Release the Sausages! Some fun creating songs with AI about Keir Starmer

I had some fun with this! I wrote some lyrics, threw them into My Tunes, and it obligingly created songs for me!

A Christmas Message 2021 — finding light in the darkness

How we might find a way through the darkness!

Shorne · 19-12-21 -- A Christmas Message

On Twitter fact-checking Trump’s tweets

Yay! A little bit of sanity amid the world of Trump. 😊

If Trump, like some sort of twisted Pied Piper — is leading people a merry dance with off-the-charts incorrect information, then it’s great that Twitter took it upon themselves to fact check this.

One person opined on social media that this is censorship, that they have editorialised Trump.

They did not ‘editorialise’ Trump. That would involve their opinions. They fact checked him. With a discreet line under his tweet. Naturally he’s furious, because facts are anathema to him. It’s like vampires and sunlight. Or Daleks and stairs.

Heard of Obamagate? Of course you might not have done until very recently, because it’s a made-up thing, that Trump casually tossed towards reporters, accompanied with mystifying hints as to what this might be. Was Obama’s tie not straight one time? Because America has gone from having a dignified and level-headed leader to having the clown from Stephen King’s IT, all garish and seething with animosity, drool dripping from his chin in fevered anticipation of feasting on the gullibility of thousands of Americans.

He’s accidentally stumbled on a gold mine though by unwittingly tapping into conspiracy theory-land, a world where some bloke called Q apparently has top level clearance, and seems to think Trump is ridding the world of a NWO ‘dark cabal.’ But the real genius is in tapping into Christians. Not the normal ones, hell no! The Born Again, speaking in tongues, the rapture-is-a-comin,’ Bible thumping, gun-toting, sorta folk. Praise God! Hallelujah! Can we get an AMEN?! To them, he’s either Jesus incarnate for the Second Coming, or he’s fully ordained by God himself to carry out his task of protecting Israel and America. (Perhaps God lives in his hair and controls him like a puppet.)

His followers hang on to his every word, in a fevered, bonkers sort of way. He’s the ultimate cult leader — move over, L. Ron Hubbard, there’s a new cat in town, who is even more mental than you are. And I have not even touched on how hate groups are on the rise in America again, perhaps in part encouraged by his unpleasant speeches and Twitter tirades.

Trump is to me, a rather desperate figure, underneath the bluster. A bloke suffering from Narcissistic Personality Disorder, with an inability to tell the truth or even recognise it, and a pathological need to remove himself from any responsibility for his own actions (fancy a pint of bleach, anyone?). He’s a caricature of a caricature of a copy of the man he could have been, so desperate for approval ratings he creates a candy-coloured world in which he’s the greatest and bestest at all times.

So yeah. I’m a fan of fact-checking the shit outta Donald Trump.

(It won’t make a lot of difference to the folk who literally believe every word that isn’t dedicated to the orange-haired one must be a lie. Trump could round up all the bunnies of the world and shoot them, or mug little old ladies, or ride a chicken down the street, naked, and even if there was clear video footage his fans would steadfastly shout ‘FAKE NEWS!’)
It’s a puzzle. 😊

A month of Lockdown during the Coronavirus

What a strange month it’s been. It feels like a whole year, in some respects. It’s maybe more like 6 weeks since we went into lockdown. Since the fear gripped us all, coupled with deep uncertainty. Since my dreams turned into a jumbled trainwreck of past/present/future – real folk mingling with characters from films or mini-series. (My beautiful late Mum was having what looked like a fab conversation with Leonard Nimoy’s character from Fringe, just a few nights ago!) I’ve dreamed of Grandparents, parents, old bosses, friends, former places I’ve lived, all mashed together all in one big, tangle of oddness. This happens often! (I’m not a psychologist. But if I had to hazard a guess as to why, it could be simply because our outer landscape has become such a weird place. The familiar, rendered unfamiliar. With only small things to anchor us. Moments of comfort and happiness mixed with fear; someone’s termed it a ‘Coronacoaster’ and I think that sums it up well! The mundane, the fun, the weird, the fear; all mixed up and experienced on a daily basis! Going to the shops has felt like Russian Roulette, at times. And the fear of 'if I’m contagious and could I pass this to anyone else?' It’s a heavy thing, sometimes, this.

But some things do anchor us back into a deep sense of joy. The importance of creativity to help anchor us into some deep well of inspiration, even in difficult times. Catching up with friends, even at a distance! Laughter really is damn good medicine. :-) And fear distorts so damn much, doesn’t it? I’ve seen former spiritual folk slip into the murky sea of conspiracies, up to their neck (don't get me wrong, I don’t believe we can trust our slippery current government all that much, and sometimes the conspiracies can be true! It’s good to keep an open mind – just perhaps right now with all the fear, some folk are losing their minds completely. (Understandable – but a good lesson in keeping grounded where possible, and not doing an Icarus!) :-)

I don’t have any solid answers – I’m on this Coronacoaster and I’m human, too! :-) But I do know that fear shrinks us, and makes our thinking distorted. And love expands us. Love makes us bigger inside, more joyous, and buoyed, even in this storm. I’ve also seen lovely people become consumed by anger and bitterness and I know that’s a way downwards, a dark path that can lead towards decay of the soul. When we hate, we can become what we hate. (Darkness can drag us down and blacken our hearts if we don’t make an effort to swim back up to the surface. Sometimes Darkness can seem like a friend, when you think of the allure of dark rock songs, for example. They can help people adjust to the darkness within. But too much can consume you, and you might not know until it's too late. It's a force to be respected, and not dived into. And if you do take small steps downward, please do mark your path back home with breadcrumbs or stones or tiny remnants of who you usually are, your kindness, your humanity. Songs/animals/people. Things you love unconditionally. Love is the key*. If we hold love in our hearts like a tiny flame, it tends to ignite, inspire, keep us alive, feeling joyous, buoyant, expansive, open. Love kills fear. And of course, it’s not easy if all is falling apart around us. But, even a tiny flame can invite in magic, if you’ll let it**.

Spirituality and meditation are also brilliant. Meditation helps us see beyond limitations of thinking. And spirituality helps us see the magic our ancestors once knew but modern society eroded. It's been a long month. But there are brilliant developments with regards a vaccine, and who knows? Hope always finds a way through, even in the darkest of times. :-) xx

 *Don't get me wrong, occasional swearing is also good for the soul! :-)
**For everything else, there is beer! :-)

Hope in the time of Coronavirus

the View from the Window

The view from the window was beautiful. Glorious sun, lazy bees drunk with nectar, flying from one glorious nectar haven to another in their splendid quest. Birds sung their hearts out, and flowers started blooming in their Spring awakening. You could look but not touch. You could see, but you must never leave your house.

It started with a virus; a simple novel coronavirus, which sprang from the same group of pesky viruses that created the common cold. After it swept the entire global population, people still rebelled. Tried to find ways to return to their old lives. They didn't want to believe it was really happening, so they visited the ice-cream vans in forests, went for walks in fresh air together; walks along the beach listening to the friendly waves lap at the shore and breathe in the salty air. Walking in nature like this made them feel safe, like death wasn't lurking behind them, waiting. Waiting...

As time went by, the powers of the police, grew. Fines grew heavier. New surveillance cameras started popping up, and a mandatory app was downloaded onto people's phones. The app tracked their every move and would question every place they visited. A bot would answer their questions, and if deemed acceptable, all was fine. If not, they had a letter through their door, and a fine would have to be paid. This was not negotiable. Three of these, and their cars were taken away. The app also broadcast their movements to social media, which also was like throwing them to the wolves, since people were turning against each other, so great was their fear.

People with gardens loved to sit outside, it seemed a tiny freedom and act of rebellion in the climate, but that too was being eroded. Jobs and houses were lost. Instead, people were moved into vast camps, where they all had their own hepa-filtered doors to tiny cells; small windows as tiny offerings of the outside world.

For those who still had their homes, they would scan the news each day for offerings of hope. A vaccine remained 12-18 months away. It was always 12-18 months. There had been success with an antiviral drug, but Donald Trump bought the rights to it, and ramped the price up to all but the USA. So other countries continued to suffer, and plough money into research, and hope for an end one day.

As time went by, the fear and anger remained present. Kids were told 'NEVER' to go outside. Outside was death. 'You can look out the windows, but don't go out!' School was held in virtual space. People's muscles often atrophied as they got so little exercise. People would often put blackout blinds on their windows to avoid temptation.

And then the virus disappeared. It went away as quickly as it had appeared one day. The deaths simply stopped. Hospitals gradually returned to normality. Field hospitals, built for this purpose of trying to fight the virus, lay empty. Doctors and nurses were so happy, but were instructed not to speak of it. In case it wasn't completely gone. Days passed. Days turned into months, but the blanket media silence on the disappearance of the virus didn't stop. And people continued to enforce it by angrily shaming and judging anyone who went out. Still, freedoms were curtailed. People didn't ask anymore. They didn't want to know about the bad news and they didn't notice the deaths were no longer reported. The fear was so great that one day, even when the government announced it was safe; no-one believed them. Cases in agoraphobia surged. Myths, persisted. What was real, what wasn't? Fear danced around the peripheries. If people suggested it was safe to go out again and meet up with people, they often disappeared, were found tied to a tree or similar, by angry members of their community. It wasn't uncommon for mobs to jeer outside a house if one of the residents was found to be outside! The fear and anger had grown to such an extent that nothing the government said could convince people anymore. The mantra 'outside is death', was all they would respond with. The institutionalisation was complete -- although never intended, but small conspiracy groups popped up to try to convince people this had been the governments' plans all along -- New World Order and total lockdowns. They tended to disappear, too.

And so, the governments stopped trying to convince people. Laws stayed in place, restricting movement. Gradually, people forgot why. They just had stories of generations past. They had only their empty hearts as companions during the dark nights. Governments simply turned this to their advantage, people continued to live in their vast internment camps which tracked their simplest of movements and even their thoughts. People had VR headsets and computers and lost themselves in virtual worlds, sometimes for weeks. People died, slumped over keyboards. Virtual currency and identity, became everything.

Still, the birds sung, and the bees lazily buzzed. The birds sung their hearts out. They were trying to wake the humans up to the sanctity of nature, of the cycles of things. Tried to say 'hey, it's all OK now, you can come outside! It's safe! Nothing in this physical world is forever!' One day, they hope, the songs will wake at least one human. Because there is *always* hope.

The birds are singing songs of hope, right now. Weaving these into our hearts with sheer love. It's going to be OK again, one day. It really is.  Every day we wake up lost, helpless, scared. Step outside in nature if you can (safely, with social distancing), and they will show you how to have simply faith in something bigger, more mysterious. They'll lead you back to your own soul too, if you'll let them. x

Coronavirus -- fear, judgement, the zombie apocalypse, and a glimmer of hope in the darkness

The fear, the hysteria, the angry judgement and finger pointing to all those who dare flout the rules right now, is still there. Sometimes a backdrop, sometimes in the foreground. Depends on who is triggered and how deeply, I guess.

Posts with 'Stay at home. Be responsible!, Don't Kill Others by Going Out!' Etc. are starting to appear in my newsfeed. They are often followed by stories of who is flouting the rules, complete with angry faced emoticons and much jumping up and down with indignation.This is good advice, of course! And those who know it to be will follow, and those who won't, still won't. (Why are there no posts, for instance about the flights still allowed to come into this country? I never agree with Priti Patel, but I think she was bang on when she said we needed to close our borders. That seems common sense, given the severity of this. Yet we're not.) Of course social distancing is key, but posts like this can often help promote anger right now, at a time when people aren't thinking straight, and anger mightn't be the most helpful emotion. One guy posted in our village group page that he wanted a cleaner the other day and my God, the judgement and vitriol he got for that! He then explained it was so he could let his flats to NHS staff, etc. Then everyone was fine. It'll be virtual pitchforks and flaming torches next or socially distanced, real ones. Mob mentality at it's finest. Created from pure fear.

And I get that there is a lot of fear, but posts like this only inspire much finger-pointing judgement and angry face emoticons. I just don't think it's healthy to focus too much on the actions of others -- all we can control are our own. How are *we* behaving towards our loved ones, for instance? How do you behave when the chips are down and the shit is hitting the proverbial? Can you still be kind when things are even just a little tough? Are you still kind then, or do you turn into something out of Greek mythology, all snake-headed and hideous? Have you sufficiently slain your own inner demons, so you can judge others? The police will likely ramp up the fines etc. to others which will help reduce congregations over time. Over the coming weeks, I'd expect the fear levels to ramp up, the judgement to ramp up, much crazy-making behaviour, on and off social media. Anything to help promote a sense of calm right now, is probably helpful. If people are going crazy, all CAPS LOCK, telling other people how they're being so selfish for going out, for shopping, for buying loo rolls, but then they going and screaming at their kids, etc. then how do they get to judge? Judging others' can make us forget to look at our own behaviour.

Fear is likely creating distorted behaviour for everyone who is feeling it right now. If you're getting triggered by posts on Facebook when you normally don't -- you're affected. If you're one of the people jumping up and down in indignation -- breathe. Slow down. Turn off the caps key. Grab a coffee, or a tea, and just try to sit with all that anger for a moment or two and see if you can observe the source. (It's probably fear.) And that's OK, it really is!  These are weird times that we've only ever seen in apocalyptic films. (That usually end with America saving the day because some absurdly young and good-looking bloke was willing to fly a plane carrying a nuke directly into the sun.  Then everyone claps and waves the American flag about.  The end.)

Humans are irrational. We're a really weird species.  Sometimes we're just a bit shit.  But sometimes we're capable of so much love and kindness and generosity of spirit, that it's humbling and beautiful to witness. Perhaps that's why Noah was saved? He offered a glimmer of hope in the darkness. Lets try to promote kindness and a little compassion over the coming weeks? It's going to be hard out there. We can help by offering our words as tiny branches of hope for others to hold when the current is strong and they don't know where to turn.

Boris Johnson - future Prime Minister, he's not sinister... plus a look at social engineering and 1984

He walks, hunched, scraggly haired and thuggish, like a huge, clumsy, ominous crow; his aura tainted oafish.  Given his size and the way he holds himself, I imagine him as a dodgy bloke hired to clean up operations after a hit gone wrong, New York gangster-style.  Behind beady eyes lies not very much of substance; but those entranced by the Cult of Personality have already become smitten, much as with Nigel Farage's followers.  They've been  lured in by the PR image of Boris as affable, comic relief.  Some people think it's charming that he's so 'human', but they fail to notice his darker side; for instance, the rise of Islamophobic comments thanks to his column where he called Muslim women wearing the burqua 'letter boxes' and 'bank robbers,' or perhaps his nauseating racist comments about black people. The old image of Boris the harmless, comedic, affable oaf, is slowly giving way to the new image of Boris; the racist, petulant, arrogant, and selfish man, yet still, some people remain stubbornly loyal to him; their rabid idiocy and their selfishnesss mirrored by his; their yearning to get out of the EU at any cost, the overriding principle.

It's been alleged in passing comment, that he will turn up for a meeting with the wrong speech notes and deliver the wrong speech anyway.  He's been accused of being a 'spoilt, selfish child' by his young lover, during a heated, and public row, which I think, is probably completely accurate.  He's like a fat truck, or a tank, driving through poetry; nuance is lost on him, patient, complex negotiation and fine-turning, are lost on him.  He'll brazen it out, because he's British and we have sort of mystifying God-given right to do what the hell we like according to the elites, who fondly remember the 'good old days' when Britain ruled; it doesn't matter how, or the lack of ethics that accompanied that ruling.  The hazy memories have burned for years in their minds, become manic, become nostomania; fond dreams that never even took place at all.  'We'll show Trump!  We'll make Britain Great Again!'  Boris takes a sip of port, mutters something unintelligible as he stares into the firelight, squinting like Father Jack.  'I'll just produce my British passport, and slap that on the table at Brussells; that, coupled with my plummy British accent and Etonian background will save the day!'

Today, we learn, he's managed to insult French people, by claiming that they are 'turds', not to allow for any changes in Brexit.  We ridicule Trump and with good reason, but I'm not sure even he has been this childish.  And he's a terrible man-child, rapidly devolving back to the womb.  Boris' comment was made whilst he was Foreign Secretary; he was supposed to behave in a way that is reasonably Statesmanlike.  The contempt and carelessness is just about everything you don't want, ever, from a neighbour, from your kids, and definitely not from a person who holds a position of power.

The BBC buried this ridiculous remark at the time, and likely it won't stop him from become Prime Minister, just as Trump hasn't been stopped by his insanity, sexual abuse allegations, narcissism, racism, crudity and general idiocy.  Yet this remark remains deeply unsettling. Not only is it incredibly rude, it's also simply pathetic; the petulant cry of a spoilt brat who is unable to get what he wants.  The EU Courts have made their decision; they didn't make it lightly; there are 27 other member states who might then, quite rightly, also want to change their Terms and Conditions.  They need to keep the EU together, not least, perhaps, because of the threat of Russia, or other looming threats.  The EU is not perfect, but it is a voice of sanity.  They have created careful, thoughtful, rules.  This then, is a place that the Boris could never flourish. To produce such a vulgar response is to mirror Trump; the question is, what are we collectively doing or not paying attention to, to allow these people into office at all?

We've stepped across the threshold into a new dawn, a new dimension of deeply unsettling times; when. anything that threatens the left is deemed 'far right', with a new era of Orwellian censorship settling across our media and internet with seemingly barely any response.  This isn't conspiracy -- we've just learned for instance, that the Guardian has been in collusion with intelligence agencies, and that Google is working to create a new social engineering programme, of 'fairness' through it's new algorithms, which will mean what they deem fair will show up in your search feed, complete with 1984 connotations.  Are you happy knowing a giant corporation is now, blatantly, trying to shape your opinions?

We've known for a short while that YouTube is starting to censor videos, banning some altogether, and showing 'approved' content first, such as Fox News, etc.  And in politics, Corbyn, who stands for decency and ethics has been vilified by the British Press for so long that many are brainwashed, and mindlessly repeat 'he's the loony left', or 'he's a communist', without even having the faintest clue why, and not realizing that they can't even back up their argument.  A 2016 report found that 75% of media coverage misrepresented Corbyn.  And our country is lead by Tories who serve only the elite; foodbank use is directly attributable to their policies, and the DWP is often hell on earth for people who have become impoverished, or people with disabilites.  A United Nations report into the level of poverty in the UK has been ignored by the Tory party.  The architect of this report, Philip Alston, said that he initially wondered if their response was 'a spoof', such was the level of denial.  How can an entire party try to bury, or deny, such an important report?

This post isn't designed to be depressing.  We live in interesting times, but these times are also already a hell for many in Britain. We ignore this at their peril, and then at our own. We simply have a duty of care to our fellow citizens, to animals, to our planet, that is not going to be met by willingly giving up our own agency, and by allowing greed and callousness any more of a foothold.

We are starting to see censorship on the internet, so-called 'conspiracies', downplayed.  How convenient to call anything that doesn't fit mainstream thinking, a 'conspiracy.'  People are having to fight for basic rights across the world.  Why?  Neoliberalism (too much power handed to corporations), greed, money, power.  Our world -- the construct of the system that we live by, is often a form of madness.  Now Trump is making threats against Iran. To what end?  Is the future of mankind inevitable?  Was it sealed the moment the A-bomb was invented?

For now, it might help us all to simply be as aware as possible of what's going on.  Awareness means we can make better decisions (if allowed!).  In 2022, our decision, might decide our fate, whether or not we cling to the coat-tails of Trump as he and John Bolton, bluster their way into war, if they haven't already.  A decent decision in our next General Election might help raise people's standards of living. It might even save lives.  We do not need Boris' blunderbuss-approach, his puerile and arrogant responses to intricate situations.  We simply need a decent human being, capable of steering us through the difficult waters ahead, with fairness (not in the 1984-esque style of Google), but with a good head on their shoulders.  Such people do exist, alas, usually the system destroys them before they have a decent chance.  And there are other reasons; we still have the fear of who will make  power grabs; so we want a leader who seems powerful too, to save us from potential annihilation.  We're all caught in a nightmare of our own making, a twilight world where fear rules and preemptive strikes therefore look attractive, and the demise of humans, because of humans, is the only logical conclusion.  As Carl Sagan said; “the nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five.” 

For the meantime then, lets  take note of Boris as he manages to mess it all up with a Trumpesque disregard for anything, whilst trying to call our bluff that He's the Man in Control.  We can observe this oafish husk as an emblem of what's wrong with our system at it's core.  Because as long as it continues the way it does, there will always be a Trump, or a Boris, or a Theresa May.  We see people override their conscience, the natural system of being able to discern right from wrong; to head for the wrong, again and again.  People who cannot show compassion because that would look weak. Or, because compassion doesn't pay.  And still, we give them our very selves, to do with as they will.  As the Dalia Lama has noted, the only way out of this mess is a system that has compassion and kindness intertwined.  No reason why capitalism cannot be refined to include these values; it must, if we are to survive.

And when we get the opportunity to get involved, we need to get involved! Whether that be to simply show up and vote in 2022.  To stand by and do nothing is to throw open our doors, welcome in the darkness and offer it a drink and a bed for the night.  We must stay alert, aware, awake.  Don't lets  sleepwalk into greater madness, greater inhumanity and unkindness, which will be to our collective detriment.

Open your eyes.


From Pastor Niemoller:

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

Boris or Hunt —please help us God.

“Ms Symonds, 31, is heard to complain that red wine has been spilt on her sofa, saying: ‘You just don’t care for anything because you are spoilt. ‘You have no care for money or anything.’”

Boris Johnson: Police called to Tory leadership contender's home

 Can’t we aim a little higher for the top job in our country than this nincompoop; a silly, thoughtless, spoilt brat? And Mad-eyed Hunt, (hated by doctors everywhere), just makes my skin crawl. Isn’t there anyone else even, I dunno, half decent? Have our expectations been so crushed that this barely raises an eyebrow? Or have they slipped something into our water supply so our compliance is guaranteed; our glassy-eyed somnambulism revealing no feelings as we are lead ever closer towards the next great extinction.

 We can remind ourselves that although power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, that there have been some good and decent men and women in history who have shown qualities like courage, strong morals, and compassion. That these values are not present amid the Tory party right now, doesn’t mean we should stand for anything, whatever comes, no matter how low and loathsome, with merely a shrug. We give away our very selves far too easily, whilst we are distracted by shiny pretty gadgets and last night’s television show. We don’t want to get involved in politics ourselves, not really, but our ignorance is the bliss of a corrupt party which is bloated by it’s own decay and rapidly decomposing right in front of our very eyes. And still we shrug, become distracted, say things like, ‘oh well.’

We can set our standards higher come the next General Election in 2022. We should. And we must, simply because we need to stand for what’s right, not be led like sheep, ever deeper into the wrong.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 I believe that the day Boris or Hunt gets the top job, a spell that has safely kept hoards of demons trapped deep underground, will be broken. Explosively broken. Free at last, the demons will scuttle about with wild abandon, gleefully finding new homes to nest (mostly in Boris Johnson’s hair — all the better to control him closely). And then, well, you know the rest. Locusts, and Armageddon. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

The Edge of Sanity -- Call Centres in the Future

A (very!) short play, written for radio, by Sarah Horne. Featuring: call-centres, Alanis Morrisette, David Hasselhoff, red telephone boxes, and general strangeness. Is this the modern-day, Amazon?

On the Election Results and the Brexit Party

(Why did people vote for the Brexit Party?)

It’s pretty depressing to see the Brexit Party topping the election results. The Party with no policies, headed by a bloke who, according to a close school friend, allegedly used to like that his initials also stood for National Front; that he sang ‘gas em all’ at school — that an old College teacher had been informed by other teachers, that Farage had held “publicly racist and fascist views,” and that he had once “marched through a Susses village singing Hitler Youth songs.” (1). (Trevor Phillips (founding chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission) in an article for the Times earlier this year, defended Farage, saying ‘Farage is dangerous, but he’s not a racist.(2))

I think there is a silver lining to this dark cloud. As the results were announced last night, the political news editor, Laura Kuenssberg, said, that the votes strongly suggested what’s simply wanted is clarity over Brexit; staying in, or leaving. I agree. (I think Labour are missing a trick by keeping their stance set to leave.) I think Corybn is great but his stance over this reflects his stubborn nature too — inflexibility is not what’s needed here, but a willingness to step back and say ‘this isn’t bloody going to work, it is?!” We desperately need honesty, right now. (Theresa May’s inability to be able to show us her humanity also perhaps helped drive people towards the jovial Farage. Perhaps too, that will steer us towards Boris Johnson to succeed her. People are mistaking their personas for decency.)

I can understand that some people have perhaps been driven out of their minds by Brexit, but knee-jerk reactions are rarely good, and the Brexit Party have revealed no policies whatsoever. Who in their right mind would vote for a party with no policies, just to make a point? Or, can it really be that frighteningly easy? Is it all about the power of persuasive rhetoric, spin doctors, the cult of personality?

Information that’s easier to process is viewed more positively. Cognitive scientists refer to this as ‘processing fluency,(3)’ and it’s why people’s knowledge base can be filled with flawed ideas, without their believing this to be the case. This could help to explain why people voted for Farage — an easy way out that seems simple — especially as a knee-jerk reaction to Theresa May trying to present the same deal three times to the European Parliament, only for it to be rejected each time. People want to believe Britain can be Great Again, in the same way MAGA (Make America Great Again), worked —a hark back to times before, also appeals to nostalgia which seems to be more powerful as people get older. (In these instances, it could be said, both of these campaigns might refer to nostomania — a nostalgia for times which simply did not exist.)

Our system of politics has become muddied with additional popular parties recently, such as the Brexit Party, or Change UK. Change UK have no concrete idea how they would implement real change. (And what change? To whose benefit? They are being bankrolled by big businesses, which does not sound like fertile ground for freedom in innovation.) And Farage might seem more benign now he’s no longer associated with UKIP, with Carl Benjamin talking about such murky things as ‘rape jokes’, for instance. But as with UKIP, I’m sure the darker side of human nature absolutely will be lurking within Brexit, both in leaders and followers, too. Not all Brexiteers are racist or bigoted — but racists etc. absolutely will be drawn to this party like catnip. Brexit Party, former Tory MP and now MEP, Anne Widdecombe has won one of three seats for the South West; she’s a right-wing Catholic, ‘pro-lifer’ (there’s a term that I never get tired of hearing). “While serving as Prisons Minister under Prime Minister John Major, in 1996, Ms Widdecombe defended the practice of shackling pregnant women during labour.” [...]“She has also pressed support for so-called ‘gay cure’ therapy, according to PinkNews. (4). (I saw a recent documentary about a man who ran a ‘gay cure’ centre — he later came to realise the psychological harm it had done.)

What does she say of Brexit? That a “no deal Brexit should still be considered while also admitting that there may be “bumps along the road.” She insisted it was nothing compared to the price generations had to pay for freedom in World War 2.” (5). Well that’s OK then?! In truth, our freedoms would be artificial, trade deals would not fall magically into our laps, laid by a golden goose, and standards would have to be compromised. We are more protected under EU regulation; without this, I’d be worried for our collective future.

People need to stop and think, come election time. We don’t have amazing choices right now, parties are divided and there’s so much anger over Brexit. But — it still boils down to fairly straightforward choices. Who is the party who will demonstrate compassion towards those with the least? Who will look after the interests of the poor, or people with disabilities. (Not to strip everything from the rich, or raise taxes to the point that more business leave the country, but simply to recognise problems and be willing to help those in need.)

And who will take care of the environment? What about animals? The Tories seem to stand only for the elite these days. They are so out of touch, that most of them didn’t even bother to turn up to debate the UN’s damning report about 14m British people living in poverty. Only 14 MPs bothered to be present. Amber Rudd, the Work and Pensions Secretary, who has defended the Universal Credit system, simply did not turn up. The Tories do not seem keen on listening to the truth about poverty in this country. These are the deeper issues that we need to bear in mind when we hit the ballot boxes. Do we want a party who secures our NHS or destroys it? Who privatises companies at the detriment of our country? Who will try to represent your interests? Would Farage really be the man for the job?

Our choices are far from perfect. Most political parties are not perfect. Lord knows, the system needs tweaking. Voting is important, but it’s a responsibility. Voting for Farage as a defiant response, doesn’t even begin to address other, more important, issues. There are so many bigger concerns than the egos of people who feel thwarted and indignant over Brexit.

The Brexit Party have said in response to their victory: “it took the Labour Party 45 years to win the popular vote. The Brexit Party have done it within 45 days. This is a victory for the people.” No it isn’t. It’s a travesty. But it does show a flaw in how we can think. We want Brexit to be easier, so we backslide towards a party which paints it as not only being easier, but somehow a little bit heroic. If we are not willing to work on our own selves, and examine our reasons honestly and unflinchingly, is it any wonder history repeats itself?

(1): https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nigel-farage-fascist-nazi-song-gas-them-all-ukip-brexit-schoolfriend-dulwich-college-a7185236.html
(2): https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/farage-is-dangerous-but-he-s-not-a-racist-pj3cmsbfk
(3): https://www.fastcompany.com/3063319/how-your-brain-keeps-you-believing-crap-that-isnt-true
(4): https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/ann-widdecombes-political-views-surprise-many-celebrity-big-brother-viewers/
(5): https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1125162/Brexit-News-Ann-Widdecombe-news-update-latest-party

Godzilla Versus Meditation

(or 'How to Live a Spiritual Life when there’s good shit on at the cinema')

Sometimes the choices you want to make boil down to the ridiculous. A while ago now, I found myself wrestling with a choice of either going to see Godzilla at the cinema, or going to my meditation class. On that occasion, Godzilla won! Proving that sometimes options can be fun – and that the monkey mind will always find reasons *not* to meditate! Always! And, sometimes you can find that you’re standing at a crossroads and although the path to take seems obvious, there is still so much comfort from reliving old stories of who we are, whether these stories serve us or not. No matter how beautiful the meditation has been (which usually leads to my trying to cling on to that beauty). Sometimes, Godzilla wins. And maybe that’s OK – because meditation cannot be clung to. It’s the moments where you sit without expectation, where you can truly let go, where you will find what you need.

I can see the challenge in your eyes – and the tiredness. 'How do you live a spiritual existence,' you begin and gesture round, helplessly, 'when we live in this madness, this world of chaos, where death can strike without notice and sorrow is often intermingled with happiness; where the media and money are our new Gods and nightclubs are neon, plastic, places of worship. Where mankind keeps repeating the same old patterns of warfare and drama. Where some people are so caught up in pain that they can see no end. Where ego is king, and Trump is leader of the USA. Where on Earth do we begin?'

We simply begin where we are. There is no magic that need to be conjured. We don’t need to wait for life to be perfect. We can’t wait for our leaders to be ethical and the madness to stop. We just begin where we find ourselves. Leaders will continue to be idiots. We will be driven to the brink of madness and back again. The madness can never stop, when ego is king. Unless we have total nuclear disarmament, perceived threats to the ego will only cause the weapons to get bigger, with more ridiculous swagger – we’ve written defcon 1 into our collective DNA, time and time again (but love is on our side, and life is more than this physical body.  And love has already won).

 We can only watch as the Farage and Theresa May and Donald Trump all jostle for attention; as idiotic machinations become more ingrained; as the forest of thorns becomes ever more impenetrable. As religious people act without God present. (We can march, and sign petitions, but we can only do what we can do. After that, there are only the choices that you have, and the thoughts that inspire those choices and the art of life, because who you are is a series of choices, and who you want to be is built from your thoughts, and when external life is hard, you have your inner resources -- always -- to softly guide you home.)

 If you stand still and listen, you might hear your ancestors calling you.  Perhaps they're telling you to stand tall and dream your best version of yourself into being, because even though, like all of us, you’re imperfect and cracked, you're still beautiful. Every action starts with a single thought; all you can be is all that you are in any given moment. So long as you do your best, that’s more than enough. And when you're weary, and feel small and cold and alone in the splendour of the universe and the insanity of this world -- please know that you're never alone, they are always with you.  Sometimes the answers are not what you'd expect.  Sometimes the answers lie beyond conscious thought and are hinted at in dreams.  Sometimes the answers are something left-field and require only a willingness to participate, no matter how illogical.  The faith is the heartbeat within you, the ancestral call is your call, because you've been here before, my friend.  Perhaps many times.  You know these shores, you've felt this pain before.  You've born witness to the miraculous, the just and unjust; unfurling flowers and the truth from a pure mountain stream.

And sometimes.  Just sometimes, the answer is Godzilla.

On Love

I don't know how to write about love. 

That is, not in the cheesy, schmaltzy way that is so easy to slip into.  I've been in love, all the wrong kinds with the wrong people, for some years of my life, and now it is that I find myself in love, and loving, the right person.  The person.  My lobster.  Oh lobster, where have you been all these years?!!  For when you find the right one, and by that I do mean just that; the person you've waited for all your life without knowing you were waiting, the person so delightfully wonderful you want to go everywhere with them, all of the time in pure rapture and contentment -- when you find them, well, that's soul-enrichment right down to your bones.

To write love is to invite ridicule, because you cannot write it.  It's like God.  That clever old 13c Sufi mystic and poet, Rumi knew that you cannot write about God directly, coz, well, God, right?  You cannot ever find words to adequately describe that Great Mystery - only allude to it, with lines of poetry that sound nice and pleasant to the average ear but when illuminated by God then - by God, you can see the textures and layers and that they suddenly make sense.  Kinda like one of those 3d picture puzzle things where you have to squint your eyes to see a whole other picture behind the one shown.  (And I'm not saying my partner is like a God, only that the love and joy and contentment I feel are beyond words.)

If I were a better poet I could write it.  I could allude to the joy I feel every time I see his face.  I could write of the gratitude of being able to walk with this man for even a short time on this Earth.  To be with him, to know him, is a gift.  It's a reminder that we all fall in love all over the place, some carefully, some not so, but the process of loving another in joy and gratitude and surrender is a part of the mix too.  The falling isn't the end.  It's the beginning.  It's the reminder that we have been given a huge, priceless gift of a person who wants to walk with us for a time.  It's a call to love that person as deeply and mindfully as you can, in friendship and in love.  And we don't always get it right, sometimes we snap over small things and forget that the journey and the person is bigger than that.  And then we remember the journey, the love, and we continue.  

I don't know how long I have this gift of love for.  I can only do my best to honour this beautiful man as much as I can, my failings permitting.  In the meantime, if you have stumbled across this post, I wish you love.

Trump and the Theatre of the Absurd - parallels with McCarthyism

People are rightly worried with Trump's rhetoric echoing Hitler's Nazi Germany, 'othering' or alienating, others.  But it was pointed out to me recently also how spookily similar Trump's presidency is, to McCarthyism and the communism scare in 1950's America, from a friend who is currently reading  The Life and Times of The Thunderbolt Kid, by the rather splendid, Bill Bryson.  My friend pointed me to the following excerpt (from Chapter 7, page 186 onwards).
Bryson wrote this book in 2006, but he could easily have been talking about Trump in places: 

 *******

"Only one thing came close to matching the fearfulness of teenagers in the 1950s and that was of course Communism. Worrying about Communism was an exhaustingly demanding business in the 1950s. Red danger lurked everywhere – in books and magazines, in government departments, in the teachings of schools, at every place of work. The film industry was especially suspect. ‘Large numbers of moving pictures that come out of Hollywood carry the Communist line,’ Congressman J. Parnell Thomas of New Jersey, chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee, gravely intoned to approving nods in 1947, though on reflection no one could actually think of any Hollywood movie that seemed even slightly sympathetic to Marxist thought. Parnell never did specify which movies he had in mind, but then he didn’t have much chance to for soon afterwards he was convicted of embezzling large sums from the government in the form of salaries for imaginary employees. He was sentenced to eighteen months in a prison in Connecticut where he had the unexpected pleasure of serving alongside two of the people, Lester Cole and Ring Lardner Junior, whom his committee had put away for refusing to testify.

Not to be outdone, Walt Disney claimed in testimony to HUAC that the cartoonists’ guild in Hollywood – run by committed reds and their fellow travellers, he reported – tried to take over his studio during a strike in 1941 with the intention of making Mickey Mouse a Communist. He never produced any evidence either, though he did identify one of his former employees as a Communist because he didn’t go to church and had once studied art in Moscow. 

It was an especially wonderful time to be a noisy moron. Billy James Hargis, a chubby, kick-ass evangelist from Sapulpa, Oklahoma, warned the nation in weekly sweat-spattered sermons that Communists had insinuated themselves into, and effectively taken over, the Federal Reserve, the Department of Education, the National Council of Churches and nearly every other organization of national standing one could name. His pronouncements were carried on five hundred radio stations and two hundred and fifty television stations and attracted a huge following, as did his many books, which had titles like Communism: The Total Lie and Is the Schoolhouse the Proper Place to Teach Raw Sex? 

Although he had no qualifications (he had flunked out of Ozark Bible College – a rare distinction, one would suppose), Hargis founded several educational establishments, including the Christian Crusade Anti-Communist Youth University. (I would love to have heard the school song.) When asked what was taught at his schools, he replied, ‘anti-Communism, anti-Socialism, anti-welfare state, anti-Russia, anti-China, a literal interpretation of the Bible and states’ rights’. Hargis eventually came undone when it was revealed that he had had sex with several of his students, male and female alike, during moments of lordly fervour. One couple, according to The Economist, made the discovery when they blushingly confessed the misdeed to each other on their wedding night. At the peak of the Red Scare, thirty-two of the forty-eight states had loyalty oaths of one kind or another. In New York, Oakley notes, it was necessary to swear a loyalty oath to gain a fishing permit. In Indiana loyalty oaths were administered to professional wrestlers. The Communist Control Act of 1954 made it a federal offence to communicate any Communist thoughts by any means, including by semaphore. In Connecticut it became illegal to criticize the government, or to speak ill of the army or the American flag. In Texas you could be sent to prison for twenty years for being a Communist. In Birmingham, Alabama, it was illegal merely to be seen conversing with a Communist. 

HUAC issued millions of leaflets entitled ‘One Hundred Things You Should Know About Communism’, detailing what to look out for in the behaviour of neighbours, friends and family. Billy Graham, the esteemed evangelist, declared that over one thousand decent-sounding American organizations were in fact fronts for Communist enterprises. Rudolf Flesch, author of the bestselling Why Johnny Can’t Read, insisted that a failure to teach phonics in schools was undermining democracy and paving the way for Communism. Westbrook Pegler, a syndicated columnist, suggested that anyone found to have been a Communist at any time in his life should simply be put to death. Such was the sensitivity, according to David Halberstam, that when General Motors hired a Russian automotive designer named Zora Arkus-Duntov, it described him in press releases, wholly fictitiously, as being ‘of Belgian extraction’. No one exploited the fear to better effect than Joseph R. McCarthy, Republican senator from Wisconsin. In 1950, in a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, he claimed to have in his pocket a list of two hundred and five Communists working in the State Department. The next day he claimed to have another list with fifty-seven names on it. Over the next four years McCarthy waved many lists, each claiming to show a different number of Communist operatives. In the course of his spirited ramblings he helped to ruin many lives without ever producing a single promised list. Not producing evidence was becoming something of a trend.  

Others brought additional prejudices into play. John Rankin, a senior congressman from Mississippi, sagely observed: ‘Remember, Communism is Yiddish. I understand that every member of the Politburo around Stalin is either Yiddish or married to one, and that includes Stalin himself.’ Against such men, McCarthy looked almost moderate and fairly sane. 

Such was the hysteria that it wasn’t actually necessary to have done anything wrong to get in trouble. In 1950, three former FBI agents published a book called Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television, accusing 151 celebrities – among them Leonard Bernstein, Lee J. Cobb, Burgess Meredith, Orson Welles, Edward G. Robinson and the stripper Gypsy Rose Lee – of various seditious acts. Among the shocking misdeeds of which the performers stood accused were speaking out against religious intolerance, opposing fascism and supporting world peace and the United Nations. None had any connection with the Communist Party or had ever shown any Communist sympathies. Even so, many of them couldn’t find work for years afterwards unless (like Edward G. Robinson) they agreed to appear before HUAC as a friendly witness and name names. 

Doing anything at all to help Communists became essentially illegal. In 1951, Dr Ernest Chain, a naturalized Briton who had won a Nobel Prize six years earlier for helping to develop penicillin, was barred from entering the United States because he had recently travelled to Czechoslovakia, under the auspices of the World Health Organization, to help start a penicillin plant there. Humanitarian aid was only permissible, it seems, so long as those being saved believed in free markets. Americans likewise found themselves barred from travel. Linus Pauling, who would eventually win two Nobel prizes, was stopped at Idlewild Airport in New York while boarding a plane to Britain, where he was to be honoured by the Royal Society, and had his passport confiscated on the grounds that he had once or twice publicly expressed a liberal thought. 

It was even harder for those who were not American by birth. After learning that a Finnish-born citizen named William Heikkilin had in his youth briefly belonged to the Communist Party, Immigration Service employees tracked him down to San Francisco, arrested him on his way home from work, and bundled him on to an aeroplane bound for Europe, with nothing but about a dollar in change and the clothes he was wearing. Not until his plane touched down the following day did officials inform his frantic wife that her husband had been deported. They refused to tell her where he had been sent. 

In perhaps the most surreal moment of all, Arthur Miller, the playwright, while facing congressional rebuke and the possibility of prison for refusing to betray friends and theatrical associates, was told that the charges against him would be dropped if he would allow the chairman of HUAC, Francis E. Walter, to be photographed with Miller’s famous and dishy wife, Marilyn Monroe. Miller declined. 

In 1954, McCarthy finally undid himself. He accused General George Marshall, the man behind the Marshall Plan and a person of unquestioned rectitude, of treason, a charge quickly shown to be preposterous. Then he took on the whole of the United States Army, threatening to expose scores of subversive senior staff that he claimed the Army knowingly shielded within its ranks. In a series of televised hearings lasting thirty-six days in the spring of 1954 and known as the Army–McCarthy hearings, he showed himself to be a bullying, blustering buffoon of the first rank without a shred of evidence against anyone – though in fact he had always shown that. It just took this long for most of the nation to realize it. 

Later that year McCarthy was severely censured by the Senate – a signal humiliation. He died three years later in disgrace. But the fact is that had he been just a tiny bit smarter or more likeable, he might well have become President. In any case, McCarthy’s downfall didn’t slow the assault on Communism. As late as 1959, the New York office of the FBI still had four hundred agents working full time on rooting out Communists in American life, according to Kenneth O’Reilly in Hoover and the Un-Americans. 

Thanks to our overweening preoccupation with Communism at home and abroad America became the first nation in modern history to build a war economy in peacetime. Defence spending in the Fifties ranged between $40 billion and $53 billion a year – or more than total government spending on everything at the dawn of the decade. Altogether the US would lay out $350 billion on defence during the eight years of the Eisenhower Presidency. More than this, 90 per cent of our foreign aid was for military expenditures. We didn’t just want to arm ourselves; we wanted to make sure that everybody else was armed, too. 

Often, all that was necessary to earn America’s enmity, and land yourself in a lot of trouble, was to get in the way of our economic interests. In 1950, Guatemala elected a reformist government – ‘the most democratic Guatemala ever had’, according to the historian Howard Zinn – under Jacobo Arbenz, an educated landowner of good intentions. Arbenz’s election was a blow for the American company United Fruit, which had run Guatemala as a private fiefdom since the nineteenth century. The company owned nearly everything of importance in the country – the ports, the railways, the communications networks, banks, stores and some 550,000 acres of farmland – paid little taxes and could count confidently on the support of a string of repressive dictators. 

Some 85 per cent of United Fruit’s land was left more or less permanently idle. This kept fruit prices high, but Guatemalans poor. Arbenz, who was the son of Swiss immigrants and something of an idealist, thought this was unfair and decided to remake the country along more democratic lines. He established free elections, ended racial discrimination, encouraged a free press, introduced a forty-hour week, legalized unions and ended government corruption. Needless to say, most people loved him. In an attempt to reduce poverty, he devised a plan to nationalize, at a fair price, much of the idle farmland – including 1,700 acres of his own – and redistribute it in the form of smallholdings to a hundred thousand landless peasants. To that end Arbenz’s government expropriated 400,000 acres of land from United Fruit, and offered as compensation the sum that the company had claimed the land was worth for tax purposes – $1,185,000.

United Fruit now decided the land was worth $16 million actually – a sum the Guatemalan government couldn’t afford to pay. When Arbenz turned down United Fruit’s demand for the higher level of compensation, the company complained to the United States government, which responded by underwriting a coup. 

Arbenz fled his homeland in 1954 and a new, more compliant leader named Carlos Castillo was installed. To help him on his way, the CIA gave him a list of seventy thousand ‘questionable individuals’ – teachers, doctors, government employees, union organizers, priests – who had supported the reforms in the belief that democracy in Guatemala was a good thing. Thousands of them were never seen again. 

And on that sobering note, let us return to Kid World, where the denizens may be small and often immensely stupid, but are at least comparatively civilized. fn1 Nuclear testing came to a noisy peak in October 1961 when the Soviets exploded a fifty-megaton device in the Arctic north of the country. (Fifty megatons is equivalent to fifty million tons of TNT – more than three thousand times the force of the Hiroshima blast of 1945, which ultimately killed two hundred thousand people.) The number of nuclear weapons at the peak of the Cold War was sixty-five thousand. Today there are about twenty-seven thousand, all vastly more powerful than those dropped on Japan in 1945, divided between possibly as many as nine countries. More than fifty years after the first atomic tests there, Bikini remains uninhabitable."
 

'Stop'

This short piece is based on a writing competition, the only criteria was that it began with the utterance, 'stop! and that it was max 1000 words.

***

‘Stop!’

I heard the word coming from somewhere in the room.  I was dimly aware of hazy lights and the taste of blood and a blue light flashing outside.  It had such depth, that word, ‘stop’.  It had come deep from someone’s belly, sinew, bones.  It was drawn out, elongated; infused with alcohol, fear, drugs, adrenaline.  Someone must be badly hurt, I thought, dimly.  I could feel my heartbeat; from outside, the blue light seemed to synch up with it.  My body felt as though it was pulsating with light and heat and smoke and the dull pounding of music coming from the black speaker that some random girl had fallen asleep on. 

***

I worked two jobs when I moved back home.  I was working in an office by day, and at night I’d work in a small nightclub that had just opened in town.  I’d get in and it would be like the buttoned-upness of the day just dissolved around me and I could feel like myself again.  My armour, my guarded self that I reserved for the office, could come undone even though I wasn’t drinking.  And I came undone in a heartbeat; feeling alive immersed in music.

***

I liked to meet up with a fabulous lady who I first bumped into trying to traverse the intersection of Park Avenue South and East 23^rd Street; she guided me with much humour through what seemed like certain death when I first moved to New York 10 years ago.  Ellie was about 70 and only wore the colour green.  Green hair, green handbag, green clothes.  I loved her spirit in a world where expressing your spirit seemed hard.  She taught me to care less.  Not about my goals, oh no!  But to pursue them with passion with room for life.  Because single-minded people grew mouldy, she’d say with a wry smile.  You have to keep room for life.  And she just sparkled with life.

I was swallowed up in New York, just like I thought I would be.  I’d made myself go because all my friends had travelled and I wanted something new to eat up all the stagnant stuff I felt inside.  I desperately wanted, needed, something that felt fresh and alive, but New York seemed only a sprawling mass of bodies that were trying to shield themselves from even their own souls.  I became lost; and having dropped out of law school, feeling small, I headed back to the same small city, Salisbury in England, 10 years after I’d left – only now the need to feel fresh felt more urgent, because my world was shrunk further in this place that offered both solace in green spaces and yet also suffocated me.

Back home I bought a pink bible to try to get my head around religion, because, although agnostic, there was something compelling still inside religious stories.   Then I lost my heart to a guy who was neither boy nor man but both.  I kept going back and couldn’t leave.  Being with him felt both perfectly right and wrong, at the same time.  It wasn’t black or white.  He’d bought so much to my life but everything has a price and he’d taken most of my sanity.  I carried him in my heart still, often sleeping while holding my stomach the way that the way he used to.  Like no man on earth had held me before.

***

I lived back with my parents – this was before my Mum became assailed with dementia and I saw the person I’d loved stolen away in patches of uncertainty and fear creep around her eyes.  And before I became starkly aware of my Dad’s mortality.  I wanted to live but the part of me that had always been tentative, living on the sidelines, didn’t quite know how to plunge in and I became afraid again.

***

I remember seeing a girl post a selfie of herself singing in her car on Facebook.  Two minutes later she died.  It seemed to hit me harder than larger tragedies like plane crashes or earthquakes.  I realised why – she was just a girl at the top of her game, expressing happiness (albeit dangerously).  But the happiness she felt didn’t, couldn’t, offer her any armour to put off, death.  No matter how beautiful she was.  No matter how beautiful her plans.

***

I had so many plans.  I’d wanted to write; ever since I’d ripped off the book ‘Watership Down’ – badly – by writing about a family of mice, aged 12.  I didn’t understand why I hadn’t but somehow life and my lack of discipline had intervened.  I wanted to paint, too.  I’ve never been properly trained and my Dad teasingly likened my version of Klimpt’s ‘the Kiss’ to a ‘Byzantine turd’. I found it funny but I didn’t care if it was a bit amateurish.  I was happy just to lose myself in paint like a form of meditation.  And I wanted to marry again.

***

I remember when I was a kid; a flash of a memory.  My Mum sporting a wicked hairstyle, all 60s it was.  She’d had long hair before then, but that night when she peered into my cot, she’d had a radical purple bob, cut sharply to frame her face.  This new groovy lady had swallowed up the comfy ‘Mum’archetype; my comfort zone transgressed.

*** 

‘Stop’.

 -- A flash, a pulse --

‘Stop’…

I was still floating in the heat and the blue pulsing light and the smoke but I became aware that I’d been taken into an ambulance – time was all disjointed.  This last time, ‘stop’ had been uttered softly, gently, by a lady with sea green eyes – made me think of Ellie.  The resuscitation paddles hung in the air, held in suspended animation by her colleague for a second or two.  I watched, wordlessly as they retreated, and the room went dark and blinked out of existence. 

‘Stop’, she whispered, once more.

A reading of 'Wilde Geese' by Mary Oliver

 

My reading of The Book of Tides, by Angela Readman

My reading of Chapter V of T S Eliot's Little Gidding

https://soundcloud.com/sarahhorne-1/little-giddings-chap-5-2nd-sh

A bit from a sci-fi novella I'm writing...

1 

As X sat at her smooth, ergonomic desk, her computer blinked into life. 

“Good morning X”, smiled an androgynous-looking woman from behind the screen.

“Morning Minerva ”, replied X.

A tiny machine whirred up towards X, holding a breathalyser, and she breathed hard into it. 

“You drank alcohol last night.”

“Yes”. 

“Third time over the recommended limit – I have scheduled a counsellor’s appointment for 11.00am.  Next X pressed her finger into the slot beside the screen.  “Your temperature is a little high – but your period is scheduled...are you on your period?”

“Yes”

X stretched and yawned, glancing round the office.  Row upon row of white desks gleamed out before her.  Most desks were occupied by workers, some by robots. 

“Desk number 55, please begin work now”  A disembodied voice came through the speakers. Minerva smiled and was gone, to be replaced by a spreadsheet.  Overhead, the Eye kept watch. 

A female voice sounded out over the PA system, “Alert at desk 55, medic to desk 55” 

Damn.  X had accidentally pulled out the heart monitor lead.  With a sigh she plugged it back in. 

“Desk 55 vital signs normal” A small robot whizzed up and, upon hearing this, sped away.

Sombre music beamed through the PA system.  X stood up – a mark of respect.

“Desk 18 – L.  L has served the Company for3 years, during which time, he has made several new contacts of great importance, and brought in 5 new clients. L would like to say goodbye now.

A husky voice cracked over the PA... “I’m leaving this fucking nightmare...I...” 

Thank you L, that will be all. L has now reached an age where he must be terminated.  Thank you L, for your commitment toward the Company, we appreciate it.”

X craned her neck, but desk 18 was too far away.  She imagined the scene.  Would L be crying, or just resigned? She vaguely knew L, had spoken with him a couple of times. The music became more serene, and she knew then that the high intensity laser beam would have evaporated L completely, leaving a vacancy the Company would fill in less than an hour.  The age at which you would be terminated varied, and depended solely upon your health.  Minerva, the company interactive robot, kept detailed records, and was relied upon to state the time of termination.  It didn’t always happen at work of course, but it was the preferred method.  

X sat down again, and continued working.  Another computer whizzed by, and she pressed a buzzer.  Instantly, the Robo-cafe changed direction, and hovered by her side. 

“Coffee please” 

“the usual?”

“yes”

“you sound tired today. Here, have a green tea instead, looks like you need the anti-oxidents after last night!”

X knew it was useless to argue.  She took the tea. 

“Hey”  She looked up.  The guy standing next to her looked new – he had the faintly happy aura of one not yet adjusted to working in this place and the enormity of knowing the walls served as a prison.  People never left the Company.   

“My name is Robert.”

“Shhh.”

X glanced around;  she was pretty sure everything got logged.  The really was no escape.  People learned to talk in codes, or or whisper, or pass notes scribbled out of view of any known cameras if they had anything important to discuss or impart.  Paranoia became a way of life very quickly.

“We go by initial only here,” she said, awkwardly.  “Have you not had the induction?”

“I have.  I keep forgetting it’s forbidden inside the Company.  Look, do you want to go for a drink sometime?”

X had to laugh.  They always started like this.  A confident air that belied the induction, which would have told them their every move would be monitored, both in and out of work.  Some pleasures were allowed, some encouraged (those that deadened any ideas of rebellion.)   Fraternising with work colleagues outside of work wasn’t one of them. 

X rolled her eyes impatiently.

“Maybe,”she replied, already kicking herself for replying like that.  She had witnessed too many terminations to want to allow herself to get close to anyone. 

“Desks 54 and 55, please resume your work, your expected output for this hour is crucial to the Company.  Thank you”

Suddenly, a screaming could be heard.  X’sblood turned cold. 

"I hate this, I hate you all, you bastards..." 

The screams turned into sobs, great wracking sobs and explosive noises.  Both Robert and X watched in horror, as the man fell to his knees on the carpet near to them. 

“Medic to desk 48”, stated the pleasant voice over the PA system.

“Noooooo, noooo, pleeeease,”  More sobbing.

A small robot instantly whizzed over and fired a laser beam at the sobbing man, and he gradually became calmer.

“What the fuck is going on?”  hissed Robert.

 “Oh,they’re probably erasing some of his memory to calm him down.  Either that, or restructuring his neural networks, if he is prone to depression.” 

Robert looked aghast.  His eyes spoke feelings he could never givevoice to.

“Welcome to the Company”, said X.

Copyright - Sarah Horne 2013 ©