Politics

Never, they say, discuss politics or religion in decent company. Well, quite, and, then again, the room sometimes becomes so stuffed full of elephantine flesh that comment is necessary.

Someone in Turn Up’s crack team of observers has mentioned that an election is imminent, if not already well and truly afoot. The natural inclination of at least 50% of the population is to recoil in deep apathy. We are told that former generations died to obtain the vote, probably not as an ironic gesture. Indeed, we have a system whereby the ballot box is used in preference – to what?

We’re good at self-deprecation, keeping our heads beneath the parapet, dodging the question, lying low, irony, fast-food, beer, and pontificating in the UK. We call it humour.

Turn Up’s policy is not to seek to influence those who believe in liberal democracy, on the paradoxical basis that that is the one system that would allow us to do so. Is it an act of perversity to mention in passing that we are suspicious of special interests, fat-trousered benefactors, or the sound that licked lips make when they freshly emerge from the trough? And what of the financiers, generals and theocratic mumblers who remain well-hidden?

Maybe you want to give these folks free run of the levers that direct the parameters within which you have no choice to live. Maybe it’s raining and it’ll be difficult to park anyway.

Jus’ sayin’.

Imagine

Yes, imagine my surprise at running into a dishevelled Orville Quantock at the bar of an hotel in Neath. Yes, Neath, not Nice, where pleasant climes approximate.

Not having seen the man for months now, my natural inclination was to enquire after his wellbeing. A certain cast of eye and wind stopped me in the tracks from advancing along that avenue of re-introduction. There was a deal of swivelling into lackadaisical position and bracing of the shoulder before he could bring himself to acknowledge my presence. I hadn’t previously clocked him as a man given to action for effect, but he seemed to have undergone a personality change. Rapidly, we arranged another meeting to be taken under less observation. I sensed there was something to disclose, about which he displayed a marked reluctance. I’m sure we’ve all met the type of cove for whom each approaching slice of life will arrive enigmatically and with a fanfare of overweening self-importance. Orville, mate, get out a bit more.

It was only after I’d reached home that I discovered that he had slipped a note into my pocket whilst I was engaged in the above studies, and that his whole display had merely been a distraction. The man had outsmarted me again! More of this anon.

Ash

Sweden, the cold chatter of birdsong as it echoes through silent skies. Elliott's first birthday party, the reason for our trip, is now a distant memory, and he grows in size and ability by the hour. He must be a Midwich Cuckoo. I built a section of stone wall from the coloured volcanic rocks that is everywhere present, and have been able to observe jays and a woodpecker up close.

I have also managed to complete the revisions to the book, thanks to the magic of memory sticks. Now to print the copies for my volunteer readers. And then to seek a publisher, the blockbuster nature of the project being of bank-busting proportions for an outfit like Turn Up.

Sun shines on the righteous today, but we've had snow.

I should record that this is the first 'field entry' I have yet managed for the blog. Contemplate that one if you will.

Boot/Foot Displacement Massacre Memorial Moan

Who’d be a Viking
On St Brice’s Day?
When the striking starts
It smarts,
Whatever they may say.

‘Unready’ they said
He’d be, that Bastard
King, Ethelred; Danes
At pains
To dodge the deeds he fostered.

To our counsels kept
We took our down time
While in they crept, and swords,
Not words,
Were used to draw the line.

Coincidence

Last Friday morning over the first cup of tea of the day, I was reading The Oxford History of England volume about Anglo-Saxon England and reached the part that described Aethelred the Unready's order to massacre Danes on St Brice's Day in 1002. They'd obviously got up his nose. Later in the day I read in The Independent an article describing an archeological find in Dorset in which the bodies of a band of Vikings had been found. The report made it clear that they had been killed in that massacre on St Brice's Day 1002.

Funding

It is with some reluctance that I must report that this site is not funded in any way by offshore funds that should otherwise have gone to the UK taxpayer. More’s the pity, say I. Do I really? No, more would be very acceptable, thank you.

So, you ask, what’s been afoot in the topsy turvey world of Turn Up? I received a very wonderful comment from my friend Fran about Winter Dance on the Santa’s Twin EP. That’s what makes all these endeavours worthwhile, fran-kly.

My brain seems to have more unresponsive soft tissue than most, so the planned improvements to the website are still moving forward, but very slowly. Marcus continues to be a great support, and I will get myself geared up and together soon.

Mostly, I have been spending my time writing my novel. I thought it was time to produce one, and a story has emerged in the telling. It is called ‘Treatment’ and is a satirical comedy thriller. What I do with it, or myself, when it is finished remains to be seen. If you are a rival publisher with a yen for publicity and a monumental advance burning a hole in your pocket, don’t be afraid to make contact, toot sweet!

I sense the competition will be fierce, and I fully expect to be submerged by the bidding war I have just set in motion.

Ultimately

Ultimately, matey,
When you walk along the road
Twice as much returns
As half the stuff that goes.