Vote Obama says the Greek Orthodox Church

I saw this in the newspaper here today. The Greek Orthodox church has no qualms about taking part in politics, in the US or anywhere else, since it is regularly a part of the executive state in Greece. Mind you in Greece almost everyone involves themselves in political debate so the fact that the state church does the same does not disturb the electorate.

However the message shown is pretty stark :  



Roughly speaking the sign says: Vote for the black - the other guy is a wanker. How true! How direct! How politically incorrect!
Refreshing isn't it?

Book Review: The Lavender Way (the modem years) by Papalazarou

Attend! I'm about to drive readers away in droves. This is for the cognoscenti.

If you don't know I write book reviews then leave now.

If you don't know that I write experimental fiction then leave now.

Don't you just love those then and now juxtapositions? No? Then leave now.

OK, now we are all friends together, cozy and comfortable in our own small world, Huddle closer and I'll tell you something special.

Writing is a lonely pursuit. Reading is a sociable pursuit. You can always share what you have read - that is why I write reviews. Only people who have read your work can share it if you write. Only rarely do they share it with the writer.

Luckily for me, popularity and sales have never motivated me to write. Critical acclaim would be nice. Appreciation likewise. Despite having written loads of reviews I've never had a review of one of my works and certainly not of my only book form work - The Lavender Way (the modem years). Today that lack was rectified. Someone who is reading my book emailed me. I'll say no more than that this made my day.

"May I just say how much I'm enjoying your book. It has become a prize 'pick up and dip into' possession...useful for the bath and stolen minutes of solitude away from pressures of work/home/life.

I'm liking the sense of a thing developing it's own life - the introduction of different voices, the way it switches from a daily log, to discussions on literature, art, politics etc...from gossipy asides to full blown rants, to experimental exercises in self imposed constraints. It's varied enough to keep me continually interested. So well done.

The best thing about it though, is a continued sense of joy in simply being alive in a wonderful place, which I find ... inspiring I suppose. So thank you for that. Long may the log chopping (and occasional finger chopping) continue."

Love it.

Book Review : The Untouchable by John Banville.

I finished this book almost a week ago - so why has it taken me so long to write the review? A good question and one I have been asking myself in all that time. Maybe this following digression will help explain things.

Some few years ago I was having a heated discussion with a very good friend, Charles Unwin, who is a very clever guy and a great reader. We were talking about Martin Amiss, must have been about the time that Money came out, and I opined that while Martin was clearly very talented compared to his father Kingsley he had yet to produce a novel anywhere near as good as anything his father had produced. On this we kind of agreed and Charles suggested that the father's lack of natural. immanent talent had made of him a hard working writer who had thus produced some very good work by dint of hard work and application. The fact that Martin writes extremely well and obviously knows his history of the novel he has yet, in my opinion, to produce a very good let alone a great novel. I fear i fact that his publishing deal will stop him from ever so doing. And in some ways I think that this is my problem with Banville.

Banville is a great writer who has yet to write a great novel and yet ... And yet ... I still feel he might. HIs writing continues to improve but none of his subject matter matches his talent.  And so I keep reading him. And his novels are good ... not very good ... and a long way from great ... but his writing shines through. One day he may do it.

The Untouchable is a loosely disguised contemplation on the Blunt, Burgess, Maclean betrayal of the UK. Banville's  Maskell (Blunt) is well drawn and beautifully mannered but where I was expecting an essay on the nature of betrayal I received instead a classic lesson in UK class structures that came nowhere close to the insight that Genet brings to this fascinating subject. Banville lets the real notion encompassed in his topic escape him.  Maskell comes out as slight and simply egotistical (as do his co-conspirators) and this is a travesty entertaining though his take on the whole thing is.

The traitor and betrayal are wonderful topics and Banville sadly manages to betray them.  What, I wonder, will bring out his greatness? I shall continue to read him and would recommend yo to do the same.

One day. One day.

  

Another world record tumbles to the Brits

Forget Usain Bolt, forget Roger Federer's not unsurprising return to magisterial form, instead think Joe Calzhage dumping Bernard Hopkins, think Chris Hoy and Bradley Wiggins rule of the Olympic Velodrome. The Brits are back on top.

After a long and gruelling day and a tough evening at 0120 local time this morning The Lavender Way's 2008 spica harvest broke, no smashed, no demolished the long standing Modi single still yield world record.36 kilos of The Lavender Way's finest spica produced more than 1500 ml of essential lavender oil of the highest grade surpassing by a very large amount the previous single still record for any herb at any time of year.

To put this into perspective consider that no single still distillation in the 17 year history of this exceptional distillery has ever broken the 1 litre or 1000 ml mark. Modi features two 600 litre stills and few double still sessions produce more than the magical litre of essential oil so for a single still session to go through that barrier (think 9.6 seconds for the hundred metres, think 3 minutes for the 1500 metres) and just keep going had every witness to this amazing performance holding their breath as the seemingly impossible mark approached and shouting and cheering wildly as it slipped further and further into the past. At 1500 ml the cheers turned to gasps and even the master distiller, a man of immense experience who has seen more distillations than most, sat slumped in his chair, mouth agape and eyes wide - speechless like the rest of us. We knew that we had seen history made but until the official calibrations have been made and entered intothe record book we will not know the exact magnitude of this performance. All we know is that the world is a different place today. The Lavender Way spica harvest of 2008 has rewritten the record book. The bar has been raised.

And what of the woman who masterminded this amazing performance? Lavender Mistress extraordinary Gill S wiped a joyful tear from her eye and announced that she would be back next year and that "... it won't be easy, but I think we can surpass this". When I asked how much of a surprise this had been she lowered her eyes and calmly stated "I knew in July that the crop was in good shape ... the summer conditions were just about perfect and the plants did what they had been selected for ... at the end of August my drier said this record was up for us and from then on we just went for it." She and her drier slipped away from the victory celebrations at about 0200 -no doubt they had 2009 on their minds - and some lavender to look after.

Related items: The 2007 distilling - here The 2008 distiling - here

Book Review: Suttree by Cormac McCarthy

When I took Suttree by Cormac McCarthy down from the shelves recently it was immediately apparent that I had had this book for some considerable time and yet it remained unread: the spine was pristine; the cover foxed and; the price - 5.99 from Picador. Why still unread I wondered? It is widely regarded as an American great and I had clearly been impressed, at some stage (probably during 1979), to acquire a copy.

Well, the first few pages explained all. Suttree is one of those works, and they are mercifully rare though Oblomov, The Precipice and The Petty Demon recall themselves, that manages to repel me in the opening pages to the point where I close the book and yet intrigues me enough to keep it on the shelves rather than dispose of it - what I call a "maybe later - maybe one day" book. As I ploughed through those early pages again (and I remembered the viscid prose vividly) remembered attempts at this tome came back to me.

The blurb on the now aged cover had promised me Faulkner and Twain but the text seemed to offer me very little save repeated detailed and frankly tedious descriptions of the river - especially its smells - and the odd glimpse of one Cornelius Suttree, our hero-to-be who had little to commend him. But, like the river itself that is the central figure of this novel (shades of Finnegans Wake anyone), I ploughed on. Riverun slowly, very slowly, sticky prose passage follows sticky prose passage as the river runs more and more languorously. Like the mighty em eye double ess eye double ess eye double pee eye the prose slows as the plot, such as it is, widens. There are promises of freshwater pearls among the mud and the one certainty is the inexxorable nature of the river itself.

McCarthy takes Suttree and his readers away from the middle of the river into the rock pools and eddies, the slack water and the weed banks of life beside the river where flotsam and jetsam of humanity have washed up. Damaged and grubby as they are they provide added interest to the tale and at points, like the river itself, the narrative and the plot come into unexpected flood and one finds oneself rushed along for pages at a time until the pace slackens again and once more we drift along.

We drift along through the narrative as readers and Suttree drifts along through pools of minor human adventure until we all are washed up onto the wide and muddy delta at the mouth of the river and ultimately, into not being.

And so I reached the sea shore and left Cornelius Suttree as he washed out to eternity. Finally I had finished Suttree. It is lavishly written this novel, too lavishly perhaps, and the episodes feel not contrived but not contiguous. It is an honest book and it is an achievement. In the end I think I enjoyed it. At all events I think it is probably an important book and I now feel I may come back to it one day.


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Write in choice for US president - Michael Albert - remember that name

It is possible, in US presidential elections, for voters to write in a candidate not previously declared and to vote for them. The currently declared republican and democratic candidates fail to impress and both take flight to the last refuge of a scoundrel by declaring their patriotism above all other qualifications. Today I read an address that one Michael Albert made to a conference on the Crisis of Capitalism this weekend and since no presidential candidate has the candour and integrity to say such things I should like to commend this man as a write-in candidate for the presidency. Here are his opening words from that address:

My country, the U.S. is the world's leader in violent crime per capita.

It leads in the gap between richest and poorest.

It leads in means of communication, but also in levels of ignorance and deceit.

It leads in the manufacture, dissemination, and use of weapons of mass destruction, and of weapons generally...

My country leads as well in interventions abroad, in violent
coercion, in arrogant export of commercial and often vapid culture, and
of course in virtually unlimited hypocrisy.

My country, its core institutions and the commitments they impose on
leaders and led alike, is an enemy of every person on this planet
seeking a better life.

And yet, my country, like all others, also has potential to change.

Obituary - So long Ken and thanks for all the laughs

One of the true greats of British theatre has gone. As an actor Ken Campbell gave me more pleasure than De Niro, Jack Nicholson and Pacino rolled into one. Ken was a master. He believed in theatre. He was an innovator and possibly a genius. A moment's silence please - we'll not see his like for a while.

Obituary here

2 Book reviews - The Good Bones and What Was Lost

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold and
What Was Lost by Kathy O'Flynn

A bumper summer "two for one" review today. These two books came to me at different times but I somehow ended up reading them back to back. Both received very good reviews when they first came out and both are debut novels by new female writers.

The Lovely Bones is narrated by a dead young girl, a murdered girl in fact, and is narrated from heaven. Sebold has chosen an interesting narrative viewpoint from which to investigate the effects of death on those left behind by a violent death and she makes the structure work to good effect but by announcing the murder, the murderee, and the murderer at the very outset she seems to eschew any element of mystery.

Kathy O'Flynn on the other hand begins by introducing us to a little girl who fancies herself a detective as she mooches around a shopping centre taking notes, following people and almost willing a crime to happen. In doing so, O'Flynn takes time to make us empathise with this youngster and to understand her and then we begin to imagine and to savour a broad potentiality. O'Flynn paints her protagonist's life, family, friends and motivation sympathetically whilst leaving us wondering about some of the slightly strange figures who people her odd everyday experience and it is this depth and this strangeness that encourages out imagination.

Sebold attempts manfully to imagine a heaven that our murdered girl inhabits and from which she watches over the trauma and disjoint that her death leaves in its wake - and intervenes in on occasion. It is her failure to convince in the matter of this imaginary heaven that is the downfall of the book. Suspending my atheism as best I could did still not allow me to find Sebold's heaven feasible and I fear that many readers will have the same problem.

Rather than an imaginary heaven O'Flynn moves the second part of her novel into the all too real shopping centre (mall) that our girl detective has haunted in the first part where a similar all seeing perspective is drawn from the myriad of CCTV cameras. Where Sebold's narrative conceit becomes more arbitrary, whimsical and sentimental O'Flynn's becomes more realistic, gritty, and believable and whereas Sebold exercises her own imagination O'Flynn gets us to exercise ours.

Thus we have two debut novels by young women about dead young girls both of which use interesting structures to unveil the same scenario - death and its aftermath. Whereas I shall give Sebold another chance should I come across her next novel I shall actively seek out more work by O'Flynn.

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Our Northern correspondent checks in with the boss

I know I said the other day (ago) that I'd give you the next or previous installment of the online offline friendship league "tomorrow" and I have therefore to explain a fine point of linguistic usage. In normal English usage the word tomorrow denotes the day following this one and is the dictionary definition of the word but in practice in other languages (Spanish and Greek spring immediately to mind) the word for tomorrow is used in a connotive sense rather than a denotive one. More specifically in the aforementioned languages, at least in demotic usages, the word for tomorrow is frequently used to indicate some unspecified futurity or to indicate a logical not today. Clear? Good. Now - onward and backward.

As I was saying the kidz were confident that the Guerilla Distiller visit would work out because they had had previous experience or mixing their on and offline worlds with incredible and unimagined success. On that very first occasion it was Finn McEskimo, his good wife Alfapet and their youngest child Neero who had come to the farm outwith some previously only ethereal or ethernetreal existence.

Finn was originally recommended to Laz as Northern Correspondent for the PoMo circus by his estimable lady Alfapet who had been a reader of that august publication for some months back in the old Spazmac days (almost pre-Caxton in Circus terms). Alfapet, who you should know coined the word carage, is what Brits would think of as a very special needs teacher whilst Finn himslef is a strange mix of eternal student and long term lecturer in something best approximated by "comparative and experimental literature". Needless to say the 3 of them chewed a lot of academic, cultural and literary fat between Finn's occasional commissions and freelance articles for The Circus and a friendship grew among these unlikely companions. When Laz introduced Gill's photos into the mix (Gill is still steadfastly reticent about a direct online presence) things blossomed and Alfapet and she began to converse via email. Suddenly everyone was involved.

And then this summer Finn and Alfapet announced that they were coming to Crete with Neero and would love to visit the farm. Pulses quickened, consciences were searched, qualms were put to one side and an invitation to come and stay for a weekend was issued in short oreder. Two weeks went by in a mood of trepidation but when the Finn family turned up at Ekkentron in Kavros all misgivings evaporated in moments. The 4 of them got on better in the flesh than they had online - they all knew each other so well (nobody had lied or boasted) and Neero was a brick, putting up with these excited and garrulous adults.

The weekend passed in a blur of visiting sites, harvesting lavender and talking - endlessly talking. Talking into the small hourss. An empathy like that in very good families and friendships was quite simply there before they met up and grew in the harsh reality of the flesh. There will be more of these meetings - of that we are sure. All of us are sure.

It worked.

Taking chances by mixing the on and offline worlds

The kidz have been doing things this summer that Shem and I would not have endorsed - had we been asked. Not that we would necessarily have given counsel of despair but we would, I am sure, have urged considerable caution.

They've done it twice so far and, colour us both stunned, have been remarkably successful. Moving people from one status to another, or from one stratum to another - higher stratum or status is a fraught one. It's one thing to take imaginary characters into your real life - and mostly a harmless one - shit, adopting Eddie was one of the best things they ever did. There are a few obvious no nos here: turning an ex-lover into a lifelong friend; turning your best friend into a lover. Simply put, these sorts of change mostly do not work and are unlikely to. And to be honest we figured that he kidz were opening a similar one way gate with their decision to elevate some of their online contacts to flesh contacts.

Most recently - yesterday in fact - D invited a guy he had met online -well not met but had come across and whose exploits he had been following for about a year and a haf into their real life - to the farm for goodness sake. The guy in question runs under the nom-de-blog of the guerilla distiller but his real name is Robert Seidel. D came across him some time back when he was looking at the idea of having his own still (before cost constraints made it all look pretty unlikely). Robert - who looks surprisingly like an older Pablo Picasso - is a master distiller who runs a company that sells essential oils, cultivates genetically diverse lavender, and sells stills that he designs himself. Robert is an American. His partner, Dorene, who is a Kiwi, runs a U.S.based university for aromatherapists.

Robert and Dorene sailed into Crete at the weekend (in a 63 footer) and drove for 5 hours on chaotic roads choked to melting point by holidaying Greeks and maddening weather to meet up with the kidz on Tuesday after a single email inviting them over. And, contrary to our expectations, everything went swimmingly - R&D were generous, positive and, extremely knowledgeable. They - D&G and R&D - spent time in the lavender circles, time in the cellar and time breaking bread together - talking constantly. It was a great meet up and when R&D left they promised to return.

... and tomorrow I shall tell you why D&G were so confident that the meet would work ....

Kafka breaks me up

My review the other day of The Howling Miller raised a few eyebrows by referring to Kafka with respect to comic writing. I have always laughed long and hard at Kafka and have know a couple of other readers of like mind but it was nice to see this opinion reflected in a worthy piece about Kafka over at 3quarksdaily today. I quote below:

"Hawes spent ten years writing a Ph.D. on Kafka. Now he is on a mission
to deconstruct the “hagiographic myth” surrounding the Prague author in
order to expose the real Kafka. His works are “wonderful black comedies
written by a man soaked in the writings of his predecessors and of his
own day”. Indeed, Max Brod provides some evidence of this comedic
dimension to Kafka’s works. He recalled Kafka reading aloud from The Trial.
At times, he said, Kafka “laughed so much that there were moments when
he couldn't read any further”. This Kafka has been somewhat obscured,
but he’s certainly there, struggling to free himself from the
chitinous, beetle-like skin into which fate and literary fame has
sealed him."

The Howling Miller

The Howling Miller by Arto Paasilinna (Author), Will Hobson (Translator)

Modern literature has its fair share of novels about outsiders and this is another. Paasilinna is a Finn however and his take on the nature of otherness is, if not unique, unusual. Not for him (I assume Arto is a male name) the existential angst of the Russians and the French. Nor the grimy realism of kitchen-sink 60's Britain.

Paasilinna instead gives us a side-splittingly funny story of the other more in the tenor of Magnus Mills or Kafka (no, really Kafka is hugly funny, go back and read him again if you doubt me). His eponymous hero - a miller who howls - is a rational and intelligent man surrounded by a massive nuber of irrational and stupid people who happen to determine his fate by dint of their numbers.

The village that he moves to somewhat mysteriously needs a miller and he is without question a very good miller. He is also a gifted mimic who keeps the local children amused as he woks restoring the rotting mill but trouble looms when the locals find his howling a problem. Paasilinna sketches a developing scenario that plays out the analyses of Thomas Szasz and Michel Foucault regarding madness in modern times and, in an inexorably depressing couple of chapters we see the howling miller committed to an asylum and deprived of both his liberty and his posessions.

All is not lost though. for there are other outsiders - other others if you will - and in their faltering, poignant, heart lifting, efforts they transform our hero's life and future. Confounding expectations, this wonderful tale moves toward an almost magical realist finale that leaves one breathless. The other others are almost as well realised as the miller himself and their respective aberrancies add a light and shade to the "other" side of this story so clearly lacking in the mainstream.

This is a very good novel. It is well written - very well written - it is elegantly crafted, and the translation is so clean and precise as to be worth a mention all of its own. A minor classic I think.

Putting my money where my mouth is

A few months back my iMac G5 (of blessed memory) blew up, or fritzed, or fell over, or went to meet its maker, or any other euphemism you want to choose. OK - situation completely fucked - no main machine and not a pot to piss in! Replacement motherboard about 700 euros plus VAT plus fitting - no way! Can't be done. Can't be afforded. So. what to do?

For years I''ve been telling people that their machines or their aspirations computer-wise were way above what they really needed or used. Time to take some of my own medicine? I thought long and hard. I considered all the options and finally deccided not to swap to Linux (a serious option) - not to go with bargain basement new stuff (Asus eeepC was an option) but decided instead to drop bacck a full generation or two - well a generation from that then curent kit but 3 from the then state of play.

I copped off on eBay with an early generation mac mini G4 from the US and waited. It was a low spec machine and I had serious misgivings but heck it was cheap - really cheap until the Greek customs guys notched it up a bit - would I manage? It had the advantage of being able to use all my old peripherals - and I had an old CRT haning around that had cost me 10 euros so I thought 'we shall see'.

Well. the kit turned up last week - I paid the customs' surcharge unwillingly - and I brought it home on Frday. So far - very good. All my peripherals work. I've decided against upgrading to 10.5 and the set up is working well. A few things don't run quite as quickly as they used but what the hell it's hardly noticeable.

Result! My own advice was good.

Who died and put pox doctors in charge of our morals?

I'll be honest - I'm sick and bloody tired of doctors telling us what we should and shouldn't do - what's right and what's not. Today Radio4 carried a piece about "fertility experts" announcing that people who smoke or are overweight shouldn't be given IVF on the NHS. What the fuck? These hubristic gits have been pontificating on the evils of smoking for years and are now turning their bile on obesity. And on what basis have they elected themselves to speak on these matters? Pure hubris.

Doctors have always felt themselves to be inherently superior to the rest of us. In the old days the general public were stupid enough to believe them. Do not forget that the selfish, money grubbing GPs and consultants all but derailed the whole idea of the NHS at its very conception - threatening to take their ball and go home unless the government allowed them to continue with their private practices, no mater how badly it damaged the unborn NHS. "Trust me, I'm a doctor" said Harold Shipman - and hundreds did.

Only this week it transpires that these paragons of virtue and upholders of value within the NHS have failed to stop prescribing anti-biotics willy nilly (38m prescriptions for antibiotics were written by doctors in the UK in 2007, costing the NHS £175m) as they were instructed some years back. Prescribing for ailments that they know anti-biotics cannot affect.

The one thing that I'm sad that they didn't ask the so-called "fertility experts" surveyed was whether they refused IVF treatments in their private practice to smokers and the obese because I know that they don't. Hippocrates or hypocrites? They love to tell the freeloading NHS patients how to live their lives but nod to the mighty pound whenever enough of them are waved under their dirty little noses.

I have some news for doctors - NHS patients pay for their treatment - NHS patients pay the bulk of doctors wages - NHS patients paid for the training of doctors. So guys and girls - get over your superiority and get on with doing your job while keeping your mealy mouthed moral rectitude firmly to yourselves. We pay for your medical opinion and expertise not your self serving hypocrisy.

Cleaning olives

In a sea, no, an ocean of wild carrot
each plate sized face held aloft and
each demonic ox blood eye staring straight at the blinding sun
the valiant men in their signature red
toil gently at cleaning the olives

And the wind when it comes
reveals currents of chicory
blue as the sky but less punishing
like huge shoals of flying fish
and they lean to their work
these men dressed in red
and they work in silence profound

But the bees in the seas just behind them
the seas empurpled with flowers
keep a constant white noise
thrumming low and insistent
on the edge of their auditory landscape

And their knuckles are scraped
these noble proud men
by the age weathered barks
by the time honoured shells
of these noble, proud trees

There are faces in bark
there are patterns in branches
a beauty not seen from a distance
up close, as they are
the trees have a voice
they tell tales
of the past
of the present
and the future
while they bend to the work
in the hot midday sun

Max's Vintage

I've just finished a new short story for a very good friend so I thought I'd share it with you all, it's about a man and his dog and it's called:

Max's Vintage

Liam is sitting and crouching. He is pulling on his shoes while his back complains. He is getting old now but the day is bright and this lightens his heart. Autumn is on them all - a gentle, Cornish autumn - and the hedgerows are full. A mellow fruitfulness. A richness.

Tying his laces carefully, he pulls the lace once more around his ankle and feels the cold, damp nose on his wrist. Max boy, yes we're off out this morning. It's a beautiful day. We'll be off soon. Give me a few minutes. Max is getting old now too. They have grown together over the last ten years, closer than most humans ever get.

Liam is eighty two years old and Max a mere ten, but Max is a dog, a black and tan Dobermann dog, of a physical elegance that Liam has not had for many a year. And so, they are probably each as close to their natural ends as twins might be, contemporaries at last. You have aged more gracefully than I old boy. We have converged at last. You knew we would. And so did I.

Liam's hand seeks out Max's muzzle and caresses it lovingly. Max presses his whole head firmly but slowly into Liam's hand and senses a frailty there, a slight weakness that he has become familiar with in the last year or so, a hint that he recognises in his own traitorous body. The hand moves slowly up over his head and pauses on his stop before continuing, as he knew it would, to the sweet spots behind his ears. They both luxuriate in this closeness for a while until Max shakes his head free and cocks it to the left. Liam listens too. Ah, Max boy, that's the blackbird. Isn't that a beautiful sound? Fair makes you glad to be alive, huh? Come on, lets be on our way. No beach today boy. We're off up the lane today. The other way. You'll get your swim later. Promise. But Max has gone skittering across the kitchen by now.

With his front paws on the closed lower half of the stable door he is looking out at the buddleia bush, where the blackbirds nest each year and where they have raised at least three broods to his knowledge. He draws a huge volume of air in through his powerful and sensitive nose: buddleia, blackbird, compost, rabbit, fox, grass, rose, bramble. He discerns each separate aroma distinctly but simultaneously. His mind is placing each of the ingredients of this cocktail to its location in the space before him, when he smells Liam coming up behind him. Now that's a smell all its own: warmth, love, respect - so well known now, a smell that goes all the way back to his smallest days - maybe the first smell he was aware of after his mother's. Liam clips the lead to his three row collar.

Out in the lane they are both assailed and overwhelmed by the sight and smells of the rhododendrons, blown now and looking dowdy, frazzled; frayed but fragrant: fragrant to Max at least, though Liam's nose is failing him now. You'll have to be careful Max, the flail will be along for those weeds soon. Next few days. One hand in his pocket he wrinkles the sack that sits there. Max picks up the scent and raises his noble head to turn those gentle brown eyes on him quizzically. Liam laughs. You know boy, don't you? Elderberries it is. You clever thing you. He checks the lane ahead, knowing that Max now knows where they are going, and, assured that they have it to themselves, he unclips his lead.

Max bounds stiffly off nosing the hedges either side as he goes and now and then turning back to check that Liam is OK. This is his only true freedom of movement these days - this, and his capers at the beach. He misses the free stretching, back bending bounding of yesteryear: the onset of arthritis has put paid to those carefree days and on the lead he is all decorum now. No mad headlong dashes. It would not be kind to remind Liam of just how much mobility he has lost himself. More even than he.

They wander along in silent communion, Max leading, until he spies the elder trees and notes that the fruit clusters have turned. He backtracks and comes behind and around to Liam's left. Liam bends only slightly, and from the waist - Max is a tall dog - and Liam reattaches his lead. Here we are boy. You know don't you? He lets them into the orchard. The winds of the last few days have blown apples down and the distinctive smell of proto-cider reeks: Max wrinkles his nose in distaste while Liam has a madeleine moment that transports him back to days of his youth and just-brewed Calvados in the Normandy countryside .

I dreamt last night of elder, Maxy boy, and, in this superstitious county, that is supposed to presage sickness. Not yours or mine, I hope. But then the addle-pated folk hereabouts seriously believe that elder branches can keep vampires at bay. Claim it goes back further than garlic. Fuckwits all. The very same sheep who bend their knee every sabbath, to a god who is so mean that he denies you a soul - or a place in their much vaunted afterlife. Flockwits more like. OK then Max. Let's get to it.

Free to roam again, Max is soon investigating every hedge and shrub (traces of rabbit here and there - a hare was through here last night) checking back on Liam assiduously. But Liam is fine, picking the low-hanging bunches of fruits and plopping them gently into the unrolled sack. The odd purplish, blackish stain seeps damply, darkly through the hessian. The sun is warming their bones and easing the aches in their joints. Is making them feel, momentarily, young again. Max has flushed a pair of wasps from one of the rotting apples and gaily chases them, as they dance just beyond his tender nose. Liam has settled himself beneath an old Pearmain tree and is tucking into a firm, white-fleshed apple, with a relish normally seen only in the flushes of scrumping youth. He is watching Max's game with a smile playing across his face; a smile of pure enchantment. The sack is full and leaking sweetly, stickily, beside him. Max leaps and neatly bites one of the wasps in half.

Come here boy. That's it. Sit beside me. No - the other side, lemon. That's it. Now Maxy, why did you kill that wasp? That wasn't very nice, was it? He wasn't doing you any harm - was he? Max turns a pair of sad eyes on him. They burn like lasers. Max is contrite, and lays his head in Liam's lap, sniffing the sack surreptitiously. Liam regrets the reprimand and leans slowly back against the tree trunk. He savours the moment. Are we having fun Max? I think so, don't you? Now I'm going to close my eyes for a while. You stay here - alright? Nudge me in a few minutes and we'll go back.

Back home they are sitting on the sun terrace. Ann has the kettle on for tea and Max has a big stainless steel bowl of cold, clean water just tucked in behind the herb border, where the sun has begun to cast a shadow. The sack is open before Liam who crouches Arab style - a habit he picked up in his youth and has never questioned. He is picking the stalks from the firm fruits and discarding the bruised and crushed fruits into a bowl: Ann will make jam from these. The rest are destined to become wine. A late bee buzzes past them breaking the silence and Max looks quizzically at Liam. The herb border fills Max's nose but still he can smell the sick bee. Liam laughs and chucks Max under the chin. It's OK boy. No problem. Let him be! Liam looks up and checks the length of the shadows. Half an hour more here and then I'll take you to the beach. Half an hour will see this lot off. I'll sort them out when we get back. There's time yet, boy.

Ann brings out the tea on a lovely red lacquer tray, that they picked up in an out of the way second hand shop last summer, and settles herself into a little plastic chair. Are you alright crouching like that? Don't fuss darling, you know I'm happiest this way. She strokes Max's head that rests still in Liam's lap. You two didn't overdo it did you? No, we're fine. Liam chuckles. We had a little nap in the shade, thanks. We're fine, and I promised Max his run on the beach. Half an hour's work left here - no more. Will you come?

Max has settled himself on the ground between them. He is looking up and clearly following the conversation. Like the pair of them he is wondering how life could be better and deciding that it cannot. Stretching his front paws out he settles his head between them and closes his eyes. His other senses though are on full alert. The sonorous tones of their voices and the smells of the garden in late afternoon soothe him. The sweet smell of crushed elderberries cloys above all the other scents. Ann and Liam have fallen silent. Time passes contentedly to the gentle rhythm of Liam removing the stalks from clusters of fruit.

You're awful quiet Liam. Are you woolgathering, or are you thinking? Thinking dear. About? Remember I dreamt last night of the elders? Well, as I dozed in the apple orchard I dreamt again of elders. I know I was among the elders, but still and all don't you think it odd? I asked Mrs Potts down at the post office about that, this morning, when I was picking up my pension. You did say the locals had all kinds of superstitions about elders. Well, she said that dreaming of elders presages an illness or bereavement. I'm sure she did - daft old bat! What did I tell you about this being the shallow end of the gene pool? How did such bloody retards end up in control of such a beautiful place? They'd have burnt her as a witch a few years back.

Max sits up at Liam's raised voice and watches their body language. He is used to heated discussions and the odd outburst of ranting but he always likes to check. Ann stretches her hand out and strokes him down his neck and chest. It's alright boy, the old boy is just cross at some stupidity. Max collects his feet together into a text book sit, and sympathises silently with Liam. He too, hates stupidity.

Liam unlocks his knees and slowly unfurls himself from his Arab squat, and while he hears only notional creaking, Max actually picks up the very real sound of bone grinding on too-thin cartilage, and sees a shadow of a grimace pass briefly. Hands firmly placed just above his buttocks, Liam is finally unfolded and arches his spine gently backwards before straightening completely. Liam's second sacroiliac joint cracks loudly - to Max - and he catches a whiff of stale sweat: a familiar smell and a particular favourite; a friendly smell and all Liam's. Ann does not wear perfume but her own scent is always masked by something else, whereas Liam always, and reassuringly, smells of Liam. Max licks his testicles and checks his own scent, but does not get up. He is enjoying his family.

Ann drinks the last of her tea and watches Liam, waiting for him to speak. But he stays stubbornly silent. She stretches her hand out to stroke Max behind the ears once more and he almost purrs: a deep and satisfied grunt escapes him. His hind paw comes up to rake behind his ear slowly. Sorry old boy. We shan't be going to the beach today. We're going back to the orchard. Those fruits are just right for winemaking and we're going to make hay while the sun shines - or at least collect berries while we have light left. And this one is going to be for you. Liam sidesteps to where Ann is sitting. I've made up my mind, love. I want to memorialise Max and we can't know whether we shall all do this again. He is getting on, you know. I'm going to have some labels made up to mark this vintage. I know it'll be a great one. And it's going to be Max's vintage, so that when he's gone (a tear breaks loose and dampens his cheek) ... and we both know it's got to happen some day ... then we can raise a glass of Max's vintage to the wonderful memories we shall have. And this is going to be one of them. Despite his aching thighs he squats and pats Max's head. Come on lad. I'll grab the sack. You get the lead, and then let's get cracking. Max is up and ready before him. Lead in mouth, he nudges Ann into action and heads to the gate, looking back and moving forward.

Ann waves them off at the gate and watches, until they reach the bend, through eyes that stream. She recalls a film she saw just after the war, before she even met Liam: A Boy and His Dog. Yes that's them. In this moment they both seem strangely young again. She turns and retraces her steps, drying her eyes on her apron as she goes.

Who interfered with whom?

I love this amazing hypocrisy. The al-Yamamah arms deal with Saudi Arabia has been all over the headlines this week and I've been laughing my arse off.

The factual accusations that the UK press and politicians are bandying around - in no particular order - are:

1) bribery and corruption were involved in winning the contract
2) the Blair government used the specious cloak of terrorism to stop the inquiry into the charges of corruption
3) the Saudi royal family threatened to withdraw espionage co-operation with UK espionage forces if the investigation ino one of their rich brat princes was not halted

The "moral" or "principled" objections appear to be:

1) bribery in order to secure commercial contracts is wrong
2) outside governments should not be able to affect the nature of justice administered within the UK
3) the British government should not use the threat of terrorism to rule by fiat

OK lets take them one at at a time:

"bribery and corruption were involved in winning the contract" - almost certainly - that's how many countries do business they just don't see that it is a moral wrong, that's our judgement;

"the Blair government used the specious cloak of terrorism to stop the inquiry into the charges of corruption" - of course it did;

"the Saudi royal family threatened to withdraw espionage co-operation with UK espionage forces if the investigation ino one of their rich brat princes was not halted" - of course they did, and they meant it

"bribery in order to secure commercial contracts is wrong" - according to whom? and how does any western business get a contract with any other country that engages systematically in processes that we in the west consider to be corrupt or wrong? Or do they just not bid. Or do they consistently bid and lose?

"outside governments should not be able to affect the nature of justice administered within the UK" - now in principle I agree but just consider for one moment why the original inquiry was started in the first place - because the US governement put pressure on the UK government having been pissed off because an American supplier didn't get the deal

"the British government should not use the threat of terrorism to rule by fiat" - no argument from me on that one but why is it only on this topic that that particular "principle" applies? Locking people up for 28 days at a time. Wiretapping at will. Surveillance of school applicants. Deporting people to known torturers. Unbalanced extradition treaties with places like the US. The list, if not endless is pretty damned long - and all in the name of "security against terrorism". Oh yeah and going to war, changing the regimes of soveriegn states and destroying infrastructure - add those to the list.

What moral high ground do we occupy? And how did we take it?  By main force?

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On being deaf

I cannot hear the toilet flush nor the incessant buzzing of the electric toothbrush. I cannot hear the water rushing into the sink nor its gurgle as it leaves. I cannot hear the kettle boil but I can hear the sound as the arms of my spectacles glide over my hair and settle behind my ears. I can hear what I suspect is the sound of my blood pumping.

I can hear through my bones but not my ears. The doors on the DS clunk dully closed behind me like those on a Bentley and when I come to start the engine it is as though I were switching on a silent electric motor: there is just enough feedback from  the indicator lights to reassure me that it is actually running. I have to watch the rev counter to know when to change gear and the lights on the dash to know when to cancel the indicators.

No birdsong. No dogs barking. Even the bee that almost collides with me makes not buzz. This is a very different place and I am not at all sure that I like it. The peace is fun but the disconnect is profound. We checked that I could just about make out the phone ringing before we parted but now I must stay close by for fear of missing that call. Already I have taken to watching Gill's mouth to see whether she is speaking to me and what she is saying. Mouth shapes and tongue placements, I realise,  are quite distinct one from another.

I am suddenly isolated. Locked in or locked out? Both: and both are  disorienting.  This now something that I want to finish. Imagine being able to hear the filter tip of your cigarette tap on your front tooth but never being able to imagine or tp hear the one you love most dearly tell you they love you.



 

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The Olympic Flame in Crete

With all the current fuss about the progress of the olympic flame toward China I was reminded of 2004 when the flame came to Kavros, Apokaronos; less laden with political overtones and more joyful.

Thankfully the good old BBC carried a report today on the deeply political origins of the flame procession. Very little these days is free of politics and it would seem that it has been thus for some time. Symbols  are seldom univalent and the flame is no exception.

 

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Bacon in my Ears

I woke up this morning at about 6 o'clock - it was still dark and I could hear a very strange noise. At first I thought it was raining outside but corrected that idea immediately - it was much more like the sound of a fire crackling. But there was no smell of smoke and at that time of the morning it was unlikely, unlikely but not entirely impossible, that anyone had yet started a fire in the valley. I re-appraised the sound and realised, at last, that it sounded most like bacon frying and crackling: and that it wasn't outside at all - it was inside my ear! Weird shit! Maybe there is an earwig or earwicker livering inside there somewhere. Maybe he or she (do earwigs have separate sexes? ) is living off all the olive oil.

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