produce great red wine.

He did not have any fermentation equipment and he used a big green bread bin to do the fermentation in. The rhubarb was cut up and mixed with sugar then topped up with water. Before the lid was placed on the bin 4 slices of toast were floated on top of the liquid. I have no idea what the function of this bread was but apparently it was an intregal part of the process.

After a suitable period of time the liquid was filtered through a muslin nappy and bottled. The bottles were stored in the sideboard in the living room. My father would have kept them there forever, being under the impression that a good wine needed time to mature, but this was not the opinion of Big Billy who persuaded my father that there was a need to crack open a bottle or two to test its quality.

Big Billy was renowned for being able to hold his drink, no matter what he drunk, so it came as a surprise to my father that after the drinking session Big Billy had gone home and spewed up in bed. The story went that his mother had found him bleary eyed and lying in his vomit, and the only word that came out of his mouth was "Bob".

The rumour went around that my father had poisoned Big Billy, but my father always maintained that after consuming 2 bottles of perfectly good rhubarb wine Big Billy had gone and drunk 8 pints of stout, and as anybody will tell you.

Beer before wine
makes you feel fine.
Wine before beer
makes you feel queer.

I believed my father, and still do.

We're aw gan' tae Blackpool

Blackpool Tower
Originally uploaded by silentresonance.

Miners in the village worked 50 weeks of the year, and during that time they all saved up to go on a two week holiday to Blackpool. There were as many pubs as there were churches in the village. The miners who went to church were Brethern or Baptist. The miners who went to pubs were football fans. To a man they all supported Rangers and dispised Celtic.

The miners who went to church worked in their gardens, or went for walks with their dogs over the hills. The miners who went to pubs, well went to pubs and pished their wages agaist the wall. It was the miners who went to pubs that headed off to Blackpool. The miners who went to church would not been seen in such a den of iniquity.

When the day arrived there were about 11-12 coaches lined up along the main road and the miners and their families would pile in with their crates of beer, and as the buses pulled away, there would be waving and screaming from the bus windows "We're aw gan' tae Blackpool". For the 2 weeks that they were away, the village was a ghost town.

My father was not a miner and when I was a boy he was unemployed all of the time. From when I was age 5 until 18. I did not think it strange he did not work. My mother was dead, and he was there to look after me. Got me up to school in the morning, fed me breakfast, cooked me dinner, and sent me off to bed with supper.

I never went to Blackpool... but having passed through the town later in life I don't think I would have liked it.

Happy father's day Dad.

Accidents will happen

ow
Originally uploaded by hillarybird.

By profession my dad was a plasterer. A few years after he married he had an accident. He was up on some scaffolding which was not secured properly, and as he walked out along the plank, it tipped up like a see-saw.

He fell with legs splayed, and he was hit between the legs by a tressle. He fell to the ground, and the plank that he had been walking on, tipped over and came crashing down and hit him on the skull.

He was taken to hospital with a fractured skull. There was internal bleeding from his brain so they bored two holes in his skull to let the blood out and relieve the pressure.

While in hospital the insurance company visited my mother and persuaded her that since most likely he was going to die she should take a lump sum of money to cover the accident instead of a life long compensation. It made more sence since he was going to die anyway. He did not die, and he had to live with his disability.

He never worked as a plasterer again. He said it was because he had developed a fear of heights. He combed his hair forward to cover the holes that had been bored in his head.

He often remarked that the silver plate they and put in his head to seal up the holes was probably worth more than the money the insurance company had paid him.

Nothing but the dead and dying...

beauty mark
Originally uploaded by Vanita.

The village I grew up in had 5 coal mines. The most famous one was Knockshinnock, and only because it had a disaster on the 7th of Sept 1950. My uncle Andrew, the one I went fishing with, was walking home over the fields at the end of his shift, when he felt the ground loosen and shudder beneath his feet. Behind him the whole of the field seemed to be disappearing and collapsing into a gigantic hole.

What had happened was the mine workings had come too near the surface and had broken through into a lake of liquid peat, which then poured down into the pit. Thirteen lives were lost.

The pits closed down one by one until there was only one pit left in Aryshire called The Barony, and all the miners went to work there. When it was closed the miners moved away to England and the village died. The schemes with the miners houses are all boarded up. The place is a ghost town, with no jobs for anyone.

This was the village that my father was traped in. For as long as I can remember all of his letters to me were about getting away. When he was younger it was to Australia or New Zealand, and when he was older it was back home to Wick in Caithness. He never went anywhere.

He died in the year 2000. The year he always said he would live to. He was 83 years old. He was buried in the same grave as my mother. I placed his guitar on top of his coffin, kept his mandolin for myself, and gave his accordian away.

At his burial were many people that I did not know. I recited a Scottish version of the 23rd psalm that he loved to recite to me. That was the best I could do. Passing words back to him that he had given to me.

Life through the letterbox

violinist
Originally uploaded by boskizzi.

My mother died when I was 8. I was shipped off to an aunt's while the funeral was arranged. I did not attend the funeral, and nobody ever spoke about her dying. I suppose all the relatives were being sensitive, and protecting my innocence. I did not see the mourning process. There was no expression of grief. I would have expected if I had been at the graveside I would have seen some tears surely.

I never saw my father crying over the loss of his wife, and he never talked to me about it. But I do remember one incident that has stayed with me for life.

We lived in an upstairs house and if you lifted the letterbox lid you could look right up the stairs to the top of the landing. My father loved to stand at the top of the stairs and play the fiddle. He said it was because the acoustics were good.

One day soon after my mother had died I came home and I could hear him playing at the top of the stairs. Instead of opening the door and going in, I lifted the letterbox lid and peered into the gloom. He was playing "the flours o' the forest have a wee'd a'waw" a lament to grieve the dead at the battle of Culloden moor, and what pain and sorrow he had never been able to say in words cames streaming out of him in this one song.

I blinked and tears came to my eyes and I let the letterbox lid quietly drop. I waited until he had finished playing then went in.

He didn't say anything, and I didn't say anything either.

Make a new friend everyday

brain
Originally uploaded by Kether.

My Dad would be standing out at the bus stop and Maija would get out of the car and go over to him. He would not recognise her, but he would never let on. The alarm bells would be going off in his head. This person knows me and I should know her.

"Hello Bob nice to see you again"

Thinks: Who the hell is she? Says: And nice to see you again too.

"We've had a long drive up."

Thinks: Where is she from? Says: Was there much traffic?

"Just after Cambridge the M11 was terrible"

Thinks: So she is not from around here. Says: Did you drive all that way by yourself?

"No we split it half and half, Rob drove to Scotch Corner and I drove the rest.

Thinks: So she is with somebody called Rob. Says: How long will you and Rob be here for?

"Oh we thought we could stay the weekend with you, if that is OK?"

Thinks: Stay the weekend with me, they must be friends or relatives. Says: Well the house is in a bit of a mess.

"Well we can have a tidy up, and get the fire going, cook a meal, and you can give us a tune on the fiddle"

Think: She knows alot about my house and my habits. Says: That would be grand

At some point in the conversation it would click in place that Maija was his daughter-in-law and Rob was his son, but he could not hold that idea for long. When sitting beside the coal fire he would confuse me with his brother Andrew and start talking to me and calling me Addie.

He would tell the most elaborate stories about his son Robert who was doing well for himself over in Finland. I half expected some horror story to unfold and I would learn what my father really thought of me, but it never came. He only had good words to say about me. To sit and listen to someone talk to you, about yourself, not realising that the person they are speaking about is sitting right in front of them, is an un-nerving experiance.

What was important though was that the storehouse of memories in my father's heart towards me were good ones, and he verbalised them to me as though I were a stranger.

Fishy tales

DSC00498.JPG
Originally uploaded by Jack Pine.

I fished on the river Afton and sometimes on the Nith. The english would come up and fish the slow moving reaches of the Nith for pike and pearch.

Sitting on the bank of a river and throwing bait into the water to attract fish is not fishing, to really fish you had to be Scottish and "walk the water", and the fish the english caught and thought were magnificent were beneath contempt. The Scots would kill pike and pearch and leave them to rot on the banks of the river. The only true fish that a fisherman would go after were trout or salmon.

Most of the time I went fishing with my Uncle Andrew who was a miner, and all of his free time was taken up with fishing. When you are down in the black dank of the mines you tend to spend all of your free time out in the open air and in the sunshine. He was a worm fisher and loved to go fishing when the Nith was in spate. When the water was muddy. It was then that he caught his biggest and best fish. Even though I tried to emulate his moves, observed how he crouched, cast the line in places that he favoured, I never caught anything. Some people are good at fishing, some people are good at betting on horses. It is a mystry what you have to do to succeed.

My father was of the opinion that the secret was in the worms you used. He was a great fisher when he was a boy, or at least he said so, and he would tell tales of titanic struggles to land a salmon. The reeling in and the letting go of the line, the exact gauge of the trace, the breaking strength of the line and its colour.

I would trudge home with an empty basket and he would say. "Let me see the worms you're using" I would show him. "Too small you need bigger worms" I would use bigger worms but get nothing and he would say "It's cloudy today you should have tried bramble worms" I would try bramble worms which I dug up from the sewage plant on the outskirts of town. They were stripy worms, but they didn't work either. "That's because you are not putting them on your hook properly" He would tell me how to bait a hook and out I went again, but only returned empty handed.

He only ever told me what to do. He never actually went fishing with me. I wonder why that was?

Shaggy dog stories

precious
Originally uploaded by krystalm.

We did not have a TV. Well that is not exactly true we did have a TV but it was not plugged in, and it did not have an ariel, and besides my dad had it locked away in the living room cupboard, where no-one could see it. Especially the radar men in their radar vans who went around looking for people who had TV's, but had not paid their license.

So what do you do on a cold winters night, well you stoked up the fire with coal, and slouched back in your chair with you feet up on the mantle and listened to your Dad tell stories. He would do impersonations of Mary the dyker talking to her black lab Beaut. Mary was a woman, and by profession she was a dyker, which ment she built dry stone dykes which are common on the Ayrshire hills.

Beaut was her dog who accompanied her everywhere. Beaut was a crazy barker. He would loose control when he barked. The Mary the dyker stories were always the same. Mary giving ineffective commands to shut Beaut up, and Beaut becoming more agitated and vocal, and ignoring her commands completely.

The stories contained descriptions of Mary's face, red with rage, veins pulsating on the brow of her temple, and spittle flying, as she shouted at her dog. As for Beaut all he ever did was bark, but to spice up the story there were graphic descriptons of how his testicles moved during a barking frenzy. My dad would bark like Beaut, and scream like Mary, and carry the dialogue between dog and woman for a good 15 minutes.

Even at the end of his life he was still making jokes about dogs. On observing a long haired Scottish terrier barking outside the window he mused that if you shoved a broom stick up that dogs arse it would make a fine feather duster.

I wonder what made him think that way, and having had that thought, why did he let the words slip out of his mouth.

Alzheimer's I suppose.

Dancing the blues away

dancer
Originally uploaded by mcmrbt.

Civilized man thinks out his difficulties... Primitive man dances out his difficulties.

R.R. Marrett

How I long for a Ceilldh. A time of people dancing together. Social dancing, raucous and roaring. Drops of Brandy, Strip the willow, Dashing white sargeant.

Shouting out at the top of you lungs "Best set in the hall", and when the fiddler makes the rosen dust fly off the bow, to give that incoherent scream of "HOOOOoooochhhhhh" that guttural roar that is so celtic, it could be a warcry, a challenge to every other dancer, to dance wilder, faster, and more fearsome than me.

The parting glass

I grew up with music in our house. My father played the fiddle. He played the mandolin and he played the accordian. His brother was in a dance band. I learnt songs at an early age. I sang songs in the streets. Folk songs, rebel songs, songs about the dead and dying, songs about injustice, comical songs, songs by Robert Burns. There was a great oral tradition, of songs being passed on from one generation to another.

While in London living in lodgings with Norman Blyth at Neasden NW10, and living with an Irish landlady, we would go to Irish clubs and they would sing the saddest songs in the world, they would sing fighting songs, and it seemed each and every one had a great voice, and knew a song that nobody else knew, and remembered words and melody, as though it were running through their blood. Tunes passed from father to son.

On the evening that Norman and I set off to sail around the world we fell in with Terry from Cork. He was fat. He was middle aged. He had a grey stubble of a beard, and greasy grey hair that hung in curls over his brow. His teeth were tobacco stained, and he enjoyed his stout. He had the voice of an angel.

We all got roaring drunk an in the moonlight at half past one in the morning the three of us staggered out of the pub. Me and Norman on either side of Terry, and him with his arms around our necks, and as we walked we sung. We sung "I've been a wide rover", and if it so happened we stoped under the light of a lampost we gave the chorus laldie. We sang "Ye rambling boys of pleasure"

It was down by Sally's Garden one evening late I took my way.
there I spied this pretty little girl, and those words to me sure she did say
She advised me to take love easy, as the leaves fall from the tree.
But I was young and foolish, with my darling could not agree.

We sang in harmony with Terry taking the top notes like a good Irish tenor, and there under the light of the lampost Terry grabbed us fiercely around our necks, and pulled us closer to tell us that he loved us.

It was the drink talking. "Take me with you boys, I don't want to work the night shift at Heinz baked beans anymore. It's the freedom of the sea for me. Take me with you" We knew he didn't mean it, but you want to show solidarity when your drunk. He launched into "Hunt the bonny shoals of herring"

Oh, it was a fine and a pleasant day
Out of Yarmouth harbour I was faring
As a cabin boy on a sailing lugger
For to go and hunt the shoals of herring

As we sang we were on the deck of that fishing boat, with the salt spray in our faces. The road was heaving as though in a gale. We held on to each other to stop from falling over, and we sang the words so they could be heard above the whipping wind. Windows from a few houses were flung open and angry english accents told us to "shut the fuck up", and that only served to bring our gaelic blood to the boil and for us to sing even louder.

The Scots and the Irish have only ever had songs as effective weapons against the English. While cannon and muskets and sabers and swords rust, break, and disappear. Songs live on.

We reached Terry's house and he was doing that drunk handshake that seems to go on for ever. Just when you think he was going to let go he would renew his grip and squeeze harder. His hands were crossed in front of him and he shook both my hand and Norman's, and then he took his solo "The parting glass"

Oh, all the money e'er I had, I spent it in good company.
And all the harm that ever I've done, alas it was to none but me.
And all I've done for want of wit to mem'ry now I can't recall;
So fill to me the parting glass, Good night and joy be with you all.

Oh, all the comrades e'er I had, they're sorry for my going away.
And all the sweethearts e'er I had, they'd wished me one more day to stay.
But since it falls unto my lot, that I should rise and you should not,
I gently rise and softly call, Goodnight and joy be with you all.

The longing and the heartache in his voice was too much for Norman and me and we stood in the middle of the road weeping softly like idiots, the clear snot running from our noses. The sadness was for wanting there to be more nights like this, and knowing that there never would be another night like this ever again.

I feel I have failed my children since I never taught them songs or poems. What legacy or heritage do they have?

The Legendary Marvin Pontiac

What kind of music would you expect to hear from the son of an African father from Mali and a Jewish mother from New Rochelle New York? Marvin Pontiac was raised in Mali from age four to fifteen, then moved to Chicago. His first recording was in 1952, "I'm A Doggy". Following several other recordings Pontiac was institutionalized after riding his bicycle down the street naked in Slidell LA. Like his mother before him, who was also committed to a mental hospital, he lived in constant fear that he would be abducted by aliens. He was killed by a bus in 1977 and just like Robert Johnstone, his recordings were only recently rediscovered and reissued.

His music even though it was recorded in the 50's and 60's has a jagged modern edge to it. At the time most people were releasing records at 33 rpm or 45 rpm, but Marvin becasue of his obsession with prime numbers had all of his records mastered at 37 rmp. As a consequence nobody ever knew what Marvin sounded like live, if they played his disks on a conventional turntable. David Bowie says of the collection "A dazzling collection! It strikes me that Pontiac was so uncontainably prescient that one might think that these tracks had been assembled today."

The photos in this article were take by a fellow inmate of the Esmeraldo State Mental Institute, and show off Marvin's penchant for wearing a chef's hat while dressed in his bedclothes.

There are no linear notes with the CD so I have put together some coments on each track so you can appereciate the man and his music.

Track 1 I am a doggy. This track is an underground cult classic, and Snoop doggy Dog has said that it was when he first heard this 37 rpm record from '52 that he decided to call himself Snoop Doggy Dog.

Track 2 Small car This track features traditional tribal instruments from Mali, and is a rare example of Marvin singing after electric shock therapy. Barry White says that he was very influenced by the vocal styling of Marvin during this period.

Track 3 Now I am happy when released caused a sensation and the riff that Marvin laid down was stolen by James Brown, and used in many of his hit records. Marvin tried to sue Brown for copyright infringment, but he lost the court case and became clinicaly depressed. Some believe that he began to have mental problems during this period of his life.

Track 4 Power John Lennon said that he was astounded when he first heard the tape loops on Power, and that Marvin had been the inspiration behind Tomorrow never knows

Track 5 Runnin' round This features Marvin on wah-wah guitar. It is the earliest known recording of wah-wah guitar. Jimi Hendrix during his Electric Ladyland interview said "Marvin is the man, he taught me everything I know about wah-wah"

Track 6 Pancakes Altough released in the USA this record never made it to the Billboard charts, but for some unknown reason it was a phenomenal hit in Nigeria and Japan. Marvin plays a traditional tribal xylophone and gives the track a strange oriental feel. This was made when Marvin was in his Zen period.

Track 7 Bring me rocks Although Marvin always contested that he even experimented with psychodelic drugs the words in this song somehow betray an involvement. "My lips are big enough to park a car in them" gives a clear indication that he was edging towards a nervous breakdown.

Track 8 Rubin This song was recorded in the music therapy room of the Esmeraldo State Mental Institution. Marvin always claimed it was about his Polish Jewish grandfather.

It has the sad lyric "Rubin has lost his way", but his doctor at the time Dr Taurus Waist claims that Marvin is really singing this song about himself, and lamenting the fact that he feels lost.

Track 9 Wanna Wanna As with much of Marvin's music the hook line from this track has been stolen by the Spice Girls. When questioned about the similarities between their first hit single and Marvin's Wanna Wanna they categorically denied that they had ever heard of Marvin Pontiac.

Track 10 Sleep at night Recorded in 1955 there has been contention over who has played harmonica on this sparse early track. Most critics agree that it is Little Walter, before he had his famous fight with Marvin, before the cookie crumb incident, when the two men came to blows over who had been eating digestive biscuits and playing the harmonica at the same time.

Track 11 Arms and Legs Recorded when Marvin was delusional. It is a chronicle of just how far Marvin's mental health had deteriorated. An uneasy track to listen to because Marvin's paranoia is so self evident.

Track 12 She ain't going home Elmore James said that it was after hearing this track in the 50's that he decided to take up slide guitar.

Track 13 Little Fly Near the end of his career Marvin released a novelty record. He was so desperate to have a hit. Although it is a childs novelty song, it still contains references to aliens. While at the Esmeraldo Institute he feared that like his mother he would be captured by aliens.

Track 14 No kids It is rather insensitive that the compilers of this CD have included 14 tracks. Marvin would never have agreed to this since he was fanatical about prime numbers and would surely have left the album at 13 tracks. However this was the last song Marvin ever recorded. It was after this recording that he stole a bike and rode off naked into the sunset. (The first time when questioned by the police for riding a bike naked in Slidell L.A. he remarked that he rode naked so there would be a better exchange of molecules between him and the bike. It was his firm belief that if he could exchange all of the molecules of his body with those of the bike, he would thus escape detection by aliens.

Marvin Pontiac was run over by a bus and killed in 1977.

"In my formative years, as an aspiring bass player, there was nothing I listened to more than Marvin Pontiac." -Flea
"A Revelation." -Leonard Cohen
"Marvin would kick your ass for nothing. A true genius, Marvin was a pure original." -Iggy Pop
"I don't believe anything I hear about Marvin Pontiac" -Bob Dylan

Halloween memory

Dead Head
Originally uploaded by raygrasso.

I had a rumage around Flickr for photos of Halloween. There are tons of them. Many pictures are of adults dressing up as vampires, witches, skeletons, devils. Many of the masks are grotesque and horrible. White makeup and black lipstick seem to be the order of the night.

There were also some photos of some very young children with white painted faces, and dark sunken eyes. Their faces were wan, and a sadness was in their eyes. Party time. Time to go out and enjoy yourselves, and collect sweets. Carnival

The one halloween I remember as a child was when my grandmother tried to do something special for me. I must have been five at the time. She hung some decorations outside the bedroom window. The decorations were the concertina type that you pull out and hang up at christmas. Nothing wrong with that. There was a slight breeze and the decorations made a strange rustling noise against the window. The sodium street lamp shone through the decorations and the the cutout patterns cast strange shadows on the bedroom wall.

If the shadows had remained still it might have been OK, but since the decorations were moving in the wind, the shadows in the bedroom moved about, and I could easily imagine hollow eye sockets and sharp teeth. Phantoms in the room with me. It scared me. I could not go to sleep, but instead watched the shadows flicker on the walls. If I shut my eyes for a moment the window would be broken and evil would rush in and get me. I asked my grandmother to take the decorations down since they frightened me. She explained it was only the wind and the yellow streetlamp and that I should not be afraid. I cried and pleaded for them to be taken down, and in the end they relented and went out and removed the decorations from outside the window. I was terrified. Terrified by shadows. The unknown was outside my window tapping to get in.

Is it not odd that parents who do everything in their power to protect their children from evil, from violence on TV, who prohibit them from playing video games that involve death and mayhem, who walk them safely to school and back again, who protect and cherish them, on this one night of the year dress their little angels up as devils, and instill in them the stuff of nightmares.

Unhappy halloween to everybody.