Gulam and his seeds

Gulam is from Afghanistan. He gardens in a nice shirt and stay-pressed tousers. He is unemployed like most of the people who work at the allotments. If he had money he would buy a plastic tunnel to bring on his seeds, but instead he builds his own cold frame with wood from the building site and a bit of plastic.

In it he has marrows, cucumbers, and different salads that he has grown from seed brought from Afghanistan. He has given me seeds wraped in little paper cones. He says it is "tirp" I have sown it and he promises that in a week the plants will have germinated and I should have a bed of green that is cut and come again. Sounds interesting. Some of the salads he has have got interesting tastes. One looks like clover but tastes like peas.



He is also of the opinion that cheap vegetables you buy from the supermarket and expensive ones you grow for yourself. He waxed lyrical about the number of varieties of grape that grew in his village, and told stories of some miraculous drink that once you drank it no matter how stuffed you were feeling it instantly made you feel hungry again. He told of seven men roasting and eating a whole sheep. He laughed at the memory of it. Something that belonged to home. Something that could never happen in Finland. There was a longing for the fire and the open air and the smell of roast lamb. He sucked the air in through his teeth and nodded his head, and there was a sadness in his eyes for times gone by.

Ulla and Janne at the allotments

The weather has warmed up, and there is alot of activity down at the allotments. The Chinese and the Cambodians are the most active, and the Kurds and Afghans a close second. The Finns and myself are late starters. I talked to a Finn who once had once owned a plot near to mine and I was complaining that the ground was so wet and heavy it was difficult to turn. Heavy clay which when it gets baked in the sun turns to concrete. He said he gave it up just becasue of those reason. The plots where I am gets lots of runoff water from the slope above the allotments.

I borrowed a rotovator from Veski and I have broken up the ground as best I could, and then I have turned in loads of horse manure to lightern up the ground. Over the weekend I put in Timo potatoes and onions. Nobody grows potatoes except me and the Finns. Why is this? Well a Kurddish boy says you can get potatoes for 50 cents a kilo so it is not worth to grow potatoes. This opinions was reinforced by Gulam from Afghanistan who only grew things that were expensive in the shops, or things that would not be eaten by hares or rabbits.

I loaned the rotavator to Salem and Behzad, and in turn they dumped manure on my ground. Behzad also gave me some rhubarb cos he did not like it... too sour... I think he must have been eating it raw, and never thought about putting it a pie. Salem also sowed some "tartur" for me. It is a Kurddish salad which they sow and cut when it reaches 15cm, and then it grows again. It reminds me of some sort of cress, and Salem says it should be up is 3-4 days.

Now that I have got the ground into a reasonable condition Ulla and Janne tell me that the local council have plans to use the allotment area to build a library and a culture centre. So this may be the last year. Typical!!! you bust your gut getting the ground into condition only to discover that you won't reap any benifits next year. I walked around and looked at all the black current bushes, raspberries, rhubarb, strawberries, apple trees, and all the other perenials. If the development goes ahead then everything will be ripped up.

This is really ironic that the allotments are mostly worked by displaced peoples. People who have lost their homes and their land. The Kurd who works the plot next to mine once had 50 cows and a farm in Iraq. Now he has a plot of hard clay 10x10 meters and that will be taken away from him. No wonder people get the impression that they are continually being oppressed.

But that is the price of culture.

Reading by candle light

Red rose when plucked, my soaring heart did thrill,
Dried rose by candlelight, excites me still.
Locked heart yields not, the secrets of the soul,
By candle light, all secrets can unfold.
Skin feels the touch of frost, the chill of snow,
Bathed warm by candle light, healed by its glow.
Shadows fade, age no longer haunts the night,
Youth again returns in that wonderous light.
The flame, does dance, outside the air is cold,
wax melts, to hide the candlestick of gold.

Theology can wait until the last line of the poem

The ballad of Judas Iscariot by Robert Buchanan (1841-1901)

'Twas the body of Judas Iscariot
Lay in the Field of Blood;
'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot
Beside the body stood.

Black was the earth by night,
And black was the sky;
Black, black were the broken clouds,
Tho' the red Moon went by.

'Twas the body of Judas Iscariot
Strangled and dead lay there;
'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot
Look'd on it in despair.

The breath of the World came and went
Like a sick man's in rest;
Drop by drop on the World's eyes
The dews fell cool and blest.

Then the soul of Judas Iscariot
Did make a gentle moan --
'I will bury underneath the ground
My flesh and blood and bone.

'I will bury deep beneath the soil,
Lest mortals look thereon,
And when the wolf and raven come
The body will be gone!

'The stones of the field are sharp as steel,
And hard and cold, God wot;
And I must bear my body hence
Until I find a spot!'

'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot,
So grim, and gaunt, and gray,
Raised the body of Judas Iscariot,
And carried it away.

And as he bare it from the field
Its touch was cold as ice,
And the ivory teeth within the jaw
Rattled aloud, like dice.

As the soul of Judas Iscariot
Carried its load with pain,
The Eye of Heaven, like a lanthorn's eye,
Open'd and shut again.

Half he walk'd, and half he seemed
Lifted on the cold wind;
He did not turn, for chilly hands
Were pushing from behind.

The first place that he came unto
It was the open wold,
And underneath were prickly whins,
And a wind that blew so cold.

The next place that he came unto
It was a stagnant pool,
And when he threw the body in
It floated light as wool.

He drew the body on his back,
And it was dripping chill,
And the next place be came unto
Was a Cross upon a hill.

A Cross upon the windy hill,
And a Cross on either side,
Three skeletons that swing thereon,
Who had been crucified.

And on the middle cross-bar sat
A white Dove slumbering;
Dim it sat in the dim light,
With its head beneath its wing.

And underneath the middle Cross
A grave yawn'd wide and vast,
But the soul of Judas Iscariot
Shiver'd, and glided past.

The fourth place that he came unto
It was the Brig of Dread,
And the great torrents rushing down
Were deep, and swift, and red.

He dared not fling the body in
For fear of faces dim
And arms were waved in the wild water
To thrust it back to him.

'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot
Turned from the Brig of Dread,
And the dreadful foam of the wild water
Had splashed the body red.

For days and nights he wandered on
Upon an open plain,
And the days went by like blinding mist,
And the nights like rushing rain.

For days and nights he wandered on,
All thro' the Wood of Woe;
And the nights went by like moaning wind,
And the days like drifting snow.

'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot
Came with a weary face --
Alone, alone, and all alone,
Alone in a lonely place!

He wandered east, he wandered west,
And heard no human sound;
For months and years, in grief and tears,
He wandered round and round,

For months and years, in grief and tears,
He walked the silent night;
Then the soul of Judas Iscariot
Perceived a far-off light.

A far-off light across the waste,
As dim as dim might be,
That came and went like the lighthouse gleam
On a black night at sea.

'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot
Crawl'd to the distant gleam;
And the rain came down, and the rain was blown
Against him with a scream.

For days and nights he wandered on,
Push'd on by hands behind;
And the days went by like black, black rain,
And the nights like rushing wind.

'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot,
Strange, and sad, and tall,
Stood all alone at dead of night
Before a lighted hall.

And the wold was white with snow,
And his foot-marks black and damp,
And the ghost of the silvern Moon arose,
Holding her yellow lamp.

And the icicles were on the eaves,
And the walls were deep with white,
And the shadows of the guests within
Pass'd on the window light.

The shadows of the wedding guests
Did strangely come and go,
And the body of Judas Iscariot
Lay stretch'd along the snow.

The body of Judas Iscariot
Lay stretched along the snow;
'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot
Ran swiftly to and fro.

To and fro, and up and down,
He ran so swiftly there,
As round and round the frozen Pole
Glideth the lean white bear.

'Twas the Bridegroom sat at the table-head,
And the lights burnt bright and clear --
'Oh, who is that,' the Bridegroom said,
'Whose weary feet I hear?'

'Twas one look'd from the lighted hall,
And answered soft and slow,
'It is a wolf runs up and down
With a black track in the snow.'

The Bridegroom in his robe of white
Sat at the table-head --
'Oh, who is that who moans without?'
The blessed Bridegroom said.

'Twas one looked from the lighted hall,
And answered fierce and low,
''Tis the soul of Judas Iscariot
Gliding to and fro.'

'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot
Did hush itself and stand,
And saw the Bridegroom at the door
With a light in his hand.

The Bridegroom stood in the open door,
And he was clad in white,
And far within the Lord's Supper
Was spread so broad and bright.

The Bridegroom shaded his eyes and look'd,
And his face was bright to see --
'What dost thou here at the Lord's Supper
With thy body's sins?' said he.

'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot
Stood black, and sad, and bare --
'I have wandered many nights and days;
There is no light elsewhere.'

'Twas the wedding guests cried out within,
And their eyes were fierce and bright --
'Scourge the soul of Judas Iscariot
Away into the night!'

The Bridegroom stood in the open door,
And he waved hands still and slow,
And the third time that he waved his hands
The air was thick with snow.

And of every flake of falling snow,
Before it touched the ground,
There came a dove, and a thousand doves
Made sweet sound.

'Twas the body of Judas Iscariot
Floated away full fleet,
And the wings of the doves that bare it off
Were like its winding-sheet.

'Twas the Bridegroom stood at the open door,
And beckon'd, smiling sweet;
'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot
Stole in, and fell at his feet.

'The Holy Supper is spread within,
And the many candles shine,
And I have waited long for thee
Before I poured the wine!'

The supper wine is poured at last,
The lights burn bright and fair,
Iscariot washes the Bridegroom's feet,
And dries them with his hair.

Poetry evening for the ladies

It is six o'clock and it is a wonderful spring evening, the buds on the birch trees are begining to break, the birds are singing they love melodies in the trees so what do you do? Well naturally you go down to the biggest graveyard in Helsinki and walk among the graves for an hour and a half an listen to readings of poems by female Finnish poets from the past century.

Poems by nurses, librarians, painters, housemaids, ordinary women writing about life, and even though more than a century has gone the same themes bring joy, the same injustices bring anger, the same hurts and pains are still being felt. The TV cameras were there. They were making a programme for mothers day and it will be broadcast this coming sunday on a YLE programme called KULT. If you see a bald headed man in a blue top always jumping in front of the camera that was me.

Alli Nissinen who founded the "Martta" women's movement wrote of a drunken man who abused his horse, and then for one day the tables were turned and the horse was given the chance to rule his master. The horse was not merciful and he made his old drunken master pay dearly. You are left with the impression of how can such a noble horse behave so badly, then you realise that the horse was only doing to the master what had been done to him. A sort of sly way of saying "love your neighbour as yourself"

An exception was made and there was one poem by Jorma Etto (a man) was read at the grave of Helle Kannila (a librarian). It was called "The Librarian" and the reader had everyone in stiches with the reading of this poem which was a dialogue of a conversation between a rather officious librarian who was ever so willing to offer solutions to the problems of his bewildered customers. It is very fine to hear over one hundred people laugh out loud in the open air. I managed to talk to the reader of the poem and got a copy of it. Here is my translation

The librarian by Jorma Etto

What do you want to know, just ask me
I have answers to everything.
A moment please!
I'll look through my index cards.
How to live
How to read the Bible
How to achieve happiness
(even you Miss Finland)
Excuse me can you say
how to get rid of stupid worries,
how can I live joyfully,
how should I decorate my appartmentl,
what day of the week is it,
You see I just want to know
where should I go on my summer holidays.
(how is your soul today
Professor Sutinen is it a problem
how to tell about the Prophets to your children
and is Christ being confessed in Helsinki)
Good evening Mrs Kataja
raining again.
(like it always is when you come here)
You want to know how it is going with Europe
You tire yourself too much dear woman
It can't be true that your husband
doesn't know how to catch a pike
(your questions are really all the same
how to search for truth)
Wait a moment, wait a moment.
I'll look it up in my index.
Good night, see you again.
Good night now, good night
You wonderful ladies.

Banana phone

Thought I would give Big Al Davies a blow on the banana phone. He might not be able to pick up the signal cos he has got one of those new staple gun phones... hard black plastic... brittle, and if you are not careful you could staple your ear to the side of your head. Besides that the spring at the flexi-joint has a nasty habit of catching the flesh on the palm of your hand and giving it a nasty nip.

Now a banana phone on the other hand has got a certain class. You know that russians never take the labels off their Ray Bann or DG sun-glasses. They just have to let you know that they have Ray Bann or DG sunglasses, cos you wouldn't recognise them otherwise. (note to self: Investigate the possibility of printing up a few thousand Ray Bann or DG labels to attach to cheap sunglasses to be sold at an outrageous profit)

Well as I was saying I left my "fair trade" sticker on my banana phone just so folks would know I am politically conscious. I wouldn't be seen dead with a Delmonte banana phone, and those Chiquita banana phones are rubbish, made with cheap labour down in Mexico. Buy a bunch of those and you are inviting a tarantula into your ear.



You see I have been trying to get in touch with Big Al for sometime, but can't get through. Over a thousand of his photos disapeared overnight. Not a fez in sight. Mandolins and copy-cat stratocasters all gone. Punk gigs from the eighties, beer and more beer, beer mats, pub signs, collages with course fish, Laurel and Hardy, chronicle of life in a welsh vilage, punks on the wall, leather studded jackets, Dr martins bovver boots, stones and stone circles, weddings, Geoff's paintings of old blues men with spidery fingers, and pork pie hats on the back of their heads. sheep on the moors, church doors, cottages in remote cornwall, the british seaside resort. ice-cream and sunshine, sunflowers in his lapel.

You see all of this is from memory because none of this exists any more. Consider the nights that went into scanning old photos, the selection process, the steady stream of photos spotlighting the past. The work and the endevour, the obvious joy and fun, the twinkle in the eye, the allusions to old songs, the playing with words, the laughter, the fellowship, the record of a life time condensed into a few months and then deleted with the press of a key on the computer.

It is strange when people disappear. Remember Lord Lucan of course you do. Became more famous for disappearing than for living. THe singer with the Manic street preachers disappeared, and at one time Peter Green from Fleetwood Mac threw it all in to become a grave digger in Cornwall. Disappearing is not so bad if it gives you mystic. Then you have those people like Lennon who believed music should have the permenancy of newspapers. Cut the disk get it out and let posterity decided if it was good or not. And what of those famous people who burn all their love letters and corrispondence, as if to obliterate their tracks. If there is no evidence of a life lived then it might never have been lived. And then you have people like efatima and Big Al who document their lives and then in one fell swoop, erase it as if it never existed.

Oh yes I forgot about the banana phone how did that really come about. Well I discovered that Big Al and all of his photos had gone over the blue event horizon and I had a banana in my hand, and I remembered his photo where he is using a stapler as a phone, so I stuck the banana in my ear and said "If you are on the line somewhere Al pick up"

But of course he hasn't. The idea that he could is just plain bananas. I was just hoping to say let's take it from the top one more time.

A non competative Peacock

Peacock turns his back on us
Originally uploaded by HyperBob.

The twin boys were looking at the peacock on the roof.
"Spread your tail feathers then." said the first boy
"Go on, Go on, Go on, Go on." said the second boy
"Mum why won't he spread his tail feathers?" said the first boy

"Because he has two females on the roof with him, and he feels he does not need to bother. He is spoilt for choice. But if you made out that there was another male peacock in the vacinity then he might get worried and make a show. Males behave stupidly when there is competition about."

"How do we make the sound of a peacock?" said the second boy
"Just make a sound like a 2x4 going through a circular saw." said the mother.
"Like this "KKreeeccccccKKKKK?" said the first boy, smiling at his brother
"Yeah that should get him worried." said the mother, proud of her son
"KKreeeccccccKKKKK" said the second boy, immitating his brother
"Not so loud" said the mother, wondering what the passersby thought
"KKreeeccccccKKKKK" said the first boy, his eyes popping for effect.
"People are looking" said the mother, getting agitated
"KKreeeccccccKKKKK" said the second boy, flapping his arms like wings.
"Stop it now your drawing attention to yourselves" said the mother. trying to grab hold of them.
"KKreeeccccccKKKKK" said the first boy, ignoring the peacock and screaming in his brothers face.
"That's enough." said the mother, swinging her shopping bag at the boys
"KKreeeccccccKKKKK" said the second boy, nose to nose with his brother and the spit flying.
"Just wait to you get home" said the mother, aiming a drop goal kick at their backsides.
"KKreeeccccccKKKKK" said the first boy, grabing his brother around the neck and getting him in a headlock.
"Your dad is going to hear about this" said the mother, chasing after them through the bushes.
"KKreeeccccccKKKKK" said the second boy, tripping up his brother
"No more pocket money for you" said the mother. grabbing them both by the scruff of the neck
"KKreeeccccccKKKKK" said the first boy, flailing his arms about wildly in an attempt to escape.
"Will you stop that!!! No more sweets for a week!!!" said the mother., shouting after the boys as they sped off down the road together.
"KKreeeccccccKKKKK " said the boys in unison.

Clivia flowers again

Clivia
Originally uploaded by HyperBob.

We got this plant last year at our house warming party. It bloomed for quite a while and then lay dormant over the winter, and was left to "suffer". Just left in a cool dry place, and over the winter months it did nothing.

Only in February did we begin watering again and and adding some fertiliser. A few green shoots began to sprout from the centre, and then some sort of buds that did not look promising at all.

Slowly however a stalk began to form and now we have been rewarded by a new set of glorious orange flowers.

Everything has its season.

Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain

Finlandia encore
Originally uploaded by HyperBob.

Went to the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain's Concert in Espoo tonight. There are two more nights Friday 15th and Saturday 16th and if you are a fan of dry British humour then it is a treat. Tonights performance was sold out, and if you decide to go here is a tip get in the queue early are get right down the front and sit at the tables on the dance floor instead of the seats in the theatre.

I happened to sit down the front near Dave the long haired one and he selected our table to give presents to. I received a two day old copy of the Guardian, and the man who was sitting next to me go a used ferry-boat sticker, while his two children were given a used British rail ticket and a used stamp. As you can well imagine no expense is spared on this tour.

What can you expect? Well music from that great classical composer Johan Sebastian Hendrix. They also do modern composers like Stockhausen in a Johnny Cash style. Kiss by Prince gets a going over, and well as a cossack interpretation of Leaning on a lampost, the George Formby classic which now becomes Lenin on a lampost. The ying-tong song by Spike Milligan gets a good thrashing as does the Robert Johnson song "Hot tamales and their red hot". Songs by Marylin Monroe get featured twice, and there is a very moving performance of a Tom Waits tune.

The featured instrumentals include the theme from "the good the bad and the ugly," and that bit of music everybody knows from silent movies when the hero has to made haste to rescue the heroine who is tied to the railway tracks. At one point they had 5 people playing the one small ukulele at the same time, as a novelty. They also did a rendition of Finlandia, which brought the house down.

The concert lasts 2 hours. Drinks are served at a bar, as well as coffee and cakes. At the interval they sell their latest CD which they will autograph, although George did comment that he believed they would be more valuable if they remained unsigned.

Picture taking with flash was forbidden doing the performance, but nobody seemed to mind if I popped off a few shots when they were accepting applause.

Guitar solos are from the dark side

Born to be wild-Smells like teen spirit
Originally uploaded by HyperBob.

You see ukuleles are the only real stringed instrument that humans should be allowed to play. Anything bigger and with more strings comes from the "dark side", that is what George said. Guitars are mutant ukuleles. Genetic abberations. And we all know what we get with guitars... guitar solos.

George warned us that the man next to Dave. His ukulele was just on the border line and that the force from the dark side might be such that we might be subjected to something like a guitar solo, and if it happened then we were under no circumstances to give him any encouragement.

Well sure enought the dark side of the force took over and the fellow with the big ukulele went into a mega thrash of the Byrds "eight miles high" and the other ukulele players were aghast and stoped playing... that is all except Dave with the long hair who was drawn in by the dark side and joined in a solo duel with the fellow with the big ukulele.

One by one the other band members left the stage in disgust, shaking their heads in dismay, and Dave and Rodney (yes that might have been his name) exchanged blistering solos reminiscent of the master of darkness his Highness Hendrix.

Then slowly they emerged from the euphoric guitar solo induced rapture to discover that the stage was abandoned save for themselves, They glanced furtively at each other, and began to squirm in their seats with embarrassment. In public they had had committed the ultimate sin aof any ukulele player and gone over the the dark side by playing guitar solos in public.

And so it proved to be an appropriate momment to have an intermission.

World turned upside down

Deathmetal rockers - dressed in pink
Politicians who sit down - and think
Catwalk models who - eat what they want
Schoolyard bullies who - refuse to taunt
Soldiers who - refuse to shoot
Burglars who - give back their loot
Multinationals that always - go bust
Lawyers that you can - really trust
Food bred for taste - not for shape
Mr. Incredible - wearing a cape
Communists with the - cross of Christ
Cats who love to - play with mice
Christians with the - crescent moon and star
A Tee-totalers office - in a downtown bar
Cooperation and willingness - from a mule
Wisdom and insight - from a fool
No more fear - from the pentagram
Muslims and Jews - eating ham
Chairman Moa hat - on a conservative head
Riches for the poor - and the hungry fed
Only laughter and no tears - from the clown
Heaven on earth - the world turned upside down.

New life (Resurrection)

Then Lemminkäinen's mother
took them into her mouth
she tested them with her tongue
tasted them to her liking:

"These are some of those ointments
the Almighty's remedies
with which God has anointed
the Lord poured on injuries."

Then she anointed the weary one
tended the ill-befallen
anointed through the gaps in bone
and through the cracks in limbs
anointed below and above
slapped the middle once.
Then she put this into words
she declared and chattered.

"Rise up out of sleep
get up out of dream
from these evil places
from the bed of hard luck!"

Kalevela (Resurrection)
Lemminkäinen's mother heals her son.

Arise with healing in his wings

Last Glimpse
Originally uploaded by KasiaS.

The pope died at Easter. The easter message has been about death, suffering, and most important of all ressurection.

So over the weekend in Rome, thousands of people were praying for the pope, and I expect most of them are feeling some dispair or sadness. So what would be the last word the pope would have for the masses of people waiting for a final message from him? It is the measure of the man that he did not focus on himself, but instead directed us towards song and rejoicing.

I picked something up on Flickr from someone who has been struggling with depression. I felt the words were full of hope, and this person by uttering them was bringing hope to himself and others. Words are like that once they are spoken or written they can become a blessing. So I am writing them down here as a blessing.

"Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people, and hallelujah is our song." - Pope Giovanni Paolo II (Karol Jozef Wojtyla)

The photo itself is very symbolic since in the old testament a white dove features in the story of Noah, in that it returned with the olive branch to the ark, and this has become a modern symbol of peace. While in the new testament the dove has been the symbol of God's Holy Sprit which decended like a dove when Christ was baptised in the Jordan river.

In this photo the dove seems to have another meaning, and Karol Jozef Wojtyla is watching his own spirit soar away to a better place where every tear will be wiped from our eyes and there will be no more suffering.

My kids in 1986 (smiling)

My kids in 1986 (smiling)
Originally uploaded by HyperBob.

Laughter is a good thing. Smiling is good, even a snigger is permissable. A discrete titter behind your hand is OK, but there are times in life when you need to blow coffee out your nose in an explosion of laughter.

You get giggles from tickling but that is sort of cheating. A belly laugh that comes rumbling out of the depths of you is good for your soul, but the best laughs are the ones you do in unison, with other people... lets call it orchestrated laughter. No that gives the idea that it is organised and structued in some way. The laughter that has refreshed me the most is more like free form jazz, the noises of laughter are all improvised.

These times do not happen very often but they are characterised by abandonment and helplessness. Birds in Spring sing their heart out. There is joy in the sound of their voices, the warbling and the whistling. Laughter is something like that. Non-verbal communication of happiness and hope.

These are the laughs that leave your breathless, gasping for air. What do you feel when you are swamped by your own laughter, and joy is ringing in your breast like a bell.

It is like listening to a scratchy recording from the 1930's and recognising the wonder and the beauty of it all and saying Oh Yeah!! Oh Yeah!! Oh man!!

Choirboys vs The Camel that wept

For our wedding anniversary we went to BioCity and watched a french movie called the choirboys. It was the story of a terrible boarding school, with children that were out of control. They have a fat pudgy bald teacher who gets them interested in singing, and so begins their road to salvation, as they escape from the brutality of their prison like surroundings into the freedom and beauty of music. The headmaster is a sadistic monster. The janitor is abused and worked like a slave. The gym master tries to keep everything under control by twisting ears. The music teacher is kind hearted and although he has succes in teaching the kids to sing he is fired from his job.

The singing is spine chilling and has a countess clutching a handkerchief to her bosom and looking dewy eyed at the choirboys with angelic voices. There is no happy end and no John Wayne salutes. The fat bald music teachers does not get the girl and he gets fired for all his troubles. The soprano boy in the choir does become famous and he owes it all to the fat bald music teacher.



The other movie we thought about going to see was "The camel that wept" which was made in Mongolia. I just did not see the potential for any drama coming from a movie about weeping camels. We did see the trailer and I was halfway disappointed that we had not gone to see a story about a young camel being deserted by its mother. I think I might have been put off by the thought that it might have been a Disney type "Incredible Journey" with camels talking to each other in Bronx accents, but apparently not. Camels are big in mongolia so why shouldn't they star in their own movies?

The Camel that wept review supplied by crfullmoon on flickr

On the ice

Went to the lake with Jasper and borrowed papa's ice drill it was blunt as hell, and although we bored for 15 minutes we could not get threw the ice. It must be over 50 cm thick.

I remember a story told to me about a couple of Finns who went out drunk at night to fish. There was a field just next to the lake and they had no idea if they had been drilling down to the earth or down to the water, and being drunk they did not care.

The next morning they went out to inspect the holes they had bored only to discover they had been fishing on a field. No wonder they did not catch anything.

She who is to be obeyed asked us to cut down the reeds, and I sythed down a vast expanse of reeds along the lake shore. I thought while I was doing it these reeds are dead and new ones will be coming up when the ice melts, so cutting down these deadhead won't make a blind bit of difference, but it pleased she who must be obeyed and made her happy, so that was the main thing.

"Shall I beat with might and main
lay it on as a man can
or lay it as the tools allow
beat as much as is needed?"

"Kullervo Kalervo's son
battered then with might and main
laid it on as a man can
the water he stirred to gruel
beat the seine to tow
and the fish he mashed to scum"

Wasted energy is not new.

Opening a present of celebration

Today I will drive with Maija and pick up our grandson Jasper and we will then go to Lahti to see Maija's mum. We have plans to go out to the lake and while the ice is still firm, cut down the reeds that are sticking through the ice. I may even bore a hole in the ice an do some fishing.

When I mentioned to Raisa that I had bought a pilkki fishing rod she raised the question of fishing permits. I said that I didn't need a permit since my rod was so short. She told the story to her friends at college who had laughed, and marveled at what a wit her father was.

I look out my window and the sky is a brilliant blue. The flags on Lippulaiva which I always look at to see how strong the wind is blowing are not moving at all. They are still, which means it will be a great day for slow walking in the snow and sun.

This morning to celebrate going to Lahti I opened up one of my unopened Christmas presents. It was from Christopher, "The Kalevala" the Finnish national epic poem.

"This I hoped for all my days
looked for all my growing-time
waited as for a good year
looked as for summer's coming
and now my wish has come true"

"Now some music would be good
and some merrymaking right
for this new state of affairs
apon these fair farms;"

"Steady old Väinämöinen
the everlasting singer
prepares his fingers
rubs his thumbs ready.
He sits on the rock of joy
on the song-boulder settles
on the silver hill
on the golden knoll
he fingered the instrument
turned the curved thing on his knees
the kantele in his hands
he uttered a word, spoke thus
Now let him come and listen
who may not before have heard
the joy of eternal bards
the sound of the kantele!"

I still have two presents unopened. I have a feeling I may have good reason to open them very soon. This is my hope.

Food from the blind

There are two resturants in Berlin that have blind waiters and you have to eat your food in the dark. One is called "Dunkelrestaurant Berlin" and the other one is called "Nocti Vagus"

There is also a cafe for the deaf, and an ultra-trendy establishment, run by a slightly crazy Argentinean, where you eat what you're given, they have no menu, then pay what you think the meal is worth.

For some reason I like this novel approch to eating. I have had my own experiance in Italy of eating in a resturant where you have to eat what the chef makes for you. It was in Trieste Italy and the owner was "Frank the Pig"

But how do I arrive at writing something about resturants for the blind. Well it all started off as an experiment getting CD's from the library. I decided to go in to the CD racks and pull out 7 CDs at random, I was acting as though I was blind. I did not look at the covers or the artists, I just blindly took them and checked them out.

Out of the 7 CDs there was one gem by a singer from the Faroe Islands. His name is Teitur, and he sings in english. His music is very poetic and lyrical, and I enjoyed the soft melodies very much... and so it was when I was finding out more about Teitur that I found out that he wanted information about these "blind resturants" in Berlin. So a strange little circle relating to blindness was completed. Going from the blind selection of CDs to the "blind resturants" in Belin.

In our lives we hate to fly blind. Everything has to be planned, and thought out well in advance. The calories in the food we eat are all calculated. The % fat in our milk. It is almost as if our well being is weighed out for us. Excess tips the balance in one direction. Frugality tips it in the opposite direction. We leave ourselves very little room to be surprised by goodness. We miss out on good music because we are not prepared in any way to pick up a CD by someone from the Faroe islands with a name like Teitur. We are not prepared to go blindly into a resturant, and on trust, eat what the chef prepares.

The principle of our lives is one of limitations, and by having that outlook we miss being kissed by the joy of the unexpected.

Dancing fingers.

So I wanted to do a video for Noa on his birthday. A short capture from the Webcam, and the idea was to have dancing fingers. All dancing fingers should have black patent shoes so I painted my fingernails black. I stuffed a hanky up my sleave and let it hang down so that it looked like a skirt and then I made my fingers dance to the samba, and did some provocative high kicks so you could see that my fingers were not wearing any underwear.

The dancing was out of sync with the music and most of the steps were just a blur... what do you expect from a cheap webcam, but the most disapointing thing was that once it was made it was too large to send as an email attachment.

But that is not the end of the story. I didn't wash the ink off my nails and I became conscious of this fact while in the library at Iso Omena when I noticed a couple of gothgirls were sniggering at my black painted fingernails hovering over the mouse. I would have thought it was completely uncool for gothgirls to snigger. If you are pale and white and dressed in swaths of black lace then it does your image absolutely no good to snigger behind a lily white hand cupped over you mouth and nose.

Then at the supermarket checkout the cashier had a David Beckham diamond stud in his ear. I griped the pen to sign the receipt, and all of a sudden I wished I was ambidextrous. The cashier observing my black painted nails, sucked both of his cheeks in and pouted his lips. I gave him the benifit of the doubt and construed this to mean he was trying to control a snigger and not that he was flirting with me.

When I got home I took a picture of my painted nails and then scrubed the ink off my fingernails

Dancing fingers video

Singing the blues away.

choir
Originally uploaded by niznoz.

When I was young I was always listening to the radio, waiting for the song and the words to be broadcast that would change my life. There was this expectancy that somebody somewhere will put words and music together that would transform me into something better. It has never happened, but I am still waiting, still eager for it to happen.

I ask myself can music influence things in the world, can it affect change in peoples lives. Did John Lennon's "Give peace a chance" stop the war in Viet Nam? Would the war have draged on longer if he had never written that song?

Or what of the "Singing Revolution" in Estonia when over one quarter of a million people meet in the open air to sing songs like "Koit" (Dawn Is Breakin' Through), Laulu Mõju [the Influence of a Song], Laul Põhjamaast [Hymn of the Nordic Lands] Nukurava Nukulaul [the Puppet People's Puppet Song [from the Song Cycl].

Previously in Hungary and Checkoslovakia, any attempt to become independant were brutally crushed by soviet tanks, but in 1988 the Estonians sang their way to freedom.

In the Song Fields of Tallin, night after night, thousands of people turned up to sing in the open air. The singing turned into a political rally, ending with over 300,000 Estonians voicing their demand for self-government through song. The Estonians say "We sang ourselves free."

A good song is no more than the expression of a truth that we hold deep in our hearts. The utterance of the words, the voice releasing the melody, gives birth to hope, and new life.

Puddock in a pool.

Eye with blue monitor spot.
Originally uploaded by HyperBob.

I was thinking about my father today, and more especially his love for poetry. Having been brought up in a house with no TV the main passtime was reading, and at a young age I got a fair bit of exposure to the poems of Robert Burns.

My father went for the poems that looked at social inequalities, hypocricy, conflict between church and state, the freedoms of the individual. Who would have thought Burns could sum up the problems of old age in a couple of lines

"But see him on the edge of life
with cares and sorrows torn.
Then age and want that ill matched pair
prove man was made to mourn."

When he was struck down with dementia, when he he could not remember the day of the week, and he had difficulty remembering what had been said to him a few minutes before, he would often perform these amazing feats of recitation and faultlessly recite a poem he had learnt as a boy. Perhaps he would do it to reassure himself that his memory was still functioning properly.

But the one poem that brought a twinkle to his eye and made him laugh was a very short one. I don't know who wrote it, perhaps he made it up himself.

"When Rob is in a rage,
He's like a lion in a cage.
But when his rage begins to cool,
He's like a puddock in a pool."

Roope and Maija listen out for scrumjax

Listening out for scrumjax
Originally uploaded by HyperBob.

If Scrumjax is anything like Slack then I want you to cut me some. We all need some slack in our lives, especially when things get too tight. Some people don't have any slack and they are screwed up fit to burst.

I want slack in my trousers. I want slack in my bank account. When I am eating I want my food spiced with slack, and when I am out walking I want to do it is a slack way.

I am more that willing to give my children all the slack they want. You just can't have too much slack. It comes in handy to give away as presents. Having plenty of slack at a birthday party helps things to run smoothly.

So cut me some slack Jack!!!

Shaggy dog story #2

Shaggy dog story #2
Originally uploaded by HyperBob.

We did have a dog once. It was a ”foster-dog”. That should have set the ALARM BELLS RINGING.
She was a BITCH… a fast black BITCH.
She was officially known as a Lapland reindeer dog, and from the way her eyes popped out of her head, and her tongue hung out the side of her mouth you would think she’d eaten A KILO OF COCAINE FOR BREAKFAST.
This dog was CRAZY with a capital “K”
She wanted to RULE EVERYTHING, and I do mean EVERYTHING.
Dogs, cats, kids, birds, ANYTHING THAT MOVED
Take her to the enclosed dog park and in a second she would have rounded up all the other dogs and put them in A CORNER.
If another dog did not cooperate she would jump on their backs and KNOCK THEM to THE GROUND.
Great Danes, Alsatians, dogs twice her size had to OBEY.
She was a PSYCHO. She needed to have everything UNDER CONTROL.
She would have herded stones IF THEY HAD MOVED.
She had to have something to herd. If she had penned all of the dogs she would start on any LOOSE KIDS RUNNING AROUND.
If she had worn stockings she would have had their GUTS FOR GARTERS.
If she had played golf she would have had their GONNADS FOR GOLFBALLS.
She had ATTITUDE, and would not be messed with.

Tricks? Yeah she could do tricks especially at the DINNER TABLE.
For Ilona that bitch would SHAKE HER HEAD to get something to eat,
For Patrik she would YAWN,
for Riina she would ROLL OVER,
for Raisa she would do a FORELEG STRETCH
When we had visitor around that bitch would get in front of them and do infinite combinations of the ROLL OVER, YAWN, FORELEG STRETCH, HEAD SHAKE
What is WRONG with that BITCH they would say.
We’d say SHE’S PSYCHO.
Let’s just say me and the wife were sitting down for a meal. A Friday night together without the kids, and a nice roast chicken on the table. The door bell rings. I get up to answer it. It is somebody for Maija. I call her to the door. While at the door we hear a clatter of plates falling from the table and that BITCH is standing on top of the table with HALF A CHICKEN in her mouth and a look of dumb bemusement on her face as if to say “WHAT?”

Run? That bitch could run ALL DAY and never get tired.
It was EXHAUSTING JUST WATCHING HER GO.
Took her to the forest once, she was all the time straining at the LEASH TO BE FREE.
Released her and she shot off like a FLASH OF BLACK LIGHTENING
Called for her to come. She came within 3 metres and smiled. That look on her face said YOU SHOULD NEVER HAVE LET ME OFF HE LEASH.
For THREE HOURS SHE TEASED ME. I hate being made a fool of by a BITCH.
Every time I tried to catch her she was off like a BLACK BLUR ON THE CANVAS OF FORREST FLOOR.
So humiliating. I had no luck in catching her. If I had fallen into a BARREL OF TITS I WOULD COME UP SUCKING MY THUMB. My luck was that bad.
Sex!!! That was her downfall. Another man with a dog on a leash stopped to observe THE MAN AND HIS DOG COMEDY SHOW.
And when dogs get together they like to do a bit of BUTT-SMOOCHING.
That gave me the opportunity to grab her and put her on the leash, but the look in her eye to the other dog said TAKE ME I’M YOURS, that three hour run in the forest WAS ONLY A WARM UP.

We don’t have a dog now and if I do take a picture of a dog it is a DUMB DOG.
A dog that is wearing a HAT
Dogs that wear hats can’t be ASS-SMOKING SMART to let themselves get rigged up like that, so you are safe to take their pictures, but I always keep a wary eye on my back in case a BLACK BITCH STREEKS from nowhere, jumps on my back and HERDS ME INTO A CORNER.

efatima:colour and detail

efatima:colour and detail
Originally uploaded by HyperBob.

efatima from the UAE was a very active photographer on Flickr. Over the weekend her account was deleted, and all of her beautiful photos disappeared.

Now if you wanted to recall what she has done it is impossible. I had a few of her photos maked as favourites but even the thumnails have gone. On her blog site all the places that used to have images are now gaping holes. Only her words remain, and I thought I would save at least something she had written before her words might disappear as well. Her photos were very vibrant with lots of colour saturation and she was very interested in minute details, so the text I chose was about her vision of a small world.

If the earth were only a few feet in diameter, floating a few feet above a field somewhere, people would come from everywhere to marvel at it. They would walk around it, marveling at its big pools of water, its little pools and the water flowing between them, the bumps on it, the holes in it, the very thin layer of gas surrounding it, the water suspended in the gas, all the creatures walking around the surface of the ball, and at the creatures in the water. People would declare it precious because it was the only one, and they would protect it so that it would not be hurt. The ball would be the greatest wonder known, and they would come to behold it, to be healed, to gain knowledge, to know beauty and to wonder how it could be. People would love it, and defend it with their lives, because they would somehow know that their lives, their own roundness, could be nothing without it. If the Earth were only a few feet in diameter.

-efatima (Sunday, November 17, 2002 blog)

Black dog with blue boat

Black dog with blue boat
Originally uploaded by HyperBob.

Trawler frozen in the ice at Espoonlahti, with man walking a black dog on the frozen sea.

Painting Box
by Mike heron

When the morning of your eyes comes waking through my shadows
Leaving just a trace of twilight sleep,
I whisper to the baby raindrops playing on my window,
And tell them gently this is not the time that they should weep.

For somewhere in my mind there is a painting box,
I have every color there it's true.
Just lately when I look inside my painting box,
I seem to pick the colors of you.

The purple sail above me catches all the strength of summer.
Fishes stop and ask me where I am bound.
I smile and shake my head and say my little ship is sinking,
But I kind of like the sea that I'm on, and I don't mind if I do drown.

For somewhere in my mind there is a painting box,
I have every color there it's true.
Just lately when I look inside my painting box,
I seem to pick the colors of you.

Old Boy (did you see what I just did there)

Old Boy (did you see what I just did there)
Originally uploaded by HyperBob.

Walking on the frozen sea at Espoonlahti is something I enjoy. I has got something to do with the vast expanse of snow, and the equally vast sky that is blindingly blue.

The other thing that makes it so good is the air. It is better than a meal, or at least when you have done a five kilometer walk and breathed all that fresh air a meal tastes so much better.

What do you see when you are out walking on the sea? Well lots of other people doing the same thing. Families out for walks, kids being pulled behind on a sledge. Old couples walking slowly over the ice, Young couples skiing fast in the skating style, middle aged couples skiing in the traditional nordic style. And then the ice is pock-marked with 15 cm holes where the ice fishers have been.

My own plan is to walk quite near the shoreline and look for a hot spot. This is a place that is sheltered from the wind, and for some magical reason is miraculously warmer than out on the open sea.

The hot spot always seems to have a huge granite stone you can lean on, or an upturned boat with a black pitch bottom that absorbs the suns rays. It is a pleasure to sit in a hot spot and watch the movement of people out on the ice. They often look like matchstick people from a L.S. Lowry painting. A hot spot is at its best when someone fires up a sauna on the shoreline and the blue smoke smell of resinous spruce permeates the air.

The sun makes young people move fast, and it makes old people sit down.

Fischer King

Fischer King
Originally uploaded by HyperBob.

Fischer proved to me how gifted (regarding openings) he was with his first match against Spassky. The guy played openings and defenses for the first time in his life almost perfectly against a world champion! As a human being, the guy's values are not in touch with the real world, but when it comes to pure chess knowledge, he has no equal! -- Keith Hayward

Many people allow their judgments concerning Fischer the individual to influence their judgment of Fischer the chess player. -- Ed Kennedy

Being Jewish myself, I somehow didn't see the problem: who cares what a mentally ill (but strangely likable) individual says? If he didn't make some money at chess, I could see him becoming a street person, shaking his fists at cars as they passed by his corner of the block. Isn't it preferable to have him in a self-sufficient position rather than as a liability of the state? -- Jeremy Silman (on Fischer)

While there can be no excuse for the public statements he has made, there can be understanding and even sympathy - for him, if not for his illness. -- Frank Berry Jr. (on Fischer)

Is Fischer quite sane? -- Salo Flohr

During the cold war the russians were chess champions, but on July 11, 1972 Fischer began his match with Boris Spassky in Reykjavik, Iceland for the world championship. He won and became a national hero.

On September 1, 1992, Bobby Fischer came out of his 20 year retirement and gave a press conference in Yugoslavia. He pulled out an order from the U.S. Treasury Department warning him that he would be violating U.N sanctions if he played Chess in Yugoslavia. He spat on the order and now faces ten years in prison and a $250,000 fine if he returns to the U.S. Bobby Fischer had become a villian.

Bobby Fischer is being held in a Japanese prison and awaits extradition to the USA.

Hunter S. Thompson is dead.

Those were the days.
Originally uploaded by HyperBob.

Yeah Johnny Depp did Hunter to a tee, straped a tape recorder to his chest and pushed his head in the bog and spoke, letting the stream of conciousness rip in a demonic babble, and the tape recorder caught it all. All the brain farts and the kalidascopic hoots of nonsence, am I supposed to enjoy that. No I trashed Fear and loathing in Las Vegas. Aimed it straight at the rubbish bin and lobbed it in. It was a hole in one. It gave a satisfying thunk as it hit the bottom of the trash can. Didn't think about selling it on eBay, didn't foist it off on somebody else as a present, just consigned it to the rubbish heap with glee. If somebody offers you a plate of dried scabs to eat you do not nibble your way through the crusted dried blood, you trash it. He blew a hole in his head at 67. The gonzo. Everybody is singing his praises of how he lived on the edge. I am disinclined to honour him. Poor sweet pitiful man who relied on a tape recorder to record his incoherant drug induced rambling and then when he was sober, played it back and tried to make sence of it. What a technique. I do the exact opposite. I write when I am sober and edit it when I have drunk a bottle of cheap red wine. It worked for Hank, so why not for me.

I feel like I am fading

I feel like I am fading
Originally uploaded by HyperBob.

Oh Jack, Oh jack, you were the one to steal cars and drive from coast to coast with Cassidy, picking up cars and women at the same rate and abandoning them at the crossroads just as fast. It was all about the speed of things and bebop, and the maniac howl of Ginsberg who was searching for the third chord that would enable him to play the blues, and when the saxaphone blew, it blew cement dust that covered the sunflower that was growing in a wasteland. T.S. Elliot said it would all end with a whimper, but he was proved wrong because the beat poets from Liverpool came along and said it would end with a Wimpy. And where was I when Shearing played at Newport and Anita O'Day scat sang in white gloves and a big white hat with feathers on it, and everybody wore Ray Bann's and didn't even know it was cool. Where was I when they jived on the rooftops and played classical cello naked on a hot afternoon and called it jazz. Where was I when Chichester sailed around the world, and braved the southern seas in a boat no more than a rusted bucket. And at Newport the water vibrated blue to the sound of a double bass, and Britain was practising once again to get beating in the America's cup. American technology would win everything even the war in Vietnam. When did purple haze turn to purple rain and how did it happen, was I asleep for so many years dreaming of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and penguin dust. I had my own dust to observe. The dust that settles on the window ledges of deserted houses. Boarded up villages abandoned and neglected. The dust from coal that solidifies lungs. Lungs that will never function again not even in the cleanest and purest air. Not even with pure oxygen from a compressed bottle. The miners with ruined lungs played in the silver band. Played show tunes from South Pacific, and on Sundays really thought they had a chance at the national championships in the Usher Hall, but they got too drunk to blow, and half the band spent half of their time working the valve to let the spit drop from their cornets, their trumbones, their euphoniums and their tubas. Black spit that could be Guiness or coal dust. Take me away from all this decay and failure. This futile striving that never pays a dividend, co-op or otherwise. Tune me in to Radio Luxemburg on 208. Take me away Pharoah Sanders. The cool calm nights at the corner, the cigarette smoke keeping away the midges, the distant laughter coming from under the bridge down by the river, as people watched the salmon come up to spawn. I will tell you where I was. I was in a room near George square ratcheting a manual calculator and listening to a small bell ping then a satisfactory answer was reached, but my mind was in Morrocco, in Marrakesh where I wore a berber cape against the cold of the desert air. Where snakes were charmed and men in the marketplace spat fire instead of coal dust. I slept on beaches from Barcellona to Algeceras while John Lennon sang of revolution #9. He was nowhere near the Paris barricades of 68, he only became a working class hero later. It was Tariq ali who rolled the marbles under the police horses hooves at Grovsner square. A Pakistani radical leading a bunch of white skinheads. The madness of the whole idea. I was there when the black and red flags of the anarchists broke away from the main demonstration heading towards Hyde park and wheeled past the Playboy club. I was there when the bunnies on the balcony were encouraged to jump. I was there when we linked arms and charged the police cordon. It was like a game in the play ground. If we had ever broken through we would not have known what to do. When the flag was lowered on the embassy that was victory enough and we all went off and had a Wimpy, so Elliot had got it wrong after all... or it might he might have been half right since the endevour ended in a whimper.

Dancing on the inside

Well I went down to the revival
to give my soul a chance
And the DJ spoke to God,
and the congregation danced.

Everyone was dancing
around that golden cow
I slowly shuffled forward,
feets’ don’t fail me now.

The DJ pointed upwards
to an angel on a swing.
Back and forth she went
and the choir began to sing.

Rose petals fluttered downwards
and perfume filled the air.
Thinking will imprison you.
Dancing takes you there.

The DJ points his finger
my stillness he derides.
Because it's not apparent
I'm dancing on the inside.

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.