SAD light

It's a strange time of year. The clocks have changed, meaning lighter mornings but dark, dark afternoons, the most beautiful of the seasons, autumn, is giving way rapidly to the harsh cold of winter and to top it all off there's a bus replacement service between Merstham and Purley on my rail line to work.

Needless to say, I'm having trouble adapting to these developments. I've become acutely aware of the passing of time. I'm only 26!! Yet, whether it be the limbo I find myself in at work whilst awaiting the relocation of the library, or the constant reminders that after three years of marriage it might just be time to consider having a baby, I feel like there's a clock ticking away at the back of my mind.

Of course this is all nonsense. I'd love a little ginger fella or fellaress to be wondering around the house, bashing into things and causing sheer panic as he or she approaches the ironing board, and after all, work is just work, so in the words of Joe Strummer, "...shut your mouth and pretend you enjoy it..."

Perhaps I'm more of a control freak than I realised. It's flipping hard to let go of your destiny and just give it up to fate, chance, God, whatever. That cliched old line from Kipling's poem has just entered my mind, "If you can keep your head, yada, yada, yada".

Maybe next week I'll learn to let go a little more. At least by then the engineering works will have finished!!

Bross

Hooray for the Great British public!!! Once again those shining bastions of good taste and decency, the upholders of our moral and ethical standards, have come to rid us of all things unsavoury. In this case "sicko's", Messrs Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand.

They say sarcasm's the lowest form of wit, but in this case, a base form of expression is probably most apt to summise the ongoings of the past few days.

'Silly', 'puerile', 'insensitive'; all words I'd be happy to use to describe leaving prank answerphone messages for Andrew Sachs, but 'sick'? Ironically, both Ross and Brand owe their fame to the constant undermining of taboos. They are vocal, particularly in Brand's case, on their none too minor flaws.

Having heard, not read, the dialogue of the show, it's obvious that something has been lost in translation. Of course, what was said was cowardly, cruel even, but there was one vital thing missing - malice. It was akin to immature schoolboys up to mischief rather than a focused, pre-meditated attack.

Two complaints received after the airing of the show (not live might I add but pre-recorded) escalates to tens of thousands following belated coverage in the British tabloids.

Now we have the resignation of Brand, who lets face it can afford to drop his Radio 2 show with other considerable irons in the Hollywood fire, and the possibility that the excellent 'Friday Night with Jonathan Ross' may be no more.

Is the loss of these ground breaking shows, cultural melting pots no less, really a justifiable result of such an incident? Are apologies and a slap on the wrist simply not enough? Have I taken leave of my moral conscience in the defence of two of my favourite comics?

Barry Norman must be on tenterhooks!!

You Shall Be Born

"Sheer experience had already taught her that, in some circumstances, there was one thing better than to lead a good life, and that was to be saved from leading any life whatever. Like all who have been previsioned by suffering, she could, in the words of M. Sully-Prudhomme, hear a penal sentence in the fiat, `You shall be born....." - Tess of the D'urbervilles, Thomas Hardy

"You shall be born"
Echoes like a penal sentence.
The perfect circle of your eye
Warped with every tear you cry.

Arbus, Emin tear
The truths from the pretty canvas lent.
Forbidden fruit to propriety
This seedy scene of reality.

Marilyn scratch it out.
The celluloid sucked upon your soul.
Left nothing of the real you
Just an image too good to be true.

Sylvia cut down cold
Intelligence as a disease.
Conscience slave to perfection
An unforgiving companion.

Hardy rip through youth.
Your maidens doomed to their amour.
Trapped in precious, pallid skin.
Cursed to beckon unto men.

Caged flesh and mind an awkward pill
So paint on a vulgar pretence.
"You shall be born" yet still
Echoes like a penal sentence.

An Ungainly Sham

A gurning face hides a truth about me.
Can I persist in this pretence of reverie?
Laugh at the coarse but yet what hypocrits!
- Sex is just for all those hopeless misfits.
Just leave me indoors with familiar things,
Order of objects, sterile surroundings.
Don't unwrap the plastic, keep off the carpets
Or else I might die of emotional fits.
"Parkinson's calling" but I don't want to feel.
Yet that northern nit seems my only hope now.
I'll carry the weight, I'll carry the can;
I can't carry on with this ungainly sham.
I'll die as I lived, ashamed and alone.
- "Oh Kenneth you cad, that joke's too close to home."

Idol/Ideal

Cigarette smoke cooly caresses air
As steel sparks perform pirouettes.
Tannoy talk drifts through departure board dreams
As you sink into sepia moments.

Watch a man pace platform seventeen
The night train his escape from fear.
Those romantic hopes and far aspirations
To your heart are held so, so dear.

The carriage careers into the inky black
Into dark cinematic fantasy.
You watch the TV from your tear stained pillow
Next to plastered collages of fancy.

Idol/Ideal
He'll be your sweetened pill
An escape from the boredom/the bedroom.

Idol/Ideal
Flings himself on the rails
Knowing well, you will immortalise him.

I'd rather be anywhere else but here
Rather rock with the railway cradle.
I live for the celluloid, polished veneer
Of a fresh faced matinee idol.

Autothysis

The sun gives light,
But gaze into it's fire too long
And it will burn out your eyes

In God we trust,
But only you can know the truth
Of revolution over lies

Internal euthanasia
Our nature's hypocrisy
Everything has gone but for
The certainty of your goodness

Death brings despair,
But only in its wake
Will you accept this life

Boy loves his girl,
He'll never ask for more
Until she becomes his wife

Internal euthanasia
Nature's hypocrisy
Everything has gone but for
The certainty of your goodness

-------------------------------------
Only war can bring peace
Only ignorance a release.
-------------------------------------
Even God thought the Devil beautiful
Before he fell from Heaven to Hell.
-------------------------------------
Lennon, Luther, Mahatma Gandhi
Why must pacifists die violently?
--------------------------------------

No more games
No more bombs

No more games
No more bombs

No more games
No more bombs

No more games
No more bombs

Affluenza

Ikea riot
Bedlam and spite
In the name of all faux furnished chic.

Consumer delight
For the price of a night
Amid the detached and the weak.

Disposable cash
Makes slaves of the rash
Forsaking all sense of self knowledge.

Latest modern design
Keeps the masses in line.
Meanwhile Edmonton seeks a new solace.

But what to expect?
You and I can't neglect
Our chance at a heightened persona.

A need to pretend.
A DIY weekend.
Dreams come true for a few extra Krona.

Resolution

Sometimes my eyes are wide open
As if I can see every detail.
From the outline of the passing clouds
To a speck of dirt on my shoe.

I breathe and taste every bead of dew.
Hear pin drops in the prattling streets
As buildings cut into the crisp morning sky
Full of flocking birds and possibilities.

I must ignore all hostilities
Where conscience is fighting for a place.
Realise that there is no meaning grand or morose.
Shut out all voices of dissent once heard

And heed these words
"Alive. You are alive my friend."
There is a certain solace in the dawn
That make me cherish its sharpened view.

Just one single moment to cling to.

The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin

Reggie, Reggie
Ask, "does the world still feel for you?"
Your eyes flick from the crossword
To the window carriage view

Reggie, Reggie
Four across and twenty-seven down
Words used to come with ease
But now the clues furrow your brow

The fall and the rise
All the inward cries
Reggie, does the world still feel for you?

Reggie, Reggie
Yet again the five-past-eight is late
Delayed by leaves upon the line
Approaching New Cross Gate

Reggie, Reggie
Secretary waiting for the word
You love your wife yet
Still you fantasise of the absurd

The fall and the rise
The wandering eyes
Reggie, does the world still feel for you?

Sanctuary
On soothing, sandy shores
Your mind is set upon the surf
The end's the only cure

Sanctuary
The sombre waves still lure
Lifes'twinge within reminds you yet
You've too much to live for

Reggie, Reggie
Polished shoes pace upon frozen ground
Hear umbrella point tap
Such a secure, routine sound

The fall and the rise
The audible sighs
Reggie, Does the world still feel for you?

A Race Against Time

Terrify
Terrify

Clarke you called for the thought police
And so gave rise to a prejudice
The fingers point, and the English press
Cry "What democracy is this?"

Terrify - More race agression
Shut them out and lock the gates
Ridicule - Into concession
Opress, opress - Breed ingrained hate.

Ridicule
Ridicule

In Oakington the abusive scum
Will claim a Garnett/Minstrel fun
From "comic" to repatration
Is this your Global Solution (Ltd)

Opress
Opress

In Brixton, Burnley see the light
A third of rioters were white
Such helplessness ignites the fight
The eternal inner city plight

Terrify - More race agression
Shut them out and lock the gates
Ridicule - Into concession
Opress, opress - Breed ingrained hate.

Terrify
Ridicule
Opress

Bill us for our right to mind
Condemn before commited crime
Ministerial power, no judicial line
Means Orwell's vision in our time

Shun the BNP we all agree
skinhead thug, evil Nazi
Shun the BNP we all agree
Yet Kilroy-Silk's still on TV

"Blat"

Scrawl with biro upon the wood
That stands at graves where stone should stand
The enfant names of the Beslan dead
Form inky stains on splintered hands

Gross death of youth yet still no shock
Putin usurped by filthy whores
"Blat" to blame all you business men
Give new meaning to term "cold war".

Murder is still murder
Under any name
Murder is still murder
No excuse just shame

Sibneft Tsar in Abramovich
Russia ruled by its patronage
Oligarchs the super bourgois
Capital slicks slay sufferage

Read red graffitied underpass
"Mashkadov - our president, our choice"
$10m price put upon his head
Zachistika - supress their voice

Murder is still murder
Under any name
Murder is still murder
No excuse just shame

And in the rain, newspaper print
Runs fast as memory washed forgets
But siblings skin is stained for life
The curse is cast, the future sets

Chechynan rebels ignored now riled
Chechnyan rebels like any child