Both your houses…

I have a problem with politics. Well, lots of problems, obviously, but the one I’m thinking of is this – both sides, as it were, start from the premise of Big Business (not the Cold Comfort Farm bull, no). If you don’t work for the government, you are either a Boss, rolling in dosh, and employing many Workers; or you are a Worker, obliged to obey the Boss in order to eat. (Actually if you do work for the government it’s much the same, except the Boss is the government.) So self-employed small business people, sole traders, freelancers, hiring out their wares or skills, answerable to no Boss, but employing few or no Workers, simply don’t appear on the graph. We make the place look untidy, and should be done away with.

Since I cannot imagine myself at all comfortable as either Boss or Worker, I find it hard to support either side. I would like to think the Green Party would not regard me as merely a piece of annoying grit, but I’m not entirely confident. However, a party for People Who Don’t Want to be Told what To Do or Tell Anyone Else What to Do doesn’t sound very likely to hold together…

Why everyone should be a science fiction fan, by Ben Jeapes

Source: Why everyone should be a science fiction fan, by Ben Jeapes

Assyrians

When I was young, I used quite often to go to London and visit the British Museum. I spent a good deal of time in the Babylonian, Assyrian and Sumerian galleries. The kings with their massive curly beards, the huge winged sphinxes, the way the Sumerians stand with their hands just so, and with neat three-cornered smiles; and the fabulous gold and lapis lazuli goat in a thicket, I found very pleasing.

On Tuesday I found myself with a little time to spare in Bloomsbury and went to the BM – it was nearly closing time, so I just had time to say Hallo, long time no see, to Ashurnasirpal, and admire the great human-headed winged lions – and to read the inscriptions on a pair of statues that stood outside the temple of Nabu, god of writing – with inscriptions that said “Trust no other god”. I so like that. Don’t trust anyone, always get it in writing.

Aten’t dead

Apparently I have posted nothing here for two months. Doesn’t time fly :-(. I have two excuses – been away a lot and been frantically emptying a storage unit. For which I have given myself a deadline of tomorrow :-). So I will post again after that…

Something Remains

Sorry it’s been so long. I should say that I have a piece in the anthology “Something Remains” from Alchemy Press, due to launch at FantasyCon next weekend, in memory of Joel Lane, much missed author and poet. The book is a collection of posthumous collaborations, where writers have taken one of Joel’s notes and written a story – or in my case a poem – from the notes.

I knew Joel for many years, and he died far too young. I am very honoured to be part of this project.

We are “these people”

Many, many years ago I volunteered to help for a day with an organization working for the homeless. I got on well with the homeless people, but found myself awkward with some of the other volunteers, who tended to talk about the problems “these people” had, and why “these people” were unable to cope. I didn’t join in the conversation – I was very aware, as I still am, of how easily I could be one of “these people”. The only difference is that I was fortunate in my family and friends; if I had had no parents, or unsympathetic parents, or if I had been living in a relationship that broke down, or a dozen other things, I could easily have been sleeping on the street. Essentially, I was one of “these people”. I’ve suffered for many years with clinical depression; if I hadn’t had the right people there to help me I could easily be homeless.

There are many people who think that because of the way they are, or the things that have happened to them, the Church would not welcome them. And with some churches they’re sadly right, since churches are made up of fallible human beings. The Church – perhaps the Church of England most of all – has an image of being for respectable people who are sane, stable, solvent and straight. But we are all God’s children – able or not, sane or mad, straight or gay, cis- or transgender, well-off or broke, doing nicely, on benefits, on the street, married, single, divorced, remarried, even addicted, on the game, on the wrong side of the law. God loves every single one of us. And we are all these people.

Centenary

Given that it is a hundred years since the Easter Rising, I thought I would republish this, which I wrote in the late 70s or early 80s, when there were Troubles:

Ireland

I would bleed at the hands and feet

I would bleed at my head and my heart for you, Ireland.

When I see what the masters of my fathers did to you

How could I grudge you my hands and feet

Ireland?

But the way of hate at last is barren

Violence cankers the heart to a stone

Bitterness burns out the love of God

Leaving freedom crippled

And Christ upon the cross is bleeding still at hands and feet

For Dublin and for Belfast and for London

For the masters and the slaves

For you and for me,

Ireland

           ***

and this, to cheer us up again –

Irish Music

The harp is water dropping into a still pool in the morning of time,

The shrill fiddle and the mellow pipes

pulse to the quickened rhythm of the blood, set the feet to dancing,

The doleful warbling whistle calls the heart out from the body,

And the bodhran, like every drum, is a heart-beat,

an echo in a hall too vast for sight,

trembling on the edge of terror.

                               ***