Free Market Slaves

If you look at my previous post you might have gotten the idea that I am a sex fuelled hedonist. Well, if not I'm gonna try and try until I make it there. It's only lack of book sales that is holding me back. 


But let's talk about the "new capitalism" which is the buzz on the economic block. I hear Euro politicoids talking about "Fairness" as if the concept had just arrived on their desks with all the kick-ass imperative of a memo from Rupert Murdoch. Before all the social class, religion, nationalism and wealth difference poisons and divides kids - they know about fairness and justice at the age of three. Just try telling a toddler he took his brother's chocolate biscuit when he knows his sibling took it himself and framed him.


 So - how is it that something so atavistic, so recurrent and ingrained in mankind has been subverted and lost in our teeming world of worshipped and applauded greed? I heard PM Cameron today declaring that Europe was falling behind the productive capacity of China. Oh no - maybe our systems of democracy, health and safety, social care, civil rights, conditions of work and wages are holding us back? Dear me - there is the answer then. Let's all race to the bottom. The finest time of Britain and the Empire was when slaves were bartered for gold,  children started work at the age of nine and life expectancy was 25years. At least it would get rid of a few rival novelists on Amazon.


A few months ago a case of "human slavery" was discovered in the UK. There was wailing and a general gnashing of teeth. The political class were astounded and outraged. However, it was not a surprise to some of us. If you want another story here is a link to a terrible tragedy in 2004. At a time of my life when I was  destitute I went to work as a turkey process hand. It was tough. Let me say that again - it was tough enough to break your bloody heart.  I wrote a story because fiction is far more powerful than "News" because that happens somewhere else. The girl in the story is unattractive and therefore could not work as a prostitute which is the fate of most trafficked females. That does not mean she won't be used and raped by her "masters".  The story is "Sub Prime" and is as true as a story can be. Ironically it is something of a best-seller although I have never wanted money from it. I have published it with an audio track, read by a dear friend.  I cannot read it myself because it makes me cry so much. 

This week-end Saturday 28th and Sunday 29th January, "Sub-Prime" is free on Amazon, along with its MP3 audiobook that will also play on the Kindle (I have also have a free romance novel on the same promo).


Click here for my FREE books on Amazon USA
Click here for my FREE books on Amazon UK




Emma Thinx: Keep the bones out of the bonus

Whatever - so what eh?

I have a regular good old ding-dong (London-speak for heated discussion) with one of the lads on my bus. He's a challenged, disadvantaged kid with little going for him. Some mornings he finishes his breakfast of Red Bull and cigarette by tossing the can onto an area of littered grass and mud outside the run-down block of flats where he lives. The can then adds to an accidental collage of fast-food wrappers, dog excrement and an eclectic sprinkling of marketing driven "packaging". 


He then inhales deeply on his cigarette, grinds the stub into the road, clears his tortured lungs, spits theatrically and boards the bus. Many a time, me being a judgemental bourgeois old cow/Romantic Novelist, I chide him for his conduct. OOOOOh ! I do hate litter. He shrugs and says "Whatever - so what eh?"


I ponder this matter quite often. Yesterday a bus job came up that involved me picking up some folks from a pre-school. Bright little souls aged between 3 and 5  with their parents were waiting outside the school to board the bus. Opposite the entrance there was a dilapidated housing block, awaiting refurbishment. It has been a long wait and I guess it could be a lot longer yet. The picture above is the view that these kids were looking at. Maybe we should think about how the seeds and attitudes will grow.


Emma thinx: By the eyes of the child arrives the vision of the man.

Death! Plop.

OK Literatti - let's get down on some poetry. Today I have been busy on a whole new project of compiling and editing a book of poetry on behalf of Gallo-Romano Media. Regulars will have heard me rattling on about my mate Oscar Sparrow whom I have known for many years. He's a bit kinda prickly to be honest and is a tree book hard-liner. On account of that he's scuffed along in a bedragglement of small press pamphlets, anthologies and Arts Council artsfarts. (An artsfart is a form of poetry only read by South American ant-eaters)  Eventually I have persuaded him to put out a small collection of his poems via Rosina's media outfit. Everyone knows that no one reads poetry except other poets and they don't like it cos they didn't write it themselves. I'm officially gonna be credited as editor and a small contributor.  He believed that he has sold his soul to the forces of Mammon but he cheered up when we assured him that no one would read it and he wouldn't get paid. It is at moments like that you know you are in the presence of a true poet. I wish Oscar were my brother so that I could love him.

There was a poet called Theophilus Marzials (1850 - 1920) who is sometimes accused of having written the world's worst poem. In his day he was a successful writer and it only since his death that the critteratti have spiked into him. Oscar uses this as an argument against having any form of success in this world. Now, I like Theo's poem and so you know what I'm talking about - here it is.

A Tragedy

Theophilus Marzials

Death! Plop.

The barges down in the river flop.

Flop, plop.

Above, beneath.

From the slimy branches the grey drips drop,
As they scraggle black on the thin grey sky,
Where the black cloud rack-hackles drizzle and fly
To the oozy waters, that lounge and flop
On the black scrag piles, where the loose cords plop,
As the raw wind whines in the thin tree-top.

Plop, plop.

And scudding by

The boatmen call out hoy! and hey!
All is running water and sky,

And my head shrieks -- "Stop,"

And my heart shrieks -- "Die."

*          *          *          *          *
My thought is running out of my head;
My love is running out of my heart,
My soul runs after, and leaves me as dead,
For my life runs after to catch them -- and fled
They all are every one! -- and I stand, and start,
At the water that oozes up, plop and plop,
On the barges that flop
                              And dizzy me dead.
I might reel and drop.
                                                Plop.
                                                Dead.And the shrill wind whines in the thin tree-top
                           Flop, plop.
*          *          *          *          *
A curse on him.
                            Ugh! yet I knew -- I knew --
If a woman is false can a friend be true?
It was only a lie from beginning to end --

My Devil -- My "Friend"

I had trusted the whole of my living to!

Ugh; and I knew!

Ugh!

So what do I care,

And my head is empty as air --

I can do,

I can dare,

(Plop, plop

The barges flop

Drip drop.)

I can dare! I can dare!

And let myself all run away with my head
And stop.

Drop.

Dead.

Plop, flop.

                                              Plop.

Just read on from "slimy branches" through to "thin tree top." To me it is a poem teeming with drippy droppiness and flappy ploppy flopshiousness. Of course, its absolute lusciousness of vocab kinda does away with the sentiment of TRAGEDY which he is trying to capture. I like it because a guy wrote it when he had trouble with a woman and whatever was going on this trace of of love remains and I am here reading it and talking about it. Theo - you were a man who wrote poems. Time has made you a poet in my heart. Over to to you guys......

More international MARKET people all day talking about what they want the world to do. Is there any further point in the pretence of having meaningful national democratic governments?

Emma thinx: Economic Feudalism - the noble savage serving the savage noble.

Pick Of The Crop

Every billboard on every street and on the side of every bus is announcing the Coming. Tomorrow it will be here. Have you got yours yet? I guess you folks all know that MW 3 "Call Of Duty" is launched on Tuesday 8th November. Of course I was aware of all this. Well, I could see that these ads were plastered everywhere and that they looked like they had been stuck up using a bucket of mud. To the horror of the anger management lads on the bus I did not know that this was a deliberate effect and that the product was a computer game for the sex box 360. It's all about grunge, squalor and violence. I must admit that in a world where films are seen as sensational if you get a full nipple exposure, it astonishes me that "gaming" revels in psychopathic violence seemingly as a celebration and a joy. If you wanna see a clip this is the trailer.


I have no right to pontificate on such matters. The closest I have come to warfare is when my mother took me to the January Sales in Croydon, South London. In those days "The Sales" actually offered bargains. We queued from about 6 am. The plan was to attack the doors as soon as they were unbolted. My mother was going to run flat out for a winter coat. My job was to drop back and obstruct pursuers by running far slower in a zig zag. It worked and ever since I have had a kind of interest in military tactics. However, this was not the master blaster machine gunning engagement of "Call of Duty". I guess that it was not real war either. But what I want to know is whether proper brave soldiers, serving or vets, want to play these games? Is there a problem when violence is fun and painless? I bet there are all manner of studies and I really would like to know, but there again I'd like to know so many things about human behaviour.


 I mean does anyone have a child and say to themselves "I want to bring this kid up to be kind, modest and honest as a priority"? Should one not say "I want my kid to big themselves up, muscle to the front and get rich/ important /successful/ admired/be a bishop with a palace/martyr/ etc." I am not a Christian but I have no argument with their outline propositions. In a world where there is no sign of the meek inheriting, to what extent should you influence your kids to be meek? I've been a parent and I am a grandparent and I just dunno. Do I say "Go snatch it kids" or do I say "Maybe someone needs it more - hang back and help them." ? I am a hard line Atheist, Buddhist, lighter of cathedral candles, pinko commie, semi revolutionary property owning hedonist. I have no special insights.


As I passed a run down take-away pizza store tonight in my bus, light spilled out onto the footway. I glanced into the empty shop  to see a large moustachioed man at the counter poised to serve his next hungry customer. Obviously a slice of pepperoni had become lodged up his nostril and he was attempting to gouge it out with what looked like his thumb and several fingers. The meat feast could be a no-no. 


Emma thinx: Don't solve the problem until the solution gets you noticed. 

Mein Hair

                                  

                                                                                                           

In the world of high finance around which my life revolves, I am constantly hearing the term "Haircut". Seemingly this means to write off a portion of a debt owed to you. Unfortunate banks are likely to have to accept major haircuts on loans made to Greece. Luckily, the banks will be "re-capitalised" by governments if it looks like they will fail as a result. So boys and girls - who do you think will end up with the bald eagle hair-do in the end? Um - that's a tough one. All these affairs of state got me thinking about the hair styles of European leaders and I do believe I have spotted a pattern. Exhaustive research has shown that a tidy haircut leads to financial ruin. Just compare the coiffure quotient bias (known as the cqb amongst insiders) between Angela Merkel of Germany (Solvent) and Silvio Berlusconi of Italy (Indebted and struggling). When you see evidence this profound you will realise that the market rule is "If you don't want to take a haircut, avoid leaders who obviously know a few hairdressers". The most startling proof comes when you look at George Papandreou of Greece. Now that's what I call a haircut. The poor guy has given his all. Dear old Great Britain who kinda stumbles around trying to find the key to the last of the kids money boxes remains afloat while the markets accept the bluff. A quick glance at the Cameron Coiff should steady the exchanges for now while we look for that damn key. By the way girls - can you see how the term "haircut" is dripping with macho don't give a billion kind of swagger. I'm gonna tell my own creditors that they have won a free re-style.

I'm getting a bit peeved with product pricing. A pack of prawns last week at ASDA was the same price that it had been in March. Hoorah and jolly hockey sticks! The only difference was that the weight had reduced by 100 grammes. This is an enormous increase. I had earlier noted that chicken breast fillets had been similarly reduced in pack weight. So, what is going on? Do they think we don't notice. Having been out of the UK for a while the jump is obvious. I guess if you just plop the same stuff in your trolley week in week out you may not spot the difference. So come on guys -d'ya fink we're like stoopid or summink?

Emma thinx: Tosstesterone - the ultimate field event steroid.

Culcha Vulcha

Dear me - I think I've been missing something for the past 24 years or so. Once I had realised that I had completely wasted my opportunity to be educated I kinda figured that clever people read clever books and listened to Beethoven, at least until they were ready for Bartók.  Until recently I think I had been becoming more and more SERIOUS. I soon realised that the kids on the bus were not ready for the Shostakovitch cello sonata  . To be honest I'm never been sure if I genuinely like this stuff or not or whether I'm just a bit up myself. Anyway check out that guy doing the Gershwin piano.


But the kids voted out the culcha and it's been WAVE 105 all the way each and every day. Well, this morning I heard a song that made me feel so happy. I had the kids singing along and cranked it up to full volume. If you were at the traffic lights this morning next to boom box bus with the warbling old Doris at the wheel I don't care. I rushed home and downloaded "Deleted Scenes From The Cutting Room Floor" by Caro Emerald. This is super album that makes you wanna dance, kiss and wiggle ya waggle. Oh if you like Caro Emerald you'll like a French singer called ZAZ. This song "je veux" sung in the street in true "Chanteuse" tradition is a joy. If you love Paris and la langue francaise it's a little gem.


Older people are having more and better sex according to a new survey. Over 70% of males and females over 60 say they're having more fun than ever. Ho hum - that's great but should we not be looking at the life style of the consumption driven brat tortured middle-agers who live in a blur of work and tail chasing? For late boomers like me it was possible to dream of saving up your life for later.(Actually I saved it up for a rolling infinite NOW).  As pensions dwindle and opportunities atrophy these younger folk ought to think about having some decent sex TODAY. I wrote a poem about this issue. Check out "Boomer" here.


News on the radio that Dyslexic cops are to receive special notebooks. What I want to know is why every time I've been booked for speeding the officer has recorded all my details perfectly leaving no loopholes. Surely once in my life I deserve a dyslexic ticket that allows me to beat the rap. 


Emma thinx: Chill -  there'll be another NOW along in a while.

The Overall Effect

"Ee's just doin 'is teef but the lift's broke," came the voice of intercom mom from floor 23 of the concrete sky. We all waited on the bus as the lad made his way down the steps. At last he arrived dressed in the same clothes that he always wears. It's fashion sport wear and it's always clean. I think it's all he possesses. Mom must strip him off as soon as he gets in and poke it in the washing machine. Poverty is relative of course. Seemingly there are now 7 billion of us and the world can no longer feed us. When I see these poor kids and how they cling to the lifeboat of fashion even at the expense of food, I realise that the soul/status/ego/self image of each person is both our joy and our agony. It is a perversity to see the anorexic vision of  catwalk model beauty amidst the plenty and the Fast food/Big Biz/glamour glitz worshipped by the poor.


Yesterday afternoon I watched snatches of the first ever Indian Formula One Grand prix. How lucky they are that the Gods of Guzzle have handed them  the golden gladiators of radiators. Oh yes - the land of Shiva is now the land of GP diva. I'm a bit wary of making liberal arty farty capital out of the whole car racing circus. Probably it makes no difference but to me India has always seemed a land of advanced spirituality - beyond the brand and logo of plastered bill board overalls. And yet the taste of madness is sweet you know. Those childhood orgies of fallen conkers, hoarded simply because they were there, run on into adulthood and are delicious. The scream of wasteful engines and the kingfisher flash of  wealth are seductive. Seventeen thousand revs of orgasmic horsepower speak louder than a quiet voice of thought groping out for some gentle insight. Rip the rubber and ram it home to the chequered flag. Think simple and get the goods. That's the true grand prize. Who am I to say different? At one stage of the race a car stopped at the edge of the circuit. Suddenly a mob hurtled towards the high grilled fence and pressed their faces against the metal in an agony to touch that far far world of the man with sponsored boots and million dollar gloves. These two worlds will never collide - provided that the fences hold.


 A very disturbing film is out on DVD about the life of  the racing driver Ayrton Senna. I'm not sure if it was meant to worry me but I kept posing a Wagnerian question "Where is there for defeated gods?" Many folk saw him as a GOD. That would be very difficult for a guy who simply drove cars in the name of a cigarette brand would it not?


Oh no - trouble in the temple. The Dean of St Paul's cathedral has resigned over the strife around the anti-money changer demo on the steps. I love St Paul's cathedral and have so often lit candles to the lovely building echoing choirboy fake-up-kid-yourself-spirituality God. Seemingly the elders of the temple can't agree over whether or not to support the protests. I can see that this is a tough one. You get some kind of hippy guy show up with a few rough looking supporters and they go on about wealth and greed. Yup, even old Pontious Pilate was perplexed. He kinda fixed things up in the end though.


Emma thinx: Bossmosis - How the higher sucks out the lower.

Passage to Taillebourg

There's something so exciting about discovery. Imagine having the chance to find the source of the Nile or even America. Of course there were Africans and Native Indians who used to wander about such places on their way to work every day. I guess they didn't know that anyone wanted to know about where they were. Nowadays, in the car at least I have Sat Naff. Huge satellites orbit the Earth some 12,000 miles away and they know where the source of everything is. Nevertheless today I got out my bike and set out to discover my own personal equivalent of the Northwest Passage. My aims were slightly more modest and amounted to finding a route from St Savinien to Taillebourg, not using the normal road. It was almost like stepping back into history as I encountered the little hamlet of Coulogné-Sur-Charente. I only have a couple of full days left here in France before I head back north for the madness of it all in the traffic with my bus. As I sit in the queues and bad tempered road ragers blare horns and shake fists I will re-live my moments of slightly woodsmoked  air and the whizz of my bike as I opened the South East passage of my own little world. If you are looking for a holiday in Europe and you don't want the tourist trample come to Charente Maritime.


I do wish the Brits would stop belly-aching about Europe. OK - there are problems but all this "We want the trade and the advantages but we don't want to join in" is getting tedious. I do not want to go on about politics but if you look at the World Atlas you will see Great Britain (The Disunited Kingdom) a few miles to the north of France. That's where we are guys. Prime minister Cameron is sitting on a very sharp fence that threatens to slice right into his leadership regions. John Major called the anti European faction "The Bastards". Oddly enough that was more or less what the French called William the Conqueror. 


If you are in France Leclerc supermarkets have some great prices for whole sides of French pork. They are also well priced for Boeuf Bourginon and other casserole beef  cuts. 


Emma thinx: United we stand, but only because there are no seats.

I Think Therefore I Spam

Oh what joy it is to be home, if only for a few days. My tanks are filling with that long shadow/warm sun mellow ecstasy which still lives on this far south. We arrived back in France to find that a friend was moving house today. The affair had been in the wind for a while and suddenly the dam of expectation broke, the lawyers dipped their quills and the peasant mob moved in to finish the job. It's only when you live in France that you realise just how anal the Anglo Saxons are about everything. Here, one day things will unfold. No one knows which day but everyone lives and hopes. By the time it happens there are dozens of people who share the expectation. When the time comes, everyone moves into gear and somehow everything is achieved. No one is allotted any duty and no one is in charge. In rural France most people have vans. Those who do not have vans have trailers. This obviates the need for any furniture removal businesses. In fact, when you think about it, most of the services we think we need and have to pay for only exist because folk don't know one another. Gilles gave a hand rebuilding beds and I suggested that I cook dinner since there would be plenty else going on. Sometimes things go wrong.......


At about 1 o'clock I was about to put a chicken casserole in the oven to cook slowly for a few hours. The guests appeared at the door. Yes - you spotted the problem. They had come for lunch, thinking that when an English person says dinner, they mean lunch - because everyone knows that the English get it wrong. Accordingly they had double guessed my supposed error. I had single guessed that they knew I did not make that error. Look - this is no problem. You take some tagliatelle, a tin of Spam, a jar of Dolmio  pasta sauce, a tin of chopped tomatoes, some garlic, some Parmigiana cheese and a baguette. In 15 minutes a dish of  Spamastia Fantasia a l'Anglaise was served. Very few people have served Spam to the French. The meal disappeared and plates were cleaned with bread. I kinda felt that my life had not been in vain. 

Later, I took a ride on my bike. There is a field nearby still filled with wild flowers. These days I can no longer do poetry. Life has kicked it out of me and the jingle jangle of road traffic, commercial pop radio, hair dryers, mobile phones, work schedules and world noise blunts me down to a stub. It does this to all of us and we call it getting by and survival. Writing Romance is a different state of mind. It is about escape. You have to see that from which you wish to escape. So, I went to the field of flowers. The sky was a perfect blue and the heavens a dome of azure over my head. Under that  same dome all things lived in the only ways they could. A hawk hovered, a mouse scurried and the flowers ....well, the flowers simply blew in the wind as the world turned and the vacuums drew in the pressures and the strong sowed the seeds of their failure in the defeat of the currently weak. And when all the hour glasses are turned again and all the cards are shuffled, the flowers will blow in the wind. I took a short video which is a kind of a poem. It says nothing but itself.

Emma thinx: Make a deal with time while you can still negotiate.

Walk On The Wild Side

"Ee's just gonna do 'is teef," came intercom voice from floor 23, "ee's bein' a right little sh*t to me ee is. Ee's in an 'orrible mood."
Oh no - anger management issues in the sky village tower block. I wait in the bus. The lad appears, turns and lobs a half consumed can of breakfast Red Bull at the wall and stamps towards me. A lady runs out from the doors dressed in a dressing gown. She has no shoes.
"Pick that up!"she yells, turning to me. "Ee wasn't brought up like that. I had to follow him down in case he ran off or summink."
I glanced at the boy. He looked surly and troubled. I wish he had run off. The woman looks tired and strained. Her face and voice are smoked out. The contest of life is winning on points and she's hanging on the ropes ducking as many blows as she can. You kinda feel that the referee should stop the fight. My life is wonderful. I am a lucky privileged person. My heart goes out to this poor woman. I bet she's on her own. I give her a warm look, hoping I don't look like a posho being a feel-good kind liberal. She shrugs and goes back to her cell in the sky village. I wonder if she has the cash for some fags to dull the agony of daytime TV.


I'm getting very concerned about the British High Street. I think most High Streets will soon be renamed as Low Streets. Out of town malls and retail complexes are turning town centres into lines of charity shops, Tanning salons, Nail bars, Tattoo and piercing studios and of course Fish pedicure clinics. Well, I tell you one thing - even if I had a fish with feet, there's no way that I would take it to a clinic to be pampered. The government appear to share some of my concerns, at least from the public health view point. Seemingly a high percentage of  body piercings become infected. Also there is the problem of parents bringing their babies to be pierced. I mean - is it just me or are there other people who don't like looking  someone in the eye and being distracted by lip, nostril, chin  and eyebrow studs or rings? You cannot get your genitals or nipples pierced until you are 16 years old. Apparently up to 10 per cent of adults in the UK have this kind of piercing. What is going on here? Who will be the first President or Prime Minister to have facial piercings or tattoos? The punctured generation will soon be the total electorate. Instead of putting a cross on the ballot paper you will have to make a hole through it.


Dire warnings about Hepatitis and Aids risks associated with feet eating fish have appeared in the press. I guess the fish aren't too happy either. Are feet part of a proper balanced diet?


Emma thinx: Legitimise your anger. Call someone else a bastard.

And Now - Here is The History Of The News

I ask this question rhetorically......When did the idea of "The News" first come up. There must have been a time before "News". I guess when cave persons (see how PC I am) were sitting round their roasted dinosaur crumb roasted twizzler, they told tales of the day's hunting and gathering. Maybe a tribe member had met his destiny under a mammoth foot or a French-cave-lady had discovered a new way to cook lizard gizzard in a wine and shallot sauce.( I bet some Madame de cuisine has already done it). Mainly I guess they told tales of recent history. Perhaps a smooth guy turned (stony faced) to camera and smiled "And now for the Olds". 


Every day on my bus I drive out to my first pick up. I listen to BBC Radio 4. The "Today" programme brings me news and analysis of all those things that are just so important TODAY. I know that when I pick up the kids they'll be yelling for moooosic. I really resent having to miss all the important NEWS about all those things that I hadn't realised even existed or were possible. It's a bit like Alcoholics Anonymous. You have to admit that you are a NEWS addict. Just imagine....the dramatic anticipatory communicatory music fades away - the grave presenter opens the bulletin and says "Today there is no news. Instead we are playing you the new recordings by Pixie Lott and Kelly Clarkson." Bloody hell - if they are new recordings there is some news! Who produced it, who wrote the lyrics? There must be an expert somewhere to give me some informed analysis. No News.... Sheesh, they had me worried there.


Years ago there was an advertisement on TV for a product called 1001 ( They had a jingle-"A Thousand and one cleans a big big carpet for less than half a crown". That's about 13 pence-20 cents ).  All that was before I was born - but my father used to sing it when he used the vax. He never had much in life you know. But today the numbers of one thousand to one have jingled and jangled all day on the NEWS. There has been much discussion as to whether or not the release of ONE Israeli man equates to the release of ONE THOUSAND Palestinian men. Some correspondents have kinda viewed it as a deal like buying a car -"Hey, if you'd hung in there you coulda got some alloy wheels. If you'd have toughed it out you coulda got the car for free!" I say - measure the deal in the joy it brings to all those families. Then I say- tell me what joy any slaughter has ever brought to any man. Think of the thousands who cannot return from the dead. What would you pay to rescue one of them if you could? And I'll tell you something else. The name of the Israeli soldier who was released was known to every soul in Israel and many folk beyond that. You cannot read out a thousand names and so it is a statistic and the deal sounds like betting odds. Mankind can do better. We can. We know we can. Let's start tonight in the homes and hearts of everyone set free this day to write a future.


And so, to the point where I meant to start my blog. I have never been to war or been a soldier. I am a hedonist saved from debauchery because I can't afford it. I have scrimped and saved to debauch as much as possible though. This afternoon I finished Bert Carson's book "Fourth and Forever". I will admit that I still don't fully understand American football. What I do understand is that Bert's breakdown and social analysis of the whole Vietnam War and its aftermath is more succinctly portrayed here than in any lengthy book on psychology/sociology. You see - the guy was there! He was there! Just think about that and the difference it makes. One day there won't be anyone alive who was there. To a foreigner, the Vietnam War is like a kinda watershed in American political life that seemed to me as a kid to play out like a civil war that divided the USA far more than it divided communism from capitalism. In a few paragraphs Bert clarifies the whole experience of Vets returning to a homeland with no comprehension of what their warriors had been through. Soldiers suddenly lost the bonds of comradeship that had sustained them and returned to a job at the shopping mall with flash-backs of courage and horror to be kicked up the ass by bright shiny executives for day dreaming on the job. Actually it's amazing that so many of them just got on with it, at least in public. "Fourth and Forever" is a book about coming of age in one sense and about coming to terms in another sense. It is an inspirational story written honestly in a plain word style that Hemingway could not have faulted. While I was reading it I kept thinking of a screenplay for a film...Come on Hollywood, catch this ball and run with it.


Emma thinx: Pin a label on your enemy. Pin a name on a fellow man.

No Spare Tyre

I once went on an "extended interview". The job was as a minor official with an eminent UK cycling organisation. I arrived in a room containing about 30 people. Oh yes - we were all there for the same job. We were going to spend the day in teams working on issues and projects whilst we were monitored by important assessors. Then, a final long list was to be drawn up and over the following month or so more interviews and tests would eventually lead to the appointment of the lucky person to a job at about minimum wage. During the day we all had to give power point presentations which we had prepared at home on the subject that "Cycling is seen as a posh middle class activity." I think they meant people with "Stand Aside" 4X4's with bikes on the roof for kids called Tamsin and Tarquin Foreskin-Smythe. Then we had to do role plays with other applicants, analyse pages of accident statistics and discuss areas such as strategies, marketing and presentation. Smug but smooth managers moved among us mumbling holy words like "Anticipated roll-out profiles within contexts of multi-layered platforms of social interactions." In one of my own exercises I had to plan a multi-cultural fun experience transcending stereotypical attitudes whilst heightening ecological issues. I suggested a carnival procession without hydrocarbon entitled "Chilli con carnival" featuring a flypast  by the "Red Barrows" (The Red Arrows are the crack Royal Air-Force display team). Red wheelbarrows could be zoomed around by ethnically neutral persons making aeroplane noises. I thought the examiner was gonna choke. It's been a couple of years now and it's beginning to look as if I didn't make the cut.


The above experience came to mind tonight as I had to solve a problem. Imagine yourself driving a bus loaded with handicapped children. The bus starts to steer a bit heavy and you know there's a puncture. You can't really leave the bus or wait on the carriageway when you know there will soon be toilet issues. I spot a service station which is about big enough to take 3 family cars. I attempt an heroic shunt onto the forecourt. People run for cover. The Air line is out of order. I decide to head for the bus depot and make it with the wheel rim rim intact. If only those clever assessors could have analysed my strategy development.


Emma thinx: Liberal authoritarianism -you are free to obey.

Pick And Mix

L

Ever since the demise of Woolworth's our world has lacked the joy of the pick n' mix sweets display. If I were to be really pompous and OTT I could say that it represented a philosophy of opportunity, infinite choice and reward. It was the free market of anticipated pleasure. Now why is this daft old Doris in the fried egg and banana sweet display? Well, watching the "global" demonstrations against "Corporate Greed" the image of the Pick and Mix keeps flashing into my mind. Should I join the jelly baby, fruit chew and dolly mixture coalition, the Red Strawberry Brigade or should I stand up and march goose-step in black uniform with the Liquorice Jugend? The choice is mine if I can ever be certain enough to dip my scoop and pay up. We live in interesting times when the old political show is indeed like some dated summer camp concert. As a spleenager I used to love punk music - (you should see me pogo guys!). There is a lyric in the 1977 song  "Anarchy in the UK" which reads "Don't know what I want but I know how to get it." A further line reads "Your future dream is a sharpie's scheme." My dictionary gives a definition of "sharpie" as a "dishonest or cunning person. Now, as a very grown up parent with a life hard lived, lusted and busted I still see the fresh anger and confused accusation of this song. The modern young generation have an itch they cannot scratch - indeed because they have jumped nothing but focused educational hoops, they have received no word for that itch. They were told the pedlar had everything in his pack for them and that they could be even richer pedlars themselves. They have no anthems, no heroes and no leaders ....YET. In troubled times the winning slogan will be simple. The leader will wear some kind of boots - style to be decided. Sandals or slippers are unlikely.


I know that I overwork the word JOY. The reason is simple. In the universe of our hearts there is so much of it and yet we allow ourselves so little. Just now and then life gives you a booster jab of joy. Today, the joy was not my own - but danced and flung itself in ecstasy from the canvases of an artist. When Gilles spotted a sign advertising an exhibition outside a house as he was driving home I expected a polite amateur show of "local" art. We wandered along this afternoon to take a look at the paintings of Sara Barnes. Let me say simply that it is a long time since I desperately wanted to write a poem. The picture below speaks so vibrantly of the defiant fragility of blooms against the sky, the hidden force of their roots feeding their cry of  mortal beauty into the deaf indifference of the  ocean.

 Then we have a canvas of Exbury Gardens which needs no words and is a visual feast of atmosphere,light and colour.

Then an unwitting careless study of innocence, hierarchy, fascination and that peculiar English childhood of rock pool discovery. The disequilibrium  of the child in green, reflects a gauche accidental view of vulnerability and mortality.(Literatti among you might wish to check out "The Shrimp and the Anemone" by L.P. Hartley which explores this theme).

And finally a picture of that transcendent quality of motion that ballet sets out to achieve. Here a dancer leaps into the space of possibility that our imagination sketches ahead of us in time. 

 Feel the joy in that flight! I arrived too late to buy the above picture and paintings were flying off the walls. Remember the name: Sara Barnes (artist).


Emma thinx: A pure vacuum has no choice of what it sucks in.

Lean and Mean.

It's all toppling you know. Everything we believed in and trusted lies trampled in the dirt of experience. Bloody good thing too if you ask me! Today the British nation learned that Big Ben is leaning. It's only a small lean - but in 4,000 years it could topple. Apparently the lean of 1.5 inches is perceptible to the naked eye from Parliament Square. Well, I can tell you that my ex husband would not have been able to spot it. He used to think that a spirit level was the whisky department of the supermarket. We had shelves that looked like the doors of a gull wing Mercedes. But they did have a certain charm. Many a dinner guest asked if there had been an earthquake. The completely vertical tower of Pisa just does not have any cachet does it? My suspicion is that all of this stuff is a part of a tourist promo - "see it before it's too late" stunt.

Then there is far more serious leaning from vertical in the actual Houses of Parliament. Now, I want you all to note that this is the first and probably the last time that I speak well of a Tory. (That is a Conservative politician). Poor old Dr Fox (Minister for Defence) is being hounded by the righteous because his mate has been bragging about "My friend the minister" and hanging about in the corridors of power. Look - the whole Power and influence thing is based on friendships, insider deals and assortative matings. The minister appears to have a loud mouthed friend who loved bigging himself up and fancies himself as a bit of a fixer. Now the righteous are all huffing and puffing. The main hound-master admitted that his own Party had taken money from this same guy to assist with "Policy Development".  OK readers - I'm gonna give you £10,000 pounds to fund a nice policy making trip. No strings attached - but let's all be friends eh. Hypocrisy and tub thumping methinks.


Scientists at the local university are suddenly in the spotlight for asking if bees are affected by diesel fumes. The theory is that small particulates of combusted fuel disturb the function of their brains and they cannot find their way home. Almost certainly this is true. Many bus drivers who have lived their whole lives in diesel fumes cannot find their way anywhere. I still know where my home is in France and I long to be there.


And finally on the subject of leaning towers I was once in Venice and asked a guide why the Campanile had fallen down in 1902.
"I don'ta know - ma - no worry - we make  again esattemente the same - no deefference." Might be one to watch. If leaning structures  are your thing check out Fred Dibnah.


Emma thinx: Power accepts no friendship. No friendship accepts Power.

Offside Default Swap - Simple!

Since I am supposed to be a writer of books I really ought to say something on the subject now and then. Writers can be some of the world's least interesting people since they sit writing - often with quite a grumpy and taciturn manner. When I was in my poetic mode I did a fair bit of wistful wandering. Then I would have a couple of drinks and forget what I had thought. Poets like me can be quite up themselves to be honest. However, in my guise as Laureate of the virtual supermarket shelf I am experiencing a few moments of glory this weekend. My book "Knockout" is at No.2 in the Kindle Interpol section and at No.28 in both the Romantic Adventure and Adult Romance tables. This is astonishing to me. My short story "Sub-Prime" is at No.2 in the "Workers Rights" section and at No.6 in the "Working Class" section. Come on now my dear dear readers - lash out that 99 cents/86 pence and make a  middle aged bus driver feel like a No.1 best seller. Thanks in advance guys - I knew we could make it together.


Dear Oh dear on the economy stuff. Seemingly we are all doomed. The market tail is throwing the dog off balance. The politicos will not do as they are told and guarantee to bail out infinite debt.(As soon as you pay some off they increase the interest rate and want more). I actually heard a City guy moaning that politicians are too aware of the voters and tax payers. The solution is simple. Get rid of the politicians and democracy and have free elections for bankers, traders, spivs and gangsters instead. It looks increasingly to me that the big players have nearly jockeyed themselves into a position where their hedges/ default swaps et al will clean up the plate and it will be advantageous to crash the show. Governments will then pour liquidity into the sieve and the well placed hands will catch it. I wish all the free marketeers good fortune and merely comment that the rule of Law and the universal acceptance of property rights will only ever be maintained be the State. Be careful how much you crash. Barbed wire might be a good investment.


Since I have been working more or less full time I have not been able to read as much as I would like. I am still with Bert Carson's "Fourth and Forever". I'm enjoying the read but cannot quite grasp the rules of American Football. In soccer I'm afraid that the offside rule is even more baffling than most items on the financial derivatives market. Wouldn't you worry about a best selling romantic old trollop who could run the line with a flag and deal you a forward rate agreement?


Emma thinx: If the markets are free why do they enslave us?

Brown Eyes To Turn France Red.

I wait at the end of a block of lock up garages. The usual lad is not there. Above us is a concrete village in the sky of about 8 storeys. I watch a woman of close to my own age dragging herself on crutches down some steps towards me. She hauls herself breathlessly up to my window. I notice she has two lip rings. 

"Ee's not comin' today - ee's got an 'eadache. I would 'ave phoned but me credit's gone," she says.

I thank her and reverse the bus as she struggles back up the concrete steps to the sky village. The radio plays "It's all about tonight" by a young electro-warblesse called Pixie Lott. The pumped out pop culture kinda overlays the grey inarticulate desperation of so many lives. This is the way we are - a proletariat of tinsel, piercings  and tattoos, climbing the stairs of manipulated individualism towards a nirvana of that lottery win, that Friday night out, that romance like what they does in them trash books.

Well, that cheered you all up didn't it. My home seems far away this week as I watch the fallen leaves begin to swirl more and more in the Autumn gusts. In France the socialists slug it out to see who will challenge Sarko for the presidency. The departure of DSK from the picture threw everything into disorder. Last night I watched Martine Aubry speaking on the French News. From the distance of the UK I find myself warming to her. She may or may not have had a few problems in the past (it is a job to tell when there are so many dirty tricks). But, if she has had a few issues then she knows about struggle and humanity. She answers questions patiently and has an air of being a neighbour to whom you could chat. She also has kind eyes. Martine - I would vote for you if I had a vote. As it is I'll just tell Gilles to vote for you. The poor old boy slogs up and down to London directing his branch of the corporate world. He wants to go home. I'm gonna cook him some moules tonight. A couple of weeks ago he saw a rabbit running across the sports field. He glanced at me with a grin. I know what he was thinking. Oh yes I do!

Everyday is a school day. This morning I learned about a style of architecture called "Brutalism". Essentially it means that 60's concrete slab style. When I was young it was thought to be modern and artistic. There's a big debate over whether or not to demolish Preston Bus Station. There's some folk who want to keep it as a monument. I can see both sides to this. Speaking as a bus driver it looks as if there is plenty of shunt room. Take a look at the picture and let me know. Comments from fellow bus drivers very welcome.

Emma thinx: Room to manoeuvre - get your guy to tidy the lounge.

That curtain smile

From the genteel parks and terraces of Leamington to the cab of my bus this morning. "Ee's doin' is teef." Came the voice from the 23rd floor. Regular readers will know that this is the standard response when I call to pick up a particularly time challenged student. "Could ee do is teef before the bus comes?" I reply.

 "Wah? We dunno when you're gonna be 'ere?" 

"Get 'im ta do is teef when ee gets up." I reply in dialect

"Ee does - ee gets straight aht a bed and does 'is teef."

I wonder if I'll ever meet the voice from floor 23. I suspect she has a hard life up there. At least the dental hygiene should be OK.

I'm never really sure how to feel about animals. I always keep in mind how much I enjoy eating quite a few of them. I know that as a Romantic novelist I should be a cat and dog lover with at least a frilly poodle called fartio. I can never quite get over the knowledge that cats torture little birds. Dogs on the other hand roll in dung and lick their own and other dogs' bottoms before moving on to your face. Both species can be infected with parasitic worms that cause severe illness and blindness in children who are apt to pick up cat and dog faeces. If this kinda stuff worries you check out Toxocariasis here. I only mention this because a friend's daughter lost her vision on account of this problem. I suppose that my attitude to animals is unsentimental, practical and culinary.


All the same, I can see the charm of dogs. In the yard where the buses sleep there is a rag-bag of sheds, grease pits, vehicle repairers and various oily humans who appear to have been absorbed in an osmotic process by their overalls. All sorts of welding, car cutting, foreign tongues, hammering, revving engines, paint spraying and diesel smoke merge to form a synthesis of something I call Fumanity. I adore the place. In amongst this mechanical stew lives Alf - the workshop dog. He is a terrier and looks like he is a kinda mobile wiping rag. So many lubricated hands pat him that he has taken on the colour of sump oil. He kinda growls out with lop-sided white teeth through  an axle grease beard. Most of the time he runs about with an old football begging for anyone to kick it for him to chase. Then he dives under or into trucks, bins, piles of scrap, greasing pits or buses to retrieve it. He also attacks any kind of water hose - the water just beads off the grease. If anyone wants me to investigate the full story of Alf please let me know. I believe he has lived there for many years.


Just as an aside I must admit that since I have been back on the buses, grinding out a working life, all that romance fiction seems  wonderful, yet for me un-writeable. I just can't imagine swooning in the arms of a billionaire hunk. I dream of traffic and hooting road- ragers. If a spillionaire (saturated with uncountable wealth) hunk cut me up in his Ferrari I'd probably smack his smug orthodontically perfect gob.


Emma thinx: Do it doggy fashion. Collar him and take the lead.

Graffiti On The Wall Of Time

In something of a departure from my normal rantings, today there will be rather more photos than words. We have just arrived back from the Midlands having spent the night in Royal Leamington Spa.  This is a lovely town which grew prosperous as a spa where the wealthy came to take the medicinal waters. Judging from the crowds of youngsters in the park in the hot sunshine (29degrees C - that's 84 F), the waters have turned to beer and cider. Wow - once the world gets to know this the town is gonna boom. I must say that what impressed me was the huge cosmopolitan diversity of good natured folk - the  boozers, snoozers, cruisers, rowers, throwers, snoggers, sloggers and bloggers all getting along. If we could get rid of all the nonsense (tribe,religion,social class) of this world and just let all folk live with enough beauty and dignity we'd crack it wouldn't we. SO WHY DON'T WE? For a couple of magic hours I kinda saw a bit of a vision of hope in Jephson Park. 

But, comrades - the park had to be there. And it is there because of public funding. In the short term you could save a fortune by closing it down. I bet there are grey gutted bean counters who could tell you  to the cent. The park was constructed originally for the wealthy visitors - but the poor were allowed in between 7 and 10am. After that you had to pay. Since then municipal (public) funding has opened the show to one and all. 

Various monuments around the park attest to the philanthropy of various men who probably sought (perhaps egotistically) a form of immortality. Well guys, you have lived on far as me and I'm sure as far as all the folk basking in the Autumn joy. Edward Willes, Henry Jephson, Dr Hitchman and Alderman Davis you boys all done good - and you're still doing it. Also my sincere thanks to the Warwickshire District council for funding the facility. I guess you guys are under pressure but as long as folk have souls and hopes, you should never take the short term view.

As I write the crows are calling out their names and scribbling their graffiti tags on the wall of time. They write a heritage on each dying moment of future. Chance has brought me for a short while to hear them. Yes - there is joy. Yes there is!

Emma thinx: Go to the park. Ask why?

Radix Malorum Est Cupiditas.

We're off on an adventure. Gilles has some business in the Midlands. It has been years and years since I have been to Birmingham and Coventry. I remember much municipal magnificence in old Victorian civic buildings. It will be interesting to see how things are now.


So much economic gloom today. I'm gonna sell my massive portfolio of shares, bonds, commodity options (long term anchovy and oyster prices have been a worry to me for some time)  and hedge funds in order to buy all the canned food and can openers that I can afford. There are rumours that the men in grey might downgrade France's triple A credit rating. You see - we have all had too much. We bought the cars that we made. We bought the houses for us to live in that we built. We bought clothes and shoes for our kids. We created a consumer market so that technologies could develop with self generating finance so that even more advances could be made. We invented and took cancer curing drugs and stayed alive as consumers and workers. What a bloody heap of scum we all are. What a disgrace to have done all that. It is only right that we should be punished. We have sinned in the eyes of the money God. Let us be purged. Let the God exact his revenge WITH INTEREST. Take me Lord as a humble sacrifice!


To be honest all this self loathing and rejoicing in penance makes me sick. Powerless people have just lived, consumed, paid their interest and sung along to the buy buy advertising jingles. The trouble for me is that I just can't raise enough dough to buy enough self hatred. The grey guys are gonna have to beat me up cos I sure ain't gonna do it myself. 


Emma thinx: What goes around often comes off.

Great Rooks From Little Acorns Grow.

Near to my temporary home here in the valley of the River Test there are three oak trees. Two of them contain colonies of rooks while the other is a kind of neutral uninhabited territory between the two tribes. Living here I am able to indulge my love of crows. I am certain that they are at least as bright as I am. As far as I can tell the two trees contain two separate tribes. When I put food out on the lawn one tribe or the other make the first raucous swoop. When the other lot appear they peck at one another rather than the food. At the first hint of risk they all fly off - all except one hero whom I have named "Hook-Beak". At first Gilles thought I was talking about him because he does have a rather Gallic snoz. Hook-Beak kinda wanders round all the various shamozzles with his hands behind his back. As others flap and squabble, he eats. He looks like a retired old crow who never made it to the government but never got defeated either. If I can get an interview with him I'll post it on here. It'll be Frost and Nixon with feathers. First question will be if he has any ideas for peace in the Middle East


Today the guys are feeding on acorns. They edge out carefully like old time sailors in the rigging. Then they harvest the acorn neatly and fly off with their prize. On this beautiful autumn morning I am alive and able to sit at my window and share in their endeavour. I lead a very privileged life. I've been trying to get a photo of Hook-Beak but I can't get close enough.


Friday is a relatively easy day on the bus. My biggest problem is getting the dear little souls out of their front doors. At the tower block today I pressed the intercom and spoke to a lady. "Ee won't be long Love - Ee's doin' 'is teef." She advised me. Now, since he lives on the 23rd floor and has to take a lift (if it works) it means at least a five minute wait. If 14 kids all make me wait 5 minutes I'm gonna run at least an hour late since the schedule assumes that I suck the students onto the bus with a Star Trek tractor beam without stopping. When I hear executives talking about stress I wonder if they know what life is like on the bottom. Saturday tomorrow - joy joy joy - I won't have to get up at 6.am.


I see the Saudi lady driver is now not to be whipped. I knew that once the king read my views he would change his mind.


Emma thinx: A stitch in time saves some smug bastard from telling you so.