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26.5.14

Response to Professor Ray Jones article on Michael Gove's proposed privatisation agenda for Children's Social Work Services

Ok firstly Professor Jones is to be thanked for putting his thoughts on this issue with such clarity. He clearly does not labour under any illusions that private capital is anything but bad…well not even bad but…EVIL!
Capitalism, he considers is characterised by ‘venture capital’ and practically best illustrated by the usual suspects-Serco, Atos and G4S.
However I will propose that such an analysis, though passionately expressed, is far from accurate, not only in its characterisation of ‘Capital’ as corrupting and incompetent, using only such examples as will prove his own point, but that he has ignored completely any of the recent developments in social entrepeneurialism including radical and local not for profit initiatives that are changing the landscape of big, soulless, corporations running essential services in social care and health.
‘Capital’ is not inherently evil, in fact it is not inherently anything other than energy. It is how capital’s energy is directed that takes it into the landscapes of morality.
The fact is that Local Authority Children’s Services tend to mirror the very worst examples of organisations that the professor cites. They are hierarchical, top-down, command and control structures that operate on the basis of targets and performance. Staff are disempowered and overwhelmed with myriad requirements to fulfill the needs of higher management. Complaints are endemic among users. The human resource environment is oppressive and uncaring with process driven solutions to emotion based issues.
In addition the work itself is hugely demanding both emotionally and intellectually and physically.
I have always thought of social workers as heroes, finding solutions and transforming children’s life chances despite their organisations rather than because of them. Subversive heroes rather than rule-followers. Spanners in the works rather than cogs in the machine!
I strongly feel after many years as practitioner and leader in frontline services that Children’s Social Work is well overdue for a change and that may well be found in a diverse private sector subject to the disciplines of the market but inspired by up to date organisational and entrepeneurial thinking.
Think about the Integral models inspired by Ken Wilber and an Integral Social Work Practice that embraces real world models of social and human functioning celebrating that diversity and complexity. Think about visionary leaders and entrepeneurs creating new businesses and organisations that not only deliver outstanding services but are joyful places to work. Think about a business where integrity precedes profit but where profit is accounted for. Read ‘Reinventing Organizations’ by Frederic Laloux (20140) and see the examples of companies like the Patagonia Clothing Company and our own Ecotricity that are applying new models of business that privilidge and support human growth and potential.
I am not suggesting that privatisation is some great good and I share the concerns about incompetence arising from greed or plain stupidity in the examples noted. But for the future’s sake can we not get out of this constant spiral of negativity and blame that has infected Social Work for the past half century and start to embrace new models of delivering services that, in their core nature are at the root of what it is to struggle with the very nature of being human.
It was Einstein, I think who said, we cannot solve the problems of the future with the same mindset that created them.
Apologies for going on so but I guess that shows how useful your article has been Ray! I like the cat being put among the pigeons!
Best wishes,
Tony.

16.2.14

MAN IS BORN FREE BUT IS EVERYWHERE IN TRAINS

Man is born free but is everywhere in trains.

I commute from a gentile little Sussex village into London daily, courtesy of Southern Trains.  I thus am a regular customer of this strange, benighted organisation.  Well the descriptive noun 'customer' indicates a degree of voluntary transaction, a choice.  In fact I am probably more of a serf in thrall to a psychopathic and ruthless Overlord, forced to pay an extortionate tax in order to go about my business. An organisation that would better befit the pages of a James Bond novel filling the role of a 'Smersh' of the rails, instead of spies it would be-'death to commuters'.


I am now firmly of the view, after some years, that the incompetence displayed by Southern is no mere display of a fumbling, incoherent direction that places short term gains to shareholders over any long term investment in customer experience.  Not the necessary outcome of the vile John Major's last big giveaway of the country's wealth to the Daily Mail and Financial Times readership in the shape of the country's track and rolling stock.  Not a shambling example to the works of the creative mismanagement with which the private sector handles often handles public services.
 No, gentle reader, the truth is far far worse than that.

 Southern Trains is merely the mask behind a fiendishly contrived plot to drive the commuting traveller mad.  Raddled with job insecurity due to missed appointments.  Financially insecure due to rapacious increases in fares.  Give them hope, particularly at times of holidays that they will rest that cold evening safe in the bosom of their family before the crackling fire then steal the hope away at the last minute.
The sophisticated psychological knowledge displayed by Southern is evidenced by the merciless attack on all the emotional centers of the benighted traveller.

The commuters of southern trains share the experiences of many innocent peanuts in that they are continually assaulted. 

How shall we defend against this monstrosity.?  How strike a blow for freedom?  The answer?  We shall not!  We shall huddle like sheep in a storm dripping in the narrow central isle ( standing room only of course).  And shall we storm the first class carriages half full with plump faced marketing executives and vacant bankers and cadaverous psychotherapists?  No we shall not.  We shall suffer either in silence or with a good humoured quip at the Eastern European person pushing the trolley of overpriced light refreshments up and down the train.


Southerns explanations for delay are as fiendishly plotted as a Ben Marcus novel.  Suicides in Putney.  Strange inexplicable fires in rail cuttings.  Signal malfunction everywhere.  And in one case I experienced-swans on the line!
But reality will out and after thousands of torturous commuting miles I am firmly of the view that Southern Trains is part of a vast and secret experiment to study how much abuse an ordinary human being can take without cracking.
Who is Southern Trains?  Let us, in the immortal lines of Seamus Heaney's first successful poem do some 'digging'.

Southern Trains is owned by a Company called Govia (sounding like a city named by Michael Gove!) Formed from two lesser companies Go-Ahead (I'm not kidding!) and Kelsio which is a French transport company.  The nefarious entity was spawned in order to take part in the pillage and rapine of the rail network privatisation in 1996 birthed out of the grey murk of the John Major administration which you may recall was in the process of being decisively ejected by the electorate and the privatisation was seen in many quarters as a cynical nod to the rapacious hedge-funds and commercial interests waiting in line to rip off the country's rolling stock and rail network.  The cynics were proven right by history and rail privatisation is generally seen as a disaster for the railways and for the traveling public.  Excuses for chronic delays such as 'leaves on the line' or 'the wrong kind of snow' have now become part of folklore and the rail companies themselves some of the most hated providers of services in the country.


The other thing about trains is how there exists the opposite size effect from clothing shops.  I walk into a clothes shop now and it appears that the sizes are made for a race of giants.  I look like a child wearing its fathers clothes, my hands and feet buried in mounds of material.  On a train however the design template seems to be for a midget.  The seats fit neither your nether regions nor your torso.  One is held in a Foetal type curl unable to stretch out.  The seat in front is inches away from your head.  The train wobbles just enough to make writing impossible.  Any uncapped drinks will spill.
And the design?  I understand that one is confined by the tube structure but do they really have to be so very ugly?  Plasticky?  With such vile coloured schemes?  The South Eastern fast link appears to have achieved a degree of comfort that makes first class redundant.  Why can't the other train companies do the same?

Coffee?-don't touch it!  Overpriced and poor quality.  Drink anyone? You can't afford them! £5.00 for a small gin and tonic!
And when did it become part of the contract between train companies and traveller that a seat, far from being guaranteed as a minimum became a lottery with the consequence that a standing journey of an hour or more became commonplace, even on the Virgin line between London and Manchester?  It rather grates therefore to see Branson's smirking face plastered all over the tele advertising more of his scams when you see entire families crouched in the aisle of his trains for more than an hour.
Why is it so impossible to think of a train interior as being beautiful and ergonomic and facilitative?  Why is a train arriving on time such a relief?
Why did we allow our commute to be hijacked by these bandits? 
Let's break the bonds of our chains!

Let us take back our trains!

19.1.14

The Art of BALANCE

THE ART OF BALANCE IN 2014

One thing’s for sure:  Finding balance in a wildly tilting world ain’t easy.
Shall Balance shall be our discipline of awareness?  Or the mysteries of the quantum?  Or the still points of meditation?  Or the physical sculpting of Tai Chi?  The beauty of poetry and art?  The joy of singletrack?  Cooking food for our loved ones with micro-attention?  Breathing into the mountain before us?  Working with our minds honed to razor sharpness and our hearts wide open?  Working with Joy?  Like basking sharks sucking in the plankton of life in all it’s myriad, mad, beautiful, wild variety.  Shall we swim through the world open to it all?  Grounded, loving, true to our being, joyful or sad as we feel.  Let this be our first goal/paradigm/aspiration:

The Art of Balance should be the business of an enlightened mind.

Grounding:  Knowing who you are is a vital component to Balance.  What are your true motivations, fears and impulses?  What is the nature of your shadow?  Oooo…er, yes the inner daemon that lurks behind the veil.  Your very own personal Choronzon.
How can we become the grizzly bear balancing on a pole while juggling fireballs and holding one hairy leg gracefully aloft while unpacking the mysteries of the universe with our razor mind and open heart or spinning a jokey myth before a group of awestruck kids?
A reality surgeon.  A cosmic jestor.

THIS AIN’T NO MARKET AND IT’S CERTAINLY NOT FREE!

The masqueraded world wants you to be many things and what masquerades as the world wants you to aspire to be the kind of person that it wishes to sell stuff to.
Most of the people who are running the world want to sell you stuff.  It might be physical stuff like cars, washing machines, houses, cosmetic products, stylish clothes, particular types of music, handbags, a whole variety of fancy electronic toys to make your life more er…organised or whatever.  Then there’s a whole crew who want to sell you a load more stuff but this time it isn’t physical, this time it’s ideas.  Ideas about what constitutes meaning in the good and successful life.  And yes, you guessed it, most of the ideas depend on you buying the physical stuff from the first crew, who are often the very same people.  These ideas are often about the creation of dissatisfaction with the state of things as they are in your life right now.  They are relentless about how ugly you are without that skin cream, about how short/uncool/dumb/repulsive/unplugged-in/and just plain awful you are, as you are right now.  But there’s a solution, and all it takes is just a little money and you can be up there with the beautiful people, with the cool people, with the people that everybody wants to hang out with, just so that some magic and stardust might rub off on them but get this-YOU CAN BE ONE OF THE MAGIC PEOPLE!  All you have to do is give them some money and you will be re-made, but this time in the likeness of a GOD!

It is almost unbelievable that anyone takes this bullshit at face value, but it infests the deepest channels of the subconscious with it’s insidious messages because it is everywhere and always.  Nowhere is free from it.  There is no space of privileged silence.  Because far from being a king or queen, the consumer is a slave, and the foundation of modern capitalism rests on promoting dissatisfaction with the self in order to sell you stuff that you will only buy if you think it carries that certain cachet that will set you apart from all the other slaves.
And so the illusion is maintained, and standing outside this paradigm takes the most enormous courage and self-trust.  To see the emperor’s clothes for what they are requires x-ray vision.  To believe entirely in the impoverishments of low grade current market capitalism is to wear blinkers that exclude the true and the beautiful.  It’s not the visionaries who reject the blandishments of fear-based capitalism that are weird.  It’s the society that founds itself on these incredibly stupid illusions, most primarily that stuff creates meaning!
The great advantage of these free marketeers (and maybe we need to read some of their stuff over the next few weeks) is that as with much of the world’s intellectual bullshit, there’s an element of significant truth in it all.

I don’t think any intelligent person is going to reject the modern world out of hand.  Beware those who propose a return to the cave!  Public health especially fresh water and free medical care at the point of need are, for those countries who have them, one of the defining points of civilisation.  I also like video games and access to lots of different foods, a huge range of literature and movies, the internet and computers generally.  I like campervans and small sailing yachts and and electronic music and barbecues and beer and amazon and all-day opening and mountain bikes.  I love it!  But I also love the hill and the heath, the wind over the empty moor, the mountainside camped on alone at night, the summoning by the rockpool.  The silence, the stillness, the intensity.  The otherness.  

Therefore we must seek ontological banditry of the robin hood style to refashion meaning for the brothers and sisters.  Remake the paradigm in the image of a child.  Sculpt out a new capitalism that works for the world and does not require slaves.  We have the means, we carry it in our wallets, we spend it every day.  It is a very silly and easily obtainable (with a little effort) source of energy.  We must direct it with our minds and hearts and for Pan’s sake-we have to wake up!

One thing’s for sure:  Finding Balance in a wildly tilting world ain’t easy.  But…bring it on!

23.11.13

Lost in Broadstairs Folk Week.

I am in Broadstairs with Jim-one of my best mates and we are looking forward to a unusual and passionate celebration of radical cutting edge folk.

And by the way-what exactly is the term 'Folk' if not a vague descriptive noun for 'music of the people'?

But here in the heart of Folk week an aural nightmare begins to unfold with the relentless plinkety plonkety happy clapping bell ringing morris dancing bearded folky set with their weird looking ancient instruments and their tarrum tarra refrains and their pewter mugs hanging from their rucksacks.  This cacophony of ancient musical shite.  Oh Lord of the Sounds deliver us from 'Folk'.  Even now the restless deebeedeebedu plucking mandolins and the weeweeweeweewo violins tear at me having heaved in through the unsafe orifices of my unguarded ears like audio burglars smashing up the china shop of my so carefully collected internal rhythms.  Why is no one walking around wearing headphones-noise cancelling ones?  'Why are you here?' I wish to scream at groups of scantily clad 17 year old Italian girls with their glossy hair and the big brown eyes of gently ruminating cows and their language college rucksacks and their long long brown legs.  Why???

Then we stop along the prom and see three young lads soundchecking with mobile gear and he sings and we suddenly have some passion and originality and a voice with some beautiful stretching emotion hauled out of a guitar, a bass and a tiny drum set.  This is music!  This is what it's about!  Relief floods over me-all is not lost.

But they have to pack their gear away to yet more empire building folkies with their tarrum tarra again and their fucking whining violins and their Ewan McColl dirty old town renditions-awful! Soundtracking our over-salted, over cooked and over priced cod in 'Posillipos' Italian where sour looking Italian waiters ejaculate black pepper over our gruel-food.
Then Jim quite literally has this amazing lightbulb moment!
'Let's get back to the flat' says Jim,
'too right mate' I assent, 'any more violation of the eardrums in this manner and I am prone to murderous intent upon a possible innocent party.  Indeed let us repair to the safe haven of my flat.'


On the road up my friend nearly steps in a mound of vomit on which mould is growing.  I internally gag and day 1 is, thank Saturn's round rings, finally over.

I sleep badly having a sea kayaking dream about my kayak being smashed just before a Scottish Island expedition.  I wake at 4am feeling nauseous like a parrot has crapped in my throat.  But out at sea earlier in the day I saw a beautiful lugger blowing to windward.  Her bowsprit almost her length again holding full sail like a vision of what-might-one-day-be.
And in the morning the sea shimmers like a silver curtain-beautiful as we walk past Bleak House.  Fucking Dickens I muse internally.  He's like a rash in Broadstairs, and I will deliberately never read Bleak bleeding House!  Anyway I saw the TV series, and I liked it muchly.  I have started writing again-where will it all end?



8.11.13

I AM BACK FOLKS!

After a significant hiatus I am back blogging-more posts to follow very soon!

6.5.13

Norwich Cathedral

Norwich Cathedral



The Gothic cathedrals-the idea of 'God' in the medieval mind, transmuted into stone.

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16.4.13

Thatcher Free Zone



THATCHER- FREE ZONE

Can you hear me Mrs Thatcher,
will you listen to my words?
Cos if you don't go pretty soon
 it's gonna get much worse.

The city streets they're burning,
the youth ain't got no work,
your plastic bullet policies-
you know they just don't work!

And in your nuclear paradise
time doesn't fly, it dies-
I see it in the poverty
and, in the people's eyes.

Well they murdered Prosser
in Winson Green
He let out a few yells-
the shouts of the cops and
the screams of a man must have 
rung round those prison cells.

How can you love justice
if you are so unmoved
at the rights of an ordinary man
being so flagrantly abused.

So I'm lookin' for a Thatcher-free,
thatcher-free zone,
a thatcher-free,
thatcher-free zone.

The old folks they're freezin'
after all that they've seen
while bankers drive around in 
chauffered limousines

So I'm lookin' for a Thatcher-free,
thatcher-free zone,
a thatcher-free,
thatcher-free zone.


RIP MARGARET THATCHER 1927-20013



8.4.13

Margaret Thatcher dies aged 87

Well it will set the chattering classes off as we are regaled with the various paeons to the New World she ushered in.  However my own feelings about Thatcher are somewhat different-I consider her vile government and her pernicious impact to be one of the great disasters for British and European society in the twentieth century.  But I also consider her to have been a lame duck and incompetent politician saved by a momentous concatenation of events mostly reliant on two factors provided by two different very stupid men, both of whom suffered from tremendous hubris allied to an astonishing lack of strategic insight.  The first was Arthur Scargill, an egotistical communist with an agenda so hopelessly out of place that to see him lead the brave miners who so faithfully followed this strutting martinet was heartbreaking.  The other was the gold braided thug General Galtieri who invaded the Malvinas Islands as a means of stoking up his political capital at home which was ebbing as a result of his almost complete political ineptitude.
The result was that the lame duck was transformed into 'The Iron Lady', and a fantastical Catherine The Great type character was manufactured by the Media and the myth was born of the Lady who was not for turning.
The asset stripping of the country's natural wealth and housing stock from public ownership into private hands at knock down prices remains one of the great grand thefts of history.
The death of manufacturing to be replaced with parasitic financial service industries remains a huge social and national disaster whose grim effects continue.
The narrative that transfigured the great socialist objective of equality into a lie about laziness, and the 'ill man of Europe' continues as a myth underpinning greed, selfishness and the chronic cult of the individual at the expense of all else.
The legacy of Thatcher is the mentality of greed and selfish individualism over collective responsibility.
To call it Thatcherism lends it an intellectual coherence it never actually had as a set of ideas based on gut feelings much like a political system founded on the letters page of The Daily Mail.
Yet there is one thing that can be said for Thatcher as she performed in the House surrounded by her yes men-there was no doubt who was wearing the trousers!

7.4.13

Easter Sunday 2002 - Pontins

EASTER SUNDAY 2002 Pontins



The past? It's a frozen, foreign land.
A labyrinth of tourmaline-a dream
of black horses flowing out to sea.

Breaking the chains of memory
that tie us to the static of the land

The past? It is a strange and twisted tongue.
I cannot bend these chords to utter it!
Cannot find the rhythm in the line.

While fools found gold in crystal streams,
I rooted, ankle deep in mud, braying:
Who are you? Why are you here?

The past? That coldly-calculated joke.
Those idiots fell about the place side-splitted,
While I looked for help, for meaning, for a sign.

It was not that I didn’t understand.
It was that I would never understand.
Because... I seemed to be a stranger there.

The past? It is shapeless, blind, mute.
No road maps or strangers passing with news.
The very idea seems cruel!

And is it not cruel, this vile thing
set loose around the houses? This abusive
heart-skewering fear.

Nightsounds are lonely in the vale.
Smoke-rings of obliterated joy.
Oh these losings of familiar things!

These losings of familiar things.
These tales of the three rings.

And the first...shall be:

Of Despair.

Next:

Of Spirit and Healing.

Then:

Of Transformation!




31.3.13

Words for Steph

 
Words for Steph
 
from the Dougans
 
Well Steph, we’re going to miss you not least because you’re just about the best babysitter in the World, and you do it all for a Chicken Korma from Marks’s!  Ben says any other babysitters would just be ‘pants’ and Jack says ‘Stefna’s the best!’
Seriously though we are all sad to see you go but happy for you too.  You have been a good friend and we will miss you.  We all wish you every happiness in the world and we’ll keep in touch through e-mail.  Hopefully too we’ll come and see you next year by which time you will no doubt be talking in a languorous southern drawl and referring to the rest of the population as ‘them damned yankees!
Meanwhile yippety dang and howdyeedoodee, keep a weather eye out for rustlers and liquored up commanches and watch out for Evil Eye McNeevil one of the wickedest meanest outlaws in the whole South.  And if, while wandering around the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains you should come across a small boy shouting ‘Shane!  Shane!’  Please strike him several times about the head.
Lots of love,
Tony, Ben and Jack.

We never saw her again!

The Kitchen-The Soul of the house!

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19.2.13

Those moment's of impending transformation.


BROKEN GLASS

I’m stuffing all the sheets in the machine
When, reaching for the detergent, I strike
A gentle, glancing blow against a glass,
Which topples and then smashes on the floor.

A curse is gently breathed, and then I stoop
To bring some healing back into the day.
Then I slice my thumb on a sharp shard,
And pull back quickly-cursing once again.

Struck then by the nature of this glass-
This new glass of a hundred razor shards;
None could hold a drop of the dark blood
That even now is leaking on the floor.

This glass is nothing like it used to be;
Not vessel, container, chalice or cup.
This glass has embraced chaos with a crash-
A moment of transformation has just passed.

As if a sign’s been written in the sky,
The essence of the moment is revealed-
Just as the glass is falling-does it scream:
‘I did nothing wrong! So why me?’

Or does it smile into the falling day?
Knowing no power on earth can intervene
Beyond the hit and miss.  It sings, ‘I go
                                                   With all my glassness! I say yes to this!’

28.12.12

Poem-'FATHER' A dark meditation on the Father.

FATHER

Father Fa-ther Farther
The lips must push apart to make the sound
The jaw knocking/unlocking like a skull at play
Nestlings calling for the warming milk

Father Fa-ther Farther
And at the sounding of its screw, it scores
Its rings like scars within my tubes
Ringlets of its turns jangle in my jars

Father Fa-ther Farther
An infant growling in the god-stopped gash
A curlew wailing in the winding of the day
A blind thing mewling in the moon-sliced night

Father Fa-ther Farther
Silenced in the space of sliding time
The echo urges in a flash then falls
An insult in an un-remembered tongue

Father Fa-ther Farther

17.12.12

The Sunday Poem

WHISPERING WINDS OF CHANGE

A string of charismatic maidens queuing
At my gates have spoken of great portents
They have read within the marrowed runes.
The raven’s arcing flight seemed quite important,
And the crow has shrieked me as a fainted-heart.
So must I write my intent on the sky?
Shoo! And sprawk! Curse of the feathered fiend
Upon you all and let me be alone!

My curse hangs in the air like, smokey gauze.
Then, little nails of no’s the rain spits down,
And anger swells within colliding clouds.
Even the squirrels mutter at me and frown.
The disapproving trees shake fingery leaves-
This raging of the whispering winds of change.

13.12.12

Response from Norman Baker MP to Leveson Inquiry.

13 December 2012
heartofbalance@gmail.com Our ref: CW/TD/13122012/SDM

Dear Mr ******,

Thank you for your recent email regarding the recommendations made in the final report of the Leveson Inquiry.

The Lib Dems have led the debate on media accountability. In 2010 we were the first party to call for a judicial inquiry into phone-hacking, which led to the Leveson Inquiry. We have also been calling for a stronger Press Complaints Commission (PCC) since 2003.

Lib Dems have also never been in the media’s pocket – while other parties pandered to media moguls, we have consistently been the only party to raise concerns about media accountability and ownership. Politicians and the press have, in general, been too close for too long. We need to end these cosy relationships so that the press are free to hold politicians to account.

It should not be up to politicians or media proprietors, who both have vested interests, to decide how the press is regulated. That is why the government commissioned the Leveson Inquiry in the first place. We said we should implement his findings, provided they were proportionate and workable – and by and large they are.

I was therefore pleased when, breaking with parliamentary convention, Nick Clegg, Lib Dem leader, stood at the dispatch box and offered an alternative view to the Prime Minister from the government benches. I have enclosed a copy of the Deputy PM’s statement, for your information.

Cross-party talks are just now beginning to discuss the findings of Leveson and I hope these will lead to draft legislation being published in the near future, which I very much hope to be able to support.

I hope this is helpful.

Yours sincerely

{LICENCENAME}

3.12.12

Response to Cameron's Mendacious Volte Face on Press Regulation!

From<heartofbalance@gmail.com>

To Norman Baker MP

Subject  Please implement Leveson
Message  Before Lord Justice Leveson’s report into press behaviour was published the leaders of all three main political parties broadly agreed that his recommendations should be supported on a cross party basis and that they would implement them as long as they were proportionate and workable.

Lord Justice Leveson has recommended independent regulation of the press guaranteed by law, this has been supported by Nick Clegg and Ed Milliband. David Cameron does not agree. He announced that he would not support Leveson’s recommendation to give the new regulator essential legal backing, meaning it will lack the independence and teeth that are the hallmark of the current failed system of self-regulation.

As your constituent I urge you to write to the Prime Minister asking him to back Lord Justice Leveson’s recommendations as he said he would; and to guarantee the independence of the new self-regulator as independent to ensure that the press remains free and accountable.

Yours sincerely

Heart of Balance






Death with Stars by Lauren Williams

The first published work by a future comic strip giant.

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4.11.12

Sunday Poem-The Ballad of Ned Kelly

I sent a copy of this to Peter Carey but he was clearly too busy to reply-Fucker!  Anyway Ned is truly one of my heroes and this poem was inspired by Carey's great novel 'The True History of the Kelly Gang.'

The Ballad of Ned Kelly

For Peter Carey


All I can say is she gave me a grievous wound,
but of such wounds it seems to me the wounded
take a goodly part. To be begrudged
of such an injury
would seem to stop
with clay and wattle,
the breathing hole of the soul

I know this:
A man’s true measure is
to stand foursquare and true
to his brief and vital calling.

Let the wild dogs run
upon the sun-bleached hill.
Let them run the pump
of their own rich hearts
down all the long days.

This rusty webley resting
in my bloodstained hand
gives me little comfort
in these dust blown days
when my heart creaks
like new boots.

That black-eyed devil
stallion kicking against
his hobbles runs me to the
range, the outer ring
of all my days.

I have lived
with a true heart
in this world of
false men.

My mother
I have honoured
down the long seam
of years binding her
to shameful death.

Your shame, you
strutting English hens and cocks!

I curse you for
the weasel scum you filth
upon the dusty plains
you whipping boys
of powerful men.

Come not near
on your wandering English horse
you who patrol the water’s edge.

This Irish boy will
fill your mouth with dirt
that you may
trot the faster
to your doom.



...and when these times have blown
into some gentle history
and I, a legend, populate the valleys
with the wind of my becoming.

Thus speaks the widow’s son:

I’ve done time in the dusty lowlands
sweating out a living.
Been through high mountain passes
searching for some meaning.

Heard the banshee wail
in the dark hour
before the dawning.

Fell for a sweet Irish girl,
took her for my wife;
lost her too,
when I stood up for something
more than living.

Stood upon a scaffold
straight and true,
noose-necked as wild men are
by outlawry and the
wiles of crooked politicians:
Noses snuffling in their
little trough of power.

Some might say:
A tale of bloody banditry!

Others: A flame raging
through the wild bush
or a son seeking love
from the stony places of
his father’s heart.

A dish of bloody revenge
and strife perhaps?

Let this be my last word
upon this adjectival world.

Such is life.

15.9.12

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SONNET BLUES

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SONNET BLUES

Last night the madness raged and gripped my Soul.
Wove blood-red mists before my road-mapped eyes,
and put an axe into my trembling hands.
Thoughts garbled to the Carrion Crow,

Blood curdled in the pits.
Stones for fists and fingers like steel claws,
hooked and chained within the burning eye.
Slow-squeezing fingers grip and claw.

 But then…a child appeared, bathed in light,
and held the space between with utmost grace,
till anger was transformed into shame.
Blind grief’s the parent of such blooming rage.

Go sing the night your sad songs!
And take your demons with you when you leave.

1.9.12

Trials of an Armchair Sea Kayaker





Setting out from Elgol.jpg
Starting off from Elgol with Loch Coruisk ahead and the Cuillin Ridge.


Often the designation ‘armchair’ is prefixed to the description ‘paddler’, ‘mountaineer’ or the more generic ‘explorer’ with an intention of scorn on the part of the writer; it is written with the corner of the mouth curling in derision. Personally I like armchairs. They are often very comfortable to sit in, are usually situated in warm, benign, environments and, in my experience, it is very difficult to be drowned, avalanched, or even to get lost while sitting in one. And I have never heard of one capsizing, which is probably just as well as I think they would be very difficult to roll back up! I have been proud to be an armchair sea kayaker for some years now and I have comfortably and safely paddled the wild waters of Alaska down to the Sea of Cortez in my imagination as well as circumnavigation's of the Scottish Isles and Ireland in the company of the esteemed Brian Wilson or Chris Duff. An added bonus on these epic adventures has been the possibility of consuming large quantities of food and beer while, as it were, underway.

It was therefore with some surprise that I found myself one fine day writing a cheque for a sea kayak expedition organised by my local outdoor Education Centre to paddle and wild camp for six days off the west coast of Scotland in a real sea kayak on the actual sea, venue to be decided.

And now back in the comfort and safety of my armchair that adventure seems implausible and remote. The sea appears to have cast a certain insubstantiality to my memories which fade with each passing day, with the ebbing of each tide.

This is how it was. Fear curdles in the pit of my stomach as the day approaches, fear laced with a liberal dose of excitement.

Me?  I am 44 in round years. My hair recedes relentlessly. I am the manager of a large Cancer Charity, possibly labouring under the illusion that I am important, pivotal, valuable, even, dare I say it, indispensable! I am about to learn a series of valuable lessons.  Things like:

  • You are not your job.
  • You are a tiny mote in the limitless expanse of the infinite.
  • You must practice to be counter-intuitive.
  • You do not HAVE a body-you ARE a body!
  • The sea has no interest in your dreams.
  • A paddle is an outrigger in it's inner nature.  Likewise life!
  • Bacon butties become more essential with every passing mile from home.
  • Squeezy cheese, salami, oatcakes, nuts, dried fruit, Soreen Malt Loaf,  much water.
  • A good tent!  I use a Hilleborg. A thermarest with chair kit is essential for loftily surveying from your tent door.
  • A Tarp is essential and a hammock just might be.
  • A Leatherman Multi-Tool-I use the Ti Charge in Camo style.
  • Use a firesteel with a bushcraft knife for fires.  Keep some back up marine matches in a waterproof case.
  • Wine boxes with the box removed are made for kayaks.
  • Apart from sex, a leisurely crap in the dome of the Coruisk and a good arse wash in it's freezing bidet is the greatest way to start a day bar none.
  • Huge wild shit like basking sharks may not want to eat you!  They may just be going about their business.
  • Sea Eagles are so huge they could pluck you out of your boat-illegally rendition you to their eyrie-and feed you to their offspring!  Keep away and don't look at them!
  • Seals look like they have a sense of humour-Don't be fooled!
  • Toilet paper and wet wipes combined make for happy bottoms.
  • Some cream for chafe.  Anusol in case.  Yes you must have fungal cream for your bits.
  • A good stove is hard to find.  I have used MSR stoves for years but now recommend wood burning stoves with the MSR pot to put it all in.  But I still pack an MSR Pocket Rocket as a back-up.

As for my physical challenges my paunch extends downwards over my trousers defeating my earnest efforts to restrain it, augmented as it is by that very same force that stirs the restless tides to action. The tides that I shall soon make acquaintance with. Though I try to run and cycle the odd time I am often frustrated by the fact that work seems to get in the way of any planned training program. Work and of course the needs of two young sons aged 7 and 11.

The result is a sedentary lifestyle, a lot of thinking, a lot of time in the head. The result is a lack of relationship with my body that I am about to be reintroduced to in a very powerful way.

So, as I say,  here it is:

Many had thought that the opening of the Skye bridge would spell the death knell for Lochalsh but it seems a thriving little town. A good place to stock up on provisions or grab a relaxing beer before or after an expedition on the islands. In addition the town possesses one of the grandest and friendliest loos to be found anywhere. Indeed, a plaque proudly proclaims that these very facilities have won the Loo of the Year Award for two years running. The addition of spotlessly clean shower facilities are an added bonus for post-expedition cheesy sea kayakers.

A local scout hut provided a camping barn experience for the first night though I judged that my snoring had been bad when I noticed the eyes of my comrades streaming with red road-mapped hatred during breakfast. Later we newbies strolled down to the harbour to practice some wet exiting and rescues. I still consider that being suspended upside down and banging on the upturned hull of your kayak is hardly a sensible thing to do at sea, or indeed, anywhere, it has that flapping of the hands quality, it's silly, I will not do it.  I'd rather drown than be that uncool.

I was shocked to feel how tippy the kayak seemed whilst being assured that the plastic Valley Avocet was actually quite stable among sea kayaks. Here for the first time I noticed that I seemed to be sitting in the kayak whereas those with the requisite skill seem to wear their boats like a well made suit responding to an esoteric mix of foot, hip, paddle stroke and the all important trunk rotation.

The price of tippiness for a beginner is tension and it is impossible to handle a kayak well in a state of tension. Indeed it is difficult to do anything well in a state of tension. Pulling our kayaks out of the water after the practice session I was hustled urgently by an American woman on a coach trip from Miami ‘You came over the sea in that?’ she exclaimed looking at me with a mix of incomprehension, admiration and yes...awe. I liked it and readily agreed to the requisite photo opportunity. Little did she know that I was not the grizzled adventurer she would no doubt dream about in the months ahead, negatively comparing her soulless yet dutiful husband to this sunburned kayaking buccaneer, knife strapped to his neoprene loincloth...Oh God stop it Tony!

The packing of a sea kayak for several days afloat is in itself a mysterious art. Fortunately I had invested in some sealine dry bags for which I was regularly to feel grateful for over the next few days. We loaded the semi-packed boats onto the trailer and headed out for our point of departure at Elgol on the South West coast of Skye.

Paddling out from Elgol into a strong headwind and a force 5 chop was a revelation. I was terrified and passing the bay of Camas Fhionnairigh the waves came abeam rocking the boat perilously and causing me to grip the paddle with white knuckles.
“Are you ok?” shouted one of the instructors. I nodded but stared at the incoming waves with wide eyed terror.
“Your mouth is telling me you’re ok but your eyes are saying something different!” he shouted back.
The entrance to Loch Coruisk was a smooth as milk but after a paddle of only 3 km I was trashed and the perfection of the Cuillin ridge painted against a blood red sky was somewhat lost on me. A saw toothed blade held against a sky of blood. The ridge itself has long beckoned me and was to be a constant presence throughout the trip. In the lovely bay at Coruisk a yacht bobbed at anchor, it’s Captain frowning at our approach.

The next day dawned cold and after a restless night populated with vivid dreams of death by drowning I emerged from my tent scared, tired and intent on withdrawal from the expedition. One of the group leaders approached me to ask if I was ok and I felt I should be sincere and honest so told him no I was not ok. My fitness level was clearly below everyone else's. I had never sat in a sea kayak before and if I had known what was involved I would never have signed up. No I did not want to continue and would he please leave me here and pick me up on the way back? He was clearly taken aback and his comment that no they would not be returning this way so I could not be abandoned left me with the sick acknowledgement that I was to continue this torture for another day.
I paddled out to sea feeling surprisingly comfortable. Soay Island lay to windward, a mild force 2 or 3 aided the journey and the short crossing led us to the impressive sea cliffs of Soay and a delightful circumnavigation of this fascinating place. Soay is the place where Gavin Maxwell and the improbable Tex Geddes set up a whaling station that hunted out the last of the great basking sharks in the area. We pulled up well beyond the houses for a lunch stop and I was hooked. Still a little scared but this is no bad thing in anyone who ventures out to sea. It’s the ones who aren’t scared who get drownded.

The kayak is a glorious craft that can go where few others might, carry all your needs for a self contained journey of a week and is only limited by the skill and knowledge of the paddler.
Some skerries lay at the northern end of Soay and we paddled from there across the break into Loch na h-Airde where we hit a strong beam wind and once again it was head down and battle into the waves that crashed over the deck, paddles low but this time a little more relaxed, a little less scared.
One of the delights of sea time is landfall. Delightful coves beckon, hidden caves, secret beaches and the Scottish Islands are replete with such magical places. As I tucked into my dried veggie curry staring over to the beckoning outline of Rum I thought how magical a world we can find ourselves in by paddling a boat a few miles.

In the morning there was little time to sit and admire the view and soon we were packed and heading across Loch Brittle and up the coast. Extraordinary sea caves and eroded columns of rock sculpted by the waves into fantastic shapes line the entire coastline here. If you are lucky you might see a sea eagle flying low over the waves or otters bickering among the seaweed strewn shore. And you might paddle a couple of hundred metres into rock passageways that open out into great granite cathedrals where gulliemots squabble and caw.
Secret beaches of golden sand delight the eye and the paddler repeatedly is thinking ‘I’ll come back one day and look at that again.’ Something in our nature makes us want to share such beauty with those we love.
Across the mouth of Loch Eynort where again a beam wind breathed upon us as we paddled in to Sgeir Bheag a beautiful cove of white stone almost like bone in the sunlight. Once the boats were secure we struggled up a rock passageway to emerge on a grassy plateau with views of the Hebrides emerging ghostlike out of the distance. Inaccessible by road, surrounded by mountains with the Cuillin Ridge to the east it was without a doubt the best campsite in the world.

The final following day we travelled further up this magnificent coastline investigating countless caves and passageways and paddling madly through the famous arch of Stac a Mheadais which acted as a kind of wind tunnel. Lunch was had in the perfect horseshoe of Talisker Bay and as we paddled into the bay’s mirror calm I sat panting in the boat feeling completely trashed. Just then a jellyfish puffed past my cockpit paddling its own mass with a strange delicate beauty, milky white at the edges it blended to a irridescent saphire blue at its centre.
Talisker Bay is beautiful and I welcomed the feel of land where we ate our usual lunch of squeezy cheese, malt loaf and sticks of salami. I was by this time heartily sick of dried food and dreaming of the simple things in life like a bacon buttie.

Ever onwards we paddled out of the glassy calm of Talisker bay into the most awful confused sea with waves coming from all directions in a kind of boiling froth. This is called clapotis and results from a mix of sea bed coastline and weather conditions and all beginners can do is paddle like hell through it.
About five kilometres further up the coastline veers gently to the east and in our case that meant into a headwind as we headed for Ardtreck Point lighthouse
and the last leg of our trip. A small chop with some white horses was visible from the point which would be hitting us abeam as we paddled into Loch Beag so I geared up mentally for another determined paddle.
Off across the stretch of water the wind hits with surprising ferocity. I grip the paddle and brace reflexively and then without thinking too much about it the skill of paddle and wave starts to come together and I am no longer simply stopping from capsizing but am in control. Against all instinct I am sticking my paddle in to the wave leaning into it with my hips and the boat automatically stabilises with the paddle acting as a kind of outrigger. The size of wave doesn’t really matter because the skilled paddler uses the wave itself as energy. For the first time I am not in the boat I am the boat.
As we paddle into the gentle harbour at Loch Beag I am filled with many emotions. Grateful as all sea venturers must be at landfall yet wanting this new world to continue, to continue paddling coastlines for ever. To live on the land simply and in contact with true reality and not what passes for such in the other world. But I am also dreaming of hot showers and fish and chips and pubs. It will take me months I realise, to integrate the experience.
Some weeks after the trip I was walking past a church billboard and noticed a quote that left me chuckling quietly.
‘A ship is safe in harbour but that is not what a ship is for.’ Likewise!