June 22, 2004

  •  

    Clowne220604





    There is little that I find more pleasurable than drinking a glass of cool beer in a country pub 1690 feet above sea-level.





    And here I am at the Cat & Fiddle public House, a 200 year old turnpike pub named after a Shove Tuesday game of bat and ball, a game not a world away from baseball.





    It is a warm lunchtime, and I am outside eating fish & chips. The view is breathtaking. The beer is good too, a real-ale cask beer with a taste of honey in it.





    This pub is thirty yards into Cheshire from the Derbyshire border, today it is home to a marble championship. This game, more assocated with West Sussex than this wild windy area, is being played by old men, not the sort that you imagine chasing after trains or postage stamps, but rugged hard men like the ones you still see walking shiftily around horse-race courses.





    Frankly dear readers, your reporter is rather bored with the game, and as a once marble-champion at Clowne Primery School, I am itching to show them how it’s done.





    Still, it is a pleasant spot, and a nice day out for anyone with a car, and as I have not been sent here to cover the marble game, instead I am watching a sheep drinking from a saucer of beer.





    —


    “The Clown From Clowne”


     




    The Cat and the Fiddle
    Years Ago




    Cat and Fiddle, today

June 20, 2004

June 15, 2004

  • Clowne blog: 15:06:06



    I received an e-mail asking why I hate Christianity. It is not really a question of hate, how can a person hate something that to him does not exist?

      Religion depersonises people and demonizes those upon the outside. Look how cruel Islam can be to women. I know atheism does not make saints, man will always find an excuse to be evil, but I feel that religion is ruining this planet.

      I consider that everything is equal, an ant after a sugar-spill, a plant after sunlight or a child after a ball, everything to me are of equal worth.

      Humans. No two people are ever alike, each person is unique. To take a life is to destroy something that could never be replaced or even cloned. It is that simple.

      I hate films in which people are murdered. James Bond, Seeking Private Ryan and so on, and I bitterly hate films in which children are murdered.

      I will not go deeper, that is just me. I enjoy the beauty of life, and I hate murder of any form. I hate the American gun-culture, I hate the war in Iraq, and ok, I hate religion.

      Man made in God’s image? The God of the Bible is a cruel barbaric sadistic piece of shit, I will no more worship him than I would Adolf Hitler or Ian Brady.

      What about death? I wish I could believe in immortality, I have known so many wonderful people who have died. My eldest daughter, my mother, people I have worked with, people I have interviewed, the foster-mother who fostered retarded children for 40 years and refused a Queen’s Medal, saying she was not worthy of it, and who died trying to save a neighbour from a fire.

      How I wish I could believe that such people are still alive somewhere outside of time and space, but I can not.

      It’s terrible, here I am old, old and ill, and there is no use in me day-dreaming about death!

      Ah well, I just dream of poetry instead, poetry and life.



      And what more could anyone wish for than life?



    “Happy the man and Happy he alone,

    He who can call today his own,

    He who, secure within, can say:

    ‘Tomorrow do thy worst,

    For I hath lived today!’”

                  (John Dryden)



    ———–

    Lord Pineapple.

June 10, 2004

  • Clown From Clown. 10.06.04



    If a stranger’s tears are only water,

    Then do not call yourself a poet.



    For the thing about poetry is that it is about feeling,

    Of stepping into the heart of another.

    It’s not easy, it was far from easy for me, born without empathy.

    A world outside of me that I tried to control,

    A world full of strangers whose tears were only water

    Because they were not my tears.



    But then I was not a poet,

    I did not see the tapestry of desire

    In a flight of swans

    Or the sun on a red telephone kiosk.

    They were not me.



    It was not easy for me to become a poet,

    Not when, as a child, I was considered merely a selfish brat.

    It took ten years of writing verse

    Before I wrote poetry,

    Before I had the feeling

    Of what makes a poem

    A poem that can cry with a stranger’s tears.



    This poem is only about me,

    About the leaves on my tree,

    The petals on my flower,

    The tears in my eyes,

    The song of the bird in my ears,

    The colours on my computer,

    The glossimer of my spider’s web,

    The honeycombe of my hive,

    The glistening of my broken glass reflected upon the road,

    The dewdrops on my leaf.



    If the embers from the great furnaces of life did not burn me,

    If the wings of the tormentors did not tear me apart,

    I would not have become a poet against all expectations.



    I would not have seen your hand white with cold,

    I would not have seen your lips blue with breathing,

    I would not have seen your cheeks red with love;

    I would not have seen the water from your eyes

    As a cry from the soul.



    I would not have become a poet.



    lplplplplplplplplplplplplplplplplplplplplplp



      And unrealted to the above. An old journo friend of mine is being sued for liable. This reminds me of when I was sued for liable.

      A left-wing female councillor was getting romantically attatched to a right-wing racist business-man; (I called them “the strangest pairing since the owl and the pussycat”). Anyway, the business-man sued me for calling him a racist, and he took me to court.

      There I was, surrounded by a law team from the National Union Of Journalists, when the judge walked in, got on his high seat, looked at the business-man and said: “I remember you, I was at an hotel with my wife, you were there, and I heard you call a black waiter a “filthy little n*****”.

      My solictor whispered to me “you’ve won already!”



    ______________

    The Clown From Clowne.

May 31, 2004













  • “Ach laddie, ken ye understand me cos t’be me royt way o’ talkin, well, were till I ha’ tae learn tae spek again. I said “thy”, “thee” “thou” “parky” “mardy” “nuff” and so on.



    But you won’t want to read me writing like that, it’s more me, but you would soon get bored if I wrote this whole entry like that. We have all tried to read novels where the characters spoke in a dialect, and they are hard going. “What in darnation is that Brit on about now?”



    I get the same feeling when I have to put words like “boomburbs” on google, “bloody Americans” I think, you think the same when I talk about eating spotted dick. “Godf*****g Brits!” I don’t expect you know what tea & tiffin is. You know, in Clown we say things that are not said elsewhere, “he’s a royt jessop!” they don’t say that in Yorkshire, “royt Jessie” maybe, but you know even tiny places had their own words, many dying out. I lived in Broughton Lane Clowne. I used to call it “Button Lane” we all did, now people have started to say “Brought-ton Lane” the old ways die out as people move around.



    Many ways of talking confuse, there is surreal, that’s hard reading, looks clever, and it is hard to do, some have a knack others can’t do surreal without looking drugged up. Beautiful writing. That is easy, a few words like love, flowers, birds, children, perhaps dying too. Make a piece look beautiful by key words. Like a thousand poems on Xanga. It’s all bollocks (or is it “bollex”).



    I learnt language as a reporter, if a woman is telling you how she got beaten up, you can’t guess what she said or ask her. “be teff ‘e wanted mon fair tallyman lad” I had to do my shorthand as “To be truthful, he wanted the dept-collectors money sir” though in the paper I would put her saying “tally-man” and “lad” but not as saying “teff”.



    Writing is an art, I never liked soccer, but had to go to many a footie match which ended in a boring scoreless draw, and had to wax about it. And was that number 6 who took the corner or number 8? Woe if I got it wrong!



    After my stroke I found it harder to understand accents, though I am back on bony with tyke, cockney and scots. American still foxes me though. “Where’s the john?” “Which John?”, “the powder-room!” “Oh you mean the kharsi!”



    Words, they are the tools of all writers, big and small. but by heck, I root nuff, sae ta-ra duck, see ye oon bank”

    —

    The Clown From Clowne.

May 23, 2004

  • Won’t be on much for a few days New computer and I can’t get my cheap online isp!


    Hoping I can move to broadband


    Terry

May 21, 2004

  • The Clown from Clowne

    That’s me.



    I am a clown in a way. I have tricks I play, a pack of cards with the name of the card in big pictures at the back. I ask a child to pick a card but not tell me what it is. They wait till I say their card then they often cry “you cheated!” “How?” “It says on the back the nine of clubs, you read that when I took it!” Then the child laughs realising I was leg-pulling.



    I love doing silly things things that pleases tots. walking into the door is one. “Now stay open, door!” I  turn to the child and say “Isn’t the door silly” at the same time i push the wood shut with a hidden part of me like my knee or foot, and WHAM! again.

    I like all those silly games. I have a spare dummy (US comforter) which I put in my mouth for young children, older children get my (many) silly made-up rhymes. I also do acts. Dress up as a fakir and have a basket and rope which with an Indian flute, I send up in the air by cotton links.



    If you have read Sophie Morgan’s poems, well, that’s like my childish mind! but all clowns are children, I love dressing up, have a stack of hats and so on. sadly though as my children have grown up my talents go a bit to waste.



    Remember that though I have never hurt a child in my life, an old man who has had a stroke does not inspire confidence. i have had my children’s friends worried about me being with my grandchildren! My grandchildren love my antics, My standing by a half-mirror and raising up one leg and arm with the mirror making it look as if I have raised all my limbs.



    Ah well, I do try to be something else as well as a poet because I love acting silly!



    Sad I can’t help upsetting people too, but that is asperger’s. For 56 long bitter years I have had no conscience, no empathy, no understanding and no tact.



    I can’t lie even except in fiction, and if something pees me off, I go into attack mode. I don’t mean to be so rude, it is just me.



    We all have our dreams. I should not get angry with someone else’s dreams just because they involve a God and a Messiah (for example). I can’t use Asperger’s as an excuse, not after 56 years. It sounds as if I have learnt nothing at all in all of that time.



    Ah well, that’s more than enough for you to read.



    —

    Lord Pineapple, The Clown From Clowne

May 19, 2004

  • The Immortal Bob Smartass.



      Love him or hate him, and there are the two choices, one can not be indifferent to a loud-mouth sexist and vulgar poet.

    American ladies on the whole hate him, and his very poems have ruined many an on-line friendship.

      Not one single of my persona has stirred such passions, not even the much banned birds, the cat-eating, human-hating, American-baiting Three-Headed Sarahs’

      Yet for the first time since 1985 I performed Bob for five minutes on Monday, someone wanted me to be the only poet at their music gig tonight, and someone tonight wants me to do a slot (15 minutes!) of the Immortal One on Sunday night!



      So who is Bob? He once sold more poetry books than Pam Ayres, appeared on the TV with many words blocked out and whole poems edited out. He has been thrown out of pubs and clubs and appeared with some famous punk-music groups, he has been arrested for disturbing the peace and viled by a leading daily newspaper for his disgusting language. Hated by the right, by most Americans and by feminists, but loved by many, and now alas forgotten (as there are no pre-1998 references to Bob on Google).



      Such is the fate of legends. 



      He is my id, my Mr. Hyde, my millstone and yet three gigs in a week proves he can still amaze.




     


    Plus an Xanga one!


    Note to Dosmangoes and others. I have no right to poke fun at what you believe in, to curse your dreams just because I no longer have any.

    Lord Pineapple.

May 12, 2004


  • Clown From Clowne 12.05.04

    Because my voice was impared as a child, many adults had little patience with me. (“We fought a war for you my lad!”)

    One example was my Uncle Herold (never “Harry”). He was an airline pilot on short-turn hops, mostly from Cardiff to Glasgow. Herold thought nothing of getting a taxi home to Cardiff from Glasgow.

    When he visited my nan at Barry and I also was there, this unmarried childless man was easy, if not stupid with his money. As an intelligent child, I soon cottoned on to this and his lack of patience, and started pestering him. First time I only wanted to wind him up, my asperger’s and self-obsessiveness, no barrier to this. He gave me Five pounds. Today I expect this is worth £50 (sterling), (working at two pounds stirling to the doller, work it out).

    I was onto a nice little earner for an under-ten year old. And used this trick on all Barry visits when he appeared, (as he liked his sister, my mother, this was often). I was caught when my mother found about 30 pounds in weight of sweets hidden away in “my” attic room of the large house at 11 Romily Road, Barry, South Wales. To prove that I hadn’t shop-lifted, I had to tell the truth.

    I had managed the trick five times before getting caught, and I had spent money on the fairground (one shilling, =20 to the pound being the dearest rides and entrance fees, most being half of that again.) Hell knows how I got away with it so long.

    My mother died before my Uncle Herold, so I never really knew what happened to all his money (I could hardly expect anything!) Perhaps he had a woman, or a man somewhere. It would be easy to find out but would spoil a mystery.


    —
    A bit of fun.
    _________

    Notice to the customers of all of our omnibus services.


    Our insurance policy states that we are not allowed to carry anyone above the age of seventy on any of our buses. If you look old and wrinkly then the driver will DEMAND prove of age, ie car-licence, pension-book, school-card. Refusal to show this proof will mean our new bus guard will forcefully eject you from our vehicle. Yours,

    The Silver Service Bus Company.



    (The above “advert” I placed in my paper as a joke after the company complained that too many old people were getting on their buses and getting injured.)
    _______________

    Pic:
    _______________

    Bonn 14 on Xanga blog puts out strange police stories, here is one I was sadly responsible for.

    I placed a piece in my paper about a small village police station being manned by a new constable straight from training college.

    Two days later the “rookie” (not called that in those days), was at his desk when this man came in and said he had come about the typewriter and gave a letter-head from a well-known local firm.

    The constable let the man take away the typewriter before ringing up the firm to check. The firm hadn’t a clue what the constable was talking about.

    Neither man nor typewriter was seen again. In the aftermath I got a nasty “warning” from Derbyshire Constabulary, to say that I had six faults on my car and had a week to put them right.

    My father (who had by now left the force because it had started to become too right-wing) thought the whole thing very funny.

    —

    The Clowne From Clown.

May 9, 2004

  • You know I have a lot to say about my life. But I find it hard to blog.

    Here is a long blog. First, I’ll turn a poem I wrote into prose (of course adding extra link words).

    —

    When I was young, it was words. With some Asperger’s children it’s maths. With me it was words.





    I could never remember faces, I had to know someone well to remember their face. I was good at names, they were words, that does not mean I remembered names to people. Music I was always good at. If my parents had been musical I think I would have become a rock star or something. But I have a lousy singing voice. I could write songs, a song of mine was pinched and went to number two in France. No. I won’t name it, the singer might be innocent. I remembered voices.





    I remembered voices. People learnt (or were told) to speak to me first. People I didn’t hear speak thought me shy. By four I could count to ten in five languages. Then, despite a desperate fight from my parents I was sent away to a special school, because at seven I could not read and had no friends. At that school I was sexually abused. Then a man who had joined in the abusing of children said to me (nastily) that I was always pretending to be clever. (I remember words said to me) That taught me to act thick. So I would have been a failure if it was not for one woman. 



    In Cyprus, I was a failure in School. I couldn’t remember faces or put names and people together, then my mother took charge.(I have often wondered if my father cared as much as he pretended, I think he did, it was just that to him I was always stupid. On the day before he died he called me stupid for the billioneth and last time.)





    Elocutionist. I met plenty of them, and psychiatrists. The best ones said I was clever. At ten one said I should join MENSA, the worst ones of course told my father I was stupid. Then my mother heard of this child psychiatrist who was also an elocutionist. I remember the words without changing one. Well, of course I forgot the poor lady’s name. The person I owe so much to. “My son is a genius with words” my mother said, “but he can’t speak properly and have the memory of a senile old man, can you help?”





    She taught me various things without as much as a spark in my eyes. Then she read me a poem by John Keats: “A thing of beauty is a joy for ever”. The next week I recited it word by word to her. The woman had to come back to England, but before she did she taught me poetry fully. Wordsworth, Keats, John Clare (then called a “minor poet”), and Yeats and Auden (who years later I met and became a friend to).





    It does not mean I am a good poet, but it means I love poetry. So poets, I might not write perfect poetry but I understand it. I could tell you all how to be poets if you want to. Of course some of you are better poets than I. angel245 for example should be taught in schools. Some of you are not, but everyone can be a good poet, one or two of you could be great poets. DO YOU WANT MY ADVICE OR NOT?

    ___________________________


    The below picture is of me by the Guinness Clock. I loved it. This one was in Barry Island. I think when I last saw it I wrote a poem about it. If so it is now lost.

    Let me also link to a site.



    —-

    There are other sites. just put in google “The Guinness Clock”