the fidelity of pets

A crafty person might learn a way to place all their demons in someone else's pocket.

+++

When that person has left the room, or the house, or their life, they might allow themselves to believe that the demons have gone with them.

+++

But you can't keep a good demon in a pocket for very long. A good demon knows how to find its way back to its owner.

+++

look carefully before you cross the road

A highly developed instinct towards kindness is one that almost always leaves the bearer subject to disadvantage and open to abuse.

+++

It is tantamount to placing oneself on the back foot; or offering something for nothing.

+++

No wonder it has come to be considered a foolhardy instinct, one a wise individual should refrain from indulging.

+++

as wordsworth and others observed

We all of us possess a child within us.

+++

Which needs to be both indulged and resisted.

+++

Without the child, we lose our sense of wonder. We cease to grow.

+++

Ruled by the child, we forget the value of all we have learnt. We become stunted.

+++

the warrior

Generosity of spirit is a by-product of courage.

+++

When one acquires the capacity to place one's strength at risk; one also acquires the capacity to give that strength away.

+++

how do we know unless we are gay

Are there fundamental differences between the sexes?

+++

Of character and temperament, for example.

+++

Or are we lead to these conclusions because we are never made to look into the mirror of our own sex.

We rationalise differences in personality by ascribing them to the most physically discernible difference; because this is easier than confronting our beauty or our flaws.

+++

Have you never known a man who was winsome or a woman who was cocksure?

+++

sparkle

Being fascinated with someone and being enamoured of them are two seperate things which are frequently confused.

+++

in the library

Through the simple act of sitting in near-silence for a while, with a task to be done and no distractions, a state of serenity can be achieved.

+++

the nietzschean hippy

People tend to believe that if someone's incapable of hating, or even disliking, their enemy, or someone who crosses them, then this is a sign of weakness.

They are wrong. It may not look like it, but it is a sign of strength.

+++

note to parents

If you grow up accustomed to unhappiness, it becomes a hard habit to shake off.

+++

madonna's sagacity

Wisdom is treated with suspicion by the materialistic society.

+++

Wisdom attempts to look beneath the surface of things.

+++

In so doing it senses the transitory nature of things.

+++

The more a society constructs itself upon a tide of things, the more wary it becomes of wisdom.

+++

In a society that has no place for wisdom, the wise man looks like a fool.

+++

ends and means

Thoughtlessness is more likely to emerge from weakness than malice.

+++

The perpetrator lacks the energy to think of/for someone else.

+++

It could be they desperately wish to do so. But they cannot find the way.

+++

There is a pathos to this scenario. And yet it does not diminish the effect.

+++

the sunken italian garden in priors barton

In my dream I looked out of the window and the sunken garden was being dug up. It was being excavated from the edges into the middle. An old chapel or chamber, with filigree lead glass windows had been discovered underneath the garden. My mother and I ran downstairs. By the time we got out to the garden, the area around the excavation had flooded. The chamber could be seen through the clear water, but what lay inside the chamber could not be discerned.

+++

south west london tales 769002

On the Eastern corner of Vauxhall Bridge is a large Farrellian building with green plate glass windows and a hint of ziggurat. This is the MI5 building. Beside it there's a slipway, where the duckboat and its tourist crew emerge from the Thames.

They needed to capture some footage of the riverbank. G had hoped to film in the mud where the tide recedes, but the tide was in. All that was available was the slipway. The three of them carried camera and tripod down, the walls of the MI5 building looming. Three lion's heads are sculpted into the embankment. The shoreline is a mass of bottles, rope, wood, junk, stone. The river laps at the shore. On the opposite bank is the Tate, Milbank, and beyond that, the Houses of Parliament.

They got the camera out and captured all of this, looking over their shoulders. No one tried to prevent them. They finished off as quickly as they could, and then walked away.

As they turned the corner onto the street, the camerwoman's eye was taken by the setting sun glinting on the stainless steel of the bus station. She stood on the pavement and filmed, then stopped and moved forward to find a better shot, the camera on her shoulder. Out of the corner of his eye, G noticed the flak jacketed, shaven headed, military man heading towards them.

G took the camerawoman by the arm and dragged her forward. Mr C lurked behind. There was about a hundred metres between G and the camerawoman and the security man. The camerawoman tried to stop again but G grabbed her arm and pulled her forward.

Mr C heard the security man shout into his radio: Are they filming? Mr C lurked behind. G and the camerawoman made it to the corner of the road and turned right, onto Vauxhall Bridge. Mr C came up behind. The three of them hared across the road, dodging traffic, and jumped on a 436 bus. The security man had given up the chase. They had their footage.

+++

the long haul

Whenever a deep-rooted attachment comes to an end - a love affair, a friendship, a home, a place or a task - we learn a little more of what it will mean to die.

+++

a 'runter'

Is a technical term applied to someone on a film set who occupies the twin job descriptions of 'writer' and 'runner'.

+++

provisions

There is no way that someone can explain to someone else how much they love them.

+++

The object of these affections will either feel loved; or they will not.

+++

Love is not an elemental quality, like nitrogen or zinc.

+++

It has shades and degrees and differing levels of flavour or intensity. Like tomatoes, or coffee.

+++

The love that proclaims itself the loudest could be but an insipid imitation of the love that barely whispers.

+++

in order to break the pattern

We have to learn how to say the words which describe the things that cannot be said.

+++

And when they have been said, we have to learn how not to have to say them ever again.

+++

For a while at least.

+++

One day we'll get lucky. And forget them altogether.

+++

protection

Is it possible that failure could become a talisman?

The aleph which clings to your heart; which guides you on your way; which will one day lead you to safety?

+++

attributes

Your perfume is cleaner than soap, your fingers sharper than
Sunshine. Your touch more deadly than television, your toes
More agile than a teenage Soviet gymnast. Your smile’s
Prettier than Van Gogh’s dream of flowers; your neck as
Fragile as a galaxy which was spied once, one single night,
On the edge of a night sky, collapsing like a punctured
Accordion; its music too sweet for the universe to
Bear. Your mind’s an anaconda and a string quartet.
Your mind’s an undiscovered chamber in the pyramid of
Cheops. Your mind floats like a butterfly and stings like a
Nightingale. Your mind’s as pure as driven wine and as
Wicked as an angel’s. Your mind is rivalled only by your
Flesh in its un-transparent beauty and its transparent
Beauty to boot. Your beauty’s like a bubble, blown by a child.
It shimmers, defies the odds, sustains itself on the point of
Vanishing: should I try to catch it I’ll fear to lose it. Every
Colour wrapped in none, it reflects my world and floats
Within it: a philosophical challenge. Put down the ramp,
Drop the door, let’s travel the bubble together. Visit
Planets beyond the sensory range. Cross untameable
Seas, radical beaches, sulky jungles, runaway cities.
When the bubble’s energy’s spent, ready to pause,
Let her settle on my tongue, a safe haven. Rest there.
Sustain the perfect. Don’t ever burst. Don’t ever burst.

+++

your paranoia

Is all of your own making.

+++

Probably.

+++

thinking ahead to beyond midnight, a half hour before it dawns

Today, I shall be divorced. The word itself begs the question:
From what? My wife and I separated a long time ago now.
We are already divorced in all but name. Without ever going
Through the stages. One minute we were drinking and laughing.
The next we were done. I shall be divorced from my wife,
But I fear I shall be divorced from more than that which has
Already come to pass. Divorced from the land of dreams?
Some would say I did this then, the moment I betrayed a
Marriage vow I never took. I don’t believe so. Which in itself
Was enough to precipitate divorce. Whatever it might prove
To be, and as the unmade bed of words suggests, 'it' has
Slipped my neat parameters, I know that 'it', the it from which
I shall be divorced today, has left me lacking, has left me
Sadder than I wanted to have been left, has left me more
Stupid and more wise than I had hoped I should need to be,
Come this point in my waking, my thinking, my bed-making.

23.39 GMT

+++

ships in the night

People who feel themselves to be in some way 'difficult' will search for someone they believe is strong enough to help them negotiate a world they are unsuited for.

+++

In the belief and/or hope that that person will become their anchor.

+++

That person's strength may well have been born out of their ability to manage their own difficulties. For who is truly suited to this world?

+++

They in turn will be searching for their anchor.

+++

Who, unfortunately, is as likely as not to not be the one that they themselves anchor.

+++

Which is why, even in the most apparently stable of relationships, one or the other or even both partners can appear listless. Unsure if they are drifting or not. Unsure if their anchor is fixed to the seabed, ready for the storm, or just tangled up in weeds.

+++

west london tales 3

The concierge is a short silver haired dapper Spaniard called José. In his booth there are pictures of Muhammad Ali, other boxers, and José in Spain cradling a small child. José’s hours are something like 2 to 11, five days a week.

José’s always worried. When G moved in, he thought they might have relaxed Hispanic conversations. But José wants none of it. He nods, rather than greets. His eyes bore in on the visitor. No one gets past him. All to the good in a concierge.

At ten o’clock on a chilly November night, José was out on the street, wearing his blazer, looking agitated. Across the street, at the head of the path across the tracks, was a group of half a dozen hooded figures, poised on bikes. They were lined up on one side of the road, José, brandishing his mobile phone, on the other.

The kids didn’t do much. They didn’t have to. They intimidated through mere presence. G observed them from his window. People coming past them up the path walked at double speed.

One of the hooded walked ten metres down the path and crouched. A few moments later a small bonfire was ablaze.

Seconds later the first police car arrived. The kids, like a herd of bison scenting a lion, peered from the pedals of their bikes, then turned and dashed down the path, past the bonfire.

The police car slid to a halt. José was there, in the road, mobile in his hand, gesticulating. A shirt sleeved policeman climbed out of the car. He strolled down the path, in no hurry. José buzzed around the scene. A second policeman stamped the bonfire out.

The fire engine arrived moments later.

The kids had gone.

Within ten minutes, the officials had left the scene. Calm was restored to the night.

Another shift was almost over.

+++

nostalgia

La memoria es un parte detalle, y otra parte sensacion. Ser preciso no es lo mas importante. Lo mas importante es ser justo.

+++

too much information

Anyone who feels the need to inform you of the fact that they're a free spirit.

Probably isn't.

+++

west london tales 2

He looked out of the window and saw a van driving too slowly down the road, which came to a dead end beneath the Westway. It was a nondescript white van. It got to the end of the road and turned around, still moving at a crawl. As he’d half-expected, the phone rang.

The driver said he was on the street. G answered that he knew. He could see him. There are only two residential addresses on the street, both blocks of flats. He told him to come to the first, and went down to collect him.

There was a kid sitting in the passenger seat of the van. The driver said:

Do you know how heavy it is?

G said he didn’t.

It’s 75 kilos, the kid said, holding a clipboard.

G said he didn’t know how heavy that was.

Put it this way, the driver said, I never carry anything more than twenty kilos on my own.

They went to the back of the van, the kid staying in his seat. There were about half a dozen boxed mattresses there. The driver started pulling one out. It was heavy.

That’s a good mattress you’ve got there, the driver said. You can tell by the weight.

The mattress was boxed. The driver said the best thing to do was take the box off, so they could fit it in the lift. They carried it round and squeezed it in, before dragging it down from the twelfth to the eleventh floor, the mezzanine floor.

Once they’d got it there, G told the driver he was OK, he’d get it in and onto the bed on his own. The driver had already come from Barking and had a whole load more drops to make.

G dragged the mattress in to the hallway, before stripping the bed and removing the old futon mattress, which had lain so heavily on the bed, nine years of ownership baring into his back. The new mattress was bigger and heavier than he’d imagined it would be. He’d been hoping for a low bed to go with the low ceiling. With this one you could see out of the window, all the way to Wembley stadium, lying down.

He made the bed up and tested it out, remembering what the man had said. It was a good mattress. He got used to it, felt the way it supported his weight. It was surprisingly good. He turned and looked out of the window. He could see right over West London. Just lying there on the bed.

G got up and collected the post together that needed sending and readied himself to go out.

The phone rang.

It was the driver.

I suppose you’ve already taken the mattress out of the plastic and everything, the driver said.

G told him he had.

It’s just – I’ve only gone and given you the wrong mattress, haven’t I?

Fifteen minutes later the driver buzzed on his door. He’d brought up the cardboard cover which had been lying where he’d left it. Together, he and G did a makeshift job of replacing the plastic sheeting and assembling the cardboard over the mattress.

They dragged it down a flight of stairs to the tenth floor and squeezed it into the lift. It hadn’t got any lighter. In the lift the driver told him this had set him back half an hour. He was having a hell of a day. His wife had unexpectedly had to go to work, which was why their son was sitting in the van.

They lugged the mattress back to the van. The driver’s son stayed in the van. The driver dragged G’s actual mattress out of the back and stripped the clean cardboard from it and took his time putting it over the heavy mattress, so it looked nearly as good as new.

They carried G’s new mattress over to the lift, and squeezed it in. G told the driver he’d be alright with it on the stairs. It wasn’t very big. And it wasn’t very heavy. It wasn’t very heavy at all.


+++

west london tales 1

The door is heavy on the hinges. Since the weather turned, it hasn’t wanted to shut. The other day he noticed the hinges had become loose. On his way out to get some bread, he remembered to pick up a screwdriver to tighten the screws. The door closed shut and he still had the screwdriver in his hand. For a moment he thought about posting it through the letter box, then decided to stick it in the back pocket of his jeans.

The scaffolding was going up in earnest now. Men with hard hats were calling for things he’d never heard of. He walked round the corner onto the Harrow Road. The traffic was still being held up by the temporary traffic light. He nipped across the road, in between the stationary cars.

As he did so he felt something fall from his pocket. He stopped, looking up to see if the traffic was still moving, then darted to pick up the screwdriver. Looking up as he turned towards the pavement, he saw a police van directly in front of him.

He went to one of the two Arabic grocers and tried to choose some tomatoes. As he stood making up his mind, a policeman approached him.

Would you mind stepping this way please.

He stepped away from the shop. The policeman was young, with specs and tawny hair. A policewoman stood beside him.

What’s the screwdriver for? The policeman asked.

The explanation was profound. He pointed at his block of flats and talked at length about hinges.

It’s just you looked a bit suspicious, that’s all. You don’t look like a car thief, but you looked suspicious.

He acknowledged he probably did look suspicious.

Can I just have your name please, sir, just to say I spoke to you.

He gave the young policeman his name.

The policeman and woman got into the police van and headed off.

He turned back to the grocer’s. A group of Arabic men were gathered outside, looking at him with curiosity. He chose some tomatoes.

What did they want, the shop owner asked. The others were listening in.

Nothing really, he said.

They are all crazy, the shop owner told him.

Yes, he said, they probably are.

He chose some fruit juice then went over to pay.

Be careful out there, the Arabic shop owner said with a benevolent smile.

+++

on flattery

The compliments someone chooses to give you are a reflection of the way in which they would like to be perceived themselves.

+++

social engineering

The teacher sells himself as cynically as any charlatan.

Both have similar things to pedal:

Ointments for the betterment of the soul; Techniques for self-improvement; Learning of the ages.

+++

age shall wither us...

What happens to writers as they get older is that they become more and more removed from their material. They have already been through two journeys. The journey into life, which has generated their material; and the journey out, which has given them the perspective from which they have created their work. To embark on another journey appears to be to run the risk of abandoning that hard-won perspective.

Not to do so, however, provokes the onset of atrophy; the gradual recession from the material which inspired in the first place. The writer doesn't tire so much as lose touch. In the end, all that remains is the schemata of the world the writer once knew. All that is left to write are the bones of the body.

This might suit some: those who always aspired to an other-wordly purity.

+++

an apology for idleness

For years people measured their worth and their self-worth according to their labour.

+++

The idle man or woman was an unproductive drain on society. Creating nothing, generating no wealth.

+++

Now, we might be on the cusp of a world where the idle man or woman is the most worthwhile member of society.

+++

The one who has consumed least, polluted least, destroyed least, been the least precipitate in the rush towards the annihilation of the world as we know it.

+++

If the whole of Western society had been blessed with idleness, the air might still be clean, the seas full of fish, the jungles green worlds of their own.

+++

on your marx, get set, go

Who is the arbiter of your time?

Who is the one who decrees its value?

Who says an hour at a desk or a coal face is of more value than an hour on the beach or with your nose in a book?

For both yourself and humanity as a whole.

Count the hours.

Someone else is.

Working out what to do with them.

+++

the price of honour

Wisdom has it that those most inclined to err will be those most likely to forgive.

+++

This depends on whether they resist the inclination or succumb.

+++

If they succeed in resisting the inclination to err, they will be hard pressed to forgive.

+++

For they will have become exhausted by their constant striving for perfection.

+++

Their patience eroded on the rocky shore of their good behaviour.

+++

priors barton adieu

A picture in the paper of birds in flock, which takes me back
To those days I’d walk across the fields, primed to vault the
Gate and scale the wall and break into my home, and as
I crossed the green lawn, dusk beckoning, the trees turning,
A swarm of swallows or swifts or some other species would
Pirouette in unison through three degrees, gathered
For one last hurrah before the voyage out, or home,
Depending on their point of view. I’d stand and stare and
Envy their departure to lands enchanted, dusky summer
Nights, tirelessly rolling out like the great green sward
I strolled across, on the way to my home, which now stands
This morning, on the very tip of dispossession, as we
Fly the roost for the final time, leaving the curved bay
Behind, setting forth on our voyage out, or home,
Depending on the perspective we choose to take.


7th November 2007 09.30am

+++

two stockwell poems

The Foot On The Stair

Just outside my door is an iron balcony.
Which you reach by a spiral staircase.
When a visitor arrives, you hear the clank
Of boot on metal, long before you see their face.

Sometimes you hear people who never arrive. You
Wonder who they might have been, which long-lost
Friend whose spirit hesitated then turned,
Rather than take up the tangle of our untied strings.

Billy Parham rode South three times across the border. The last
Time was the only one he got what he was after,
Though it wasn’t what he wanted. He learnt the dead
Have more power than the living, even before they know they’re dead.

He visited me just now. Creeping in silently through a
Back door we haven’t got. Like an old testament
Prophet, singing songs of the past to remind us
Of the future. He dug up their bones and brought the ghosts to life.

They never rest. He’s been teaching me. They’re but a footstep
Away, out on the ironwork, peering through the
Door, threatening to come in. I hear their step and turn.
Then they disappear. Never far away. But never very close,

Neither.


+++


Untitled


Someone leaves offerings at our front gate almost
Every morning. They must come between the hours of
Three and seven. The nightjay serves up all kinds of
Dishes: frozen burgers, potato peelings, sliced
Bread. We don’t know their name or motive. We don’t know
If they watch from afar, waiting for the moment
The door is opened. Perhaps they don’t care: the door
Has been selected as a random point in a
Universe, leading to a god long forgotten.
It reminds me of the Playa by the gasworks,
Where I was told not to disturb the candles or
The food left to Jemanja, the sea god. To touch
Would be to conjure a curse, for only the sea
Should claim what is left for it. I kick our leavings
Aside, or skip daintily over the latest
Prayer of red cabbage, garlanded with carrot peel.

27.03.97

+++

the artabatirae

"towards the west [of the Aithiopian kingdom of Meroe] are . . . the Artabatirae, who have four legs and rove about like wild animals" Pliny the Elder, Natural History

+++


It should never be forgotten that the power of the image is far greater than the word.

+++

The creation of moving, reproducible images might have changed the world more than any other invention.

+++

The image is seductive. It beseeches covetousness. The eyes swallow images like candy.

+++

Nothing is more likely to make an individual want to change their life than the sight of an image.

+++

Even though, no matter how authentic the image appears, it is never anything more than a rumour.

+++

from an old notebook

Sometimes people become lost through spending too much time on their own; sometimes by spending too little.

+++

inscription on a san francisco monastery sundial

Every hour that passes wounds thee and the last will kill thee.

+++

Quoted by Eduardo Galeano, Memory of Fire

+++

4 uruguayan poems

Images

A red chair lying next to a black one
At the foot of the sea wall. If it had eyes,
Would have seen a longtime companion,
One of its conical black legs. Drifting erratically
Away. It would also have seen a bloated fish,
The size of a frying pan, coming to rest
Beside it. Before being toyed with by the macabre tide,
Dragging it away in an imitation of life for a moment or two,
Before deploying it oncemore on the strand,
Within spitting distance of a wreath, white-flowered,
Trailing a black ribbon, meandering between
Rocks, sea and shore. Joining this idiosyncratic
Latin dance of listless objects with nothing
Better to do of a sun-scoured afternoon.


+++


Image

Sometime in a night so warm that it might as well be day
We drove along the Rambla to Carrasco,
A retreat for vacuous moneyed youth, deluding
Itself the world over that the impulse to escape
Significance is not a misguided quest to find it.

Between the town and Pocitos, in the dazzling shadow
Of a blackened sea, threaded with the pinhole lights
Of civilisation, we passed an open truck. Bearing
A pair of passionately entwined stowaways, young
Americans revelling in modernity; enwrapping nature
With the sensual speed of fuel-injected travel,
Allowing this in turn to charge their lust or love,
Blossoming in a private public display of narcissistic
Passion, flowering in the summer of our headlights.
We overtook and they were gone as we in turn were
Overtaken by the sensuality of night, heat and dawn.


+++


Hit And Run on Calle Uruguay

On a bright busy morning
A dead body lies covered
In a newly-washed sheet
People chat in doorways
Some stop to stare at the
White token of transience
Guarded by a cohort of sun-
Specced police who look important
But quite clearly are not.


+++


Cabo Polonio

The smell corrupts the wind which tears into my features
Distorting my face into a beaten mask. Behind which I
Cannot hide. It is the smell of rotten seal. Washed up
On the beach of Cabo Polonio, a pragmatic paradise
With room for litter, revulsion and hardship; refusing
To cocoon its visitors in a vacuum-packed ambience of
Pleasure; forcing them to seize it, greedily and guilt-
Lessly, as a right, a due of land and nature. Like death:
The skeleton debris of the world’s wasted garbage
Claims its place beside the brilliant moon, the flawless sea,
The ragged music resonating morning noon and night.



march/april 1994

+++

a dream

I'm in Montevideo. I go to the bus station to catch a bus to Valizas. There are other English backpackers there, who don't really know what they're doing or where they're going. I ask in Spanish, and the sales assistant smiles at me. My Spanish is just about good enough.

I arrive in Valizas and make my way to Polonio. I find a spot beside one of the little ranchos. There's a lot of people there. It's busy. Evening arrives and I head off for a walk. I walk down towards the sea and put my foot in a marshy spot (which would not exist) and a baby crocodile snaps at me but misses.

I head off along the coast. It starts to become built up. I run into Raquel. She's been there a few days. I tell her there's a good bit further down the coast. But as we walk it becomes more and more built up. There are cars on roads. I tell her when I was there last, there were no cars. There's a fancy hotel. The place looks more like Punta, or Brighton. I say we should go and see the sea lions. The sea lions have had a special sea lion run created for them. It's concrete, and shallow, so they can bask there. A building crosses overhead. They seem happy enough, but it's all one great big tourist trap. Raquel holds out something for a sea lion to eat. I tell her that they're dangerous, she shouldn't, but the sea lion just lifts it out of her hand, a trick it's perfected.

There are hundreds of tourists. TP arrives. At one point, I spot a little crevice full of broken up crates, rubbish from the sea. I tell them - look there, that's what Polonio used to look like.

+++

achievement

The mark against which one should be measured might not be one's ability to succeed, but one's ability to fail, to continue to fail, to fail better, and to continue to fail better.

+++

the old bailey

The visitors gallery is entered via a white tiled passage.
After primitive security, they are herded like schoolkids
On the stairwell, waiting for permission to enter. The court
Rises for the judge. Yellow masking tape covers a bank of
Seats. In the gallery, a row is cordoned off by police tape,
As though a crime had been committed. The jury’s a scruffy
Multi racial mix. In for the long haul. Bewigged courtiers tap at
Laptops. Four members of the police defence council scrutinise
The gallery, copper genes kicking in. Unaccounted guests
Include a Brazilian, some students and a young man in a brash
Captain America T-shirt. The barristers know their Dickens.
For the police, a heronian brief, beaky, boxing clever.
His adversary appears as twitchy as a sparrow, then proceeds
To cross-examine like a mongoose, circling, darting, retreating.
She sips from her water, refills the glass from a jug, hovers, moves
On, quips with deadpan wit, runs her witness ragged. Implies a kill
She has no need to make. The witnesses are upstanding police-
Men, steeped in caution. The judge queries one officer. Surely, he
Suggests, were a suicide bomber known to be at large, would that
That not indeed represent an immediate, actionable threat
To the safety of the public? - Indeed it would. So – why was
Jean Charles de Menenzes allowed to board the bus unchallenged? Why
The four hour wait for a briefing? What really caused a man’s death, in
The darkness of the underground, on a Summer’s Day at Stockwell Tube?

031007

+++

Wordsworth, Letter to Mary Wordsworth, May 1812

The life which is lead by the fashionable world in this great city is miserable: there is neither dignity nor content nor love nor quiet to be found in it.

+++

my new home

Upon this day the headline announces:
Banking Crisis: The Fear Spreads. Three blue
Chairs and an ugly bed left behind declare
The ghostery of those who came before. Along
With unpaid bills and electriclessness. The
View across Notting Hill, Battersea and the M40
Begins its job of luring me in, revealing first
Secrets. A musty stench mutters of not-being-
Lived in. Months and months of neglect
Lend a forlorn air to the kindliest of souls.
The flyover, redolent of a megalopolis
Intrudes with its automated burble, but
Its unthreatening; the reliable riverine
Flow. Cars, vans and bikes skedaddle
Along, each one different, full of purpose,
A counterpoint to the writers vacuity. Who
Sits, writing his way into his new home,
Waiting for the light and the glow to take hold.

180907

+++

the blue society

A depressed person can help no-one save themselves.

+++

Making depression and selfishness unhappy bedfellows.

+++

Depression represents the asocial apex of a society.

+++

Capitalism feeds off dissatisfaction.

+++

If you have everything you need you won't need to purchase anything else.

+++

The greater your dissatisfaction the closer you come to depression.

+++

The mechanics of capitalism thrive on an underlying drift to depression.

+++

vices and virtues

Vanity and self-criticism are two peas from the same pod.

+++

People love their faults just as much as their virtues.

+++

People would readily jettison their virtues if needs be, whilst defending their faults to the hilt.

++

A fault may be described as a weakness, when it is actually treasured by the bearer as a badge of honour.

+++

You know where are you are with a fault. Virtues are more perpelexing.

+++

shannon airport

Rich US golfers express concerns
At being overcharged. Their golf
Bags are large enough to hide a
Body. In the departure terminal
Young men and women, white, black or
Latino amble, chat, sup a last
Guiness. Wearing desert boots and
Khaki fatigues. Without a hint of
Aggression, bearing fluffy toys in
Plastic bags. The golfers don't mix with
The unassuming soldiers whose quiet
Eyes protest they wouldn't harm a fly.

+++

favours

If one plans on asking for a favour, one should ask graciously, without fear of denial.

+++

Otherwise the request runs the risk of coming across as an instruction, or an order.

+++

One should never give orders to those from whom one might require a favour. Whatever is gained in the short term will be lost in the long.

+++

standards of living

Our society, no matter how rich in comfort, is little more than a pauper in time.

+++

our pledge to you

If you want your life to be a self-fulfilling prophesy -
That can easily be arranged.

+++

a function of hindsight

The line between a generous love and a selfish one is sometimes so fine that neither lover nor lover will be able to spot it.

In the present.

+++

aliens

If your partner's from another country there will be cultural differences which may be hard to overcome but can be with time, love and patience.

+++

If your partner's from another planet there will be cultural differences which may be impossible to overcome, no matter how much time, love or patience are available.

+++

3 poems from the desert

dune

Mountain, sea, body,
Flesh, water, stone.
Light play shadow,
Trail scurries side
Ways also back
Wards and forwards.
Land a sundial,
Intemperate,
Fearsome. Gentle.


ouarzazate

It's too hot to sight-see. It's too hot
To eat. Our fellow expeditionaries
Talk environment. Hong Kong, everything
Under the sun. We drink water, make
Notes, retreat. The locals smoke, eat
Ice cream, speak slowly, watch -


ait

The chocolate walls look like they're made
Of lego. The kid who adopts us has
Lived here all his life. I ask if he
Wants to move and he says yes, he'll
Go across the river, to the other side
With the electricity. Ten families
Live in the old kasbah. A few years ago
They built a pit to film Gladiator.
I ask the kid if he's Russel Crowe's
Mate. The kid says he was too young.
He doesn't hassle us for dirhams
But we give him some anyway.



sahara june07

+++

wealth of a nation

Avarice is like a lode star which shines above our culture.

+++

It informs the way we eat, think, write, dream, love.

+++

It does its best to inform the way we make love; but it is not as successful in this as it seeks to be.

+++

It functions like advertising (its sancho panza). It operates in the breaks between programs. Opens and fills and empties the cracks that spiderweb our walls.

+++

Avarice has no scruples. It drops bombs, eats babies, fucks nuns and toys with hearts. All for the sake of something extra which is not required.

+++

how the mind works

In a dream, you get the answer you were looking for.
When you wake up you distinctly remember being given it.
The trouble is you can't remember what it was.
In fact, you can't even remember what the question was.

+++

amo amas amat

It is easy to confuse love for another with love for one-self.

+++

It is generally the most selfish who are the greatest advocates of 'love'. Those who talk most of their capacity to love another will be those whose capacity for love is least.

+++

Self-ishness seeks rewards which it claims for love but have little to do with love.

+++

Love is a long-term project.

+++

Love is a labour of love.

+++

the height of the walls

Everyone can have an opinion about someone else's tent.

+++

The only ones who will ever know what the inside of the tent looks like are they who (have) dwell(ed) within it.

+++

gemini

Being a writer is like being born with a dead twin at one's side.

+++

itineranced

He often goes to bed of a night convinced that the life he's now leading is but a chimera; that his real life continues elsewhere, without him.

+++

the fountain

Now since this was raised.

I remember the fountain. I did not run through it in 1994. I ran through it in 1996.

It had been over a year since the last time I was in Montevideo. A year of living in various parts of South London. Drug dealers, painting and decorating, black market labour, the usual insipid poverty. RSC rejection. Other rejections. Superwoman and the Nigerian runaways. Stashing notes in a shoebox every week to pay for H to come over for two weeks in June – Hector paid in the end so it may have paid for my ticket, I can’t remember. Letters and letters and letters.

So many times Montevideo had slipped into the status of a dreamland. And then finally, 1996 came, and I was allowed to go back.

My flight took forever. At Stanstead, the plane taking us to Amsterdam was delayed. A dull wet Friday night. When the plane finally took off the pilot said there were three of us making the Buenos Aires connection, and he was sorry to say it looked like we wouldn’t make it. There’s nothing you can do, but I didn’t know how I’d be able to tell H I’d be delayed. We only had so much time, and we’d waited so long. Then, as we came to land in Schipol, the pilot announced the BA flight had been held back, just for us.

The Stanstead Three were rushed through the airport on an electric trolley with our baggage. A pretty Argentine, a portly Englishman, and me. The other passengers glared as we were ushered into the plane. They’d been waiting half an hour. Eva Castro (for indeed this was her name) was an architecture student at the Bartlett, going to visit her family in Mar Del Plata. We drank red wine and chatted till late. The plane was half empty. A rare civilised flight. I stretched out and failed to sleep. I can never sleep on planes. In the morning I got talking to the portly man. He was going to work for an Argentine gas company. Some kind of consultant. His ticket cost six times mine. I mentioned the fact my father worked in the oil business. He knew my father. He thought my father was a great guy. He’d had drinks with my father.

We landed at Buenos Aires, early morning. Eva Castro told me to visit her, or look her up in London. I never did. The man who knew my father gave me a lift in his cab to the port. I was in Latin America again. The air smelt different. The light was different.

I bought a ticket at the port. It was eight thirty in the morning. The next buquebus didn’t go until four in the afternoon. There wasn’t much to do in the terminal. I sat, hugged my rucksack. Tried to stay awake. Felt more and more delirious. Wrote notes which I’ve since lost. The hours were like glue. Wonderwall played on the tannoy. It seemed appropriate. I heard Spanish all around me. I hadn’t slept in nearly 35 hours.

I can’t remember boarding the jetfoil. I can’t remember how long it took. Maybe two hours. I remember seeing Uruguay come into view. Tracing the coast for an age. Spotting the Cerro. I remember the boat pulling into the harbour. There were the clocktowers. The post office. The Palacio Salvo. My landmarks. The boat pulled in sideways to the dock. On the dockside a small crowd was gathered. I saw Anibal. I saw Helena. She was wearing a dress in the evening warmth. Was she smiling or laughing. I pressed myself against the glass. I wasn’t’ sure if what I was seeing was real.

The rest was easy. They didn’t check me at customs. I was no hick tourist. Straight out the side door. Arms legs and lips. Anibal grinning like a benevolent brother. A short drive in his old VW. Puttering along.

I dropped my bag at Anibal’s. Then H and I went to Lobizon. For old time’s sake. It was still early. The minute we walked in you could feel it wasn’t like before, but it didn’t matter. We were there. Did we share a beer? I can’t remember. There was no-one else there. English time. We didn’t stay long. Walked back down Dies y Ocho. Holding hands. I was, I would say, euphoric. Warmth and evening and people a strolling and talking and H beside me. Just about perfect. Once in a lifetime.

We got to the square, where I later saw Martin Amis looking blurry and Tabare Vasquez celebrating. The fountain was low and flat, a kind of giant raised hubcap, with jets all over. The water beckoned. I told H I wanted to dive in. I asked what she thought. She told me if I wanted to I should do it. I ran across. As I ran I felt my jeans tear on a water jet, and realised I could have impaled my foot. I scampered off. Did a whistle blow? We ran and we laughed. I was drenched. I was back. We ran down the street and we laughed.

+++

dreams

Dreams are a way of revealing that there is no such thing as salvation.

+++

Salvation implies a logic. Dreams constantly subvert our notions of logic.

+++

The things we see in our dreams will not be the things we want to see. They will not even be the things we expect to see.

+++

Surprise works against logic.

+++

Salvation remains a myth.

+++

facts of life

Love is an addiction. Like all addictions it can only be overcome with the application of a sustained, concerted brutality.

+++

off the page

Great work is always a journey into the unknown.

+++

In the unknown, we cannot recognise what is good and what is bad.

+++

Therefore greatness will always occur as an act of faith.

+++

In order to locate our greatness, we cannot look at a map of land we already know. We have to look to places we have not yet travelled.

+++

right and wrong

There is a right way to do the wrong thing; and a wrong way to do the right thing.

+++

No matter how much you seek to do right; wrong will find you one day.

+++

until death do

Should a relationship become a war, victory will only be achieved through the complete annihilation of the other.

This will inevitably turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory.

+++

likes and dislikes

If you come to dislike someone you have known well, it is possible that the dislike you feel for them is in part a reflection of the dislike you feel for yourself.

+++

galway film fleadh

Mr Curry informed me were going to the Galway Fleadh to sell our film, The Boat People. There would be more industry bigshots in Galway for two days than in Cannes and Santa Monica combined.

We landed at Shannon and drove through drizzle, just in time to check into the hotel before Mr Curry had to head to the ‘G Centre’ for the grand networking supper. The G Centre was a ten minute walk from our hotel. Half way down the road, Mr Curry’s back gave out. He started spasming on the side of the road. I left him to fend for himself and made my way into town to register. Half an hour later he called from the hotel, saying I had to get over to the G Centre to witness the garishness of the new Irish wealth. I trawled across sand-blasted roundabouts to the G Centre, a temple to Mammon created by Phillip Treacy the hat designer. A glass of strawberry flavoured champagne was levered into my hand. An extreme silver bollocked concoction hung over everyone’s heads. After half an hour and ten glasses of champagne I was ejected from the Temple, whilst Mr Curry went to the dinner. An Irish filmmaker told me to make my way to McDonaughs for fish and chips. I weaved my way through forests of despairing Spanish tourists, wondering what kind of humourless god had sent them from their sun-crushed homeland to the grey wastes of Galway for their ‘Summer’ holidays.

The fish and chips was as good as promised, despite the dive-bombing seagulls. Then I went to the festival hang-out, the Rowing Club, for a pint, and sat on the terrace skulking as all around me men and women with sharp specs discussed budgets and overspend. I fled back to my hotel, drained already. Hours later Curry rolled in, saying he’d been sitting next to the most important German in the world, who we were meeting the next day, who’d already expressed his disdain at all things even remotely low budget. And we are the lowest of the low.

The next morning we took a cab into town for our 10am meeting. Mr Curry managed to dispose of the only press pack for The Boat People we’d get rid of all festival. This constituted success. Our next meeting wasn’t until after lunch. We checked our email for significant messages. Mr Curry tried and failed to get his phone to operate in a foreign country. After a hearty sandwich it was back to the pitch. The most important German in the world looked at us with disdain from behind his red-framed glasses. He wasn’t buying anything. We moved on to meet the Dude.

The Dude is the original dude. He was wearing a Big Liebowski T-shirt, in case anyone didn’t know. His hair was wild, and he looked rather more dishevelled than Jeff Bridges. The Dude shook my hand. Writers, he said, that’s what we need. You’re the first writer I’ve met. I love your ideas. I love it. Send me an email. Here’s my card. Mr Curry moved on to talk to the most important Swede in the world, but I stayed on for more from the Dude. He told me a story. He’s in a bar with Sam Shepherd and Nick Roeg. Nick Roeg says he wants to direct something of Shepherd’s. Shepherd says no fucking way. Roeg says what? Shepherd says you’ll murder my work. Roeg acts hurt, the Dude smooths it over, next thing is the three of them having a six hour conversation on which came first, the image or the word. The Dude tells me the word always come first. That’s why the world needs writers. Writers who write narrative. Not character sketches. Real stories.

The Dude’s got me in a fascinating corner, but I’ve only got twenty minutes, and I have to meet the most important Swede in the world. Curry’s telling him about Truck, our groundbreaking rollercoaster script. The most important Swede in the world says he has ten million euros to spend, and the decisions are all made by him. Send us a script and he’ll let us know by the end of August. If he wasn’t Swedish this would be hard to believe, but he is, so it seems like another potential chink of light, which we carry forward as we head for the last interview of the day. This is with a laconic Irish producer, who says he’s sick of hearing pitches, and tells us to speak to the head of ITV acquisitions. When asked what he’s looking for, he replies: Nut-ting. Nut-ting at all. I just came over to see some films. The head of ITV passes on the Tempest, but at least she gives us the time of day. Five meetings, two potential developments, and words of wisdom from the Dude. It’s not been a bad day.

We go and see a film. It’s set on the night of Ceaucescu’s fall. The multiplex cinema’s full of literate Galway cinephiles. It’s impossible to tell who’s fighting who in the movie, but then that’s probably the point. After that we head to the Rowing Club. One of our interviewers is drinking Murphy’s. We join him. There’s an Irish producer there with an English director. It looks like they’ve known each other years but they just met an hour ago. We head to the Kings aftershow party. I chat some more to the Dude. Everyone spills out into the Galway street. The Irish filmmakers all know each other. They feed me beer and cigarettes. The most important German in the world is hovering like a wraith. Suddenly it’s half one and time to move on. We carry crates of wine through the Galway side streets. Beside an industrial development is the Radisson Hotel, with its late bar. By now it’s like we’ve all known each other years. Whisky flows. I’m introduced to dozens of Northern Irish filmmakers. More than the combined Benelux population. They all buy me whisky. No-one talks film. The night’s heading towards oblivion, and the casualties are mounting when Mr Curry and I retire, in an attempt to preserve some last shred of dignity.

We’re up at eight and speaking to a laid-back teenage New Yorker by ten. He’s hungover too. He likes the idea of Truck. He wants us to email it. Next we meet the man who found the Coen Brothers. A grizzled veteran, the New York antithesis to the West Coast Dude. He tells a story about John Houston winning his battle to make The Red Badge of Courage. Even though the producers knew it was commercial suicide. People have to write what they want to write, not what they think the industry wants. In the old days the studio heads would give young hotshot directors a title. Tell them to make the film. When the Corman or the Demme said – where’s the script? The producer would say – What are you talking about? You’ve got a title – go shoot the movie. Those were the old days. Before the industry started pitching. The old man’s got watery eyes, a fierce goatee, and a vivid handshake. We do a couple more pitches then head for lunch, followed by another pitch. Then, at last, the pitching’s over.

Mr Curry wants to see the Chad movie. The Omniplex is once again full of feverish Galway punters. Mr Curry is on his last legs, and snoozes through the point at which the elderly Chadian warlord complains about his bad back. Many of the revellers from the night before finally appear to watch the next film, a Newcastle tale which the director describes as a ‘Rock n roll cancer film’. All of which proves to be undeniable. After a food break its time for the last film of the night, Nick Roeg’s Puffball, receiving its official premiere. It starts at eleven, half an hour late. I spot Rita Tushingham in the audience and point her out to the Curry. Who tells me not to be ridiculous. The great director and Shepherd adversary introduces his film, set in Ireland. He thanks the cast and crew who have come to Galway. Including Rita Tushingham.

After the film we make one last valiant attempt to get drunk in the Rowing Club, but are buffeted back by wave upon wave of international filmmakers, storming the bar with in an effort to recreate a scene from Battleship Potemkin. We give up and mosey back to the Radisson, where the Puffball party’s taking place. Curry has been on a mission to hand a copy of The Boat People to Nick Roeg, which he does, whilst I talk to a friend from the cast, who describes the octogenarian’s director’s instinct to dispense with the script at the drop of a hat. This kind of validates Sam Shepherd’s standpoint. A few whiskies later and a great deal the wiser, the Curry and I flee the drink. The most important German in the world is still there, manoeuvring his way around the various hotel bars.

We’ve met the elderly statesmen and pitched to some of the most important men in the world. Drunk with actors, producers, directors, distributors. Sampled oysters, mussels, Guinness and Murphy’s. Half a dozen people want to see the new script and god knows how many are wandering around with a DVD of The Boat People which they’ll unearth in a corner of Stockholm or New York or Belfast or London. Mr Curry decrees that the Galway film festival should be designated as a success, and we sleep the sound sleep of hard-drinking networkers.

On our last day in Ireland Mr Curry takes me to something completely different but more or less the same. This is the Willie Clancey festival in County Clare, where a village is devoted to Guinness and wild heathen music for a week. Barbarous banjo players down pints between note picking and dark-eyed fiddlers serenade staggering farmers. I spend the night in a trailer van which used to belong to the Rolling Stones. In the middle of the night I wake and walk out into the warm damp air of the country, and all around there’s silence.

+++

the great air-con revolt

It doesn’t work, the driver said, as I reached to switch the air conditioning on. Sorry. Il ne marche pas.

+++

This was after entry had been made to the space wagon. Seven tourists, four from Britain, one from Quebec and two from Hong Kong, All congregated on a Marrakech pavement at seven in the morning. A driver lead us over to the car and tried to open the sliding door. He couldn’t. He tried again. He climbed in and began to pound at the door. The door refused to open. He pounded some more. Other drivers came to offer support. The door refused to open. Finally people started climbing in the back. I sat in the front. Someone told me to try the air conditioning.

+++

The driver’s name was Si-Mohammed. He spoke some French, but seemed more comfortable in the role of driver than guide. I sat in the front next to the girlfriend, made a little conversation with him, then sat back to enjoy the drive. The road crossed a small plain to the Atlas mountains, leaving the mayhem of the Medina behind. It was warming up. We had the windows open. The two English girls, both from Bristol, began to talk to the French Canadian.

Over the course of the first day, their conversation covered every nuance of liberal well-travelled discourse. Recycling. Relative poverty standards in first and third worlds. Drugs. The price of beer. Child labour. Arms manufacturing. Glastonbury. How to make payments to charity. The future of the world. Raves. Recycling. Recycling.

The girlfriend put on her headphones. They were broken. She sighed. The sun rose. The tin car of a car began to heat up.

+++

We reached Ait-Benhaddou before lunchtime. We were given half an hour there. Si-Mohammed didn’t have anything to say about it. The girlfriend and I set out across the dry riverbed to explore the Unesco-protected Kasbah. A local kid appropriated us. He lead us through the mud-wall warren. Pointed out the site where Ridley Scott had built a pit for Russell Crowe to play a gladiator. The kid didn’t claim to be mates with Russell, he’d been too young. He said that there were only ten families living in the Kasbah. When he was older he was going to live on the other side of the river, where there was electricity.

When we got back to the space-wagon, the sliding door has been fixed by a restaurant owner. It seemed to have cheered Si-Mohammed up.

+++

The next stop was Ouarzazate. Gateway to the Sahara. The edge of a dusty plain would end in all-consuming sand. It was impossible to decide if it was hotter out of the car or in. Si-Mohammed lead us into a tourist restaurant. It was too hot to eat, and too pricey. Everyone left for a cheaper local café. The café owner asked me how much my mobile cost. I didn’t know but hazarded a guess. He said his son had the same type. It had cost three times as much as the figure I’d quoted. His son appeared. He was amazed at how cheap my phone was. The odds are stacked in the Europeans favour. I admitted it was just a guess. I was on a contract. It didn’t seem to make things any better.

+++

We sat in the back now in the space wagon. I talked to Eric, the French Canadian. He thought the Moroccans didn’t look after their environment. He talked for Canada. It wasn’t getting any cooler. The windows at the front were open. Si-Mohammed cheered up the closer we got to our final destination. We stopped for pictures. We took pictures of a Kasbah. We took pictures of a valley. We stopped at Fatima’s and took pictures of fake camels. I sat in the front again and Si-Mohammed told me the berber music tape he was playing was him and his mates. They sounded good. The nearer we got to our destination, the more people Si-Mohammed honked his horn at. I asked him if he lived round here, but he didn’t. He just seemed to know everyone.

+++

We stayed the night at the Dades Gorge. Over supper we spoke to a German couple on another trip with our tour company. Their truck didn’t have any air-conditioning either.

It was hot in the hotel. So hot I couldn’t sleep for a while. Had to get up and walk about. The river gurgled outside in the gorge, by the oleander bushes. The stars blossomed overhead.

+++

Si-Mohammed had briefed us that breakfast was at seven, and we had to leave at seven thirty. At seven forty five the Honk Kong couple, both journalists, had still not appeared. When they showed up, twenty minutes late, Si-Mohammed was shaking his head. When Eric turned up, five minutes later still, Si-Mohammed chastised him in French. Eric and Si-Mohammed were not getting on. As soon as the space-wagon started moving, the conversation resumed, with further aspects of the neo-liberal world examined. The quieter of the two Bristolians gave up, putting on her headphones. Eric and Mandy maintained their commitment.

+++

The second day we were that much closer to the desert, and it was that much hotter. We stopped at an oasis and were shown through it by another guide, Hassan, who spoke good English. He took us to the old Kasbah, where the mosque was kept up by the villagers, in spite of the fact that they had all now moved to the new Kasbah, with electricity. We walked back through the fields to the new Kasbah. Children chased us. When someone gave them some sweets, Hassan told them not to. If one child gets something, every child in the Kasbah will want it to. We were taken to Fatima’s home to see the carpets. No-one bought any.

+++

We stopped for lunch in another gorge. No-one knew its name. We ordered food and then had a twenty minute wait. The girlfriend and I wandered up the gorge and paddled in the stream. The locals looked at us with curiosity. On the far, shaded bank, families were gathered, picnicking.

On the way back to the restaurant, a local tried to strike up a conversation. He asked who our guide was. Then told me that Si-Mohammed knows how to get a good deal.

Back at the restaurant, everyone was waiting for food. It was too hot to do much except stare at it when it arrived. Whilst we’d wandered up the gorge, a plan had been hatched. Eric didn’t believe the air-conditioning didn’t work. Everyone figured the driver, whose name they had yet to establish, was refusing to use it in order to save petrol. When we set off from the gorge Eric would sit in the front and turn it on.

+++

Si-Mohammed pulled the space wagon out from its bit of shade. Eric and Hassan climbed in the front. Hassan was getting dropped off at his village. Eric leaned forward and switched the air-con on. Si-Mohammed leaned forward and told him it didn’t work. He switched it off. Eric switched it on again. He said he wanted to try it. Si-Mohammed stopped the wagon, took the keys, jumped out and made a call on his phone.

+++

It was unclear whether the air-con was working or not. Si-Mohammed got back in and drove off. Eric fiddled some more. Si-Mohammed was talking to someone on the phone in Arabic. Everyone had gone quiet. Hassan draped his scarf over his head to keep the sun off. Eric accused Si-Mohammed of lying. Si-Mohammed called the tour organiser back. He and Eric and Hassan sat in the front and the no-one knew what was going to happen.

+++

It turned out Eric was right. The air conditioning did work. Hassan was dropped off about five kilometres down the road. He explained that each driver was given a budget of 1200 dirhams (£75.00) for the trip. They had to cover their expenses with this. Using the air-con increased the petrol budget by approximately 30%. Therefore none of the drivers used it..

+++

Eric and Mandy were incensed. Their consumer rights had been violated. Besides which it was a health and safety hazard. They demanded to speak to the tour operator. Si-Mohammed passed his phone to Mandy. No, You listen to me, she said to the voice on the other side. There are people who are getting Sick. We are in the middle of the Desert and we have no Air Conditioning. It is not Acceptable. This is Not what we signed up for.

I was back in the front. Si-Mohammed was tutting. He looked like he wanted to pull over and have done with the lot of us. The windows stayed down and the air-conditioning stayed off.

+++

The landscape became harsher. Towns were dustier. Former outposts of the foreign legion. Everything was shut because it was Sunday. Not the best of times to be stranded in the Sahara.

The deal presented from the office in Marrakech was simple. The aircon costs would have to be added to the price of the tour. The extra fee was 300 dirhams. This was £19, which meant less than £3/ head. We had to decide whether this was a deal we were willing to make.

Eric had a new argument. We should only pay for the extra petrol used when the driver filled up. Three hundred dirhams was too much. We were being ripped off on the rip off. Mandy wanted to speak to the agency again. Sitting in the front, I tried to communicate these demands to Si-Mohammed. He was shaking his head. He said it had never happened before. Every week he took trips. Americans, Germans, Brits. There had never been a complaint about the air-conditioning. His phone rang, and he handed it to Mandy. She tried to re-negotiate. We Only Want to Pay for the Petrol. We Don’t Want to be Ripped off twice. You are not respecting our Rights.

+++

The sun was getting hotter. The air coming through the front window was like a warm dry shower. Mandy’s renegotiation had been ineffective. It was 300 dirhams or no air-con. Everyone was happy to pay except Eric, who declared it was against his principles. I passed on our decision to Si-Mohammed and asked him if he’d switch it on. He smiled, and seemed reluctant. The air-conditioning could not be switched on until the money was delivered. Saving Eric, we each paid our 50 dirhams, and handed it to Si-Mohammed. He counted it. The windows were closed. The air-conditioning was switched on. After a minute or so it kicked in.

Everyone was happy. Including Si-Mohammed. He said there was no problem for him. Whatever people wanted. He told me again. This had never happened before.

+++

A couple of hours later I saw a sign warning of dunes. Sand slithered across the road. Small hillocks had grown out of the land, with medieval constructions built over them. Si-Mohammed told me they were water holes for the Berbers. Around four we stopped at a service station. When we climbed out of the space wagon, the heat caught us like a fly-swatter. Inside the tiled walls of the café, people moved at half pace. A fan was switched on and had no effect at all. Up on the roof, the visible world seemed liquidised.

+++

An hour later, we left the road, and drove until we reached the giant dune of Erg Chebbi. The red sand of the Sahara draped across the world. We left the space-cruiser and rode camels through the late afternoon. Three trains of camels lead by a berber guide apiece, walking ahead with a slow, deliberate tread. When we arrived at the camp, we climbed a ten-story dune to watch the sunset. It was like walking through treacle. The light fell and the desert danced to its tune. When the stars appeared, they knew full well that they could not help but place everything in perspective. A hot, harsh, Saharan perspective.

+++

The next morning, we woke at dawn. By seven we had breakfasted and were on our way. The silence of the desert was left behind. Eric and Mandy began to talk. About the difficulties of recycling and the obstacles to leading an ethical life. Someone turned round and asked them to keep it down. It worked. They slept. Twelve hours later, we were back in the mayhem of Marrakech.

+++

films, tears and memory (5x2)

Some things in my life made me sad once but I can't remember when that was or what it was.

+++

Some things make me sad now, and I can remember why.

+++

Though there's no reason to think that some day, should I live long enough, I won't have forgotten that why. All that will be left will be the memory of the feeling sad.

+++

Is this sad in itself?

+++

Or is it not sad at all.

+++

the uncasualness of things

At the end of the day relationships begin, continue or end around absolute principles of how life should be lead.

+++