At 7am my mobile phone was ringing.It was the mother of one of the kids on my bus.
" I'm sorry dear....ee can't come today - I'm took bad an' I'm up the 'ospitall. I 'ad to send him round to my mate coz I can't leave 'im indoors like ee is."
She is an ageing mother now, in poor health. They cling to each other in a tiny fragile life boat. Yesterday a survey revealed that fewer and fewer UK citizens really cared about those poorer than themselves and blamed them for being lazy. That's OK then.
Emma thinx: Hiring now. Meek needed for major earthworks.
"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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
