High up on a hillside, behind the broken walls of a ruined castle, we watch the glowering clouds catch fire as the sun falls blazing from the sky, a burning death she is doomed to endure for all eternity, like a fiery Sisyphus. The air is on fire for just a few minutes until the sun’s self-immolation is complete and the light succumbs to the shadow’s embrace, yielding the day in a sighing swoon, like an innocent maid in the clutches of a swarthy scoundrel. As the darkling begins, so the whistling, chittering birds fall silent, they roost in the bare trees, as if they were feathered buds awaiting the first light of the sun’s new rise, whereupon they will burst open in victorious song. But first the twilight’s blue velvet to cool the glowing chariot of fire. The remaining hours will grow opaque as the Earth turns slowly upon its axis and the edge of darkness moves eternally towards the west until the cycle is complete and the birds will sing again.
The castle was broken by the storm, falling before the rage of nature and the cannons of the siege. Now we stand where once the great hall rang valiantly with victory songs and echoed to the sound of banquets. The flags and banners, sword and shield, silver flash of armour steel, the stories of the troubadour, the fire and the flaming torch, the whisper of the damsel’s gown dancing across the limestone floor. The age of chivalry, the legends of romance, the idyll of kings. Where once the banners of knights hung proudly, now hang the branches of buddelia and weeds, nature’s own banners growing from the crevices between the broken walls. Here, among these fallen stones, legends live in crepuscular shadows. Isolde’s song of sorrow floats across the deserted court, above the fallen Tristan’s ghost. A potion’s spell, a fatal kiss, lovers under cover of night. Oh, death! Die Liebestod! In the wafting universe, drown and be engulfed!
And so it ends…
We leave the ancient stones behind and walk toward the black lake’s mirror and cross the bridge to another day.
The summer comes to a close, light begins to leave earlier, the warm days gradually cool and the night becomes our friend. In the garden of the Goddess ancient trees prepare for sleep and change their gowns from green to gold, before they slumber in their naked beauty as the winter brings the cold. This Walnut tree is older than many nations are, three centuries and more before revolution and war, its long arms now embrace the ground in graceful curves, its roots drink from the deep, dark soil to feed the fruit that it bequeathes to all who wait for summer’s end.
We sing our songs by candle light, the chiming guitar notes hang in the air, pale stars of some unknown melody, gradually fading into darkness. Autumn is the time to return to memories, those fragments of somewhere we once were, of people we once knew, of some dreams and thoughts and visions, moments loved and moments lost. We remember the dream but never the sleep, we see the light but never the dark. All held in time’s embrace in which we drink our short draught from eternity’s fountain. Drink deep and remember all the flavours of life’s sweet wine. Take another picture, make a memory and in autumn sit and sing your songs beneath the walnut tree.
“There is a dark inscrutable workmanship that reconciles discordant elements and makes them cling together in one society.” William Wordsworth,The Prelude
For today’s lesson I thought I might hold forth on subjects that may, or may not, be amusing. People sometimes ask me for my opinion, sometimes I offer them unsolicited. Here’s an opinion. Or two.
The human race is doomed. Always has been, right from the start. One day, all life on earth will be extinguised and the planet will be roasted into a small brown rock when the sun begins to run out of hydrogen and expands into a red giant. You only have a few billion years left to get your shit together.
There is no escape from the finality of death. The biggest cause of death is birth. Live with that knowledge. We are all dying, it is the reason why we live. There is no other meaning to life, there is only the certainty of death. So don’t waste your time looking for it, because by the time you think you’ve divined the meaning, Thanatos and his mate on a pale horse will be kicking your door down and carting you off to Charon’s ferry. It is a sobering thought, n’est pa?
Having now accepted your fate, it is time to reflect upon your options. What should one do when one realises that one is not immortal after all? Should one rail at the Gods with clenched fists and gnashing teeth? Hmmm. Probably a waste of time. Just remember, every second that ticks away brings you and Hades a little closer. Try to be a little more positive, after all, there’s a big world out there to be discovered and many things to be done. Remind yourself that this is not a dress rehearsal for the main performance. In fact, stop reading this drivel and do something more interesting, life is too short to spend time reading other people’s random thoughts.
If, on the other hand, you really like reading stuff like this, then hang around, have a read of all my fabulous posts and laugh at my risible rantings. Speaking of which…
I often see preposterous examples of Forest Gump philosophy on instagram and Facebook. Stuff like “Life is like a boomerang, if you do good to others, good things will come back to you”. Somebody actually said this, can you believe it? However, a real boomerang was not designed for good things and furthermore, it does NOT come back if used correctly. It is a heavy bent stick that aborigines hurl at animals, with malice aforethought. There is a dearth of supermarkets in the outback, so if you want to eat, you kill something. The intention of the boomerang hurler is to kill an animal in order to feed his family. If a boomerang hits the kangaroo, the koala or the ostrich it don’t come back, unlike the dead animal which comes back to the village cooking pot. If the boomerang does come back, it is a sign of failure and a harbinger of doom, signalling possible starvation for the aboriginal family. Thus, the last thing the aborigine hunter wants to see is his boomerang returning empty-handed. So, the crackerbarrel philosophy is predicated on a pathetic lack of intelligence and knowledge of aboriginal hunting weapons and is aimed at half-wits with an emotional intellect that a fly would be ashamed of.
Furthermore, I’ve had enough of whining bastards and pitiful mewling turds, as well as diversity and all the rest of that bullshit nonsense. Diversity is just an iniquitous mechanism used to install undeserving people into jobs and positions of influence because they – or their particular characteristics – are believed to be under-represented and thus at a disadvantage. So, in other words, they get the job to fulfill a quota, not because they are the best person for the job. The only disadvantaged people here are those with far superior skills and abililties but who are the wrong colour, sex or race. This is not an excercise in diversity, it is an excercise is social engineering designed by those who cannot win power by plebiscite but have wormed their way inside the body of the host and are now eating it, rather like the larva of the parasitic wasp. What these hateful idiots fail to grasp is that once the body of the host is devoured, they will have nothing left to feed on and will perish because these parasites create nothing, the only thing they produce is words. As the wise man said, you can eat your words but they won’t nourish you. I hope they all perish before western culture is but a vague memory.
And then there are the meek who think that everyone should be nice to each other and never say horrid things. They are the Fotherington-Thomases of the world. To quote the legendary Nigel Molesworth, heroic stalwart of the heinous bastion of education known as St Custard’s: “they are wet and play with dollies”. I don’t care how sad your life is, I don’t care that you have no friends, I don’t give a dancing shit if you get upset or offended or cry because something doesn’t go your way or that you burst into tears when your favourite shoes get wet or your dog gets run over by a bus. I don’t care if you feel like jumping off the roof – in fact, I’ll be happy to assist you on your way to oblivion, you snivelling wretch. Jump you fucker, jump!
Right. Now I’ve got that off my scrawny chest, here’s a bit of my philosophy: You can sit with a monkey for a thousand years expaining Einstein’s theory of relativity, but after a thousand years it will still be a monkey.
Some people will understand this, some will not. It may be cryptic or it may not. You may think about the image and the message and make the connection, or you may not. It is not important if it means nothing to you. The important thing is that I understand why I made the image the way I did. The purpose was to illustrate the idea and the idea is seven.
There now follows a short discourse on art history. Pay attention at the back Wrigglesworth, I’ll be asking questions afterwards.
In the Middle Ages – the medium ævum – images told stories. Religious images were didactic and churches would be decorated with paintings, sculptures and stained glass to illustrate biblical stories. Few people could read and so images became the lingua franca between the clergy and their congregations. Pictures also acted as conduits between the faithfull and the divine. Perhaps the following statement by Jean Gerson (1363-1429) sums up how mediaeval theological thought considered pictorial art: “We ought thus to learn to transcend with our minds from these visible things to the invisible, from the corporeal to the spiritual, for this is the purpose of the image”. Prayers and pleas were offered in supplication to images or relics of saints, Jesus and most of all, the virgin Mary, in the hope that the divinity would intercede with some problem or bring relief or a cure for some medical condition. The images were expected to deliver miracles. Many miracles were attributed to images or relics and these artefacts became the focus of pilgrimages. Many still are. Mediaeval superstition, perhaps? It is your choice.
Art and the patronage of the Christian church have delivered much of the intellectual culture that we enjoy today. Other religions have delivered nothing except a repeated pattern that goes nowhere and represents nothing.
I am only interested in the Art. The lush, shimmering beauty of a Simone Martini or Duccio di Buoninsegna altarpiece is a wondrous thing indeed. The molten gold glow of a Byzantine or Russian Ikon in a candlelit orthodox church can induce one to hold one’s breath and stand motionless in ecstatic admiration and silent awe. When this happens, art transcends the merely decorative and becomes divine in itself.
In the middle ages there was no such thing as ‘Art’. There were images of the divine and there were images of their stories. Art only became ‘Art’ when those who could afford it commisioned painters to make pictures to decorate their palaces and houses, many of whom were part of the clergy. This is when the so-called Donor Portrait became de rigeur for the wealthy patron. This would depict the patron – donor – praying in close proximity to one or more divine bodies. Sometimes a local saint but more usually the Virgin Mary. This would demonstrate both the donor’s piety and wealth, as well as inferring that the donor was in close proximity to the heavenly realm. Many of the patrons were part of the clergy. Rich priests with expensive tastes were not uncommon, as long as their congregations were happy to fund their expensive tastes. Thus, there was a thriving market for miraculous images and relics to keep the people happy. A church without a miraculous image or relic was a poor church. This gave rise to the ‘Furta Sacra’ whereby many a relic was stolen – or ‘translated’ – by unscrupulous priests to ensure a steady flow of affluent pilgrims to their church and a happy and generous local congregation. If they couldn’t steal them, they invented them, which is how the Turin Shroud came to be made. The most extreme case was the theft, or ‘translation’, of the supposed body of St Mark from Alexandria to Venice in 828. In 1063 a brand new cathedral was built to house the relics. Indeed, St Mark’s cathedral in Venice is nothing more or less than a gigantic Byzantine reliquary. The cathedral and its relics attracted countless pilgrims – along with their money – to Venice. Wealthy churches meant wealthy priests and a wealthy priest was a generous patron of the arts who liked nothing more than to be surrounded by beautiful, expensive things that demonstrated both his status and his refined intellect.
But there are the eyes of needles to negotiate when the final trumpets sound…
The war of attrition between the government bean counters – who produce nothing of any value – and those who do all the work, create wealth and drive the economy, is now beginning. After the devastation wreaked upon humanity by what many consider was no accident, the bills are piling up for governments around the globe and the hopeless turds that we elect to adminsiter our estate, so to speak, have not a single coherent idea as to how the situation can best be managed. This is mainly due to the fact that the people we elect are despicable morons whose only interest is in themselves, how much money they can make and how they can remain in power. In general, what we end up with is no more than a shedful of Wizards of Oz. Weak, duplicitous, deceitful blowhards who hide behind the curtains, threatening the peasants with all manner of horrors if they don’t do as they are told. So, what’s afoot? I will tell you, dear reader.
The world has changed forever. The pandemic caused by a rogue (almost certainly man-made in China) virus, has left death, devastation and global economic collapse in its wake.The virus itself is responsible only for the deaths, while the devastation and economic collapse are entirely the fault of the useless imbeciles we pay to manage the shop. In short, we have put our trust in people who are incapable of wiping their own arses without getting shit under their finger nails.
Since early 2020 the world has been under siege and people have been forced to barricade themselves indoors, at the behest of the state administrators – aka the government. However, life went on and people – as people always do – adapted and changed and found ways of making things work. They didn’t need any fucker from the government to tell them how to do it because most people are generally more intelligent than elected ministers give them credit for, and certainly more intelligent than any politician. Ministers fear those who are intelligent and capable of independent thought, they prefer supine grass munchers who cower beneath the thwack of the stick and are easily herded. These same state administrators have become adept at the politics of division. This is an amusing game whereby one section of the population suddenly find themselves being thrust into the limelight for being greedy, or selfish or a threat to society just because they are old/young/rich/poor/black/white/foreign/ etc. It works by suggesting that someone is getting a better deal than you, and therefore, is a beastly rotter, an abhorrent abomination and a dirty rat. So we have pensioners being monstered because – after a lifetime of work and service – they have paid off the mortgage, have saved money into pension schemes and are not quite starving to death. Ergo, they have had it all and thus are the nemesis of the weedy millenial tossers who wail and squeal that it’s not fair. In fact, these laughable, weedy creatures wail and squeal about everything…but that’s another story for another day. So, to appease the young upstarts, pensioners must be publically humiliated, a sort of modern day version of the ducking stool or being put in the medieval village stocks and having rotten cabbages lobbed at their greedy old heads. This is their reward for a lifetime of work, contributing much gold to the state coffers by way of tax, (much of which will be pissed up the wall by avaricious, spendthrift politicians on useless vanity projects), the nous to save a bit for their old age and for being of the generation that had to endure post-war hardship, along with inflation and interest rates well into double figures. Yes, they had it all. Bastards!
This same game is played out on a regular basis when the cretins who think they run the place need to divert attention away from whatever their latest shortcomings are – which, in all honesty, is every fucking day. Having thus put the pensioners up for sacrifice to the baying mob of angry villagers, the latest wheeze is to start the blame game against all those who have been working at home during the plague. Note the word: Working. The British Civil Service closed down almost every office during the plague and the civil servants were ordered to work from home. Not a problem as long as the civil servant has a room to work in, electricity and a good internet connection. None of which were supplied, or paid for by the government. OK, so swings and roundabouts. No travel costs, no travel time, no having to listen to all the office wankers yakking about inane old bollocks as you work. The key is flexibility, so the civil servants – and many others in the private sector – flexed and the state kept running. The nation slept peacefully in the sure and certain knowledge that all was well. The same operation was carried out by many companies/organisations and the world didn’t end. In fact, it is probably true to say that some people working from home did more than they would have in an office. Bravo! Meanwhile, the pathetic, drooling ministers ran around like headless chickens telling us that the sky was falling down. Memo to ministers: Cluck off.
Fast forward to the present day and the less temperate ministers – all of whom have been working from home, homes that they claim huge expenses from the taxpayer for – have been busily dividing the nation again, this time the target is the workforce who are working from home – particularly those who work in London. “It is time” they bluster “forthe people to return to the office!”And what reason is given for this absolute necessity? It is, in the opinion of the state administrators, “the responsibility of those who work in the city and town to spend money in cafes, restaurants and shops and thus keep those businesses – and the local economy – afloat!” So, if you work in an office and take your own lunch, you are – by definition – a mean bastard, a loathsome cheapskate, a despicable miser and a contemptible moneygrubber who deserves nothing but opprobrium and dishonour heaped upon your ghastly head. How dare you! Go back to work and buy a fucking coffee you unspeakable skinflint!
The divide and divert tactic beloved by duplicitous politicos grinds into action. The newspapers report the story and the baying mob light the torches again. Those who do not work in London rage against those who do and especially those who get London weighting. The work at homers are tarred and feathered on social media by provincial half-wits, gormless farm workers and other rural types who have never ventured further than the local shop. But the diversionary tactic plays factions off against each other whilst the execrable state administrators have a jolly good chuckle at their own sagacity.
Further to this, the odious Tory grandee ( this simply means he’s been an MP for a long time) Sir Iain Duncan Smith said: “Civil servants need to get off their backsides and into the office and they need to do it pretty quickly.”
Let me tell you about the repugnant Mr Duncan Smith. Here is a man – and I use the word loosely – who is firmly of the opinion that if he believes something to be true, then it is true. Such as his CV. Smithy, as he is known to his enemies (he has no friends), claimed to have degree from the University of Perugia, a venerable institution founded in 1308 by the pope. This is a complete fabrication, or as those of us who are slightly less temperate would put it: a fucking lie. He went to Universita per Stranieri, which happens to be in Perugia and teaches languages. He didn’t finish any course and gained no accreditation of any kind. He also claimed that he was educated at the Dunchurch College of Management. Another fucking whopper. Dunchurch was a staff college for GEC Marconi for whom Smithy worked as a salesman, although his fantasy CV claimed that he was a Director. Lord Weinstock, who ran GEC for decades says he never met Smithy and that Smithy was never a director. He said: “the idea is preposterous”. Quite so. The preposterous Duncan Smith also bellowed: “there should be an end to home working as a ‘default’ as the office is more creative and fosters better mental health”. In which case the revolting Mr Duncan Smith should get his lardy arse into gear and find an office pronto, because it is quite clear that his mental health is in desperate need of attention. To bolster his laughable claim he added: “Managers can’t manage properly, companies aren’t as effective, income goes down – go back to the office.” Smithy – a former Tory party leader who was relieved of the leadership after two years without having fought a general election on the very good grounds that he was an unelectable liability – also suggested London weighting should be scrapped for home workers. ‘If you’re not travelling anywhere you don’t carry any extra cost,’ he said . Mr Smith who, apart from recieving a large unearned salary as an MP, is married to a very wealthy wife to whom he paid a substantial amount of taxpayers’ money for being his “secretary” and lives rent-free in a mansion belonging to his father-in law. Obviously, with such unearned comforts he sees no need to concern himself with reality. So he doesn’t. What a fucking cunt.
N.B. London weighting is an additional premium paid by some companies, institutions and the State, to people who work in London because London is a much more expensive place to work than, say, Portsmouth or Southend. It is not a payment for travelling costs. But the spluttering, bellicose, perjurious imbecile, Duncan Smith, is so short of the vital intelligence synapses that he is completely at a loss to comprehend this. But I digress…
Having now set in motion the latest game of “hate your neighbour” ministers have awarded themselves a summer holiday and disappeared from view, whilst the rest of the nation have many obstacles put in their way to prevent them from travelling abroad. Indeed, Dominic Raab – Her Majesty’s Foreign Secretary, one of the great offices of state – was so deeply on holiday when the crisis in Afghanistan unfolded that he couldn’t be bothered to deal with the emergency for two days. When he finally emerged from the bar he refused to acknowledge his failure to recognise the seriousness of the situation. He claimed that his officials hadn’t kept him informed whereupon his officials opened the can of worms that they had collected during the minister’s period in office and poured them all over Raab’s greasy head. It appears that Mr Raab had dismissed Afghanistan as old news and hadn’t even spoken to the Afghan President since he took office. Other tasty worms included the revelation that he didn’t read any of the intelligence reports that warned about the imminent collapse of the Afghan government, delegated most of the important communications to junior officers in the foreign office and that he never contacted the US government to find out what the fuck was going on. I doubt that Raab could point to Afghanistan on a map. I doubt he could point to anywhere on a map, come to that. Mr Raab refused to answer questions as to why he didn’t cut short his holiday to deal with the situation. What a fucking cunt.
So, here we are. Stuck in limbo with a bunch of brainless turds trying to order us about when they can’t even order a ham sandwich for lunch without fucking it up. If you had to rely on cunts like Raab and Duncan Smith to wait at tables you’d die of starvation.
Meanwhile, over the pond in the land of the free, where social media platforms decide what you can and cannot read and whose voice may or may not be heard, old Joe is proving once again that old age in no way impedes his capacity for fucking things up. Ask the Afghans. What a fucking cunt.
A warm summer afternoon, miles from home, alone; A girl sits on a swing, lost in reverie. The long ropes creak as she disects the air in a lazy arc, Like the pendulum of a mighty metronome, Slowing down time beneath the stately oak tree. Out here, the Earth turns to a different rhythm, Dancing through time and the universe, Forever slow waltzing with the silent Moon, Spinning and whirling, around and around, To the tempo of the girl on a swing Conducting the cosmos In languorous curves of slow-motion, As the sun spreads clouds of gold dust And the lark sings songs of summer. Distant lovely thunder Trembles somewhere behind the clouds, The sky begins to bruise, The golden afternoon must end, Soon it will be dark and summer will be gone.
Sitting in a beautiful English garden on a warm summer evening in July. The honey-coloured stone of the ruins of the old house are bathed in warm evening light and glow like gold. Behind the wall, in another part of the garden, a saxophone plays ‘Summertime’ by Gershwin. The garden is sweetly perfumed by roses and lavender; a small fountain adds the sound of water splishing and splashing and the chatter of birds in the waving tree-tops completes the magic.
This is the England that some people say doesn’t exist, that it is just a yearning for an imaginary past, a ridiculous nostalgia for the days of Empire and colonialism.
Well, let me tell you this, all you sneering, snide bastards who would rather sell your arse and your mother than stand up for your culture: This England, this so-called lost world, is not lost yet.
The last light is fading away, The last birds sing before the dark. We are here in a beautiful garden, Somewhere between today and tomorrow, The path is a maze of twists and turns, The scent of lavender floats in the warm air, Intoxicating every breath we take, The night descends as the sun's life ends, Lost in Eden, lost on Earth, In circles among the trees we walk, I hear your voice behind me, In the darkling I turn and take just one last look before we go…
Nothing lasts but not all is lost, We leave our presence in space and time, We are a memory of an echo, we are shadows, we are dust, Pulvis et Umbra Sumus, as Horace told us once. When all is done and endless sleep is all we have to bear, Silently we take our leave and melt into thin air, Without regret and scorning fear we walk the road to ruin. An abandoned house overlooking the sea, left to decay, No one now inside to hear the tap of the corroded knocker, There is no key that will open this door. A crucifix hanging from a nail, broken by the wind and rain, Crucified by nails again. The sea air's Judas kiss corrupts the nail, Stains of rust wept onto the body imitate dry blood. Late afternoon light sculpts the weathered wood, The texture reveals secrets in the cracked surface, Three symbols tell the story, Written in the language of a Byzantine Icon. Behind this door, painted the colour of the Sun, spirit remains, Waiting for the final call.
The evening fades to twilight, light begins to close its eyes, colours becoming drowsy, soft and muted until only blue remains. Birds and insects fall silent; there is only the silver sigh of quivering Poplar leaves aroused by the breath of the zephyr. Behind the old wall we hear the echo of distant footsteps walking another path. As light steals away to leave us blind, the aromatic nimbus of lavender and roses beguile another sense. We breath slowly amid the perfume. The garden cools and evanesces into darkness. We stand alone and watch the day close the gate and leave. It is time.
Time is present, time is past, time is not tomorrow, for tomorrow is neither present nor past. We watch, we wait, we breathe again; time and time again we breathe, while time remains then breathe we must. Light will ebb and light will flow while time remains, but darkness waits for time’s last breath when the fire dies in the arms of the rose and all is cold and turned to stone. The final light will flicker for a moment until all is but a memory remembered by nobody.
Detail of Pieta, St Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna. Cyanotype.
Every day the world goes a little more insane.
Every day the light gets a little darker.
Every day the intellectual pygmies of political governance bend their weak and feeble knees to the even more intellectually bereft Marxist/Fascist pygmies of intolerance who shout and scream and accuse and hate. Everyone who doesn’t bow to their insane ideology is a ‘phobe or an ‘ist. They – and they alone, it seems – decide what we can and cannot think, what we can utter, what we can dream. How did we get here?
We got here because of Liberal cowardice and appeasement, just as we got to the second world war. “Peace for our time!” said the cringing, patrician Chamberlain, waving his piece of paper like a banner of victory, whilst at the same time writing: “I do wish it might be possible to get the Press to write up Hitler as an apostle of Peace. It will be terribly shortsighted if this is not done”. So, six years later, this “apostle of peace” had brought about 85 million deaths, a genocide of Jews (which would have been followed by Slavs, Romanies, Catholics, Blacks, Asians and anyone else who didn’t fit the Aryan image), destruction of apocalyptic proportions and the end of Europe, and its culture, as we knew it. It could have been much worse, except that, luckily, Chamberlain died in 1940 and Churchill took over. Stanley Baldwin, Neville Chamberlain and Clement Attlee were the epitome of weak, hand-wringing, arse-licking politicians who will do anything to avoid confrontation and hard decisions.
London, 1934 – “Listen Baldwin, the Luftwaffe is going to be bigger than the RAF, we need more planes, now!” “Fuck off Winston, you’re just scaremongering again”
London, 1934 – Mr Clement Attlee, leader of the Labour party, speaks “We want total disarmament!”
London, 22 May, 1935 – “Mr Baldwin, the Luftwaffe has twice as many planes as the RAF”. “Alright, I was wrong, I was completely wrong.”
London, May, 1937 – “Listen Baldwin, the Luftwaffe have got 800 heavy bombers, the RAF have got 48!” “Oh, err…fuck it. I have decided to retire, good luck with Herr Hitler, lads!”
Today’s politicians are following in the footsteps of Attlee, Baldwin, Chamberlain and their ilk. These craven lickspittles would rather sell their children than stand up and fight. They will continually offer to turn the other cheek to the barbarians who want to batter down the gates of civilisation. So the barbarians will gleefully take up their offer and lay their oafish boots upon the exposed arses of the supine politicos. And then they will be presented with the keys to the kingdom by the grateful burghers who will claim victory in the name of such things as diversity, muli-culturalism and brotherly love, not realising that those brothers whose love they seek to embrace, despise them for their weakness. The barbarians will then decapitate the appeasers because weakness is not an attractive quality and leads to cowardice and duplicity, both of which are a threat to the new revolution. Intolerant regimes have no place for liberal values like appeasement. Meanwhile, the ungrateful peasants who raise objections are informed that this is the best deal on offer and that those who refuse to accept the wonderful new deal are enemies of the state and will be relieved of their belongings, smeared with shit and expelled from Utopia.
Where did it all go wrong?
If a dog bites your child, you put it down. You do not give it a second chance because it will bite again. Put it down and immolate the corpse. If you invite someone into your house, you don’t allow them to throw out your furniture and replace it with theirs. You throw them out and man the ramparts, pour boiling oil and mockery upon their heads and beat them mercilessly until nought remains but ashes. Because if you don’t, the ashes will be those of your culture.
But the appeasers will have none of it. They are quite happy to give it all away for a handfull of plastic beads and a vote.
We are in a cultural war with the forces of intolerance and ignorance and we are being forced back to the beaches of Dunkirk. We can only hope that all the Chamberlains are suddenly taken by the Pale Rider and a few Churchills are found instead. But I fear it may be too late. Although old Joe isn’t looking too good and may soon be escorted to The Whispering Glades home for the demented and senile before he can give America to the Chinese.
On a deserted beach, who can hear you sing?
The waves roll in, the clouds float by, not even a bird to be seen in the sky...
Peace.
Quiet.
Harmony.
The sound of solitude, just the whispering breeze and the sea,
Be calm.
Sing to the empty space,
Become the music on the deserted beach.
Look into the silver air, beyond us all – one song.
Listen to the distant sky, silent music for the eyes. Here – on earth – the air is a nebula of vibrations, an infinite orchestra, one symphony of sonance. We swim in a tintinnabulationary ocean. Hiss, whisper, sigh, rattle and hum. There is no silence; silence is the end.
William Shakespeare – the most brilliant playwright and poet of the English language. His plays are performed and studied in schools all over the world, his language is magnificent, his plays immortal. But hark! What sulphurous stench from yonder window breaks? It is the Globe Theatre, and the Woke brigade is the darkest hole of hell that threatens to extinguish the light of Shakespeare’s dazzling Sun.
We watch the scene unfold:
Upon the Southbank of the Thames, in fair old London Town, the splintering sound of cackling voices rude, the very air turns black in shame. A plot begins to stir within, the game’s afoot, a spell is cast, fair is foul and foul is fair, “Shakespeare must fall!” the witches shriek…
How now, dear reader; gather close and let not the ears of hell list to our whispered words…the immortal Bard has been besmirched and demonised as a white supremacist, a 16th century Nazi, yet! How falls the vainglorious scribbler, the despicable degenerate, how ignoble shall be his end, from the lofty heights of Olympus he is dragged to be shat upon and immolated in the fires of ignorance, stupidity and hate by the black-hearted legions of self-righteous cunts and cocksuckers. So what’s afoot?
The thespian zealots within the magnificent edifice that is the Globe Theatre and a plague of third-rate academics from far, far away, have decided that the plays of William Shakespeare are actually not plays at all, but are instead manifestos of racism. I kid you not.
A certain Aldo Billingslea – sometime bit-part actor of third-rate movies and full-time teacher of ‘American theatre from the black perspective‘ says: “His work is ‘problematic’ for linking whiteness to beauty” How so? because Lysander, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, says: “Who would not trade a raven for a dove?”, which, in the befuddled and twisted mind of Aldo means “the playwrite is giving ‘value’ to the birds ‘because of their colour.” Obviously Mr B doesn’t study literature or art or mythology otherwise he would know that ravens are symbolic of ill-omens, in other words, bad news – I refer you to Edgar Allan Poe – whilst Doves are symbolic of good news, hence the biblical story of Noah sending out a dove to find land and it returns with a branch in its beak. But that doesn’t fit the oppressed black person narrative, no. So instead we get a deluded interpretation, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifyingnothing. Or perhaps the Bible and Poe’s epic poem are racist diatribes too.
According to another world famous Shakespeare scholar (not), Amanda MacGregor, a Minnesota-based librarian: “Shakespeare’s works are full of problematic, outdated ideas, with plenty of misogyny, racism, homophobia, classism, anti-Semitism and misogynoir (a clunking synthetic word invented by an idiot)”. She also demands that Shakespeare be dropped from the curriculum because: “I have come to the conclusion that it is time to set Shakespeare aside and downplay creating room for a modern, diverse and inclusive voice”, or to put it another way, Shakespeare is much too difficult for her limited intellectual capacity so let’s put him down as a racist.
Another clever bastard, who shall be named Jeffrey Austin, a no-account secondary school teacher from Ann Arbor, declaimed: “There’s nothing you can get from Shakespeare that you couldn’t get from exploring the work of other writers. When all cultures have transcendental writers who are not included in our curriculum or classroom libraries, it is worth objecting to the idea that Shakespeare is somehow independent as a lonely genius.” So ALL cultures have writers – and not just writers but transcendental ones – as good as, or better than, Shakespeare? Fuck me, some cultures haven’t even developed a written language, never mind a fucking play. There is a very good reason why some books are not included in the curriculum or libraries. They’re shit. Clearly, this man has studied Shakespeare’s oeuvre in depth and is a genius. Or just another intellectually bereft, band waggon jumping mountebank. If anyone from Ann Arbor is reading this, keep your kids well away from Jeffery Austin.
Meanwhile, over in Michigan, the highly esteemed and virtually unknown Dr Vanessa Corredera, another American expert (irony), stated unequivocally: “Every Shakespeare play is a ‘race play’ as ‘whiteness’ is part of all of the plays”. Her opinion is based upon her belief that: “In context with other plays and even the Sonnets, this language is all over the place, this language of dark and light… there are these racialising elements.” Fuck me sideways. That Shakespeare, what a rotter, eh? And there was I, thinking that old Bill was scratching out the most wonderful words ever to grace the English language onto parchment, sharpened quill guided by a poetic love of language, a genius with inky fingers, when all along he was just a mouthpiece for the Nazi party and a the KKK, wearing a pointy white hat festooned, no doubt, with tinkling swastikas. Forsooth! Good job the zealots are keeping us all safe in our beds.
But the stupidity isn’t all coming from the direction of the Land of the Free. Back in dear old Blighty, Professor Farah Karim-Cooper, co-director of education at Shakespeare’s Globe, said: “We have started anti-racist seminars to discuss ‘decolonising’ Shakespeare’s esteemed plays.” So the plays are both esteemed and racist at the same time? Methinks the esteemed professor speaks with forked tongue! Furthermore, she is obviously a bit light in the history department, otherwise she would have understood that there were no British Colonies in Africa and no British Empire until the 18th century. So plays written by our beloved Bard can have no colonial connections or references whatsoever. But don’t let truth get in the way of your esteemed, fascist polemic. Like so many of the professional witch finders she will brook no debate about her miserable opinion, saying: “To suggest that we are saying Shakespeare was racist is just food for a superficial culture war that frankly we are not interested in participating in.” No, of course not dear. What you mean is that anyone who disagrees with you is a racist. The enemy. The worn out old tactics of cancel culture, the Labour party and the Gestapo.
And so, here we are, almost a quarter of the way through the 21st century and the ignorant minority try to drag us all down to their small-minded, medieval domain. They howl and squeal about their imaginary victimhood, creating a cult that sees things that are not there to be seen, whilst invading everywhere and burying everything beautiful under mountains of shit, both actual and metaphorical. Are these yapping fascist turds going to be allowed to impose the Triumph of their Will on the rest of us? I can hear the crunch of marching jackboots and the guttural bellowing of slogans echoing in the floodlit stadiums already. Are you ready Leni? Action!
In the rarefied kingdom of ill-educated, self-righteous, hateful, half-baked cunts, these people take the biscuit. They are bereft of intellect, they are without heart, they are the emptiest vessels making the loudest sounds. Where there is beauty, they see only shit. They create nothing but shit. They are snivelling third-rate actors and they play the Dane oh, so well.
“I have of late – but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, foregone all custom of excercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air; look you, this brave o’er hanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form, in moving, how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a God! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights me not, nor woman neither.”
In other words, everything is shit.
And now we must take our leave of this depressing entertainment, this circle of shit, this realm of dark agendas…
“Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air: And like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp’d tow’rs, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on; and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.”
I urge and emplore you to read Shakespeare, love Shakespeare, perform Shakespeare and defend Shakespeare and send the black-hearted devils back to hell before we are all buried beneath their mountains of shit.
Under the dark of a sky full of rain we walk into the mystic, you and I.
There is nothing above and nothing below, there is only the here, where we are.
You and I.
Watching the light disappear, watching the lonely souls walking, we are here, you and I.
The sea and the sky meet out on the ledge where the sun will fall and the light will die, we watch it all, you and I.
Look at the light that you can only just see, laugh at the sky and sing with the sea, just a kiss from the rain, just a kiss, just a kiss…
All the ships, all the birds, all the souls of the sea, songs that float above the wind and tumultuous waves, to the eternal turning of time, we leave, you and I.
Vladimir and Estragon are hanging around, having a chat…
Vlad-“If only my Mother could see me now”
Est – “Why?”
V-“Because the road to hell is paved with good intentions”
E-“That’s deep”
V-“Not really, it’s just because you’re an ill-educated oaf”
E-“Well, we don’t all have contacts in high places, mate”
V-“Hah! That’s typical of the working classes, never do anything but complain and wait for a handout”
E-“I saw your Mother the other day”
V-“No you didn’t”
E-“I fucking did mate, larger than life and just as ugly”
V-“It’s too much for one man”
E-“Huh?”
V-“There’s nothing to be done”
E-“I think you need a lie down”
V-“One daren’t even laugh any more”
E-“What’s so funny?”
V-“Don’t you find humour in the agony of it all?
E-“What, you mean laughing at our meaningless existence and the miserable realisation that this is all there is?”
V-“No. I was talking about your boots being too small”
E-“You’re not helping”
V-“I’m glad you think so. I wonder where he is?”
E-“What do you expect? Anyway, it’s not the boots, it’s the feet”
V-“I don’t want to know the details. We might be here forever”
E-“That’s existentialism. Nothing lasts forever”
V-“Christ almighty, how much longer?”
E-“How’s your Mother?”
V-“There’s nothing to be done”
E-“I’m glad to hear it. All’s well that ends well”
V-“How about hanging ourselves?”
E-“Not now, wait until dark”
V-“Well, take it or leave it”
E-“It’s gone, we do it wrong, offering nought but violence”
V-“Must be getting late”
E-“Why?”
V-“Better late than never”
E-“There’s nothing to be done”
V-“Shall we go?”
E-“I saw this bloke the other day, charming sort of fella”
V-“Was it your Mother?”
E-“I don’t think so, I would have remembered that”
V-“What’s the time?”
E-“Later than you think”
V-“Better late than never”
E-“But it’s now or never”
V-“Then never”
E-“Do you realise that nothing has ever happened”
V-“And it has happened more than once”
E-“I can’t understand where it went”
V-“Exactly”
E-“Well, you can’t have everything, where would you put it all?”
V-“I’d put it in the bank, it would be safer than keeping it under the bed”
E-“The bank? The bank, you say? I wouldn’t give the bank the time of day”
V-“They probably have their own clocks”
E-“How can you trust a place that has it’s own clocks, for Christ’s sake! Never put your trust in someone else’s time”
V-“I see what you mean”
E-“What do I mean?”
V-“I’m sure I don’t know. Better safe than sorry”
E-“There you are, now you get it. You give ’em everything and the bastards lock it away in a safe and then you have to pay the fuckers to get it back again”
V-“It’s a good business model”
E-“Why didn’t we think of it?”
V-“Because you’re an ill-educated oaf”
E-“That may be true and many people would agree with you. What’s your excuse?”
V-“My Mother wanted me to learn a trade”
E-“I remember. Your mother was a hard bitch”
V-“Do you remember where we went wrong?”
E-“Probably not, that’s why I’m standing here with you in the middle of nowhere discussing it”
V-“It could be worse”
E-“It’s always worse than it was before. Remember when we had it all?”
V-“We should never have put it in that bank”
E-“They’ve probably spent it all by now, it was so long ago”
V-“No use worrying about it now. At least it wasn’t lost completely, that would have been a terrible waste”
The ancient City of Londinium, founded before the Romans ever sailed up the Thames. The walled settlement became The City of London and developed into the most economically powerful city on earth, powered by trade and exploration. The old City was so powerful that the Monarch had to ask permission to enter, and still does today. Over the centuries many beautiful buildings were created. The streets were never set out in any kind of planned grid, it was a city that followed no man’s vision, it just followed its own path. When the ancient gothic cathedral of St Paul and a quarter of the city burnt down in 1666 plans were drawn up by Christopher Wren to build wide avenues and boulevards radiating out from his new cathedral, in imitation of Rome. But the city refused his outrageous ideas and so the new cathedral took its place among the narrow streets, lanes and alleys that still stood. The City was never in the habit of changing to suit the ideas of a mere upstart architect.
Until now.
Look at the picture above. The City of London has allowed itself to be raped, buggered, sodomised and fucked by loathsome, parvenue architects. These odious onanists whose erections force themselves upon us, abusing our senses, despoiling our souls and ejaculating their disgusting jism of wealth into our faces, roaring and sneering at our discomfort and pain like a gang of aristocratic pederasts. Everywhere the glitter of tumescent glass cocks, like arrogant and priapic satyrs – you can almost hear them braying like the hellfire club, slobbering paraphilliacs egging each other on into ever-more depraved acts of concupiscence, defiling the ragged-arsed servants and sating their Dionysian thirst for perversion with the chamber maids. It is horror, it is horror…
St Paul’s Cathedral was, until 1963, the tallest building in London. Standing on the highest point of the city, Ludgate Hill, it towered above the rest of London, a magnificent baroque confection with a dome second only in size to St Peter’s in Rome. Imagine how fucking impressive it must have looked when it was finally completed in 1710…
Upon Ludgate Hill, 1710 – a crowd gathers to stare open-mouthed at the newly unveiled dome of St. Paul’s –
“Fuck me Lizzie, that’s impressive!” “I should say it is, Samuel. Very fucking impressive” “Why, I do believe Sir Christopher must have designed his dome in homage of your delightful bosom, my dear” “Oooh, Samuel Cockington, I do believe you are a rascal! You make me blush, sir!” “And you, my dear lady, make me proud. Come, let us away to the ale house where your cherry red lips may play a merry melody upon my pink oboe and fill your blushing cheeks with my pretty notes” “Oh, Mr Cockington, that’s fucking impressive.”
…but now it is barely noticeable, standing to the left of the Deo pecuniae phallae that despoil the skyline of London, an almost insignificant pimple among the thrusting clusters of finance and power. On the opposing side stands the nasty protuberance known as the Shard. Designed by the risible Italian scarecrow, Renzo Piano. What kind of name is that, for fuck’s sake? Imagine calling your kid Eric Trumpet or Florence Flute or Pink Oboe. I’m sure he loves to tickle his own ivories at every opportunity. This piece of glass just stands there, sharp and pointy, oblivious to its surroundings, blind to its brutality, ignorant of its utter lack of humanity. It has no civic function. It has nothing to offer, except a raspberry in the face of the bewildered public. It is a monument to Piano’s no doubt Trimalchian ego and deserves nothing but scorn, derision and mockery. Not only that, but it’s also on the wrong side of the river. Only on the north bank of the venerable Thames can one be a real Londoner. Those on the southern banks are merely rural Surrey peasants. The other carbuncles that block out the light have been mockingly titled by Londoners, who have always been scathing about those upstarts who think they are greater than the world’s most wonderful city. They are fiercely contemptuous of rotters, cunts and blowhards. The “Walkie-Talkie” in Fenchurch Street, the “Gherkin” in St Mary Axe, the “Cheese Grater” in Leadenhall Street, are a few of the derisive epithets by which these carbuncles are now known. The architects try to play down this mockery, preferring instead to believe that these risible names have been bestowed as a mark of affection by the grateful peasantry. Cunts. The other thing that escapes the wit of the architect is this: almost as soon as their brand new shiny cock is erected, it is out-of-date and old-fashioned. It is a flash in the pan, it comes and is quickly spent, like yesterday’s news it is soon forgotten. Its life span no more than a few decades, like the mayfly it will have an all-too brief moment in the sun and then expire, having done nothing of any use, unlike the mayfly – whose single reason to exist is to copulate before it expires. A totally miserable exercise in futility. But it probably amuses God, who likes a joke – after all he gave most of the oil to the Arabs and cars to the rest of us. Ho Ho.
However, much to the chagrin of the snivelling cunts whose dearest wish is for another great fire, or war, to raze the remaining ancient buildings (anything more than twenty years old) to the ground so they can then fill the space with forests of priapic glass penises, in another 300 years that seemingly insignificant pimple of baroque splendour that is St Paul’s Cathedral will still be there, beautiful and majestic, welcoming millions of visitors who will come to look in awe and admiration at the sheer magnificence of the building, perfect in its proportion, ratio and form, filled with light, embellished with paintings and carvings by master craftsmen, a-topped by that great dome at the City’s summit, bathed in the empyrean light, while the cocks of the money God will have long-since have become flaccid and limp, shrivelled husks that no amount of financial viagra will make rise again and down they will come.
The sea is cold and green, the vast stretch of beach is deserted, save for a few early morning joggers, only the whispering sigh of the contented waves and the ethereal song of the seagulls swirling around the Fort National to break the silence…
Early morning by the sea. I like looking at the sea whilst eating croissants and drinking tea. Fuck that coffee nonsense. Tea is what one has with breakfast. Hence the name: Breakfast Tea. Nobody ever made Breakfast Coffee. And with good reason, tea is civilisation in a cup, delicate of scent, smooth of flavour and refreshing to the palette. Coffee is merely a cupful of bitter darkness, drunk only by the unrefined and those who inhabit the lower rungs of the evolutionary ladder.
But I digress.
Looking out from the empty breakfast room at the silent expanse of Le Grande Plage du Sillon (otherwise known as the beach) and the ever-heaving waves of the English Channel (not La Manche as the oft defeated Frenchies would have it – to the victor the spoils and the bragging rights I think!) fills one’s soul with peaceful thoughts and a small smile. Breakfast by the sea. This is how one should begin one’s day before girding one’s tattered loins and venturing out into the fresh breeze and salty air, whilst offering many a hearty bonjour! to the local peasants who wobble by on their creaking bicycles with freshly baked batons, strings of onions and a jaunty beret perched upon their greasy gallic tetes, leaving a trail of stinking Gauloise smoke and garlic fumes in their wake. Ah, vive la belle France!
