Box sets, Bicycles and Banjos

Here's another daft Shaftesbury tale - this time for a Christmas anthology, and you can probably tell how much I like telling Christmas stories from what follows.  It is, however, redeemed by a very fine illustration from Ella McDonough.

Box sets, Bicycles and Banjos

It is not obvious, unless you have carefully surveyed street maps old and new, that the part of the A350 that runs through Shaftesbury and extends from the Ivy Cross roundabout to the junction with Barton Hill is known as ‘Little Content Lane’.  Though buildings that face onto this stretch of road are sparse now, there was a time, long ago, when Little Content Lane boasted a sizeable population.

The majority of them took exception to the name and wanted it changed.  “It demeans us,” they said.  “We really don’t understand why it should be so named, we did not participate in the process of naming it and we think it ill serves our town.”  It came to the point where they felt that something had to be done.  It happened that Christmas was coming and the last thing they wanted was for Santa to get the wrong idea about their neighbourhood.  Why would he and his elves deliver anything of substance to Little Content Lane, when they could bestow their presents on Great Lane or Gold Hill?  Something definitely had to be done.  They put up notices all around Shaftesbury calling for a special meeting of the Town Council.

At the time, the Mayor of Shaftesbury was, in fact, a mare.  This was the result of a local squire stating: “Sooner my grey mare than any of those lefty liberal types!" and pulling the necessary strings to ensure that in the event of such an emergency, Mayor Mare would be appointed.  Under Mayor Mare’s rule, any progressive or even vaguely sensible proposal was met with a chorus of nays.  For those who preferred the status quo, it was indeed a whinny-whinny situation.

Now the people of Little Content Lane had amongst them a champion, a man by the name of Horace Oats.  Horace Oats made a careful study of the procedural regulations governing the naming of streets and the more he studied the more irate he became.  “They have condemned us,” he exclaimed, “to receive mere stocking-fillers from Santa, whereas the folk on Great Lane and Gold Hill will be given box sets, bicycles and banjos.”

Thus it was that, on the evening appointed for the special meeting, the people of Little Content Lane marched en masse to the Town Hall, carrying banners that said: ‘We want box sets!’  ‘We want bicycles!’  ‘We want banjos!’  This caused some perplexity amongst the handful of town councillors who had turned out for the meeting.  “What on earth are these idiots on about?” they muttered to one another, raising their eyebrows and rolling their eyeballs. 

In order to comprehend the proceedings at any such meeting, Mayor Mare relied heavily on the services of the Town Clerk.  Her name was Sandra and she was a horse-whisperer.  Heroically multi-tasking, she would not only record the minutes but, in a hoarse whisper, translate them for the benefit of Mayor Mare.  As Horace Oats made his presentation, Sandra did her very best to convey its essence to her four legged superior.  When he had finished, a series of nuanced snorts provided Sandra with a translatable mayoral statement.

It was clear, she said, that the citizens of Little Content Lane were labouring under a misapprehension.  The implication of inferiority that the name bestowed was only to be found if one placed verbal emphasis on the first syllable of the second word (content).  Place it on the second syllable of that word (content) and the implication changed considerably.  The name was a tribute, she told them, to a people who strived to better themselves and their environment and for whom ‘second best’ simply would not do.  And since the name had existed for a considerable length of time already, what proof had they that Santa had ever delivered any fewer box sets, bicycles and banjos than he did to the residents of Gold Hill or Great Lane?  Indeed, many of those attending the meeting had arrived on bicycles, were members of the town’s highly accomplished banjo band and had left family members at home watching box sets.

At this Horace Oats was rendered speechless and the protesters deeply abashed.  How could they have been so foolish?  Leaving their banners behind them they returned to their homes, determined to use the power of their discontent to better serve the town where they dwelt.  And that Christmas, when Santa and his elves delivered candlesticks, catamarans and cardigans with absolute equality throughout Shaftesbury, it was clear that their lot was no worse than that of any other part of the town.

Mayor Mare was re-elected for several years running and, though she is largely forgotten now, was considered one of the finest dignitaries ever to have held that title.  In one respect, however, her legend lives on.  To this very day you have only to walk by a field full of sheep and you will hear her name being repetitively celebrated.  “Mehh!  Mehh!”

The Lane That Runs Out of Time

Rats!  Didn't quite manage an August blog in August.  Here it is in September. Piece I wrote as a contribution to a collection of tales, tall and otherwise, by local writers - all connected with the North Dorset town of Shaftesbury, where I currently live.

The Lane That Runs Out of Time

We don’t know, of course, exactly where it will emerge in 2020.  It could appear abutted onto one of the leafy lanes that run down the slopes to St.James.  It might just turn up in the town centre, tucked into that grey stone block of buildings between Trinity Church and the High Street.  Or perhaps, seeking the novelty of the new, between identikit housing on Rifles Road or Badger Walk in that forlorn estate to the east of the town.  Wherever it appears, it will remain accessible – if you can detect it – for just twenty four hours, and then it will disappear without so much as a puff of smoke.

No one knows where it goes when it is not present in Shaftesbury.  Its residents have no interest in telling us.  When it last showed up, back in 2016, it was down in Enmore Green, on Well Lane between two of those old stone houses you encounter just before the A30 cuts it off.  When it shows, it has this knack of looking like it’s always been there.  You might even walk down it without ever realising that you have entered a numinous zone.  When it’s here, it’s very Shaftesbury.  A mingled mix of architectures that span the centuries – old stone, red brick, timber clad, or deco glass and concrete.  You can turn a lot of corners in this town and not know what you’re about to encounter, so this little lane is perfectly camouflaged, even managing to dovetail with the newer estates if it finds it necessary to do so.

Its residents are a motley lot, but they function as a community and it’s doubtful whether any of them would ever want to move house.  So you’ll not see any roadside signs from Connells or Chaffers amongst the slightly scruffy hedges or low stone walls with their surrounding adornments of snowdrops, crocuses, primroses and daffs.  Wherever it is they are when they are not in Shaftesbury, it seems to suit them just as well.  But on that day when they get here, you can rest assured that they will nearly all, individually or collectively, make a pilgrimage to the Bargain’s shop to stock up on woolly hats, candles, batteries, hair adornments and post-cards with images that look three-dimensional.  Check it out on the day.  But mind, it can get pretty crowded in there, both tills in constant use.

Take a wander up the street, round the corner and down the steps to Underground Music, just above Gold Hill, and you’ll encounter at some point in the day one of the lane’s most colourful residents.  He’s getting on a bit now, his once imposing black moustache and hair now a thinner grey.  But under a multicoloured coat he’ll be sporting a dazzling tee shirt and a middle eastern waistcoat. And with them wearing a psychedelic pendant and an orange baseball cap.  For all the signs of age, his jaw is firm, his face strong and somehow tanned.  He’s come to buy reeds for his flute, has Raja Ram, and perhaps a hand-drum or two.

Pearl, his next door neighbour, scours the charity shops, picks out the funkiest threads she can find – fringed items a speciality – and with a tilt of her tinted glasses and a friendly cackle, hoarsely asks the attendants if she can try them on.  By the time she heads back to the lane, her wild hair blowing in the breeze, she’ll be toting a sackful of outfits and a carrier bag laden with quarts of Jack Daniels from Shaftesbury Wines.

Not all the residents who spread out through the town that day are quite as colourful as these two.  Charles in his sombre black suit displays only a hint of colour with the rakish neckerchief knotted to the left of his Adam’s apple.  He too has just emerged from the wine shop, where they have slipped him a bottle of absinthe from under the counter.  He spends much of the day in his favoured parts of the town, St. James Street and Bell Street, where he feels a little more at home, a little safer from the flowers of evil.  In contrast Buster, in his ill fitting suit and boater, spends several hours in the Barton Hill skate park, where he shows the young ‘uns on scooters and skateboards hilariously but exactly how it’s done.

Marilyn and Audrey select the finest lingerie that Shirley Alum has to offer, while Coco stares in mute disgust through the windows of Superdrug.  Dylan spends the entire day in the Mitre and John Pierpont calls in at Lloyds Bank to check the interest on a sum of money he deposited in 1904.  You can hardly get across town without bumping into one or another of these folk.  And they are friendly, personable types on the whole, happy to invite you to the parties they’ll be holding in the lane that evening.

But here a word of caution.  If you choose to join them in their revelry, be sure to leave before midnight.  For if you are still there when March 1^st commences, you will not see Shaftesbury again for 1,460 days and nights.  But at least you might find out where it is they go for all that length of time, those extraordinary people who live on Leap Year Lane.

The Environmental Price of Streaming, Online Video & similar matters

Me and the partner are, in many ways, slipping behind the times on the communications technology front.  We prefer CDs or even the occasional vinyl to streaming, DVDs to subscription services etc.  Okay, she has a smartphone and (reluctantly) found herself subscribing to What’s App in order to keep in touch with the local XR group and family members.  I’ve managed to avoid even this (relying on a rarely used old Nokia for occasional mobile phone conversations and even more occasionally taking pictures) though I do plague her with fairly frequent requests for local weather updates, so I’m cheating a little bit.

This reluctance on our part is not primarily of an ideological nature, at least it isn’t for me.  It’s just that somewhere during the first decade of this century I decided I’d had enough of constant change, having to learn how to operate new devices or come to terms with new systems on the existing ones.  There was also a sense that they somehow swallowed up time, time that I’d rather spend not looking at any kind of screen or even having it flickering in the background while I listen to disembodied music that’s stored in a cloud.  And yes, at this point a little ideology began to creep in when I learned how minuscule the payments are from the likes of Spotify to the musicians whose work they peddle. 

But now the ideology is kicking in harder, as we both feel strongly that the ongoing CO2 emissions related climatic breakdown can barely be prevented from causing irreversible planet-wide disaster, if at all.  An article in this week’s ‘New Scientist’ nails it.  The transmission and viewing of online video, it tells us, results in emissions of 300 million tonnes of CO2 per year, nearly 1 per cent of the global total.  Its carbon footprint, we are also informed, is equivalent to that of Spain.  If you account that in to the production of all digital technologies and the power to run them, you’re looking at a responsibility for around 4 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions.  Moreover, all this is set to rise with the continuing craving for higher resolution video etc.

Somehow – as a result of marketing, as a result of politics and corporate companies’ clinging to ‘business-as usual’ – we are en masse blinded to the real price there is to pay for services we apparently take for granted.  The same thing applies to air flight.  An article in today’s Guardian points out that a return flight from London to Rome ‘carries a carbon footprint of 234kg per passenger – more than the (individual) average produced by citizens of 17 countries annually’.  Air flight too is on the increase.  This stuff can’t go on.  The tipping point will be reached – if it hasn’t already – and then the shit will hit the fan.

Okay, getting back to streaming and online video…  I’m aware of the bubble effect.  I have this opinion and within my bubble the evidence I want to support my opinion tends to come my way.  And I’m aware that the NS article is based on research commissioned by The Shift Project, a French think tank advocating a shift to a post-carbon economy.  But an online search on the words ‘carbon footprint online video’ elicits a slew of headings referring to similar research drawing similar conclusions.  The only shred of hope showing up with the heading that ‘smarter web design’ could reduce the consumption of energy involved.  Well, perhaps there is a technological fix that might help – there’s usually someone somewhere with an as-yet untested idea or two of this nature.  The question is – can it be made to work against the background of this exponential rise in consumption?  As for the completely contradictory evidence, it’s proving hard to find.

But of course my beloved CDs and DVDs don’t come without a cost to the environment.  I’m glad that fewer and fewer CDs these days are packaged in those ridiculous plastic ‘jewel cases’ that the plastics industry managed to promote to the fore back in the 80s when the technology was new, but there’s still the footprint of manufacture and there’s still a lot of plastic involved.  I don’t have the time or interest to find out what the relative costs are – given that, as I made clear at the start of this piece, my ‘virtue’ in this matter is entirely down to coincidence.  All I really know is that if we don’t start to discover the true cost of what’s being peddled to us as consumers, and if we don’t modify our behaviour and reduce consumption in the light of this, we – and who knows how many other species on this planet – have had it.  End of story.

Update 2 - 2019

Astute readers of this blog will no doubt have noticed its non-appearance during May.  If anyone held their breath waiting, it's obviously too late to apologise as death will doubtless have set in by now.  

Life being - as some of you will know - the bane of a writer's life, I'm afraid I had to live rather a lot of it and write very little during this period.  Positive steps, doubtless - especially a move from rented accommodation with my partner of the last three years to the house we bought in 2017 and now intend to spend the rest of our days in. There has been a logistical problem, however, with the final merging of our two households into one.  Too much stuff.  This has necessitated, on top of all the other time consuming aspects of a house move, much sorting and casting out.

But here I am writing this blog and updating my website.  A sign that some semblance of normality has returned, I think.  And preparing also for the Shaftesbury Fringe Festival, 2019, by (amongst other things) designing my pitch for this year's performance, which looks like this::

                           

Here's a link to an interview where I talk some more about this potentially extraordinary performance. Interview

If you can't make it to the Shaftesbury Fringe on Friday evening, I'll be re-running this performance at the Tears in the Fence Poetry Festival this year also, during the Saturday evening session. 

                       

It's a feast of poetry and no mistake. Find out more and follow updates at:

https://www.facebook.com/Tears-in-the-Fence-Festival-Events-1438920699751926/

And finally (for now)...

Wilful Misunderstanding story 'The House Where Jack Dwelt' is to appear in issue 49 of Irish sf/fantasy magazine Albedo One, which I'm told is due to appear in August this year, to coincide with the SF World Conference in Dublin commencing on the 15th.  This story was submitted and accepted by the editors as far back - I think - as a couple of years before WMs was published.  As I wanted it in the book, I had to withdraw fthe offer of first publishing rights  when I published.  I thought that was the end of it, but recently a gent named Roelof Goudriaan contacted me with a request to print the story.  End of saga...

 

Old Bob Dylan Song Gets a Rewrite (For Our Times)

come politicians and industrialists
it’s time that you all began to admit
so much you have done hasn’t helped us a bit
and there ain’t no use in denyin’
you’ve sunk us all deeper and deeper in shit
for the climate is a-changin’


young people, school strikers, take it to the max
for none can afford to sit back and relax
as those with the wealth they falsify facts
while their taxes they are avoidin’
it’s time to undo the way things are stacked
for the climate is a-changin’


come lovers of species so precious and rare
that will soon be extinct if we don’t start to care
for the planet we live on, its seas and its air
why can’t we all just start sharin’
without exploitation what’s left of what’s there
for the climate is a-changin’


come media people and BBC news
the time it is past for ‘exchanging views’
and tabloids that twist with the slickest of screws
it’s time you all started agreein’
our planet’s no longer a thing to abuse
for the climate is a-changin’


come folk who think your lives safe and secure
think technology will give us the cure
the affluent lifestyle’s not fit to endure
the changes we need to be makin’
and over-consumption must lose its allure
for the climate is a-changin’


bob said the line’s drawn, the curse it is cast
and he wasn’t kiddin’, it’s happening fast
diversity mustn’t slip into the past
our chances are rapidly fadin’
and anyone left will look back aghast
for the climate is a-changin’








Feel free to sing these words at Extinction Rebellion events and climate breakdown actions in general.  If you reproduce them, give me a credit please.  Richard Foreman - Wilful Misunderstandings.  I need to sell my wares.

Keep Looking

I love to find old machinery that is in some advanced state of corrosion, having been abandoned or otherwise found itself deposited in the landscape.  This was on a beach in north Norfolk.  Use whatever digital doo-dahs you have at your disposal to magnify this picture.  Look at the surfaces, the way they are flaking away in slow disintegration, and the colours: the blues, the ochres, the mauves...  Humans pollute the surface of the earth in ways beyond number, but now and again, nature gets to work and makes our ugly deposits beautiful again.  Doesn't mean we shouldn't try to rein in our monumental carelessness of course, but beauty is where you find it.

In 2017, street bollards in Romsey, Hampshire, began to suffer a strange affliction.  They became intensely sensitive to low temperatures and began to lose all semblance of sturdiness as a result, cowering and shivering where they once stood proud on their paving stones.  A civic emergency was declared and the town's knitters, crocheters and felters were co-opted en masse to deal with the crisis.  Vast numbers of 'bollard-coseys' were created in a stunningly short period of time to protect these sensitive metal objects from weather extremes of any kind.  Here you see one example.

Long time readers of this blog (come on, there must be at least one or two of you) will know that, some decades ago, I wrote the scripts for three issues of DC's 'Swamp Thing' comic.  This is the closest I've come to encountering said character in what we laughingly know as 'Reality'.  Its resemblance to the moss shrouded roots of a fallen tree in Pembrokeshire woodland is purely coincidental. 

I mentioned the garden of my house in South Wales, where I lived until a few years ago, in the last blog. These came up for a short period every summer and were a glorious explosion when they did.  I never managed to find out what they were (azaleas of some variety?) but this is about the clearest photo I ever managed to take, showing just one of the flower clusters.

We end where we began, in a way, with a human made object left to decay in a landscape, this time a wood near Brechfa, South Wales.  Being plastic, it's probably still there, though this pic was taken in 2012.  So it's just another bit of pollution, really, but I can't help imagining that the local tutelary spirits might enjoy a little sit there, as dusk turns to night, or at dawn, awaiting the sparkle of fresh dew in the early daylight.

'Bye for now.

Look At These

I can only identify this one from its context and date.  It was sometime in 2011 and almost certainly in South Wales where I lived at that time.  It doesn't matter.  Waterfalls are waterfalls wherever they are.  What brings me joy when I see this one is the skein of froth, the deep navy of the water above  - a colour that turns to a toffee coloured brown as it falls.  And the peculiar angle of the photo that makes the water at the bottom look like it's on a slope.

Here's a cluster of mombretias from my garden in that same year, with some ferns behind them.  It was a lovely little garden, private and surrounded by high hedges.  I can take no credit, that's the way it was when I found it.  I just kept it tidy and watched things appear throughout the growing season.  I love the spiky leaves, the way they cast out in so many directions, like a cartoon explosion, the flame of the flower heads glowing within.

Here's an ancient pathway, a shot taken in the mountainous area of northern Tenerife in 2013.  I forget the name of the tribe that formed and used these paths, dwellers in this place long before the Spanish came - but given the state of much of Tenerife it was good to come across something so much more firmly grounded in the place.  In Dorset where I live now, there are numerous 'hollow ways' that are not dissimilar.  The mottled effect you are seeing on the level surface of the path is shadows from the surrounding trees, the white being direct sunshine pouring through the gaps.

How could anyone resist the invitation this tent offers, with its carefully tended little central flowerbed where strategically placed candles wait to be lit, circles of straw bales around the perimeter wait to be sat on and a guitar awaits the hands of a musician?  Not I.  It's a place of worship and celebration in the grounds of Burnlaw, a Baha'i community  in Northumbria.  Every summer they hold a small festival which they call 'Earthing the Spirit'.  In the morning and the evening, anyone who wants to gathers in this tent for a period of time to reflect in silence, read from religious/poetic texts, and sing and play - all in complete spontaneity. Though I do not share their faith, I felt both welcome and fortunate to share in the spirit of this festival on two or three occasions in the early 2010s.  Sadly, it's unlikely that I will return, but I look at this picture and others I have of people enjoying the activities, the fun and sharing the wonderful food, and it lifts my heart.

Pictured on my UPVC doorway back in 2013.  When you look at it this close up, even the squishy bits are jewel-like.

More soon.