Month: February 2005

  • Nothing special today… Been writing poems and prose, so the truth doesn’t get much of a look in!


    Notes from Lord Pineapple.

    LordPineapple =Now. Tiffy Witherington Spotlight.


    Monday: Story by Sophie Lucy Morgan, aged ten.


    The Three_Headed_Sarahs are away. Their sons just put a blog up, but the Sarahs’ won’t be back yet.


    __________


    First snow of the season this week, not much snow here, but the north of England has been hit badly with sport fixures canceled and some terrible deaths.



    ___________



    Could go out somewhere this weekend, weather permitting, but not sure I have the stamina in me, anyway, I have so much shopping to do it’s unbelievable. But where to go? Bleinheim Palace? It all sounds so naff when there is a world beyond my reach and a passport full of dust.



    _____________



    About fifty years ago I set myself a list of things to do. I was always writing and collecting lists. The internet alone stopped a lot of my lists like Surnames ending with such “Suffolks” (as I call them) as “-by”, “-field” and so on. I put Some of them on the internet even. At http://3sarahs.homestead.com/surnames.html though a lot of the pages are now missing. Common names of proper stars, horses names, names of roses… Of course the internet have all of these, I have even printed off pages, but it’s not the same.

    Anyway, I made a list of 100 things I wanted to do with my life. A lot of the on this list now seem fanciful, the rag-to riches ones, the dying-famous ones. But one thing on the list was visiting America. Will that happen? I have been invited, though heard little since, but I won’t harp on this, for doubts about me not  going is not down to lack of trust in the inviters, but the fact that things on that list no longer come true. Since 1996, not one thing on that list has come true, however mundane, and it’s hard to believe for me that any will.



    _________

    Other hobbies I had were all childish in a way, and my interest in them vanished after my stroke, which was also the time my kids became to be teenagers and older. Origami is the big one. My son Darren now has my books and he’s the master now, making them for his betroved’s little boy from a failed marriage plus his nieces and nephews. Word-games also, I made up tons of Tom-Swifties and laddergrams, and even added to some internet sites since. Limericks and clerihews too.



    _________

    I See People who I am visiting are not visiting back, despite their updating their blogs. The list contains some people I thought were my friends, so to you all from New Zealand to Kent to Iowa…Sorry if I offened you, not that you’ll read this!



    ____________

    Only bits and pieces today. I have not got this blog of truth worked out yet, so it’s still very self-centured and conceited, but I’ll try in time to be less introverted.

    Meanwhile my LORD PINEAPPLE Blog is up with a spotlight on Tiffy Witherington, and on Monday there will be a story by Sophie Lucy Morgan.



    I am beginning to realise that I am not all that good at this. There must be out there a page or two on “How to write successful blogs” But if I did that I’ll be inviting you all by subscription only, say 200 dollars per year. That’ll cut the reading of it down to zero!



    ____________

    Been looking at Google, when I started out as Lord Pineapple, there was only me, now he’s the name of a fruit shop in South America and the name of someone in an on-line game, and characters in two different other on-line games!



    ———

    Terry. The Clown From Clowne.



    _______________

    P.S.

     


    To Becca: ( LittleEgypt  )


    I have named one of my plastic daffodils
    After you.

    That might seem an insult
    But it is not.

    For the daffodils are the last things I see
    At night,

    And the first things I see
    In the morning.

    So you will be there
    Next to me

    All night long.


    Terry, Lord Pineapple.

  • Clown From Clowne.



    Some of the eccentrics I have worked with. Part one.



    I worked with some amazing people on the newspaper. Here are a few.



    William, the compositor.



    William was a retiree who was one of the first British soldiers to discover the horrors of a concertration camp. He said that that experience had deranged him a little, and though he was a good husband and father, it was true, he was slighty deranged.



    William was a keen gardener, but about the only thing he ever grew was what he called “cowcumbers”. Each of us on the paper must have had a fridge load of rotting cucumbers, and on location our loved ones always gave us cucumber sandwiches in a desperate bid to use them up. I used to give the cucumbers to old ladies, one of whom told me where to stick it.



    William was great at half-told stories, for example, he’d ramble on about something, stop and tried to think who had told him the story, by the time he had worked that one out, he had forgotten the story or finished the wrong story. “Another few minutes off my life!” I sighed to him once.



    The last I heard, William was still going strong at the age of ninety and his local shop stocked all fruit and veg bar cucumbers as there was a glut of them in his village.



    —

    Winnie, the cleaner.



    Winnie was a female cleaner who was scruffy, rude and awkward, even her union refused to acknowledge her. Her retarded daughter walked into the offices from time to time to eat and drink our meals and raid our fridge. We tolerated Winnie for a couple of months until another daughter arrived with her five year old daughter.



    Winnie and her daughter soon fell out, after rowing over money, and the women started fist-fighting each other. The poor child had hysterics.



    Of course Winnie got the sack then, but we often saw her in Chesterfield calling one or other of her grand-daughters a little cow, a little bitch and even a little c… Loving grandmother she was not.



    —

    Gordon, the picture editor.



    Gordon was also a retiree, though he retired at 53. He was a former GP, who actually was still a qualified doctor. Gordon had a nervous breakdown when he diagnosed his nephew as having a cold three days before the boy died of meningitis.



    A good photographer and cartoonist, Gordon was a pain in the neck at times, he had a dread, a phobia of medicine. And woe to anyone who titled him “doctor”, he would not find pictures for anything medical, nor anything to do with hospitals. Gordon was always in the editor’s office being threatened with dismissal, but of course we all felt a little sorry for him, a bachelor, he seemed to have no interest in either sex, and lived in a flat that was like a pig-sty.



    —

    More another time, but there is one eccentric reporter I won’t cover, he also wrote the children’s page, was the religious expert (though an athiest) and was the science “spokesman” (having a first in physics.) He also took on other jobs, all these under assumed names so as to keep the NUJ happy For example the gardening columnist never got his copy in on time and was always demanding more money. William took it over but all he ever seemed to write about was cowcumbers. So in came to pass that the reporter-donkey ended up the gardening expert too.



    I wondered what happened to Terence?



    —

    Terry Cuthbert.



    __________________

    My user name Bob Smartass started off as a pee-take on

    an awful poet called Terry Smart. At communal poetry

    readings he used to read a children’s comic (and laugh

    out loud) whilst other people were reading, then read

    his stuff (the only lines of his I remember were two I

    stole “He made love to his girl/Till the cows came

    home”.)



    As soon as he read his stuff he went (so we put him on

    first, and all turned up five minutes late!) I soon

    started to make fun of his crap poetry which was all

    about sex and contained a lot of f and c type words,

    the trouble was I could not write true crap and my Bob

    Smartass poems were entertaining, one night he had

    left his comic behind, returned, and heard me recite and

    realising I was taking the pee out of him walked on

    stage and thumped me on the nose!



    Later “Bob Smartass” became successful on the punk circuit and I mixed with some famous punk rockers!



    ___________

    The Metro thingie is a waste of time, everyone I contact that lives near me either do not reply or give a kurt sarcastic reply, even the fellow poets. Oxford Xanga writers NEVER reply though I try to be as nice as possible, for example for the under 18′s stressing my age so they don’t fear me a preditor. Even the Oxford University students never reply to me!



    ____________



    One final thing. Ben asked about pubs with funny names. I grew up in Clowne opposite a pub (now sadly long gone) called the “Pig & Whistle”. It had three bars, “The Pig” “The Whistle” and “The Ampersand”. The landlord had two alsations (german shepherds) and at closing time used to cry “get the dogs out” (the modern pop song reminded me of him!) The two alsations used to snarl and froth at the mouth and people ran out of the pub. In the afternoons my sister and I used to play ball with the dogs, they would not hurt us, but they turned flipping nasty if anyone else (including our parents) got too near them!



    Another Derbyshire pub (still open) is “The Quiet Woman” in Rev Toby’s neck of the woods. The swinging post deplicts a woman with no head!

     

    Terry.

     

    ___________

    As I am not sure when I’ll have time updating my Lord Pineapple site, here is a poem to go on with.

     

    At the funeral of a child.

    _____________________



    Another soul has passed away

    On a cold and forgetful day.



    And all that’s left with the loss

    Is another windswept cross.



    And he who was a child at play

    Will not see in another day.



    For God alone will atone

    He who was once flesh and bone.



    —



    Jacques du Lumière

     


    ________________



    hahahahaha. Keep up the brilliant replies! I’ll get to visit you all after I’ve wrote the next “Clowne from Clown” blog-entry. It contains an angel and a message, don’t let my “weird mind” go to waste, use it for my own type of writing, write how I have ALWAYS thought, with asides and dispassages. They loved me on the paper, I only kept the job because (a) I was a charmer, with old people and old women including the bosses Jewish mother who escaped the holocaust with her children by knocking out the soldier leading them to the train to death.


    Oh, and (b) I could write like anyone from Shakespeare to the bosses Mother! The Boss feared if I left, the boss’s mother and myself will get their revenge on the boss who hated his bullying mother with a fear that sent him into being a nervous wreck!


    Who says this world is boring? Now of course eccentricness is going from us Brits, and so is the fun out of life. I knew a man who collected pictures of man-hole covers, so I copied him, couldn’t help it, I was a mimic of lousy ideas! Bet I have as many pictures of man-hole covers (metal designs some quite beautiful, others with names of long lost iron firms and builders yards) as that other dotty man.


    Better shut up! See yer!





  • Thursday: NEW poems on LordPineapple ‘s site

     

    “Shotover Woods”



    On the edge of Shotover Woods on what was once the main road into Oxford, a dirt path full of water and mud.



    On Summer saturdays children dodge 4×4′s and dogs eat people’s picnics, but today,  the 12th of February, the place is quiet.



    Down into the trees to see the wind creak their old dry bones, for it’s a strong wind today, the sort to send apples into worm’s mouths. This reminds me of West Wales except there is no beach near this muddy lane.



    There is a sand pit for the kids, though not much else for them except hide and seek and nature lessons, yet kids love Shotover.



    Alone, I just keep to the old road, the magic of beach and sand pits at present a thing of my past.



    In the spiky brambles and bracken copses, I can get lost in my heart as clouds dance in the blue skies. The trees are bare and showing old blackened bird-nests. There are very few flowers about, and up here, none. I bet Iffley woods is already celedined and cotsfooted.



    But it is not what I perceive that matters, it’s how I write, write to stop this from being boring, for it’s only about a walk along an old dirt track through an ancient wood.



    A man on a race-horse.



    I stopped writing when people walked past, not that I’ve ever been self-conscieness about writing in public. I’ve known writers who would rather forget their next mastepiece than get out their note-book on a crowded bus or woodland walk. Not I, no wonder I am considered an eccentric!



    Plenty of wild bitds to make up for the lack of flora as I carry on jumping over the mud pools. Did write “rock pools” for I love rock-pools, the bladder-wrack and the jellyfish and the crabs and the little water-insects. Sadly, I need a child with me to look at them unless I act the mad professor and call things by mock latin names like “wow a threesarah clepities!”



    Walking down into Wheatley village for a drink and a bus home. A lot of cars now, so I’ll escape into the woods for a while, to see the holly-bushes and the moss on stones and the broken tree branches. The first shoots of harebells! The beauty is spoilt by a moron with an air rifle. Suppose one gets a lot of that in Texas, “Hey guys I just shot a bigfoot!”



    I can barely hear the traffic in the wind. There is something romantic about trees though god knows what!



    Once again my childhood memories return via Matlock Moor and Cresswell Crags. Climbing tress with Ian Payne, chucking water-bombs at each other. Once Ian missed me and it landed on a man who actually got out a horse whip for us, Ian and I stayed up that tree for a hour before the fool gave up.



    When I was a child there was a lot of hitting of kids. The only “no-no” was the hitting of a girl by a man, so I used to hide behind my sister who was in fact a lot worse than me. She used to say “touch me and I’m telling my dad, he’s a copper!”



    What has that to do with this wood? Nothing. So it’s time to regain the road into the village. Off of the plateau, flowers like snowdrops crocuses and daisies start to appear. A seat! By a post box. I always remember the post box right outside our house in Boughton Cottage, Clowne. I used to put my sweet-papers in it, not through naughtiness but because I was told never to throw them onto the ground.



    Had stopped writing, a pretty girl walked by, no more than twenty. Of course they no longer look at me, but I still look at them, trying not to show my hunger or appear sexist or frightening.



    A house called “Two Hoots” I love house names and as a child collected them. Names then were more important to me than people.



    Went into “The Sun” PH for a pint of Hookies. The toilet-doors have pictures of a ram for the men and an ewe for the women. When I was there, the bar lady just stopped a small girl from going into the wrong toilet. It IS a little confusing, esp for someone with bad eyesight like me!



    —

    That’s all for now. Don’t let the bed-bugs bite.

    Terry.



    —–

    Terry Cuthbert.

    ——–

    P.s. It’s nine years now since I received a valentine’s card, and you say I must not call myself a loser.

     

    After my unsuccessful attempt to close this site down I am going to spend more time on it, and I have already wrote the next blog, prob to appear on Saturday, it is about some of the eccentric people that worked on our provincial weekly newspaper.

     

    Terry.

     

    ————–

     

    Plays on Three_Headed_Sarahs site
     

  • Update: Monday Night. About a walk in the woods!

    ——————–

     

    The people on Xanga who want me to believe in a god mean well, but I do not fear death. Because I consider myself mortal does not mean that death frightens me. Too many people far more worthy than I have died younger than I am now, in many cases over 45 years younger.



    I do not see religious people as sad or misguided, true athiests like myself do not sneer at those who seek out other truths, we just carry on our lives not caring all that much.



    I do believe in evil. I believe that the taking of another life is evil, because we are all unique, all irresplacable. That is why the death of a child is such a loss, they have died before they had a chance to enjoy life.



    The Bible, The St. James version that is, is a beautiful book, it is full of wonderful stories and great poetry. But so are the other great fictions based on facts, Shakespeare’s historical dramas. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that (to take one example), King Richard the Third did NOT say in real life: “My kingdom for a horse!”



    —



    Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles are to wed. Like the Iraq war I as a taxpayer, is paying for something I do not believe in. And as for the war, don’t believe the bumfluff about elections, the only thing most Iraquians want is for America and the UK is to get the eff off of their land. The Americans alone have killed three times more people than the insurgents. That is not to defend a people who hangs a 12 year old girl for talking to British troops or cut off people’s heads for “God”, not at all.



    I don’t care about political correctness, Islam is a religion of murder and uncaring and no one will ever convince me otherwise, no matter how kind and warm and gentle most Islamic believers are in reality. (And the Northern Irish can be as nasty as the insurgents).



    Anyway, did you know that “camilla” is Greek for “camel”? So that is why Charlie has been humping her!



    —



    Someone asked me why i no longer belong to Mensa, simple, too many people there think they should run the planet, and too many of them are FAR more right-wing than the team of George W. Bush.



    It was hard to leave Mensa, I told them they were like some seedy cult, I just wanted to say goodbye, but could I? I ended up ostracized, and my name struck off their historical records. And the Sarahs’ were not even part of my mind at that time!



    I do love my Three-Headed Sarahs’ personaes, they give me a chance to relax. Empathy is hard for me because it is not natural to me, the Sarah’s have none, they are vain, greedy and self-centred, in a way, that is the real me, the one behind my mask. Yes, I love poetry and  love the uniqueness of people; nevertheless, my id is bigger than that of none autistical folk, big enough in fact for three heads!



    That’s enough for now.



    NOW ON:

    On LordPineapple ‘s site: Poems by






    And






    On The Three_Headed_Sarahs ‘ site: A play and some small poems.



    On The “I am sane” site: Nothing, it can not exist!



    —



    Terry Cuthbert.



    (c) ff percent 243.

  • I had closed this site, so maybe this won’t stay here long. But here is an entry from my reporter’s notebook. A few months after writing the below (ALL true) I was in a coma.


    Wrote on the island of  Iona (“Iona” linked to an outside page)

    (ps, can’t find the original publication, but this is my “copy” ie before I made it presentable and corrected the grammer and any spelling mistakes I may have made.)



    August 25th, 1993.



    I come here for silence, my marriage is failing and my mrs and the kids are with their in-laws at Hathersage. Our Italian holiday cancelled I drove to Oban to visit the isles. I have already wrote about the island of Kerrera and wrote a poem and two texts about that island. I did not expect drama here in Iona.



    I realise that my mind is changing, I’ve been warned about a stroke and so on, and of course I am susceptible to anything, but this takes the biscuit.



    I do not believe in God, my readers know that, but I do believe in the power of Earth and it’s people. Anyway, I had come out of Iona Abbey Church and had walked to a lonely part of an island. There I saw the grave of a child, a boy who had drowned. I looked at it with tears in my eyes when I felt someone behind me. It was a monk, he had his cowl up so I could hardly see his face, but he did have a white beard.



    “Do you believe in the devinity of God” he asked.

    I meant to lie, to say yes; my manners always made me say yes to any believer, for I consider it rude to disagree in public with a stranger that I may never see again, but there was something about the monk.

    “No” I replied “only in the devinity of man, sorry.”

    “That’s alright” the monk smiled “that was my son there, got washed out to sea, my wife went insane so I took Holy Orders.”



    “I too lost a child” I sighed, “I understand.”

    “There is one higher than us” he said calmly.

    I could see his smile, and I muttered bitterly “maybe so, but what has he ever done for man?”

    “What has man ever done for Him?” was the reply.

    I gave him his point.



    “You are a good man” he said, “do not let anyone say you are not. This cross I wear is not only for Jesus, it’s for the whole of humankind. Look at the date on the grave.”

    I did, it said “Colin McHenry, 1548-1559.”

    I turned sharply around, and the monk was gone, vanished into thin air. There was no place to hide, and an Olympic gold medalist could not have ran out of sight that quick on that windswept rock-edge.

    I searched in vain for the man and then went back to Iona Abbey and asked one of the Abbey gardeners about the monk who spoke to me. He sent me to a priest who explained that there was recorded such a death at the time stated but there is no remaining gravestone, and though I am not the first to see the stone and the mysterious monk, I must be blessed, for I am only one of five people to have seen both.



    I could not wait to leave the Priest and ran back to the gravestone, but of course there was none.



    I did not want to catch the last ferry back to the Mull coach, so I rang up my hotel and told them I had met friends and would be back in the morning.



    The night was chilly but dry, as I sat just staring at the waves and the bracken and the dog-daisies and thought a thousand thoughts about the concept of reality.



    The strange thing is that the abbey itself had laid in ruins for 400 years to 1938, and that no friars of monks were reported as living on the island in that time. But there was monks in the 16th century.



    —



    Ps I wrote a poem later but missed out the gravestone, at the time I wrote the poem, gravestones were not my thing.



    The poem missed out a lot, but the above essay said it all.



    “The Holy Man.”





    There’s one higher than us”

    Said the Holy Man

    Pointing up to the sky.



    Such was his calmness

    That I refrained from sneering,

    Such was his smile.



    I nodded and said,

    “Maybe so, but what has He

    Ever done for man?”



    “What has man

    Ever done for him?”

    Was the reply

    From a thousand voices.



    He had a point there

    And we bid each other farewell,

    I -

    And the ghost of a long-departed monk.



    —



    Terry Cuthbert.


    Thanks Becca! Fixed that link now!