The walk

She walked out of the house, her earphones in place, playing a friends’ mix cd. It was raining and she was battling with her umbrella in the wind. The female’s voice came to the music, she sang as Bex rounded the corner to the high street. It was a short song and took her only to the end of the road. The sky was grey and cars splashed in puddles as they went past her on the high road. She was just walking for the sake of walking, she needed to get out of the house as she had argued with Gary and was annoyed. The trees on this road had been recently corniced, giving them a slightly unusual look in the road. She went past her doctors surgery on the right hand side, it was a weird building which had the opening of an old post office on the side but was a new building down an alley way. She had no idea where she was going, she took a left up the hill, she thought maybe going to a green space would calm her. Her breath came quickly as she crossed the road in front of a bus that was coming to a halt at a bus stop.

The new song had a male’s voice and reminded her on the holiday she had been on with Gary the previous year. They had driven to Wales for a week and had camped, Bex remembered the holiday through the pubs they had visited whilst walking the hills. Could Gary help it if they differed in opinion so much, just because his political leaning was opposed to hers? They had meet at university and Bex had always known that he had come from an army family and Gary was lucky to be too interested in law to get recruited. It was afternoon and the sun was weakly shining from Bex’s left, it was cold for September and Bex knew she ought to go back and make up with Gary. They after all had been together for five years now and they had their mutual friends birthday to go to that evening. Bex just thought he was so pig headed sometimes and her friends all knew that they sometimes had a rocky relationship, even though they lived together. She thought a few more corners to walk around would do no harm

Bex was now in her local park and on her Mix CD female voices called ‘Buried in Arms’, she walked across a muddy field and she remembered when her friend Emily had given her the mix CD. It came with a CD jacket that Emily had made herself with pictures of a holiday that she had gone on with her. This was when Gary was only a casual relationship and Bex had left him behind as she went on holiday with her friends. The park was empty due to the weather, but Bex took joy in the rugged bushes blowing in the wind. She swung through the gate and down an alleyway of trees as a squirrel jumped out and hopped along in front of her for a bit.

Walking back onto the road, she came across a tramp huddled in the corner of a subway, his clothes were grey with a big issue puffer jacket across his shoulders and he shook a cardboard cup. Bex stopped to get some change out.

‘Thanks very much darling’ he said which Bex only just made out over the male voice on track four of her mix CD. She paused the playlist and took her headphones out of her ears.

‘Horrible day for you today’ she commented.

‘oh I’ve had worse’ he replied.

Another tramp had come towards them seeking shelter out of the rain and cold and Bex wanted to do something more than give them her spare change. But she knew there was nothing she could really do for them. The second tramp had a dog with him.

‘What’s its’ name’ Bex asked as she bent to stoke the dog

‘ Hope’ commented the second tramp.

‘Well you definitely need some of that I suppose’.

Bex put her earphones back in ‘goodbye’ she shouted as she walked under the subway ‘get yourself a cup of tea in this weather’. Bex boots were starting to feel a bit soggy from the puddles and mud she had trooped through and she was miles from home by now.

She crossed the road at a zebra crossing and walked towards a parade of shops. She thought she would take her own advice and grab a hot drink. She found a coffee shop with no-one in it and sat down by the window. Track 6 came on just as she sat down and the melodic guitar soothed her ears. Bex let it continue through taking off her wet clothes. It reminded her of another song, the female voice was very stylistic and had a certain accent. But Bex could never place what it reminded her of. The lady at the tea shop came over

‘What can I get you’ she asked.

‘A cup of English breakfast tea’ Bex said.

Bex sipped her tea when it came and thought about the countless arguments she had with Gary. Mostly they concerned his family and the way they distrusted Bex. Bex couldn’t help it if she was suspicious of his family, they had the year before interpreted her job as some ‘silly accounts job’ when Bex had told them several times that she worked for the local council, formulating policy for the local governors and working with MPs on local initiatives. She thought back to yesterday at work and the discussion she had with Kennieth Brown local councillor for Greenwich on the importance of after school support for working mothers. Bex suspected that even Gary didn’t understand her job. Their argument that morning was on where they would send their prospective children to school. It had stemmed from Gary seeing some local newspaper article on The Bells private school donating Harvest Festival hampers to an old peoples’ home. Bex now flicked though the paper that had been left in the cafe by the previous owner of her seat.

Bex’s phone went, it was Gary and she didn’t answer. He can wait she thought for now she was enjoying being off the radar and in her own space. The rain out the window was subsiding. She watched a family get out of a car across the road from her. A  little girl, stopped to pick something up out of the road. A car swung around the bend. Bex was up and out of her chair. The girl had been hit. Her mum was screaming, the father fumbled with his phone. Bex ran across the road. She took the phone from the man when he stumbled to give precise instructions to the ambulance crew as to where they were. The woman who had been driving the car had come to halt and the whole road had come to a standstill

‘Dedlier street’ she instructed ‘At the junction with Sir Philip Road.’

‘OK the ambulance will be there as soon as they can’ the woman’s voice was too calm for the nightmare that had unravelled in front of Bex.

Bex looked at the girl, she must’ve been not older than three, her eyes were open and a trickle of blood had escaped her mouth.

‘What’s her name’ she asked.

‘Sally’ the mother managed to answer.

‘Come on Sally stay with us’ Bex coaxed.

Bex stayed with the family until the ambulance came, the girl had started crying as the ambulance crew carried her into the back of the ambulance

‘That’s a good sign’ she heard one of  the ambulance say to the mother ‘the car can’t have been going too fast, probably just a broken rib and the shook of impact. She was lucky not to be hurt more.’

Bex watched the ambulance pull off and the mother drive behind. She then realised that she had left all of her possessions in the cafe. She went back, paid the grey lady behind the counter and decided to head for home.

She put her headphones back in and skipped to the track she remembered listening to last. The male voice sang about the blues and it seemed to fit that rainy afternoon. Bex realised that as she left the coffee shop she was shaking from the fright of the little girl’s accident. Straight home she thought, no more little detours.

On her way back Bex couldn’t help but replay the little Sally’s face as she looked at the oncoming traffic before she was hit. Imagine bringing a baby into life like that and have it put out so tragically. How mothers deal with letting their little ones out of their protective arms was a mystery to Bex. Well she had all of that to come thought Bex.

Bex came to the next parade of shops and saw the tramp she had talked to earlier sit in the window of a greasy spoon. He was drinking a large mug of something and eating a fry-up. His wet clothes were in a pile behind him and on the radiator to one side. She smiled, I’m glad he’s been able to get in from this horrible weather.

As she rounded the corner to her road the rain had all but come to a stop, and she took a breath of fresh air before she put the key in the lock of her front door. Gary inside had heard her open the first door and came to the second as she walked in. He didn’t say anything just looked at her dripping onto the carpet. Bex flung herself into his arms. She was soaking and ashamed. Her earphones came dislodged as she smelt the warmth of his embrace.

‘I’m sorry’ she said.

‘So am I.’

He pulled away slightly and looked at her.

‘We are silly to be arguing about such trivial things’

‘Come on lets get you dry’ he said as he smiled and turned to put the kettle on for her.

London streets, Kentish town

Cycling home last night I stopped to take these pictures and although they are obviously not in any way professional (and how could they be taken on my Sony Ericsson phone) it is my version of street photography.

London streets

Cycling home under a very pink sky I stopped at Camden Park Road Bus stop to capture this weird and beautiful light

An evening of poetry and preservation

James Goodman’s ‘Claytown’ (Salt Publishing 2011) and Kate Potts ‘Pure Hustle’ (Bloodaxe Books 2011) launch on Friday the 3rd June.

Arriving at The Oxford in Kentish Town on a Friday evening was supposed to be quiet and sedate evening. However the upstairs room held lively music, beautiful lyrical words and unexpected encounters.

The Oxford is a little corner pub in North London that has taken me a few visits to fully appreciate. From the outside it seems annoying as drinkers fill the street around it. The thing is there is hardly any seating. Most of the downstairs inside is taken up by the eating area. This is ridiculous on a Friday or Saturday night when nobody is using these seats but there is not even room to stand in the other parts of the pub. On one occasion I have even found myself huddling in the pouring rain under a covered bench outside. Why bother you would ask if you knew Kentish town as there are plenty other watering holes in close walking distance. But now the evening in the company of Claytown has sold it to me.

Walking up the stairs to the private function room is when the Georgian building takes it own. The high ceiling, large sash windows and comfy old fashioned sofas all add to a chilled living room atmosphere that I love. But on this Friday the sofas had been pushed to the back of a room and simple small black stage sat at one corner with a table beside it. Having grabbed ourselves drinks downstairs and eaten at home we realised too late that there was a free bar and that the table of snacks at one side were to be eaten.

Before long the room soon started to fill. I was at one side talking when I noticed that Inua Ellens, a graphic designer and spoken word artist, walked into the room and placed his bag at his feet. Having only recently met Inua at a workshop he was running for the Arts for Human Rights festival in Farringdon his face was fresh in my memory. Talking to him was refreshing as our conversation went from his experience of the Queen’s surprisingly hard handshake to my recent exploration of Scottish lochs.

As the room had filled a céilidh band set up on the stage. A guitar, fiddle, accordion and late drummer got us tapping our feet as another set of work colleagues told us about a theatre in Farridgon and the dangers of Preying Manti on the beaches of Fugee!

I was downstairs when I was told that the readings were beginning. Rushing up the stairs it was hard to get back into the room I had only recently left. Kate Potts begun her poetry reading with a poem about Alzheimer’s. Poignant and harrowing I swayed slightly as she read it. Kate’s narrative of the man forgetting his life stories drew my breath away. Going further into stories of high imagination the reader is made to hear the world war guns in the background and smell the mud beneath our shoes. Testimony to this debilitating disease, Kate explores the common loss of brain function with sensitivity. At points her poetry was elusive  but mostly she kept the audience rapt with portraits of cross-continental bus trips and beached whales.

When Kate had finished Roddy Lumsden editor at Salt Publishing introduced James. James’ put the audience at rest with a joke and then read some of the poems from his new collection. His poetry spans themes from affairs amongst the sand dunes, to describing the heavy Cornwall clay and mourning the lack of Basking sharks. All of the poetry holds the natural world close to its core.

My favourite poem was ‘We have yet to harness the full potential of clouds’. I think what struck me at first was the use of the word brazen. A brilliant and striking word on the second line that immediately tells you this is not a normal poem about clouds. James’ poem not only approaches the natural form of clouds as if they are daring animals but also makes an environmental point. The poem quickly begins to list the way in which we could exploit clouds: “our government will seize them and privatise them” [ref page 3, line 3] his poems voice dictates with strong authority. This list is hypnotic in its rhythmic assonance ‘leverage, sillage, tillage, bondage’. [p5, l5] carrying you along as if you are also subject to winds. The imagery in this poem is resonant. The idea that we could turn clouds into string for our bows or ‘stick needles into them’ is striking. It seems a ridiculous idea but I think that is the point. Who would have predicted that the human race would use horse hair to make violin bows with or that we would be dissecting embryos from mice to experiment on them? This poem is about exploitation. Specifically the exploitation of the natural environment and how our thirst for knowledge often overlooks the damage we are doing to the earth. The repetition hammers home this vital message while we still have time to slow down the destruction of our natural world.

Whilst reading ‘Printing of the clay’ the audience was held by the repetition of the colour of white. There is more to the colour of white in this poem then the eye can see, in James’ words it holds ‘Gorse-tinder…machine oil…rhododendron gloss’ (p56 L2,3,4). The details James gives this colour evokes a physical surrounding. With his words I am standing observing a horizon that contains gorse, parts of metal (perhaps the relics of a boat) and rhododendrons with white sand beneath soaking up and reflecting the hues lent by these items. The last line of the poem takes us even further with the colour to hint at an event within the surroundings. The reader is left wandering what happened in this place. I would have liked to have more of the event in this poem, more movement and perhaps more history, but as a snapshot it works well.

James’ collection also contains the poem ‘Pertaining to the cod’. This poem describes the seas full of fish: “The waves as they broke were a surge of cod, tanked from trough to crest with glints and glassy eyes.” (p60 L9-10). The landscape James described seems that of fantasy especially in a world where the fish levels are nearing those where they could collapse beyond recovery. James works for Forum for The Future  a sustainable development charity and so his interest in highlighting environmental issues is unsurprising but it is the beauty in which he conveys these messages that holds the reader.

The whole evening in The Oxford to me was a surprise. It combined two very different disciplines; environmental science and poetry. James’ first book encapsulates the social and environmental issues of climate change that need to be eulogised within contemporary literature. With James’ poetry a strong message is conveyed and the beauty of words as used in his poetry still lingers in that room.

This I know

I have watched the twin towers collapse.
I have watched students set alight to benches in front of Westminster.
I have watched birds dip as they fly at twilight, catching flies humming above the horizon.

I have heard that pro cyclists form smaller lungs over time.
The smell as I cycle to work gets heavy.
I have heard that immigrants are more likely to suffer from mental illness.
The light in the city is grey and small.
I have heard that children are more open to new things.
I hear them laugh at lunchtime.

I have read that there was a study to show that messy public spaces encourages racism.
I have read that only 29% of the population turned up to vote on the referendum for AV.
I have read that sherry is good to use in a stir-fry. It makes the taste of the ginger stand out

But I know that it is difficult to be in a new place
That the smells, the knowledge, the food and the way everything works is different.
That it is scary and isolating
That your eyes and ears and hands can not do enough to take it all in.
That life will always be what you do not expect.
And when you are away from everything that you know it is difficult.
That extremes of yourself come to dominate you
That it is hard and you do not know who to trust
That things move in different directions and you can not do anything about it.
That you just have to go with it
To change and adapt as you can and remain true.
That you will never not be you.

(for Inua Ellams 8/5/2011)

A Broken House

(an ode to Yeats’ Innisfree 2/5/2011)

I shall arise and go now
And go to Loch Monzievaird
amongst the hills.

A house I shall find there
Silent, still and bear
Of concrete and timber made
All amess and on the ground it is laid
The curved roof slates push it down
Against the remains of shelves and sound

We shall rebuild this frame
This frame that sits by the
Water and deep trees

Planks and bricks we will take there
Warm, soft and rare
Humming as we take up our nails
Amongst the heron, bluebells and snails
Slowly the rooms will be built
Our hands on wood and each other as we melt.

A fire we shall have there
The fire it reaches high
over branches and chicken skin.

Stars and the moon we shall observe there
And peace in each other’s faces wear
Beyond our eyes it does flow
For peace comes dripping slow
As clouds drift over the sky
Meeting at the edge of where the owls fly

I shall arise and go now
And go to Loch Monzievaird
Amongst the hills

In my dreams we shall meet there
And the stories we have collected we shall share
Our song bounces off the wood
It warms our hearts as it should
No frills will we need or fuss
As water laps at the shore beside us

I’m gonna miss you

I remember how you held me
Those nights you were next to me
When the ground span you held me down
And when my mind ran you calmed me down

You were tender
You were kind
And you were mine

Once I turned up at your door
I felt I couldn’t take life anymore
People and things seemed way too fast
But you wouldn’t slow down anymore than the last

You were stupid
You were blind
And you were mine

Now we’re through
I wish it wasn’t true.
But feelings that come so fast,
They’re never going to last.
And now you’ve gone from me,
now you’ve pushed me
Made me realise you were never mine.

(a song for AC written 8/3/2011)

My lighting installation 2009

I co-managed the design and installation of a lighting concept for Kinetica a multi-disciplinary art fair in 2009. I researched the exhibition to ensure that my piece was within the specification of the overall gallery and we delivered our final pieces within budget and on time. It was a whirlwind of organisation as we had two/three weeks preparation before the exhibition and I was moving to London at the same time. But we got through it and if I don’t say so myself it looked awesome (despite some of the fixtures overheating!)

You can see our lighting above the bar in a picture on the Kinetica Website.

Animal behaviour article

Here is a link to an article I have just written for Nature News Blog: Cooperating Elephants Win Food Prize. It was very interesting to write this article and research Frans de Waal. De Waal seems to almost have a socialist agenda, in that he is using his research to provide evidence to promote the greater good for the masses and this I am mostly sympathetic towards (such idealism does occasionally fail me I have to admit, I do live in London and you do come across a lot of twats). Anyway the idea that evolution supports cooperation in societies is an interesting one.

Wine production article

Seen as I am interested in writing and editing I guess I should show off my previous journalistic career which is quite short but nonetheless still in existance. I did a two week work experience placement at Decanter in April 2005 and ended my time there by writing this article: ‘Australia faces grape glut’.