If you go down to the woods today - #Bluebells #poetry #video pic.twitter.com/kq9vFPaOJP

Oh to be in England
Now that April's there.....

So begins the famous poem Home Thoughts, From Abroad  by Robert Browning, written in 1845 when he was feeling homesick in Italy. It is a lovely poem and I have always taken pleasure from poems of Nature. One of the few "arty" things I learned at school was the poem "Daffodils" by William Wordsworth.  In later life as a wannabee poet I discovered the words of John Clare and wept with frustration at my dullness. These days what poetry I have I secrete in my novels like a pinch of mono-sodium glutamate among the stir fried bean sprouts of new love. (Guess what I've been cooking for dinner?)

It was a release to get away from the office and go to the Bluebell woods at Mottisfont in Hampshire. I took my camera and tried to capture the crushing fragility of such beauty. All I could think of was the poem by Oscar Sparrow entitled simply "Bluebells".  So much of our longing as humans comes down to a need to hold on and endure. Humble flowers with their immense beauty and perfume fade before our eyes and we cannot hold them any more than we can hold ourselves on the shingle shores of Time. And yet in poetry we can pass on a few moments that in the act itself of sharing, flower over and over as seeds, roll over and over as waves, kiss over and over as innocent lovers: as if no bloom before had offered such beauty or no lips before had ever known the joy of the kiss.

These were my feelings when I first read Oscar Sparrow's poem. Putting away all the bawdy splash and dash of selling the stuff and beating the drum which is a novelist's/publisher's life, I was in those woods - trying to hold back Time, trying to breathe in the blue. 

Emma thinx: Memory is your portrait. Select your poses to paint you. 

A Rose By Any Other Thorn - #Valentine's Day Snags pic.twitter.com/plGWt0rbd0

It is Friday the thirteenth. Although my life is an obstacle course of superstition, this occasion has never brought me any bad luck. Happily this morning I saw two magpies out of the window at first light. In the semi gloom I did put my knickers on back to front and resisted the urge to adjust the mistake. I'm just so pleased I don't wear a thong. So, I'm safe. It is well known in supernatural circles that the defiant power of reversed knickers always trumps the hand of doom. 

Far more important is the date tomorrow - 14th February. I guess it's potentially the best or worst day of the year. You love him. He loves you. He loves you not. He loves you but doesn't know the date. He loves you but he's a creepy stalker with dog breath and a socially plausible excuse! She sends you a card out of capricious vanity....dear me - just remember what happened when Bathsheba sent Mr Boldwood a teasing card in Thomas Hardy's novel "Far From The Madding Crowd". Yes - it's an interpersonal swine-field. 

Like most things spontaneous and romantic- they can be improved with good management. For the past two weeks I've been indicating to my man that there may be a package arriving that he is not to open because it may contain items he should not see yet. I've been casually talking about the Valentine's merchandising in Walmart as I complain about regular items being moved. 

"Do you know they've moved the unwashed organic potatoes so that they can sell more cards with gaudy quilted hearts!" I say casually. He nods. He gets it. He loves it when I talk dirty.

But, it's a wonderful festival of sentiment. It can be over the top and under the bottom but that's how love is. Check out my Valentine poem. It's an indulgent fest of vulgar velvet but that's the way I love my man.


Emma Thinx: You are not my heart. You are its beat.

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.  

My Valentine Poem To The One I Love

My favourite things...

I need to break away from the Shannon's Law nerves and think a little about Valentine's day. I know, I know - all the shops are hyped up in full sales target hue and cry. Its lace in your face and blooms down your bloomers all the way to the tills. For all that, it is a festival of love and passion. Someone singles you out from the billions of the world. 

For some, they don't. When this has been my fate I've always kinda smiled at my freedom and all the possibilities ahead. In lonely times there really is a chance to know love by its longing and absence. A writer has to know the power of tears uncried. A lonely love builds and builds towards that someone who is there ahead. 

I'll be quite honest with you and tell you that the little poem I wrote for Valentine's day a few years ago was just for me in a lonely time. I know it's OTT and has all that commercial splurge. All the same that is the world we walk through. I wasn't trying to be posh. I was trying to express the love I had inside myself to give or that someone had in their heart for me. Hey - they turned up!

There's a link to YouTube and you can print out the words  if you like them. 
Emma x

Emma Thinx: Without your special love, everyone else has one. When you have it, all those others have nothing.

Persons From Porlock

The erudite literati out there will of course know the history of poor Coleridge's writing of Kubla Khan. The great poet was in full (opiate?) creative flow when a visitor from Porlock knocked on his door causing the most disastrous poeticus interruptus of all time. Even so, a wonderful poem was conceived and Porlock went on to host a famous literary festival. The only thing it had lacked in the past was the attendance of a full bodied Romantic Passionista such as modest little me.

Candy and Paul awaiting the person from Porlockl

Of course, I was supposed to go with Oscar - but he couldn't get the day off work. And guess who the folks actually wanted to see? It's not that I don't do poetry - I still do (ish) and did ( ooh - you could have taken your pick of my iambic at one time). No one did as it happens! That's why I'm not on BBC Radio Foreplay. 

Buy my books. OK BUY MY BOOKS!!!

Happily I met up with a couple of fantastic poets, Candy Bright and Paul Tobin who starred in the "Freeze Frame" anthology. I had read their stuff and done the sound editing on the audio track. These guys are the real deal. As a young young writer I went to poetry readings and longed to be that kind of writer. Poets push off from the shore, not knowing where they're off to; prepared over and over again to drown in waves and cross currents. Their work is their cry above the storm or the landscape of the calm horizon where only ideas or desires cast shadows. Poetry is the true form and I still love it. I guess they don't look at their Amazon ratings or admire their limousines too much either.

I also met a fellow novelist - Jackie Gingell, author of "Ee Aye Addyeo" (The Farmer Wants a Wife). We had a comradely chat which left me smiling.

With driving rain and wind, the village hall was no Xanadu, so many thanks to the man from Porlock and partners, who fought the elements and treated themselves to some poetry.

And finally just to note that this is my three hundredth blog. I know there are tattooed old sweats out there who have done several thousands. My feeling is that the blogger sands have shifted since I started. At the outset it was absolutely de rigueur for writers to have one. There were gurus writing blogs telling other gurus how to blog up their guru power. A quick google has just confirmed my suspicion that many pets now write blogs. A look at the stats reveals that at least one spaniel has twice my readership. I dare not check out the cats cos they can be far wittier than me. 

Hey ho - blog on. 

Emma Thinx: Big ideas stand tall. Their shadows are the light. 

Poetry at the Blogger Book Fair from @AriaGlazki #BBF

My guest for the Blogger Book Fair today brings some poetry to the party - welcome Aria Glazki.

Life Under Examination is the recently released poetry collection, by A.T. Glazki, which explores the full range of interpersonal relationships, with a blend of lighthearted satire and earnest, emotional expression. 

It is now available through Amazon, Smashwords, or 
the author’s site. 

The preview poem below celebrates the power of creativity, in theme with the Blogger Book Fair! 

Otherworldly Remedy

Gargoyles, and witches, and pixies, and elves –
All are examples of our inventive selves.
The fey, the centaurs, the magic, the real –
It all shows who we are, how we feel.

From mountains to valleys, villages, and towns,
In every crevice enchantment abounds.

Amazing, are they not? The realms we can travel,
Without ever leaving our castle or hovel.
The rich, the poor, the hungry, or sated –
We all can share the worlds they've created.

Those brilliant people – you know who I mean:
The authors, the poets, the painters you've seen.

All of those worlds that pour out of their souls,
Aching to fill all the heartbreak, the holes
That others’ deeds or others’ thoughts
Had created – those blemished spots.

Let yourself travel, let yourself feel,
And let yourself question: what defines real?

The pixies, the elves, the gargoyles, the fey –
All do exist, in their own special way.
For what are our lives if they're not filled with magic?
They're pointless, and dull, and so very tragic.

Travel those worlds; let yourself live.
In worlds full of magic, you'll forget and forgive.

by A.T. Glazki.

Author Bio: 

A.T. Glazki’s writing story starts with one of those cliché beginnings when an English teacher encouraged her to submit a class assignment for publication. That piece was printed, and let’s just say, she was hooked!  

Since then, A.T. has run a literary magazine, completed her Creative Writing degree, been published a few more times, and of course spent countless hours writing. 

After a brief hiatus, she was a 2012 NaNoWriMo winner, which re-inspired her to pursue writing as a career. 

 Learn more about A.T. Glazki and her writing through her blog or follow her on Twitter (@AriaGlazki)!

Aria has a giveaway for the Blogger Book Fair:

 http://ariaglazki.blogspot.com/2013/07/blogger-book-fair

Aria was visiting from the Blogger Book Fair - I will be posting at her blog today and at other blogging locations between the 22nd-26th July (see links below)

 Blogger Book Fair:

22^nd July    Caitlyn Nicholas http://www.caitlynnicholas.blogspot.com

                   Jamie Campbell http://jamiecampbell.com.au/blog/

23^rd July     Emily Tippets http://www.emtippetts.com/search/label/Blog

                   Penelope Reece http://penelopereece.blogspot.co.uk/

24^th July     Leslie R. Wright http://thebasementlevelfive.blogspot.co.uk/

25^th July     Aria Glazki http://ariaglazki.blogspot.co.uk/ 

                   Barbara Billig http://www.thenuclearcatastrophe.blogspot.com/

26^th July     Don Wooldridge http://www.donwooldridge.com

My Valentine Love Poem

A a writer of Romance, Valentine's day is kinda like Christmas eve in Walmart and Santa's place at the North Pole. I am a real sucker for Saint Valentine's day. Well, yes I know all the teddy bears, hearts, flowers and chocolates are a commerce-fest crossed with an orgy of kitsch. 

Yet, among it all the festival has that wonderful power to give permission for anyone to go completely over the top in the knowledge that.....you just cannot go over the top. No rose is too red, no teddy bear is too big, no card has too much sentiment. 

It was in this frame of mind that I have written my Valentine's love poem. I write of love because I have had much of it and of course, it not all hearts and flowers. But when it is - then it is the most wonderful and dizzying thing in this universe. I have said in a previous Emma Thinx - anyone who can talk sensibly of love is not in it. On Valentine's day, the gloves are off and the wits are out. Why be sensible or bother with taste when you can let go and love?

Emma Thinx: If you can't exaggerate your fantasy - it's love.

Freeze Frame cover Reveal

I've been working. My dear mate Oscar has been editing and compiling a collection of poetry. I've actually done some work on the audio - but only because I'm so bloody nosy about how people sound. Recently I went back into poetry myself to do a couple of YouTube videos. You know, poetry is still a really cool medium. I would be the first to admit that the commercial bish bosh bash has weakened my ability to go into full poet mode.

Listening to these guys I kinda zoned out of all the clatter. There's Paul Tobin, a real deal poet who gets inside the fence and under the radar. He's  - just so calm and persuasive. Jo Von Bargen - an American poet with a life soaked softness that is - well - beautiful. There's a guy called Jeff Hansen who comes up with abstract stuff in a direct voice that offers ideas without any messing about. There's Claude Nougat who speaks quite hauntingly about Rome in a captivating Scandiamerifrancitaliano  accent that must be unique to her and the world. There's Oscar in his full Thespian/cockney truck driver/British posh. Finally, there's Candy Bright who digs it out from the woman's heart and certainly gets hold of mine. 

Today the cover of the collection Freeze Frame is revealed and I am proud of my very small part in this project. The cover was created by a young designer, Will,  who freelances for Gallo-Romano.  They tell me the e-book will be up on 21st December and the paper edition in January. It has its own Facebook page and if you feel so inclined you could follow the link and like it. 

Emma thinx:  Go undercover - hibernate with a book. 

A Romantic Love Poem From My Heart

OK, I went down to the water and jumped in. Well, not quite. I went down to the river and made a bit of a film. I had decided to write a poem after many years abstinence. Then, never content to do something simply, I shot some video, did an audio track, badgered some fabulous young innocents into being actors and musicians and splashed it up on You Tube. The footage is from my beautiful home town at Saint Savinien in France.

Now the reason for all of this is that I am writing a novel in which the heroine re-finds love after a long period of both sexual and emotional uncertainty. She looks back to first love as a way of recapturing a standard by which to measure her current feelings. In order to write this up as well as I can, I needed to get my own mind back to that place. As a young writer, I wrote many poems. I was a short story writer who enjoyed poetry by true poets. All the same, when it comes to love, nothing works like poetry. I believe this is because in times of emotional overload we cannot provide any objective view of our own state. Poetry scores by taking the love victim outside of themselves by talking to them about what is inside them. I think this makes sense. I am always in love at some level. I don't think I could write Romance if this were not so.

Here it is then; my poem from the shoes of my heroine through the eyes of my own life. 


Emma thinx: Love gets better, but seldom stronger.

Post Card From Bournemouth UK

Dark drama at dawn as Phoebus warns of his impending absence 

October just sounds more like winter doesn't it.  I always see it as an island month serving as a migration stop for birds and souls heading for the sun. Wiki tell me that there is an October Revolution Island and it is also the name of a 1952 novel by William March. Why has someone always done everything first? Why has someone always already said something that I wanted to say? Pre-emptive plagiarism is plundering my originality. Please don't tell me someone has already said that! 

Now, I teased you with a sex toy in literature special. It's coming but the research is taking a little longer than I imagined. I want to get it right. In the meantime I decided to use the last week end of summer to bask in the glory of the English sea-side.

Wedding photos on the sand. Just get me those shoes (and the figure)

As you know, I am a francophilly. I would still love to dance the can-can but for sure it would be the can't can't. England is the true land of the eccentric. We have everything from guys collecting the serial numbers on railway locomotives to people in their best clothes posing for wedding photos on the beach. Because I spend so much of my time in France I kinda see we Brits in a different objective way - ruthless creators of Empire queuing quietly for iPad 4s.

The day knew it was the last in the way that both you and I know we are the last that will be of the us-ness of us. 

 Sea birds balanced on the wind.
 People married on the sand.
 Guys in suits swigged beer from cans. 
 Christian surfers surfed, not sinned. 

Onward Christian surfers

Hey - I did a poem. Well let's say the wonderful resort of Bournemouth wrote a poem. There is nothing on Earth like a British coastal resort town. And you know, I love you so so much for all my childhood castles, roundabouts and blue sky days. Thanks for having me back for your last stolen summer day. 

Hey - relax

And to round it off there's a fabulous sculpture on the beach that says it all. And of course it's all been said already. On Bournemouth sands I can connect nothing with everything. OK - you got me. T.S Elliot almost kinda said that.







Emma thinx:  Britannia Waives the Rules.

Christmas, Kindlemas, Body Mass

Well, the old boy did it. Oscar's book of poetry has gone live on Amazon Kindle. It's called 'I threw a stone' and he kindly asked me to write the foreword.  Not only is it an e-book, it also includes an audio album with all the poems read by Oscar. I find all this uploads/downloads stuff a bit bemusing but I managed to get the audio onto my Kindle. All this new interconnected media gives writers the chance to produce some unique kinds of work. Oscar's book has a music intro as well. I believe that the e-book is not a competitor with the tree book. The e-book is actually a wide exciting medium in itself and can provide far more. The book trailer is here if you want to take a peek.


Apparently, this Christmas will in fact be Kindlemas. This is the year when the e-reader will be the must have item in Santa's sack. I think  the old dead tree books will still have a place. I have shelves of them to show folks how learned I am. While books proclaim what you like folk to think you have read, the e-reader hides what you actually like to read. You can sit on the commuter train to a posh job in the City with your Kindle reading "Confessions of a Harem Handyman" and no one knows. 

I have parked up the bus for the holidays now. Soon I will be going home to France for a holiday season of ruthless dieting, cold baths and exercise. On the other hand I might get out the foie gras, un bon Bordeaux and catch up on some reading. I wonder if we Brits will be turned away at the border by the Sarko police? His eyebrows really do look like circumflex (little roof top) accents, the presence of which in French denotes that a consonant used to be present in a word.   With Britain missing from Europe the look on Sarko's face takes body language to new heights.




Emma thinx:  Europic - a new serious vision problem.

Lies, Damned Lies and Bus Driving

I suppose there are degrees of shame. I'm always telling people not to beat themselves up. In the absence of the confessional I'm just gonna confess to all you guys out there, most of whom are Russian Mafia spamming me from websites with a .tk suffix. All you computeroids out there probably knew about these creatures years ago but they have only just come onto my radar. If you see postring, glowlan, massprofits on your traffic BEWARE! They constantly change their names so keep alert.


So here is my confession to you sweet readers and also the Russian Spamming Mafia. Last night I parked up my bus and came home. Somehow a large gin and tonic slipped accidentally into my hand. As I lifted it to my parched longing lips the phone rang. It was the bus company. There was a crisis and a mob of kids had not been picked up. Was it possible for me to dash back to the depot, collect a bus and save them? Enraged parents were foaming at the mouth with anger and only I was capable of confronting them. And then I lied. Oh Great Unisex Progenitor of the Busiverse, I told them I was not at home and could not get there within an hour. Even as the lies slithered from my throat, a life giving infusion of gin passed it on the way down to my deeper soul. Did I want to deal with rage filled parents? Um - no to be quite frank, I did not. Kids - I am so sorry. I have felt wretched all day.


Another reason for my deception was that I was going out. I was going to dine with some friends of Gilles and the food would be Romanian. Just the idea of Romania reverberates in the follicles of the romantic novelist. So, I prepared myself with interesting comments about Romanian culture. I had googled the work of Mihai Eminescu (headline photo) and read (in English) his passionate poem "Desire". I enquired as to what the hostess liked to read. And the answer was "Pride and Prejudice". That shut me up. I've never read it! We had a lovely meal of pork with the finest ever mashed potato which was as light as mousse. There was beetroot with caraway seeds and cheese filled pancakes.  Gilles has such wonderful friends who do big stuff in the world. Sometimes I wish I'd gone to school properly instead of wandering about wanting to write the poem that is out there somewhere in the Universe. At least I knew the smell of  river water on my hands and knew that I had stolen it from under the nose of Time before it faded into the hour, the lifetime and the deception of personality.


I've been hiding from Formula One and football. Oscar Sparrow called me to say that he had to put out his first ever blog in preparation for the launch of his collected poems. As a blogavirgin he needed inspiration. I told him, rather exasperatedly, to write about bloody racing cars going round and round and round. He said he would but was worried about the jargon. I tried a translation myself.


Emma thinx: Drag reduction system: keeping Queens out of Formula One.

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.

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 Ghost In The Machine

I'm beginning to lose the plot. Not only is it National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and National Author's day, but also it is the National-blog-everyday-for-a-month Fest (NaBloPoMo!). What I did not know until I went to ASDA was that it is also National Sausage Week here in the UK. Now come on guys, you've got to admit that all that literary stuff fades into the background compared to the English Sausage. I'm gonna be taking part in the slog the blog binge since I pump it out every day anyway. Seemingly sausage is now the number one meat choice in the UK. I do wonder if that is because it is relatively cheap. In recent years I have noted the sizzle of the gourmet sausage such as Venison and Tarragon endorsed by Igor Apronifico and similar culinary luminaries. I sometimes wonder how far this kind of kidology could go - maybe François Potagier's Pheasant and Camomile Chipolatas?  I reckon I know a few gourmo-snobs who would go for it. 

Now - if you look at the above pic you may well wonder what it is. Last night was of course Halloween (La Toussaint). Eventually I heard a noise outside and took a shot with my camera hoping to startle them with the flash. After they had retreated with their haul of sweets I checked out the photograph. Now - perhaps the flash didn't work or perhaps I was shaking with fear or perhaps......the Unthinkable.  It all looks a bit spooky to me. Could be a whole new genre.


The headline shot today was sent by a friend in France who knows I am temping as a school bus driver. I believe the photo is from Morocco. Now, I know I complain a bit about my lot in life but well, all things are relative. I'm just so pleased that the bosses of the bus company are unlikely to see this image. I bet you there's some bright shiny young thing with a modern tie and spiky gelled hair who's just dying to wow them at the next cost cutting brainstorm meeting.


I note that as a foreigner I can't win any of the NaBloPoMo Blogfest prizes. Well, I do not suppose I would be in the running but come on ....we gave the Fonz an MBE, or rather the Queen did. Next time I take tea with Her Majesty I may well raise the matter, although generally she raises this kind of issue with me first.


I've been walking quietly in the soft low sun as if I were still a poet. In the end my poem was one line, but so are we are we not?

Emma thinx: For each fallen leaf there is a branch with a memory.

Yes I can.

Now, today is a slight departure from my normal approach. Generally I just blog away to my readers on any subject that comes to hand. Most of the time I'm not sure if I'm a bus driver, a Romantic novelist or just a slightly dotty old Doris with a fantasy literary life. The fact is that for the moment I drive a bus and I have written Romantic short stories and a Romantic novel that is selling quite well. My home is in France but for a short while I am living and working in the UK. Today I am back in France and as I strolled through the beautiful streets of my little town this morning I was thinking about my project which is to do a blog for Julia Brandt's "Warm Fuzzies Blog Fest". The subject to be approached is that of "Do you tell people you are a writer and what are their responses?" Just as this thought was hurtling around the empty space of my mind I came across a snail climbing a very long hill. I took a photo and it is posted above. The Great spirit of Happenstance and Inspiration touched my shoulder and I saw at once the situation of the writer: that slow climb to who knows where, dragging that shell of isolation across the pitiless tarmac of everyday life. 


Yes, these days I do sometimes tell people I am a writer. However, I'm careful who I tell. I do not tell fellow bus drivers. Most would reply "Well, I'm glad to hear it cos you're pretty poor at driving a bus." It's true I did break a mirror doing a reverse park and since I'm a woman it will NEVER be forgotten. I do tell a few posh middle class people in England. The responses are usually polite but flippant..."Wow - that's so cool. I'm gonna do a really sooooper book myself soon. I hope you don't do that stuff all about billionaires and sex in Paris. That is just so sad yah! It's kinda like for people who need cheap escape and stuff and buy those awful supermarket books with hero torso on the cover yah." When you are a something like a bus driver, people like to keep you in a safe slot. My partner Gilles is kinda posh French and has a well paid corporate job. A bus driver who is a published poet and prize winning writer just jangles a bit so I usually don't say anything. Gilles enjoys the sport and usually blabs something. A few years ago I won the town Literary Festival prize. It was all very public but you know - no one ever said a thing to me. I was a bus driver - NOT a poet. If anyone ever read the poem, no one ever said.


Even more years back I was living in a fairly run down part of South London. My ex husband had been a truck driver and I did whatever temp work could fit in with bringing up kids. I entered a Christmas short story competition in a newspaper. My entry was  "Sub Prime" and was based on real events from my life.  If you are reading this blog you can get it free here (for every kind of e-reader device). There is also a link for the audiobook version.


A couple of weeks later, the judge - a nationally acclaimed poet and writer called me to say that she was so sorry that the paper could not publish it, but that it had won the prize. She went on to explain that the content was too gritty and could upset advertisers. All the same as a consolation they published a feature about me with a photo. I had entered the competition as Millie Webb. I hoped that no one would know it was me. A few days later a neighbour tersely remarked "Bit posh ain't ya - writin' stories." I told them it was all a bit of a joke. It was sad that no one was able to read the story because they would have seen that it was on the side of working class people. As it was they just thought I was getting above myself. I never ever ever  EVER told anyone I was a poet.


So that deals with the two social class poles in the UK. My lovely neighbours in France know I'm a writer because they tend to wander in and find me writing. France is a different society that views "artists" as normal. They do have slight social class/wealth issues but in any event I'm foreign and free. 


The other group is of course FAMILY. My own children are completely and utterly embarrassed by the whole thing. I would talk about it but I think they would run out of the room with hands over their ears screaming. I am a parent. They know I write about sex and lust and they just could not reconcile themselves to me knowing anything other than not mixing up the coloured and the whites in the washing machine. I think I would have been the same with respect to my own parents.


These days the writer is visible public property. In some ways I think that the taciturn snail is most likely to produce the best work. Most snails play the whole thing down and tell folk they're a slug with a carbuncle issue.


Emma thinx: Know where you got lost. Finding yourself starts there.

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.

Putting The Boot In.

Many moons ago while I was working in my kitchen, my daughter came to me sobbing and asked if she could raise a very serious issue. Oh no - this must be the pregnancy/drug addiction/solvent abuse/pedophile situation that we watch as entertainment on the soaps, but do not wish to confront with the suds. I dried my hands and took her to the lounge, selected some calming baroque music and told her that whatever it was, we were there for her, that I knew several state registered professional counsellors and that we would not be cross. I decided not to raise the possibility of groundings, thrashings or bread and water diets. At last she spoke.
"Mother - um - I think it's about time I had some Adidas trainers. I'm being blanked and excluded because I haven't got brand names on my clothes."
It was true. "But you're not being held up at knife-point by trainer pirates" 
"No," she conceded -"but I am called a retard and a dork. I'd rather be stabbed."
The truth was of course that she was being stabbed. Needless to say we pulled together as a family, called in some counsellors and had the child suitably billboarded and labelled. I knew that one day our innocent unbranded world would end. We had had a good run. She was nearly seven after all.


 My dear friend Oscar Sparrow wrote a poem about fashion and how it had mattered to him as a kid - long before he became a stuffaphobe Buddhist and renounced all possessions. Check out "Fashion Footwear" here. 


And so it is that I tip out my load of kids each day at the college as waves of fashion branded youths troop in. A few retards and dorks mingle in, but are clearly an underclass of non-populars. Fashion and status have become tyrants, and it is not only the young who suffer it. In my guise of a sportive cyclist more and more carbon fibre bandanna clad executive types swap "better than you" tales of Specialised and Trek. I have a Boardman from Halfords and jolly good value it is too!


This whole subject came to mind as Prime Minister Cameron launches a mission to restore childhood and to stop kids advertising to kids on TV. Pester power is truly an awful phenomenon. Most parents I know with even 3 year old kids are hounded by demands - some of which the three year olds pick up from advertising on their lap tops. I witnessed such a thing earlier this week and I was astonished. Would you let a three year old play on the internet? Come to think of it they would probably be a bit sophisticated for some forum sites.

Some things are just so hard to judge aren't they? The trial of Yulia Tymoshenko (ex-president of Ukraine) all looks a bit like a political shenanigans to me. (Good job Gordon Brown was'nt put on trial for losing £7billion on our UK gold!). I mean - she's a simple billionaire girl who mis-read her gas meter. Seven years in jail seems harsh. I just hope they have decent hairdressing salons.  I can tell her that Gilles is very much on her side and that if ever she comes back to politics he would definitely offer to stuff her envelopes. Why are there so many multi-billionaires? Which bus company are they driving for?


Emma thinx: Reveal your inner darkness. Let your roots grow out.

Whipping Girl

How far away my home in France seemed today. I saw a car wipe the mirror off a parked vehicle and just keep going. On the petrol forecourt at ASDA a road rager tried to punch in the side window of a terrified old guy accused of queue jumping. I think he was just a bit confused. He made off in terror. The raging bull was about 40, nicely dressed, driving a newly registered big BMW. I sent an early death with boils and suffering ray at him. He scowled back. I'm gonna do a voodoo doll of him later just in case I missed with the hate ray. What I'm trying to say is that it all seems so angry here. It's as if we are overcrowded rats. Of course you can't compare a rural environment with a crowded urban horror of traffic, concrete and suspicion.  Many years ago I wrote a poem when I was living in a run down environment. Check out "Angry Man In The Flats" here.


Suddenly the news is filled with whips. (No black leather or high heels guys). The body in charge of UK horse racing has declared that whipping (of horses) should be allowed but should be reduced. I was once at a horse race where a horse ridden by a well known jockey snapped a leg. The millionaire mega star aimed a tirade of abuse at the animal and stamped off to his helicopter. The horse was destroyed. 


Then came the news that a Saudi lady, Rima Al-Mukhtar is to be whipped for the offence of driving a car - a practice banned apparently not by God, but by guys with beards acting on his behalf.  Now as a lady bus driver I really do feel that we need to get a grip of this kinda stuff. Why do we stand for it? Why do we allow this barbarianism to go unchallenged? Do I hear the answers OIL and DEFENCE CONTRACTS?  In France there is much controversy about females wearing burquas. Several have been fined small amounts. President Sarko believes that it is about the liberty of women, although apparently some women want to look like daleks in bin liners. What I want to know is how you blow your nose when you've got a streaming cold, or if you sneeze? Does it just run down inside the fabric. Is there a special kind of cloth called Sneezelamé? What worries me is that there are religious guys who would like to impose this kinda show on all of us. I don't think so comrades!


The car is back! Looks like it was what Gilles told them. At least he'll be happy and righteous.


Emma thinx: Female lashes? Looks like the Ayes have it.

An Ode Here? Oh Dear.

Do you recall the issue of the over-size ancestral wardrobes? Briefly, a friend sold a house but left several huge items of furniture in the house. At the time the new purchaser was happy to use them. Now he wants to sell up and the wardrobes must be relocated. Since the previous sale, the owners have fitted smaller windows, blocked doorways and reduced the size of corridors. Now, these items are not clip together flat pack chipboard. They probably contain more oak than all the ships at the battle of Trafalgar. When I previously blogged about this issue I had been asked if I would become the new guardian until a future time when someone in the friend's family would have space to keep them and thus secure their continuance in genetic bondage to persons probably not yet born. Finally I had to admit that I really did not want them. It was one of those moments like when someone asks you if you like their poem/book. For a couple of weeks I avoided the issue but finally I have owned up. Suddenly I feel the weight of about 3 tons of oak lifted from my shoulders. The items still sit in the house in a kind of dark threatening sulk. Hopefully some relative will see sense and buy the house. It seems the most obvious solution to me.


All this brings me on to the matter of how you tell sweet kind well meaning people that you don't want what they want or that you don't like their poem.(I mean poems are quite hard to like. Most poets only like their own poems and they detest and despise all other poets). I once was a member of a poets group who used to meet and read out their latest meisterwerks. Now, of course I was brilliant and so were the others. However, there was one guy who was apparently a top academic. He also was poet in residence for a local football team. Every week his odes appeared in the programme. I'll give you a taste.
                      The wind was rough
                      Our boys were tough,
                      The pitch was full of holes.
                      Our heroes carried on and got
                      Loads and loads of goals.


Now, you guys probably think I'm having a bit of a laugh but I swear  that this was about the level of stuff. He used to assure me that this was just material for the masses and that his true talent was like a coiled secret orchid- too delicate to release among uncultured ruffians. I never felt that we gelled somehow.


So, having been utterly mocked and defeated as a poet I decided to become a business woman and run a poetry competition promoting my company.(This was pure nonsense but I think I got some kinda tax break on the prize money). I called it "The Prestigious Red Square Prize For Literature." By the way, if you are doing any kind of promo there is nothing to stop you using words like prestigious, world renowned, sought after and internationally acclaimed. I asked for poems of up to 20 lines. Most of what I received was appalling. Some contestants took a 40 line poem and combined 2 lines in one. But the best was a guy who wrote about a fairy feast saying:
" And all around were little pixies
   Eating up their soupy mixes"


Well, it's bloody hard to get a rhyme sometimes. Gilles and I had tremendous fun judging the entries and in amongst them all was a wonderful poem by a true poet called Maggie Huscroft. I went on to buy her book "Smoke and Mirrors". We never met but I have great respect for her work. As in all books of poems you end up with a few favourites. "NB - We Eat the Males" always gives me a smile.


Emma thinx: Poets corner? - Yes they can be house trained.