Ennui and A Dog Called Héros

Love me and I'll follow.. A French/ English bull terrier holding out for a hero.

It's a Sunday and I mean that. It's an anonymous day here in France. The elections for the European parliament have failed to excite the little town of Saint Savinien. The English side of me awaits the inevitable tsunami of punditry that will slosh unto the shores of both Britain and France when all the votes are counted. Politicos dipped in faux gravitas will spin the results their way regardless of the obvious truths. Groomed ambitious journalists will love themselves and strut their clever university smart-kid questions that evoke no answers. 

 And no one will care.

 The poor folk will drag themselves to pride-less low wage jobs and try to get through to the next pay day in England and in France. The rich will withdraw their wealth from the bank of other's labour and place it beyond taxation and the concept of community. That's the way it is. You can't change anything.

It's what's called disconnect. 

It is one of the most unexploited dangerous/exciting forces on this Earth. Apathy is a dam, not a desert.

Only 36% of voters voted in the 2014 local council elections. More importantly 64% of voters did not vote! Duh.  Most politicos are glad. The ugly brutes of the great disconnected class are simply too dangerous, too unpredictable. Just imagine if the great majority of people took an interest in the things that control their lives. Good lord - the show would be unmanageable. You would have to spin so fast you'd be a blur.

I need a direction. Don't point ! Sweep  me up. Love me.

 The micro-elite in the bubble of simulated angst and outrage that is consensus politics would have to address the politically incorrect weeds and brambles in the perfumed garden of human life. That would be like coming down to the factory floor and soldering a silicone chip, hauling a gearbox off a car engine or the life of a sub-minimum wage nouveau-pauvre Euro driver pushing a truck through the night shift to get urgent Parmigiano  cheese to your delicatessen. 

Just imagine that!!!! Just imagine if one's limousine wasn't serviced on time or the private nurse couldn't soothe the  paper cut on your finger or the wholegrain organic muesli wasn't on the supermarket shelf. Few modern politicos have the imagination or experience to leap that void.

I know I'm just ranting on. I've lived these issues all my life. No one reads this. Most people don't vote. Even fewer care.


Emma Thinx: Anarchy - the default setting of organised nonchalance.

Yo! Les Choses Insolites

Surrealist barbecue boogie woogie

I turned on my e-mail this Sunday night expecting nothing but the commercial diet of daily desire enhancement. Par hazard a kind soul had sent me a link to a girl group called the Boxettes. The old Spanish/Parisian surrealists like Bunuel and Dali wrapped themselves in the happenstance of unexpected things - les choses insolites.

Today was warm and some of my family showed up sur le vif and we cobbled together an unexpected barbecue. Oh happy day that has no parent but the sun! Still floating on the red wine languor of a meal in good company, I stumbled on the Boxettes - et voila.  

Here is some joy of life girl power. 

Emma Thinx: Box clever. Stay outside the box.

Amazon - My Struggle.

There is a point at which tragedy can become the stuff of humour without offending good taste. It is a narrow line to walk for a comedian. It is an even narrower line for a romantic novelist in high heels. The death of Casanova from a love borne disease is part of history rather than accessible sorrow. Even football (soccer) players are unlikely to cry in public at the thought.  It is an irony rather than a work related disease and a claim for compensation. 

The six wives of King Henry VIII became the subjects of music hall songs under Queen Victoria. The thousands who died from the ambitions of Napoleon receive a fraction of the interest lavished on his love for Josephine. 

So it was that I opened my e mail inbox this morning to find a message from Amazon inviting me to trade in Adolf Hitler for a gift voucher. I laughed - I must admit I sat here laughing. Was there someone with a sense of humour at the Amazon time horizon of the universe? All the indications so far had been to the contrary. But there it was - I could hand in my copy of Mein Kampf and spend my reward on other goods. I had always smiled when Amazon had asked me to review this work of Hitler. I read some reviews in which serious types had taken issue with Hitler's grasp of genetics. A few had criticised his prose style. So - these were the same guys who dish out my one star because of a misplaced hyphen on page 23. 

It is true. I do have a copy of Mein Kampf. It rests on a shelf among The Bible, The Koran, Einstein's Theory of surviving Christmas with relatives, The Communist Manifesto and a Harlequin romance novel "The Billionaire's Secret Love Child". Ironically, to one side of Hitler is a workshop manual for the Volkswagen Beetle and on the other the poetic works of Wordsworth. 

Just imagine the fate of anyone in Nazi Germany sending back their copy of Mein Kampf. My guess is that their gift voucher would have been delivered by armed men in uniform and included a one way train ticket. 

Comrades - we have come a long way. We are free to laugh. We are free to mock. We are free to know.  Beyond the fragile walls of our society we know there are no gift vouchers for liberty. I'm gonna be keeping the words of the enemy on the shelf so that I'm sure to know them. The worry is what Amazon knows about me.....and who else might like to know in the future.


Emma Thinx: There's no trade in on your conscience. It's yours. 

Shelter. A Poem By Oscar Sparrow

                                          Shelter


A ledge A gap A hole
A chance A crack A slot

A have or not 

A home.

A nest A den A box
A street A cell A plot

A have or not

A home.


My partner Oscar Sparrow (the poet) no longer blogs or slogs the internet trail. His pencil still has lead and so I'm delighted to air a small poem about the social issue of housing. He just wanted to put the idea of HOME out there. (He didn't want me to explain that the capital A is used to create the idea roofs or tepees).

Give me shelter and I will be your morning song

The concept of home is so central to our human sense of self and security. Governments mouth empty phrases about young folk, values, the future and self esteem. Yet, a home is beyond most youngsters trying to set out. It is a market where our leaders cannot tread and the haves squeeze rent-juice out of the have-nots so that they can never ever ever have what the landlords (and our millionaire leaders) have.....A home.

What is government for? I'm sure some would say it was to clear the path for the operation of profit making markets and then stand back. Perhaps this is the rule of Nature - the rapacious predators at the top of the food chain pull down and gorge on the flesh of the prey species, inevitably those who are weaker.

 Yet - even indifferent Nature allows a blown seed to find some fissure. Young pigeons cling to a girder above a street near my local bakery. Callous Nature shrugs yet still applauds a homemaker. Maybe Nature is also indifferent to markets.......Maybe there is a bigger home truth and pitiless capitalism is not the ultimate super-symmetry of the sub atomic universe? Could such a heresy be true? Is the stone face of greed not the portrait of perfect beauty?  Do we deny our young people something that is fundamental to our conscious existence? Tell me - who is not worthy of an affordable home? Who? Who?And why? Why?


Emma Thinx: Home is where the start is.  

No Way José

Duh - where am I?

You don't need an excuse to write about Paris. Paris is une permission in itself. This week-end I had the chance to spend the evening in the city of lovers. I dined at the Vaudeville Brasserie which is just by the Bourse de Paris. It was succulanimous food served by a charming waiter named José from Nicaragua. For some reason his maitre constantly interfered with the poor guy's work in some kind of

Emma deep in Parisian research. You gotta live it to write it.

attempted public humiliation. He didn't bite or fire back. His service was impeccable. Where I come from the tormentor would have been waking up with a crowd around him. I would have applauded.  If you travel to Paris head for the 2nd Arrondissement and treat yourself to oysters and magret de canard at the Vaudeville.  Ask for José and tell him Emma sent you.

Vaudeville Brasserie

I once commented that most people's troubles result directly from other people. Why why why are some people such utter shits? Why? We are a world of angry people. Some people are shits because they are angry. The others are angry because of the shits. It's enough to make me circle viciously looking for an outlet. Ah! There you are...

I rode the Metro with all the late late lovers. I dreamed of my next

passion patrol book set mainly in France. I thought back to Freddie and Anna as love swept them away along the Seine in Knockout. I thought of books and the great traditions of literature.....OK, I'd had a few glasses of wine (the champagne doesn't count does it)......Paris - c'est une permission. 


Emma Thinx: You're the boss of you - give yourself permission.