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.

Handling Loose Balls

Me and my big mouth! Over a couple of drinks with a colleague of Gilles last night I mentioned my difficulty with the offside rule. Now- all of his life this guy had been waiting for an unsuspecting little butterfly to fall into the back of his goal net. He was on me like a spider sensing the death struggle of a gnat. Within seconds I was wound into a cocoon and injected with a paralysing sporty drug. Salt and pepper pots, a beer glass, several coasters and a wine cooler shunted up and down the table. I agreed with everything that was said but was suddenly confronted with a test to see if I had been listening. I had not been! I had got behind the pepper before the gin bottle was played.

So it was that instead of my Sunday morning romantic novelist's lie in with warm baguette, I found myself with a bunch of parent types at the edge of a windswept recreation ground. Gilles had agreed to bring me to watch his chum's boy play football and to finally split the infinitive and the atom of the offside rule. The ref looked like he had the right clothes but the guys who ran up and down the edges looked like passers-by who had been handed flags. It was these conscripts who were to judge the offside rule. Seemingly anyone you meet in the street who can hold a flag will know it.

The game kicked off and various stampedes of lads hurtled up and down. All of a sudden, a parent type shouted "Ref! That's gotta be offside - Lino, Lino- you must be blind!"

"Lino - that kitchen floor stuff?" I ask Gilles.

"Lino - it means the linesman," (That's the conscript guy with a flag).

The referee blows his whistle for play to continue. A parent of the opposing side calls out "well played lino! - that was never off!"

It then became apparent that the lino guys were from each team and their decisions were allegedly based on a biased interpretation of the rules. By the end of the game it was more or less agreed that all of the officials had obviously lost their sight with solitary handling of their balls. Why does anyone want to be a football official?

Torn shreds of clouds scampered across a pale sky as church bells peeled for morning service. The sound of a ball punted at the far end of the field reached my ears long after the action. This is a world of rules facts and beauties. We are nothing but poor interpreters and conscript linos.

Emma thinx: A granted freedom is merely a longer chain.

Making a Splash

Last weekend at the motorway services I saw an advertisement which said "You shoudn't have to plan your life around toilet stops". I must confess I don't know what product they were offering. I guess it was some kind of she-wee potty or maybe some medication. All the same, I think we've all known one another long enough to reveal some of the inner secrets of bus driving. You just cannot stop the bus and get off for a wee. The same problem applies to lorry drivers. My ex husband used to carry a 2 litre plastic milk bottle. If he hit traffic and he was trapped in the cab he would dangle his dingle into the neck and obtain relief. In cold weather with a failed heater, this can be a challenge even for the well developed male. If ever you pull into a lay-by you may see a few containers looking like they contain whisky or orange squash. They do not! Some very inconsiderate truckers just empty the full bottle out of the window whilst travelling at full speed. Do you still want that wind in your hair cabriolet? I hope you realise that in reading this you are being admitted to an inner cognoscenti of romantic novelists, truck and bus drivers. If you are on or driving around a public bus and you feel that the driver is pushing the boundaries of traffic etiquette please try to be aware that the poor soul at the wheel may be in a desperate plight.


The reality is that we are animals no different to say - cats. We have to go but we want to do it somewhere else, and certainly not in our own clothing. The agony of the long distance bus driver is known to many folk in different guises. My worst personal incident was when driving a coach into central London a few years ago. I had had lunch a little late and had had an extra cup of tea. On the A40 I hit terrible traffic. As we crawled towards the Marylebone Road I knew that I could not make it to any kind of refuge. Just as we were about to take the flyover I saw a park to my left. I pulled over, waved at my open-mouthed passengers and dived for the gates. LOCKED!!!! Pressure was unbearable. Then I saw some kind of yard with bins. I dived in and squatted between some huge galvanised stinking cylinders. After a desperate wrestle with trousers - release at last. Even if the Queen of bloody England (she hasn't got bits) had turned up I could not have stopped. Evidence of my crime flooded out into the street. I felt that sense of shame and relief that surrendering soldiers must feel. Then I bolted back to the bus. The passengers were coming up to London to see a show. I think they thought it was part of the entertainment. A couple of guys gave me a decent tip and a wink.


Emma thinx: The purest happiness is release from anguish.

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.

Turkish Bath

I am writing this between my 2 shifts. The morning session was calm-ish. The architect of yesterday's belligerence was brought out to the bus by his grandmother. 
"Why did he come home so upset?" She asks.
"He had a row with a girl about some beaver". I reply rather disingenuously.
"He's written her a lovely note to say sorry."
"Oh - that's wonderful.."
I hear a shriek behind me as the girl tears up the note. Probably a split infinitive or a misspelling I guess. Grandma and I exchange kinda female motherly "well what can you do?" expressions. 
I pull away and increase radio volume to max. Kelly Clarkson belts out "BECAUSE OF YOU" in an accusatory tone of voice. Yes that's quite right Kelly - it is always because of those others isn't it. I sing along. I .... I am an artist I tell myself.


I swing the bus into the college yard to do my homeward run.. A fluorescent clad tutor with clipboard approaches. " We'll get them all on and then bring out X (the aggro lad)." 
"His Gran asked me what had happened this morning." I say.
"Tell her to contact us. We deal with these things professionally. You shouldn't be speaking to people. He's on the spectrum."
"I speak to all kinds of people...I can't help it." I reply with an irritating antagonistic simplicity. The tutor knows she's taken a jab but can't quite figure it. To patronise or not to patronise? - That is the question. She is an educational professional. She can't help it. She gives me a hard look. I tweak an eyebrow and stare her out. I never did take to teachers you know.


A couple of days ago I did a mass shoppage in ASDA. I won't go on about how they have reduced the size of pack weights and kept the same prices. Anyone who thinks that price inflation is 5% either hasn't got weigh scales or a memory. Anyway, I wanted purity, cleanliness and British tradition. I bought 2 bars of Wrights coal tar soap,( I have never seen this in France). A whole childhood of coarse damp towels, icy bathrooms, stinging eyes and  tender flappy bits flashed through my mind. Coal Tar - a substance so brutal that germs commit suicide rather than do battle. I studied the wrapping. It is now "traditional soap". In very small print underneath are the words "with coal tar fragrance".
Surely not! Has this last link to virginity and purity been defiled? I study the label. In even smaller print are the words "Made in Turkey".  Everything is crumbling. Prime Minister Cameron wants me to pay off my credit card and celebrate a gay marriage in his Tory conference speech today. I just want to soap my bits in  an aroma of Empire and BRITISH industrial carbolic. I saw a sign outside the local pub. "Pint of Stella Artois and a Madras curry for £5." Thank you God. Some traditions stretching back to the Ancient Britons still survive.


Emma thinx: Diversity - a university for twins.

The Sultan Of Sullen.

All of the kids except one come out of college at 3.45pm. The final passenger finishes his class at 4.15pm and emerges at about 4.30pm.(Funding only runs to one bus for the whole city). He does not rush. He is a charmless youth whom I think of as the Sultan of Sullen. If such thoughts ever became known to the Authorities I think I'd be looking at a spell in jail. Whilst we all wait for him the kids do what they do best: ARGUE and FIGHT. I suppose I should care, but I really don't. A student runs from the bus in tears and returns with an harassed tutor who attempts to intervene in a matter of infantile infinity rooted in the affairs of a pop singer called Justin Beaver who one supports or does not support. After five minutes of counselling the teacher rolls his eyes at me and suggests that I seat various kids apart. I suggest firmly that I am a bus driver and that louts who cannot behave should walk to college. Eventually the Sultan of Sullen turns up and exclaims "F**k**g  shut up you c***ts" (Actually I couldn't have put it better myself).The tutor exits stage left pursued by a stare.


I direct the bus out into the traffic. Miles away there has been a crash and rather like stock markets, serial panic has set in. I inch my way across the city, dropping off my students. Suddenly a plaintiff call from a girl behind - "Emma - I need a toilet." Now, this kid has been on the bus for nearly 2 hours. To my left are some bushes on a kind of road island. I pull over. I don't ask but I hope it's just a pee. I get her off the bus and stand there as a kinda guard. After far too long she comes back looking grubby with a branch of holly in her hair and dead leaves sticking out of her clothing. I didn't ask - I did not want to know the answer. No one died. So far I'm not in jail. All in all a good day. Romance writing and middle class life in France (or anywhere) seem like a universe away. Well, actually they are. 


Nobel prizes today for the dark matter physicists. These are the guys who have shown that the rate of expansion of the universe is increasing. Apparently this leads to a theory of dark energy. Look - my dark roots used to grow at an increasing rate until grey energy started to take over  and slow everything down into decline. Believe me guys - everything will shrink back. Classical Physics remains unchallenged. 


Emma thinx: Would a dark matter neutrino out-accelerate its own non existence?

The Chow Mein Event.

The weather is warm and succulent like the juice of a pear on the lips in those last minutes before climax spills into decay. When I was a girl my mother used to describe all old men (and most other men)  pejoratively as "fruity". Essentially this meant unattractive men who still had desires. Now I write about attractive men who have desires. They are often quite unpleasant so I'm gonna think of them as "stoney". Well, today I feel fruity - I guess this is how all those ugly old guys felt. It is sad when a season ends, even if it is Winter. To me there is always that sense of time rushing on with a merciless finality that no pleading or longing will stop. It is also sad when a more transcendent season ends. The closure of the American Space Programme in a sense is the end of a human season. Recently I heard Neil Armstrong talking about the good old days on the moon. At the same time the Chinese are at full lift off to get cheap clothing and chow mein to the Martians. I've heard there are mono sodium glutamate deposits on Venus. I bet some clever guy has already bought them. But, come on yanks, the old space show gave us technology, pride, belief, heroism and focus. You can't just let the grey guys in suits serve out your bowl of gruel while you stand in line to pay penance for having created the modern world. Growth costs money. If we're all gonna be capitalists then we should know that when you're weak you cannot starve yourself back to health. Get that sovereign debt, poke it firmly into some bloated creditors and fire it at the moon. Let them set up a market and crash it there.It'll be a softer landing for all of us.


I was fascinated to hear that 2,000 people had applied for 16 refuse collectors jobs in the city. I know these are not high status posts but look at the alternatives. Call centre robot, burger flipper, exploited door to door chugger (Charity contribution mugger). I wonder what would happen if someone advertised a real job - like making something!


Today I've seen 2 snow ploughs being driven around. In each case the driver appeared to be under the supervision of an official in green vest, safety goggles, construction site helmet and a clipboard. This is the invariable modern uniform of a guy from the Council. A little research shows that they are having a programme of dry run training so that they are ready for the real thing. I guess they won't be rolling at 40 mph in a line of traffic and there might be some snow. I guess you have to get used to that council guy in the cab. But do they know something? 


Emma thinx: Genetic engineering - the final front ear.

Yoofs like Jagger

Another day survived with the bus. The number of pick ups and the available time do not add up. Well, they do add up to being late! One of the problems is sleepy headed boys who appear to live unsupervised lives in less than encouraging situations. Ho hum - it's a learning curve and certainly a re-acquaintance with the less advantaged element of society.


Of course the kids all want to listen to pop music radio at high power. They appear to be quite happy with endless commercials for new cars and people who buy old scrap cars. In just one advertising slot the whole of our economic system is exposed. For me the pop music has been a bit of a revelation. I know I'm getting old but to me it all sounds the same semi electronic auto tuned nonsense. Their favourite is called "Moves like Jagger". Does that refer to good old Brown sugar Mick? Surely not I thought. I asked the kids on the bus who Jagger was - nobody knew. I mean old Mick must be drawing his state pension by now- but a bit of You Tube research reveals him to be the inspiration. The guy singing sounds like a robot toy. I'm just gonna have to wise up and get some new stuff on my i pod. I do like Mr Saxobeat - check it out here! I think it's a bit sexy. As soon as I kick them all off the bus I dive back to Radio 4 and head for the depot with nice posh people telling me that we're all doomed. It's such a relief from all that cheerful stuff.


Talking of doom - check this out. The BBC interviewed a money changer in the temple last night. AND HE JUST SPILLED THE BEANS. In fact he spilled so many beans that I don't think all the bean counters are gonna be able to measure the effects of his candour. Watching him I really did not warm to him and I would like to know his agenda. He wants a crash because he needs one to make his big trades and scoop the gold from the Rhine maidens. If they give him an International TV stage to talk up a crash they are playing into his hands surely. He strikes me as one of those guys with eight brains, but not necessarily all connected.(Could he be a scam?) Make up your own minds.


Emma thinx: The wise are too intelligent to bother being clever.

Left Right Left Right.

In the office I mumbled a few "hellos" to other drivers. The guy behind the desk handed me some keys and a worksheet. "You've got the 21 seater on locals - it's door to door". I heard a comrade driver give a little ironic laugh. "Hope the little sods are ready!" I walked out to the vehicle which is a kind of stretched mini bus. I had given myself plenty of time to put all the data into Sat Naff. The first pick up was right across the other side of the city. I filled in the tachometer sheet and did the vehicle defect report. Right girl - you've gotta get on top of this. Forget all frilly romance novelist nonsense and do a good job. I had plenty of time. My first pick up was at 0715 and the traffic was still light. Sat Naff chattered away. I tuned the radio to BBC radio 4. Stock markets were crashing...wars were thrashing....sex offenders were flashing.....As Euro summit talks controlled the world, I controlled my bus through unfamiliar streets towards a large peripheral housing estate with a troubled reputation. With minutes to spare I pulled up at the base of a dilapidated tower block. Graffiti tagged concrete walls backdropped some fly tipped bin bags and old car tyres. I spoke to Sat Naff about the times we had had together. "Why did you bring me here?" he said. "You brought me here!" I replied. "I am a machine - you have free will". It's a good job he doesn't write novels.


No one appeared. A lady in pyjamas wandered past with a plastic bottle of milk. I got out, locked the bus and went to the intercom. It was out of service. I decided against trying to get in and going to the flat. I gave it a further 5 minutes and drove off. So far so good. The next half dozen went smoothly but I noticed that I was already late. My phone started to ring. I pulled over. "You've forgot one at the tower block". Said a rather harsh voice. "He didn't come out."
"He's got anger issues and couldn't find his tablets - can you go back for him?" Well, I was already late - and now I had a real excuse. I went back. A lad jumped in, punching his fist in to the palm of his other hand. I sat him in the front where I could see him. He plugged himself in to Lady Gaga.  We finished the round and headed for the college. Sat Naff was a wonderful friend, (well, he did want me to short cut through a pub car park but no one is perfect). Gradually I noticed that the kids were kinda laughing and shouting out a couple of words. GOSHE. DRAT. GOSHE. DRAT. They had cottoned on to Sat Naff who is still set on French! I laughed too. I think we're all gonna get along just très bien


Emma thinx: Sat Nav - where your sense of direction becomes the direction of your senses.

I'm a Prol, Fol Di Rol

I will admit to a certain tension in the stomach and sweaty palms as I swung the 52 seater coach through the barbed wire topped rusty gates and out onto the dual carriageway. These are big machines. In recent years I must confess that I have hung out with mainly middle class English folk, none of whom hold large vehicle licenses. I do not know anyone socially who can back up an articulated lorry with a 45 foot trailer (I believe that is a rig and semi-trailer for you guys out there). I'm not a tom-boy - it's just that I had the chance to get the licenses and improve my chances of work a few years ago. Now, I have some lovely middle class friends who are good people and far kinder and sweeter than I am. However, there is a huge gulf between social classes in the UK. AND THE MAIN DIFFERENCE IS MONEY. These days I swan off to the opera, serve foie gras at dinner parties, gabble in a couple of foreign languages, write (and parody) romance fiction and indulge my love of art at any exhibition I want to see. And it is all because there is enough money to give me the resources and time to do it. Left to myself as a bus driver I would be poor and exhausted. I would be buying the out of date stuff at the discount store and maybe dreaming of a take-out pizza as a treat. If you go to the opera or the ballet - take a look around and tell me there that we do not have social,cultural and income apartheid. 


Now, why is this? If I need a lawyer he/she will cost me about £200 per hour. By driving a bus I will get £5.93p an hour. You can argue that the lawyer had to do more training and is more intelligent. I can assure you that an incompetent lawyer will kill fewer people than an incompetent heavy goods vehicle driver. It is far from certain that a lot of the professional classes could handle heavy trucks and buses. The fact is that the controlling classes have skewed all of the systems to maximize their own take and to minimize wages for the working classes.The Trades Unions have lost both their power and, equally importantly, have lost their articulacy and leadership. Maybe this is the natural law of the Universe and that the poor will always be with us. And they will always have souls just like the rich.


So, I survived the check run and I start Monday morning. I know it is gonna be a bit of a challenge because I'm rather a soft old posh trollop these days. I've spotted a greasy spoon burger caravan on the industrial estate so perhaps I can take one home for Gilles as a special treat. I'm not sure where I'll be driving or in what vehicle. I'm gonna take Sat Naff as my friend. (I know it sounds daft but Sat Naff really seems like a friend when I feel a bit lost and alone.) 


We've got some dear friends for dinner tonight - hence all this moules and foie gras discussion. Now that I've got a horny handed job and can bang on about the struggle of the proletariat I'll have to shut up. There's nothing as tedious as the bloody righteous- particularly when  it's only essentially a posture.(I mean if I didn't go to work next week there wouldn't be debt collectors kicking the door).I wouldn't die on the barricades or go without proper harissa paste or a decent cut of lamb in my authentic tagine dish. 


 How far away my home seems now. I wonder if there are any late figs and if the neighbours are harvesting them and the apples. As I cycled back through the industrial estate, past the KFC into the swirl of traffic and the fumes of container trucks I had a quick flash back to my other life. A taxi driver gave me the finger for slowing him down in the bus lane. I quickly snapped out of my dream and gave him a gesture concerning his solitary sex life. I'm re-finding my roots.


Still no car. The garage thinks it might be a semi emotional or electrical problem. Gilles keeps telling everyone that it is the torque converter. They say they'll phone back. They don't. 


Emma thinx: Is wrongeous or lefteous the opposite of righteous? 

Where next for determinism?

A gorgeous Autumn day. I am looking out at verdant grass, sparkling with slightly amber dew as the low sun hauls itself above the trees. Oh yes- this is England. Now no church bells mark my hours and once again I will wear a watch. The noose of time tightens. At least I know the words for everything - well almost. I've just been phoning around to get some pâté de foie gras. Can you believe that there is none! Whist on the line to the deli I asked a young girl if they stocked moules. She went off to ask the manager and didn't come back.


Other than imminent economic implosion, the News is filled with uplifting English tales. Eight year old boys apparently put on a cage fight in a social club to entertain the crowd. I suppose I should be shocked - but I'm not. At least there were adults to supervise and I imagine that the parents actually knew where their children were that night. When my brood were adolescents I suggested to various toy companies that they produce inflatable street corners with spittoons so that kids could hang out safely in the warm at home. Since then inflatable friendships and hostilities have been developed by social media and most kids are too badly affected with rickets to go out.


On the subject of pugilism I hear that the boxers of Azerbaijan tried to buy gold medals at the 2012 London Olympics. If you wanna read about this kinda stuff in boxing get my novel "Knockout". It's all true. The book is damn near free at 99 cents or 86 pence on Amazon Kindle. There's SEX too, but I know you wouldn't read it just for that soppy stuff.


I'm not sure what to make of the discovery by Italian scientists of particles that travel faster than the speed of light. I've always known that if you are in a hurry, stockings ladder before you touch them. I've also found out that banks put charges on your  account before you perform any transactions. The philosophical implications for fiction writers are massive. Characters will  move ahead of the plot into a kind of uncharted mist without any causal structure. Come to think of it, I might have already written a couple of novels like this.


This afternoon I'm going to the bus depot to sort out my next career move. I've spotted quite a few lady bus drivers. Dear old Geoffrey will be there to ease me into the system. Once again I am to be a horny handed daughter of toil. Maybe I won't drone on about the shortage of foie gras just yet.


Emma thinx: Causality - the next great step for man.

Wheels within wheels

We awoke at 5am. At least there was Breakfast at Brittany's to look forward to. I try to avoid anything too healthy. I always go for the salmon, the boiled eggs and the ham. I knew that an ordeal lay ahead. The broken down car was sitting sullenly on the car deck. They had put us with the lorries, expecting to tow us off the ship. Gilles had other ideas. He suspected that once the gearbox fluid had cooled it would produce enough friction to get us moving at tick-over revs. If we could sneak out with the trucks and clear immigration we could break down in comfort. And so it was that we found ourselves without transmission about 500 metres (that's 546 British yards) on the safe side of the border. A security guy starts shouting and waving. We shrug in a kinda Gallo-Anglo manner. The guard approaches.
"Thirty years Sir - thirty years I've been in Security Madame - I've seen so much bad parking Sir- Dear me- so much anger....I didn't mean to shout Madame....but you have to.....so much anger Sir ....I just see so much of it. Just yesterday Madame, I was on routine patrol in the terminal building. Anger Sir- yes, a man assailed me. Frustration - that's what it is Madame. Frustration leading to anger Sir." The guy was an absolute gent and something of an English eccentric. We offered confusing hands to shake. Well - we are foreign.


We awaited the tow truck. The AA arrived. The car went to the Mercedes dealer. We unloaded all the gear and at about lunchtime arrived at my new home in a breakdown truck. I saw an old guy peer round the gate and then scurry away before he had to kiss and shake hands. Um - no, they don't do that do they. He probably went off to tell the neighbours that a load of pikeys (semi nomadic scrap metal dealers and asphalt contractors) were moving in and they drive around in a lorry.


Well, the house has green grass and an oak tree filled with gorgeous black crows. It's all quite posh really. I keep staring at the red clay bricks - I had forgotten bricks! The house is on a rental contract and Gilles will be taking the train to London. He indulged me by coming to the Test Valley so that I can see Rosina. The area looks like the sort of place where they have the Women's Institute and the Rotary club. To be honest I feel very out of place. I'm gonna make friends with the crows. At first sight there are 2 colonies in 2 separate trees. I have missed garden birds in Charentes.


Emma thinx: Who imagined that tree you're looking at?

Blue Collar Scholar.

Well, it had to happen. I'm on the way back to the UK at least until Christmas. Gilles has to work in London for a while. (That's where I grabbed him in the first place). There is also the very distinct possibility that I will be getting a job. It's about time! I had enough savings to keep myself propped up during the summer and more or less dedicated myself to writing....and maybe a bit of hedonistic pure idleness. Being able to write in tranquillity without all the jingle jangle has been wonderful. The fruits of these labours should surface over the next couple of months. In the mean time I hope to take the kind of job suited to a Romantic novelist, poet and philosopher. Yes, you've guessed it - I'm gonna be a bus driver. Well, not a really real one. My friend Geoffrey Phillips who did the narration on "Sub Prime" works for a school bus operator and there is vacancy for ME. You may wonder why I have a bus driver's license? Well, I'll leave that question hanging just to excite you. But all this proves exactly what I said yesterday. All those top jobs and inside information never come out to the masses. So, even a minimum wage, no contract, casual job gets sorted out under the radar because you know someone. I am a pluto-rat and a self seeker. I am ashamed. In the case of a bus driving job this is known as Depotism. 

But, I'm putting my shoulders back and breathing that pure air of the proletariat. The British climate is often horrid. I am anticipating cold wet darkness. I will be one of my own people, sharing their struggle, mashing my potatoes into their gravy, voting on X factor, building the barricades, frying my fish fingers, preparing Findus savoury pancakes. The serious issue here is that once again I will be able to comment on the national politics. In France I have always kept quiet because it is not my country and not my place to opine. I have loved my home in Charente Maritime and soon enough I will be back. Maybe the next book will be mega and I can once again think of writing full time. For now I just have a couple of issues on which to concentrate. Remember to drive on the left. Recover my proper accent! 


Emma thinx: One door closes. A trap door opens.

Buddy Can You Spare A Euro?

I don't know about you but I felt pretty wretched yesterday. Those awful events are printed on us like unfading tattoos. Gravity seemed pompous and levity seemed flippant and cold. Just to rejoice in life seemed selfish. I hope all Americans realise how deeply Europeans feel their sorrow. Here in France and I know from friends in the UK, yesterday was a very special sombre day. People spoke of little else and they did not speak much.


This morning the good old BBC re-started the world with the news that UK police had raided an illegal "travellers" caravan site and had  discovered "slaves".  What this means is that all manner of the ugly, the girls too unattractive for sex, the mentally handicapped, the addicted and the mentally ill etc. had been held captive by greedy gangmasters and used as slave labour without pay. Now, to polite middle class British Society this matter appears to be astonishing. These days I can posture as a polite lady offering  French cuisine tips, chatting about fruit jam, the entertainment at restaurants and chortling at my good fortune in life. You see -  I've got a bit of money (AND DON'T KID YOURSELVES - THAT IS WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT). It was not always thus. Once upon a time as a result of my own failings and lusts I ended up poor and somewhat dispossessed. I had to bear all manner of  trouble. Compared to the suffering of many people's lives it was nothing. I wrote a story titled "Sub Prime". From the dozens of short stories I have churned out this is the only one I try to promote. The rest are trash market dictated product to be quite frank. All I can say about this story is that it is true and that these things go on. It's free on Smashwords because I don't want any money from it. It would be free on Amazon but they do not seem to allow us Indie Authors to price at zero.  If the word "Gangmaster" is only something you've heard pronounced in a journalistic voice on the media then spend the entire sum of nothing and get an insight. I was lucky - I was a migrating bird touching down to re-fuel. There are many flightless birds.


Oh No - money takes the world to ground. Awful wailings and gnashings of imperfectly formed teeth in the French banking world. OK - you buy securities that aren't secure at higher than their value and ghastly gimlet eyed bean counters poke at your balloons. Look - we all know the direction this is heading. Let's hope that it doesn't end up with guys in uniform bellowing simplicities into hungry ears. Now, why would anyone think that could happen?


Emma thinx: Justice: One man one second to act. All men for ever to judge.

The Fizz that's the Bizz

Phew! I just read yesterday's blast from the saloon bar. So - today I'm gonna stick to some nice soft subjects like the things we do for our kids. On my twitter tree branch today I met a lady who makes the most beautiful jewellery (Keri Kalwaytis @GardenVibe ) . Seeing the pictures sent me back to when one of the kids had to take part in a "Young Enterprise scheme" at school. I believe that many such activities amount to going home and getting the wrinklies to sort it out. So, I (the team) came up with jewellery making. Several gawky adolescent boys with wavering voices and hair trigger embarrassment issues were set to work with delicate silver wire and mini pliers that seemed to get lost in hands the wrong size for their arms. In the end I (the team) took over production, supply chain and packing. It was a great team effort which was awarded with all manner of entrepreneurial back slapping and speeches from local business folk. I was proud. In fact I was so proud that it nearly wiped out my disappointment at being awarded a B for one of the essays I had helped to shape.


However, nothing has ever erased my shame surrounding my daughter's poetry class at school. Now, she hates poetry as do the kids of most poets. She also hated French. One day she came home in despair. Her world had ended. She had to write a poem. When I could no longer bear the torment of my child.....I wrote it myself. That day I had been standing on a bridge in reflective poet mode.(You kinda wander looking wistful and fay yet with a secret distant intelligence playing on your face like folks on arty TV shows. You have to keep an eye out for traffic. A lot of poets get squashed). Small craft in the Thames were at slack water limbo until the tide turned and their ropes once again took up the strain. I thought of the currents of our lives as we are pulled - often by forces unperceived and how maybe we could use this as a metaphor for the creak and stretch of our souls as we cope in the stream of time. I scribbled out the poem and she copied it - declaring that it was my normal purple "I'm an artist" gush. Well, I was publishing a fair bit in those days, but she had a critical point I thought. I heard no more of it until it was parents' night. I was met at the hall entrance by an excited young teacher who took me to a notice board to show me......yes you've guessed it - my poem. She declared that the child (she was about 12), had a special talent and asked if anyone in the family was "an artist". I put on the commonest of accents and threw in a few grammar errors to show that none of that posh stuff was for me like. I even asked if it could get in one of them apology books where there was loads of different poems. The rest of that year was a torment for the poor child. She was hailed as a poet and lost all of her cred with the Bermondsey Gangsta Girls. I fought back with a few rap rhyme lines that she trotted out and kinda made it back in. The teacher left and I promised never to intervene again.


But, I did. My biggest shame was the Sherbet fountain slogan competition. One of the kids had left a wrapper and I read that you could make up a jingle and win a BMX bike. Now, none of the kids really liked sherbet but I used to buy them out of nostalgia and my love of liquorice. Well, I made up the jingle and sent it off with the wrapper. My line was "It's the liquorice lick with the fizz that's the bizz".  Now - come on - not bad eh? All your Wordsworths and poet laureates - eat your hearts out. Several months later a huge box of sherbet arrived when I was awarded some kinda prize. But who the bloody hell won???? Must have been some big name poet with a publishing contract. I refuse to accept that it was a 10 year old who just wanted a bike.


Emma thinx: Honesty is the best policy-if you can afford the premiums.

Baloney and trap

So - why don't I do some kinda shock jock analysis of everything that needs sorting out in the world? Well, fortunately I don't need to because I heard on the UK news that all of the trouble during the recent loot-fest was caused by "The Feral Underclass." Both the Minister of Justice and the Mayor of London have identified this group as the baddies. Dear oh dear - perhaps industry can get itself out of recession by manufacturing millions of traps baited with fashion trainers and iPods. The Mayor of St Savinien has a similar scheme to get rid of feral cats but without the iPods. But - there is a serious issue here and that sent me in search of statistics. Since I live in France I get to see the UK from afar and since I'm English I get to see France from some kinda tangent. If there's one thing to get me craving some nice anecdotal evidence, it is the pursuit of statistical answers. The distribution of Wealth in France is less equal than in the UK according to the Financial Times. (The top 10% own 61% of the wealth as opposed to 56% in the UK). These figures are a little old but they show that there is no huge difference. Youth unemployment rates are higher in France than in the UK i.e. 20% against 23.4% (First quarter of 2011).


Now, there are innumerable papers and studies and if you really wanna learn up, I recommend Eurostat Home. So - where does that get a scholastically challenged middle aged romance writer? Simple - it gets me talking to the taxi lady, the mechanic who towed my car and the truck driver who delivered our building materials. All of these guys presented themselves as absolute gentlepersons who could just as well have been schoolteachers or lawyers. In a nutshell they were "educated". The minimum wage in France is 1,365 Euros per month.($1918) and £1,085 ($1734) in the UK. Prices are higher in France so effectively there is little difference. We have class issues here in France too. So far no one has turned feral, although a few rugby players look a bit wild.


So, when I hear senior UK leaders describing tranches of the population as a "feral underclass" I really do wonder where we go from here.(Well, it has me staying in France!). We need to include everyone in the aims of our world, we need to define the nature of our societies, we need to think about the system of parallel communities that has grown up around the multi cultural experiment. And we need love enforcement. These days I kinda re-live the spirit of my childhood. All adults are looking out for all kids. The Jesuit quotation "Give me the child till it is seven and I will show you the man" has a lot of clout here. Now, I spent a good part of my life in those south London streets among the feral kids. I'll tell you something about kids. THEY ARE KIDS and we're all terrified of them very largely because an educated elite class has "expertised" the things we knew as wisdom and told us we were stupid, brutal and old fashioned. Their liberal dictatorship ordered us stand aside while they sorted out society. The intellectual overclass CRIMINALISED THE PRACTICE OF WISDOM. If you need a class enemy - that is where you start. The traps will catch the ferals.


Wow! I'm really becoming a right old cow. 


Emma thinx: Wisdom - truth in unbranded trainers.

Internationale cuisine

Curry - that most British of foods and possibly the most non French. A few days ago I decided to have a curry bash and invite a few folks. All morning I have been mixing and matching Balti, Madras and Korma sauces. I've drained the dahl, browned the boeuf and chopped the chicken. Nothing can go wrong! As I wait for the event to start I try not to think about those very few occasions when dinners and soirées have - well - needed on the hoof adjustments. I think the worst food was when I had decided to serve whitebait as a starter for the first time. I dumped a big wedge in a hot wok and dug them out as a kind of mashed fish block. I just told the guests it was high fibre pate with eyes. 


But probably one of the worst dinner parties I ever held was when I was a member of the Socialist Workers Party. Comrades were always ravenous and survived on dry crusts and revolution jam. What they didn't know was that I had only joined because I just wanted to be a member of SOMETHING. A guy came round selling his revolutionary newspaper and told me I was a down trodden daughter of toil. I was young with kids, debts and a bum job so it rang a bell. When the comrades found out I had a gas stove and a saucepan I kinda became a culinary apparatchik, but with the emphasis on the chick. If these guys had overthrown the government and seized power, a citizens' committee would have appointed ME as ministress of cuisine (except that would have been both sexist and bourgeois). So, the comrades came for dinner. Talk was intellectual and inflamed with hatred of the Trots, Communists and the league of General Purpose Reds. WE were the only pure Socialists. I was really pleased that I had joined up with the right stuff because I wasn't sure if I was a communist or not and I could just have easily fallen in with them. As dinner ended, the bearded head comrade stood and indicated that we should all stand and sing a song called "The Internationale". Well, I guess all you guys out there know the words (check it out here). The comrades clenched fists and sang through what  seemed like an hour of revolutionary fervour, all the while glaring at me and I tried to mime, hum and control nervous giggles. By this time my horny handed husband of toil was on the phone to the Maggie Thatcher to see if they could send in the Army. (That poor man - he just had to take so much of my nonsenses and fads). I think I was the first person they had met who didn't know the words. Now - If they'd gone for Abba I'd have sung "Fernando". 


And whilst the echoes of the Internationale still resonate in my memory, I watched a small section of the Tour of Spain cycle race yesterday. In the commercial break they ran ads for Pay Day loans and ambulance chasing lawyers. To me it just kinda painted a picture of what's going on and how we are.


Curry time approaches. At least I know how to sing "La Marseillaise".


Emma thinx: Revolution - 360 degrees of Elites.

Carry on up your organ

Very few words are worked as hard as "organ". As I was saying yesterday I was at Saintes. Shortly before my car self terminated (French reflexive verbs are so expressive - we need more in English), I heard the organ playing in the cathedral and had to pop in. I know very little about music and so to me it is a form of magic. The organist was having a right old bash and was creating some arabesque sounds that I had never heard before. I lit my candle to Saint Universe of Beautiful Buildings and carried on feeling in a bit of a spiritual belly dancing mood. It lasted until I came to a halt in a road by the river. Before phoning the dépannage I asked a senior gent what the road was called "It is the road by the river - everyone knows this. But anyway - it will be your battery - oh yes it is always that - I have had awful problems avec myself." I thanked him and waited for the tow truck in the road by the river. Luckily the driver was a member of the "everyone" tribe who knew where I was. The everyone tribe is pretty big in France and they know most things. 


A little later the word organ resurfaced. I told an acquaintance that I had taken to going to a farm shop for my veg'. "You have to be sure that no chemicals are used - otherwise it is no different and it won't be organic." She assured me. Well, it tastes delicious and is much cheaper than the supermarkets. The term organic has always been too difficult to me - but generally I find a fair bit of grit inside the lettuce. At least you know it's been grown in dirt and there must be some carbon in there somewhere. 


And of course, there are the organs that concern Romantic novelists. Really I think that there should be a special Organ Thesaurus for we scribblers. We all cast about for some new and perfect way to describe the ACT. I've read and written enough cores and manhoods to create a novel set in a monastery apple orchard. The very word organ arouses the British sense of "Carry On" film double entendre like little else. For this reason no one has ever written a Romance where one of the stars has an organ in their front room or even a chest of drawers. Carry on!


I picked up some good words today. The French call computers "Ordinateurs". They now shorten this to "Ordi". Well, that's what I'm gonna call this little machine from now on. They also have an expression for a particular kinda guy. The term is "un chaud lapin"- that is to say a hot rabbit. I see that the charges against DSK were dropped in New York. Ah well, back to the burrow. 


Emma thinx: Stuff means trouble.More stuff means more trouble.

Staying on track.

Some folk just seem to skim coolly above most of us don't they? They float noiselessly between their past and their future triumphs. As they pass they give a regal nod at us mudlarks scrambling for pennies and scrabbling to pick up the shopping that has just fallen on the supermarket floor when our eternal shopping bag handle fell short of eternity. (Is this whole everlasting carrier bag lark just a way to get folk back to the idea of FAITH. Some of these churchy guys are pretty sharp at psychology). Anyway - back to the mud. Last night I went to a piano recital at one of my neighbour's château. YES - that's right - OK -  My neighbour has a château and I went to a recital. Now - In France I am foreign, therefore I am neither posh-oui nor posh-non. In England I could go to such an event but I would have to keep me gob shut cos one squeak of the old Sahff Lundin vowels would have me sent to the kitchens to put me uniform on. However, sometimes you come across a cool dude who just has to be admired. The recital was given by the superb Alice Rosset. She is a native of Charente Maritime and the region is rightly proud of her. She played Bach, Bartok, Rachmaninoff and Brahms. She was fantastic. I had not heard much Bartok before - I think it's for very sophisticated folk who put their clothes on back to front and walk backwards in order to understand the shadows cast by the future on the fleeting present of appearance and expectation. SEE - I could be ARTY. Anyway - there she is playing this beautiful music and the 2140 hours to Bordeaux rattles past. Was she fazed? Non! She just played on. The girl's a trouper and she walked on the stone driveway of the château with no shoes. If her everlasting carrier bag broke she'd just lift the shopping off the floor with a twitch of her eyebrow. Bravo!!


Now, the above ramble reminds me of some advice I received in bed from a very cynical guy. He told me that you could never beat the English class system - but you could merely side step it. You can never quite get the vowels and arrogance of the posh Anglo. So - be foreign. At first I thought he was joking but this guy used to take me to receptions and the like at places like embassies and the Foreign and Come on it's all my wealth Office. There was no way I could pull off the My Fair Lady Act, so I went accent-uh-sexi-rissima. I don't know what they thought - but no one asked me what school I'd been to or if I had been at the races when The Right Honourable Foreskin - Smythe had won the golden fleece.


Hair dryer humid wind here today. It's a greenhouse of bursting juice. If you fell dead to the soil here you would decay in seconds among the worms and eat-you-pedes of NATURE. Life is sweet juice. The market will close with strangers hosing away to gutters whatever is left of what you nearly became....


Emma thinx: Drink deep the juice. In the hour glass is sand.

Reverse Parking

Sitting here in the late afternoon with the temperature at 28 degrees, it seems almost inconceivable that the Municipal Gardens in Bournemouth UK were nearly washed away yesterday. I know I'm supposed to be writing about Charente Maritime, France and writing novels but if there is one thing that can raise any UK nostalgia from me it is Bournemouth. To me, it is a magical place of sepia sadness and lollipop longing - a childhood of sandcastles lost, trodden and overwhelmed - of proud flags on sticks defiant as the holiday ended and the dark satanic life of subservience called you back in to be counted and controlled. (Ooh- I was a terrible pupil. Those guys were stealing my free life and replacing it with punishment.)  I used to live quite near Bournemouth and all my life I've gone back there, both with family and alone - several times to write poems in the course of loves and desires gone wrong, gone good or not going at all.  I turned on the late BBC South News on my planet Murdoch satellite and saw a fabulously Municipal spokesman telling folk that the show would go on. Of course it will! I know I put up a poem yesterday but here is another one about Bournemouth Park. Check it out here.


From out of a blue sky this morning at about 8 o' clock a tremendous smack and shatter of thunder stunned the whole town. There followed monsoon style rain which lasted for about 2 minutes. My eco water butts filled and all day I've had a kinda full water not got dem empty butt blues feeling. Think I'd like to write a song one day. 


One of the things to get used to here in France is the difference  between cuts of meat. This evening I'm serving coeur de basse cote de boeuf. Now to be honest, I had no idea what this meant in English. It looks like rump steak and the price per kilo would be  that kinda  bracket in the UK. I'm gonna cook up some onions and grill it for a couple of minutes. I had a quick peak on the internet and I could not see a kinda multilingual cut of meat chart. If anyone knows different please let me know.(Might be a big enough pull to get some google gold). 


Gilles and I had a spin on the tandem. Dear Lord - we found a new hill near Les Nouillers. Dear Lord I'm getting old. I could hear his breathing was more or less normal. Sometimes the line between love and hate is very faint. Who said faint?


Emma thinx: Dribbling rivalry - oldies still wanna win.