This is the story of an encounter with a ghost in a small English market town

They thought the circus had arrived every time old Jack Bannister rolled into town.

            His wagon creaked like bones and his black dog was the devil. Kids chased his wagon, one tried to hitch a ride on the stargate but stumbled, the dog reacted like a crocodile and the kids scattered like beetles. 

  The sky was losing its red, rain was starting to fall. He knew the wagon would become unmanageable if the  horse didn’t make it to the brow quickly. She pulled along gracelessly like  an old farmer’s wife.  

Sometimes something happens in a town like Newport on the Staffordshire and Shropshire border. Prejudice and superstition can spread like blood across the sidewalks. Old Jack, who would spend a whole day rolling his way towards town to collect his monthly supplies and then making his way back home again, had this affect on them. They didn’t like him because he was a travelling man, a “ducker”.  

  The wagon waved like a sailing ship as the bowels of the sky rumbled and opened.  Jack took a tighter grip on the reins. The black walls of a St Nicholas’s    loomed in the rain, there were alleys and ginnels, doorways and stairwells, a Church of Scientology, liturgically bright, a Co-op offered dividends.  Jack reckoned they played by their own rules round here. 

 There were certain elements of this town he related to though. Nothing to do with the people, but to do with the ramshackle. A memory, a yearning, a ghostly thing, something only honest shaman, duckers and wild animals are privileged to be able to recognise. 

He liked the ramshackle. He recognised that this town was medieval, but only the shape of the roofs were left, the frontages were new biliously coloured bricks.  As he looked up at the medieval rooftops he could hear all the people who’d spent their lives under them. He could hear ghosts and distant memories.

There was a workyard off to the left, he could see it as he came round the edge of the church wall.  Workyards, ramshackle, dark and dirty.  There was DNA underneath these roofs.  Whole worlds had changed, come and gone, cataclysmic times had faded unnoticed, great gashes blown into the universe, dying tribes and shipwrecks, ancient histories ignored, even the seas had changed colour.

  The church bell began to toll midday. Somehow it didn’t sound right though, too mechanical, hollow, too precise, the chimes of a battery operated clock.

 There was a whoooshing noise above, drowning out the bells. He looked up and saw a wedding couple pointing at him from a balloon, she was in crinolines and he was  holding on to his top hat, they were laughing and losing their balance in the basket oblivious to the roaring flames over their heads or the closeness of the ground.

****

That afternoon I was propping up the bar of the old Fox and Duck on the outskirts of town, buying Jack beers. That was my job, you see, when he rolled into town, he was never had any money. It was 1989 and Jack knew I was a writer with a growing interest in the unexplained, so I’d buy him beer and he’d tell me stories, stories about being on the road.

And stories about ghosts. “You know that cake shop, Wycherleys, in the centre of that Godforsaken hole you call town? You should take a look in there, son…”

I  pushed another amber glass across to him: “Why?”

“I saw summat there today as I pulled up the hill.”

“Like what?”

He got cryptic like he always did, playing the part of the ducker: “Something in the corner of my eye… you know, how you learn to spot a comet ..?”

I knew that was as far as he would go. He didn’t talk much and anyway he was only here for the free beer. That information was payment for the last amber glass, now half consumed, in front of him.

****

Later I sat in the ivy-ridden walled garden at Wycherleys, once a perfumery and now a delicatessens. There are the remnants of a vegetable patch behind a ‘half moon’ wooden gate. I sipped my coffee, it was a bit chilly out here, too chilly in fact for most people.  I was alone.

It’s a beautiful ancient building which it is rumoured was partly designed by that old rogue of wistful architecture and design William Morris. You can sense history in every brick of this wonderfully tall and thin building with its winding rickety stairs and low-slung ceilings.

Newport is a strange place, once famous for its leather, wool and fish.

I don’t know what I was expecting as I sipped my coffee, but in this garden by myself the last thing I felt was alone. It was like there were faces in the mullioned windows, faces of the dead, aimless shrouds of sadness, churning memories, shock at a life gone past.

I felt like I knew their names, their crimes and penalties right back to the days of laudanum and ether. For a second I could feel their anguish and their pain. It hurt inside me. Each of their stories began to play before my eyes, separate reels and confused soundtracks, all the stories flickering and flashing, wafting in a different world like ribbons …

I began to feel cold in the sunlight and wanted to look away, but I couldn’t. I knew other things were in there, other ghosts – not belonging to the history of the house – but other ghosts that had gathered there. And they had a darkness to them, like the darkness inside the darkest coat …

… “There are a lot of people here …” I felt a voice whisper. I definitely didn’t hear it but I felt it. Something brushed against my elbow making me turn. Nothing there. The garden was still empty but there was this incredible smell of roses and herbs, spices. The faces in the window stirred as if they were trying to see something moving below them.

And that’s when I saw her too, a tall – very tall – dark figure standing without a flicker of movement. She held a basket over her arm filled with petals, herbs and spices. She was facing the wall and, like something coming at you from inside a mist, I could make out the outline of a door.  Everywhere filled with the chokingly sweet smell of flowers and meadows.  Despite this there was nothing particularly friendly about this woman, she was unnerving.   

Unexpectedly she turned to look at me and the faces in the windows gasped. Then she was gone.

And so, I suppose, I began what was my very first ghost hunt. I went in to the shop, it was quiet as the grave in there apart from the lady serving behind the counter which was full of cheeses and hams and pickles and spices.

I asked her if she knew about the door in the wall which I’d just watched manifest itself. This frumpy middle-aged woman dressed in vintage pinafore and bonnet smiled at me and said: “Ah, you’ve seen Mary then have you?”

I must have looked embarrassed because she said: “Oh don’t be worried, we’ve all seen her. And heard her too. Did you know, she can make your watch stop – and the clocks – if she feels like it. Check yours …(I did but it was still ticking away)  Sometimes she’ll come in a room unnoticed and turn it to ice. Mary doesn’t like warmth …”

“Do you see her a lot?”

“Sometimes you can see her every day, other times it’s as if she never existed. Most of the time she just appears to be getting along with her business …  the whole building can fill with this beautiful smell of perfume… but once I swear she turned to look at me.”

****

I followed the top of this accommodating shop assistant’s bonnet down the uneven stairs into the cellar. It was filled with all the usual detritus you’d expect in a shop’s storeroom, discarded shelving, promotional banners and signs, an old counter, cardboard boxes stuffed inelegantly inside cardboard boxes.

My guide’s hips were sadly on the large side and she had a bit of difficulty negotiating the narrow corridor between all of these things but finally we reached our destination. She had taken me to the darkest part of the cellar, we could hear traffic noise above our heads.

It was there that she pointed out in the dismal light a smooth granite slab which still had the aroma of centuries of the flowers, herbs, spices, berries and bark which had been melded on it. There was a slight but shadowy indentation where this magical perfumer’s hand had rested …

… we both heard a whisper like an echo from walls … “three parts frankincense, half  part thyme and one part myrrh…”

Then it was gone and we were alone again with this pungent smell of the past.

I stepped out of Wycherleys onto the medieval street and out of the corner of my eye I caught the stargate of Jack Bannister’s wagon making its way back down the hill.

I’d just experienced my first ghosts and I began to feel dreadfully alone.

#ghosts #wycherleys #newportshropshire

Ed Ricketts was killed by a train which smashed into his beat-up old sedan as he crossed the Southern Pacific Railway track on his way to a market in New Monterey.

He was going to buy a steak for his dinner.

After he and his car had been impaled on the cow-catcher of the Del Monte Express Ed hung on for a few days in hospital. Then he died.

His skull was out of shape, his lungs were punctured and just about every bone in his body was broken.

Edward Flanders Robb Ricketts was 50 years old and was comfortably unknown as a marine biologist, ecologist, and philosopher in the 1930s and 40s. He lived in the shack he had turned into a laboratory on Ocean View Avenue in Old Monterey’s rusty and dilapidated Cannery Row.

In 1922 Ed married Anna Barbara Maker in a quiet ceremony. He began to call her “Nan” and along the way they had a son and two daughters.

They lived a hand-to-mouth boon-docks way of life but Ed was happy.

Then they got divorced.

Ed was left alone in his shack and he missed his children.

He turned to drink. This meant that he had very little money but he kept on keeping on and looked after his children, albeit from a distance.

He was buried away at Monterey City Cemetery and there wasn’t much left to talk of, apart from the marine specimen jars on shelves in the shack and some rattle snakes he kept in cages for study purposes.

But he did leave something behind that still matters today … three rules for his estranged children.

And 70 years later, these rules are something all of us could teach our children, no matter how hard we are fighting to keep in touch with them.

Here they are as narrated by his best friend, writer John Steinbeck.

“We must remember three things. I will tell them to you in the order of their importance. Number One and first in importance, we must have as much fun as we can with what we have. Number Two, we must eat as well as we can, because if we don’t we won’t have the health and strength to have as much fun as we might. And Number Three and third and last in importance, we must keep the house reasonably in order, wash the dishes and such things.

“But we will not let the last interfere with the other two.”

#wsricketts #canneryrow #steinbeck #parentalalienation

A new rocking piece by our resident writer – ERIC LASTICK

A knot so quick witted, although a path—-right through the staked heart; and leftest flash of the peace sign…American flag on the back leather, with all aboard & towards that of the flower child rise up— with straight forward of the whole…and that of the 1960’s. Chopper Billy & steady cool, Captain America on a biker’s ‘roll on down ”hearthstone thrown” segregated, deep south highways. High stakes…and higher highs—in turn, as the roads become bridges too a commune that fire and burn, 1 reefer down. Billy, the dark run rebel…wishful but opaque at the bottom of the streams…seer of the upside downs, the rides of his drift cloud mind in substance down under. Potted plants and seeds of gentle, though of crazy madness! Men, woman and children of hippie-doom trying to make a crop out of these dusty dry hills.Yet a belief to which every flower child’s inner sanctum that somehow they’ll get the crop in before the bitter fall of draft morning. Captain Peter Fonda…freedom navigator, as he pacifies while explaining to Billy about not being so quick to judge others on the commune stay…Hopper’s bummer trips of not fitting in with the crowd, a common place…and this misplaced to mingle; as Captain America has instant LSD flashes of last years Beatles “Revolver”. Beatles in a bunch of four, sitting by a jet set pool…and float down stream, with premonitions of the Tibetan book of the dead—along with sidekick ‘Billy the kid” and ”Smile” The Beach Boys trials to live up to Rubber Soul! Captain Peter Fonda has his extended trance flashback, where Pet Sounds astounds…as the go-two-riders, rev up to the next town. Light up your smoke of the brash and hot spell of another agonizing New Mexico day. There is no honor among  thieves…as cycle motors must adjust to the abject holds that scrub them…relinquish the ebb and flow of hate and prejudices that keep on rising to the top of these so soiled sad of states. Yet they do not bend or break in their hopes of the red white and blues…and the hash bowl bigger better consciousness as consequences. One can vision a redneck stare 8ft tall in it’s stay of distances…table tops…tobacco smells and promises of that… and of a barrel gunning for—- a long haired of the free! It might be better to reevaluate that space one takes; and of those very freedoms. GO-TWO-RIDERS, escalate in the landscape…and soon fall apart at it’s seams! Thread like the blues of old school guitar Delta players…harmonious web—-too no more freedom in the twilight carriers of one’s stoned circling mind.

BLATANT AN UNEASY RIDER CONCEPTION

Astral ears in the unorthodox motorcycle ride. Much more than just your Space Cadets, ”High as the sky” as now three riders of what it seems…and of the relishes of what freedom brings. No vacancies is the paths by night other than a campfire for a real southern drunk-in lawyer…and two hippies; not yet knowing, and never believing that America insists on leaving them behind! Ending this run with nothing but bad news…broken dreams; and lost destiny travels…as there is never anything easy outta Southern California travel by way of the heart of the deep south in the latter days of the nineteen sixties. Motor sets of Easy riders…pretty mommas at the French Quarters of these unwelcome roads down old Louisiana. D.H. Lawrence is the caper and well read in which this Southern lawyer shares and swears by. The drugs safely in the tank of Captain America’s Harley. The Chopper, Hopper, Peter’s side kick… nourished and approved with all the Benny’s and hot smokes, the ritual signaling of the hippie join. Member’s only, next and by, ”The Club War” of white hate,as a community engulfs in the worst in men. One dead campfire…lights out. The pain of hickory and the death of one lawyer —-off the scales of those who deem of patriotism. Hate of the long haired. Hippies and parades without permits. Cross town magic whips— too a girl’s fancy. Brothel at a mix with Mardi Gra joys until the acid kicked in. Then the fall of one’s boyhood revealed. Girly on the gurney of way too high! Magic pan send me home…and scare me straight, if it ain’t to late. Though it is…as two rifle redneck have a little fun with deaths doorways…and of the never to be expected! Next, the Astral from the sky scene look-in down on the fire trapped engine. A fatal final call. No one listens. But it’s alright ma, I’m only bleeding, in the forever of prejudice and hate.

EASY RIDER SUMMATION

Rough bends…pains; and have bike, will travel—right towards the ugliness from this evil that precludes…all along these dust barren trails. Far, Far, the L.A.  place calling back home. Reigning in the colors of freedoms. Go chopper go! Flag fill the stars and stripes, although ”the confederate” still farms his own seed…thru the Louisiana less of saves of soul suckers on it’s trail…and any ugly guerrilla style hippie outsider to which heaven holds their bewares. Billing done on a long haul motorcycle drive. Southern states…states of mind. The potted Bushman. Camp by the river…drowning sorrows of what could be, but never will.

Assange isn’t a journalist – never will be. Yet we real news people need to stand up for him…

UPDATE:

Assange has lost his appeal against extradition to the US on espionage charges.

The judgment was given privately recently at the High Court.

WikiLeaks founder Assange, aged 51, launched the appeal last June after then-Home Secretary Priti Patel signed an order authorizing his removal.

On a personal basis I have little time for Assange for many reasons, including the fact that he has led people to believe he is a journalist, something he patently isn’t and probably never will be.

But, in so many ways I still say that we in the news business still have to stand up and support him…

Original think-piece: Assange could face 175 years in jail.

Assange had been facing 18 charges, including plotting to hack computers and conspiring to gather and disclose national defence information.

The mathematics ‘genius’ is said to have conspired with notorious defence analyst Chelsea Manning to crack an encrypted password on US Department of Defence computers.

WikiLeaks is not a news platform, does not have a mandate to deliver properly defined news. And it doesn’t adhere to any real defined editorial controls.

But the new court ordee could not only throw Assange into hellish hidden celebrity for the rest of his life, it could have massive consequences on the freedom of the world’s press.

So, sadly, all of us REAL journalists need to back the man often described as an ‘information terrorist’ no matter what we think about him personally.

Many hard-boiled journalists like myself believe that he is a great pretender as far as investigative journalism is concerned … yes, he has co-authored a book and, sure, he is an honorary member of an Australian journalist’s union.

And, let’s face it, he did reveal secrets people wanted to keep quiet. That is a cornerstone of a journalists job.

But it is the way he did it all that is the problem.

A large part of the news industry agrees with me and, certainly, he should have many ethical questions to answer.

Put simply, he was instrumental in publishing vast amounts of unedited material which, almost certainly, put his sources at risk.

None of it had been through the necessary journalistic processes and considerations it needed.

‘WikiLeaks’s method of dumping data on the public without looking in to the motivations of the leakers leaves it open to manipulation,’ Committee to Protect Journalists boss Joel Simon said.

Also Assange fell out with the editors of The Guardian and the Times who were at least attempting to apply proper tests of journalism.

And don’t forget he is a hacker – something any real journalist would not stoop to (or at least would never admit to these days).

He has been accused of rape too, the case against him only being dropped because “the evidence has weakened considerably due to the long period of time that has elapsed since the events in question”.

Julian is also a fugitive from the law and has broken bail … there’s lots more of course.

But with all this said, it is true that his case could have an irreparable effect on journalism and so we journalists need to fight his corner.

Not for him, but for our own sakes and the sake of a free and informed world.

If successful, his prosecution would be likely to criminalise investigative journalists.

His prosecution is a real threat to journalists around the world who could potentially be prosecuted for publishing classified information.

As journalists we need to fight for freedom of speech and the freedom of the Press to report. We can not let the right to gather, receive, or publish information of public interest be eroded.

Otherwise we might as well shut down the presses and go home.

The liars, the cheats, the conmen, the criminals, the politicians and the conglomerates will have won at a time when the common man and woman are already on their knees because of a very suspect pandemic.

So, sadly, right now we have to stand up for Assange and be counted.

#assange #julian #US #media #wikileaks #rape #hacker #

Manchester in the liberated Sixties and they play pass the parcel with a young boy … he will grow up and hunt them down

A few weeks ago I finally shut down my journallistic career … it had served me for half a century! But I’d just remember that I’d forgotten to finish my memoir … I’d been putting it together in sort of note form for three decades.

The pic is a promo idea I had about 10 years ago that got shoved at the bottom of a cyber drawer …

Cheers

Leigh

#manchester #memoir #journalism #promo

THE REAL WOMEN OF COUNTER CULTURE AND PEACE IN THE 60s

The Society’s resident writer Eric Lastick takes a look at the incredible lyricism and powerful women of the time we forgot we couldn’t remember

JANIS AT MONTERREY POP…23 & one beaded necklace hanging round circle…loud and hunger, the whiskey voice blue maiden…Texas daughter heart, Janis Joplin…smiles of her awaits of East Indian carpets—stretched of a bright orange glisten…calling on one self, sunshine. Sitar supers and mother earth’s samplings of oils, to hash out—large time fun,  singer. Generation cling of their intellectual property…land seated free. Space, a place to share. Janis a song to sing::”Come on, Come on, take a little piece of my heart now baby!” Her 60’s free swing jazzed! Janis stay patient for her guru rug to rug & ceiling, stoned drives & pull cover, the ante room, golden palace of one’s mind. Frigidaire, the cold smooth mix of Bourbon and apple fritters—laughs of the next magic lifts—too the stages of success and instant fame. There ol’ Janis of ” The holding company”…banded guitars…heavy bass drum…and barreling voice of our wild night girl on the stage of the Monterrey fixed eyes…a hundred tested lights bound with the sound of this woman blues buster…eloquent stars dance in isles close to her sounds of Delta crystal and wishes. Everybody whom hits a shock wave of her sound and blues-blasts grooves. Papa John Philips shakes a mile vocal & textures, until the lifted holds of Janis and her holding company, set. Next string is played and pedaled as a Janis blend of setting sun. Wowed, the Mama Cass Elliot, so long in herself, to witness, the whiskey blasts of ”Janis Blues!” Back the next set roller coaster ride called too—like a firm name, she blazes, the beats…and conquests, her own. Beggar dance, the hippie gatherers. So many stars and head trips lift with the voice of Janis. Squeeze us all the orange sunshine…cops gated, but openings to the grooviest weep Sayers in the whole wild scenes sandbox! Kids and law, play nice, this day. Uncle Lou A and Company reach for the stage. Bless these new acts. Produce of way- out- delights. Dishes such the pretties of Monterrey Pop. Sunny association, the spills of the best vocal batch to the very hands and leisure’s of Denny, Michelle and sweet blends and sounds of Mama Cass…as Janis relinquish…and back too— East Indian beaded style, the carpeted Monterrey moon.

GRACE SLICK & HER JEFFERSON AIRPLANE RIDE AT WOODSTOCK, 1969

”REQUIEM OF DREAM”

The Airplane choir call, stumble bum, 6AM. Breakfast songs for several hundred thousand…perform for the sleepy eyed…animal  farm without hurt or shame…as the White Rabbit out of the suede floppy hippie hat was the Woodstock moist of light morning rains. On and Off progenitors of some sort of ”Swamp thing”, on the move—while CCR played, ”Better run through the jungle, don’t look back!”

Earth mothers of wisdom’s streams…see thru iridescent be of the panes…choppers in a ring, the four way circles. Mother earth lie flat with the ‘stoned’ of harmony! And whole channels circling. Winds brushing up to it’s Airplane name of Jefferson—-and to a band-mate folly. Nude swims by watchful critical crisis whips, just up the hill! Swift curry the lookers-on; of Jewish vacationers. Somewhat floored! Seeps their tossed salad in —too the pristine Catskill mountain retreats. Observatory, the foods and armory…beds and breakfasts, here, with Grace Slick in our tent. The passing of pipes of gem of the earth’s herbs…and it’s rightful garden parties.

Moments in the smoky air, as if later; I wish i had a dime bag of earth’s golden goodies—times a several hundred thousand stay! Grace Slick tent’s of peg hammer songfestseds of your heads!” And what if given the right pill in Hippiedom, won’t do anything at all!’ Mother did mean well, as stamping stammered over the edge-wood drills and soars of very poorly manufactured blotter-ed brown acid. Ransacked the notions of all love toward man. Then form a circle in the den of the medicine hand. America core. Never kid or josh on that trip. Ages 16, 17…& such. Unoccupied by a parent…as Wavy Gravy Pig farm, ol’ Reds…boldly asks to help house and feed 4 hundred thousand. Pig-tailed girls surroundings of sea-wave…and of nothing but people. Wavy haired Daddy’os…and merry pranksters color my bus like a ty-dye machine wash…as Grace Slick teaches another lesson on how to sing along a drunk, the whole morning. ”White Rabbit” ”Don’t you want somebody to love”

The balances of feed—your head…at amiable Max Yagger loans…fellow player’s Jim Kantner sings “Saturday afternoon” Hippiedom salutes. ..Cops…& helping out the human touch blends, the hippie crowds. Then, an army man flash a victory sign…as a nun shows, ”the peace sign”. T.v. cameras all aligned high the sky. I saw that all is well. No violent acts. No real crime. Care and share, mostly.

THE AIRPLANE HURRAH’S: Flight of the early fine saddles song of hippie hall bellows…hails of fine waves…freedom. Love and not war, for at least those 3 days. Grace put down all their guns. This weekend fest shows that ‘we won!”

CANADA’S OWN…Joni Mitchell. The writer and lyricist of the quintessential song ”Woodstock”

Although never made the event. And as if an omnipresent force of prophetic accuracy! Joni, a most lovely of such aspritied songwriters flow. Giants sit and wise sip listens in the backdrop of Woodstock— fulfilled in poetic form. Morning that you ware by a window. Deeds in suggestion of care…as of a bird piecing of the comfort of nest of her kids through the carpets of a poetic theme. Honor where the corner store…the homespun of all of the sights of families to the parking malls…bated county junction of folk players with lots of concrete…as Joni sings: ”Don’t it always go too show. They killed paradise, put up a parking lot!” (Big Yellow Taxi”) Yet Joni, as a choir born in words and melodies…keen ears & spirited passion, the insides to tell one’s personal stories. There is simply no better of her sings’…her worded residences from all around…spanning her art—and taking us all for the signs and places, thru the years. Hold tight, this gifted love, dear Joni. Your writes are so true as morning openers brand new regards. The Canadian air saddles of horses…power of the written words, the human felt melodies that abides ones real feels. See of thos winds…currents too perceive like no other! Joni, your gifts are for each and everyone—with acts of kindness…and joy. ”We are Stardust!”

There is something I want to share with you, a terrifying story about money, power, abuse, loss, cynicism, corruption, secrets and lies.

But I can’t tell you anything about it.

If I do, they will destroy me and my family.

It’s a story of crime and flabby gangsters, conmen and shysters, all the worse for the smiles on their bloated shavers-rash faces and their tea-breath fibs.

That’s them over there, though I dare not share their names.

But beware, they are all around you. They hide in everybody’s plain view.

Look out your window now!

THERE THEY ARE, LOOKING IN!

Others are keeping on going in dump trucks, in 4x4s and on horseback.

Yep, on horseback. Working class hooray Henry and Henriettas clopping down the lanes on their proud posing mares…

Wait!

Sshhh…

That could give even a casual reader a clue. Sounds like it might be a rural tale, about not-so everyday country folk!

Sshh!

I can’t risk it…

So, for transparency and fairness (and security and safety), this kind of gangsterism goes on in cities and towns too, and in any corporate thrashing ground. So, I could be keeping this secret about anywhere…

After all, I’ve lived all around the world, boys.

No, I can’t pin it down for you to anything more than ‘somewhere around the world boys’ … yeh, crime that happens whether you are watching the glister in  Vienna at night, or ruminating in a beautiful morning of elephant’s eyes.

But my silence isn’t fair to you is it.

And it’s not fair on me, the whistleblower who’s had his whistle blown and now is afraid to tell his story. I only set out to right a wrong, which could even have been a mistake.

At first.

But then the bullies started lying about me to everybody and dropping simulated pearls in a few diamond encrusted shell-likes.

Truth is, between the bullies and the shell-likes, they shook me and my family up – then shut us down.

And they left me in fear of just how far they might go to get their own way.

Seriously, I can’t tell you what part of the world this is happening in, little tin-pot thieves aspiring to be pillars of society.

They are the real good fellas.

So, back to the window while nobody is looking in and I can’t see any listening van outside either.

Let’s look at the facts – It would be psychologically, emotionally and financially dangerous for me to share this story with you now…

But I can’t tell you what happened, when, where and who these people are who believe they are entitled to crush the lives of the little man under the wheels of pan-global progress.

Who are they? I know, I have their names … but I can’t expose them, they are simply too powerful, dishonest, self-serving and stick their silver tongues down just too many shell-likes. I’ve got all the answers you know, documents, emails, recordings, letters from government officials and Ministers, and billidos containing personal insults lies and threats …

And it is this very dossier that brought about this very real danger.

Well, that and the fact I took it to the police.

Yep, that scared those blingy gangsters out of their pretend Bada Bing club.

It scared ‘em, for sure.

But only for a bit.

Then a few more pearls appear to have been dropped into other shell-likes, many under pointy hats topping off blue suits.

The police station door clanged in my face.

I’d reached my metaphorical cell-by date.

But, the way out of it all was simple for me. The didn’t tie me to a chair or anything – or hang me upside down from a meat hook – just kept offering me an escape route …

Masonic marauders in cummerbunds and lacy Hush Puppies, kept telling me all I had to do was keep my mouth shut.

Stay schtum; Avoid telling the truth.

Not stand up for the rights of myself and others.

Losing my home and my family was the ultimate price they would expect me to pay if I ever wanted to be counted again.

By then though it’d gone to far – I was outed by the powerful ones as an obsessive and a weirdo, a dope-smoking, hard drinking ex-Fleet Street journalist, a seeker of truth not to be trusted.

I’d gone to a member of parliament (they have them all over the world you know).

And then the battle got elevated to Parliament itself.

The word was out and the Bill I was championing was filibustered into a blank  stone.

A nameless headstone for a nameless man who went down fighting but would soon be forgotten.

As far as the good fellas were concerned though, they just saw me as a bit of a nameless cult!

Although I can never explain to you why every one of them – from detractors, horse-faced neigh-sayers, buzzing negative gnats, brain-dead bone doctors, to poisonous scoffers – were so determined to bask in the bonfires of my losses.

And yes, because this fraternity of old-fashioned, boozy, gobby, rolled-gold-dripping, deal-making, fat cat tw*ts, operates in every community across the world, people loose so much to them every day.

Often the sanctity of their homes and hopes for the future.

Because of this ‘mafiosa’ – and I use that term with a certain amount of nebulosity – I could be about £100,000 out of pocket.

But I don’t suppose I should have told you even that, should I?

I am genuinely afraid that these so-called people might turn up one day and kick down my gates and set fire to my boundaries to shut me up forever.

Corruption is dishonesty undertaken by somebody with power to acquire illicit benefits for themselves.

Like I say, I have a lot of evidence to show this is what happened.

Yes, I am afraid. Very afraid.

The things I dare not tell you about are like the final nails in the coffin lid of democracy and honesty.

I have been a full-blown working journalist all my adult life and I have exposed cant, pomposity, cruelty and abuse on a daily basis. I worked on exposing Jimmy Savile and his cronies.

Back then though, I had all the backing of legal eagles who were feathering their nests by protecting people like me – journalists – from the criminals and perverts we were on the tail of.

Nowadays, though I’m just that ancient trouble-causer down the road who the bullies wish would simply go away.

Or die.

I’ve got to say I haven’t done either yet.

#truth #journalism #corruption #stitched #rippedoff #lies #secrets #cons #cheats #blackheart

Just a few thoughts about writer’s block …

I was standing in the gentle rain next to my old glinting limousine outside my rented cottage in the heart of once-merry Ol’ England. The cottage has stood for 400 years next to a lake where owls screech at 3am.

I was having a cigarette. And I was a bit drunk.

We were about to head off again into the mad wild blue horizons of Europe – France, Spain and Portugal. Time to dump the brokenness of Britain once more. Too expensive, too depressing, too racist and too violent.

And it was then as I listened to the loneliness of owls, I realised something about writer’s block …

I’d been suffering from it for three weeks and it felt like my career as a professional writer was collapsing like an old castle inside my head…

… lost deadlines loomed, badly written commissions, misspelt posts, poorly articulated broadcasts…

It had happened to me before of course, but my editors had been experienced enough to not kick up a fuss if my prose became a bit pedestrian for a few days.

It had happened to them too. Editors are writers and amongst the best.

But for a new writer, earning or amateur, writer’s block can be a head shot. It’s like your brain has gone dead.

I pulled on my cigarette and watched the moon go sailing by.

It had been a rough few weeks, our limo had finally given up the ghost and needed open-heart surgery, some relatives had been pains, some friends had been just too demanding, I’d had a couple of health problems – there’d been legal stuff to sort out – a house to sell, furniture to auction, editors to deal with, a new ‘show’ in Hollywood.

And escape plans to make.

I watched the beacon of the moon scurry through the blackness of the clouds.

And then it struck me.. I wasn’t short of words or ideas at all! I just had too much to say and right now I just couldn’t dig out the right words to say it all.

I wasn’t seeing clearly enough, that’s all, a wind storm of images, thoughts, emotions, dreams, humour….

And I’d forgotten that it’s my job to take take this storm of thoughts and control it. Control the whirlwind of my mind.

I’m a writer, after all, and it is my commitment to the world of literature to find exactly the words I need to get some kind of message across. I wasn’t blocked, I was thinking!

Writer’s block – it’s brilliant! It is the most positive thing any writer can have!

All you are actually doing is sitting there thinking in the gentle rain under the moon and the screech of owls waiting for the right train of thought to pull up in front of you.

#writers #authors #block #writersblock #novel #self-publishing #traditionalpublishing

Ooh eck! In the 60s he was booed, heckled and called Judas in Manchester – then the BBC wiped Madhouse tape clean!  But now he might be in Corrie…

Ol’ Bob apparently likes nothing more in the evening than curling up in his rock’n’roll slippers and catching up with Coronation Street.

And now the makers of the world-famous North of England soap have given him an open invitation to make an appearance in the show next time our rover returns.

Well, it might be a load of cobblers – an ITV publicity stunt for sure – and Bob has certainly left his answer blowing in the wind.

But he definitely has made it clear Corrie is one of his favourite TV progs.

He said recently: “Coronation Street, I know it’s an old-fashioned shows but it make me feel at home. I’m no fan of packaged programmes or news shows. I never watch anything foul-smelling or evil.”

Bob also said he liked Father Brown and early episodes Twilight Zones.

‘How many pints must a man swig down,

before you call him a man

And how many meat pies must the Mad Manc inhale

Before he can sleep in his van…’

An ITV spokesman said: “To hear that Bob Dylan is a Coronation Street viewer blows my mind.

“I would absolutely love the idea of him turning up in the Rovers Return one night.

“Maybe we could write in an open mic night and a mysterious singer could roll in out of the Manchester rain and do a turn.”

Dylan released his self-titled debut album in 1962, two years before the first episode of Coronation Street aired.

The ITV spokesman said: “Both he and Coronation Street established their reputations in the 1960s, both have championed working-class voices and causes, both tell stories with a particular sensibility and sense of humour.”

Dylan first visited Britain to take part in a BBC play. TV director Philip Saville felt that he would be perfect for a high-profile BBC drama Madhouse on Castle Street. Dylan sang four songs in the play, including Blowin’ in the Wind. Sadly, the BBC wiped the play in 1968 as Dylan soared above Nashville’s skyline instead of the rain on the rooftops of Salford…

It was the story of a man who locks himself in a room in a boarding house leaving only a note saying he has decided to “retire from the world”. His sister and the other boarders then try to discover why. As was the usual method of BBC television drama production at the time, the play was produced in a multi-camera electronic studio on video cameras. The 35mm master was released for junking in 1968, and no copy of the play is known to exist.

#dylan #manchester #coronationstreet #madhouseoncastlestreet #bbc #itv

Bears in Slovakia are finally expected to survive long-term – but 10 years ago there were very few, 71 a year were earmarked for death and we were scared of them

It’s a grizzly fact but there are dangerous bears in them there hills. And if one turned up looking for food, you can rest assured it wouldn’t be any teddy bear’s picnic.

Brown bears, like wolves, are almost never hungry for human flesh – but a simple case of  have-and-have-not could change this basic law of nature.

A human being, of course, invariably has food – and a bear invariably has not.

Bears are intelligent animals and learned centuries ago that it made sense to forage tourist trails rather than waste time foraging in the forest. Now they clean up garbage quicker than you can say ‘trouble bruin’.

In simple terms, we have started to domesticate the great European brown bear … they now see us as rural meal tickets.

And that’s a dangerous thing for us. And for them. The Slovakian Ministry of the Environment recently agreed that hunters could kill 71 bears. That was eight more than the previous year. At least another ten were gunned down illegally.

Although there is not one documented account of a bear killing a human being in Slovakia for a hundred years, ten people were injured by them last year.

So, it’s a fact that the bears are getting braver. Yet you could walk the Tatras for a month without seeing one. Keep an eye open for the signs though – chewed tree bark, snapped branches, scooped out ant hills, smashed bee hives.

If you do bump into one, there are some basic rules for survival: Put down your rucksack, don’t look it in the eye, don’t shout and, above all, don‘t flee – it will run you down in seconds.

 And if it strikes at you, play dead.  Truth is the bear is as scared as you are. All it wants is  your rucksack and to make its getaway into the woods.

#slovakia #carpathians #hightatras #brownbears