I haven't posted anything in this blog for so long, I'm amazed that I got back into it without an inquisition, and I just want to see what it looks like.
I already know that some updates during that gap have lost most of the formatting that designed into it.
Hey ho.
Tuesday 27 September 2016
Saturday 6 February 2016
Terry Pratchett
This is not so much a blog, as an easy way for me to get some text up onto the Internet so that I can link to it. Sorry. You might find this list interesting, even so.
15.
Troll
Bridge (1992) (Short
story)
17.
Theatre
of Cruelty (1993) (Short
story)
This is not so much a blog, as an easy way for me to get some text up onto the Internet so that I can link to it. Sorry. You might find this list interesting, even so.
List of Terry Pratchett Discworld books, stolen from the Internet –
with additional comments and precepts for
the wise by Ed Matthews
10.
Moving Pictures (1990) (One-off) – Early days of
Hollywood cinema
26.
The Sea
and Little Fishes (1998)
(Short story)
33.
Death
and What Comes Next (2002)
(Short story)
For
anyone wanting to read just one Discworld novel , I would recommend ‘Going
Postal’.
Saturday 26 September 2015
Dream states, Radio Four, angels, aliens ... and the power of the mind
[My overarching advice to you, even before you read this: never write a dream diary.]
Ever found yourself coming awake and realising that your nearest and dearest is about to do that thing you usually only see in movies ..... slap you about the face while crying; "Wake up! Wake up! It's only a dream!"?
Well, no, neither have I, but this came close. I want to write about it, if only to stop me thinking about it, perhaps.
I am 60, I sleep badly. I have developed various techniques to deal with this, none of which work reliably. Sleep, and the need for lots of it, or not, is another subject, but what I want to talk about is the borderline between sleep and waking, and what it can do to you.
Once, forty years ago, I had a nightmare so vivid that I threw myself out of bed. Actually, what I did was slew sideways and bang my head on the bookcase next to the bed. Much hilarity when I regaled friends with it.
But that's highly unusual. When you're asleep, something cuts in which effectively immobilises you, so that you DON'T usually react to what dreams may come. This is probably a hangover from the days when we lived in trees - if you jumped out of the way of a dream sabre tooth, you might find yourself plummeting to the jungle floor. (There is so much wrong with this paragraph, evolutionarily, historically, ethnographically, and probably typographically, that I will leave it to the class for an exercise in criticism.)
Sometimes, the immobilisation device fails to click off quickly enough as you are coming awake. As a result, you can feel paralysed, although you imagine you should be back in control of what we laughingly call our consciousness. Sleep paralysis is terrifying, luckily most people experience it rarely.
And sometimes, when you are coming awake, you incorporate real sounds into your dreams - the oncoming train which is actually the alarm clock going off is another cinematic cliche.
Right, prepare for a description of a real doozy, combining all these elements.
I was tired late last night, we were in bed with the lights out, I was listening to Radio Four very quietly. If you want to know, it had been Melvyn Bragg, talking with his clever buddies about strange things. I had been drifting in and out of sleep, but I remember the ten o'clock news starting. I heard the headlines. The next time I was awake was 10.04, (I checked, I am a science grad) so all these things happened in just one or two minutes, perhaps even less. Maybe time passes more slowly in a parallel universe.
I dreamed that I was at some kind of festival, to do with Green politics, and that I was far older than any of the participants, but they were being disarmingly tolerant of that fact, the patronising bastards, ..... and that my parents were alive and somewhere at the festival, but that I had to locate them and I also wasn't quite sure where our car was, or where the accommodation we were to stay at was ..... that went on and on. The restaurant I imagined was particularly strange.
You get the picture. It was amazingly detailed, with the usual elements of embarrassment and anxiety. If you want, I can describe the landscape, the weather, the lighting, the festival arena and what was going on in there [Hint to self; massed ranks of Green Men chanting, and the tourniquet incident, and the Aztec king] .... none of this is relevant. It was just mental chatter. My brain was busy filing things, although lord knows where all this stuff was coming from. It had just been a normal day. More normal than usual.
Then it changed.
I thought I was awake, still in bed, and that there was a creature in the room with us. I could hear it whining and snarling, I put my hand out of bed onto it, and it became a fox. We have urban foxes living around us, they regularly disturb us during the night with their strange yowlings.
I clearly heard my wife say; "I can't move, or it will bite me." I saw the fox, not exactly at her throat, but threatening. I tried to react, but I could not move. I could hear myself issuing cogent instructions for dealing with this, but at the same time I could hear that what I was saying was garbage - I could not articulate. I was on the borderline between two states of being, and both sets of visuals were extremely convincing. My perceptions were flashing between them, almost as though I was some hotshot indie movie director. The music soundtrack was frankly rubbish, though. And yes, I had time to perceive that; there's no time, when you're in altered states.
Meanwhile, my wife in the dream was trying to turn lights on, getting tangled in wires and saying things like; "Really, we should get this lighting sorted out."
Then, if possible, it all went even more weird. The door opened and two entities floated through, both female, both wearing ballet tutus and both with fairy wings (I feel I should tell you that I have just read 'Shepherd's Crown', in which it is revealed for the first time that the fairies of Discworld have wings ..... this should be a footnote, but once you start footnoting, you're addicted). One reached out an arm to touch me on the shoulder - on which, of course, I said, as any happily married man would; "What do you think you're doing!" ..... and the arm suddenly started to look normal and the whole thing dissolved into my wife trying to shake me awake. I had apparently punched her in the back, and then spent some time speaking in tongues, opening my eyes but not seeing her, and refusing to acknowledge her.
All over in moments, but very disturbing.
Right, if my wife had not intervened, I might soon be on a chat show, telling how I been visited by angels (or fairies), and possibly extrapolating that into alien visitation, abduction and who knows what. [Even as I type these very words, right now, 1:09 am Saturday 26th September 2015, there are foxes in the road outside screaming; I kid you not. Fucking hate those foxes.]
So make of that what you will. I could make a hat or a nice bracelet .....
I just wanted to get rid of this memory. Won't work.
Ever found yourself coming awake and realising that your nearest and dearest is about to do that thing you usually only see in movies ..... slap you about the face while crying; "Wake up! Wake up! It's only a dream!"?
Well, no, neither have I, but this came close. I want to write about it, if only to stop me thinking about it, perhaps.
I am 60, I sleep badly. I have developed various techniques to deal with this, none of which work reliably. Sleep, and the need for lots of it, or not, is another subject, but what I want to talk about is the borderline between sleep and waking, and what it can do to you.
Once, forty years ago, I had a nightmare so vivid that I threw myself out of bed. Actually, what I did was slew sideways and bang my head on the bookcase next to the bed. Much hilarity when I regaled friends with it.
But that's highly unusual. When you're asleep, something cuts in which effectively immobilises you, so that you DON'T usually react to what dreams may come. This is probably a hangover from the days when we lived in trees - if you jumped out of the way of a dream sabre tooth, you might find yourself plummeting to the jungle floor. (There is so much wrong with this paragraph, evolutionarily, historically, ethnographically, and probably typographically, that I will leave it to the class for an exercise in criticism.)
Sometimes, the immobilisation device fails to click off quickly enough as you are coming awake. As a result, you can feel paralysed, although you imagine you should be back in control of what we laughingly call our consciousness. Sleep paralysis is terrifying, luckily most people experience it rarely.
And sometimes, when you are coming awake, you incorporate real sounds into your dreams - the oncoming train which is actually the alarm clock going off is another cinematic cliche.
Right, prepare for a description of a real doozy, combining all these elements.
I was tired late last night, we were in bed with the lights out, I was listening to Radio Four very quietly. If you want to know, it had been Melvyn Bragg, talking with his clever buddies about strange things. I had been drifting in and out of sleep, but I remember the ten o'clock news starting. I heard the headlines. The next time I was awake was 10.04, (I checked, I am a science grad) so all these things happened in just one or two minutes, perhaps even less. Maybe time passes more slowly in a parallel universe.
I dreamed that I was at some kind of festival, to do with Green politics, and that I was far older than any of the participants, but they were being disarmingly tolerant of that fact, the patronising bastards, ..... and that my parents were alive and somewhere at the festival, but that I had to locate them and I also wasn't quite sure where our car was, or where the accommodation we were to stay at was ..... that went on and on. The restaurant I imagined was particularly strange.
You get the picture. It was amazingly detailed, with the usual elements of embarrassment and anxiety. If you want, I can describe the landscape, the weather, the lighting, the festival arena and what was going on in there [Hint to self; massed ranks of Green Men chanting, and the tourniquet incident, and the Aztec king] .... none of this is relevant. It was just mental chatter. My brain was busy filing things, although lord knows where all this stuff was coming from. It had just been a normal day. More normal than usual.
Then it changed.
I thought I was awake, still in bed, and that there was a creature in the room with us. I could hear it whining and snarling, I put my hand out of bed onto it, and it became a fox. We have urban foxes living around us, they regularly disturb us during the night with their strange yowlings.
I clearly heard my wife say; "I can't move, or it will bite me." I saw the fox, not exactly at her throat, but threatening. I tried to react, but I could not move. I could hear myself issuing cogent instructions for dealing with this, but at the same time I could hear that what I was saying was garbage - I could not articulate. I was on the borderline between two states of being, and both sets of visuals were extremely convincing. My perceptions were flashing between them, almost as though I was some hotshot indie movie director. The music soundtrack was frankly rubbish, though. And yes, I had time to perceive that; there's no time, when you're in altered states.
Meanwhile, my wife in the dream was trying to turn lights on, getting tangled in wires and saying things like; "Really, we should get this lighting sorted out."
Then, if possible, it all went even more weird. The door opened and two entities floated through, both female, both wearing ballet tutus and both with fairy wings (I feel I should tell you that I have just read 'Shepherd's Crown', in which it is revealed for the first time that the fairies of Discworld have wings ..... this should be a footnote, but once you start footnoting, you're addicted). One reached out an arm to touch me on the shoulder - on which, of course, I said, as any happily married man would; "What do you think you're doing!" ..... and the arm suddenly started to look normal and the whole thing dissolved into my wife trying to shake me awake. I had apparently punched her in the back, and then spent some time speaking in tongues, opening my eyes but not seeing her, and refusing to acknowledge her.
All over in moments, but very disturbing.
Right, if my wife had not intervened, I might soon be on a chat show, telling how I been visited by angels (or fairies), and possibly extrapolating that into alien visitation, abduction and who knows what. [Even as I type these very words, right now, 1:09 am Saturday 26th September 2015, there are foxes in the road outside screaming; I kid you not. Fucking hate those foxes.]
So make of that what you will. I could make a hat or a nice bracelet .....
I just wanted to get rid of this memory. Won't work.
Wednesday 12 August 2015
The Defence of North Kingston
The Welsh slates were giving of their best,
but the rounds coming in from assault rifles were lifting them here and there,
in a sudden and haphazard fashion, and revealing the slats underneath. Sharp splinters were raining down into the
back yard every few minutes. There was
no point yet in returning fire.
Those firing obviously did not have a good
sight, and hopefully they were being harassed and distracted by those in
Latchmere to the rear and the sides, but we knew that we had been bypassed, and
that now we were in an enclave. It all
depended on whether they had the resources to close us off and pass on, or
whether they realized that they needed to secure all this area to enable their
progress into Richmond and beyond. This road was the only straight paved road
North on this side of the Thames, after the destruction of Teddington and the
mayhem that had been wreaked on Richmond Park.
The night had been fevered with debate and
running feet. If anyone had slept, it would
have been the brief, troubled sleep of the exhausted.
Those remaining in North Kingston were the old, the young, and the poor. The old had decided there was no longer any point in movement, and the young and the poor tended to coincide; either they had rebelled against the decision of their families to go into the country, or they had simply nowhere they knew of to go to, or no means to go there. There were still young children in many houses; what else were their parents to do?
The remnants of the Southern Coast land forces had passed through during the previous day, on their way to some regrouping point. Two or three armoured vehicles had turned out of the ragged column, and officers looking reduced and wide-eyed had addressed from the roofs of their vehicles any groups that gathered, giving what advice they could, leaving what rations they could, and finally turning their own side arms on their own troops and ordering them to leave us some trucks scattered with armaments and supplies. There were no instruction manuals; people learned how to handle loaded weapons, or they died.
With all communications gone and no vestige of local government remaining, it was inescapable that people turned to whatever organisation remained. Throughout the evening and into the night, in the Church Hall, some officers of BRAG – the Burton, Richmond Park and Gibbon Road Group – fought to hold down the panic and to plan resistance, if resistance there was to be.
Those remaining in North Kingston were the old, the young, and the poor. The old had decided there was no longer any point in movement, and the young and the poor tended to coincide; either they had rebelled against the decision of their families to go into the country, or they had simply nowhere they knew of to go to, or no means to go there. There were still young children in many houses; what else were their parents to do?
The remnants of the Southern Coast land forces had passed through during the previous day, on their way to some regrouping point. Two or three armoured vehicles had turned out of the ragged column, and officers looking reduced and wide-eyed had addressed from the roofs of their vehicles any groups that gathered, giving what advice they could, leaving what rations they could, and finally turning their own side arms on their own troops and ordering them to leave us some trucks scattered with armaments and supplies. There were no instruction manuals; people learned how to handle loaded weapons, or they died.
With all communications gone and no vestige of local government remaining, it was inescapable that people turned to whatever organisation remained. Throughout the evening and into the night, in the Church Hall, some officers of BRAG – the Burton, Richmond Park and Gibbon Road Group – fought to hold down the panic and to plan resistance, if resistance there was to be.
There were those of us from the outlying
streets drawn to this activity, because of course there was little or no noise
from any other quarter. No electricity
for television or radios, no mobile phones, no traffic of any kind apart from
shopping carts going down to the river for drinking water, and of course
nothing in the sky apart from those distant lights which some still thought
were US monitoring planes.
But the discussion in the hall went on for
hours, became heated, became cool, became despairing ….. and finally came to
the wrong conclusion. We stood up, but
were overruled. Whatever force came,
would come up out of Kingston along Richmond Road; and Gibbon Road, that great wide road with
all aspects easily visible from the main road, came directly off Richmond
Road. A barricade was useless, the invading
force’s main body with all its armaments would see it almost as soon as they
left the town centre to strike northwards.
It would last but moments before the force spread through the
checkerboard of Burton Road and Kings Road and all the rectilinear roads in
that area.
We argued that we must pursue a guerilla warfare, using anything in the streetscape that would give our opponents check. But we were few, and the gathering was now too tired to give our arguments consideration. The meeting petered out and dwindled away.
But we did not spend our night idly. Our house commands a corner where two ways meet – three, if you count that the third way is at an angle and a curve from the other two - and so not easily visible by anyone approaching until they come right upon it. By morning, we had reinforced our attic as best we could, and mounted guns from our roof windows traversing the road north and south. To the east, there was simply the other side of the road and double gardens beyond, hard territory even for footsoldiers. To cover the west, we had had to destroy a corner of the roof to provide a firing position, but we anticipated that this was a less likely direction for an initial attack.
The old break tank in the attic was of course empty, as it had been for months, but in the early hours we brought up some bottles refilled with water, and whatever canned goods and biscuits we had left. We cleared pathways through the lumber to the magazines, and rehearsed which metal racks of bullets fitted which guns, and the order in which we thought we might use them. The grenade launchers were an unknown quantity; they were probably as much risk to us as to our attackers.
By dawn, we were so well satisfied with a job well done that it was almost possible to forget that the actual job was yet to do.
We argued that we must pursue a guerilla warfare, using anything in the streetscape that would give our opponents check. But we were few, and the gathering was now too tired to give our arguments consideration. The meeting petered out and dwindled away.
But we did not spend our night idly. Our house commands a corner where two ways meet – three, if you count that the third way is at an angle and a curve from the other two - and so not easily visible by anyone approaching until they come right upon it. By morning, we had reinforced our attic as best we could, and mounted guns from our roof windows traversing the road north and south. To the east, there was simply the other side of the road and double gardens beyond, hard territory even for footsoldiers. To cover the west, we had had to destroy a corner of the roof to provide a firing position, but we anticipated that this was a less likely direction for an initial attack.
The old break tank in the attic was of course empty, as it had been for months, but in the early hours we brought up some bottles refilled with water, and whatever canned goods and biscuits we had left. We cleared pathways through the lumber to the magazines, and rehearsed which metal racks of bullets fitted which guns, and the order in which we thought we might use them. The grenade launchers were an unknown quantity; they were probably as much risk to us as to our attackers.
By dawn, we were so well satisfied with a job well done that it was almost possible to forget that the actual job was yet to do.
Idling at the angled attic windows, we
watched a slow sunrise out of the east.
There was high cloud and little wind, so when the diesels started up
somewhere to the south in Surbiton, it was not possible to mistake them. There was no urgency or hurry in that
noise. Kingston Town centre had been
deserted almost since it began, all business abandoned and those few who lived
there evacuated, as if evacuation could provide a solution.
But yet there was some time to wait; we smiled as we imagined tanks and half-tracks touring the pitiful mess that was the road system in the town centre, but all the while we knew that they were simply aiming north.
Then a brief pause. Some crackling small-arms fire. Perhaps some hint of a loud-hailer, but then more breaking twigs, and quickly several huge concussions. And then a further concussion.
Then it was possible to hear the vehicles travelling, not simply the engines but also the squealing of tracks and axles lacking lubrication. They moved up to the west of us and moved past, but we knew that that could not be all. And, poised as we were high above the roads, we could hear now the sound of troop movement east towards us, not just the occasional report of a rifle but the triple tempo of an assault rifle, and sometimes the full burst.
They must have quickly established firepoints on rooftops, for now fire was coming into our area – admittedly most of it random, but they were targeting anything that might be a threat. For those who could see them at all, our attic windows were a prime target. Shots smashed into our ridge tiles, the slates, and then one of the glazing units dissolved into dust.
As the sun rose above the houses to the east of Staunton Road, the first of the scouts eased uneasily around the bend in the road, and squinted distrustfully at everything they saw.
We squinted back down our sights, and aimed to make them pay a high price.
But yet there was some time to wait; we smiled as we imagined tanks and half-tracks touring the pitiful mess that was the road system in the town centre, but all the while we knew that they were simply aiming north.
Then a brief pause. Some crackling small-arms fire. Perhaps some hint of a loud-hailer, but then more breaking twigs, and quickly several huge concussions. And then a further concussion.
Then it was possible to hear the vehicles travelling, not simply the engines but also the squealing of tracks and axles lacking lubrication. They moved up to the west of us and moved past, but we knew that that could not be all. And, poised as we were high above the roads, we could hear now the sound of troop movement east towards us, not just the occasional report of a rifle but the triple tempo of an assault rifle, and sometimes the full burst.
They must have quickly established firepoints on rooftops, for now fire was coming into our area – admittedly most of it random, but they were targeting anything that might be a threat. For those who could see them at all, our attic windows were a prime target. Shots smashed into our ridge tiles, the slates, and then one of the glazing units dissolved into dust.
As the sun rose above the houses to the east of Staunton Road, the first of the scouts eased uneasily around the bend in the road, and squinted distrustfully at everything they saw.
We squinted back down our sights, and aimed to make them pay a high price.
Saturday 20 December 2014
Angry man, writing
I had just dropped off my nearest and dearest at Kew Gardens, where they were going to sneer at the Christmas displays and raid the shop. I was zooming home to wait in for deliveries. Christmas comes in a van.
It was only when I came to a halt, at the rail crossing off the Sheen Road, that I noticed it. Checking my rear view mirror, everything was blurred.
I thought; "Well, is this it? Should I summon assistance, or lie down with my head in a brown paper bag, or what?".
Then I realised that I had the volume on the sound system cranked up to eleven, and it was the car that was shaking, not me. I was listening to 'Hideaway', from the album 'Never Going Home', by the band Big Skies.
I can't send you a link to that particular song (the album is on Spotify, go rack up a few pence for them, I have put a link on my Facebook today), but believe me when I say that it has the ideal intro .... sounds like a stack of stainless steel bars slowly starting into a landslide. Jim Cubitt, 'Last of the Axemen'.
And then it led me to ponder and reflect, which is always a bad thing. About the long, long road a-winding, from Right Turn Left, via Blue Screen Life, to Big Skies, and the kind of music they made, which always appealed to me, and why. I think because these lads were born twenty or thirty years too late. At almost any time in the intervening period, their songs would have been up there in what was once called the Hit Parade. Nowadays, all we get are people who want to be Beyonce, and who generate sub-soul warblings.
What happened to rock and roll?
That's why I'm angry. I do not want to live off my Led Zeppelin archive, or come across things like Queens of the Stone Age from time to time. I want .... I want .... what do I want? Artistic integrity plus killer riffs, maybe. Is that too much to ask?
Here's a nice video of a Big Skies tune:
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