What gives with you Americans?

You know why they call it the American dream? Because you have to be asleep to believe it. Why do you seem not to care? Is it because you’re asleep or because you’re all sheep?
Wake up America and shake off the gangsters who think they own you. You are not Republicans. You are not Democrats. You [...]

“What do you mean you forgot the pesto sauce?”

Amazing space, a raindrop for every tear, an epic queen’s lament (we dare not speak her name): ‘Fear the bandanaed man,’ she cries.
Dragona Hartley’s Rose of Sharon, like a swallow hovering over the city, sweetly but darkly and out of context.
My friend thinks she may be a bat.
She hesitates not, however, to pencil in, like the [...]

‘You don’t know what they do to you when they know you can’t walk.’

I’ve been damned by some as an unbeliever, an anti-christ. It pleases me, therefore, and reinforces my self esteem, to know that to others I’m the cool atheist across the street.
My youngest daughter calls me daddy and my mother insists that I was brought up a good catholic kid and on the right track.
So I [...]

God told me…

…that I’ve been neglecting my blog of late, so, to keep him happy, here’s a little snatch of a rather one-sided conversation about music I had with Jon Hilltown the other day:
‘I love it. Late at night I think about it. I slip a disc in it and I turn it on: it’s a darkness like [...]

Underground

I’m in London over the weekend visiting some friends and taking photographs — I lived here for 30 years but its profile changes all the time and I like to keep track…
Alright.
On the underground (subway) I hear this:
‘Why steal or deal crack when you’ve got a sucker for a mother?’
Some profiles don’t change.
[...]

Secrets of a Satanic Suppressive

It’s late at night and I’m far from home.
I’m used to that.
Indeed, being far from home is not new to me.
As a kid I am a compulsive runaway.
I mean, who wants to be home all the time?
No, my concern is not due to any spatio-temporal confusion or separation.
What’s worrying me is the company I’m keeping.
She’s [...]

After the Brits

So, it’s been another slow year.
You know that feeling, when you’re the only one (I mean one, get it?) in a crowd to see a single magpie? Man, that’s a f**ker.
One for sorrow…
But why me. I mean, I’m in a crowd, you know? And it’s just me that gets the sorrow-vision?
It’s because I’m an atheist, [...]

Sugar-coated hegemony

So, what’s the difference between Big Tobacco and Big Government?
In a cynical attempt to lure young smokers and turn them into addicts (thereby enabling them to fulfil their economic roles in the Land of The Free and her dominions) nicotine barons add sugar and sweetners, plum juice, maple syrup and honey to their product. In [...]

So, thinking about a slow death…

So recently I started smoking again and I’m coughing a lot. A long term prognosis?
Cancer!
The Government tells me that I get cancer through smoking and I continue smoking. 
Why? Because I’m a good citizen. You know how much tax we pay on a pack of cigarettes in the UK? 80%.
Also, smoking encourages me to be more [...]

Girl Alarm

I know the girl in the bar by sight. Our eyes meet and I nod. Her phone rings. An odd ring-tone. Sounds like a klaxon. A car alarm. A smoke alarm. A personality alarm.
I sense that her life is on fire or overheating or being tampered with in some way. So we arrange to meet [...]