Barking Up the Wrong Tree

That's the sort of title I like. A good old fashioned saying with a strong image attached to it. It's also the title of a card game that's attempting to get crowdfunding for publication. It's a particularly English game from the Ragnar Brothers who have a good tradition in quirkiness. Have a quick look here: Barking! if you have some time, you'll enjoy the video description of the game if nothing else!

I mentioned yesterday the forthcoming poetry reading I shall be taking part in and thought I should actually give you a little insight into the world of Ivan Shrimpton. He's my fictional character that pens all these Suffolk poems on my behalf. He's probably mid 60s and has managed his life within a small radius of North Suffolk/South Norfolk. He has insights into local events and places as well as trying to keep up with the pace of technology in the 21st Century. He first came to life with this poem:

In The Village That I Live

In the village that I live 

I keep myself to myself,

there’s too many rum old 

busy-bodies already see,

and barely a soul to speak with,

Mrs V who run the store, 

but I don’t like to ask o’ her,

and the vicar, well, 

he’s too like a milkman now,

doing his round all odd days.

In the village that I live 

I keeps good care o’ hedges

do some grass cutting too, 

still grow all me own veg,

’at’s fruit I struggle at, 

have to get it online I do,

bit of a muddle, bit of a mess, 

but I’m getting through

the fifteen nets o’ oranges 

I ordered by mistook.

In the village that I live

’at’s better just me and Fordie,

my West Highland Terror 

as I call the scruffy fellah,

when he gets a going after 

them rabbits and hares

there ain’t no stopping him, 

nor catching him neither!

Mind he can take some persuading 

to shift his arse of an afternoon.

In the village that I live 

there’s no young folk any more,

they up and go, just like that 

once they get the urge,

we us’d to play amongst 

the bales, go beating

and trapping the game, 

but the farms is all different now

all mechanicalised it is, 

I can still drive a tractor though.

That's the standard language version that I read from, using my local knowledge of the accent he'd be talking in. My dissertation covered off my doubts of trying to read dialect for my prospective audience - you, yes you, don't cower away! So, just for comparison's sake, here's the first verse in dialect.

En the Vellege that Oi Lev

En the vellege that oi lev

oi keep mesel’ to mesel’,

there’s too meny rum ol’

busy-bodies already see,

an’ barely a soul ’o speak wev,

Mrs V who run the store,

but oi dun’t loik to ask o’ her,

and the vecar, well,

he’s too loik a melkman now,

doen hes round all odd days.

That's your lot for today.. if Ivan's piqued your interest it's Saturday week, see below for the poster from yesterday.

The Water Poets

My writing is all about the novel you see. Anything else is good practice, and one day I'd like to adapt a novel for the stage I'm sure. Short stories don't often do it for me. I'm just getting into it and it's gone, there's not enough to entertain me as I wish to be entertained. As for flash fiction, it's concise and nowhere near even the start of a scene.

Poetry. Where does that fit in? I did the teenage angsty stuff and courted my wife with it naturally. I read the poets we do at school and enjoyed Keats, Coleridge, not so much Milton or Hardy. I pushed the boat out and got into Wilfred Owen, Yeats and that was about that. Spring forward to Kingston Uni and the poetry is a welcome diversion from academia. I enjoy little forays into using expressions that one simply must not use in a novel. Tutors like my poems, visiting poets too. And such are reputations born I guess. No one is more surprised than me. It's quite fun though!

Having submitted a reasonable number of poems to the right mags I haven't had any published outside of Kingston. No sweat, I'm not trying too hard and certainly am not precious about it. It seems to me that poets spend a fortune on subscriptions, submitting to competitions and the myriad of publications to be featured sometimes and then you might get to produce a pamphlet. Is that it? The first step to poetic success? Blimey. And years later you may be asked to collect your bits and pieces for a collection, and sell it to, what 150 people. You have hit the big time!

One part of it I have shied away from is public readings. The few I have attended have been mixed. I can't take much of it in, I need the poetry to be written down in front of me. I catch an interesting line and the rest of the poem has been and gone. My understanding is poor, seriously it is. I do not get what the poet is saying, trying to say, trying to sound out to me. I enjoyed American poet Michael Surnowski, and Wendy Cope is the loveliest person I think I met amongst the visiting stars! Her down to earth approach, and advice and guidance was thoughtful yet she had strong opinions too; the balance was spot on.

Over the last year though I have spent several wonderful evenings with two poets from Kingston who really are making a name for themselves, Lucy Furlong and Dave Russomano. They have looked at some of my work and offered suggestions aplenty to improve them, their patience is very satisfying! Lucy is a prolific performer and Dave has done more than his fair share too. Lucy recently invited me to join them, and another fascinatingly creative lady, Sarah Dawson, in reciting a few pieces at the Carshalton-on-Sea Festival. So, I've refreshed a couple of Suffolk pieces and will be doing 'Lowestoft Fish Market' and 'Pakefield Beach' in that homely accent. A new piece is under construction for the event and is based around the water tower in Carshalton. I'm actually looking forward to it. Who knows I might even enjoy subjecting an audience to my work, something I never thought I should really do.

You'd be most welcome to come along, hear 'The Water Poets' recite, buy us lots of alcohol, that sort of thing.. we're on from noon on the Saturday, in the rather posh Charles Cryer Theatre, for an hour, don't be late. Whatever else happens, I will not be preforming this:

Dictions

Opinionated;

I should aspire to be,

and in that way 

I will cause a stir, 

perhaps,

or maybe

a little discussion.

So feed me your classics,

your daring radicalism;

‘they create an ambiance, 

a certain I don’t know what’ -

I’ll be damned if I understand them,

can be bothered to either,

at my age, you know?

You get to be more selective,

more reverential about intelligence,

interests and your time.

Hell, I almost killed myself a few years back,

why would I spend whatever I deem to have left

in a state of confusion? 

I have a void, you see.

No, I’ll use up my time

with my lighted memories, 

my dinky desires,

my affected music, 

my gargled words and b movies.

I’ll still explore realms,

self-demotivatedly;

it’s so much more of an adventure

than wading through the recommendations

from people I hardly know,

cannot connect to, 

wouldn’t dream of passing days with

never mind their minds.

Opine opinions, you keep them,

to yourself, for your blogs, your tweets, 

you arse.

New Friends

It has been a tough year for the gerbils, Mr Nibbles and Milky Joe. His Nibs unfortunately contracted a tumour on his stomach, he kept it clean and bits fell off of it and he seemed to be coping well. Milky stopped chewing at wood and so his teeth grew too long making it difficult for him to eat, he lost a lot of weight. We now take him monthly to the vet to have them ground down - ouch! He's back to full fitness thankfully. However, just over a week ago Mr Nibs had a bad day and it had obviously got too big for him on the inside. Poor fellow passed on. Have to say it hit me pretty hard, I miss him, he was cool.

The quandary then was what to do about Milky. He was on his own aged two and could live another couple of years. Gerbils are sociable animals so we decided to try and get him another pal. Research revealed it would be sensible to get him a young male to nurture and that it would take some time to integrate them. Our previous provider had females only so we tried a few of the local Pets-at-Home and came across a solitary 'male'. The member of staff was 99.9% certain it was male although Josie spotted the flowers on the dangling thing in the cage, there were footballs on the empty cage below.

At home we had them in separated parts of the gerbilarium and then let them run about together under supervision for 15-20 minutes for a few days. Until, wouldn't you know it, 0.1% becomes 100% female and Milky Joe thought his luck was in. Poor chap, had to deprive him of that pleasure, did not want a whole new family.

So, it was then what do we know with madam? Returning her seemed harsh, she is pretty and full of character. But then we'd still need a pal for Milky, plus one for her too, oh dear! Pre-loved website had a gerbil breeder just down the M3 in Aldershot. I gave her a call and she was full of info suggesting that it might be as well to get 2 young males for Milky to adopt to avoid more separations down the line. From 2 to 1 to 4 and then 5: easy.

A trip on Sunday saw us meeting prospective chums. Milky was good with all the tiny 6 week olds. We quickly had two selected and ready to join the Horahousehold. Madam had other things on her mind. Maybe she was in heat, perhaps she was pregnant from her time at the shop when they thought she was male? Or just perhaps she's a pyscho gerbil. Whichever it is time should tell but she did not accept any of the prospective friends introduced to her. So she's still alone. We will wait a week, maybe two and then try her again, otherwise she may just have to go it alone poor thing.

We'd originally called her Creamy Baileys but had decided that was a male name and indeed suits one of the new youngsters better so she's also had to go through a deed pole name change. She's now to be known as Precious Lily-White. Milky's other new bud is grey/silver, so he's Old Greg. Here are the boys, in all their glory!

Hey! It's been a while, how ya doin'?

With the endow my studies now fading into the depths of my amnesia it's time to get cracking once again on the blog. One tricky thing about writing a blog is the constant worry about who might be reading it. You know, anyone at all is the immediate concern. And then you move on to those who provide you with an income, how much do you want your life expounded to them? I think the latter has impacted more than anything else on what I write about. Oh well!

So, where the hell am I at the moment then? Been spending time in psychiatric hospital again, visiting a good friend from the Isleworth Boardgamers, Philip. Poor chap is bi-polar and the election toppled him over. More on this in the next few days. Then I've managed to get invited at a poetry event. That some people really consider I have something to say through poetry amazes me, honestly. It's something I enjoy writing but to be thought of as a poet is like telling me I'm an Olympic swimmer just because I used to swim a mile before breakfast three times a week.

I've been concentrating on my novel writing though. And something may just about be coming of that. 'A Good & Useful Life' needs a final rewrite and then I have begun researching literary agents with a view to approaching them with it. The next one, 'Knowing Everyone's Okay' has also been receiving some overdue care and attention although my head's not quite as focused as it needs to be just yet. Soon my dear, soon. Finally, I've been taken on by Surrey County Council's Adult Learning team to teach creative writing twice a week from September. It obviously means I get to use my teaching qualification but much more importantly I can still be immersed in writing. I love that. Have taken a couple more courses at Richmond to help in that respect and it's been a real treat. Lovely to work with Tamsin and have contact with Sue again from our Horse Drawn Mail Coaches Writing Group days as well as being taught by the hugely impressive Susie Lynes - yes that was an adverb used with due consideration and care.

Boardgames have taken a slight back seat due to the writing but at least that's quelled my collection expansion. And on the back of that I have been starting to make inroads into actually playing some of the games piled everywhere around me. 

Music continues to dominate and there'll be more on this in the next few days too. Mew, I'm listening to you. The Unthanks and Annie Eve too. Oh yes indeedy!

Elsewhere the family are still wonderful. Basti is growing up fast now. Is still hooked into his xbox and digital entertainment although dos humour me with the odd foray into gaming. Josie is fighting hard with the world of becoming a teenager and the constant battle with 'friends'. Thankfully she is proud of her school work and no-one could ask for more. She's also a good calming influence on me and I love that. And Mrs Hora packs 48 hours into every day, causing herself so much stress that given a day off she tends to be most unwell. But that's how she lives and I can't see that changing anytime soon. She delivers the most incredible level of personal tutoring you could wish for. The amount of preparation is twice the length of the lesson and she still undersells herself constantly. Confidence woman!!

The Murky World of Barry Adamson

Next stop on the musical roundabout is Manchester. Away from London this place is magical for music, I adore the passage beyond words, although I will try expressing something about them in due course. Then I fell for the Buzzcocks and Magazine too, Joy Division, New Order and The Smiths. I cannot imagine what life would have been without these bands. 

Amongst the wonderful artists the most intriguing over the whole of my life has been Barry Adamson. Superb bassist with Magazine initially, his career has twisted through The Gun Club, Iggy Pop, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and film scores and the Magazine re-union and his jazz influenced albums. I’ve been lucky enough to see him live several times now and the whole family witnessed a superb gig at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in February snow, 2012. 

Presence the man has in abundance, and more than his fair share of rhythm naturally, and a wonderful sense of humour - introducing his shakers as his bald friends Dave and Howard! Mrs Hora and I went to see him at the Pigalle Club, Piccadilly and decided to eat first. As we were being shown to our table Barry had clearly just finished his soundcheck and we said hello. He said something along the lines of ‘good timing, wouldn’t want my voice spoiling your meal’, as if!

I’ve only recently noticed that he’s currently touring with Nick Cave again. Should have tried to get a ticket for the Albert Hall next year, mmm, might try, will be impressive I’m sure.

He had Billy MacKenzie sing on a song too. It’s a brilliant piece, ‘Achieved in the Valley of the Dolls’ on the ‘Oedipus Schmoedipus’ album which also featured Nick Cave on the lushous ‘Sweetest Embrace’ and Jarvis Cocker in a rare moment of his that I like, ‘Set the Controls for the Heart of the Pelvis’, great title.

My favourite albums (in order): Stranger on the Sofa; Oedipus Schmoedipus; The Murky World of;

Favourite songs (not in order!): Every single song on the ‘Stranger’ album, some amazing weirdness, it’s a belter!!; Still I Rise; Straight ’til Sunrise; Deja Voodoo; The Snowball Effect; 007 A Fantasy Bond Theme; What It Means; The Big Bamboozle; The Trigger City Blues; The Man With The Golden Arm; The Vibes Ain’t Nothin’ But The Vibes; Walk The Last Mile

Best lines: ‘and so they will find me, and in the middle of a cold afternoon, they will ask, ‘what is it exactly that you know?’ and then, they will take me outside, and they will kill me, that much I do know.’

‘It’s the music that I love’ [Spearmint - ‘Julie Christie’]

Bloggers love a series of articles don’t they? Well I’ve decided it’s time to go through my music collection. It is the one constant amongst the myriad of obsessions I have had running throughout my life. There’s a song for every moment of the day, every emotion, every thought. But where to begin? A, obviously. And by artist. Good. Plan made.

And Also The Trees would be a sensible band to begin with however I think they might deserve a series of their own so we’re off up to Dundee for The Associates. Billy MacKenzie’s suicide came into my life via BBC teletext. I was struck with sadness that this incredible voice was one I would never get to hear live. I loved the strength of his voice, the unexpected patterns, the Scottishness of it. It was only in the aftermath of his death that I learned about his life, his perfectionist nature, his early marriage in America, and his ongoing battles with depression.

Strangely, I do struggle with some of the albums, some of the songs. They can be a little difficult in that I find I need to be in a certain state of receptiveness for them. That there are countless others I adore and can listen to at any given moment is a rare treat. There was a huge amount of material released following his death showing how much that perfectionism had prevented so many songs becoming public. I weighed up whether he’d want it all out in the public but was grateful that it was. Some artists ‘worst’ songs are far superior in my eyes than the majority of mainstream releases. Commercialism is music is horrendous, possibly the heaviest for any art form. Don’t get me started!

Final thoughts on Billy. I have a beautiful full page black and white photo of him, his whippets and Alan Rankine from the 24 April 1984 edition of NME. It is framed and hangs proudly in my world. I have missed him growing older, performing live, working with other interesting artists. His voice is unique, beautiful, obstreperous and hugely alluring to me. He is one of my all time heroes.

My favourite albums (in order): The Radio 1 Sessions; Outernational (Billy MacKenzie); Fourth Drawer Down

Favourite songs (not in order!): Breakfast; It’s Better This Way; A Severe Bout of Career Insecurity; Kitchen Person; Q Quarters; Tell Me Easter’s on a Friday; Outernational; What Made Me Turn On The Lights; Love Hangover; The Girl That Took Me; Perhaps

Best line: ‘I cook offal for two, it lies there getting cold, then I cook your shoes, then I cook your shoes, you have so many shoes.’

Obsession, Hobby or Collection?

Male. Hunter / Gatherer. In the Twentieth Century the role evolved more than a little and now, who knows? Collector is what I like to think. Some call me a hobbyist - terrible word - and others, ‘obsessive’, as if it’s the worst thing a person could be.

As you may have guessed I’m a board gamer. I like playing board games. I love the mental challenges, I love the little gaming components, and I love the social side of it too, it’s about having some fun with like-minded people. It seems it’s the latest in a long list of hobbies I have had although some people have called them my obsessions.

Perhaps it’s because I become completely engrossed in the topic, trying to find out as much as I can about anything to do with it. Maybe it’s because it takes over my allocated space within the Hora home. Or could it just be that I have a passionate nature which is lurching towards the psychological unbalance that has become my life?

From childhood I remember being completely infatuated by Subbuteo, those little plastic men. I had a reasonable collection, much larger than my friends come to think of it. And I had the football, rugby, cricket and 5 a-side versions. I’d play for hours on my own, creating leagues, cup completions, test matches. Solitary it was. There was a little bit of other gaming then too although, with no-one else interested unless it involved a standard pack of cards, it was more something for me to get out and look at in those days. Some things haven’t changed there much.

I was very keen on sport as a youngster too. Hard to believe looking at my stature now but I’d spend hours down the playing field chasing a football around. Loved it. Hence the Subbuteo I guess, and the devotion to Ipswich Town. My first live game was in the 1971/2 season, Ipswich v Derby and we won 3-1. After that I was smitten and hardly missed a home game until Sebastian was born in 2000. I still have a good lump of programmes from those heady days and will try and sell them on if we ever get promoted again..

During the summer my time was split between golf, dad had made me and sis’ learn very young, and cricket. For the amount of golf I have played I should be so much better than I am. However, it’s been one of those off and on relationships and more off since we moved to London all those years ago. Cricket began with test matches on the telly and then learning to score for the game ’Owzat! A dice variation which worked pretty well. I’d buy a nice score book, usually from the sports shop in Southwold I seem to remember, and fill it with match after match, all neatly filled in.

Around the age of 13/14 I discovered music in a huge way. All through a friend, David Hogg, who introduced me to the Incredible Shrinking Dickies and my interpretation from there of punk/alternative music. It was soon off to taping everything on Peel and spending any money I could get on 7”s. A new hobby was begun and this one’s managed to remain constant throughout. I used to dream about going to gigs and now I get to go to them. I used to dream about travelling to exotic European cities to see bands play, and now I get to do that too.  

Another constant has been reading. I love books and have always read. I wish I’d kept a record of all the books I’ve read, it would fascinating to me now. Ah well. There was something very special when I was allowed to raid next doors boxes of books collected for a fete to see if I wanted any of them. Bizarrely, I picked out Susan Hill’s ‘In The Springtime of the Year’ and Jean Genet’s ‘Miracle of the Rose’. Hill is by far my favourite author and I have two new books by her on order at present, can’t wait! Genet’s work was such a beautiful piece, so glad I got to read it. Other authors have come into my life and once enchanted by one I will read their entire output if at all possible. 

When I moved to London my love for film really took off. Cinema City in Norwich still shows the art films and foreign works I adore but to have to pass by the BFI every evening on my commute home was blissful. Cheryl and I were soon watching two or three films a week, and at home I was recording everything possible accumulating a hideous fire hazard of a collection of VHS cassettes. Again the passion for this knew no bounds and I was soon taking holiday to coincide with the London Film Festival and attending as many lectures as possible with film makers. 

For some reason around this time I also began collecting Swatch watches. They were so different in design, and affordable too. I joined the Swatch club and have several rarish versions. There’s a great second hand shop in Zurich we found for older models too. Getting them from the airport was also a good way to buy them cheaper back in the days when the tax made a difference.

When the children were born these forays into collecting turned to Playmobil and Scalextric. Not quite to the extent of previous hobbies I’ll admit but still overwhelming for the children! I was working from home when they were first born and with no travel time I rekindled first the Subbuteo collection and then the board gaming hobby too. Gradually I have sold the Subbuteo as needs must but am sticking it out with the board games. There’s a truly incredible number of games released every year and among them some brilliant designs. I hope this hobby/obsession remains with me now. It’s looking good so far with Wednesday evening sacrosanct and a little family gaming and an odd evening elsewhere too.