IN CASE THERE IS ANY INTEREST LEFT+MORE IDEAS FOR COMPOSITIONS

In case you’ve been following my escapades vis a vis a potential move and you’re wondering why my tenancy time hasn’t run out where I am now and since my new place isn’t ready I’ve not been catapulted onto the streets, with the cats after me:
Well.
I was led to believe that my cats would be welcome. They won’t be. Not all of them. So I cancelled my end of tenancy agreement and I am stopping here.
There is no flippin’ way I am going anywhere without my babies, cause if they aren’t welcome, well the landlord can do without me tenanting his place.

Now, that’s out of the way; another story idea.
A young female lab assistant who works in a biology research lab, and has a strong imagination makes friends with an eccentric older male professor and after a while of getting to know one another, he admits that he has been working on illegal experiments, albeit in his own time and in the cellar/lab of his rambling home on the borders of Cheshire and Greater Manchester. They comprise of the mixing of various embryos to make new species (a hybrid of a budgie and a frog for example, with feathers and a wide beaked mouth). Fascinated the young assistant asks to see more; and then when he realises he can trust her, he introduces her to the ultimate experiment. A mixture the DNA of his beloved cat and a human embryo.
And the tentative, working title? Something along the lines of: MENDEL’S IMPOSSIBLE DREAM?

‘ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE NORTH’ BY PHILIP PULLMAN : A CRITIQUE

I purchase a copy of ‘One Upon A Time In The North’ Mr Pullman’s latest addition to the His Dark Materials series and sat in the coffee shop attached to Border’s books and read it in one go (it’s less than a hundred pages altogether, round about 20,000 words*) and. . .
well.
Wow,
wow
. . .and. . .
wow.
I read it again on the bus on my way back, and read it again when I got in.
I don’t want to spoil it for you, (get hold of a copy and read it) apart from to tell you it is not a children’s book. Not at all. Short and compact and illustrated and written in Mr Pullman’s simple, lean style, maybe, but not for the very young. I’d say mid-teens was about the earliest age it’s suitable for.
It’s set thirty-five years before the doing of ‘The Subtle Knife’ part of the trilogy and you’ll read about how Lee Scoresby and his dæmon Hester in the airship Lee won in a gambling game, land on the island Novy Odense, near the Arctic circle (in their own dæmon (soul) outside the body world, of course) and how they meet Iorek Brynison. (Or York Burningson as Lee insists on pronouncing it until curtly put right).
I’m not going to add any more, although I could, oh wow yeah I could, apart from;
Look out for the sadistic rival of Lee, McConville and his serpent dæmon, and his terrible, terrifying description of how he kills a marshal taking him in for murder. (It involves tying his dæmon to a horse tail and then frighting the horse, after a suitable time in which he enjoys the terror of the marshal.)
Read how Iorek takes on a gas gun, a massive rumbling semi-tank half-track cannon on wheels, and wins!
And in case you’re wondering, Hester is an Arctic hare.
As I said, get hold of a copy of your own and read it.
Wow! (Again)
If you aren’t affected in some deep, subtle way, as I always am after reading anything to do with ‘His Dark Materials’, well you aren’t me (And; copious thanks to Paul for introducing me to the books).
As a bonus, stuck in a flap in the inside back cover, there is a game ‘Peril of the Pole’ an old-fashioned board game with counters and written rules and things.
Now all I need is for someone to play it with me.

*Right at the end, there are some hand written notes by Lyra Silvertongue, which tells of how this story is meant to be something she found to put into a dissertation for college. She also describes about how she’s learning to read the alethiometer again, and how she wishes she had someone to test her properly. Does this mean Mr Pullman is setting us up for maybe a way to reunite Lyra with her beloved Will Parry? Maybe in ‘The Book Of Dust’?

SONG TO END THE WEEKEND ON : ‘CAP IN HAND’

This weekend’s song to end the weekend on is the Proclaimer’s Scottish Nationalist hymn ‘Cap In Hand‘.*
One of the best songs ever composed by one of the best bands ever formed. It reawakens so many important, special memories for me, especially the lines;

‘We fight when they ask us,
we boast, then we cower,
we beg, for a piece of,
what’s already ours’.

So, as always,
Enjoy and
A good week, if you have to go cap in hand or you fight when you’re not asked to.

*Although this Youtube version is from a European tour and it isn’t as it’s best, although it is the best I could locate on the Interweb.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ERIC, PLUS A SNIPPET OF IMPORTANT INFORMATION

Eric Idle, born 29th March 1943.
Happy birthday, Mr Idle and keep cranking out those marvellous clever word writings of yours.
You are my author hero.
And, of course.
All the best.

If you’re still around, Eric(if you’re here at all, somehow, oh yes please, if only!) then remember the clocks go forward at 1:00 tomorrow morning which is the launch of official British Summer Time time.

ME, AS IT IS NOW

. . .type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type,type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type,type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type,type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type,type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type,type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type,type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type,type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, type. . .

You get the idea.

Soon as I’ve finished, I’ll give you the details

UNEXPECTED PORN ALERT

Now, I like to think of myself as a social libertarian, which basically means, do want you want but not near me. Or live and live live. Or do what you want so long as you don’t bother anyone who doesn’t want bothering.

Before you think; ‘what IS she mumbling on about now?’, here it is:

I typed ‘Transcript of the HDM* stageplay’ into my metasearch engine of choice and clicked on ‘go’ and then scrolled through the menu of sites provided looking for what I was after, which was the full transcript of Stage Work’s London production of the ‘His Dark Materials’ stage play.On the first page of the menu list were the words:
(Excuse me, but I’ll have to write them in full so’s you know what I’m on about)

yahoo fuck chat pussy sex you

With sets of numbers bisecting each word, which I’m not about to reproduce because I’m not into providing written links to porn sites on the Interweb.
Now, as I said, I am a social libertarian, but this kind of thing is not acceptable. Before you say;
“Social libertarian, yeah right.”
Just think; if you’re a grown up and you’ve got the inclination to look at porn, go for it. You’re not hurting anyone. If searching for porn is your thing, yeah, why not? But this was in a list of sites that were supposed to be relevant to the transcript for the HDM stageplay. I didn’t go looking for porn, and there it was, waiting for me. I’m a grown up. Suppose I’d been my twelve-year-old niece?
This idea of porn freely available not so welcome now, is?
Because I rarely engage my metasearch engine these days, I’ve been on line for around three years all told and by now everything I could want is tucked into ‘bookmarks’ on Mozilla Firefox, (I’m not an adventurous searcher any more like in the early days) I couldn’t believe the Fundies’ insistence that porn came to you without you having to search for it. But it looks like it’s true. That’s why as a freethinker and an enemy of censorship, I must line up with the Fundies who get into a froth over their children being exposed to such things.
It’s not a case of being disgusted.
It’s not a case of being anti-body or pleasure or fun.
It’s not a case of trying to wean everyone back into the biblical party line.
It’s not even a case of trying to dictate what others look at or read about.
It’s just the notion that my twelve-year-old niece might be browsing for something quite unconnected and come up against such things.
Now, that IS offensive.

*HDM is a perfectly acceptable acronym. Even Mr Pullman himself uses it, and if anyone has the right, it’s him and we should just follow, gratefully.

WELL DESERVED PRAISE

I don’t often discuss celebrity matters, but
Paul McCartney is a bloody gentleman.
He struggled through the bitter divorce from Heather Mills without contributing any of the bile spewed out from Ms Mill’s side. He refused to be baited and play games, despite her attempt to draw him out by making some pretty challenging accusations as to his conduct and personality.
His behaviour has been exemplary but then he is a decent man, kind, gentle and easygoing. In fact, I bet when someone accused Ms Mills of marrying him for his money and name, he probably wouldn’t be able to conceive of her doing such a thing, because there is nothing conniving and cheating in him. His big, gentle heart beats with love for every living thing and he couldn’t be cruel if it meant saving his life.
Now, in an attempt to winkle some sign of acrimony, the fan sites are reading things into the lyrics of his latest album ‘Memory Almost Full’.* There are speculations that he uses anagrams to work names into his songs that insult his ex, and pour vitriol on their now dead relationship. But as he says, every name he has ever written in a song has been a made up name about an imaginary person, and it’s all about getting it to fit and rhyme.
He won’t be bated because there is nothing to catch.
Like I said, a bloody gentleman.

*Note to self;purchase a copy as soon as is possible.

SONG TO END THE WEEKEND ON ‘DREAM BABY’+

This weekend’s song to end the weekend on is an absolute corker.
Dream Baby (How Long Must I Dream?) Music and lyrics by a one Cindy Walker sung by Roy Orbison.
The black and white YouTube video offering features a very handsome looking Bruce Springsteen singing in accompaniment to Mr Orbison.
So, as always
enjoy and,
a good week if you spend your time as a dream baby or prefer cold, hard, lovely, undeniable reality.

And, by the way, now it’s practically over, I don’t need to ignore it. Happy Easter, losers!

WHO’S THE INTELLECTUAL OF THE FAMILY?

My Mother had an ordinary working-class education and left school at fourteen to go into work in the cotton mill. (Actually, she had a place at art college, where at just fourteen she told visiting luminary L.S. Lowry ‘you don’t think you can draw, do you?’ to his face. But because of the economic situation she was forced into work. Very much like an A.J. Cronin novel, isn’t it? Anyhow.) She, by her own admission, didn’t have much of an education, what with the war, and being a product of a system where a kid went to school to pass the time before the capitalists got hold of her and forced her into work. She loves to read, mostly stirring true stories from the war, and the occasional book about the Nazis and Hitler.
I, also, was deficient in a formal education, mostly due to missing tons of school because of ill-health and the teachers not wanting to take a risk in putting me into the exams in case I made a Fred Karno of them, and made the teachers look stupid. But my reading matter consists of what my Mother calls ‘life’, philosophy, history, ideas, science. I retain most of the stuff I read, too.
So, in reality, all things considered I am in the position of the intellectual one.
But she can understand the general theory of relativity while I struggle slower than the speed of light to keep up.
She can dash of a story without blinking, using words expertly, where I have to be in the mood.
She had converse intelligently on any subject and blinds better educated people with her self-gained knowledge.
In a duel of mental agility, she could mop the floor up with me, and everyone else she knows.
She is the intelligent one of the family, but she is just an ordinary lady, a Mother, very practical and capable, of a working-class upbringing with her friends, and her age concern club and a sort of boyfriend. Unlike me, she doesn’t feel the importance of making a big issue out of the stuff she knows. And she doesn’t live in some distant out-of-touch place where I would feel safe, with my books and thoughts.
Just like the rose, born to blush and grow unseen, my Mother is a genius in a world of ordinariness, and she is happy and contented with it all.
And she can pronounce ‘Nietzsche’ correctly. I can’t.

POEM THEN IT’S TIME TO GO MY OWN (CREATIVE) WAY

The need to write more is like a living thing in me, howling along the corridors to be freed.
I am going to get on with the story I put to one side, put on hold for a while.
But first, a poem. It’s about life and it’s inevitable conclusion and I call it;

THE FUTILITY OF MAKING AN ISSUE OUT OF IT

Children breathe faster than old folk.
Babies breathe fastest of all.
But no matter if someone breathes fast or breathes slow
One day
they won’t breathe
at
all. . .

Nihilism’s easier going and less fashionable sister, existentialism, is looking more and more like an item of philosophy clothing that will fit my thought-body.

BIRTHDAY WISHES, PERSONAL

Of my four cat-babies, Jessica Moonbeam, Domino Basset, Hayley Sweet and Oliver Cat, I’m only sure of Jessica’s birthday.
Jessica Moonbeam was born nine years ago on the 21st of March.

Best wishes for the happiest birthday for my eldest girl.
I love you, Jess.
And, of course,
All the best.

SINNER AND PROUD OF IT

I’ve been thinking about sin. What is it? Why does biblegod hate it? Why do we have to repent of it, when we let Jesus into our lives?
Well, to sin actually is an archery term, which means to miss the mark. So, in the biblical sense, sinning means missing god’s mark, the standard god made for us. And to be holy means living up to those standards.
Putting aside the fact that this god is the one who made universes light years across and yet is worried about whether we can come up to his standards, let’s look at biblegod, shall we, let’s look at his standards.
First of all, he created human beings, put them in a garden, purposefully made a tree which he knew would condemn them to eternal punishment or death, and then told them not to eat the fruit growing off it because if they did they would die. What you have to remember is that these two human beings, male and female, were totally inexperienced about life and everything. They had no knowledge, their eyes were closed, they didn’t know death. They had no discernment, didn’t know right and wrong. The serpent’s words made as much sense to them as god’s. It was a case of the one who got their tale in last, and the serpent won. But. . .
I wonder what Social Services would say if a parent cooked up a poison, put it in an open vessel up and in reach in a room with his little boy and girl, both under ten, and told them not to touch it? I think it would be a case of having the children removed for their own safety, followed by psychiatric tests run on their parent to see if they are fit to go on being their parent.
Anyhow. . .
Then, having jettisoned Adam and Eve from the garden for knowing, even though he wanted to keep them as babies in their minds, he waited a while til they did the being fruitful and multiplying bit, and then when he saw that their offspring did not behave, he decided to start again and drown every living thing. Even the animals and the birds. Every living thing bar a few who were rescued on god’s instructions and stuffed into the ark. Literally stuffed in. The number of animals and the size of the ark would not leave much room to swing a trunk or to do much buzzing about if you were a fly. And how in water did the whales not get wiped out? Whales are lovely giant mammals, no harm in them at all, but they do have a tendency to die off if left stranded on a beach which would have happened if the water level dropped suddenly. (ahh! Pity!) And Noah could not have fitted them in the ark, or tied a bit of string to two and pulled them along, or let them pull the ark. Because as soon as the water level was reduced, they would be stuck. And because the Fundie Christians have no mental time for any kind of adapting at all, the whales, as well as all other beings looked the same then, in every way, with the same functions, as their today descendants.
Back to the original point.
And when the earth had recovered from this watery assault, he then came down to earth and singled out a certain species and a certain section of this species and picked out one male person from this species and then said; ‘do as I say and you’ll have loads of children, otherwise, it’s curtains for you, Abraham.’ Without bothering to consult the wife, who would not only co-make the children with him, but be the one who actually had to go through the pain and anguish of giving birth to them.
After a suitable amount of propagating, god then let this group be. He disappeared for four hundred years and let them suffer under the rule of the Kingdom of Egypt. He then returned doing the burning bush bop, and told Moses, another single representative of this single group of this single species, to talk to the Pharaoh and insist he let god’s (Moses’/Israel’s) children go, or the whole Egyptian lot would get theirs. (Can you imagine-hear the sound of the theme from ‘The Godfather’ twanging melodiously away in the background?) But just because he could, biblegod made Pharaoh stubborn, so he wouldn’t let the children of Israel go, and he could be nicely punished.
(Quick, disturbing thought: The mass murder of the first-born. Obviously, the system of kingship was not hereditary in ancient Egypt unless Pharaoh was like George VI who had to take over when his first born older brother decided he wanted to go his own way. And what happened to the older brother if he was still alive and not in Egypt? And the first borns of the Egyptians not in Egypt at the time. Hey, I need to know this, with me being a first born myself. If god decides to go for his second favourite punishment and only take it out on the first borns for our sins, how far do I have to go to escape this?)
And the game had just begun. After driving the people through the desert to the land he called promised, and playing lots of nasty, fatal tricks on those who were sick of wandering in the desert, even those who weren’t guilty of backing up the spies who refused to cross over into the land when they first arrived, the children of Israel arrived at the borders finally allowed to cross over, and then the fun really began.
From crossing over the Jordan into the promised land, it was all fire, massacres, rapes, and even murdering animals and generally making war. If you like a written snuff tale, full of pointless cruelty and massacring whole cities, crack open your bible and start at Joshua. Talk about evil from the minds of men. And yet this was on biblegod’s instruction. Anyone who didn’t kill and burn and rape with enthusiasm was given the same treatment. Forbid anyone might not be happy about massacring bloody babies freshly torn from their Mother’s wombs. It’s not murder if god calls for the aborting, obviously.
You get the idea. There’s a lot more, but writing all this is making me feel uncomfortable. To think I once worshipped this god of the bible, this creation of embittered, hateful old Bronze Age gits sitting in their tents nattering on about how women and children should be taught respect, and how they should work on a god who wouldn’t put up with it. A extension of them who would see it no one disobeyed.
So, it looks as if god’s standard is rape ‘em all, rob ‘em all, kill ‘em all, and the only way to reform people is to kill ‘em. (in that case, Carl Panzram=biblegod.) And if anyone doesn’t come up to these standards, they are a sinner.
It hasn’t changed. God doesn’t change, he said himself he doesn’t. He doesn’t repent, which means go back on his word, his love and care is conditional, he doesn’t allow you to forgive, and doesn’t forgive you for being human and having reason unless you believe that his son died, a bleeding, torn moaning avatar, a death which is supposed to be the most painful death in the history of human ingenuity, (which is saying a lot. Humans have cooked up all manner of nasty ways of killing their fellows). Apart from the later invention of an eternal hell, which is the only contribution Christianity has made to the theory and philosophy of theism. After this, if you thought the punishment he had in for the people of Canaan was bad, wait til you see what happens when you to the gates of the eternal hell, the cosmic rubbish tip of the universe. At least the agony ended when the original inhabitants were butchered.
This refinement not withstanding, biblegod is the same yesterday, today and forever. So, unless you mass murder in god’s name, you are not coming up to his standard, you are missing his mark, and you are a sinner.
It’s nothing to do with being homosexual.
It’s nothing to do with being an atheist or a freethinker.
It’s nothing to do with going your own way, because your reason tells you there are other gates and other roads, and in all conscience the bible business does not make logical sense.
It’s about killing everyone god tells you to kill, including your babies and your neighbours and your pets. That’s it. Forgive=sinner. Kill=holy.
In that case, I stand up proudly and say, ‘I am a sinner!’

GNOSTICISM : FINDING THE DIVINE SPARK WITHIN US ALL

Gnosticism is a fantastic, delightful philosophy.
God, the true, all knowing good god, who wants only the best for his creation (bit like the Unmoved Mover but more involved) created wisdom, a woman by the name of Sophia. She, in turn, created the Demigurge, a capricious, selfish petty being who made the world and those therein.
Then Eve was stirred by talking to the Serpent who explained that if she performed a certain action she would gain understanding, knowledge, wisdom (Sophia) and she did, and got her man involved and the Demigurge (isn’t it a nasty word that? Just described biblegod well.) got so annoyed in a childish fit of pique he withdrew his power and catapulted our two knowledgeable and now homeless heroes out of the garden where he’d put them to keep an eye on them.
But that’s not all. Every human being is made from clay, a vessel (some Gnostic types of a more austere, flesh rejecting bent call it the prison or dungeon). But inside this dungeon is a tiny spark, light, love, goodness and it’s this spark that lives and gives us knowledge and the ability to learn. (Not many people I know have got this).
Down the centuries, the Demigurge used fear to keep his creation in line. But some refused. Some sought knowledge, and were aware of the spark of the divine in them.
So every time you do something thoughtlessly kind (even if it’s opening a door for a struggling young Mother with a baby in a trolley,) or you learn something new and put that learning into practice, the divine spark is there, ignited, within the prison-body in which we live.
However, you do something pointlessly cruel (not even selfish, for selfish actions benefit oneself) you are giving the hateful, fearful Demigurge a bigger toehold in the world.
Like I said, delightful stuff.
I almost wish it was true.

You know, I enjoying writing this. So much so, I might be self-tempted into writing down my ‘All The Best’ personal takes on other philosophies and concepts. After all, that’s what it’s all about, being a freethinker. Allow your thoughts to fly in whatever direction they choose, picking up ideas and philosophies and trying them to see if they fit.
Twenty-five years of adhering to a certain mind-set, almost three years free of it, and I’m still learning and exploring mental ways all the time.