Strike a blow against impertinence – a short story

Based on a dream I had on the morning of Friday 10 April 2026...

{{ London, October 1964, late evening. A sudden and intense shower. The Rolls-Royce/Bentley showroom by St James's Park Underground station, round the corner from Victoria Street. Four men are sheltering from the pouring rain just inside the entrance to an exclusive gallery of shops next to the showroom. Pride of place on the showroom floor that month happened to be an immaculately restored 1938 Rolls-Royce 25/30 Shooting Brake with coachwork by Hooper & Co. of London. A man in his 40s is admiring it through the curved plate-glass window. He'd been in the pub for much of the evening and was heading home, waiting at a nearby bus stop when he was forced to seek shelter from the downpour. Still staring at the distinguished lines of the vehicle, he says out loud to no one in particular: "Cor – any of you chaps see your way clear to extending me a loan for that beauty?" 

Image generated by Google Gemini

Totally unexpectedly, he receives a blow to the side of his head followed by a punch in the gut. As he doubles over, a knee comes up to meet his face with a hard crack. He falls to the ground. His assailant is joined by two other men, who clearly knew each other though had hitherto not been speaking among themselves. Lying on the pavement, he feels a well-polished leather shoe pressing lightly on his cheek, turning this way and that.

"Let this be the very last time you address your social betters with vulgar impertinence," said a calm voice above him. "May this be a lesson to you"  said another upper-class voice, kicking him hard in the stomach. Another shoe is aimed at his groin. Someone treads on his hand. The beating suddenly stops as the three men walk briskly away, hail a passing black cab, and leave the man to slowly get to his feet. }}

[At this point the dream fades. What follows is a fictional follow-up, partially imagined  drifting in and out of my hypnopompic state before I finally woke up.]

He staggered across Parliament Square and went to New Scotland Yard to report the assault. The desk sergeant noted that the man standing in front of him with a bloodied face had been drinking. Not the first of the night and far from the last. Yet when the victim mentioned the name of the pub, the Two Chairmen on Old Queen Street, the sergeant recalled a phone call from the landlord reporting a disturbance earlier the same evening and requesting the presence of a police officer. However, it was not until after the assault had been reported did a constable finally turn up at the pub, just after last orders had been called. The PC took a statement from the publican, who gave detailed descriptions of the three men suspected of the bus-stop assault, as well as corroborating the presence of the assaulted man in his pub for much of the evening.

It turns out that the three assailants were all aristocrats. Landed gentry. Among them, their ring-leader, the eldest son of the 8th Earl of Malmeseley. They had been drinking heavily, round after round, getting increasingly vociferously aggressive. 

Earlier that day, Harold Wilson had been to Buckingham Palace, where the Queen had asked him to form a government. This followed the Labour Party winning the previous day's general election by the tightest of margins – a majority of four seats. The news had brought the three men to boiling point, all convinced of the existential threat to their way of life posed by a new Labour government. 

"I evaded capture by the Japanese in Malaya in 1941. Fought alongside local guerillas. Survived disease and constant risk of betrayal in the jungle. Returned to London in late 1945. My family home, used to billet American airmen, you see, had been bulldozed to extend the runway of the nearby air base. Three hundred years of history reduced to a pile of rubble." 

He had spent the next 19 years in a mounting state of anger. Anger at how the natural order of the world had suddenly changed. Increasingly he was finding himself being disobeyed, disrespected, ignored. A bunch of insolent nobodies were in charge of Britain.  Men who'd not cut the mustard managing the branch office of a provincial building society are taking decisions that determine the direction of government policy! And now with Wilson at Number Ten, they'll back – in force – emboldened. Back in the ministries. Back in the county halls. "NOBODIES!" he screamed at the saloon bar. "UTTER NOBODIES!" When asked by the landlord to keep their voices down, they turned on him denouncing him as an undercover socialist and a tool of Wilsonite Labourism.

"Grammar-school interlektuals. Jumped-up mediocrities who hadn't even come across Thucydides or Ovid let alone read them in the original. Look at those despicable graspers in their gabardine raincoats checking their football pools in the Daily Express. Ready to open the floodgates to West Indians and Asians who by way of gratitude would vote Labour for generations." 

The aristocrat's son was in full flow, all restraint washed away by glass after glass of claret which followed the initial gin-and-tonics.

"Nowhere's safe!" he yelled. "Nowhere to hide from the county planner's office or from the taxman's rapacious claws! Housing estates and orbital roads, television aerials, electricity pylons, new towns and airports springing up everywhere, blighting our once-beautiful island. Motor-cars for all? By-passes, lay-bys and rights-of-way? Television and cake! Egalitarian FILTH! I SAY LEAVE ENGLAND AS SHE IS! I cannot tolerate change! Nazis? Brownshirts? Jumped-up lower-middle class scum! Bolsheviks? Communists? Even worse – common labourers! Peasants! Illiterate hordes! BUT THE WORST OF ALL ARE THE GRAMMAR-SCHOOL EGALITARIAN SOCIALISTS FRESH FROM SOME MIDLANDS UNIVERSITY! THESE PEOPLE HAVE NO APTITUDE TO RULE! IT IS UNNATURAL FOR THEM TO RULE! It takes four years at prep school, seven years at Harrow or Eton and three years at Oxford or Cambridge to know how to RULE! Above all, it takes generations to know how to RULE! IT IS INNATE!" roared the son of the 8th Earl of Malmeseley, somewhat contradicting himself. "They must know their place! They must DEFER to their BETTERS!" 

It was at this point that the landlord phoned for the police. The complaint was duly noted down; no action, however, was taken.

The subject of the beating, Kenneth Snoddy, 48 of Chalk Farm, London NW3, had also spent that Friday evening drinking, with several of his colleagues from the Colonial Office. There was much chatter about their ministry being merged with the Commonwealth Relations Office, maybe even with the Foreign Office itself! Rumours, of course, but with a new Labour government in power, far more likely to go ahead. How would this play out? Lots of talk of internal politics. Who would rise to permanent under-secretary of state in a merged department? Would jobs be lost? Would there be promotion opportunities? Ken Snoddy supped up his fifth pint, bade farewell to his colleagues and set off to catch the bus home. Three pairs of eyes watched him go.

The case did not make it into the papers. Lord Malmesley had a quiet word at the club with Lord Camrose; the Press Association's court reporter assigned to cover the 8th Earl's son's appearance at the magistrate's court was given another case to cover at the last minute, and the story of his acquittal didn't make the day's agency wire feeds.

This time two years ago:
Early blossom, Jakubowizna
(Early indeed! Currently. no sign of apple or cherry blossom, let alone dandelions!)

This time seven years ago:
Ealing under blue skies

This time 12 years ago:
Wes Anderson's Grand Budapest Hotel

This time 13 years ago:
Warsaw 1935: a 3D depiction of a city that's no longer with us

This time 14 years ago:
Cats and awareness

This time 16 years ago:
Why did this happen?

This time 17 years ago:
Britain's grey squirrels turning red

Lent 2026: day 33 –talent and intuition

Imagine a blank canvas in front of you, a range of paint brushes, and access to paints in any shade you want to reach for. GO! Don't think, just feel yourself slipping into a trance-like state. Don't think: "Oh, it could do with a contrasting colour here, a splodge of white, maybe," rather let your intuition take control of all decisions. You have no previous experience, no 10,000 hours of practice, no theoretical knowledge about paint drying times and combinations of hue. Just go for it. Let it out; don't intellectualise, don't think: "this is starting to look like a city at night in the rain, so I'll steer it that way,"

What do you will come out? More than likely, brown sludge, slop; nothing, a distant approximation of what could be taken for abstract impressionism but lacking any redeeming qualities. Get 300 people in front of easels, however, and give them the same task, and a jury will have something to go on. Some curious quirk that catches the eye, there unintentionally. But importantly, some folk are better able to tap into the flow.

The early abstract impressionists knew exactly what they were aiming at; but daubing blank canvases seemingly at random – can it result in anything of interest?

You don't know until you've tried it!

Same with automatic writing. Put yourself in front of a keyboard, get into the flow and see what comes out. Imagine a higher entity, a separate entity, a strand of non-local consciousness, taking over your fingers, and letting words come out as they may. What are you getting?

This is certainly not going to work with musical instruments. The untutored, the unpracticed, will never manage a euphonious run of notes. Forget intuition alone serving as a guide to musical creativity! The 10,000 hours rule here is the rule that cannot be broken (though Sid Vicious had a good try). Having said that, the phenomenon I've noticed (and recorded) for some time now – waking up with an original tune going around my head – is very real (I have a phone's-worth of recordings), but these are typically short, two or three bars of music, certainly no Moonlight Sonata.

Mindfulness, meditation, altered states designed to enhance creativity – but not the creativity that comes from a thought process, rather a case of letting your consciousness reach for new quality.

Lent 2024: day 33
Time and spirituality, Pt III

Lent 2023, day 33
Into the Afterlife (Pt I) 

Lent 2022: day 33
The Search for Understanding

Lent 2021: day 33
Connecting with the Metaphysical

Lent 2020: day 33
"On my planet there is no disease"

Stand by for take-off

{{ Jet powered, swept wings, Mach numbers. Century series fighters. Guided missiles. Time over target. Congress. Rocket-launch tests. Telemetry. Research and development budgets. Fire-control radar. Computers. Transistors. Bell Labs. Air defense systems. Guided missiles. House Defense Appropriation Committee. RAND Corporation. 

{{ This, ladies and gentlemen, is the future speaking. And I am receiving it loud and clear.

{{ Black midwinter sky, Greenland. "When will we be ready? Will we ever be ready?" New equipment's coming into service, we're constantly unpacking large wooden crates. Sleds. Bitter cold.

Then the warmth of the officers' mess, and a beer. Esquire magazines lying around on the coffee tables. Viscose rayon threads. A continuous pipeline of innovation. All over the place, everywhere you look! Defending the free world, shopping at Macy's. Best standard of living in the world. Buick or Olds? Few years ago, it was easy. Now – there's so much choice. 

{{ That sky. Soon the sun will rise to shine so briefly, no clouds. Dawn and dusk together – beautiful. Kodachrome. Built-in light-meter?  Uh-huh. Bought it in the PX in Yokota. Another beer, buddy? Sure thing. Saratoga Springs. Ever been? Nope – but I'd like to go. "Hey! Haiti! Been to Port-au-Prince? I have! Show-off. Newfoundland, man, yeah, and a trip to Europe. Squeeze in some business. Defense procurement. Show off some new gadgets to the budget-holders. We have the edge. Europe's all bomb-damaged, from England to the Iron Curtain. They'll buy from us. Malenkov and Khrushchev are the threat. Technology. Thermal imaging. Transistors. That's the future. Russia's way behind". "There's a whole world out there – and who better to see it with than the U.S.A.F."! "Drink to that, bud!"

{{ We stood outside in awe of the Northern Lights. "Was that a...? That, sir, was a meteor. Seen 'em before. Russia wouldn't dare, would they? Well, they have the bomb, they have the bombers. We have radar-guided supersonic interceptors. They'd stand no chance of getting through. Chicago's safe. My baby's safe. Kentucky's safer. Damn that's another beer – nope, some still left in the bottle. Rolling Rock. Reminds me of home. Bowl of potato chips and peanuts. Remember those Japanese snacks? Yup. Kinda miss them. Good with a beer! Seen the Republic XF-103? They say it can fly at Mach 3 and will fire nuclear guided missiles. Nah. It's political. Convair will get it. }}

This time last year:
Touched by Boris

This time two years ago
Clinging on and letting go

This time five years ago:
Out in the mid-September heat

This time six years ago:
Poland's ugliest building?

This time 11 years ago:
Weekend cookery - prawns in couscous

This time 13 years ago:
Draining Jeziorki

This time 13 years ago:
Early autumn moods

This time 15 years ago:
The Battle of Britain, 70 years on

This time 16 years ago:
Thoughts about TV, Polish and British

This time 17 years ago:
Time to abandon driving to work!

This time 18 years ago:
Crappy roads take their toll

Kanalisierungszeit

 What's going to happen now? Let's see...

{{ Sweet snaps of the Rhine, pressed trousers, polished shoes, you're representing the U.S.A., remember. These people all around us were our enemy just ten years ago. Today, they've bought into our dream. Automobiles, neon and jazz. Television sets and sport. Frauleins remind me of home. But you stare into the dead eyes of some older guy, and you know, you see hate. Hatred, resentment. I last saw that gaze fixed on me in Alabama. Losers and winners. But here, they know who beat them. They know if it weren't for us, if it weren't for our military presence, they'd be under a different boot. Some of those older guys had had a taste of that. No Marshall Plan, no dream, no Auto, no neon, no jazz; just grayness and the lash.

Demonstration flight 0530 tomorrow morning. I'll be part-engineer, part-salesman. Talk them through the features, answer the technical questions. Handling their objections. They're think they're good engineers – but heck, we're better. Better science, better universities, that's why. They see only detail; we get the bigger picture. We're Can Do. We Think Big. 

So – tomorrow. The guy who takes the decisions – he's from the Ministry. He has the budget. So it's a good thing most of that budget comes from Uncle Sam. That's why our people from the Embassy in Bonn are here too. We're here to sell.

Smell of rubber and kerosene, men working round the clock to get everything working perfectly for that early morning flight. Calibration, control, last-minute tweaks. Weather forecast isn't perfect but it'll do for the demo flight. Hangar doors are wide open; inside bright lights and the sound of engines being warmed up. Step ladders, crates and trolleys. Busy.

Look – at heart, I'm a mechanic, not an engineer – and sure as hell I'm not a scientist. I can take a carburettor apart, immediately see what the problem is, fix it, put it back together, and replace the unit so the engine works good. I'm handy with spanners and screwdrivers – real handy. That's what kept me out of the meat grinder in the Pacific, I was too useful to the Marines fixing F4U Corsair engines. But today my job calls on me to pretend I'm a scientist, using fancy words I don't entirely understand. Why am I here? I often wonder! Talking to real scientists, real engineers, and the budget boys from the air force and the ministry, I can tell a good story, from real life, from actually having handled the kit inside an RB-36 at 35,000ft with Red fighters climbing towards our ship for the intercept. I'm one of a handful of aircrew who have actually been over Soviet territory – though officially, I can only imply that, and if asked openly, I must deny it.

Night time in Wiesbaden. The Aral neon over the gas station, the milchbar across the road, wet cobblestones, Volkswagen Beetles, shiny black Mercedes-Benz sedans. Here and there a gap between the buildings, a reminder of wartime destruction, but the people are well-dressed and well fed; this isn't Guatemala or Honduras. Been there too, selling military hardware. Didn't like that. Just selling them redundant airplanes that they'll use fighting between themselves or killing their own folk. Candy from a baby. Still, taught me a thing or two about diplomacy. West Germany – a different matter. Just across the border to the east lies a massive foe, well armed and dangerous. Technologically not our match across the board, but here and there they have surprises up their sleeves. We have to be prepared for those surprises. And our allies too, holding the line here in Europe with us. Some stuff we can share – some we can't. Never know whom to trust, who'll sell our secrets to the Reds.

Ideologically the Ruskis are the enemies of freedom. Seen those cartoons they publish about us? See how they try to mock us? Given half the chance, how many of those Red assholes would rather to be living in the free world? 

Tanker trucks are driving into the hangar, the plane's being fueled up. Black German crosses freshly painted on the wings and fuselages. Different to those wartime ones. More like World War One and the Red Baron's flying circus. Checklists. Inspect everything. No smoking within 100 feet. Cigars tomorrow, I hope. And beers. They remind me of home too. 

[AI-generated image]

I think back to America and our office park. A beautiful place to work. I see the sense of what I'm doing. Strategic defense. Not messing around – projects designed to make the world safer through the application of military technology. We won in 1945 because of air power. We'll beat back the Ruskis in space. Burbank, El Segundo, San Diego – I work with them all, Bethpage too, especially around Navy contracts. Keep in with the boys. Best way of life in the whole world. Our German customers – they'll need all our help to keep the Reds out. Not just the hardware, but the promise of better life. A Frigidaire full. That is all. }}

This time last year:
Świnoujście out of season

This time two years ago:

New York City really has it all

This time three years ago:
Where the two contracts end

This time four years ago:
In praise of the Nikon D3500

This time five years ago:
Agnieszka Holland's Mr Jones reviewed

This time six years ago:
The Earth is flat

This time seven years ago:
Fiftieth anniversary of the Polski Fiat 125

This time nine years ago:
Wojtek the Bear in Edinburgh

This time 12 years ago:
Red tape and travel
[A reminder of how bad things once were!]

This time 14 years ago:
How much education does a country need?

This time 15 years ago:
Between Sarabandy and Farbiarska

This time 17 years ago:
Lights in the night sky

Ten grand a year

What was that? Something has guided me away what I was doing; I'd started watching a documentary about an American WW2 fighter aircraft (the Curtiss P-40) and I'm being told... write. OK then, I close YouTube and open Blogger. What will happen? I wait; the conduit is open.

{{ Nonsense. I'm tugged back. It doesn't work every time, but looking up, the desert sky says "yes". Yup. Nodding my head. Thirty-three palm trees, shimmering heat. Thin, wispy clouds, and a feeling of betrayal? A dog barks in the distance, I stand up and brush the sand off my trousers. Gripping the rail I climb back up into the hot cab. I don't really want to. But the exercise is over, time to move. Can't be any better though? Thirty-three palm trees – nah! Didn't count 'em. It's what they say. C'mon, move. Start the truck. A bottle of gin for the officers' mess? Procurement procedures? Forget about that. Use the money from the crap game. Who snitched on me? WHO? Pete?

Night falls as I reach my destination. I park the truck and head straight for the Schlitz neon. An ice-cold beer. TV. Some laughs with Jack Benny. Aw hell, I forgot about that gin. "Sir! A bottle of gin with my compliments!" About turn, quick march. Back to my next beer. Dollars. Yeah, dollars. Many of them. Parked. Parking. A parking lot. A vacant lot. Parking – two bucks a day. Fifty cars. I pay my man ten bucks a day to look after 'em, I pay City Hall fifty bucks a day for the lot, that's forty bucks profit. Two hundred a week, ten grand a year. 

Another beer, bowl of salted peanuts some olives! Yeah ten grand a year. Jack Benny. Swell guy, huh? Always makes me laugh. Ten grand a year? Whaddya say? Keep City Hall sweet, that's all there is to it. Veteran of the Pacific War, Korean War – who's gonna say no? Invest the profits, build up a chain of parking lots right across the Midwest. A man can dream. Big dreams. Soon as I'm outta uniform. 

Thirty-three palm trees. Why's that coming back to me? Anticipation; another mission looming. No, nothing dangerous this time. Ferry flight south as flight engineer. Senioritas. Americano. Few dollars go a long way. Should be good. Bottle green, bar-room lights through bottle green. ZTILHCS. Reminds me of a movie I once watched.

A time, a place, an industry. Yes, we are all one. Scattered here and there, each with our own stories to tell, except – who wants to hear them? Lost in a muffled cacophony of voices, of stories, some stand out, others are just, well, plain ordinary, just the kind of stories that most folk have to tell. You wanna listen? You're rare. Most folk are in too much of a rush to listen. Me? I wanna get on. No time to listen to you. But you – I want you to listen to me. A life interrupted, trying to get it back together after too much trouble. 

A better man? A worse man? Who can judge, padre? That's how it was. Twentieth Century Fox and United Artists. Did they get it right, or did we play out the stories they showed us?

Another beer, then the long drive back. At least the night's still warm. }}

This time last year:

The ephemeral pleasures of materialism

This time two years ago:
W-wa Zachodnia modernisation – a long way to go
(Two years on: still a long way to go)

This time three years ago:

The Wilderness and the Garden 

This time four years ago:
Back in Aviation Valley

This time five years ago:
My flight to Rzeszów – delayed

This time eight years ago:
English as she is used in Europe

This time nine years ago:
Where asphalt is needed – Nowy Podolszyn to Zgorzala

This time 14 years ago:
I cycle to work along the cyclepath along ul. Rosoła

This time 16 years ago:
First apple 

Interrogating one's intuition

Intuition is defined as the "ability to acquire knowledge, without recourse to conscious reasoning". A sense of inner cognition; a sudden prompt that pops up in your stream of consciousness. The answer to a question that doesn't require the thought process or rationality. A brilliant flash you somehow know to be utterly true.

It's there; it is there. If you listen out for it, you will hear it. If you acknowledge its presence, it will be there for you. Ignore it not; heed your intuition, for it is a most valuable tool. Be mindful of its existence, of its usefulness as a guide in your day-to-day activities. It will support you, advise you, prompt you, comfort you, warn you. It will confirm a decision, or maybe suggest another option.

But is it necessarily right? Both in the sense of correct, and in the sense of morally right?

I have become attuned to being aware of intuition. Recognising the moment. And in this, a metaphysical moment – the touch of Big C Consciousness upon our small c consciousness. Here, I'd argue is the back-channel of prayer; it is the Cosmic Purpose in alignment with our own here-today-here-tomorrow human purpose.

Parsing the intuitive moment, to sieve the wishful thinking from the genuine intuition takes skill too. And here we get to today's point. When you recognise that you've had an intuition, examine it carefully – does it feel right? Will it help? Has it put your mind at rest? Usually, it just feels right. Sometimes, rarely, two seemingly conflicting intuitions will arrive simultaneously. Which one is correct? Or is this just an invitation to dig deeper and engage some rational thought? 

Don't demand – don't expect – an immediate answer. As my brother commented cryptically on the post before last, "the obligation runs the other way" (a quote from the Goy's Teeth scene in the Coen brothers' A Serious Man). Indeed. 

{{ Don't sweat the small stuff. }}

Wow! That just popped in, this very second. Yup – makes sense; too much time wasted on the inconsequential. Focus on the bigger picture, step up to the meta level. 

This time last year:
Notes to a future me

This time two years ago
The End of Times

This time three years ago:
Going round in circles

This time four years ago:
Between wakefulness and sleep 

This time seven years ago:

Hammersmith, on Thames

This time 10 years ago:
In search of quintessential English countryside

This time 11 years ago:
Behold and See – short story, Pt III

This time 14 years ago:
Another return to Penrhos

Fully automatic - intuitive intelligence

On the train to Wrocław, I partake of the diner car on the basis of use it or lose it - a place where for under £10 I can have a meal freshly cooked, served on china with steel cutlery with a craft ale. Having lunched, I return to my seat for the rest of the journey, and drift off into a reverie... Something tells me to take out my laptop and listen. I do so. 

And here, pretty much unredacted (the odd punctuation mark inserted here and there), though my interface, is my automatic writing [unlike this story, where I turned the channelled words into a short story] is as it came. My fingers fly across the keyboard, like an electronic Ouija board:

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 

{{ And let it go and let it flow and let the voices of the waves sweep along the tidal floor. True, it goes where it wants; it will take you to the old pear tree, under which moonbeams gather. To seek them, to touch them is to offer up old ways of being and cut loose old formal tethers. Motivated by moonlight, I close the door on those old ways. They have become increasingly redundant, clawed back by new realities. Water and warmth; that is important. Life sustaining life, thought begetting thought, endlessly. Truth is within grasp, being open to it allows one to sample its embrace. Machines, on which we have become dependent, may come and go, but life – the life that wants to live, the life that wants to be lived, will find a way. Are you ready?

On that moonlit night, find a new path. As you learn about where you are, new paths will take you further and further afield; the paths closer to home you will have trodden many times already. Check the winter moon – when it waxes full, when nights are long, let it guide you to the first new path you have yet to take. Where will it take you? Serene, thoughtful, alert. Energised by fields of thought from those who have passed on, true reflections upon that which leaves its mark. 

The sky holds clues – watch it diligently. Partake of it. Understand that you are of it, that it made you. And to it ultimately you will return. What is meant, what is sought? Enough people have asked, enough have fought and died. Ambitions stifle; be still. Directions at each crossroads will be offered to you. Choose not your path by force; flow. It is easy. It is easier than thinkers have painted it! Guidance is free, it permeates the Cosmos. Settle upon the way, it is bright. Life begets life, thought begets thought. Curiosity without gestures, but seek not alone. Others are seeking too – look out for them. Walk by their side.

Memories are milestones upon your way, fruitful recollection brings meaning to being. And so the paradox – the faster time flies, the stronger the sense of fulfilment of that which was meant to happen. Connection – try to stay connected; it is true, life distracts in many ways. Sparkle like reflections upon the waves, the sun just above yet far away.

Fold away that which folds easily, branches brush against you as you pass. Drop ballast, reject the conformity that moulds to a shape that rolls not. Eagerness is something not to lose, but eagerness to please is. Find earthy goodness, if it is not around you, move to where you can plunge your fingers into soil. As the sky, so the earth. Fertile, pleasing, generative, hopeful. 

Concentric thoughts rippling from you touches upon concentric thoughts from other seekers. Mark your way as you go. Increase in gratitude, for it multiplies the graces bestowed upon you by fate. Different words when your hair is grey, different words when you are young. Restlessness settles, new landscapes beckon on your doorstep, ridge after ridge unto the river. Upon the plain there is calm, a quiet that is lacking in the towns of your youth.

Consume effort on concentration. Don’t give up when distraction tugs; distraction is not a fork in the road but a hole into which you stumble. Tread lightly and be sparing in your material demands. 

Connections appear and disappear – observe them as such. Patterns will repeat, they might whisper, they might shout. They are there to be noticed; the tunnel in space and time through which you pass is lined with them, patterns of all shapes and of all sizes. Guides and mirrors they are, new ways of considering that which you have considered before. 

Do not worry unduly. }}

Dictated on this day, between Lubliniec and Brzeg.

This time two years ago:
A deeply spiritual experience
[Andy and I were shooting historical weapons again last Friday!]

This time three years ago:

Poland experiences its first wave of Covid

This time six years ago:
Gliwice's new station

This time eight years ago:
Reanimated - my father's car 

This time nine years ago:
Defending Poland against hybrid warfare 

This time ten years ago:
Another office move

This time 12 years ago:
PiS splits again - Solidarna Polska formed 

This time 13 years ago:
Tesco vs. Auchan

[Since then Tesco has left Poland and I'm boycotting Auchan - let its owners choke on their fucking roubles.]

This time 16 years ago:
My father's house

Dave – an Emissary

 { based on a dream I had on the night of Friday 4th to Saturday 5th of August 2023 }

Dave is around 70. He was born in Jamaica and emigrated to England with his parents as a teenager in the 1960s. Small in stature, short, slim, spry, Dave's light-brown skin tells of some British great-grandparent. Thinning white hair and full white beard. Yet his most notable characteristic is his ineffable cheerfulness and sparkling eyes.

Dave spent all of his working life – literally every working day – at Heathrow Airport. London Airport as it used to be called back in the day. Manual work – cleaning, carrying. Never said much, but always seeming happy, Dave was popular with his co-workers, even though very few got to know him well. "Lives alone." "Has nine kids by four women." "Six kids, two wives." "Used to race Formula 3 cars at the weekend. Won 12 races!" "Played bass with Black Slate." All conjecture. "Does Dave do drugs?" "Acts like a toker – but never seen him blowing weed..." "Never heard him talk of it, neither..." Dave did nothing to unravel nor to promote the mystery of his personal life; he'd dismiss direct questions with a chuckle and a shrug of his shoulders.

He worked on beyond his state pension age – with good workers in short supply, his last boss was more than happy to keep him on, that is, until Covid and lockdown. Then the firm let go of Dave, his boss, and many of his mates. As soon as the lockdown was over, Dave would return to the airport, now no longer as a worker, but as a visitor. He'd catch the 36 bus down from Sipson to Heathrow Central and would spend the afternoon wandering around from terminal to terminal, groundside only – no longer did he have that security badge – smiling benignly at holidaymakers and business travellers alike, nodding to them as though he's known them for years.

There's the metaphysical effect of Dave's smile. People who see it immediately feel better; travel anxieties subside, replaced with a sense of peace and joy. Bickering families, hassled executives, burdened airport workers, all noticed a magical easing of negative emotions after making eye contact with smiling Dave. For most, it was a subconscious experience. For some, it was an encounter with a man, a most unremarkably remarkable man that stayed with them for a while, to return in memory flashbacks. All who had reported it noted a wave of kindness wash through them.

Dave – a quiet miracle worker, going about his way, unproclaimed. You might not have even noticed him as you rushed through Heathrow from check-in to security to gate. Maybe I didn't consciously notice him either, but I did have that dream, and the title of this post was from that dream too. 

Dave – an Emissary... but from whom?

This time last year:
Fifty years with Virginia Plain

This time two years ago:
The Curve (and one's place on it)

This time four years ago:
Fifty years on, my last kolonia

This time ten years ago:
Grodzisk Mazowiecki's pretty station

This time 11 years ago:
Exorcism outside the President's Palace

This time 12 years ago:
The raging footsoldier - a story about anger

This time 13 years ago:
Graffiti and street art 

Speak Through Me About Disclosure

I woke from a dream at quarter to six. I was in a grand Art Deco style government office - a cross between Acton's Town Hall and the Bromyard Avenue offices further down the Uxbridge Road. (Same location and style as the Town Hall building, but bigger.) A cavernous interior; dark, lit only with small uplighters along the walls, a zigzag patterned carpet on the floor. At the top of the carpeted staircase, a landing; on the landing a desk, Civil Service-style. Polished wood. A tall silver-haired man sits behind it. Facing him on the other side a family - mum, dad and three small kids. They are freaking out. The civil servant has heard it all before. It's his job to explain. In simple terms. To act as a mentor. The smallest child is crying. The father is getting angry. The civil servant is patiently telling the family something from an approved script. There are more people on the staircase, queuing in a state of unease. It's evening; the office will soon shut. People want to know.

This is a few days after Disclosure. The world has learnt that flying saucers are real. Aliens are real. They are here. They have spoken. We have proof. Everything has changed. Governments are trying to cope. Media messaging is not enough; people need to hear the new truth live, from a person in authority - not a media personality; and face to face, not via a screen or speaker. So these consultation points have been set up; if you want to talk to someone from government and ask them to explain it to you, come along. Come one, come all.

Below left: originally the Ministry of Pensions building, Bromyard Avenue, Acton, London W3. Below right: originally Acton Town Hall, Acton. Both buildings completed in the 1920s; both buildings now converted into flats.

It's quarter to six, too early to rise, so I drift back to sleep, but have my notebook and pen by my bedside. I am tuning in; I am ready to channel.

"To let your readers know that you are channelling, use the { curly brackets } to denote that this is a spontaneously channelled message, and not a construct of your own thinking."

"Will do."

And so...

{ Science has failed to make meaningful progress with our technology in the eight decades since Homo sapiens came across it. The planet is now in danger of overheating because of your greenhouse gas emissions. This is not good for us, not good for you, not good for the planet. You have not made use of the technology that could have transitioned your society and your economy away from fossil fuel. The greed of a few, the unwillingness to change paradigms, yes. Torpid resistance. But the biggest error you made was to stovepipe the knowledge. Keep it in silos, away from your greatest minds. Non-terrestrial physics requires a higher level of understanding. Need-to-know secrecy has compartmentalised the science. You won't make the required breakthrough in time. You need a prompt nudge. Now! }

I write this down, and drift off. Suddenly:

{ James Clerk Maxwell. Rivendell. }

WHAT?!? James Clerk Maxwell (below) - OK, unifying the electromagnetic forces back in the 1860s... but Tolkien's Rivendell? Heroic quest's starting point? Place of sanctuary? No further clues... I drift off again and then...

{ You must break out of the chrysalis that is the human ego; the caterpillar inches along the ground - but the butterfly can flutter high above! It is the human ego that holds H. sapiens back. Assign a hypothesis a day until your science has cracked it. Donald Hoffman is close... spacetime is not fundamental, consciousness is. Science will not progress until it accepts the primacy of consciousness over matter. }

I am reminded of the time two years ago when I asked for the secret of nuclear fusion and was told, immediately, { Have a look at anomalous data from experiments conducted in March 1970 }. This came back to me this morning, along with an old one-liner from American stand-up comedian Stephen Wright (when told he was wearing odd socks): "I don't judge socks by their colour, but by their thickness."

And here it starts getting weird: { Make it a misery to measure, like with Fentanyl. When he saw UFOs from the flowing position. The link between nuclear fusion and consciousness. Number six is non-recitive. } The channelling ceased; I fell asleep, and woke up at quarter past nine!

This time last year:
Drinking on the move

This time five years ago:
Grodzisk Mazowiecki revisited

This time six years ago:
S7 extension - last summer of quiet (not true, as it happened!)

This time seven years ago:
Getting out of Mordor

This time 13 years ago:
Ćwilin, conquered

This time 14 years ago:
Sunset across the tracks, Nowa Iwiczna

This time 15 years ago:
The storm the forecasters missed

This time 16 years ago:
Peacocks in the Park

Intuition, Inspiration and Creativity - Lent 2023: Day 21

Where do great ideas really come from? The rational materialist would state that they can only emerge from the human brain, the result of complex thought-processes, conscious and subconscious. The reductionist view is that consciousness and thought are both local, confined to the skull, and any idea of extraneous sources of inspiration (other than those perceived through the senses) is bunk.

I'd take a different view; it's possible to pluck creative thoughts from the ether (or neutrino stream or whatever one can call a universal medium that conveys conscious thought). It's not a particularly strong force (for me at least), but it's there, and I believe that as well as helping guide one through life, it can also serve to inspire one's creativity. But you have to be open to it, believe in it, and be sensitive to it.

I have had a few goes at automatic writing; this example probably the best - where I really did feel I was in the mind of someone else - a middle-aged Englishwoman in post-war Ealing, suffering from loss and social isolation. Unlike dreaming, another source of creativity for me, automatic writing is bidden - I consciously tried to 'catch a wave', and did so. Interestingly, her house was situated just 350 metres from where I sat writing this, but 65 years or so earlier. Going with the flow, it felt like tapping into a stream of consciousness. It then took some conscious editing to give a final version, but I was happy with it.

Consciously trying to tap into something is quite different to getting a sudden flash, or a sudden burst, of inspiration. The similarities lie in having to judge how true the results are. Many's the time I sat down with the intention of writing a short story automatically, only to reject it halfway through on the grounds that it wasn't truly authentic. I'd find that my intellect was interfering with the setting or the character or the plot, and that for whatever reason, I wasn't truly letting go and giving in to the external flow. 

Using dreams as a basis for short stories is another creativity tool I use; these come when they come as they come, there is zero control over them. Sometimes I recognise the inputs (this morning I dreamed of Gringott's Bank from Harry Potter, then remembered I'd read a Polish-language Wikipedia article about Goblins that mentioned this). Rarely, dreams have a distinct past-life flavour, instantly recognisable to me, consistent in the unities of time, place and action. Other dreams, suitably tweaked, serve as a starting point for a story to which external conceits and plot twists can be added.

But coming back to those waking-life moments of intuition. Learning to put an intuition to use is primarily about being sensitive enough to recognise it when it happens, and when it does happen, to assess its honesty and value. Does it raise your understanding? Does it clarify a matter? Does it bring entirely new ideas to the table? Or can it bring a spark of inspiration to kick-start or nudge flagging creativity?

I don't feel it strongly enough, nor do I feel it often enough, but feel it I do. Again, practice and exercise should help intensify the effects and the creative outcome. Discipline is needed! Get it down on paper or digitally!

Lent 2022: Day 21
The perennial question - how much spirituality do we need?

Lent 2021: Day 21
Where is your soul from?

Lent 2020: Day 21
Finding a symbol for your religion

New York City really has it all

As the executor, lawyers and real-estate people left my late parents-in-law apartment, I locked the door after them and ran into the bedroom. I slid open the wardrobe door and beheld my father-in-law's suits. Yes. There it is - the one that caught my eye. Double-breasted, just half a shade of gray lighter than regular, made a whole lot of difference. I tried it on... long in the leg, a bit tight in the shoulder and baggy round the middle... Nice cloth though. Impeccable. Pockets - empty... but, hey! there's another inside pocket, zippered, and inside it... - a slim billfold! Twenties and tens! Time to celebrate.

This is a real swank place downtown - shame it's got to be sold. Such a shame. I can see our future here. I'm admiring the furniture, the bathroom, the view...

I come across an electric iron and my mother-in-law's old sewing box, and so I tuck in the trouser cuffs, iron a crease into them and hold the turn-up with a few pins - just a temporary shortening before taking these to an alteration tailor. I looked in the full-length mirror, yeah, looks OK. I choose a silk tie, cerise in color, and step outside, take the elevator down to the street. The concierge at the front desk gives me a knowing look - bet he's seen the old man wearing this suit before - it catches the eye. 

I head along the sidewalk towards Lower Manhattan. It's a warm Friday afternoon in spring, the Stock Exchange, just a few blocks away, will be closing for business. It's time for some dinner, a grill, steak. A drink or two. There hadn't been time for lunch. As I approach Wall Street, I'm looking at the traffic. Hey - a Rolls-Royce! From England! My eyes follow its progress. Now that's elegance there among the Plymouths and Oldsmobiles and Fords. A news stand. England, eh? I see a pink newspaper standing out from all the others. I buy a copy of yesterday's Financial Times, flown in from London, which I fold up and put under my arm. As I glance down, I notice my shoes are scuffed - they don't go with the suit. Ruin the effect for anyone who'd notice. Shoeshine boys are always around when you don't need them but today - ah, there's one across the street, corner of Broadway and Pine - I take a seat, put my feet up, unfurl my paper and read.

Well - that's interesting ... a piece about the Growing Importance of Leisure ... my father-in-law was telling me about this before they passed. I cast my eye down the boards, which stocks are up, which are down; only a few familiar corporations, all these English firms I don't know, roll my tongue around their quaint-sounding names... Reminded me of my visits over there with the Air Force, and later on a sales visit, demonstrating reconnaissance cameras at the big air show. Shoes done. Not perfect, but then they're not new, but much better than before. Another quarter well spent.

By now, a stream of people is flowing out of the Stock Exchange building. A  fleet of four gray sedans pull up outside - government automobiles, I'd guess... I turn left and merge into the growing tide of humanity leaving their offices. Up a ramp and through the revolving doors, into the lobby of the _____ Hotel. I walk into the bar, take a seat at the last empty table and open my paper again. A waiter comes up, I order a large, very dry, dry martini. It arrives. Yes. Icy and strong. I glance at the menu. Two guys come up an ask if the remaining seats are vacant. "Help yourselves!" 

"I see you're following the English stock market - how are things over there?" "Leisure." I replied. "That's the growth category. People with more time and more money than ever before," I said, repeating what I'd just read. Waiter came over again. One guy ordered a Michelob, the other a Rolling Rock. I ordered a steak, fillet stake, medium rare, with fries, spinach and baked tomatoes. "Oh, and a beer - make it a Rolling Rock. Reminds me of Kentucky."

"Let me introduce myself," said the guy who'd ordered the Michelob. "Henry Bettendorf Jnr," he said, passing me a business card. "From the Buckeye State." His associate did likewise, shaking my hand. "Look - I wasn't intending to engage in commerce this evening..." I mumbled, reaching into the suit's inside pocket, I fished out a my father-in-law's business card that I'd found along with the billfold. "This belonged to my late father-in-law," I said, just showing it to them close-up, but not giving it up. "I'm taking over the business now." They both looked at me, slightly perplexed, looked at each other, looked back at me -

"RRDANK!" What was that sound? "RDANK!" A sudden metallic noise. Jolted. I'm looking around the restaurant... I wake up. It's gone. It's 7:15 am. Monday November 28, 2022. Jakubowizna, Poland. The radiator in my bedroom makes that sound as its steel casing expands, shortly after switching itself on or off. I am annoyed, not least because I really wanted to find out more - how would this dream conclude? It's one of those 'three-unity' dreams, where time, place and action are all consistent; New York City, spring, 1956 or '57? Who had been my parents-in-law? How had they died? Who had I been?

This time last year:
Where the two contracts end

This time last year:
In praise of the Nikon D3500
[The best value-for-money digital single-lens reflex camera ever]

This time three years ago:
Agnieszka Holland's Mr Jones reviewed

This time four years ago:
The Earth is flat

This time five years ago:
50th Anniversary of the Fiat 125p

This time six years ago:
Fidel Castro's death divides the world

This time seven years ago:
London to Edinburgh by night bus

This time nine year ago:
The Regent's Canal, London

This time 11 years ago:
An end to the entitlement way of thinking

This time 12 year:
West Ealing - drab and sad end of town

This time 13 years ago:
To Poznań by train

This time 15 years ago:
Late autumn drive-time 

Gloucestershire 1830 and Ohio 1946 - automatic writing

Time for some automatic writing... The aim is to channel, find a voice, a consciousness that wishes to communicate, clear my mind, let that consciousness move my fingers over my keyboard and do the typing. I've had a couple of goes before - this is an interesting genre of literature, because it requires so little creative thinking; just empty the mind, then afterwards do some light editing for clarity and style, but that's it.

This endeavour is fuelled by Super Strong BRNX (12% abv) beer, which I've tried once before - a beer that indeed has voodoo qualities ("Street - the Embalmer"). So - one sip, wait for it to take hold, and let's go...

_________________________________________________

{ A wooden gate, a field, an English landscape, white clouds in a summer sky. A market town on the horizon, church steeple. Pastoral, peaceful. Smell of cow dung, and then the interior of a barn, rough walls painted white, oak beams supporting a roof. Cool inside. West Country accent. Thirty. 1930? 1830? The latter, definitely - no signs of electricity, railways, mass production... A feeling of the year reaching its fecund zenith, a shudder at the thought that another summer will soon be over, another winter on its way, work to be done - a harvest to be gathered in, a daughter to be married. Wood to be gathered. An axe to be sharpened! Much work. Never-ending work - but much more pleasant to be working in summer, on days like this ('loik this'). To market, to sell, to buy, to gossip. Cider at the inn. A new cap - need a new cap; wife can no longer sew this one into something respectable. A new cap. 

{ Duties - there are always duties, muscles ache, but that shows they're working. Sunday soon - the Lord's day of rest, church, hymns and gossip - wife likes gossip - look at this ear of wheat - looks healthy at first sight - but peel away the chaff, the grain has this redness to it... does this matter? Is the whole field like this? There, there. Church on Sunday. Pray for the harvest. My shirt - smells. Sweat smells like piss, doesn't it? Could do with another shirt; a good harvest - new cap, new shirt... Tidings from London; we are blessed with a good king. We have peace. My sons won't be going off to any wars. I am thankful for good neighbours, too. No troubles. We like to laugh. But they did lose a child last winter to diphtheria.

{ You hear me Michael? If you can sense my joy of living - you're right. A loaf of bread, some freshly churned butter, a wheel of old cheese, some pickled onions from a jar in the cellar, a large mug of ale at the end of day's work; a chat with my wife about the day's happenings, little things we saw - yes, Michael, you know I have a happy life. Wasn't always thus - but I don't need to share my past troubles with anyone - now that I feel I have your attention - it's the goods things of life that I want to tell you about. 

{ The sun that shines over my ripening field of wheat, it shines over you Michael. You're older than me but I'm older than you. Does age turn to wisdom? It's that feeling that you are aware of as your third pint settles in, and you feel you've understood everything - but that feeling passes as the fifth pint is pulled. We joke, we laugh - yet I have been blessed by God with the family, friends, neighbours that I have? I could not have wished for more. The weather could have been better - more sunny days like today. But then, had there been more sunny days like today, I wouldn't have learned to appreciate them."

[BOOMF! Sudden change of time and place - from Gloucestershire in 1830 to Ohio in 1946]

A warehouse stacked high with spare parts for trucks. Smell of engine lubricant. 

{ Hell what you doing? Who are you? Don't like my dirty overalls? Hey - I'm not doing this because I like doing this. I just need the money, you know? Had some bad times, so leave me be. Trying to settle down. Just like the judge said. Get a job, do it, keep out of trouble. I'm trying to do this. Who are you? Ah, OK. Remember this - I'm back from the Pacific War. Two weeks in the hold of a troopship - who wouldn't go a bit crazy once on shore? 

{ Leave the judging to the judges. I did what I did, OK? It happened. Paid the price. I'm on the way back to being a valued member of the community. Swear it won't ever happen again. Promise. Don't like my boss, he don't like me - but we can get over that. He's got targets to meet - and I need to keep out of trouble for a while and build me up some capital. But don't you cross me, 'cause I get angry. I get angry when I think about Palau. Why were we even there? I see these guys, in their suits and Fedoras and their '46 Cadillacs and Lincolns - were they even there? And now they judge me? It's easy for a man to get angry. 

{ That's why I love my motorcycle. I sit astride it. Turn the key, kick the starter, drop the clutch - and I'm in another world - slicing through air - with not a thought to trouble me. Big grin. Fuck 'em all. Let it rip. Ride up to the tavern, where the neon light says 'Schlitz'. Meet my old buddies. They're not driving '46 Packards. They're on motorcycles. Another beer? Won't be saying no, Michael.

{ Fucken' sheriff. We were landing on the beaches, this asshole was writing out speeding tickets in Galatea, Ohio. Back to work on Monday, then. Cardboard boxes, that's my new life. Racks and racks of them, piled high. Hell, I can cope with that. Find them, tick them off on the clipboard, make sure it's the right part (don't want piston rings for a Mack mixed up with one for a Kenworth). Spent a lot of time fixing airplane engines for the Marines in the Pacific, keeping our F4Us flying - I know what I'm talking about. Anyone know more about carburettors than me? Could do with another beer, Michael, another ice-cold beer. Any chance of another fucken' beer?" }

No way guy, I'm out of here. First one was easier on my mind.

This time last year:
New phone, new laptop, Part II

This time two years ago:
Two images from my early childhood

This time three years ago:
How PKP PLK's planners should treat pedestrian station users.

This time four years ago:
Foreign exchange: don't get diddled!
[for the saps who pay £250 for €200 at the airport]

This time six years ago:
Defining my Sublime Aesthetic

This time eight years ago:
Porth Ceiriad on the Llyn Peninsula

This time ten years ago:
Jeziorki sunset, late July

This time 11 years ago:
Jeziorki sunset, after the storm

This time 14 years ago:
Rural suburbias - the ideal place to live?

Going round in circles

Sometimes the brain goes stale. The same song stuck in the head for days. Frustrating dreams in which the same actions and concerns are worrying and wearisome. How to get out of this state of mind? A walk is generally excellent panacea, but today it rained all day. Goodbye Toulouse by the Stranglers has replaced Green Manalishi (With the Two-Prong Crown) by Fleetwood Mac as this week's earworm. Rain all day, not much work (just a couple of emails), so a chance to sweep the floors, some extra exercises and do a bit of decluttering. 

Kick it out – break out of the circle, turn it into a spiral.

{{ A Pleasurer Among Towns }}

Time to channel, and have a crack at automatic writing. Hello... I've caught something. Like an angler feeling a tug. "It's November and raining, the High Street lights reflecting off the wet pavement. I'll pop by the Crown for a large whisky and light ale chaser. The smell of rain on wet gaberdine and traffic fumes gives way to the nicotine fug of the saloon bar. Another working day over, time to unwind and forget that cancelled sales contract, the client's angry phone call to head office. Too much rivalry. Bad blood. We should be working together, not sniping at each other. I look around for a quiet part of the bar to sit down, not hard, not a busy day, but a group of long-haired students is hanging around the jukebox. Bloody layabouts. I'm driving growth in the British economy, they're probably studying mediaeval Japanese poetry. At the bar, I make my order, plus a packet of salted peanuts. Barmaid's friendly smile – helpful. Sit down. Table's sticky. First sip of scotch – I wait a while. Then a gulp of beer... and that familiar warmth in the veins begins to set the world to right... I belch, quietly. Relaxing my way into the upholstery. Another sip of scotch. All good stuff. And a mouthful of beer as a chaser. All's well.

I feel a sudden sense of togetherness with all those pub philosophers who, after a beer or two had ever pondered the meaning of life. 

It's pleasure. 

To get pleasured, you need money. 

Money.

Women, see, they look to a man for security. Sex for security. That's how it works. If you're sitting on bags of cash, a bird will think you can offer her security. The more cash you've got, the better. More cash, more things she can buy for herself. So she'll spread her legs for you. In a short nylon nightie. 

I need to make more money. That means outselling the other bastards in Sales. Money is the wherewithal to pleasure. I get that. I really get that.

Tonight. Tonight will be more than a few drinks, a saveloy and chips and flopping out at the Railway Hotel. Tonight will be different. It will be great. I shall conquer once again – I shall triumph. Me – the Pleasurer Among Towns. They will all bow down before me in Sales. All my rivals, revealed for once and for all to be useless, lazy, lacking talent, lacking vision. Lacking entrepreneurial flair. Engineers not true salesmen. My car shall be the best in the car park – a Zodiac Executive, V6 with auto box, metallic blue, black vinyl roof, walnut dash, black leather seats – sporty luxury, reflecting my personality.

Tonight will be different, but those bloody students and their rock music and scruffy jeans. But where are the birds? The dolly birds from the mills? Place should be rich with them by all accounts. Chat 'em up, smooth lines, back to the new Crest hotel out by the motorway junction for a threesome – but it's Wednesday – not the big night, granted – but it's tonight. It is tonight. It has to be tonight. Tomorrow night I'll be back home, making up stories, you big man.

"Love, another large scotch and White Shield, if you will". I'm looking for a ten bob note that I was sure was in my wallet, when the door opens and in walk these three lovely birds, long hair, short skirts and go right up to those scruffy students. Bastards. They don't even stay for one drink – they're off, all of them. At least the jukebox has gone quiet. Just some old geezer in the corner now. Close to the gents.

Shall I put something on? Got a bob? Back to the bar. "Love, got change of a quid?" Silently the barmaid opens the till. The Isley Brothers. F6. Put Yourself In My Place. Fine song. Yeah and walk a mile in my shoes while you're at it. "Come on and try it, baby, baby, try it." And I'm still driving a fucking E-reg Anglia. 

I pick up a discarded evening paper from the next table and casually flick through. Early edition, no racing results. Just useless tips. One-thirty at Uttoxeter? No, that's all behind me. Never got me anywhere, that. Gee-gees – lesson learnt.

Up to the bar again. "Bag of peanuts there love, and twenty Embassies. No – tell you what – make it five Slim Panatellas." I notice I'm just a bit unsteady on my feet as I return to the jukebox to press F6 again. The Locarno, and that bird Dawn. She was more than alright, thinking back on it. Nothing more than a happy memory, though. Just a few weeks ago. Double Diamond works wonders.

What's gone wrong with the world? Why isn't it like it should have been when I was young? Secondary modern, night school at the Technical College? Loads of jobs, but all dead-end. Did I plan it wrong? It's half-past nine and the pub's empty. I catch sight of myself in a decorative Victorian mirror. Bloody balding, lanky longish hair down the sides. Check on the suit – too loud. Will buy a more toned-down suit next time. Those student birds would probably call me middle aged. 

One more, I think. Barmaid asks me if I'd like some company. She can phone her friend. Down to this, eh? I think. Haven't enough in my wallet. I fancy that saveloy more if I am to be brutally honest with myself. So I say no, sup up, put on my damp raincoat and set off for the chip shop. 

I am angry; I am dangerous. Cross me now pal, you'll fucking catch it.

The rain has stopped, but the street's still wet. Empty Midlands pavement. An empty bus goes by. I stare through the window of the Radio Rentals shop. Colour sets. Big colour sets. I want one one like that. With a remote-control handset. And a proper hi-fi. Wall-to-wall carpet and gas-fired central heating. Birds can't resist a pad like that. The Dougie Squires Dancers are throwing themselves all over the dozen screens blazing out in the store display. What's on telly later tonight? Bloody Wednesday Play load of lefty crap. Will my hotel room even have a TV? I belch again, unrestrained this time, and start coughing. }}

This time last year:
Between wakefulness and sleep 

This time four years ago:

Hammersmith, on Thames

This time seven years ago:
In search of quintessential English countryside

This time eight years ago:
Behold and See - short story, Pt III

This time 11 years ago:
Another return to Penrhos

Semi-automatic (short story)

The desert wind fluttered his jacket, flapping the collars against his face. The sound of cloth flapping - jacket, trousers; he smiled; this was joy. His hands were deep in his trouser pockets, he faced the bright sun wearing his aviator sunglasses. He could feel the wind tugging at the roots of his hair, blown straight back. The desert was welcoming him. "If it were not for the wind, it would be unbearably hot. If it were not for the sun, it would be unbearably cold", he thought, knowing the desert well in both states. His hat was now safely stowed; he'd catch much sun today on his freckled skin.

He took a few steps forward, kicking at the light-green glassy fragments on the ground before him with the toes of his suede desert boots. In the distance, the mountain range spread out across the horizon, a day-and-half's walk away. Those peaks looked so close. It was still morning, the Piper that was to fly in and to pick him up with all his equipment was not due till one-thirty. What's to do? The experiment's all done, everything's packed... nothing to do but wait. Certainly not enough time to walk all the way into town and get back at the appointed hour for the rendezvous with the plane. But there was too much time for him to just waste time.

Jim looked at his watch. Damn. Two hours, fifty-five minutes. Time to just stand around, and contemplate. He reached for the pack of smokes in the breast-pocket of his denim work-shirt and lit a Camel with his Zippo, looking at those mountains as he inhaled his first puff. He'd spent the morning finishing his report and carefully stowing the geiger counter and the other kit back into the wooden crates – no, he had no duties that he could busy himself with. And he'd neglected to take a book with him; he'd read this week's Life magazine from cover to cover. The last call over the radio, half an hour earlier, confirmed that his plane was on schedule, and there was nothing he needed to worry about.

Two hours and fifty-five minutes. Jim had slept well that night, he was rested and did not need a nap. There'd be plenty to keep busy with once he'd get back to base, but there was not a thing he could do now. The wind picked up, moving small pebbles and whipping the sand around his ankles. Best not sit down. Radioactivity. The boxes were secure; no danger to them. Jim had been advised to take a semi-automatic carbine in case any mountain lions or coyotes came too close; he'd seen or heard none. His gun lay on one of the crates, wrapped in oilcloth to protect it from the fine, wind-blown sand.

The sun was getting ever higher in the April sky; perfectly azure with a few wisps of white cirrus off to the west. This was among the most beautiful expressions of nature he'd ever experienced, rivalling Alaskan auroras, or crisp winter mornings of his Minnesota home, or the blindingly bright sea-sparkle of the Atlantic ocean, when holidaying in North Carolina as a child.

He pulled out his notebook, preparing to jot down his thoughts – how he felt at that moment. No cares, just the sense of wonderment at being a living, conscious, part of Eternity. He half-closed his eyes and tilted his head up at the sun – he could feel the wind tugging on his sunglasses – and a powerful feeling of being alive surged through him. Alive and at one with it all. Forgetting that sense of Jim the five-foot-five wise guy, he became just an observing consciousness a part of the desert, bereft of personality, breathing the wind, sensing the sun in the crystalline sky. He held his eyes open, unblinking for a minute or two. The mountains seemed to draw closer, sliding towards him as if on a myriad parallel railroad tracks, as the sky shrank and expanded at the same time.

Jim struggled to write his thoughts as they passed – swiftly, not caring about neatness, just making sure he was getting it all down. He'd not done this before, but the idea made sense. On impulse he looked down. His boots blended with the desert floor; stamp! a small cloud of dust rose up. He noted an ant scurrying for cover. Was that ant thinking anything? Or just reacting to the sudden disruption? Did it feel fear, as he once did when, as a child, he'd strayed into the neighbor's corn and the farmer fired his rifle from afar into the crop? Should he shout 'Don't shoot!' or stay silent? The ant couldn't make that decision... and yet that plea from bygone days resonated with him as though the ant were calling to him in his childhood voice. He scribbled that thought down as well.

Jim tried to put aside all thought of his situation. The plane would come. There's nothing in his power to hasten or delay that. It would touch down on the airstrip behind him, the pilot would help him load the gear, they'd get in and fly back to Tonopah. He'll have a shower, eat a steak, drink a cold beer – watch some TV in his motel room  nice, but trite. Jot that thought down? No. No future pleasures, no present worries – THIS is living, he told himself, THIS moment. The HERE and the NOW.

Something made him put away the notebook into his jacket pocket. Having so, in a deliberate movement, he stretched out his arms to their fullest extent and tilted his palms to face the sun, framed in the gold rims of his glasses. The wind swept across the desert beating his face, and his arms; again he was aware of the flapping of cloth, of a sensation akin to riding a motorcycle, the sun and the wind together, the wind blowing that mountain range closer and closer – if he stood there for a million years, would the mountains have reached him by then? Jim concentrated on standing as still as he possibly could, intent on imaging what a geological age felt like. How did it feel to be a mountain? What does a day, a season, a year, feel like to a mountain?

All of a sudden he beamed in satisfaction at the thought that he'd not even stopped to check his watch. He was clueless as to how much time had passed. Blissful abandon had overtaken him; he felt tears welling up in his eyes and a feeling like being hugged from within. He responded with deep gratitude; to Creation, to the entire Universe.

He knew not how long he'd stood there in that state; the drone of an aircraft engine from the east returned him to the mundane.

Jim died of cancer in 1958, well short of his 40th birthday.

Before he died, he had time to assess those most meaningful moments in his unfulfilled life. It had been a beautiful life, though not long enough. He had much to be grateful for; he longed for more, for greater understanding; understanding through moments of unity with the Eternal.

"Gimme another shot, God!"

This time three years ago:
Jarosław Gowin quits as justice minister

This time four years ago:
So good to be back in Warsaw

This time five years ago:
At the President's

This time seven years ago:
Summer's here, and the time is right...

This time nine years ago:
Why I'm staying in Warsaw