A Year's Worth

A year ago today, England FC played Kosovo in a Euro Qualifier match, beating them 5-3. And I stopped drinking alcohol. For me, that was a big deal. The drinking thing, that is, not the chaotic and, frankly, unconvincing England display. It was a big deal because alcohol has been a big part of my life, from my work (as a bar person), to how I socialise and spend my leisure time, to being a brewer's son etc etc. However, due to using it as a coping mechanism during a shitty few years in my personal life, it started to become too big a part of my life, and, having tried reducing my intake and struggling, I decided to haul on the anchors completely and stop, for as long as I could. For a year? Forever? I wasn't sure, but I was going to try it and see what happened.

The first two weeks were pretty interesting. After my second day, I'd already been the most sober I'd been in about six months, because, even though I wasn't necessarily drinking lots every day, I was drinking a little bit almost daily. After a week or two, I had this very strange feeling of complete sobriety. I noted at the time that it should be the other way around; I should feel weird/different because I'm drunk, not because I'm sober. It underlined what a friend had been saying to me, that we often use alcohol as armour, to help protect us from our nerves or awkwardness, for example, but there comes a point [when we abuse it] that all that supposed confidence and protection becomes toxic, and our dependency on it increases so that what we can do without it decreases. I still don't know exactly what point I got to, i.e. whether I'd have classed myself as an alcoholic. For me, that would be the point at which I can't hold down a job, or my relationships suffered. But my relationship with myself was certainly suffering, and my bodily health too, so I can't pretend it wasn't affecting me, and was merely 'hard socialising'.

I normally get asked one of two questions when the subject comes up. The least-frequently asked is "Why?" often followed by a slightly awkward, "Was it your decision, or... [the ellipsis meaning 'are you an alcoholic, and/or has a doctor intervened']?" Most people don't have more than two seconds to wait for you to speak before they interrupt me (but you, dear readers, shall feel the full brunt of my ramble!), so I hodge-podged it slightly, giving people various flavours of the following reasons; I have an alcoholic in my close family. This has stimulated me to stop in two ways - firstly that I speak to a lot of service users/providers for people with substance misuse issues, and their knowledge and wisdom made me re-examine my own relationship with booze. Secondly, when this family member was to come out of rehab, they had to come back to an alcohol-free abode, and I found it easy to quit while they were away, so that when they returned, I would a) not have any alcohol in the house, and b) not be tempted to bring any back while they were here. Other reasons include various 'normal' considerations. I have been suffering health-wise for a few years with various mental and physical complaints, and drinking helps none of them (even though I have used it 'to help me sleep', and de-stress, it adversely affects the quality of one's sleep, which then affects how you deal with stress etc). I was hoping to lose weight, too. Stop spending so much money... Y'know, fairly normal stuff. And there were also considerations such as the challenge of it, do I still have willpower, etc. Which I do.

The thing people most often ask is, "Do you feel better for it?" It's asked in various ways, often in a leading way, assuming that I'm absolutely going to say yes, and wax lyrical about a million and one ways I feel great now I'm no longer poisioning myself. Actually, although I wish I could say a resounding 'yes', it's an absolute 'no with a but'. I don't feel much better, if at all. My aches and pains are no longer being numbed, and neither are my moods. I was actually a bit scared at one point, because all my mental issues (of depression etc) loomed larger at me when I was sober, with an edge and strength that hadn't been there for a long time, and I thought about drinking again to make me feel better in the moment.

To balance this, tho, my mental clarity has increased. My speed of analysis, recall, ability to separate emotions and assumptions from 'truth' and whatnot is quicker, so I feel perhaps a little better able to deal with what comes. And this sort of brings me on to what I've learned as a whole - that alcohol isn't the big issue for me. It's events and environments make me want to self-medicate, and I could take all the coping mechanisms out of my life, only to find a new one (human nature?). At the minute, I'm really battling with eating. I've always liked (a lot of) food, but really, I think not long after my mum passed away, and I went back into bar work after an all-too-brief absence, I started really eating, lots of takeaways late at night and stuff like that. Trying to fill a hole, as it were, though the 'problem hole' is not literal, it's emotional and mental. Anyway, my weight is up and down, my inflammation problems, depression, sleep, they're all still bad, still causing me problems, and that's because there are other habits that have, if anything, only increased in severity since I stopped drinking. You can see, then, that 'do I feel better for not drinking' is not a straightforward question to answer. There have been benefits, but my problems are still very much here, and won't go anywhere unless I tackle them at root.

So not drinking has been a fun 'experiment', but even though I've known for ages that I'm obviously not addressing things 'properly', it's only in this past month that I've started thinking that I really need to change things again. This time I need to try and build health into my life (who knows, maybe even get some targeted help for my depression...), with sleep, anxiety management, more of the five paths, etc etc - something that goes beyond merely forgoing things that are not helping.

Anyway, this isn't how I planned this post to go on. I don't know... It feels a bit bland, and not very educational or inspiring... Nothing ever works out how you think, tho. I wonder what a year's worth of alcohol consumption would look like, how big a barrel it would fill? Maybe I'll get the boffins on it, get a figure to you all by next week.

I hope things are well in your world. Well, they're probably not great at the moment, they're tough all round, but I hope at least that you're finding joy in the little things wherever you can. That's as positive as I can be!

Goodbye!

Actual News!

I got some rather good news while writing this post. It was originally to be titled 'Something of a Roundup', and feature some news and musings of a decent nature, but this latest development has put an even better spin on things.

Initially I was going to say how I'd entered a flash fiction competition run by the folks at 5asideCHESS (in partnership with the Morecambe Fringe) and although I'm deflated to have not been one of the winners, I'm happy to have submitted something, and I believe an anthology is going to be produced, which I should be in (all entrants will be published, unless they don't want to be, so I understand), which is great. I can't put too fine a point on how important it is to keep talking about mental health, and I'm happy 5asideCHESS and Morecambe Fringe have given us this opportunity to express our Covid-19 thoughts through the medium of sort fiction. It's not just a benefit to the writers themselves, but hopefully everyone reading the stories (or listening to/watching them in these videos that I don't seem to be able to link to individually...) will at least be entertained, but hopefully deeper chords will be struck too :)

One thing I didn't enter, that I should have done really, was the 100 Words of Solitude project. I don't regret not submitting too much, because I wasn't 'just being lazy' and putting it off, I had (and have) other pressing things going on in my life, and will just look out for the next opportunity, rather than chastise myself for missing that one. I've really been enjoying the entries I've read over on their site. There were a few standard thoughts and expressions, sure, but mainly there's a wonderful variety of angles they've attacked the brief from, some real dreamy narratives, and some bizarre surreality etc etc, lovely, go check them out :) And keep an eye out for the book they're producing - I'll be hoping to get a copy myself :)

Another part of the original post was going to mention how it's nearly two years since Till Roll was published. That's nuts... To think what I've (not) done with my life in that time... Shameful. But I digress :) I will instead say how happy I am that Till Roll ever came to be (it was, and is, an honour to have worked with Sam Riviere on that), and I've bought a number of titles from If a Leaf Falls Press since then, which have all pushed the boundaries of poetry in such a way that is enjoyable, but serious. As ever, do check out his site and, if you think you're at all bothered about poetry, then you should check out some of his titles (his own, and the ones he's published).

But now, without further ado: BIG NEWS! I found out on Thursday that I had been shortlisted for the Literary Lancashire Award. I can't remember now if LLA came up as a Facebook advert, or whether someone from a local Creative Exchange group shared it back in February, but either way, I thought it sounded good and got to work on a piece using a technique I'd recently been experimenting with, and produced 'Since Error'. I don't want to blather on about it too much (I'm giddy and all that, but I have to remember not to make you, dear reader, suffer my pretentious dissections of craft, as if I've bloody won the Faber and Faber 'None Greater' award for 'absolutely smashing poetry and being a poet'), but yes, it is great to have that boost, and I look forward so much to reading everyone's entries when the collection comes out. I see that the winners have been published in Cake Magzine (buy your digi-copy HERE), but keep your eyes peeled for the collection of winners, runners up, and 'shortlistees' which I'm assured will be out soon. If any of the organisers are reading this; thank you for your time and effort in creating such an opportunity, bringing together and celebrating Lancashire's writing talent :)

Au revoir!

The Joy of Montalbano

Recently, I wanted to visit my literary safe space, just fancied that bit of escapism, y'know, as we all do from time to time. For me, this means Montalbano, Andrea Camilleri's food-loving, age-precipice-fearing inspector. I was willfully wallowing in the comfortable procedural plots, happy to revisit the old friends that Montalbano, his detective friends, his girlfriend, and incidental characters had become. It's far from the kind of 'trash' level that most people mean when they talk about 'trash TV', but, yeah, it comes across as a gritty soap opera almost (speaking of which - must remember to get some more of that gritty soap next time I'm shopping for ablutables).

I enjoyed the book this time, as usual (The Patience of the Spider, or, Il Pazienza del Ragno, the eighth novel of the series). Things don't follow a typical 'solve the crime in time, justice done by the book/letter of the law' kind of thing in the inspector's world, and it's the same that here, the sensitive detective discovers the truth of the matter (who the kidnappers are, in this case), but instead of bringing them to justice (having them tried and put in jail), he makes sure that 'justice' is done (a kind of greater good).

SPOILERS

I'm not really reviewing or criticising this book (for one, I think a review would best be suited for the series as a whole, looking at things a bit more zoomed out, but anyway, that may be a convo for when I've read them all), but I had a few things I wanted to note. The first was the way chapters are realised. I'd not noticed in the previous stories, but there seems to be a tendency for chapters to not do much, other than mark arbitrary progress. Or rather, a chapter ends 'like chapters should' (I mean, in the sense of most conventional literature), in that they end on a pivotal realisation, or in the immediate pre-math of a heavy scene/action, and as we see the page become blank, we think feverishly forward - what's going to happen? A 'cliffhanger', in other words. But the start of the next chapter usually has some whip about it. Perhaps it starts from a new angle, maybe a bit further forward in time (and in this case I'm speaking only about linear time. One could easily jump about temporally, spatially, consciously (i.e. from another character), etc etc), maybe just with an extra bit of scene-setting description, to keep that feeling of 'what's going to happen next?' on a rolling boil. In Montalbano, tho, I notice that the story just keeps going on exactly as it was, sometimes even with a direct response in dialogue to a question posed, for example, at the end of the preceding chapter. In short, the chapter break could just be a bookmark you've placed in at any point, on any page. So I feel the chapter break 'doesn't matter', because everything carries on with the same momentum and feeling as it did before. I'm not necessarily saying this is a bad thing. I suppose it suits the style of the procedural, you know, in that it's 'getting on with it', going forward. And I wouldn't be so arrogant (not on a Friday, anyway) as to suggest that it could be made better when Andrea Camilleri and Stephen Sartarelli are on the team, but yet, I just can't help feel they could have made it more contrived, more artful, and maybe let these moments breathe a little bit. I dunno...

Another thing I thought about this particular book was that it really let a couple of clangers of clues drop. The book, as usual, takes a while to really get going (again, not a negative, because Montalbano's style is usually about being a real sponge, letting these seemingly unconnected tributaries of facts flow into him until he is full of the truth), but I feel that it was about halfway through that we learn more about the guy who turns out to be kidnapper, who lets the inspector know that his property used to be a farm that made wine, and we know by his grand book collection that he is well-read, both of which come into the spotlight when, shortly after, we realise that the girl who has been taken is being held in a wine vat, and the kidnapper chooses very specific, apt words on their notes, indicating a certain level of education. When the reveal came, I was not just not surprised, but deflated somewhat. It's not just an entirely personal reaction, but a logical one, too; if I can work it out (if the clues are that obvious), then how did some of the other officers not see it? It seemed a bit of a poorly grounded contrivance that Montalbano would be the only one to notice it. But having said all this, the actual ending was enjoyable to a degree (bittersweet, like the first Aperol spritz of the evening in a warm, placid piazza), and we have to keep in mind that this Italian detective fiction is not like the Poirot or Marple-esque 'gather all the suspects into a room for tea, scones, and revelations. Place an officer on that door for the inevitable escape attempt by a rich dandy who'd struggle to run his way through a wet paper bag.' It's enough to say that there have been more satisfying conclusions (in the sense of the case itself, not the story) in other episodes.

I know these sound like nit-picks. I could go on about all the things I liked a lot, but ultimately these things are what I like about the series as a whole, hence why they'd be more suited to a dedicated 'retrospective' kind of post (in my mind, anyway. You, my dear, cherished audience, you may disagree. Please tell me if you do. Everyone's entitled to be wrong).

Time for me to go. Until next time, un abbraccio :) Arrivederci amici etc xox

As a Sign of the Changing Tiimes

Today, whilst I was reading, I had to do a double take on a word. What I first read as 'lockdown' was, in fact, 'knockdown'.

Just Checking In, Really

I struggle to believe that it's been nearly a month since I last posted anything on this blog. I had a quiet aim to post once a week, and clearly that's not happened. Things in life have overtaken me somewhat. I don't write this in a 'woe is me' kind of way - I know there are always people worse off - but I suppose I'm trying to come to some understanding of it myself. If this first step is possible (or even when it isn't!), it's always the aim to (probably inadvertently) pass on some kind of wisdom along the way, so here's hoping.

I suppose the last time I wrote anything on here (rather than just linking) was before a fire that happened in my house. I was using an old laptop and the battery in it exploded. First of all, it's worth pointing out that, apart from happening at all, I was very lucky that a) I wasn't seriously hurt (I burnt my foot a bit, but that's all), b) that the damage was very localised (when you consider how quickly whole houses can go up, you know, this hadn't got anywhere near devastation level), c) the fire services were very quick to respond (I wasn't sure if I'd completely put the fire out before I had to leave the room due to smoke, so I was understandably nervous until they arrived). The worst thing about the whole episode was the loss of some of my writing (lots of papers were on my desk, especially newer drafts that I hadn't typed up yet) and, now that I think about it, the shock of it, and the interruption to what I was doing at the time, and the momentum I had built up (I was doing well sorting out possessions in my room, doing more reading and writing etc). As I say, tho, these are very minor concerns relatively, and I count myself extremely fortunate to be able to tell you this like I am.

Daniele Pantano's Mass Graves: City of Now and Maya Angelou's And Still I Rise are two books the cosmos deemed worthy by trial of fire.

I've gone 'a bit mad' (I won't bother unpacking that one, or we'll be here all night...) since then trying to make some eBay money. The constant scrolling through auctions and all that jazz has taken up lots of time and energy (all my choice, yes), and I've eased off that. Because I'm buying and selling (go to my shop for a bargain!) games, that means I've been playing on a few, too, and though I don't see that time as completely wasted (it's been fun, after all), I sometimes feel it is because it doesn't tie in with my, and other people's, definitions of 'productivity' - of which blogging is only a small part ('SMALL!?' I hear you shriek. 'But your blog's contribution to the world is so unfathomably large - how, pray tell, could it ever be described as a 'small part' of anything, unless in a crude, jokey sort of a way?' Well, I say stop being so sarcy).

Jazmin Linklater's Toward Passion According and Zarf: Issue 11 are two more works that have passed through the fire and come out victorious.

These are two selected flash-points in a general 'up and down-ness' that I think we're all going through at the moment (for those of us for whom life is already like that, then it's more pronounced, I think). There have been other frustrations and niggles that have got me down and fucked me up a bit, but c'est la vie. What did I do to help myself? Well, read on...

I have just written a bit of a diary, and felt my head was a little clearer afterwards. These days, my diaries aren't so angsty and dripping with soul torture juices (TM), they tend to be more about what I'm going to do to change (I suppose the seeds of this were sown in Robert Sheppard's focus on poetics as a speculative writerly discourse - when I write poetics, it is often to find a way forward. But anyway, I'm not the guy to broach that subject. And if I was, I'd do it in a post that isn't already huge, unwieldy, and generally rather inane), as this one was. Then I wrote a bit of poetry - first time in too long. Some of the drafts I mentioned before that were damaged in the fire, I made into a new poem by combining the words that were left behind, the ones that survived, and suddenly felt great (yes, probably a bit of mania before another drop, but I'm using it to write this! Strike while the iron's hot, etc. Dunno what you do when the iron's cold. Put it back in the cupboard, I suppose).

"Nature abhors a vacuum, and fire abhors unworthy poetry," says the aphorism as old as time. So it was that some of my work has completely perished. Some of it, however, fought back.

Is that the wisdomful nugget of this post? Writing cures all? Haha, I don't think so. I mean, I think it can help all of us in some way or another, but I think this deeper feeling of contentedness, perhaps (if it even is that...), is due to paying attention to one's own 'higher power', which for me I think is writing. To put that into a soundbite thing, maybe it's a case of you 'getting out of it what you put in'? Other things that I'm doing to combat the shit mental health are growing chilli peppers (thanks for the seeds, Ann!), and I'm working on making an effort to hopefully get my outdoor exercise levels back up to the point they were at before Covid-19 had me looking at people out the window like 'Unwashed doom-bringer! Stay out of my sight, lest you infect my eyes! The eyes are the windows to the soul, and I want my soul to be healthy. Yes, healthy soul, healthy soul... All the outside air is bad for the soul - Devil air, yes it is!' (this said as I rock back and forth on the floor, slowly clawing at my face until it starts to bleed).

And that, I think, is it (I have to legally add "for now" after saying that, because people's Blogtastic-based disappointment translates to a lot of litigation). Let's re-cap; it's all about moving forward. I'm not dwelling on the bad stuff in the past, or the bad stuff now. I am happy that I'm doing good stuff (self-defined), that there are people that I love and that love me, and that life is (at least potentially) rich and wonderful again.

Peace, love, and light, folks :)

Badminton Ep.3

Rakhshan Rizwan reads from Paisley

Whilst aimlessly Facebooking this evening, I happened upon an event in swing (well, it had already swung by the time I saw it, but it had 'gone live' to the world recently), and I'm so glad I did. Rakhshan Rizwan was reading from her debut collection Paisley from The Emma Press, and chatting to her host Emma Wright, founder of said press. You can (I think...) view the reading by clicking here: https://www.facebook.com/TheEmmaPress/videos/159614752058509/

First off, I want to say a bit about the reading as a concept. In this time of lockdown, the gig was held over an online conference call facility, but, put simply, it detracted from nothing. The poems sparkled with the same jewell-light that they would do had they been coming in live, over radio, or whatever. You still got that 'extra magic' of seeing the author interacting with their own work and the audience - which is always the great privilege at readings - and even, thanks to the generosity of the participants, some questions and answers, too. In some ways, I actually preferred it being online. Sometimes while traveling to events, especially in a big city, I can tend to arrive there fatigued and nervous, and can't always give the artists one-hundred per cent concentration. Not so when I'm watching it at home! I did miss chatting to other people who were enjoying the evening, tho, especially one person who I often get to chat to on the train back from Manchester after Peter Barlow's Cigarette extravaganzas... Anyway, this isn't a 'compare and contrast' of reading types - it's just to say that I felt all the wonderful buzz and inspiration I normally do when I go to a reading, that everyone did a bloomin' good job, and how lucky I am :)

I enjoyed the poetry, too. It started off with a poem about time, which is my favourite philosophical preoccupation (just reading that phrase will do strange things to your temporal perception, so I'd call a doctor if I were you...), that conveys such an important truth about 'organisation' - of society and therefore our lives.

When I hear a 'broad title' (i.e. a title that's named after a topic/issue/concept, so as to give it an expansive gaze) such as 'Migrant', I often worry that it's going to take on a kind of polemic tone, be very preachy and flat, but Rizwan absolutely avoided this in her poem of that name. Her work instead found new, touching ways of exploring ideas surrounding migration. One 'cheesy' line gives us an essential, immediate image ("Leerdammer cheese sits on a slice of toast," making me think of the things that unite us all in humanhood), whilst the next one zooms out to the wider injustices played out by many in a society that is, unfortunately, more divided than it should be - "I shed pounds working two jobs in hopes of securing a paper-thin ticket home." For context, this last line brings together much of the poems tangible quality, the idea of the length of grass, the movement of turbine blades in air, of snow's weight - it really holds you tight into its being, so you feel it, and hear what it's saying.

Next I want to say how repetition is used well in many of the works she read out tonight (indeed, repetition is discussed in her QnA at the end, so do watch 'til the end to gain the benefit of insight). In 'Eve', the speaker 'carries' and 'brings' with her many visceral things ("fragments of pain," as Rizwan calls them in her preamble), and the repetition of the act of toting terrors adds it up, like a physical weight, in the mind of the listener, and if it makes us feel uneasy to hear the poem, just remember back to the first lines, and how "the misplaced smiles of acid-corroded faces" are not just words, but realities. Also, in 'Urdu/Hindi' and 'Paisley', there is a significant amount of repetition - of the titular words themselves. As you will know if you read my blog, I have a weird quirk where I don't like repetition very much usually, and I think Rizwan just balances on the tight rope over 'Too Much Chasm' (it's a real place, look it up). It helps one focus on these concepts, I felt in a meditative way (not in the sense of 'drift off to music' meditation, but 'intense, re-centring' meditation), and the repetition served as a kind of 'Om', a primordial calling, getting us to listen and be there with her as she speaks.

So, yeah, I definitely have another book to add to my Emma Press wish list :)

Hope you folks are all staying well under lockdown, and I urge you to take my life advice (suitable both in and out of a crisis); find what brings you joy, and do it (barring things that cause harm to others!). In my case, poetry readings bring me joy, and I just want to again say how lucky I have been to listen to this one, and thank you for reading!

Peace, love, and light.

[a link to some of Rizwan's work: https://themissingslate.com/tag/rakhshan-rizwan/]

This Should Be A Happy Day

You're probably too young to remember, but I can recall the day when the launch of a new YouTube channel and its videos was a glorious thing, greeted with tumultuous applause, a veritable orgasm of emotional outpouring. Officials from the towns and cities would break a bottle of special reserve Champagne over the channel title - drips and drops of the drink dribbling down onto the sidebars and the videos themselves - and they'd have, oh, at least three cheers, but sometimes more. Maybe that was more a regional thing... My point is that they used to love it. Oh, yes, telegrams were sent, guns fired into the air, bunting put up, flags waved, you get the picture.

As the years passed, though, there were warning signs. Some of the officials that came to cut the tape and Champerschristen the budding vlog saplings started turning up late to the launches. Some of them yawned. Some of them, in remarkable displays of disrespect, drank the Champagne and smashed the empty bottle over the channel. All of a sudden, the police were "too overstretched" to clamp down on such breaches, and, little by little, our fine, upstanding traditions were whittled down to the attendance of a few die-hard fans, who might still bring a party-popper or two along, just to try and hark back to the grandeur of those halcyon days. Which brings us to

TODAY. You are now more likely to be punched in the nose, shot, or blacklisted from your local Screwfix for daring to impugn the sovereign nature of the internet with a new, upstart channel. Such besmirchments are clamped down on with a kind of 'negative vigour' that is the direct opposite of the joyous exulatations we used to see in support. 'Those were days', says this writer in a grim and ultimately pointless muttering into the void.

This writer is also launching his own channel. There's a video, anyway. Come what may, here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54IJdgWlM8A

[Written 27.3.2020]

My photo of a chalk-written message on the side of a kid's play area near Heysham village.

It's a day where the death toll rises sharply in Britain, BoJo gets Coro, and, perhaps as a crumb of comfort, the 'crest of the wave' is predicted by some experts to become apparent in two or three weeks' time. I know this doesn't say anything about timescales for returning to normalcy, but it's another important step on that journey.

I've not been feeling sorry for myself, but my anxieties and whatnot have reached something of a spike. This depression lately has been properly trying to kick my butt. My sleeping is fucked, and that has such a knock-on with my stomach, many things in my head (concentration, that 'fish bowl feeling' etc), what I get done in the day etc... I went shopping today for the first time in over a week (as I've followed the self-isolation guidelines since discovering I had a fever - but I'm aaalright now), and I so desperately wanted to go, to get out the house, to do useful things (compounded for sure by being a carer in various different strengths of responsibility for the past six-ish years, and spending a recent seven months living alone, which fostered in me that sense of knowing exactly what was going on around the house, and being in control of a lot of it), to see the sunlight, see a couple of humans etc. On the other hand, my head was making completely unreasonable scenarios seem likely. I was scared of the idea of the shop 'guards' meeting you outside the shop, standing in a line for who knows how long (and how long would the line be, us all standing two metres apart?), for some reason, I guess the sensation of being 'on display'. Also, there's a big shame thing going round my head at the moment, which centres around the idea of necessity. Yes it's necessary to have food to survive, but I have both the responsibility not to spread Covid-19, and the idea that homeless people don't have the luxury to pop into Tesco with their savings and get things in, which makes me feel guilty. As for the former issue, I have been worried about police patrols stopping me, questioning why I'm out. And I'm not saying I feel so dramatically paranoid that they'd arrest me, seeing something ulterior in my statement about a trip to get some bread and milk, but the emotional impact of being asked, at this time where I'm surprised how bloody fragile I'm feeling, is action-smotheringly looming large at me... Add to that little concerns like, for example, if I was looking at toilet roll - coul I do without it? Are you taking it out the hands of a poor old pensioner? I know, it's comic, but that's how it appears in my head, with the laugh track edited out...

As it happened, the shop was pretty good. A few people decided to walk shoulder to shouler along a pavement, forcing me right out into the road, but other than that everyone was just doing normal things, in pairs at most. The shop still had lots of empty spaces, but I got fruit, bread, even a couple of packets of crisps (hang me! I know they're not necessary and I went and got them anyway), so it felt pretty ok. I saw they were out of pasta, but managed to re-stock on beans, and honestly I forgot to check toilet roll, but that's thankfully not an issue for us at the minute. I self-checked-out, which I always find a shame because I like to talk to the cashiers, but I was happy that I was limiting their exposure (for what it's worth, when they go and serve someone else! But hey, every little helps, right? Or was that Asda?). The biggest difference was all the yellow and black tape all over the floor, marking out 'squares of safety', like we shoppers are counters in a board game. Well, we are in a vast, global strategy game of sorts... Cosmic, in fact. There was a slightly awkward moment on my way out as a person, I don't know, tried to guess which way I was walking, I slowed down to let them past, they sort of stopped so I powered forward, only for them to suddenly change direction and nearly walk into me, potentially unleashing huge plumes of virus-ridden droplets over Heysham, but it never happened.

I don't know why I'm writing this flippantly. Nervous energy, maybe? I really did feel like I was wound up tight before. I felt a little bit better having come back from the shops, but then felt absolutely compelled to get this down, which is unusual. I'm under no illusions that it's just trivial blather about my experiences, and normally I'd say 'hey, maybe some time in the evening get your thoughts down', but I'm a bit frantic, giddy even. It's so weird. I have that NHS advert off the telly in my head, and the red 'x' beside 'visit family or friends' makes me think how hopeless I feel. I've not seen friends in ages, and now it doesn't seem safe to... I feel compelled to try and keep abreast of the news, too, but, as I should bloody well know (maybe my depression is trying to feed itself, keep itself strong while I am weak?), some of it has depressed me, stories of people in cities around the world told not to leave their house at all, not even to get food, walk dogs or whatever. Then someone said, in a very hurt tone, Britain should count itself lucky they can leave the house at all, and I thought 'yeah, absolutely, every day like that is a gift', but then I think, 'but then aren't we part of the problem if we do go outside'? Every point has its obverse... Where am I going with all this...

I don't know whether it's good news or not (oh go on, be positive!), but I've decided to enter this BBC call for scripts (5-10 minutes, involving 2-4 characters in isolation who communicate via video call). I'd apologise for not giving you much notice, but, to be fair, the call only started a week ago, so no-one's had a great deal. Anyway, I'm not moaning, I'm just saying that's the way it is. I'm getting a decent idea together. I want to give them something. A little part of it is 'practice' mentality, but also I want to get my words out there, urgently so at the moment (hence this blog, I guess). I don't know. Am I thinking I'm dying soon? Do I feel dead already?

Hmm... It's a day like this where I could really do with a drink. Again, this is not a joke. I could use one to calm me down, stop feeling the discomfort of existence, and, maybe, to help me get actual sleep tonight. But I won't. Sorry for bringing that up. Anyone out there struggling with substance misuse problems, please stay strong. I know at the moment, nerves are jangling for everyone, and it could seem like a good reason to self-medicate - but honestly, life is still there to be lived, and you can only do that by being here in the present (which substances take you away from). Think of your strength now as a sober person - it's wonderful.

Right, I'm going to 'foxtrot oscar', as one of my colleagues would say :)

Stay safe everyone. Please don't be alone - get in touch with people. They won't mind.

P.S. Tim Martin's an asshole. He's seen some sense - but how much? It stuns me that he even considered fucking over his staff like that. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/03/25/wetherspoon-boss-tim-martin-decides-pay-staff/

At Times

I know the internet (and life as a whole) is not so full of positive stuff right now, and here at Blogtastic, we don't mind adding to it. Oh man, what a strange time. Personally, I've been feeling pretty depressed again for a couple of weeks (unrelated to Covid-19), and my head has been feeling like it's full of scrambled eggs. Then my physical health has taken a bit of a dive (I've got a fever, and aches, so I'm currently self-isolating), and my head feels like it's full of cotton wool. Thankfully, it's not even comparable to a normal flu yet, so I feel confident I'll be back to normal after a not too serious period of layoff. But there's so much worse happening elsewhere, that I'm ding-donging between trying not to focus on it (or at least keep it in perspective compared to other causes of death), and being really sad about it. Yesterday, for example, I heard an update on the death toll in Italy, and that shocked me. I know and love a few ace people in the north, and have been thinking about them a lot, wishing them well, and to hear of such a lot of death got to me. I know their lives are radically different at the moment, and they are putting a brave face on things, so I hope that continues, and that mental and physical health bears up under it all (and that goes for the whole world).

Everywhere here has been ghost-towny for a while. The badminton group I go to had about fifty per cent fewer participants last week. That was weird, because normally we can't quite fit everyone on a court (even when four are set up), but this time, there were a load of singles games on only three courts (I mean, yeah, it was nice to be able to play singles, but you're aware that you can only do it because other people aren't there, and that's probably illness related). At work, it's pretty typically odd. I mean, there's never a normal week where I am, in terms of if it's busy or not, or when it gets busy, if indeed it does. Lately, the weeks have been alternating between getting much better, and feeling like it wasn't worth opening up (and so much of this is filtered through my warped perspective by the way, so isn't reliable, but it is how I feel). And the main thing is that it's not foot traffic that makes work weird, but the conversational focus, you know? Just constant rabbiting... It's not getting on my nerves, as such, but it's wearing me down somehow. And then there's the shopping obviously. This, along with the cancellation of sporting events, has been one of the things that's changed my viewpoint from 'this is similar to avian/swine flu, it is being over-hyped and will not be as bad as people are saying' to 'oh shit, this is definitely worse. Even if the virus itself isn't worse, the effects on society certainly are'. So much shelf space is completely empty in shops around me. I was focussing on fresh fruit and veg on Tuesday, and there's plenty of that, but absolutely no pasta or rice, tinned soup, beans, etc gone... I even looked at normal handwash, as we are down to our last tub at home, and there was nothing. Not even bars of soap, or anything antibacterial. It is striking to look at, perhaps a fifth or a quarter of the whole place cleared out. And I can remind myself that, at the moment, I do not need these products, and if I feel 'squeezed' at all, it's only because I have been spoiled all my life, and, even when I've had no money in my account, I've had enough to see me through to payday etc. Now there's a thought in my head, though; what if people carry on in this over-buying behaviour? Like I say, it's stupid thinking. We'll cross those bridges when we get to them, and I'm sure things will stabilise soon, but I'm just in that frame of depression where paranoia pipes up a little louder than usual... And again, what about the people who aren't as lucky?

Anyway, that's all coronavirus stuff... I also wanted to talk about what I've been doing that's nice. Some of it is vegging at the minute, watching episodes of one of my favourite ever programmes, The Larry Sanders Show. Also watching a good few videos from some of my favourite YouTubers, Funhaus, Internet Comment Etiquette (thanks Alex!), and Red Letter Media mainly. They really do absorb me, and make me feel happier. There's been a lot of YouTube focus on the latest DOOM game, which both makes me yearn for an up-to-date console to play it on, and also made me re-visit the original game, which still puts the willies up me, I can tell you.

Also, connection is as important as ever, so I've been keeping in touch with as many of my friends as possible. This is another area in my life in which I am so fortunate. Many of them got in touch with me, and made me realise what a lucky fella I am, offering to get supplies for me if I can't get out and stuff. I sometimes find it hard to socialise. I don't get why, but my mind just recoils from it, or spins on and on until I distract myself with something else. In this moment, however, I feel like my time is more my own (I'm not working for a bit, nor am I doing much for my dad, as I don't want to pass anything onto him), so I feel much more comfortable dropping people lines. Silver linings, and all that jazz.

My own time... This puts me on to the most important part of all: writing. I have submitted to a new competition (quite an interesting little poem, one that ended up seeming very topical indeed), have heard word about a submission of mine from last year (not a competition at all, but a fantastic opportunity to have my work broadcast on local radio :) ), and, y'know, have been working on other stuff. Obviously I've not got my blogging down to any regularity, but I'm doing this RIGHT NOW, and blah blah blah. Reading, too, has slowed a little since those halcyon days of early January, but I'm still doing a bit! I finished Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (which will feed into a project I want to do later in the year), am carrying on with Ian McEwan's The Child in Time, have read a couple of pamphlets by Francis 'Drumming Up Poetry' Boua, have really enjoyed Sea Goat Who Screams Poetry's Twittering, Sheppard's latest sonnets, Writers' Cafe #18, Ailsa Cox's 'I Never Had a Mother', and quite a few things I can't remember because I read them in bursts from various different websites. So it all adds up, and I don't mean that in a bean-counting way, but, you know, you do feel more whole, and therefore more able to give more of yourself to your own work when you've been reading well. As a whole...

Anyway, there's actually some good news in this post. Here at Blogtastic, we can only apologise profusely for that, and assure you, dear reader, that normal, harrowing service will shortly be resumed.

Peace, love, and light,

Martin x

Lemn Sissay Interview

Here's the link: https://scroll.in/article/953193/we-actually-think-in-poetry-because-we-cannot-speak-in-poetry-we-speak-inadequately-lemn-sissay?fbclid=IwAR07NUTNKOmu_EGfsbYGho2tnfuDiau8wDWqA5XJ92C6LVJWsNe3vtbqP6U

Two things struck me. First is the line about 'thinking in poetry'. Maybe someone out there can help me, but I think I've heard something similar before somewhere? Not that I'm trying to call Sissay out on being unoriginal, I'd just like to read more about it. Anyway, I read it and thought 'yeah, that's a nice soundbite', but then mulled it over a little more, and it's quite apt, really. The ramifications of its truth are that speech (and prose, according to him) are standardised against our own inherent nature. I had understood why, in terms of a system of writing, we would want to standardise things, so that everyone can understand each other, but to think that there is such a disconnect between how we experience things, and 'the' rules of expression... It's a bit thought-provoking, anyway.

Certainly I think poetry is in the best place to reflect the experience of living. In prose you can describe it, and set such a scene, you can capture it, but not the experience of it, i.e. to make you feel like you're going through it. Sort of present tense vs past tense. Drama you can really pierce the heart of issues and emotions (and radio, film, TV), but they're a vastly different kettle of fish being as though the disparity between the way it is on the page and its performance is much bigger. They are great at conveying emotions, but again, generally it's not as close to the living experience. Form is how I see poetry better reflecting life's experience, and drama is close to that (or can be), but I think it's the acting that brings that out, you know, the power is more latent on the script's page, whereas poetry has it in ink and in performance in more similar levels. I've always said poetry's the purest use of language, and therefore it stands to reason for me that it would be more potent - but I don't expect anyone to buy that as a great objective argument lol. And the disclaimer to this whole ramble is that I'm more into the 'experimental side' of writing, so most comparisons between genres have huge holes in them, not only because borders (i.e. standardised definitions of genre) are blurred, techniques and forms are happily nabbed between them, but also because the very newness that is (trying to be) found could completely discredit what I'm saying. Have I made any sense? I suppose, to say it another way, I mean that there are going to be exceptions to what I'm saying because of the scope of the world's imagination, and I feel that once there are exceptions, what I've said is a bit pointless. But then again, I've never let that stop me before. Anyway, enough!

Second thing I wanted to say was just that I'm happy about his stance on universities - that they provide a worthwhile space for people to develop their craft. Some people I know (who are lovely, yes, and good writers, sure) have these negative ideas about unis, not limited to; they are a robot-factory, producing many people who all do the same thing; no-one can teach you how to write anyway (the implication being that unis are a waste of time, and people are idiots for going to them), and; people who write at uni are somehow 'softer', they don't have any bite or an engaging voice. Not necessarily true, by any means! I guess it would have been interesting to read what he would have said had he had more time to answer the question, what nuances he would've brought to the fore, but anyway, like I say, it's nice to know that a chap of his calibre, and his appealing poetry, is for universities. I found that my experience was illuminating through exposure to possibilities rather than 'rules' or whatever (and I had the desire to be educated, you know, I opened my aperture to the light. But then that's true of any discipline - if you're not being listened to, you can't teach a new dog old tricks), not some kind of methodical 'write by numbers' thing that I think my aforementioned uni-sceptic friend was hinting at. There were plenty of discernible 'tools' we were given, for sure, such as poetics, for which I could not have had a better experience at Edge Hill with Robert Sheppard. That's one thing I wonder - where would I have been without even just that one facet? I analyse writing, look at techniques etc, but I don't think I'd've realised the energising power of speculation without that tutelage. Hmmm... No answers, only questions...

Obviously there's lots else to take from the article, so I hope you have time to read it 😊 I just wanted to focus on those couple of bits 😀

And, since you've been so good as to get all the way to the end of this post, have another interview - this time with Roger Robinson: https://globalvoices.org/2020/02/14/an-interview-with-roger-robinson-winner-of-the-2019-t-s-eliot-prize-in-poetry/?fbclid=IwAR0YS6-qUxscuVrJgkqbNahj4RZU6bvLZt6920or-aAyi0B82yQ5UNHRfmw

Bong Joon Ho's 'Parasite' [SPOILERS ABOUND]

Last night I saw Bong Joon Ho's Parasite (or Gisaengchung, as I'm reliably informed it is in Korean). We all know it's done well in the BAFTAs, Oscars, and whatever else... I'd heard some people saying it was amazing, some people saying it was overhyped, but I went along with very realistic expectations (unusual for me...). I was just happy to go see a film, frankly, and, although I'd seen a few clips, I was pretty clean of influence, and could just take everything for what it was. I enjoyed it very much, and thought that it was a fairly potent exploration of class issues, about as political as you can get while still getting mainstream release. It was such a mix of elements, my review is just going to be a cascade of impressions, but hey... And watch out for those spoilers - they're sprinkled throughout these
musings.

There was lots of humour. Some of it slapstick, some of it farcical, some of it dark, some of it satirical - so in a couple of parts I laughed out loud, other bits I was sadlyamused because a mirror was held up to the absurdity of human life (I completely see it as universal, and relatable, although some people I've spoken to reckon it's 'very South Korean'), and sometimes I smiled because of the film creativity. Some bits were so on the nose, I thought 'are they really doing that, like this' - but I'm not saying it was bad writing - for me it often created a dream-like quality, hyper-real oddness. Or something... I suppose a good example of what I mean is one of the pivotal scenes where Kim Ki-taek (our protagonist family's head) stabs Mr Park (the film's rich family man and owner of the house that the Kims infiltrate) because he compains of 'that smell' (the smell of lower class people) again - it's too much, but, in that instance at least, it's a release of the tensions that have been building up.

One thing I really liked (which I've noticed in most of the 'Asian literature' (I'm not saying there's an all-encompassing idea of what that is, I just mean the literature from Asia that I've read. Which isn't masses, admittedly) that I've read) is the way that there were points of repetition, references to certain 'essences', which served as exposition, story beats (sort of like act markers), thematic reinforcement... maybe other things, too. These act as structural points - like bones - that the muscles and skin hang on, they give it a proper roundedness, but it didn't feel like a standard 'three act' film like I'm used to seeing. One of the most important repetitions was 'the smell' - many references are made to the smell of the Kim family, a perceptible but tantalisingly indefinable malodorousness that comes from the 'semi-bunker' that they live in, which, like public transport use, indicates that they are of lower class than the Parks. As I've just mentioned, the smell reference culminates in a narrative flash-point, which to me felt satisfying, and led to a moment of character clarity, where they realise what's important in life (as I feel little things can do in life. Not all epiphanies come from god, they come from the turning over of small stones).
There's a slight fixation on peaches. I love this in many ways; fruit, forbidden fruit, fresh food as luxury, symbols of wealth, Adam and Eve's apple, the idea that the housekeeper Moon-Gwang becomes ill because of fresh fruit is kind of an irony - it should be a healthy aspiration, but she's allergic - sweet supple sex... It's like a meditation, a haiku, boiling things down to a pregnant image...
I also like the use of what's known as a 'scholar stone' that is introduced by an antagonist in the beginning (this does act as a pretty blatant narrative arc marker), which is said to bring material wealth (no possibility of defining 'wealth' as 'love' or 'family' - this is material wealth only). It features almost a little clunkily (there's the line where Ki-woo is asked why he's carrying the stone around with him, and he says, "It's clinging to me," which is an obvious way of showing how greed messes us up. But I liked how it features in the false ending - he puts the stone in a river, and is part of a happy scene, the implication being that he has shared the wealth, 'planted a tree, the shade of which he'll never feel' - there was something very feng shui about that), but it's a visual media, after all, and I thought it was reasonable overall. Also it's notable for its playful quality, the flirting with the idea of the supernatural, as if the rock's really magical.
Last thing I'll mention in this vein is daddy Park's fixation on 'crossing the line'. I love this as an element of character exposition and managing audience expectations. Reminds me of mob characters - like Johnny Caspar - who are obsessed with appearing/behaving a certain way, and (like Ki-taek says at the end about plans made are plans doomed), only find it their undoing. So Park's faith in people's respect for 'the line' (i.e. not going too far in any given situation) sets him up to be disappointed, because inevitably people let him down - indeed, the more faith you have, the more you bring betrayal on (?) (although, actually his driver Yoon never does cross the line, it is the Kim family who are aware, through their willful lying, of where the lines lie, and are in that sense constantly operating beyond them, but from Park's point of view,  Ki-taek, like a dog who breaks his lead, shoots across the line in dramatic fashion). These are classic ingredients in painting his picture, but Joon Ho handles them so well, and it felt refreshing to me.

There's sort-of horror elements I really enjoyed, too; all the sneaking around, the darkness, the bloody heads... Again there's a sort of flirting with the supernatural, when the young 'prince' of the family - Da-song - is worried about seeing another ghost, and we are shown a recreation of the haunting, as if it was a real event. It's a pleasing way of examining what makes us human, because you see people how they are when they're relaxed, and when they're in stressful situations.

Then, in the sense of shooting, there were a lot of stairs/levels shots. Some of the pre-watch media I'd consumed had said something about the importance of 'levels' in Parasite for its class commentary. I tried to pick up on some discernible instances of 'this is this, that subverts that', but I was too busy concentrating on the thing as a whole for that. Obviously you have a man (Geun-se) hidden in a bunker, institutionalised to the point of not wanting to leave his restrictive environment - because he's comfortable - despite the fact that he has an awfully menial and repetitive task to do (switching lights on and off for the family above, who he can't even see, only hear). He believes is an adequate way of expressing himself, but in reality the target of his reverence is unaware of his existence. This reminded me of our zero-hours culture in a meaningful way, but anyway, my point is that all uber-wealth and top class levels are always built on the crippled backs of others (and I'm not talking about fictional 'utopias'. I look at Lancaster - a city nearby to where I live - which, sure, acknowledges its part in the triangular trade, but still the town hall stands, and still the slaves' lives that were used to make it were wasted...

The ending was just at the border of credibility, for me. It was always going to be a hard narrative to end satisfactorily, because of how the strands all screw downwards, but it just managed to make it feel natural to itself. There is one ending that is magic, everything turns out well without any explanation - but this turns out to be a false ending, and the happy ending is (only potentially) yet to happen. So our hope that things can get better are deferred and we realise that the message is true to life once more - things are bleak, and we're going to have to work and change if we want that to be different. In this sense, one could go on at (further) length examining allegories within the film (the 'prince' thing I alluded to earlier, the strange invocation of war general's tactics in the setting out of garden furniture...), but that's it for me. Joon Ho said he wanted people to talk over the ideas they had while watching his film, and he's certainly provoked that reaction with me and the friends I saw Parasite with.

In fact, as we left the cinema, we chatted into the night. Storm Dennis was still pelting the streets, and big puddles were formed everywhere. People would have been worried about the river flooding again. As I walked to my friend's car, we passed a homeless person in the doorway of a greetings card shop. They were wrapped up in a brown sleeping bag, facing away from the street. Our talk of the film momentarily hushed. We were being careful not to wake the sleeper, or we were ashamed to be discussing the artistic merits of a film about class disparity, going back to our warm houses while this poor fucker had nothing except a sleeping bag and a doorway. And who knows what the rest of the night brought them. The rest of life...

And then I was home. I switched on the lights, locked the doors, took my big coat off, poured a drink, sat down on a comfy sofa, turned on my laptop, and started to write this.

Here is a link to the homeless charity Shelter - please donate if you can: https://england.shelter.org.uk/donate?reserved_appeal_code=20190401-DF-10&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIyKaM2P7e5wIVSrDtCh1sVQG-EAAYASAAEgLEtPD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds 

1917: Landschap Verdriet [SPOILERS ALERT]

It's been a couple of weeks since I saw Sam Mendes' 1917 at the local flicks, but I'd still like to say a few words about it. It is one of the most powerful pieces of cinema, or even any kind of art, that I've seen. I came out of the cinema feeling sick, I found it that intense.

*I'll just take this moment to say 'watch out!' as there are spoilers from hereon out.*

I went in to the viewing with low expectations, thinking I was going to get a 'Saving Private Ryan, but set in World War One, full of teary-eyed Brexit-embrazened nationalistic sentiment', but I was so wrong. Whereas Saving Private Ryan is a story that follows a group of soldiers, each with distinct roles, as they cross through France in search of one man, punctuated with then state-of-the-art blood and pyrotechnic effects (trying to create a sensational viewing experience that conveyed the horror of war), 1917 is focussed, really, on one person's journey to deliver a message which will save many peoples' lives. There aren't the same group dynamics or character explorations. In that sense, 1917 is a bit more pared down, more sharply focussed. And as for the 'sensational'; yes, there is also gore, but the truly shocking and enduring images were of, for example, the way the bodies of soldiers and horses were decomposing into the sloppy mud and clay of the trenches, conveying a deep sense of how the wider war was creating landschap verdriet ('landscape grief'). I know it's a cliché to say that the film's location is a character in itself, but in this case, it is true that the surroundings did play a big part, creating calm or tension by itself.

I feel that SPR was more trying to be accurate and factual, filming along a route that real soldiers may have taken, whereas 1917 shows, yes, the horrors wrought in war, but uses the scenes more artfully than authentically, going from those sickeningly grim trenches sluiced with the dead, to farmhouse, to town, to river, to wood, to different trench systems - each chosen more for their emotional weight than historical accuracy. The journey is, if anything, more potent for that. Its other techniques (lighting in particular, especially during the town scene where pallid flickering flares punctuate the midnight blackness) that foster the sense of unending horror, as opposed to the action (firefights, mainly) in SPR.

One thought I had about the 'human war' facet of Mendes' film was how, at the beginning of the film we see dead bodies being reclaimed by the earth, those promising specimens of manhood reduced to barbed wire-based memento mori baubles. Indeed, our main protagonist Schofield is buried in rubble quite early on, but rescued by his pal, Blake. There seems to be a sense of humans and nature being inseparable. They are the killers and the killed, stuck in an inhuman (depending on how you define 'human', I guess...) process. Shortly after escaping the trenches, Scho has to move through a bombed-out town, lit only by the intermittent release of flares, and inconsistent flames. The town doesn't claim him like the rubble did, but it surrounds him closely, jaggedly looming. After an encounter with German soldiers, he runs away and jumps into a river rapid, which made me think there was an element of allegory there. The obvious point is that he's been baptised, and, especially because he threw his rifle away in his haste to evade the enemy, his focus changes from taking life to saving life. Maybe he's Jesus? Then, at the end, when Schofield's finally within reach of stopping this big battle going ahead, the soldiers' dark khaki uniforms stand out like print on a page against the trenches of loose, chalky stone, whiter than ashes, maybe suggesting they've regained their distinct humanity? I know that's a half-baked idea, but it's all I got...

Obviously a lot had been said in the media of Mendes' 'one-shot' look, and his collaboration with Roger Deakins who helped to achieve this. I think this absolutely contributes to the intensity of the film, and why I felt so viscerally affected by it afterwards. I don't want this to sound like a trite comparison, but it reminded me of playing one of my favourite ever games, DOOM. That is a first-person shooter (i.e. you look through the same eyes as the protagonist), and it is renowned not just for its blood 'n' guts, but also its ingenuity in level design. I am going somewhere with this, honestly... Imagine being completely alone in strange worlds, and every action you take leads inexorably to the next - for example, one of DOOM's fave moves is, upon picking up a key, a wall behind you that you thought was solid opening up to reveal monsters. At first, the sound shocks you, and then you start taking damage. You have to be sharp, turn around, and defend yourself - and it is this way in 1917. Especially in the town scene. That phosphorous hanging in the air provides this moment of sickly beauty, and for a moment we can breathe, but we have to move on, and within seconds, shots are raining down, and where is there to run? The sense, in both examples, is 'there is no turning back'. We can't in 1917 because the message needs to be delivered before it's too late. We can't in DOOM, because we simply want our nightmare to end, to find that elusive safety. 1917 really was a great vision, and superbly realised. I know it could never come too close to the real living grief that war is, but I was almost constantly disgusted - that this is what countries and their governments do to humans, put them through this hell that is completely made up by 'others'. Where is there to run? There is no safety from human nature, which, it seems, will always find conflict and inhuman cruelty. And Brexit.

Right. Ramble nearly over. I think I'd give 1917 four stars. It's so challenging and well-executed that I want to give it five, but I think some of the artistic contrivances (with respect to visuals, the inaccuracy of German soldiers' shooting that would cause even James Bond henchpeople to raise an eyebrow, and, y'know, clip sizes in guns (when will film-makers learn?), for example) took me out of things a bit. As I've said in other reviews, I look at things with such an unfairly keen eye sometimes, but, yeah, I think if the film could have been less of a 'gallery', it would have resonated that little bit more, but that's going to be near impossible to do, But hey, I considered five stars, so it's not like it's far off. Praise due to everyone who worked on it, and a million awards.

Since 1917, I've been to see Bad Boys for Life. Was alright.

Pages: Robert Sheppard: one sonnet from 'Breakout' my fir...

Pages: Robert Sheppard: one sonnet from 'Breakout' my fir...: didn’t think it would be like this green murk  slanted light catches the national fish basking just below the surface black length...

Back to Bad. Minton.

I've been back playing badminton now for about two months. Before that, it had been about seven years since I'd played, back in the days of doing my BA at Ole Edge Hill. It was great to get back to playing, like an existential homecoming. Not only is badminton one of the only competitive sports I've ever played with any regularity - and therefore become reasonably good at - but also it used to get me out the house and socialising in a meaningful way, and all these feelings and memories ran back to me, arms open wide. I'm incredibly lucky to have been introduced to the group I'm going to, which itself is lucky that the EU has funded it, and thankful. As the memories mill around my mind like lazy gas molecules, I got to thinking about the badminton-based writing I used to do on this very blog, so went back and had a read.

Faintly amusing I find those posts. Generally they comprise of me evaluating my performance, or moaning about some perceived social injustice wrought against me, alongside thrilling thoughts on Liverpool FC's latest match. I remember how it was, though, going pushing myself as hard as I could for a couple of hours, having plenty of laughs, then walking out into the cold, dark air, feeling also the chill of loneliness as I walked home, past the wooden fencing around the hospital that made a zoetrope of the wall behind, and in through the front door. I'd go from joking and exercising with everybody, to being by myself. Then I'd usually have a bit to eat, a shower, and a blog, and felt purposeful again.

Occasionally I would attempt to uncover - poetics-like - some nugget of wisdom about my badminton practise (how to play better, what makes a good player, etc), and I'm pleased with myself on that front. But anyway, whatever I think of having written it all, it doesn't matter. It's there. The most interesting thing to note was how I used to react to my performance. I'm a lot less celebratory after a win these days, rarely even opting for a fist-pump (does that suggest that there's less to fist-pump about?). I could be very puerile, as I let myself get carried away in the genuine elation, but this had been perceived to be trying to rub it in people's faces, which I don't, and never have, agreed with.

My reactions to losing are pretty similar. I'm still not bothered if I lose games, and still find dropping points with poor play disappointing, i.e. where I know I should've done better. However, I'm nowhere near as aggressive with myself as I used to be (there'd be an inner dialogue going on that would make a telepathic sailor blush), and in general now I look forward to the next shot, rather than dwelling on the one I've missed. Good advice for life, methinks. Indeed, some of these tools help interpersonally, too. There are a few people at the place I go to now that like to laugh at you when you miss a shot. I find this annoying, because I'm a stupid man-child with a hugely over-sensitive disposition, and an unfortunately robust ego, even after all this time and effort. That being said, when people do laugh, I take it on the chin, and by breathing and contextualising it better, the knot of annoyance is gone in a moment. Part of the contextualising can be thinking about how, objectively, a complete air-shot might look funny - like physical comedy, as it were - to others. Also, there's the fact that all you can control is trying to hit that shot, and your reaction. You missed, so what? Try and hit the next one. You can't control how other people take anything, so don't try. Let it be.

Anyway, I didn't expect this all to go on quite so long, and then turn into a weird Buddhist sermon at the end... So goodbye for now! Hope you feel inspired to dust off an old hobby, or even start a new one, after reading this :)

Bye!

Just Duck Breakin'

I fancied 'breaking my duck' for 2020 with a short, banal post, just to ease myself back into the blogging rhythm.

But then I thought better of it. Why not start the new year with a long, banal post?

And we're off!

It's been a decent start to the year to be honest. I wrote a first draft of a children's story (I know, where did that come from? But what can I say? I was walking around a park in Lytham, got that ol' inspired feeling, and acted on it. Any publishers of new writing for children out there - hmu!), have been keeping up to date with my various diaries, am doing a bit of sketch writing with a friend, have submitted a new poem to a local radio culture show... Quite a lot, really. In terms of consumption, too, I'm doing well. I've finished a few books, and seen some films, too. If I continue going like I am, I might find a level of consistent contentedness - could it actually happen? When you consider it, happiness doesn't take all that much - just spending your time in the right way...

I finally got round to reading Eleanor Rees' Blood Child a bit back. After finishing it, the dark character of its (our?) world has stayed with me, and I feel compelled to say a bit about it. I got so deeply slathered in language when reading this, it was wonderful. Like a weatherful walk along a beach, it was full of palpable (and yet also ethereal) experiences; the wind holding you by the shoulders, the rain lashing and prickling your skin, the sensation of sand slipping underfoot, the gulls' cries touching your brain - all rendered in seductively sonic language, and active imagery. Take these few lines from 'A Burial of Sight':

...the flight paths of geese above a city park.

In the night I am with them,

solid wings slapping against air currents,

almost like thoughts...

The cities crouch, and yet loom, as do the shadowy, mythic woods of Grimm-esque tales, where even the still things are alive, and have momentous presence, like in 'Becoming Miniature', where, "...the houses [are] pressed with satellite dishes./ Aerials all point west as if hearing the sea." This is down to keen eyes and ears, and the technical strength and beauty to do life justice. I mean, some of these sentences thrill me with their sonic luxury. How can you not get a kick out of this, from 'Arne's Progress: Cortège', "...he drives over cherry blossoms splattered on tarmac/ while a man at the bus stop scrambles through a sandstorm"? I also enjoyed the thematic tightness of the collection as a whole, the recurrence of natural, earthy lexis, splashes of colour, the way humanity is presented, and the sense of travelling through air and time. Although we have a diversity of poems in terms of length ('A Burial of Sight', 'Blood Child', 'Arne's Progress' - made up of several distinct sections - and 'Blue Black' being the longer works) and form, the collection sits comfortably like a nests in a tree. It's rich poetry, and I thoroughly recommend it.

While reading Blood Child, I also had Robert Sheppard's Micro Event Space on the go (whilst sitting stationary). There was a moment where both texts were talking about gulls, and there was this strange synaptic flash between these two very different books. Sheppard's collection is, I think, more of a menagerie, and there's not a lot (especially not in terms of, say, motifery) to link the collection together, apart from the idea of smallness - but under that banner there is such a range, that everything hardly manages to fit under it. The pieces range in length from twelve lines to ninety-seven, in form from 'Twittersonnets' to Haibun (which is interesting because the only way it fits, for me, into the idea of 'smallness' is in how it uses language, i.e. being small by its conciseness. But, obviously, this could be said of a lot of poetry. In terms of the scene, one could say the poem's about a walk in the park (which is at least partly true), and that's a small thing, but it's actually looked at from so many angles as to make it a Tardis-like 'hugeness contained within a smallness. So, as I say, it's interesting how it strains at the edges of its "small poems about small things" description [in the blurb]), and in content from Roman coins to a car park fire.

I've seen examples of the Twittersonnet before (in 'Twitterodes' from Pages, and in A Translated Man), but they were no less potent here. When reading them, I feel like I'm descending a small diameter helter-skelter (what a belter...). So quick are the line breaks, for me there's a sense of dizzying pace. And it completely works, not just in the pace of reading, but the stresses it provides, y'know, generally the way they say so much, as Sheppard always does, in such a short space. 'higgs boson', as with most of them, I read over and over. I'm a fan of the cheeky "pip," "dip," and "tip" rhyming, and the way 'photons and leptons' are ensmallenised even further as "...the pho[/] and the lep[/] tons..." I know there are constraints at play, and yet the effect they make - just yes! Like with any good fairground ride, I want to go again. I also like the effect he creates in 'Leeds'. The three numbered parts - which themselves reference art - create this pleasing gallery-within-a-gallery feel. Anyway, I could go on about formal inventiveness in Sheppardian work 'til I'm blue in the face, but for me, sometimes you just can't beat a super serving of sibilance, and so I swing your attention 'The Working Week'-wards, to an image that I'd like to think summed up the author as he got to grips with his poetic material, "A sweat-band soaks up/ the effluent of/ his excess labour." But this is just supposed to be a short mulling over, so I'll leave it there. It looks like Micro Event Space is sold out already - hope you got your copy! And if Twittersonnets are your bag, check out these six from Tyneside by Alan Baker - wonderful living nuggets from the north-east.

Fictionly, I'm reading Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got his Gun. I became aware of Trumbo recently when watching the film based on his life, starring Brian Cranston. It was actually pretty good, genuinely compelling, and avoided (too much) of the glossy white-washing that these biopics often lazily pedal. When I read the synopsis, I was fully expecting a 'yeah, America used to be bad, y'know, with the Communist witch-hunts etc, but now that we've venerated one of the victims, we're cool, right? Right?' kind of thing, but it was more rounded than that. Anyway, film aside, I got to researching Trumbo a bit, and the aforementioned book came up in my trawl. It's a powerful book, up there in terms of emotional effect and unswerving craft vision with American Psycho for me (yes, an odd comparison, but it is what it is!). I won't go into it a lot, but I think that the way he unflinchingly explores the life of his deeply disabled protagonist is inspiring, and rekindles in me the desire to follow through with ideas that my internal censor sometimes says 'no, that's too weird for an audience to like'. I mean, really, the ideas are just what we hang our words on. Here, the words and ideas have a singular effect. I feel really close to Joe - the main character - because his mindscape is so well represented, and his motivations and patterns seem genuine. I'm not too much a fan of the lack of punctuation, which makes reading difficult, but this is perhaps a more sympathetic representation of the processes of Joe's mind - not ordered in a standard(ised) way. In this sense, it was the punctuational equivalent of Chuck Palahniuck's Amy Hempel's 'burnt tongues', forcing you to re-read. I'm not sure if that was entirely the intended effect, but it means that you have to be wary of reading too quick, you know, and because you have to slow down, and open your apertures wide, you take the full force of the light within the book. It is almost blinding. If you've got a strong constitution (mentally as well as physically), then I think you should read it, too. Especially if you're of the right, politically. And/or extreme left, I guess. I dunno. Maybe all humanity should read it... People have got to listen at some point, right? RIGHT? Oh, I forgot...

Well, I've prattled long enough, I think. Soon, I'll have a little muse upon some of the films I've been seeing lately, so, if this post hasn't been too much excitement for you, I'll see you then.

Peace, love, and light, amici!