DIGGER

Gone to do something a little more constructive, like dig a hole or something

Thanks for reading

 

Further Works: Gone – U2

TRESPASS

5 o’clock can’t come soon enough. This 9 to 5 is choking my spirits. I can see Malling Down from the office window, the mid-April sun now full on it’s southern face. The hours between 2pm and 5pm are dragging their heels to mock me in a vulgar supercilious manner. The cursor flickers steadily, it hasn’t moved across the page for 45 minutes, I have been idly observing a walker climbing the hill. It is now 3:52.

This is time I won’t be getting back, trespassing on my free will, toying with me like a cat with a fledgling.

I’m riding the long way home tonight.

By Phoebe

CHERRY BLOSSOM & MILKY BURPS

Colour and scent overwhelm
Time suspends briefly
There’s a gentle rustle and a whisper
The joke is on you

The discordant has become a gentle buzz
The first Swallow is spotted
Revel in the Cherry Blossom
And breathe in deeply because it will be gone tomorrow

Some farisees they stay, some are as transient as the blossom and become ghosts
Brief and enduring traces in the passing of time
There’s a gentle rustle and a whisper
Is the joke still on you?

A scored landscape
Grasses oscillate and eyes water in the chill
There a tumuli
And here the view

Inevitably, aware of the pathos
The ahh-ness of things, of life and love
Are scattered by the winds
And lost forever

Sticky fingers and milky burps awaken a numb soul
Share the joke and laugh heartily
To avoid the tragedy of the inevitable
Ahh-ness

“We have come to be guests among the stars”*
*From “Mono no aware” by KEN LIU

Scamper

Light pushes on the gloom

We swept up the folly of broken glass

Kind of realising that we sometimes need a little disquiet

Besides, there’s not much that will protect you from it

 

Wash your hands and feet in the sea

They are untied; just don’t turn your back, that’s all

Filling your stream with pithy obvious statements won’t help either

Mediocre is never the right option

 

Disquiet is ok after all

Let Mr. Grimm brush against your cheek

Invite him along for tea and crumpets if you like

Even the most simple of peasants can best him

 

Run a Mike Mill’s race

You’ll find out that you’re a sinner and not welcome anywhere, anyway

Those sins were cast upon you a long time ago

But you don’t have to keep paying for it

 

Allow the murky water and ambiguities cleanse you

 

Further Works

Bruce Springsteen – Adam Raised A Cain

Image culled from @esccrightsofway Twitter account

DECKCHAIRS IN ONE PUNCH

 


 ~ The Lost Tapes ~

Every once in a while a band comes along that confounds all expectation, 
breaches every category and spills over into some amorphous mess that is not 
easily described and still less easily understood. Uncomfortable comparisons may 
be made with The Fall, Polvo, The Stereolab et al, if only to lump The 
Deckchairs in One Punch with the category labelled 'uncategorisable', the 
peculiarly distinguished Valhalla of musical mulch.

Comprising two brothers known only as D and M, the Deckchairs in One Punch 
recorded four or five tapes from 1990 to 1992 in the bedroom of an overcrowded 
and tense house on a housing estate in Basingstoke, Hampshire that was, at that 
time, made up of both aspirational working-class and lower to middle 
middle-class families. The two had lived previously on a council estate and went 
to school where they once lived, some three miles away. Since the early 90s 
these estates have merged almost and now have a very similar mix of people. 
Which is to say, they are all hopelessly dreary. Mediocrity is, as Tony Blair 
fully proved, the great social leveller.

If Patrick Keiler's character, Robinson, in Keiler's film 'London' despaired at 
the prospect of the re-election of the Conservatives in 1992, the Deckchairs 
were, by that time, so accustomed to living in a one party state that the 
election barely registers on their radar. Being bastard spawn of Thatcher the 
The Deckchairs in One Punch were, ironically, and paradoxically, more 
representative of the lost generation of the late '80s and early '90s than other 
groups and artists of the time: The Wonderbus, Ned's Atomic Dustman, the The 
Bevellers and the The Get Carter USM (all of whom, by the way, promptly ditched 
their proletarian and anarchist masks as soon as doors opened to lucrative media 
jobs in Soho, except the skinny bloke out of the The Get Carter who has been 
trying to sell the original drum machine used in their recordings for years in 
the Brighton Friday Ad to raise cash to fix his clapped out Ford Mondeo). The 
backdrop from which The Deckchairs emerged, then, was, indeed, one of despair. A 
despair so ingrained it was a way of life, and one that was perfectly suited to 
the utilitarian town planning that constituted Basingstoke at that time; a town 
so grey, so rigid, so mediocre that any Soviet Bloc dictator would have been 
proud.

Some have said that the The Deckchairs in One Punch were nothing but two losers 
who didn't even have the balls to get out of their bedroom and actually play 
live. Their critics were less kind. But it is just this kind of criticism that 
has clouded our view of them. The The Deckchairs were profoundly concerned and 
troubled by the plight of modern Britain, modern times and indeed of modern man 
as their anthem of compassion, "The Butterfly", amply demonstrated:

"I am a butterfly, 
And I like to say "Hi!", 
To the people passing by, 
Who are in great need, 
Of a bite to eat." 

In contrast to the Oxford poetess, Elizabeth Garrett, and the American poet and 
professional liar, James Dickey - both of whom used the image of the butterfly 
as mere decoration - The Deckchairs are unique in actually giving voice to the 
butterfly; a voice laden with tender feeling and empathy, greeting the hungry 
multitudes of the town in fulsome and hearty friendship. Only in Can's 1968 
'Butterfly' or in Mansun's 'Butterfly' can we find anything approaching such a 
colourful depiction of this insect. Critics of this piece point to the ear 
piercing microphone screech and howl over the delicate, rainbow-like guitar 
playing as reason enough to dismiss it. However, the passion of the delivery of 
the minimalist lyric is augmented by the feedback rather than diminished.

The Deckchair's social concerns can also be heard on the Rockabilly-like 
'wig-out' "Little Yeller Fiesta", which was a celebration of the affordable 
banger ubiquitous around Basingtoke's unhappy housing estates of the period. The 
keen observation is patent: 

"It's got rust on the door, 
It's got no fucking floor, 
It leaks like a sieve, 
In the rain 'round where I live...". 

The duo, yet again, show compassion for their fellows who must confront 
monolithic government regulation in the form of the harsh legal requirement that 
is the annual M.O.T. test.

The contrast between town and country is well considered in the untitled 
aggressive punk track known as "I go swimming in the river". Bruise Springstein 
famously dived into his river in order to cleanse the sins of the past, the old 
Christian notion of baptism and rebirth through water. The Deckchairs, however, 
went swimming in the river to declare themselves at one with the English 
countryside, setting themselves up against the steady and inexorable 
urbanisation and cosmopolitanism of Britain:

"I'm a country bumpkin, 
I come from the fuckin' country! 
I go swimmin' in the rivah! 
I go swimmin' in the rivah! 
I don't go swimmin' in theee cay-nawl!"

they scream in a decidedly London-Thames Valley accent of which the The 
Godfathers would be proud. The track is a peculiar skewing of the usual 
bumbling, country bumpkin stereotype and points to the curious reversal to the 
Industrial Revolution that meddlesome British government town planners effected 
from the 1950s onwards.

The The Morrissey was famous for dealing with gender issues in his work, both 
with and without the The Smiths, perhaps most notably in "Half A Parsnip". But 
while the The Morrissey resorts to the clumsy idea that his female voice is also 
lesbian, thus blunting considerably the power of the lyric and its commentary 
on, and criticism of contemporary society and received ideas of gender, there's 
no such flip-flopping in "Pegbox", possibly the highlight of the The Deckchairs' 
collaboration.

"Going to the washing line, 
Got no worries, don't need to hide,
Got no troubles, don't need to hide,
With a pegbox by my side!"

Unlike the The Smiths' song, in "Pegbox" the gender is left open for the 
listener. The unreformed early '90s mindset would automatically assume that it 
was a woman due to the homely setting, but the singing voice is distinctly male, 
which wittily usurps received ideas of domesticity. Men, as well as women, the 
The Deckchairs tell us, are in need of dry clothing; a very clever post 
post-modern reversal of gender roles.

The strange, plaintive and deeply melancholic "108" was a serious change of 
direction for the pair. Played on a cheap Korean acoustic guitar, amplified with 
a clip on pick-up (the most expensive piece of equipment with which the group 
ever recorded) the strained clutch of chords and wistful singing said more about 
the nostalgia of the future than any piece that post-past, mocking-rock funsters 
the The Stereolab ever created. A curious contradiction? Nostalgia for the 
future? Maybe. But this was Basingstoke. All future was circumvented by the 
timeless banality of its planning. The future had already arrived in grey 
utilitarian concrete, endless housing estates merging into one another and 
rubbing shoulders with shopping centres, industrial estates and the open fields 
of farm factories, replete with aggressive farmers and equally aggressive 
animals. There was no escape, except to some nowhere called "108".

And here we are, now, arrived at the nowhere that is, indeed, 108. And it 
stinks! The Cameron, Clegg, Miliband, Blair-Brown, Major, Thatcher legacy of 
mediocrity leaves us not only in 108, but faced with the paradox of also longing 
for 108. 108 is nowhere. And we are nowhere. The foolish hippy ideals of the 60s 
and 70s in which everyone can get along and 'love one another' are crumbling 
around our ears. In fact, we love to hate, as the death of Margaret Thatcher 
this year clearly showed. We have become as banal as our political leaders and 
we hate ourselves for it. We're spiteful and disrespectful to our fellow human 
beings, we're shallow and we long for some time past, some future time, some 
place, any place that's better than the nowhere that is here. Some place that 
might be an escape from, and an escape to 108.

The greatest irony of all is that the finest work of the The Deckchairs in One 
Punch's can never be heard. It was lost. Wiped. Turned to mere tape hiss. It's 
dead. Just a memory, a strange nostalgia: File under 108.

Pop Bastard, April/September 2013.

 

Periphrastic

Out riding with friends today, on a crisp Autumn morning, the air full of chill. A good 6o miles, or there abouts. Stood at the war memorial in Mayfield, cap in hand, a minutes silence – I am reminded of the poem crafted by 2nd Lt John Stanley Purvis, holed up in the misery of the trenches half an hour before ‘going over the top’, in 1915.

I can’t forget the lane that goes from Steyning to the Ring
In summer time, and on the Down how larks and linnets sing
High in the sun. The wind comes off the sea, and Oh the air!
I never knew till now that life in old days was so fair.
But now I know it in this filthy rat infested ditch
When every shell may spare or kill – and God alone knows which.
And I am made a beast of prey, and this trench is my lair.
My God! I never knew till now that those days were so fair.
So we assault in half an hour, and, – it’s a silly thing –
I can’t forget the narrow lane to Chanctonbury Ring.

Sling up to the Forest from Mayfield, around Crowborough, up and over from Friars Gate and a short stop at the Duddleswell Tea Rooms. A struggle to warm up after that and with burning thighs through Nutley, Newick and Barcombe, I realise that I am 6 weeks, 3 days, 6 hours and 10 minutes off any kind of self respect. Tired.

At least I get to sleep in my own bed tonight.

Further Works

Radiohead – Harry Patch (In Memory of)

WHITE CHALK HILLS CX

A traditional cyclocross race. Legitimate. Properly sanctioned. No end of trials and tribulations to organise. No matter how many steps ahead you may be those who you depend on to do something, or to make a decision, or talk something over with a colleague, will always be 2 steps behind, and there will always be something to surprise you.

It’s a steep learning curve to realise that you can’t hold on to control that tightly and that you must allow time in the process for people to catch up.

If not for the support of good friends I’m not sure I would have got through it without incident. But I’m proud of what we achieved and incredibly grateful for the support.

Perhaps next time it will be easier.

whitechalkhills.cx

Original image via @themanfromicon

Thank you: Lois May-Miller, Kris Fowler, Jo Burt, Gavin Peacock, Simon Catmur, James Brickell, Matt Butt, Matt Green, Sam Winter, Mark Markowski and the Bayeux Landscapes Cycling Team and many, many others.

MOTO PERPETUO

www.whitechalkhills.cx

Stratum

These are my twisted thoughts, perched on the Weald in early autumn, a rich canopy of oak, beech, silver birch, alder, spruce, chestnut, hazel and ash ready to offer their autumn display.

Exposed grassy chalk ridges of the North and South Downs either side, and in between dense woody patches sitting on shifting Purbeck sands and clays, a hundred trickling rivulets and streams; a swirl of tightly packed contour lines of the Weald-Artois Anticline.

Deepest, darkest Sussex proper: the place where Britain was cut off from the continent by the glacial floods; a place where the smugglers and outlaws took refuge in the valleys of Anderida. I will trace the pattern of relief on a map when I return home to make plans to explore further – a refuge of my own into the unknown.

There’s history here but there’s a tight grip on the secrets of the past. There’s more to learn and to understand which will shine a light on the perspective of here, now, today. I’m looking for the harsh reality shedding away the dark layers and the cosy trappings of the 21^st century.

I want to feel cloying mud and clay up my shins and the physical effort to move and travel between places, to find the light switch which will open up a new perspective or help to find the one that I have neglected and forgotten about, because there’s still time, the sands will not run out just yet.

“Climbing hills on a bicycle can be a great school of stoicism… I’m not prepared to believe that all that effort, all that suffering, teaches one nothing.” JM Coetzee.