You may seem like your own worst enemy

With a film of The Prisoner on the way, I don't want to comment on 'remakes'.

I guess Zeitgeist comes in here, somewhere - but also the tendency of great art to escape its context and become universally relevant, and evocative.

The Prisoner cycles around - just like Finnegans Wake - the end could equally seem like the beginning.

Anyway... Heeeeeere's Patrick.

Everything that happens will happen today

When I went to Norway, to catch Brian Eno at the Punkt 08 festival, he said (at his lecture) that he had been working with David Byrne on a new album.

Well, here it is, available only from this website, in every format you can think of, from MP3 download to Vinyl, CD, etc.



For those who like that sort of thing! David Byrne added words to instrumental tracks that Brian Eno had already written.

I may add more, when I have listened to it all.

Enjoy.

[later addition/edition] - current favourite track "I Feel My Stuff".

Eclectic Reading

I have always read widely, and self-employment gave me a lot of time to do it – not just because of working less hours per week than others, but because of all the travelling by public transport. Drivers don’t have that joy, of a train-ride and a book!

Gonzo Poet

Among recent books I enjoyed, I would include Oh Dad! A Search for Robert Mitchum, by Lloyd Robson. Not that I come from the generation where Mitchum was at his peak (one of the only actors who managed the difficult trick of being a man’s man and a woman’s man at the same time. Perhaps Sean Connery also managed it), but I liked him when I saw him.

The book is a gonzo adventure through America (the kind of thing usually done as a tv documentary these days) in search of the places and events in Mitchum’s life – motivated by the fact that Lloyd Robson is a poet (from Wales, indeed) and he discovered (perhaps improbably) that Mitchum was a poet and writer – and that beneath the ‘bad boy’ image lay a wit and intelligence that Bob concealed pretty effectively.

The Great Game

I have also been delving into The Great Game – the battle for central Asia between the Russian and British Empires. I haven’t even read Kipling’s Kim (though it is lying around waiting) but that is the period of time I find intriguing. I mostly don’t do history or war, but my attention got drawn to the subject not only because of simply not understanding what the hell is going on in Afghanistan (for instance) but discovering just how long all this had been going on.

For instance, the UK is full of Free Tibet supporters (and I agree with them) but do they know the Brits fought their way (viciously) into occupying Tibet back in 1904? China is not the only guilty party. Just as the image of China as an opium den is really propaganda, as it was the Brits who flooded the Chinese market with cheap opium (they produced in India)to subjugate the population – and the Boxer Rebellion was in response to this.

So yes, I have always found the hidden history of drugs interesting (and even consumed a few myself) – and particularly the hypocrisy involved – when people who worry about my nicotine and alcohol habits (from a health point of view) can be sipping caffeine with their sugary chocolate cake at the same time, without acknowledging the parallels. Most 'drugs problems' I have heard of involve doctors (the uppers and downers, pick-me-ups and sleepers, Mother's Little Helpers) or alcohol (from hooliganism to wife-beating, from driving accidents to premature death), and yet The War on Drugs remains pointed at the 'illegal drugs' (an ever-shifting border, and not a scientific description).

Policemen on the tv (and in real life) retreat to the pub for a drink when considering how to trap 'drug dealers', like New Tricks or, like Morse with his bottle of wine at home - solitary drinking. In all those home make-over shows they point to the new patio as a place for a nice G&T in the summer, but never 'settling down with a nice spliff'. And they celebrate the completion of the project with champagne, just as we give all our sports stars (!) alcohol as a prize. No wonder the high-speed drivers squirt it all over the crowd, rather than drink it! Drunk at 200 mph? i don't think so. Only Skins and Shameless (of shows I watch)appear to 'normalize' drug use. To describe how things really are is not necessarily to condone them. But the media have trouble separating these, as Noel Gallagher discovered when describing a spliff as normal as having a cup of tea (that's caffeine again, of course, another drug, often taken with sugar, an inert speedy substance without nutritional value).

I wept with laughter when reading Operation Julie, at the repetition of 'real policemen' going to the pub every third page, while trying to catch the acid manufacturers. That great escapade probably led to the absence of really good acid ever since, and its replacement with all kinds of unfortunate concoctions which further contributed to its bad name. Curiously enough, Albert Hofmann, who discovered/invented LSD, lived happily until the age of 102, still taking small doses. But facts don't work as well as myths.

But this time I am not writing about drugs (although, legal at the time, they necessarily appear in the story) but the reconnaissance, espionage, political manoeuvring, etc around the turn of the Nineteenth Century. I first noticed the curious fact the Madame Blavatsky (Russian), Gurdjieff (Armenian/Greek/Russian?) and Aleister Crowley (British) had all, at some time or another, been suspected or accused of espionage in this region. Since then, apart from reading their biographies, I have read The Great Game: the myths and realities of espionage, and am in the middle of Tournament of Shadows, among others.

On a more intriguing note, I read Tim Maroney's edition of HPB's Book of Dzyan, in the intro of which he draws some interesting parallels between sci-fi fantasy writing (so big in the 20th Century, but he references HP Lovecraft) and the strange world models of HP Blavatsky, offered as 'true'.

ESPionage and magiCIAns

I also read the biography of Charles Fort by Jim Steinmeyer (the inventor of illusions, but also an excellent writer – I really enjoyed Hiding the Elephant, and Glorious Deceptions. And yes, I see a strong connection between conjurors and their skills, and espionage. In this murky cross-over world I end up implying some connection between magick of the occult variety, and what people so loosely call ‘the stage variety’. It really upsets some of the esotericists when I imply any connection at all – as if I am implying it is ‘all manipulative tricks’ – where actually I want to point to the area of common ground, hypnosis, belief systems, the unreliability of our perceptions, etc. I battle on. One day I might be able to put it in a way that didn’t upset so many folks. And shamans have always used ‘little tricks’ to draw people into more suggestible states, like many gurus (think Sai Baba and his mysterious ‘ash’ and occasional jewellery, or Geller in his guru phase with ‘teleports and metal-bending, or Blavatsky suspected of chicanery).

If any of the espionage, magic and occult stuff sounds interesting, you will find longer contributions, and further links, from me (the bogus magus) over at Only Maybe - e.g. ESPionage and magCIAns.

If conjuring on its own seems sufficiently interesting, then I gather interesting links on the Intelligence Increase blog.

Fun Stuff

And, just for laughs, I read A Load of Bull by Tim Parfitt, a really hilarious 'Englishman abroad' book about Spain in general, and Madrid in particular. Hilarious!

Just for Laughs - memories of Vaudeville - George Carl

When I have a day when I shouldn't have got up, I tend to go for comedy. I ended up doing it for a living (loving) because I couldn't see enough physical comedy in my childhood (no tv, rare films, etc).

10 minutes of George Carl – possibly the greatest clown (in my sense of the word, nothing to do with circuses) with a rather slow audience in Sweden.

A thousand physical gags he could do in any combination of 3 minute spots, 5 minute spots, etc.

It seems like a fairly subdued audience (the jobbing professional) in this 10 minute set (with good quality footage) you can see some of the range, not only of clumsy gags mixed with dexterity (the style I chose to adapt) but with a wonderful Max Wall legs ending (to go with the resemblance in the face).



Here’s a 7 minute set on Johnny Carson, with dozens more variations. A couple of misses (for the jugglers) but more gags per minute than many people achieve in a lifetime – even the magical penetration of the microphone stand (I can live with the buzz on the soundtrack, and this audience seem to really get it!) You get the lot, hat, mike stand, funny legs. His misdirection is worthy of a magician (did you see the microphone go down his trousers? I didn't.



Here’s 6 minutes of lower quality video for Jerry Lewis, and you know some of the gags by now, but he’s storming. And he has a proper vaudeville drummer hitting the highlights. And the audience even notice and appreciate the mike penetration!



OK, OK I stole a couple of gags out his collection of hundreds...but I have no record of any of my live shows (before video phones, and all that). Maybe Reuven Hannah still has footage (he filmed it on roller skates) of a show I did at Riverside Studios, with a genius drummer (we improvised the whole thing for 300 people as I was in a bad nervous state (personal life events) and they carried me through.

And Tim Bat may one day retrieve some low-grade footage of me trying to do my (until then original) juggling act, following a whole evening of juggling acts who had done just about everything (that we knew at the time) already. 11 of us turned up to the convention (from 5 countries) and nowadays you will find several thousand people attending such events.

And finally, a part of the Royal Command Performance (the kind of glimpse I had at the time) of George Carl. If I achieved 1% of the shared fun I can die happy. Peace and humour. Amor et Hilaritas!

Old Dog - New Tricks

OK - the new library opened, and we did good!

On Facebook, I started as an avatar (testing the system for work, not wanting to get involved) - and joined as Sid Scribe. He has (in his iLike field) a track from later Pink Floyd (obscured by clouds type film track) called Free Four...

"The memories of a man in his old age...

Are the deeds of a man in his prime -THRUMMMM."

Since then, I joined Facebook for real, and now have linked to heads from the 60s, street performers from the 70s, film folk from the 80s, circus people from the 90s, all my family (more or less) and library co-workers (and other online friends) from the 21st Century. And of course the Maybe Logic crew, but we already have other channels of communication.

Check out our ongoing blog at Only Maybe (just put that in Google to find it), the online magazine we made 14 issues of (followed by a hard copy - ask me for one if you are interested, I still have a few in a box) - or just go to the public bit of the campus for a glimpse.

Life goes on.

I have written two not-great books (just for the hell of it, and as a personal challenge, like a sedentary marathon), but I carry on learning, and may offer you something readable eventually.
I have also dabbled in online publishing, just to see how it works - the things remain full of typos, but I am improving all the time. I'll try to keep it short.

But then again, some people like great epics (who actually reads the whole of The Lord of the Rings? Maybe the folks who read all of Happy Potter?) No problem, we all have our epics. Just as Bill Hicks remains relevant - so does Illuminatus! even if it got written in the 70s.

Predictive text, indeed.

Greetings to all sentient beings...

The room got crowded, but it's kinda fun.

Grandpa Takes a Trip...

...Down Memory Lane.

Strange circumstances led me to go to a Sixties Night at the Globe in Cardiff.

I did kinda assume that this would be an opportunity for people to dress up (I know there were Mods and Rockers, and Kings Road chic Mary Quant 'hippies', as well as scruffy Notting Hill 'heads and freaks' like me), but we didn't have one style - we raided the dressing up box, so you might see a completely silver alien chatting to an 18th Century dandy.

Given that people seem to like dressing up as Vicars and Tarts, etc - it did seem likely. Sadly, even in my mildest outfit (mirror waistcoat, sand-dollar on macrame necklace, velvet jacket) I seemed over-dressed. I thought it would look appropriately sedate for a granddad. Hey ho. The only long hair was on the girls.

In spite of incense, and a bubble machine and being handed a bedraggled flower by a young woman it couldn't really feel like the 60s with everyone drinking, and nobody smoking. We didn't have alcohol at UFO, or Middle Earth, or Les Cousins, Bunjies, etc. Not to say we didn't drink, but only in pubs (playing darts in The Pillars of Hercules and drinking Newcastle Brown before going down to Cousins). And although you could get nine months (not just a caution) for possession, you would almost certainly smell hash at an all-nighter...

Still the band - El Goodo - were pretty good (although I never heard any kind of country music until the 70s, when Dylan did Nashville Skyline, and I got to The States and heard the non-redneck versions from The Flying Burritos, New Riders of the Purple Sage and all that) but their extended riff at the end hit the spot - and the light show improved, and I met a few nice folks, so I don't consider it a wasted evening (in fact, for lack of spliff, I wasn't wasted) but maybe a wasted opportunity. And no, I didn't get any acid flashbacks - more's the pity. Peace.

Cardiff avoids disaster

I gather the weather remains pretty foul everywhere, but here in Cardiff we may live in a micro-climate.

OK, it's cold and wet, but hardly a threat to life and limb - or any kind of excuse to close schools and stay off work (much though I'd like to right now).

I guess there may be more snow on the way - and no doubt it remains pretty heavy up in the cottage (where Julie and Dandy are right now), but I just got a wet, grey Monday to contend with. Oh, actually the webcam at Pontrhydygroes shows the snow clearing, right now.

These blog entries are drifting from serious Thought for the Day, to a weird bland blend of Facebook and Twitter (and pictures of the dog).

"What RU doing right this moment?"

(typing, of course!)

Broken-down metaphors

Hey ho. I amuse my friends by using car metaphors, when I can't even drive, but I suppose I see

• websites as for stick-shift drivers


• blogs and forums for people who like automatic (less to know or think about)


• Facebook and Twitter, etc simply seem like Dodgems /Bumper cars...great fun, for some, but so limited as to be almost useless for 'transport purposes'. IMHO Although communal picture albums seem fun (you could also try Flickr).


• At least on MySpace musicians can easily upload music samples, which I like - and YouTube lets you share vids, etc

But each to their own, of course. I'd hate to sound like a snob, when I hardly devise websites (HGV license?) or write code (racing drivers?) or innovate (world land speed record?)

Metaphors always end up over-stretched, eventually - sigh.

Not quite gone this morning

Not as glamorous as by night, but the garden still had snow this morning, and, in spite of the pleading look "can we go out again, can we, can we, can we?" I had to go to work (sigh).

Mooching Pooch

Dandy has never seen snow in all his two years...not great pix with my camera battery dying, but it could be gone by morning. This was our midnight walk!

Dropping like flies

I had every intention of dropping in here to celebrate W.C.Fields birthday - a favourite fellow juggler, fellow Aquarian, and fellow curmudgeon.

Now I heard that John Martyn died this morning, and I don't feel quite so jolly, although I still want a serious drink, in honour of both of them.

I knew John back in the days when he looked and sounded like an angel. I knew him well enough to know that he was a bit tougher than that, but I was so astounded by his talent that I felt honoured to just sit and roll joints for him, and listen to him play. I never even had the bottle to grab a set of bongos, and try to accompany him (sigh).

It was only a few weeks ago that Davy Graham died - who was the hero to just about all the guitarists at the time - and I met many of them, just from working at Bunjies Coffee Bar, and (more importantly) at Les Cousins Folk and Blues club (the place to be).

I never did show any talent for 'talking music' so I never got really close to them...as they would get bored with words, and start talking through their instruments. I was still pretty happy to just be the tea boy (in both senses of the word).

Anyway. He's gone. And I never got to say thank-you just one more time.

Talking 'bout my generation...

Or rather - I feel like screaming along with Joe Cocker:

You feeling alright?
I'm not feeling that good myself, yeah
Well, you feeling alright?
Hey, I'm not feeling that good myself.

Woah, you feeling alright?
Yeah, I'm not feeling too good myself
Woah, woah, I'm lonely
But I'm not feeling that good myself.

You can turn away
You feeling alright?
I'm not feeling that good myself, I tell you.

Stuff going down

Family News
Julie has gone back up to the cottage, but had a near miss with the car on icy roads in the mountains, so all and any good wishes you want to send her would be welcome. She and Dandy survived unhurt but shaken, and it sounded a bit scary to me.

Circus News
Joke Schot had taken some great photos of NoFit State's Tabú show, so Kaskade Juggling Magazine contacted the circus asking for some words to go with them. I hacked some together for them (I used to write regularly for Kaskade in the early days, and worked for the circus way back when, also).

The article is out. I am pleased with it. That link goes to the words, at least, on the review page at the Circus Development Agency website (I do content management there) - because I doubt that it will reduce sales very much for my words to leak out elsewhere. I recommend Kaskade, not just for juggling, but all allied arts throughout Europe (they have a great listings page for events, as well as addresses for all equipment makers, etc. )

You can also find online a rough draft of some footage of one of the NoFit State outreach projects, when the local Community Circus did a show for Swindon Festival. Here on the Ideal Films site.

Library News
I started a blog focussed on my library work (as a library sub-culture is heading towards an ephemeralized online library to compliment the physical buildings, etc.

You can check out Anon the Librarian for that part of my life -as we move into the new 'state-of-the-art library' in the next month or two. I hope to extend the work I did on the NetTrainers course, and with the Council's Moodle/Learning Pool site - becoming less of an IT person, and more aimed at staff and public training...

The Prisoner may have finally escaped, who knows?

Very sad to hear that Patrick McGoohan has died at the age of 80.

The Prisoner remains one of the best pieces of tv I ever saw - even though we originally watched it on black and white television(1967 in London) - he was shrewd enough to get it made on film stock in colour, so that it has survived (unlike a lot of tv from the period).

I feel very ambiguous about the attempt to make a film of it. After the shambles that I consider the film version of H2G2 to be. After 'their' significant failure to reproduce The Avengers (another great series of the period) as a modern film.

I'll wait and see, with the stoical patience exemplified by Number 6's view of the world around him, a role model I adopted and continue to employ to this day.

Fool on the Hill

It was great to have a visit from A & A - and they saw both a crisp bright day, and then another when it was almost snowing - misty in the valley, sleet, I guess, quite gloomy.

I am a bit gloomy, too, as I had a mild 'waxy ear' so used some drops which obviously softened the wax just enough to go deep into the ear, making me actually deaf. Doh! It really wasn't that bad before, just a slight crackle when I moved my head sometimes.

Now I am only half-tuned into conversations, television and the sounds of nature (good to stay alert with a lively dog, and unknowns everywhere, from sheep to loggers).

One unpleasant side-effectof the deafness is the pounding blood in my ear when walking these steep hills. As it is a little warmer up in the sun, Dandy and I have tended to go up, rather than along the bottom of the valley, and I went to the highest point (308 metres above sea level) I could see for one panoramic view. You can see the Ystwyth valley, the iron age hill fort - Castell Grogwynion - and a farm by the road on the way to Aber. You might want to click on the pic to see it larger (I haven't done anything to the images yet, as battling working on a Mac which does things whole different ways, etc.)

Where the sun don't shine

We had a crisp clear morning up here in the hills, so I walked the dog along the sunny ridges, but once you dip into the valleys, where the sun hasn't penetrated, it remains really cold...

Library Angels

As a lover of libraries, I found the internet an infinite amount of fun, because it allows the chasing of footnotes and cross-references (previously a leisurely activity, browsing and grazing) into quite a high speed sport. Well, sometimes. Occasionally I still slow down to book speed, carrying cross-references around in my head, or on a USB, or a little white library card...

And when you start hunting specific information it becomes quite a lot trickier, assessing sources.

But still the library angels come to help (those pony-tailed people from Wings of Desire, leaning over the shoulders of the readers at the Berlin library) and in haphazard skimming I come across little gems. Don't ask me how I found this, I forget, but I have always liked Auden - a lucid poet.



The Labyrinth

Anthropos apteros for days
Walked whistling round and round the Maze,
Relying happily upon
His temperament for getting on.

The hundreth time he sighted, though,
A bush he left an hour ago,
He halted where four alleys crossed,
And recognized that he was lost.

"Where am I?" Metaphysics says
No question can be asked unless
It has an answer, so I can
Assume this maze has got a plan.

If theologians are correct,
A Plan implies an Architect:
A God-built maze would be, I'm sure,
The Universe in miniature.

Are data from the world of Sense,
In that case, valid evidence?
What in the universe I know
Can give directions how to go?

All Mathematics would suggest
A steady straight line as the best,
But left and right alternately
Is consonant with History.

Aesthetics, though, believes all Art
Intends to gratify the heart:
Rejecting disciplines like these,
Must I, then, go which way I please?

Such reasoning is only true
If we accept the classic view,
Which we have no right to assert,
According to the Introvert.

His absolute pre-supposition
Is - Man creates his own condition:
This maze was not divinely built,
But is secreted by my guilt.

The centre that I cannot find
Is known to my unconscious Mind;
I have no reason to despair
Because I am already there.

My problem is how not to will;
They move most quickly who stand still;
I'm only lost until I see
I'm lost because I want to be.

If this should fail, perhaps I should,
As certain educators would,
Content myself with the conclusion;
In theory there is no solution.

All statements about what I feel,
Like I-am-lost, are quite unreal:
My knowledge ends where it began;
A hedge is taller than a man."

Anthropos apteros, perplexed
To know which turning to take next,
Looked up and wished he were a bird
To whom such doubts must seem absurd.


WH Auden




Auden at Poetry Connection

apteros = wingless

NoFit State Circus in Mumbai

The circus is appearing at the Mood Indigo festival in Mumbai next week.

Article in The Times of India


In the coming year, you can catch them at The Roundhouse, London...

28 MARCH 2009 - 19 APRIL 2009

NoFit State website

I really got the Dark Day Blues

Hey ho - the solstice is on its way, and now I walk the dog every evening I will notice the lengthening days much quicker than the average city dweller.

I have so often been the 'bringer-down' or ghost at the feast at this time of year I almost have a role to play as Mr Bah Humbug.

I never have felt particularly against people having fun, but I do think we should attempt it every day of our lives, not just for some narrow season.

Still, everyone claims the excuse of illness these days, nothing is ever their own fault. There's a symptom, a syndrome, a genetic tendency, anything you like, but whatever you suffer from it's not your fault.

So I am going to finally suggest that I get ill and fatigued with S.A.D, and those factors make this time of year stressful for me, because of the 'busyness', socialization and all that.

My irritability and sneering don't arise from bad attitudes, I just feel a bit rundown.

The festival isn't lowbrow (although a house around the corner has a Nativity Scene complete with Mary, Joseph, Jesus, Santa and a Snowman); the shopping and sales aren't a frenzy of consumerism; the family get-togethers are not all miserable; the religion isn't all empty of genuine sympathy for homeless people (who only need a place at the inn) or the sixth of the planetary inhabitants who don't even have fresh water.

No, I am just under the weather. Nothing to worry about. It'll soon pass.

And I wish you all a very merry christmas time!

Another one gone

Very sad to hear that Davey Graham has died.

Back when I worked at Les Cousins I saw all the guitar greats of my generation, a privilege I can't even explain.

I recently met someone who was equally into that generation of guitarists - and it reminded me of all those magic moments, hanging out with Roy Harper, John Martin, Bert Jansch, John Renbourne, and on and on - even though I wasn't a musician, just the tea boy.

Davy seemed like the grand master of the group, even though he never was as famous.

Hey, get some quality time online...

Anyone (if such a person exists) who looks at this blog even erratically, will know about Bobby Campbell, an artist who I have collaborated with (remotely) for some time.

Mostly (mostly) I have done words and he has done images for short pieces, but he also scripts extended artwork for other people to draw.

So to sample that particular mixture, try the online graphix here @Gnosis where you can read a free comic adventure for the curious of mind (weekly, updated Sundays).

This - drawn by Marcelino Balao III, written by Bobby - a whole different graphic style and magical words, wonderful to behold.

Check it out. Stretch yer mind a little.

[Update 29th December: Bobby has begun contributing a regular-ish Thorsday posting at OM,Dreaming@Wake.

Worth visiting for the Toynbee Tiles alone!]

Ever so 'umble

This year the first draft for NaNo came easily, but I intend to give it a bit more time, and really look at re-writing it, editing, etc.

I can already tell (without looking at, or remembering, what I wrote) that this would be a large effort, and I know one has to be able 'to kill one's darlings' (i.e. be ruthless with those favourite phrases that don't fit, or those characters who never went anywhere, and maybe wandered in from a different book, etc) and I still have relatively little grasp of 'page-turning' qualities.

Pulp Fiction in the UK in the 40s would have 12 chapters of about 3000 words, each ending in a climax, apparently. They were short (40,000 words) and aimed at a non-intellectual crowd (cowboys, sci-fi, detective fiction, romance, etc) and hardly feature in reviews of 'literature' at all. That structure (or formula) has worked fine for Dan Brown, for instance, and he's laughing all the way to the bank, about people like me who thought the books a bit thin.

Anyway, I need the practice. I am still working my way towards something between a memo, essay, autobiography, half-conceived at the back of my brain, and fermenting even as I type. After the fermenting comes the distilling, I guess.

I don't kid myself one life is that important. In fact, I first found my feet when looking at the vertiginous nadir picture by Escher (somewhere in Mexico) when I realised that trying to make myself large enough for the world to notice was ludicrous (Pop Idol, and all those other desperate attempts at 'celebrity') as we all remain ants. That picture didn't make me religious, but I saw the market place from above, in just the same way, and realised I needed a little circle of people around me, each willing to help me eat and survive. That's all I needed, not a stadium full of fans, a world-wide audience, etc. And I went out to become a street performer in the markets of Mexico, and never looked back.