The Blunderbuss

Photo

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 23:33:56 +0100

I want a toy town…

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 11:46:09 +0000

I want a toy town…

A Sea View

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 20:34:20 +0000

Try standing on a cliff overlooking the sea. If you can’t get hold of a cliff, go down to the beach, or spit, or whatever land’s end you can find.

Now look as far as you can. We know some things about the sea before us. We know it is wet to touch, salty to taste and that all manner of things can drown in it. We know about the pull of the tides and the action of waves and the wind on the shore. Perhaps we know about the moon and currents – some warm, some cold. All these – the physics of water, the graph of winds, the scale of channels, gives us ideas. Nice rational ideas about geography and horizons, about distances to and from. We imagine ourselves at a fixed point, where land meets sea. We watch waves break and feel grounded, secure in the knowledge that the world is being brought to us. Everything is incoming.

But let us pretend that we do not possess this knowledge or these ideas. Let us imagine that we have come quite unexpectedly on open water, perhaps for the first time in our lives. Might we then question what is fixed and what is not?

Next time you are there – on that cliff or by that shore, leaning on some old seagull-stain – try collecting the land at your back, be it Brighton or Britain, and all that lies therein. Gather the streets and buildings, the brick and glass and clay. Gather the fields and cattle, the woods and the hilltops and say ‘Forward!’ You will see that the waves no longer break on land but on bows. You will feel this island move beneath your feet and slip from its shelf, sliding from the old mooring out into the ocean’s green. The pier no longer withstands the coming storm but goes to meet it, rolling forward, the proud bowsprit of 10 million acres and more. Your shoreline is not an apron for floods but a moving hull, cutting the waterline with its edge. We need not feel stationary by the sea. We can travel as we stand – there is no more waiting for the world to be washed up. Let the nation roll on over the deep and never mind the sea-sick. The only anchor is in your head.

War Graves

Tue, 03 May 2011 13:37:28 +0100

Mausoleums stand, the size of shopping malls, concrete mounds for a thousand common dynasties. The motorways mown between are pockmarked with the angry divits of grieving mourners, blown like Kleenex down corridors of grief. Night and day, they process past the great domes of demise, fat with the bodies of their own blood and the shared artery of buried wars. The screwed up faces of the destitute mirror the crushed tissues in their wet pockets – inscrutable, closed, condemned. Finally, the avenue of mausoleums forks, as if two deviant moles had parted ways acrimoniously, continuing their regular eruptions on stubborn new maps, forging an underground necropolis of split seams. In the tongue between these divergent courses other grave markers rise, a field of skyscraper crosses, towering records of the dear departed.

Stepping off the broad avenues of the cemetery paths and wandering into their marble spores, the mourner is lost amongst endless inscription, as if the shorthand of humankind has finally been transcribed in its entirety - the unstoppable typewriter of a global secretary laid to rest by the dismembered corpse of her soldier groom.

Yukio

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 23:33:31 +0000

Yukio was utterly still and yet every aspect of his face, every muscle of his limbs, seemed poised on the verge of a violent animation. Sitting in front of this folded figure, I felt as a hapless jelly, paralysed on a plastic tide-line, stranded before an immense and static wave. The room, which contained Yukio and cornered me, seemed to collapse into a stark and timeless equation of predator and prey. The mock decorum of our human status, our clothes, our chairs, our rank hair gel, only intensified the bestial urges in both – for my part to run, to scream, to distract, for Yukio, a simple desire to preside.

Cold water joy

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 11:52:00 +0000

Manhood inverted, goose pimples galore. Green feet gone numb in scottish sand. Wind in every orifice and salt in the eyes. Open and exposed, no modesty for miles. Treading the rock – painful passage to the water. Spiked limpets, urchin infested pools, killer crabs. Slipping on seaweed and landing knees up on granite. Cursing my balance while clasping my crotch. Shins barnacled, rubbing rare.

Getting to the edge. Standing seaward, last lonely man in the west, shaking uncontrollably, automatic teeth – a statue to stupidity. Looking into the water. Staring at depths. Dark masses moving, swaying weeds in strong currents, foreign movement on submarine sand. Wanting to dive clear, make the channel, miss cloying forests and floating tendrils. Slipping again. Not ready! Legs plunge, elbows catch on rock, finger nails claw. Half submerged, skin in shock - things are moving underwater.

Pulp

Tue, 04 Jan 2011 10:32:00 +0000

Saul sat flat against the wall with his pants in a definite twist. Manacles fit to shackle an elephant locked his wrists to the radiator behind him - a loving embrace of skin, steel and quality plumbing. What’s worse he’d been experimented on with some seriously post-modern violence - everything hurt. Some sick puppy had even untied his shoelaces.

Shifting to get a better look at his new digs was proving tricky, moving his head felt like unscrewing his spine. Gritting his fine set of fifth avenue dentures he gave the room a once over. To his left lay a stack of stout planks, a number of which had been crafted into what could plausibly be a very solid coffin. On his right hand was a headstone with the name ‘Saul Temple’ embossed by a beautiful, if disinterested, hand. An inscription beneath this illustrious title read, ‘Every dog has its day.’ The stone lent against a staircase and some kind of portable privy, not exactly en suite. Saul groaned. Being locked up six feet under someone’s kitchen is one thing. But having your acute sense of impending doom reinforced by a concrete obituary really kills the sense of suspense.

Somewhere up above a whistler took up a familiar tune. Fat lips moved up and down the saliva scale, something patriotic, the lost melody of a flag falatting cadet. Temple was just preparing to join in the chorus when the songster stopped abruptly and announced himself with a kick to the door.

I guess you could say he was your average kind of Joe. Except his name wasn’t Joe and he was holding a large automatic.

“I like the tune but your voice ain’t gonna win no grammys.”

The man who wasn’t Joe looked sourly at Saul’s sprawled three piece suit and Saul’s grinning three piece face.

“Time’s up Temple. You’re looking at the last gun you’re gonna see this side of the pearly gates.”

"Kitchens of Distinction sometimes performed “secret” gigs under the alter ego Toilets of..."

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 16:04:51 +0000

“Kitchens of Distinction sometimes performed “secret” gigs under the alter ego Toilets of Destruction.”

- Great band

Abandoned Nuclear-Powered Russian Lighthouse Seeks Occupier

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 17:13:30 +0000

Abandoned Nuclear-Powered Russian Lighthouse Seeks Occupier

The Frog Won't Wash Away

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 17:03:29 +0000

Last night I killed a frog.

I don’t always mind hitting things on the highway. Rabbits horny for headlamps and pedestrians who put a toe out on the red light. But I really hate bumping frogs.

This one was sitting in a puddle, on a Saturday night, in the rain. For a frog, this must be near to nirvana. He was occupying his rightful place in the great chain.

For a brief moment this particular frog bathed in my oncoming spotlight, chest puffed out, legs akimbo, paddling in the witching hour. Then, with barely a bump, another amphibian innocent passed into the night. Curiously Queen where eulogizing on the radio at the time.

As I motored on into the black I tried to concoct a human equivalent of the frog’s fate. Imagine sitting back in a warm bath, head to heaven and then being mashed into the porcelain by a great, spinning death-head. Add to that the humiliation of being left to stew.

Normally, I find investing wildlife with human feelings a sickly trait, best reserved for Bambi sequels, but frogs may be the exception. Being eyeballed by a frog about to die for instance. It’s that look of utter, horrifying apathy. Not an ounce of surprise. You’re going to squash me? Give a fuck. ‘Rabbit in the headlights’ doesn’t apply to the frog family – the focus shifts and you are but a fleeting object in the greater amphibian eye.

No last rites then. Just a 2D death. The sun will come up, the road will dry out and for a couple of days amblers may poke a toadish imprint, wrinkling their own stretched skin in disgust.

Infinite Pest

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 10:53:27 +0000

Welcome.

Welcome to Elephant City. 2020.

Before you get tired of scene setting let me add it’s a pretty fine day in Elephant City. There’s some great sunshine spreading typically glowing rays over the metropolis. There’s a cloud or two in the sky but all of them are of the friendly, cartoon kind. Oh – there’s also a general feeling of Good Will to All Men. It’s Christmas.

Now, when I say Christmas, I don’t mean in the bells-out Bethlehem sense. There are no mangers in Elephant. There are definitely no virgins. I mean in the purely abstract ‘there may have been some kind of significance to this date some time ago’ sort of way. Nobody in Elephant is Christian, nominally or not. Off the record there are still a few faith types hanging out in circles, singing weird shit about summers past. But even they are feeling pretty good in an indescribable, calendicular kinda way. On this particular Christmas Day, the greater conurbation, Elephant-at-large, has been gifted a great political present - a brand new mayor.

Some student types, probably political science majors, are discussing this new inauguration in their favourite bar. There favourite bar is, point of fact, a complete shithole. But like most favourites, and most shitholes, its got bags of character. The bar in question is somewhere in the Elephantine fringe, beyond all city landmarks and monuments, beyond, in fact, anything of note. It used to be called the Grand Ducal. Before that it may have once been the Royal Six Star. As of a few beers back it is now, definitely, the Aorta – as proclaimed by a large sign of the old, swinging in a paranormal breeze, kind.

The Aorta is, to the casual side-walker, a bricked-up window and a boarded up door, fronting on to some seriously sub-prime real estate. To the initiate this is merely the glossy cover veiling the great beating heart within. Those in the know perform an elaborate routine to enter which, at its conclusion, involves using a slide to access the bar bottom. This obscure descent to the premises gives the customer an acute sense of nausea, like being channeled backwards up a distended telescope – leaving the ocular panorama of the city roof to be squeezed out the eyehole of Soho. One of the many fiscal advantages of the Aorta stems from the brainwave that it is, indeed, a lot harder to climb up a slide totally tanked, blitzed or otherwise irrigated than it is to ride down one stone cold sober. Frustration usually leads to resignation and more drink. The other key coo is the absence of any employees. Salaried at least. The barman is the bar. Purveyor, proprietor, bouncer and songster, in no particular order, Magnus Oneson is, simultaneously, the current life and probable death of his establishment.

The Half-Life

Fri, 26 Nov 2010 11:26:00 +0000

10 years counting numbers. Drifting through a limbo of spreadsheets and spreadables, stuck in columns, cut into charts. Plucking the keyboard with clipped fingers. Locked in computer narcissis – screen and face merged from years of mutual reflection. Cheeks moulded to chair, denim gripping leather, locked in the rotation of the swivel seat. Days strewn with styrofoam, nights plagued with wet bureau sweat. Dreams haunted by the specters of primaries and binaries. Waking to digital alarms and clipboard beds. Quietly drowning in suited showers. Gripping breakfast gum in waxed jaws - always minty, never fresh. Rounding off the same walkway corners. Soundtrack reception, the guaranteed greeting - all tone, no voice.

All Along the Watchtower

Sat, 06 Nov 2010 13:32:26 +0000

Attacked by Jehovah in Costa. Offered me eternal life in primo, medio or grande. Gave me a bible doctored with a highlighter. Tried to set me up with Jesus. Told him I didn’t do blind dates. Said I was blinded. By rainbows I said? Rainbows from hell. Talked of tribulation. Said he could taste Jesus in his coffee cup. Sugar I said? Asked if I wanted the blood of the Holy Lamb in my cappuccino…

IT’S SATURDAY. LEAVE ME ALONE YOU MISSIONARY MOTHERFUCKER.

Stuck a flyer in my mouth and went back to the watchtower.

I wish I was…

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 12:45:52 +0000

I wish I was…

The Livid Marsh

Tue, 26 Oct 2010 11:01:41 +0100

Down the decline of mythic hills to the long, flat plain of the wetland mind.

Channels cut across the livid marsh, auburn peat and seaweed streams that bubble here and vanish beneath, only to emerge on another distant, blasted heath. Great green the moss that grows on yellow banks. Spores that cleave between the planes of coffin rocks, and trees with roots that bear no branches. All cloud sullies forth from a pinned and sewn horizon, no trails will make it here - ever drawing back, across the far march of some further marsh. Fetid fields of sunken knees, the hobbled limbs of vegetable cadavers, breaking the lichen peel, like skin on mummified milk or the dry tides of leaden paint. This is sour terrain, ailing sheens beaten phosphorescent by bludgeon wind.

I know at the back of that clapboard horizon, beyond the bog, lies a great house with clear windows and clean views. It is tall and stark, a mansion without motion, filled with ancient tubs and brass. I will remain on the wrong side of the rushes, behind the livid marsh, a lost surveyor trapped in one still life.

Pedal to the Medal

Fri, 15 Oct 2010 12:12:08 +0100

Strap on the lid, check the rubbers, flick the switch. Leapfrog. Toe connection. Head down. Up. Down. Up. Down. Bobbing for speed. Past the corner conversations, leg into the highway. Bus. Fuck. Bus. Fuck. Bus. Fuck. Clear. Gear click, knee click, finger twitch on the trigger, BRAKE. Hand off bonnet, leg off mirror, give a bird, get a bird. Stop for the zebra not for the light. Granny. Baby. Baby Granny. Freewheeling - MASSIVE FLOATING DOVE IMPRESSION. Midnight King - over the bridge and far away.

Power to the pedal.

More Americana…

Fri, 15 Oct 2010 11:53:34 +0100

More Americana…

In the Bleak Midwinter

Mon, 04 Oct 2010 12:57:00 +0100

So we went to the party.

Sam knocked on the door like he had a swat squad hanging on his coat tails – the boy was desperate to have a good time and therefore, sadly, was insured against actually having one. After an eternity of kicking doorstep grit, social sweat dripping down his pinstripe sides, Sam put a nervous eye to the letterbox. Almost instantly the door swung open and the poor boy tumbled head over polished heels into a crowded hallway. By the time I’d pulled Sam to his feet, found him a drink and hung up his hat the kid was already laughing stock. I thought, “Fuck Him,” and moved off to find the heart of the party, and whatever teenage dream I could buy into.

Room number one was a desert. Two boys were enacting a lonely ritual in the middle of an empty kitchen. The gist of the game seemed to be fairly simple. One guy smashed a beer can into the other’s forehead until it sprung a leak. Then he downed it and waited for his reciprocal bashing. Pondering the intellectual intensity of the spectacle I wandered into room number two.

It was hot. There’s nothing like a house party in the deep midwinter to really fuck with your wardrobe. Naturally I’d worn a wooly jumper, it was minus five out there, but this didn’t suit the human sauna waxing fat on the inside. The wallpaper was awash with the imprints of clammy hands and the cauldron of cocktails at the back overflowed with the milk of human anonymity. To make it all worse I’d just spotted a girl who, while not being of my dreams as yet, was certain to populate the blind vision of a midnight wank.

She was tiny, with a cute round face, always eyeing her surrounds from the ground floor up. Her expression seemed to switch between beauty and brains or, if she squinted hard, conveyed both at once. Limbs too small to be in proportion, breasts much too large for nature’s laws. Smoking incessantly. I loved her instantly.

Then I spotted a man. Big. Matching a born sneer with a straight jaw and the kind of stubble you shave twice a day. Shallow blue eyes, brilliant, beautiful - utterly vacant. More muscle than he knew what to do with, strained in a t-shirt proclaiming sex and status. I hated him - instantly.

She tip-toes up to pray at the altar of his pecs, kissing his hollow chest with immaculate smoke rings and making a pedestal for his ballpark behind. His laugh bounces off a few bald heads. He leans on the wall like he’s leaning on the whole house and everyone in it. What a giant jerk.

“Hey pal, was wondering where the hell you’d gone.” Sam returns, two pints up, one shoe lost and some hideous purple lipstick on his chin.

“I guess I was trying to find you,” I lie, but swing an arm over his shoulder in the manner of all losers, lonely and in need of social solidarity.

“Having a grand old time?” Sam probes, obviously eager for an affirmative to offset his own abject, party failure.

“Top of the world.”

“Who’s the bird with the bangles.” Sam’s naturally leery gaze has found the object of my desire, still preening over her man mountain.

“Just another Venus.”

Someone hands me a whisky bottle. Life would be infinitely better if there was more whisky to hand around.

King of Clowns…

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 13:09:41 +0100

King of Clowns…

Brooklyn Beaches

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 20:04:00 +0100

Grit in my bum and thigh-high tan marks – contrasts worthy of a Caravaggio. The beach is burning up. Dark shapes of big men stalk the periphery, gender neutral breasts in the heat haze. A real hurricane breeze coming off the foreshore now, smacking swell and smell. There’s even a tide-line ballet going on here – ‘tumble weed’ foam escapes, scuds, then implodes in the cartoon dune behind me. A couple of bearded nomads pass us by – from Brooklyn or Manhattan, or beyond - who knows where. Adam’s keeled over now, like a bust boat, with beachcombing trophies strewn around his personal shipwreck, lost cargoes in the near Atlantic. We’re both turning British beetroot but, we had the max factor from Michelle’s so back off sun.

My bladder’s synced with tidal surges and the urges - to urinate in the wash - are getting pretty strong. Just try and avoid vigilantes, cyclists - seaside scorn. The classic dash, the seminal plunge, the stroke and gasp and I’ll be out of reach. Serene. Sublime. Possibly pissing in a rip tide.

Banner trailing planes pass, advertising for oysters, and the coastguard are definitely out to lunch. Bye bye Americana. God bless.