Mike Predicts Yes vote to win...more later

War on Syntax Pauses

One of the many things that bring a smile to my face is the bollocks our elites dream up to divert the global consumer from the fact they're being robbed blind. The latest being the US economy faltering because of an HIV scare in their porn industry! While we await news from Russia claiming that new anti gay laws are boosting the world's largest gangster economy, we can rely on Slovoj Žižek to claim that whatever is going on in Syria is actually a Pseudo Struggle. Fuck, I do wish he'd declare a ceasefire!

Really can't wait to dance on the cow's grave

I would like to thank Ian Bone for blogging this photo. Nothing would make 2013 better than hearing she's finally kicked the bucket.

Missing for Two Years

I would like to apologise to my reader, I have been distracted for a while. I find it somewhat cosmic that it has been just over two years since my last post. What has changed in that time? Not a lot. I have found the current bunfight within the Church of England most entertaining - not least because of the coverage it has received in the mainstream media. This joke fest has even brought out the comedy archbishop of Canterbury out of retirement. I thought he was dead. One might believe he should be after reading this. Quite what the buffoon thinks he will achieve is, I think, a notion worth exploring - but not today! Also, bless us all, we can so easily be entertained by further idiots joining the fray. I have enjoyed my sabbatical from the blogosphere. Disengagement is really something I would encourage. Religion isn't! Speak soon. Love, Mike

Brian Turner at The South Bank Centre

Brian Turner gave a stiring reading of his poetry at The South Bank Centre in the afternoon of 30 October. Sometimes standing, sometimes sitting, Turner had his back to an aquatinted view over the roof of the Queen Elizabeth Hall, then the Thames towards the Barbican Centre. This Brutalist aesthetic did not diminish the watery quality of the late autumn sunshine or the tone of Turner's delivery. However, this aesthetic is important, read on.

Looking distinctly "beefier" than photos from two years ago suggest, Turner provided his audience with accounts of sleeping in a bed once occupied by Dick Cheney and how he remains in contact with friends of the suicide, PFC Miller, but not Miller's family. Despite leaving Iraq and the US military, Turner's mind remains. His poem, "At Lowe's Home Improvement Center" is simultaneously a psychotic episode and a critique of "normalcy", undisclosed "collateral damage" and the degeneration of language as a political expedient.

This theme is more easily quoted in "Howl Wind", which ends:

"......a mortar round
howls a night wind over the city,
and just where it lands
we will see."

The theme of city as target and barricade, unidentified, scared and scarred returns in Turner's new poems. Turner challenged the audience that afternoon, to identify where the next random violent act would happen. He did this without irony, with considerable charm and without turning to face the view over towards the Barbican Centre. That view struck me as the same as the Twin Towers before they fell down.

In Praise of John Hegely

Among the piles of books scattered about my lodgings is a much-loved copy of John Hegley's "Glad To Wear Glasses", first published in 1990.

Fast forward to 16 September 2010, I found myself at the Camden Bookshop by Old Street Tube to witness "Monsieur Hedley" read from that collection and others, including his latest, "The Adventures of Monsieur Robinet". Well, I say read, but he also sang and played a mandolin, sometimes accompanied by a fellow using such things as a plastic skull and an inflated black rubber glove as percussion.

2010 sees Hegley expand upon his dog metaphor with a new collection enriched with a parallel French translation "and plenty of room to add your own drawings". The dog in question is called Chirac and as a symbol for our fractured age, cannot be equaled.

"TELEVISION IS BAD FOR YOUR CONVERSATION WITH THE DOG. His dog quietly keeps guard over his master's pile of pebbles" is at once, humourous, simple and indistinct. Who is the dog? Does this dog have an opinion? Does it actually matter? What are the pebbles? All questions for the reader to ponder.

Hedley on the evening reminded me of a young University lecturer of my acquaintance. His percussionist reminded me of more than one reformed abuser of Class A drugs. That those two images can fill the air at the same time as Hegley explores neglect, boredom and complex identity makes the world a better place.

Stuffed chair talks

Proof that the UK coalition does things differently comes today.....in a newspaper report, the Tory 'chair' in the House of Lord's says it does God.

I can't wait for the narrative stating that the economic crisis is a pestilence visited upon the world because of a lack of faith in God.

It isn't.