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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Georgia - the next part

They stood slightly stunned for some few minutes as figures entered and exited the lobby space. Most of the players on this stage were dressed in a relatively casual manner - casual for London certainly - and only the odd one or two carried folders or files. They heard the rain restart behind them and a flash of reflected lightning lit the lobby. So far, not one of the transients had seemed to notice them let alone stopped for them - they moved like purposive ants, inexorably.  A man entered the lobby behind them coughing loudly and stamping his feet and they glanced around: dressed entirely in black and sporting a wide set of grey handlebar moustaches, he was without doubt a farmer and from the south.  Before he finished stamping his feet he was shouting at the passing players: demanding to be attended. A short, squat woman in a well tailored twin-set and with the oddly barbered wiry hair that women of a certain age in Crete favour she stopped a youngish man with a handful of ethernet cabling in his left hand and a clipboard in his right who had been scurrying by with his eyes down-turned and directed him to deal with the noisy, noisome, farmer. She exuded a clear and direct authority and so, as one, they moved toward her. She was to be their helper in this warren - whether she liked it or not she would help them.

She beamed as she watched them approach: standing her ground she beckoned them on, her face a picture of welcome. They wondered privately whether they would ever become accustomed to the amazing transformations that tough, big featured, scowling Greek faces underwent when a genuine smile came over them. "Hello, my name is Evanthia, the weather is foul, how can I help you? Are you lost? You are English, yes?" she announced in a confident English". There was barely a trace of accent in her beautiful soft voice and that came as something of a shock. Undeterred, the woman of the couple stepped forward and held out her hand, "I am Gill and no, we are not lost. We are English and I want to become a farmer. I hope you can help me kyria Evanthia."  Evanthia nodded at the formal address and regarded the two of them and turned toward the stairwell, "Please follow me to my office and we shall see what we can do". 

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Critics and democracy

I've been using a new website recently - one sponsored by the Arts Council of Great Britain - that is supposed to be resource for unsigned and budding writers. I was drawn to it by the chance to have a professional review of my work but that would only be possible if my work was highly rated by other users of the site. The idea is that you do a bunch of reviews of other people's work in order to be able to upload your own work and have it reviewed by some of those other users. If those users rank your work as one of the best of the month you get a professional review! Simple huh?

OK - the first impressions were not great - it's a plug ugly site to start with. Second up how do I find out what I can upload? Well that is far from clear and after a lot of trial and error it turns out you can upload short stories and opening chapters of novels. So what about novellas? Nope. Experimental forms? Seems not. Poetry? Nope. Right - not perfect but  I decide to try it anyway but then can't discover what formats you can upload - and until I've done 5 reviews I am not allowed to upload anything so I can't find out that way. I join the site and request my first piece to review. Surprise, surprise, the first thing I get is not matched to my reading profile - children's fiction - what do I know about children's fiction? Not a lot since it is a form of which I do not approve.

I plough through these chapters - an arduous process and get to the review process - wow. I get a set of categories to rank on a 1 to 5 scale - multiple choice - wow. Use of Language? Plot? Pace? and so it goes on. Once I've done that I get to write a review - not less than 100 words and try to keep it "balanced" - interesting idea. OK - so I do all that and then I get a real surprise - a reading test - 5 questions that the author sets to ensure that I've actually read the piece! Do they think I'd review something I hadn't read? Clearly they do.

The second reading assignment comes and this one is romantic fiction - WTF? Am I Barbra bloody Cartland? It's atrocious - balanced?  And so it goes on through 5 pieces - I bear it all and play my part, wondering all the while who he hell is going to review my stuff. Worse still I get to wondering what the hell I'm going to upload. I finally plump for a very straightforward short story about a donkey (you may have read it) that has a somewhat novel first person plural narrator - it's about as traditional as my stuff gets and until I know what formats the upload accepts I'll play it safe.

And so, eventually, I rack up the necessary 5 reading credits, being as positive and constructive as I can be. I even do a couple of voluntary reviews of highly ranked pieces to see what else is on offer - to be honest I could hardly credit the quality of the stuff I was being assigned. Much better but hardly bleeding edge.

Now I'm ready to upload my simple little short story. I've even worked out 5 really silly question for the reading quiz that mandatory reviewers have to complete. I go into the upload process and suddenly I find that I have to cut and paste the text of my story into a form on the site! Hyperlink lookasides?  Nope. Parallel textual threads? Nope. Good job I chose something really simple. None of the rest could I ever do justice to using this method. Up it goes and I sit back and wait for the reviews to come in.

Here's what I've had so far - I've done a couple of more mandatory reviews to qualify for a few extra reviews of my own work:

 Review By: Sapper


I love stories like this, Papalazarou, so easy to review. The descriptions of the old men, cafe and dusty Crete were superb - so hot I fancied a glass of Gazoza myself (I take it that Gazoza is alcholic - I wound'nt want to find I was ordering lemonade!) The writing was a joy to read and like only one other I've read on YWO in that it was more like painting a picture. For the technical criticism how could I not give straight fives. A couple of points which in no way detract from the tale '3 men' would be better written as 'three' after all it's not an inventory of the cafe's clients! Also "...away from the bones or thick,..." did'nt scan too well.
Very good tale.


Review By: adrian-dunsterville


Some very decent evocative prose, tinged with purple at the edges no doubt, but pleasantly poetic to read on the whole.

Telling this tale though, the author has taken a few liberties of POV and omniscience. For example, the POV change that allows us to witness in detail the donkey dismemberment. And the omniscience that allows us or the narrator to know everything beyond "This man is of the land" about our donkey devotee. This wouldn't be a problem perhaps but for it then undermines the sense of having the narrator narrate this. Clearly it's the author's choice but one could argue that in pure story terms, it's not the most direct or honest way of telling it.

I do appreciate the hazy heated atmosphere and a certain dusty timeliness, don't get me wrong.

A few more paragraph breaks and shorter sentences would I think make it easier for the reader.

I didn't at all times buy into the cafe proprietors superb grasp of English. But what do I know?



Review By: marlathome


This is a very unusual story well written. The characterisation and settings are evocative and authentic - I am very familiar with Greece: not the tourist Greece but the Greece beloved of Greeks and can attest to the accuracy of this portrayal. Familiarity, however, is unnecessary since you bring the landscape and its people to life with such astonishing attention to detail. In many ways, you paint a picture with your words. Well done for that.
The story itself is secondary to its characters - there is no real plot as such, in my opinion, but simply the gentle and sometimes dramatic passage of life. This may not be to everyone's taste on this site, I'm afraid, but I found your work to be thougthful, poignant and uplifting.
There are a number of punctuation problems that you might want to take a look at - no capitals after full stops etc. A niggling point but one which breaks of the flow of the narrative and also something that will be pointed out time and again in your reviews if you don't fix it (very tedious!).
I liked this story and look forward with interest to reading more of your work.

Review By: sls


Hello - I enjoyed the story. It's well written and the characters are engaging. The description sets the scene nicely.

I found the narrative memorable - I have been thinking about it since I read it. It has been thought provoking, which is a sign of good writing.

Being an animal lover I did find it hard to come to terms with the fact Pavlo dismembered his donkey - but there you go I'm squeamish about such things.

I did notice a few typos - Georgos appears once without an s on the end.

There were one or two uncapitalised h's at the beginning of sentences. And I noticed two disappears in one sentence.

I also thought one or two of the sentences were quite long. One appears in para 4 - A cheap blue bic ... I wondered if there should be a full stop after ashtray.

In parts of the narrative with dots I noticed five when there's usually no more than three.

I got a bit lost in the paragraph that describes the old lady's dress. I got the headscarf confused with the frock and wondered if She dressed in black. Her wispy white hair covered by a headscarf clearly of a newer vintage etc - might be clearer - just a thought.

I also noticed where the para begins "Exactly ... came back here ass fat as. (I think it's meant to read as fast as) He said that he owed Dimitri that - I felt the word that might work better after Dimitri, rather than in front of it.

I hope my observations don't sound too negative - they're not meant to be -


Review By: Paula

Enchanting

I enjoyed the sensitive way these characters were observed, and I particularly liked the way they were described in their setting. I felt as if I too had sat in that cafe and watched the old men and felt the heat of the sun. There are issues with pace here, I think. Personally I liked the slow burn, attention to detail, and the care taken over building atmosphere and authenticity. I felt the langorous pace of the story matched the pace of life in the village.
The contrast between the simple, nothing-ever-happens-here feel of the first half of the story and the tragedy and drama of the second half worked very well. I would have liked a little more at the end pointing out that life then would continue as it always had (except for the donkey, of course), and as if nothing so sad and violent had taken place. This would have given a nice balance to the piece, I think. I also felt that some of the language use could be tightened a little - you might want to double check for repetitions and weak descriptions here and there. On the whole the writing is clear and vivid, so it's a pity to let phrases and sentences slip through that might detract from this.
An interesting piece, a refreshing change from so much that is all hooks and grabbing and shocking at the start just to gain attention. Let's hear it for the slow but powerful build up!

Review By: dleighton

Needs work

I thought the writing was a curious mixture. There are some really descriptive passages, which evoke a Greek Island feel but on the other hand, the spelling, grammar and punctuation especially (almost a complete lack of commas in a lot of long sentences), totally distracted me from the story.

The premise of an old man, distraught at the death of his companion donkey and determined to protect its carcass from the vultures circling overhead is a worthy one for a short story. However, I was very unsure about the way in which the story is untold and found myself irritated by the narrative voice, referring to 'we' all the way through. I was more intrigued to find out who 'we' might be than I was interested in events at the top of the mountain.

I think this is a good idea but needs to be executed better.

Review By: ShorhamShambles

A long way to the mountain

Papalazarou can obviously write and there are some wonderful sentences dotted around this short story, but they just didn’t quite add up for me.

Almost all the descriptions are too wordy, and almost everything it seems must be described.

I didn’t get a feel for the characters – nothing made me believe they were real, or want to care for them in any way.

I like meandering stories but this one made me beg for something to happen. After the first page, to be honest, I didn’t really want to read on. The description must be absolutely first-rate for this kind of thing to work.

Thankfully the ending was interesting and well-written. Unfortunately I had the distinct feeling that everything was merely a pre-amble to the final two paragraphs, as though the real story was summarised here in 300 words and everything before was just padding. This final section was fluent and evocative but under normal circumstances I just wouldn’t have got this far.

I appreciate that this was perhaps intentional – reflecting the slow pace of life in a dusty Greek café – but it didn’t quite work.

There are the seeds of something here. Papalazarou can write, but will need a stronger narrative around which to frame his skills.




Did I misjudge this site?

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Chip and Pin and Chip and Path

Having accomplished the major prune of the olive trees that we had promised ourselves for several years - we cleaned out the centres and lowered the profiles of more than 50 trees - we were left with prunings so prodigious that for a while we did not know what to do with them all. The previous major pruning had been a reactive one after the massive snowfalls of February 2004 and the clean up thereafter had taken 6 weeks and involved daily bonfires for the best part of a week at the end. What to do this time round?

The bonfires of yesteryear though satisfying in and of themselves had, in retrospect, come to seem wasteful. We could. I now know, have garnered more useful wood for the stove than we did. We were naive. We followed what all the other olive farmers were doing. We did not think it through but this time it would be different. Well the thinking would be different even if the outcome should be the same.

When we finally took control and full ownership of the land last year we decided to farm the olives in our own style. Just as we have with the lavender from the very outset. We have long refused the local authority access to our olives to spray them with insecticides - they use some hideous organo-phosphates long banned in the UK and US and most of Europe: now we decided not to have the tractor turn over the land between the trees twice yearly and to cope with the weeds and brambles another way. For the olive fruit fly we have organic fly traps among the trees from the start of blossom until late October: for the weeds and brambles we have the brushcutter. But what about the prunings? What about the bamboo?

We have been leaning towards the Masanobu Fukuoka methods since being introduced to his One Straw Revolution by the Greek cameraman who shot the excellent footage for Gill's acclaimed TV appearance and round about October last year we had started looking at chippers to dispose of the big spring weed crop of fennel and mallow and thistle and bitumen pea. Might a chipper be an option for the olive prunings? We decided to ask the red-robed twins: after all, Eddie and Ceddie were well into the initial logging exercise - taking out all of the big wood and stacking it ready for seasoning and cutting into stove-sized pieces later on: who better to judge what would be left after this phase was complete? The new pile was already substantial when we bearded the boys, their Japanese ABS saws in hand,  about it and it has grown considerably since then. Their answer, as one, was unequivocal, "if it can take branches about an inch and quarter, and run for a couple of hours at a time then it'll probably do the trick - it'll mean more work but what the hell ...". Ceddie was almost immediately back to unloading the barrow but Eddie hesitated. "Will it be orange? Like the Husq?". "Who knows?" I replied, "We shall see ..."

It turned out not to be orange, rather, it was a bright green and white plastic Viking (the domestic arm of Stihl) electric machine. 2.5kilowatt motor, 35mm capacity, cloverleaf opening - a consumer model, the GE 150. but beggars can hardly be choosers and the petrol versions were ridiculously expensive. And here it is as shown on the Stihl website: Extra work? Do we care?   

We bought it at the newly relocated farmers supply shop in Episkopi and we bought it on impulse. We had thought originally just to see what they might have available - we'd researched chippers online and plumped for the Viking range so it was just a question of seeing whether the farming shop was still a Viking dealership and maybe seeing one in the flesh so to speak but ...  As I said impulse took over - spring price changes were in the offing and they might go up rather than down. And they did have one we could touch and test. And Gill just happened to have her egg card with her ... And thereby hangs another tale -

The farmers' shop in Episkopi, apart from being new and clean and amazingly well lit is also high tech - they take credit cards in a world where farmers usually  work exclusively in folding money - bags full of it if necessary - cash is invisible to the taxman - and to the rest of the family. And so, having decided to buy the bugger Gill handed over her newly minted egg card and the assistant, a young lady who speaks very good English, duly swiped it through the sparkling new credit card terminal and that is when our joint adventure began. Said terminal demanded the entry of a PIN and announced that no signature would be required! Shit - none of us had ever done this before but we had all been aware of it - chip and PIN technology was suddenly a practical reality rather than a theoretical possibility.

Gill scrambled to her handbag and rifled through all 3 of her notebooks desperately searching for the one where she had written her PIN down - just in case. The assistant was clearly mentally rehearsing what she had been told about chip and PIN or what she had heard or read. I stood to one side in a technological stun zone. The assistant signalled Gill to come around to her side of the counter and enter the newly retrieved PIN and, with fingers mentally crossed, she did. Eventually the terminal responded with a receipt or transaction record covered in numbers and the information that the transaction had completed successfully and again that no signature would be required. OK, we'd done it - we'd chipped and PiNned!

Or so we thought. Our assistant had her doubts - that was clear from the look on her face as she read the transaction receipt and for the next fifteen minutes she was on the phone to the bank reading strings of digits from the now somewhat dog-eared scrap of paper.  At last she had satisfied herself and been reassured sufficiently by the bank clerk to let us exit with purchase but not before we had all congratulated ourselves and filled out the warranty card.

Next day we were out in the field facing a mountain of olive prunings. The chipper was plugged in and Gill was at the helm as she has been ever since - it is her machine now Dave. And so began what has become to seem like a never ending chore of feeding the voracious maw of Vic the Chip. The piles of prunings shrink and disappear but the incarnadine twins are always mounding new ones. And there is an issue - quite literally. Prunings go into the top of Vic, Gil guides them in carefully following the instructions, Vic chews them, and then Vic spits out chips. Now while the volume of chips issuing from Vic is less than one tenth of the volume of what goes into Vic,  one tenth of a hell of a lot is still a lot. So what do we do with the chips?

They'd be good for barbecues? You could use them to smoke meat or fish?  Yes and yes but we have a lot of chips -  by the end of day 3 we have a small hill of chips! Eddie is standing there looking at the growing pile of chips, smoking a roll up and scratching his head. Ceddie is busy building another pile of prunings for Vic. Gill is feeding Vic. Vic is chewing and spitting. We are all thinking - hard.

And then Eddie has his halogen moment. "Guv? Did you ever see that place I used to live before I come here? No you ditnt but we did have a one of them venture playground thingies and that was covered in stuff just like what Vic spits out so was all the parths thru the woods and down to the lake where daft Bill did drown that time d'you think its the same? ". Brilliant Eddie - abso - bloody - lutely brilliant. I hug him and signal to Gill to switch Vic off. "Paths Gill! Paths. Paths to the lavender plots. Paths wherever you want. Thats it. Eddie is a genius." Gill's face lights up and her thumbs go up. We all hug Eddie and now we know what to do with the chips. And that is exactly what we have been doing ever since - path finding and making.  Here's a shot of the first path in progress - check back and we'll show you where all those chips end up.  




 

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Georgia

Comfortable again, he thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his Drizabone and she linked her arm through his. It was the Drizabone, long, black and totally unknown here in Crete that had been turning heads. And continued so to do as they pushed their way out onto Kydonias and turned right past the souvlaki stall where the smell of grilled meat, sticking to the damp air, momentarily triggered his gag reflex. To him the Drizabone brought memories of the Keach brothers, the Carradine brothers (and he did in those days look a lot like Keith), and the Quaid brothers in Walter Hill's The Long Riders. To the locals he probably reminded them more of The Matrix. They pressed on, the crowds were thick here outside the Omalos hotel. The pavements were wet and treacherously slippery. His leather soled boots were not much use whereas her rubber soled ones allowed her to move quickly: she unhooked from him and pulled ahead. He lost her briefly in the melee.

She stopped outside the town hall where scads of people stood around in huge clumps clasping sheaves of documents. She had no problem spotting him - four inches taller than the average Greek and dressed in black from head to suede booted toe he stood out from any crowd that they were likely to encounter here. And there was a space around him, even in the throng, that was clearly discernible. She did not need to wave to attract his attention, her red hat marked her out.

He clasped her to him and whispered to her "These fucking boots will be the death of me ... is it much further?" "Not far, just follow me - it's up to the end and right". He nodded an OK and they moved off again. She made the right into Apokoronou and he followed. She turned almost immediately into Vouloudaki and he followed. Taking a right into Sfakion she turned and said to him "It should be along here somewhere on the right". "I thought you said not far? This is a bloody hike". The rain came on again.

They found the building easily, not 400 yards up the road and surprisingly well signed, an extremely unprepossessing brutalist office block of 5 storeys but with a frontage no more than 7 metres wide all dark grey granite and approached up a lethal looking flight of steep, wet, marble stairs. The buildings either side were no less ugly. They would, over time, become accustomed to such monstrosities but for now they could scarcely believe how ugly this thing was. The rain had stopped now but their coats glistened yet in the weak sunlight. They picked their way warily out of the light and up the stairs. The doors were wedged open with rusty fire extinguishers and so they reached a dark hallway. A door to their left, another flight of marble stairs ahead and a lift to the right. Which way now?

A start - possibly

I'm sorry if the fiction buffs among my readership have been feeling neglected - shit ,not feeling, you have been neglected. The muse has been coming up dry for a while,or prompting crap, but this last few days I've been determined to pen a new Greek short story and this is the opening - make of it what you will:

The pair of them stepped down from the bus into the rain and heads turned. Locals milled around, talking loudly and even shouting. Several looked at them very obviously. A fat blonde woman with a cigarette in one hand and a mobile phone in the other stared un-selfconciously. The near rancid aroma of the gyros cafe next door wafted across the bus terminal. And then  the skies opened again. Umbrellas shot up like mushrooms all around them. The couple simply pulled their hats down further - his a black fedora and hers a plain black felt confection. They walked through the throng - the crowd parted silently as they approached and closed behind them noisily. Heads turned.

Xania bus depot in winter can be a dreadful place, crowded, dirty, cold, and wet. It can be, and today it was. Tourists who crowd this bus station in summer, dressed in shorts and t-shirts, sandals and beanie hats have no conception of what a winter here can do or be. They cannot see the White Mountains to the south capped with snow. This is the couple's first full winter here and the last three months have brought home to them how harsh a Cretan winter can be to bear. Three hours and more ago they had woken to the sound of incessant rain and a  wind howling like a wolf as it rushed around the house, and if they had not agreed among themselves to visit the diefthinsi georgia today then they would have just pulled the duvet up around their snug little ears and drifted back of into the arms of Hypnos. But they had agreed and there was no going back. It wasn't as if they had an appointment but they had promised themselves and the day had come round and so they would do it. That's just how they were. It's how they conducted themselves.

He had raked over the stove and emptied the ash - he would lay a new fire in when they came back. She had made a pot of coffee and begun to clean the kitchen before he joined her in the kitchen. They drank coffee and jump started the day with cigarettes before finishing the cleaning and driving down to the main road to catch the bus. They didn't open shutters or windows - why confirm what they already knew about the filthy day?  This was before they had the dogs so venturing out was unnecessary. The DS had started first time and without choke and they had waited just 5 minutes before the bus turned up. The omens were looking favourable despite the apparent pathetic fallacy.

They headed off to the public toilets arm in arm and emptied out the morning's coffee. He gagged standing over the squat Turkish style toilet that showed too clearly the detritus of a previous user. Averting his eyes had only brought them to bear on the plastic bin in the corner that was already full of skid marked toilet paper. The smell of urine and bleach hacked at the back of his throat prolonging the gag reflex. The sink, when he came to consider washing his hands, swiftly convinced him to the contrary opinion. The badly tiled floor was slippery and he tried not to wonder why - he put it down to the rain and left in haste. She joined him outside as he lit a cigarette and they ploughed off into the drear day. Heads turned. Again.

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How does this shit work?

Memory and recall fascinate me. Those of you who have stuck with me through thick thin and bald will know that. I have written several times on the subject or subjects over the years.

When recall throws things from memory at me I still get taken by surprise now and then. This morning was a wonderful example.

We were sitting drinking coffee and listening half heartedly to Radio 4 whie drinking coffee and waking up when an item came on about the ark of the covenant. Some odd guy was chattering on about having found an object in some obscure african tribal home that was built from parts of the original ark of the covenant which apparently self destructed at some time in the distant past (don't ask - just research it if you need to know more). At that point I turned to Gill and said "shittah wood - that's what it was made of - well the original was anyway".

Gill looked at me as though I were an alien and yet I had, when I said it, assumed that everyone in the world knew that fact. Apparently not. Two questions come immediately to mind: when and how did I learn that the ark of the covenant was made of shittah wood?; and how and why did I recall that ridiculously esoteric fact just now?

Gill insisted on checking the thing out on Wikipedia and quickly established that shittah is a singular, that the plural is shittim, that shittah wood comes from the mimosa acacia family and that these woods are available in the deserts of the middle east. And yes - the ark of the covenant was supposed to have been constructed from shittah word. Seriously weird shit memory and recall.

The fascinating point here is that that little piece of information has now been filed into two sets of memory cells with a far richer set of recall paths than it had this morning. Weird shit indeed.

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The Cost of the War

Nobel prizewinning economist Joseph Stiglits has collaborated with Linda Blimes to produce book that looks closely at the true costs of the latest US expeditions into Afghanistan and Iraq. Are you sitting comfortably? Please sit down if you aren't already. The numbers they come up with are big - really, really big.

Three trillion dollars. That's right 3 triliion dollars. Not billion. Trillion. More than World War 1. More than Vietnam cost over 12 years. More than the Korean War - twice as much. 10 times what the first gulf war cost. As of writing the joint efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq are costing the US about $18 billion - per month.  Like I said really big numbers and under normal circumstances they would remain just very big numbers but Stiglitz was on Radio 4 yesterday and he made a couple of equivalences that put things in perspective.

At the current rate of spend 2 weeks would pay to eliminate illiteracy worldwide. 10 days would fund the US aid budget to the whole of Africa for a year. One sixth of the total $3 billion could put the US social security system on a sound financial basis for 75 years!

Now those are just the numbers - the arithmetic - the money if you will. Stiglitz and his collaborator do not stop there though. They investigate the impact that the financial and human costs have had or are having on family lives and the world economy respectively and those finding make equally awful reading.

It is a truly horrific picture they paint with words and numbers. And what is it all for?

Read the truth here.

Or listen to the Radio4 program here.

Read and listen - and weep.

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wake up and make the coffee

Despite the typographical similarities with Celine please allow the following to serve as an humble trubute to Alain Robbe-Grillet who died today





wake up ...  it's dark ... peer thru the mosquito net to see the clock ... listen to the hail slanting in ... 06:05 .... turn over ... turn the deaf ear upwards

wake again ... bladder pressing ... some light but grey ... and wind howling ... out of bed and across the wooden floor to pull on slippers and a thermal vest ... off into the toilet ... piss and listen to the rain ... check the clock again ... 09:03 ... decide to get up ... wash face ... cold water ... fucking cold ... brush teeth

pull on the rest of clothing ... jumper, socks, jeans ... taking off the slippers beforehand .... head downstairs telling G to come when she's ready

living room is warm ... check stove ... some embers still glowing red ... wind is howling around ... check outside and pull on the drizabone and the boots ... pick up the teapot and cigarettes ... unlock and step out into a freezing north wind that's carrying snow ...

check for cat presents on the door step, blank, quick check of the surroundings, snow everywhere  on the mountains ... down the  stairs checking Kastellos  ... a mist  hangs in the way ... the sky is grey-white ... the wind is bitter and biting ... say hi to the girls ... both wet

unlock the cellar door and check for water ingrees, none .... open the tp half of the stable door fully ... open the windows and shutters over the kitchen sink ... cold blast ... open the north facing windows and shutters ... icy blast ... go to fill the kettle ... still no water ... use some spring water from the cannisters ... switch it on ... shit, the washing up from last night sits on the drainer ... and the coffee dregs bucket is full ...

outside into the bite ... fill a bucket from the water butt ... white finger ... empty the coffee dregs around the mimosa ... flush it with more butt water ... sleet is refilling the butt already ... back indoors ... drizabone off ... jacket and wristlets on ... flush the toilet with butt water ... make the coffee making sure not to drop the cafettiere ... pick up some water from the fridge and a tissue ... rain and snow have stopped ... for now, time to do the girls but fill the sink from the bucket and wash up first ... cold water, very cold indeed

out to the run ... greet the girls and clean their eyes ... pick up two frozen turds in a plastic bag ... change their water and disinfect and sweep the run of olives and olive related detritus ... play with the girls and cuddle them, fuss all round each other ... look up south to the mountains ... grey ... look north to the sea and the incoming weather ... shit incoming ... check the plants on the way back ... check the water butt is switched off ...

back indoors ... pour some coffee and warm hands around it ... light a cigarette and perch on the chair in the draught ... filth coming in ... the wind gusts up to 30 or 40 mph bringing snow with it ... close the north facing shutters quickly ... check the girls, they've gone into their kennel ... slurp some coffee and then roll up all the rugs ...

G arrives ... kisses and a cuddle ... sit and drink coffee ... smoke cigarettes ...  brush down the sofa ...sweep the floors ... clean the bathroom ... dust everything ... re-connect to the internet, the router has jammed ... check the weather, snow in Souda, temperature -6ºc with wind chill ... get moving ... refill the kettle, the water is back hurrah - only 12 hours or so ... rugs back down and sweep them ... make more coffee ... get the girls in - the snow is settling now ... clean ther paws and dry them off, drowned rats ... electricity goes off ... but only for a few minutes ... restart the computer and the router and reconnect to Radio4 ... check the weather again - sleet, hail and mist, still -6ºc, wind gusts at 40 mph ... close the south facing windows but not the shutters got to get what light we can ... the sky is a dark grey and darkening .. .threatening

girls are on the sofa ... we are drinking coffee ... G does make-up and D goes up to do the stove ... open the balcony shutters and doors ... empty last night's ashtray into the bin on the balcony ... switch on the immersion heater - there'll be no solar heated water today ... wash up last nights tea mugs in freezing water and put them away ... wire brush the grate ... scrape the inspection panel in the stove door free of soot ... empty the ashcan into another bin on the balcony ... white finger ... lay in a new fire and sweep the floor ... we're short of logs and kindling ... bring in some more logs ... down to the carage where some chopped logs are prepared and bring them up in empty wine boxes ... check the cover on the log pile ... sweep the floor again ... bringing in logs always messes things up ... swab up the damp that came in on your boots ... switch off the immersion ... close up the shutters and doors ... check for water ingress ...  the snow is slanting in almost horizontal now ... pick up a couple of packs of cigarettes and exit locking the door behind

almost blown down the stairs ... the view from the sun terrace is obscured by snow and cloud, mist and wind ... into the cellar and close the door behind ... close up the top of the door ... we're well aired now ... and re-greet the girls who are all pleased to see you ... slurp some coffee and light another cigarette ... is that it? ... are we done? ... for now?

G's turn to start tomorrow

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All things pass

There are a lot of strange people with some very strange ideas running around in the public spotlight. It is truly difficult to get a fag paper between them these days. Take the following:



Tough call huh?

The Year of the Death of James Graham Ballard

It is always with a sense of dread not dead that I write obituaries. To write one in advance of the actual death is nothing new for me but this one pains me deeply.

This piece could easily have been entitled Chronicle of a Death Foretold. But it isn't. I found a better hook to hang it on. It could as well have been entitled The Dead - great novel or great short story it makes no nevermind - JGB did them equally well but will no more I fear. Fear is the key. Instead I stole my title from Jose Saramago - one his less accessible but most beautiful novels. A novel about a real poet - the death year of a great poet - the 4 greatest Portugese poets -  Fernando Pessoa.

I have read all of my properly sentient life. I have listened to radio all of my sentient life too. This week my two loves have come together with readings on Radio 4 from JGB's latest book - Miracles of Life: Shanghai to Shepperton. Latest and last?  I seldom read biographies and eschewed literary biographies almost entirely some years back with but a few exceptions. My advice would usually be "Never read the biographies of artists whose work you admire. You wouldn't want to meet them - let alone know them. Most of them are less than likable human beings and in many case their likability is in an inverse ratio to the product of their talent and how much you admire their art." But this is an autobiography and Ballard comes across as a really nice guy!

Having made the disastrous mistake of failing to give Gilbert Sorrentino the Nobel prize for literature - he died before they even thought of it - I fear they might miss Ballard too, and for the same reason, and that would be a mistake of the same order of magnitude. I love Doris and Harold P all that they have done - but really  - GS had and  JGB has, each, a genuine body of work unassailable by comparison.

JGB is, I truly believe, the greatest English writer since the second world war. Forged in that conflict his insight is unwavering and unsentimental. Amiss, Self, Rushdie, McEwan et al are pygmies by comparison. Ballard looks inside the human condition and never flinches no matter how unpleasant the image. Where Dostoevsky and Camus and even Derek Raymond looked inside the individual and found Conrad's Heart of Darkness Ballard's focus is upon society - the kinds of society that mankind is capable of creating - the ugly crippled children of the body societal. The works all shine a magnifying light on the potentialities of how we pull ourselves together into groups or how we might. Somehow the Cocaine Nights tetralogy seems more real and more frightening than Orwell's 1984 or Huxley's Brave New World - more prescient - and he does this not by looking into and projecting the future but simply by looking into the present and extrapolating.

Not since Joyce has one man mastered both the short story form and the novel with such a mixture of skill and inventiveness. Ballard's Atrocity Exhibition is a scarily experimental novel that challenged readers when it was published to handle the fractured and overlapping semi-narratives and snapshots, the vignettes and the tableaux that have become a commonplace - an everyday, moment by moment experience - since the advent of the web. Ballard pulls it off with an aplomb that in hindsight is nothing short of brilliant.

Reading Ballard can feel like accompanying Mapp and Lucia on a day-trip to Belsen says Sam Leith in his recent review of Ballard's final work and there is more than a grain of truth in that albeit contrived encomium but the regularity with which reviewers and fans alike trot out the word dystopic is in and of itself fairly depressing.  I would prefer to draw people's attention to the facination with art and architecture, design and decadence that suffuses his work and his vision. Ballard sometiimes writes of livable societies and sometimes of unbearable ones but to focus entirely on the darker side of his work is to miss his essential humanity and this last week I have come to appreciate just how human JGB  is and how this informs his entire oeuvre. He shows us exactly what mankind is capable of and it is not all misery.

If Miracles of Life is his last book it will be sad but it may be a fitting place to finish his life work. I want it not to be his last. I want to have the next Ballard to look forward to and that is something I can rarely say of a living author.





The wikipeadie entry on Ballard can be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._G._Ballard

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It snowed tomorrow

It started raining last Wednesday and it has rained every day since. It has also been getting colder every day since. We've had hail and freeing cold rain already. It has snowed in northern Greece already and with the meteorologists forecasting colder weather at the weekend with northerly gale force winds those of us who recall the big snows of 2004 are watching February the 13th roll around with fingers crossed that we do not get a repeat. What a week that was - the one that started on the 13th. See what happened then here.

I thought this piece of text gave a solid idea of how winters are felt here and thought I'd share it with you:

Winter is in full force here, which means it's really, really wet, and, here in the village, cold. Although we have had blessedly welcome spells of sun - with breathtaking views of the completely snow-covered Psiloritis and his rivals to the west - for the most part the weather has been wet. Paint-peeling, mold-inducing, goat-stinking wet. The humidity here is astounding; if we don't air out the place vigorously whenever it's not raining, evil-looking black mold grows on the ceilings, the walls drip, and in general it starts to feel like a medieval castle.

The full blog entry is well worth reading and can be found here: http://www.paddyleague.blogspot.com/

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Silly me

I saw this headline "UK government plans to stop file-sharing" and thought to myself "how wonderful - the UK government is tightening up security so that it stops inadvertently sharing my data with Joe Soap and all his identity thieving mates and maybe it'll stop allowing the DVLA and its ilk from selling my data too." How wrong was I? What sort of silly Billy am I? Turns out what they really want to do is stop me sharing my files with other people so as to protect a bunch of parasitic record and movie companies.  Colour me mug.

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On the birth of our first grandchild

Welcome little Charlie
welcome to our world
your world
you didn't ask to be here
you owe nobody anything
the life you have is yours to live
nobody else's

Do as little harm as you can
damage as few people as you may
love yourself first and
everyone else thereafter
but
love yourself

There are people here
who will care for you
as best they can
but they cannot live your life for you

You must find your own way
and cut your own furrow
through the field of life
but keep your head and eyes up
there are many beauties to see
- see them all

There are no rehearsals
no playbacks
once it is done it sticks
There is no supernatural
no afterlife
no make it all right later on
get it right as you go
this life is all you have
live it wisely
live it happily

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Fall back and spring forward

Incongruous. A man in a white suit is standing in the top of a tall olive tree. The valley is verdant and lush. All around there are olive trees and citrus groves. The sky is bright and clear even though it is February. Wisp of smoke climb vertically from small bonfires all around. There is no movement in the air. In his hand he hold a japanese pull saw: another is stuck into his wide brown belt. From this  distance he looks like Fitzcarraldo  with a mane of white blonde hair and a manic smile. The sun catches his broad brimmed white hat as he hops goat-like from branch to branch sawing as he goes.

And suddenly he is gone. He falls backward, the ladder toppling left as he fall right. The wraparound sunglasses fly from his face as he hits the ground shoulders first and his head whips upward. They land 2 metres away. The saw is still grasped in his left hand: the other, smaller saw is still in his belt. HIs fall is broken by a palliasse of oxalis growing beneath the olive tree. Silence, Stillness.

He shakes his head. He moves his legs, glad that they are operational. He checks his legs. And then his arms. He catches his breath: the fall has clearly winded him. He rises to his feet and glances around to make certain that nobody saw him fall. He rubs the back of his head. And then he picks up the ladder and places it back on the tree, making sure this time that it is level, And he climbs back up into the tree with the saws both still in place. He continues.

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Gazing into the crystal ball

Today's announcement that Microsoft has made a "hostile" bid for Yahoo makes my crystal ball shimmer. Watching the rise of super cheap PCs and laptops from the likes of Asus means that we might be seeing Linux derivatives at last get some traction. Vista, which had a gestation hat would make an elephant wince has proved desperately unappealing to the corporates. Likewise the newest version of the bloated and ugly Office suite. The EU and the British educational system have begun to despise MS and its manipulation of so called "open standards" and have finally started to voice their doubts. Their is a tide running against the proprietary and toward the open.

Open is suddenly cool in a way that it always should have been. It has taken a long time and the open movements have finally achieved some kind of critical mass. Those of us who were preaching the open road 6 years ago at its inception can finally breathe out. Intel tried and failed to derail the OLPC project. Microsoft tried and succeeded in perverting web standards with its ugly and subversive browser. But the pendulum is swinging back - Firefox has taken over the fight that Netscape lost to the 800lb gorilla. And it is winning. Google's offerings for word processing, email and the like have begun to convince simple users that there is another way. And it is cheaper. It also has better future proofing because of its openness. Embracing standards rather than subverting them suddenly seems to make sense and the long history of fear uncertainty and doubt that Microsoft has used to deter "switchers" is possibly starting to backfire.

Vote with your wallet and your choicesw - let's bury the gorilla and the gorilla pupeteers. Forward with the open road.

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