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The scene is Andover and Honeystreet is giving it all in support of the Macular Society. An hour’s great songs from Marion ending in Pete the Bass and Steve the Harp making an attempt on the life of Pat the Guitar. If his music is not in alphabetical order by midnight tonight there will be murder done, they say. “Which alphabet” was his naive reply, he being a Greek scholar these days

Kyrenia in former times. This bar was created out of a lorry. Supposed to be temporary, it kind of stuck. A bit like the partition of Cyprus.

There was a BBC 2 programme devoted to a journey along the K&A from \Sydney gardens. A camera mounted on the boat simply rolled on slowly. So slowly that it was possible to do sketches like this

Mixed feelings about the visit to Northern, Turkish, Cyprus.  The flight is paid for by the Turkish State, for which you have  to tour the  various Carpet, Leather and Jewelry stores.That just lasts  a morning, and then comes six days of visits to the most astonishing Greek, Roman, Crusader, Venetian  and Turkish antiquities

Former Christian Church in the mountains. Carefully preserved by the local people as an impromptu nature museum. “Panagia Pergaminiotissa church, at the Karpass Peninsula, Northern Cyprus”

From the Letrillas

Of  Luis de Góngora, freely adpated by PC

 

Ande yo caliente

Y Ríase la gente

 

Your Prince eats off golden vessels

Bolting food with his thousand worries

Me, I eat without fear or hurry

Off a kitchen table stood on Tressles

With half-inched wine,

I warmly dine

And  a pantry maid, a bit of a looker

Slips  bits of meat, and cakes so sweet

That happen to’ve fallen, off the cooker.

And the people, they look at me and sneer

At the figure I make so quaint and queer  …

 

Other men in silks may govern

The world with its seething kings and kingdoms

My clothes, and days, are slack and sloven

Ruled by sugar-bread filched from the oven

By Ladies fair and frilled and fancy.

And on winter morns, when the weather’s chancy

Whisky and oranges they, kind, bring down

Meanwhile the  children,run  grimacing  after

Rattling the streets with raucous laughter.

 

Acorns and chestnuts, those winter finds

Fill my sizzling winter brazier

Warmed by tales of crazy kings

From storytellers even crazier

Those freezing winds of January

Tear at my topcoat’s slack-slopped buckles

And the people, yes, they look at me

A tap their heads with knowing  chuckles

 

In  good hour, the merchant
Seeks out markets very urgent
Me, I trade in worn out sea shells
That on the sand from the tide emergent
Or profit from nightbirds, gently singing
Like the fountain’s song, but softer
And the people, yes, they see me,
And turn away* with mocking Laughter 

Aye, piss themselves with mocking laughter).

Pc from Luis de Góngora

 

All these posts begin to sound like an “everything happens to me ” song . No, not at all. A more blessed existence was never lived by man or beast as mine.

The Rodent. A poem for today

 

There’s a dead rat under me floorboards;

There’s a rodent corpse under the plank,

Advanced in its decomposition

The smell is decidedly rank.

I tried to find its location,

Small holes with a drill I did bore

But the only solution before me

Was to take up the whole feckin floor.

  (more…)

Back Home safely after a  devious journey. I have the feeling   the right Gods were not given the right sacrifices to start with. Lots of “little accidents”, Greek Air Traffic Control Strike, being abandoned at a bus station, threatened storms, and other things more explosive, etc, but some most excellent music, foood, and the delightful company of Anna Cogswell who added a whole new dimension to Cretan life. Many discoveries besides. Home to the Rat, of which more later.

Up for a van cuppa near Combe Gibbett today. Witnessed monumental battle between, at first, a single crow and two Red Kites. The single crow was nearly grabbed when his mates turned up in a mob, and then the boot was on the other foot. The battle was joined later by, I think, a Raven. Neither party seemed to like him much, so maybe he was the ref.

Greek holiday losses due to strike  to date about £300 of not so easy come. definitely easy go money plus 3 days of holiday. It’s nobody’s fault the ferking Greek ATC’s went on strike and then didn’t, but why has the customer always got to bear the risk? Never mind the money, Barbara was made sick by the stress. Sorry about the Latin, they didn’t have a word for  strike.

Just a minute, is this getting serious? Can’t I just drop in and give you you a tune now and again. I mean, I said yes (not seriously) to popping over to Crete and playing in a Taverna last year and before I knew it we were one a plane cruising into Chania, and now I’m doing it again, FFS, with an amp, two guitars, and washboard. ( Goes a storm with the Germans. Or should I say Sturm). And boots, they made me buy boots!

 

You remember the Lost Chord of Schnozzle Durante. I’ve lost me bus pass. I wonder of they’re in the same place?

Life is full of unforeseen events ; the uncharitable  would call them unmitigated disasters, but that would be, um,  uncharitable. To disguise the impact of these , I often feign that they are but part of a grand general scientific investigation. Know therefore that when I say that I am performing an experiment it is not a search for knowledge to clarify a foggy corner  of existence, but that something very wrong is happening.

Take tonight for instance. On the eve on an important gig, the amplifier  I have cleverly power-sourced with a battery device of my own invention. Yet with the required plugs and wires connected up, the essential ” Power On” light failed to materialise.  (more…)

Six and a half hours to travel 200 miles from Liskeard to Berks. Arrived at Exeter  the instant a lorry hit a barrier above Junction 29, paralysing the whole of the farther West of England. A friendly caravanist advised us to stay the night. Impossible. To  get back home meant a journey via Tavistock with all the other divertees over  roads not wide enough for a decent sized horse. Infrastructure? It’s a laugh.