Thursday, December 29, 2005

Animals Kneeling???

Someone, you won't believe this but I swear it's true - someone found my blog by doing a Google search for, and I quote - "west country poem about animals kneeling"! Now I'm a liberal kind of bloke. I believe that there is room on this planet for almost all the various shades of wierdo that you would be likely to meet but; what kind of a sick mind would dream up a poem about animals kneeling! And what kind of a sick mind would want to read it. So I did a quick Google search myself and, my God I can't believe what I saw! These people need help, and it's not confined just to the sheep shaggers of Aberdeen. By the way, does anyone know the full text of this poem, out of curiosity?

Meanwhile - it's the time of year when we should all be planning our New Year's Resolutions. I want you all to think about this because that's what the next post will be about.

Sunday, December 25, 2005

Why Does Mary Have To Be a Virgin?

We went to Mass yesterday. It was the vigil Mass for Christmas. Anyway this time of year, like no other, there is heavy emphasis on the virginity of Mary the mother of Jesus and I ask myself; why does this have to be?

If I point you to some
internet-based information from the BBC then this is about the only page you will find on this subject, from a Google search, which is not apparently written by a bunch of ranting lunatics. On the BBC site you will find the following:-

The Gospels of Mark and John and the letters of St Paul do not mention the Virgin Birth. It is only included in the later Gospels of Matthew and Luke, although both give very different accounts. Professor James
Charlesworth says: "Should we take it literally, symbolically or metaphorically? Christians lineup behind every one of those".

If Mary’s pregnancy was not divine, who might have been the father of her child? As an unmarried mother-to-be, Mary was in a perilous position – Joseph could have had her banished or even stoned to death. But, according to the New Testament, Joseph was a good man and he did not abandon his young fiancée.


Historians have looked for reasons to explain Joseph’s loyalty and sympathy towards Mary. One second-century historian claimed that Mary was actually the victim of a rape by a Roman soldier called Panthera and, indeed, many women at the time would have been raped by soldiers. However, that story is much more likely to have been circulated falsely in an attempt to discredit the growing Christian movement.

Biblical historian Mark Goodacre concludes: "The Christian in me wants to say that it is quite likely to be God because I like the idea of a wonderful, miraculous birth – something supernatural … happening right there at the origins of Christianity. The historian in me does have some problems with that and does wonder
if Joseph is the better option."

Now the above is quite rational and does not try to come to any forced conclusion. So why does the Catholic Church insist that Mary was a virgin? Take this extract from the Catholic Catechism:-

People are sometimes troubled by the silence of St. Mark's Gospel and the New Testament Epistles about Jesus' virginal conception. Some might wonder if we were merely dealing with legends or theological constructs not claiming to be history. To this we must respond: Faith in the virginal conception of Jesus met with the lively opposition, mockery or incomprehension of non-believers, Jews and pagans alike; so it could hardly have been motivated by pagan mythology or by some adaptation to the ideas of the age. The meaning of this event is accessible only to faith (my italics), which understands in it the "connection of these mysteries with one another" in the totality of Christ's mysteries, from his Incarnation to his Passover.

It seems a little forced to me, and it goes on:-

Through the centuries the Church has become ever more aware that Mary, "full of grace" through God, was redeemed from the moment of her conception. That is what the dogma of the Immaculate Conception confesses, as Pope Pius IX proclaimed in 1854:
The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin.

Again, is this not a contrivance. "Through the centuries the Church has become ever more aware..." It's balderdash! It is either evident or it isn't. If it was not then fair enough. I personally do not believe that the story of Christ has to depend on the fact or otherwise of the Immaculate Conception. His teachings do not depend upon it. So why construct this legend, this myth. What purpose does it serve? Let me say right here that I have not (yet) read The Da Vinci Code. I haven't had time but I believe it fleshes out the argument that the whole issue of the Immaculate Conception is a vast conspiracy in order to cement the concept of male superiority in the Church and thus in society. You can let me know.

My basic problem is that I don't believe in the virgin birth, and I want to know why I should have to. Is there anybody of rational mind out there who can answer my question without saying "It's a mystery"?

Friday, December 23, 2005

TMA 04 History - Result! Yesss!


Well now gentle readers, I know you've all been on tenterhooks since I posted my script on Robespierre, my History TMA 04. I was too. I had to ask for a postponement I was so behind, and so last week-end I spent two days just hanging around my apartment in my shorts getting stuck in. And it's paid off. 74%! Is that not amazing. I am stunned. I can only presume one of two things, either (a) I am a genius or (b) the good Dr. Clench is so intoxicated with the holiday spirit that she is giving out presents to idiots like me. Since (a) is out of the question then it must be (b) - quod errat demonstrandum. Or maybe I'm a genius.

Can we keep up this momentum? Who knows, we shall find out in due course. Anyway I want you to do something for me. I've already had some kind comments from Straddle Pipping Reel, who is also doing this course. That was great, and by the way good luck to her (I think she's a her), so if you've had your mark for this TMA let me know how you got on. And even if you're doing something different in the OU let me know as well. Good luck and hope to hear from you in the comments part below.

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

High Flight - by John Gillespie Magee Jr.

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of; wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sun-lit silence. Hovering there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air;
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
Where never lark nor even eagle flew;
And while, with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God


This poem, which I've known and loved for a long time, is featured in the Writer's Almanac this morning. Garrison Keillor reads it in the kind of downbeat manner which is at odds with the sheer exhiliration of the piece. Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee Jr. died in a training accident in December 1941. The poem was sent by Magee in a letter to his parents about three months before his death with the note; "It started at 30,000 feet, and was finished soon after I landed. I thought it might interest you." The scribbled poem was "High Flight."

Whenever I read this poem I always think of Magee's parents. He was only nineteen when his plane crashed, in England, in a training accident. You can see from his picture that he was a handsome boy. And how gifted he was. To lose such a beautiful child must have been truly devastating. Why do I dwell their loss? I suppose that it is because I have two sons of my own. My oldest is about a year older than John Magee was in 1941, and the younger boy is just fourteen. And it's every parent's fate that, whenever we reflect on such tragedies, be it airmen in war or schoolchildren abducted by evil men, or any of a million other terrible things which could befall our loved ones , we feel these as though they are happening to our own. Glimpses of horror visit us and we push them away before they overwhelm us. And then we want to hug our children to us and tell them we love them and just ... be careful, OK! And they look at us as if we are the child and tell us not to be silly, and they walk out of the door and down the street as if they own the world, like John Gillespie Magee Jr. owned it in September 1941.

Monday, December 19, 2005

I'm Reviewing The Situation

I received a comment from Straddle Pipping Reel (What the handle refers to, fuck only knows.) on the subject of plagiarism. That's not the situation I'm reviewing by the way. I'll get on to that in a minute. Anyway, plagiarism is not something that bothers me. This blog would provide meagre pickings for anyone looking for OU glory. They're welcome to it. Anyway, if you have come on to this blog because you are an OU student and you are looking for inspiration then please feel free to critique my posts. That's what they're their for. If you are an OU tutor or any kind of a high heid yin then your advice would also be welcomed. As for the rest of the mince that I throw up, have a go at that as well if you like. Just don't take it too seriously.

I've been thinking about these various posts that I've been doing and, to be frank, I'm a bit bothered. I think they were starting to go in the wrong direction. Too serious, not enough laughs, too up my own arse, if you get my drift. This is a journal, as well as place for me to fuck around in. And a place where I can practice the act of writing; not the art, the act.

Some of you may notice that I have edited out parts of previous postings and I have removed one altogether. I did this because I want to feel relaxed about what I do here. It's meant to be fun after all.

I'm going back home for the holidays now. I won't be back in Dalmatia until the New Year. You all have a nice holiday if you're having one, and if you're not ... then don't.

Sunday, December 18, 2005

TMA 04 - History - Robespierre's Journal

We were asked to come up with an 800 word essay on the following extract from Robespierre's journal. It was written in autumn of 1793.

"Principal measure of public safety. it will be necessary to send through all the republic a small number of strong commissioners, armed with good instructions and above all good principles, to reduce public opinion to unity and to republicanism - the sole means of ending the Revolution to the profit of the people.

These commissioners will above all concentrate on discovering and inventorying men who are worthy to serve the cause of liberty. To purge the surveillance committees, we must produce a list of all their members, their names, occupations and addresses ....

We must revise the list of the leaders of the counter-revolution in each locality ....

Overturn the decree of the municipality which bans the saying of the mass and vespers. it does not have the right. It is a source of trouble."

Hardman, J. (ed.) (1999, 2nd ed.) The French Revolution Sourcebook, (London, Arnold, p. 198)

The questions were -
What kind of primary source is this .... ?
Particular words or phrases requiring elucidation.
What can we learn with respect to Robespierre and the French Revolution, distinguishing between witting and unwitting testimony?


I hated doing this at the start. I was under pressure at work and could not concentrate on it. Once I was able to give it the necessary time though, I enjoyed it; almost, but not quite as much as my last on the Colosseum.

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Fuck This For A Game Of Soldiers

Actually the title of this post has nothing to do with what I am going to write. Why do I say that? Well, because at this moment in time (waffle) I have no fucking idea what I am going to write. The OU course is going badly at the moment. Work is taking up all my time and something happened on Monday that has been at the forefront of my thoughts at all times of the day. It was very upsetting and the result has been that I cannot concentrate on a thing. It's receding into the background now and hopefully it will die a natural death in due course. So - what to do?

There's a Tutor Marked Assessment (TMA) due in on Friday on the French Revolution and I've hardly done any work on this part of the course so far. I am so busy at work that when I come back to my apartment at night I just want to relax or, when things get too fraught (like on Monday) go out on the screaming piss. It's hardly conducive to good studying.

I was worrying about this because, having made a decent mark in my last TMA, I wanted to keep up the momentum. I knew if I cobbled something together at the last minute for this it would be shite. So I girded my loins and called Dr. Clench. The conversation went something like this:
"Hello Matilda, it's West Coaster"
"Oh! Hello West. How are ye getting on?"
"Oh, it's going fine. I'm very busy and I'm trying to keep up with the studies and you know the work is frantic at the moment we're right in the middle of a .."
"You need more time for the TMA."
"That would be great Matilda, just through to next Monday."
"Well, I'll let it go to the following Friday. How's that?"
"Brilliant!"

You know, I don't know how I ever had a downer on the old bird. She's first rate. The trouble is that, as I said, this part of the course is about the French Revolution and I've just got no interest in the thing. Bunch of fucking plebs chopping the heads off a load of poofs with powdered wigs and rouge on their cheeks. I think I'll just crib the whole thing off the internet. And that is what someone is doing on my site! I was looking at my stats and one of the search phrases was "Critically evaluate the relationship between form and function in three aspects of the design and construction of the Colosseum."

That is precisely the phrasing of the question for the first part of TMA03. I wonder if whoever looked at my page just cut and pasted it and called it his/her own work. Do people do that? They do, don't they, the plagiarising bastards. Oooh-er!

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Good Advice

Lingo Slinger, in response to my below request was so nice in giving me some advice. I'm going to lay it out here and try to give my honest response because it touches on some fundamental issues regarding what I want from this blog.

  • You have great opinions on things, you have a great way of communicating, and are more insightful than most... You also have (as displayed in this post) a sharp sense of humour, a confident wit about you. That's the aw shucks I'm blushing part over. It's nice of Lingo to say these things. Such positive feedback is worth a lot.
  • I do think that the OU stuff might be a bit heavy for the average blog reader. It is very interesting, but could perhaps be a bit much for some. She's right here. I was thinking, if I stick with it (and I have time) that maybe I should open up another blog just for OU stuff and simply put down the start of an essay here with a link to the whole piece on the other blog. I don't have time at the moment to do this but I might in the future.
  • Here's some ideas:Expose yourself - photos, personal stories and experiences. This is the tricky part. I shy away from exposing myself (sound like a failed flasher, don't I!). There are personal issues, deeply personal, that I want to explore but I'm afraid to start, to fess up.
  • Opinions on current events & news or just things in general that you feel strongly about. Who's got the time! Of course I feel strongly about current events. Tony Blair's a cunt because he's in the pocket of that other cunt G.W. But they have teams of PR people and spokespersons (Isn't that the people who follow Lance Armstrong in a van in case he has a wheel failure?). And the last truly decent leader of the Labour Party was Michael Foot and he got gutted by the press, and all the honest men and women who could have made a difference are dead: Mo Mowlam, Robin Cook, John Smith, Donald Dewar - real people who didn't give a shit for image makers and spin doctors and focus groups and all the rest of the shite that politicians think they have to surround themselves with. Current events! Fuck current events.
  • More photographs - you, your fam, your friends, your environment. I use this to get in to another environment. Maybe I'm creating a parallel universe where - no scratch that. Parallel universe dreams are bullshit. There is only one and we are stuck with it. Anyway my universe mostly is work, and this will not be about my work.
  • Desert Island type themes. Used to be Roy Plomley but now Sue Lawley on Desert Island Discs ask their guest to choose eight records, one book (they've already got the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare), and a luxury to ease their days stranded on a desert island. It's marginally more interesting than Gardeners' Question Time on BBC Radio 4.
  • Poetry Interpretations - ask others for their interpretations. Good idea. I'm not any kind of expert. English literature is something I want to get more involved with. It would be good to exchange ideas and I should positively seek opinions, rather than just make comment for the sake of it.
  • New words - scour the dictionary for new words and post one every day (perhaps in conjunction with a post) to give your readers a healthy dose of vocabulary. Old Horsetail Snake does this so well. I'd feel such a fake. I like words though, and improving my vocabulary. OK, I'll think about it.
  • Short stories or poems written by you. This needs time and when I was doing the OU short course in Creative Writing I could just post my work straight on to the blog. Long term project.
  • Short history lessons & links to interesting things found on the net. I'm reluctant to come on all pedagogical (today's word - see new words above) but if it flows naturally from what I'm studying then fair enough. Interesting things I have found on the net. Mmmm. Do you mean like this?, or this?

Sunday, December 11, 2005

Dylan Thomas - A Perfect Website

I have always liked Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas. His use of language is fantastic with alliteration overload and onomato-(check dictionary)-poeic streams of words conjuring up a psychedelic picture of an imaginary small town in Wales, long before psychedelia was conceived.

To begin at the beginning:
It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched, courters'-and-rabbits' wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea.

So to find this website was wonderful. And wonder of wonders! You can listen to the original BBC production of Under Milk Wood with Richard Burton as the narrator. To listen to that voice with it's rich mellifluous Welsh accent reading this masterpiece is bliss itself. There's lots of other audio including Thomas reading his own poems.

Saturday, December 10, 2005

Sheep!

I mean they are so boring, all they do is stand around all day nibbling grass. There's not an interesting thing to say about sheep, unless it's a recipe for a nicely cooked leg of lamb, washed down with a full bodied French red, say a St. Emillion 2002.

Anyway, dear readers, I have been looking for some feedback on this blog but despite the number of visits I get, admittedly not a huge number, there is a distinct lack of social intercourse. (saving your presence Lingo Slinger). Now I know that you readers of West Coast Ramblings are sophisticated, intelligent, people (otherwise you wouldn't be reading this, right!) with busy lives but I really would appreciate the odd comment or two just to be reassured that my modest output is mildly stimulating...Or not, now that I come to think of it.

If you believe that this blog is the most odious pile of shite that you have ever had the misfortune to come across then please say so. This will have the immediate effect of transforming my epistles into heavenly dissertations on the subjects which are closest to your hearts. How exactly this will come about I don't know but I'll think of something. Anyway it would relieve the tedium somewhat so don't be shy.

Trouble is, at the moment I am not (although I should be) heavily engaged with my Open University work. It's a rather deep study of the methodology of the study of history. Now I'm sure that most lively minded people would agree that history per se is interesting. If you are not interested in history then please leave. Fuck off! Go! Out! Begone! But (I know I've asked you this before - can you start a sentence with but?) the study of the methodology used by historians (please hang on - you have taken all this trouble to get here) is about as boring as going to mass. So the point I am making here (yes, yes, please get to it - a reader) is that I do not have enough material relating to the OU and therefore I need to tap the old brain cells to keep up the blog. Please help me out. What direction should I take with this - random ramblings - more poetry stuff - less introspection. Tell me.

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

A Funny Blog

Please read Old Horsetail Snake. This blog is funny and touching in equal measure. And it's where I got this quote from Robin Williams:

"See, the problem is that God gave man a brain and a penis, but only enough blood to run one at a time."

Sunday, December 04, 2005

Open University - Introduction To The Humanities

My result arrived this morning for TMA03 which I posted on Nov. 27th. 60%! A good pass I would say. Anyway I'm pretty satisfied with it. The tutor, Dr. Matilda Clench, is a pretty strict old bird and she doesn't give away much. I know we've had our differences in the past but that's all water under the bridge now. I think we're rubbing along pretty nicely now. The thing is I know I could have done better. I posted the thing too quickly. You know how it is, you've laboured manfully ('laboured personfully'? I don't think so) on something for ages and when it's done, you just want to get it off you're back. Take my advice (I might even take it myself). Sit on it, even for just half an hour, if you can, and then make sure you have it right before submitting it. My piece was all there, it just could have been ordered better, perhaps tightened up a little. It would have been worth the extra effort.

It has been a beautiful day here in Dalmatia. Lovely and sunny all day. And perfect conditions tonight for the kick-about on the five-a-side park. We lost 7-4 or something. The Ollie was our best man. We were up against it though, with Pizza Paddy and Jimbo in the opposition. Our side was me (The Old Crock), The Ollie (v. good, even if his was a rugby school), Farmer Giles (almost as useless as me), and Tommo (Young Croatian Poser). Despite that it was a good weekend for sport. Rangers have now failed to win in nine consecutive games (fuck them). The Blue Hoops won, keeping up their promotion challenge. Croatia won the Davis Cup, and Monty won in Hong Kong.

I'd better get to bed now and try to rest my aching muscles. I'm sure I'll have siezed up by tomorrow evening.

Saturday, December 03, 2005

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

I love this poem. To me it is so musical. It rhymes effortlessy (although the second line looks a bit contrived) and the rhythm of the metre (iambic tetrameter) makes it ideal for reading in a kind of sing-song, perhaps Welsh, accent. Richard Burton or Anthony Hopkins would be perfect readers for this. The sussurations of the lines -
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake
- clearly echo the wind and soft fall of snow through branches. What, we wonder, is he imagining that lies in the wood, what temptations does he turn from? The woods are lovely, dark and deep. This is such a sensual line, perhaps hinting at physical passion. But he must be faithful and press on, he has promises to keep. The repetition of the last two lines seems to speak of a terrible resignation. There is a clear echo of these feelings in The Road Not Taken. Perhaps he speaks to all our mid-life crises, or is that just me.

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

The Road Not Taken - Robert Frost



Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

-----------ooo000ooo----------------

I have put this poem up because I have just been listening to Adventures In Poetry on BBC Radio 4. The programme or, as you Americans would say, program - was very listenable and included fragments of an interview with Frost himself. One contributor, Jay Parini, was especially pleasant to listen to and he highlighted how ambiguous the poem is. The penultimate line seems to sum things up neatly; it's all about the road "less travelled". But is it? Look back at how he stresses early on how very much alike the roads are - took the other, as just as fair and also Had worn them really about the same, and again both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. He couldn't make it more clear if he was banging you over the head with a book, could he! So what's he doing at the end? I shall be telling this with a sigh. He's telling "this" meaning the following:-
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by -
But he's being disingenuous. The narrator knows that when he tells 'ages and ages hence' of his life he will pretend, with a regretful sigh, that he had choices which made all the difference, but he really didn't. The truth is in the third stanza where, with some false bravado he says:-
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
But acknowledging the truth that:-
.....knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.


Way leads on to way. We think we have a choice, but sometimes our path is marked out for us. I think that's the message of the poem. Isn't that right, Irish?

It was published in 1916 when Frost was about forty two. He died aged eighty nine.

Sunday, November 27, 2005

Open University - TMA03 Classical Studies


It's been a struggle I must say. Now I've posted the thing, and it's two days late. The tutor did say she would allow us to post it over the weekend so it should be ok

Critically evaluate the relationship between form and function in three aspects of the design and construction of the Colosseum. Not more than 300 words.

Why were the games important for the Romans?
Not more than 900 words.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

It's Snowing in Dalmatia

It's the kid's last night. He goes home tomorrow. I have really enjoyed his visit. We went to the movies tonight, to see Oliver Twist. I think he enjoyed it. It was snowing quite heavily when we came out of the movie theatre. We both liked that; snow gives a magical quality to a place, especially to this town which doesn't get a lot of it. We walked through the snowfall, looking up at the snowflakes falling earthwards, trying to catch them on our tongues, getting that flying upwards feeling that you get when all the flakes are rushing towards you. When we got to Kristjans we had hot chocolate, it seemed the appropriate drink.

We talked about great snowfalls we had had back home., how last year had been a white Christmas, how we loved it that we had a coal fire and could come in out of the cold wet snow to a blazing fire. Isn't that the most beautiful, loving, thing a person can do for you? To get up earlier in the morning than you and light a real coal fire, just so that you can climb out of bed and go through to the living room and see its heart-warming glow.

He asked where we had got our sledge and I told him how my grandmother had brought the 'Flexible Flyer' back from the U.S. in the nineteen fifties. It's not what it used to be but then, neither is the snow these days. Sometimes life is good, like tonight.

Monday, November 21, 2005

Trip to Solin (Roman name Salona)

We went to Solin today, the kid and me. I was looking for the remains of the Roman amphitheatre, he was just going along as it meant a ride on the scooter and, if I was feeling relaxed, a chance for him to go solo on it. We pulled off the road where a sign indicated that the ruins were to be found, but it turned out that the site was spread out over a very large area and we wandered around, wasting a lot of time before we came across the actual amphitheatre.
There it was in all its overgrown and ancient glory. The sun shone down on the verdant grass of the arena and, in the path of the gladiators’ entrance, a game of Croatian boules (locally called boče) was going on between two teams of local men. The sight of this ancient game, possibly introduced into Croatia by Roman soldiers, being played with wooden balls was strangely affecting. If it were not for the branded tracksuit tops of the players, and the assortment of cars parked nearby, we could have been back in time, two hundred years or more.
If you look east from Solin you can see the hilltop fortress of Klis. I was up there once. If I could revisit that scene I would, but life is not like that. The afternoon was over and the sun was sinking over the hills to the west. We climbed back on to the scooter. The kid held on tightly to my jacket and we headed back home. Are we close? Of course we are.

Friday, November 18, 2005

People Are Nice

I always like to think the best of people. I know that sounds, to some ears, naive but that's the way I am. Some of us live in a society these days where people are afraid to stop and help someone stranded by the roadside, for example with a car breakdown, in case they get caught up in some gruesome scenario where they can later be accused of assault, or where they get assaulted themselves by the people who are supposedly 'needing help'. It's very sad, and goes against the values that should be the building blocks of any decent society. What is society, other than the recognition that our lives, our individual lives and the lives of those who are near and dear to us, are intertwined with, and interdependent on, other people in the wider community? To me it is self-evident. A community cannot function; a country, its people, its economy, cannot thrive and grow without the communal efforts of the ordinary citizens. Within this belief it is implicit that we must have an optimistic attitude to others. This is also important for our own individual happiness and well-being.

Now this is not to say that we should open our doors to all and sundry, and let every freeloader and sponger walk all over us. Of course there are bad people in the world who don't give a shit about society. Of course we are in danger from criminals and all kinds of ne'er-do-wells. But do the bad people outnumber the good? Do their numbers even constitute one percent of the total? Who the hell knows. I'm not going to talk statistically because I haven't the faintest notion of what the statistics are, I just know what I know. And that is that a lifetime's experience tells me that most of the people I meet in my journeyings, and most of the people I know, are decent people. And it's good to recognise this because I also meet the kind of person who is too eager to generalise, who without even a pause for thought would tell you that "They're all criminals in that place/town/country/wherever" or "They're totally ignorant those Bosnians/Americans/Australian Aborigines/Germans/white/blacks/old age pensioners/whoever". And I just hate those Jeremiahs who are just so negative you've got to get out of their company as quickly as possible before you start to feel like hanging yourself, or just smothering them with the nearest cushion. So when something nice happens that confirms my faith in the fundamental goodness of people then I should celebrate it and also tell others. And in that way I make a small contribution towards making sure that the Jeremiahs don't succeed in poisoning all of our lives.

I had picked my son up at Dubrovnik airport and it's a 220 km drive back up the coast. There was the most horrendous rainstorm, it was just monsoon-like. As we were going through Makarska, about three quarters of the way home, I drove too fast into fairly deep water. The electrics got flooded and the car conked out. I managed to re-start it but once we got clear of the town it finally gave up the ghost. What to do? I phoned a taxi driver I know and asked him to come and collect us, and he agreed but it would take him an hour to get down to us. Shortly after I had talked to him a car pulled up beside us and a young woman shouted over asking if we needed help. She had two other people in the car, also female, and she had no reservations it seemed about stopping with an offer of assistance. I thanked her and said that help was on its way.

After another five minutes a car going in the opposite direction stopped and two guys came over. They gave me to understand that they were mechanics and perhaps they could bring some expertise to bear. They did try and sort the problem on the spot but to no avail. They then phoned a friend who had a wrecker truck and he came and picked us up. Now he was going to take us to his garage and try to fix us out but I asked him, with a rustling motion of my thumb and forefinger, how much he might charge to take us all the way home. He offered to do this for seven hundred kuna. Fine, I said, let's go and in the meantime I phoned back to my taxi driver and asked him to return to base, I'd settle his bill later. And so the tale ends happily with my son and me arriving in time for a formal dinner at the town's best hotel.

This is not the first time I have experienced such willingness to help from strangers in Croatia. Again it was a car thing. My friend's engine was over-heating. A car mechanic came over to us, saw the problem, took us to his place, spent almost an hour searching for and fitting a thermostat valve, and got us back on the road. And he charged us nothing. Now isn't that how society should operate. People are nice, they really are.

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Open University - Results from TMA02

Well the first results are in and they are:
Art History - An analysis of An Allegory of the Vanities of Human Life - 13/25 - 52%
Literature - An analaysis of the Keats' sonnet 'When I have fears that I may cease to be' - 14/25- 56%
Music - Appreciation of an excerpt from Petrushka 'First Tableau: The Shrovetide Fair' - 12/25 - 48%
Philosophy - Arguments; valid, sound, and inductive. - 20/25 - 80%.
Overall - 59%.

Well, fuck me gently. 59%! I don't know how I feel about that. I reckon my Art History offering was worth a little more than a measly 52%. I looks like I just scraped through on that. Do you think that's fair? Look below at my post on November 1st and tell me. Did I not cover it well? And the tutor doesn't even know what a shawm is. She put a question mark next to it!

The music only got 48%, which is all I deserved. I was just waffling and repeating myself on that one, plus I didn't really study it. And only 56% for literature. It was hardly worth my bother, trawling through every web site I could find on Keats' sonnets. And then 80% for the philosophy question. 80% for a load of old bollocks! Anyway, in fairness (What am I saying!) I hardly studied at all for the thing so I suppose I got what I deserved. I'm hardly studying at all for the next one, wasting my time as I am here bitching about it. Bollocks to it, I'd better get off and do something.

Sunday, November 13, 2005

Being Chained to the Village Idiot

"Owning a penis is like being chained to the village idiot." I read that on someone's blog the other day. I wish I had said it. Well, now I have.

So, what else is on my mind. Well, the OU stuff is grinding along. At the moment it's a study of the Roman Empire with particular focus on the Colosseum. So far we've been reading on the origins and function of this famous amphitheatre and, I must say, it has been quite interesting.

Those gladiatorial games were awesome, and gruesome, productions. "At the hundred days festival given by Titus at the Flavian amphitheatre (Colosseum) in 80 ad, on one day 5,000 wild animals of various sorts were exhibited, and 9,000 tame and wild was the sum total of the killed (over the hundred days) ... " These inaugural games in the Colosseum are said to have involved "fights of up to 3,000 men in a single day". (Quotes from sources in the OU published course material).

The scale of it is mind boggling and it begs the question; who was in charge of production? maybe that's where the great blockbuster film directors like De Mille and Spielberg and Peter Jackson get their directing genes. If you think about it, there must have been their equivalent in ancient Rome. It wasn't just a bunch of mindless animal torturers; someone with great project management skills and an eye for theatre had to be orchestrating the whole gory business.

The course raises questions on how we view these events from a twenty-first century perspective. Was it all just mindless gore and crowd-pleasing bloodlust, or was it more complex? A way of keeping the Roman populace contented while controlling crime and rebellion? It's easy to be moralistic and condemn the barbarity of the people who staged such events, but modern liberal high-mindedness is not useful when studying events of two thousand years ago. For the Romans, to kill wild beasts was to protect mankind. Criminals and Christians during that period were regarded as having put themselves in the position of outcast. The games were a way of dealing with capital punishment, and the crowd could ameliorate their sub-conscious guilt by giving the criminals a "fighting chance". Some modern "enlightened" societies deal with capital punishment in a different, but equally self-deceiving way. Executions are carried out behind closed doors, out of sight and largely out of mind.

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Good Blogs

I don't have a lot of time to read other blogs. I don't even have a lot of time to spend on keeping this one up to date, but. I do like to skiff through to the 'next blog' just taking pot luck on what I'll find. So it has to have an immediate impact to make me stop and look and read it properly. That why I like Lingo Slinger , she's always funny and to the point.

I came across Emerald Bile last night and I was rocking with laughter. Especially reading What The Fuck Is A Bagel! It reminded me of a time when I was stuck in this hotel in New York where they didn't serve you a decent plate of bacon, sausage and egg in the morning. All you got was coffee in a paper cup.. and bagels. After a while you just hate the things.

So then I found Twenty Major - Still Smoking In Irish Bars. It's a blog from the other side of Dublin from the one you'd be familiar with. I like it for the story-telling, and it's funny.

These people are good. I wish I was half as good. Anyway, if I can't be very creative right now, being a tad tired, I'll give credit where it's due and get the fuck out of here.

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Is There Anyone Listening?!

No, I don't mean you. My millions of blog readers can relax, I 'm not having a go at you. If I did then I daresay the West Coast Ramblings Blog Readers Association, or WCRBRA as it is more familiarly described, would send me emails of objection at my impertinence, casting aspersions at the good character of the dedicated blog reader etc. etc. No, I repeat, it is not you it is the Open University. What the fuck is going on! I've been faithfully logging on, day after weary day, hoping for some sign of life from the on-line tutorial group to which I am attached, and which is under the tutorship of one Dr. Matilda Clench. Now I'm not an expert on tutorial groups but you would think, would you not, that it would, at a minimum, resemble a group? Yes, no? This lot are so invisible that they resemble nothing so much as a bunch of terminally shy geeks, too backward to punch a few bland phrases onto the surface of their human-machine-interfaces, and then send them serverwards so that we can all marvel at the vacuous drivel they are only just capable of producing. I mean I do my best, I really do; trying to draw them out of their miserable shells, but, to no avail. As for Dr. Clench! I know this for a certainty; She's not getting anwhere near my haemorrhoids. If she was the last doctor in the world I wouldn't trust her to lance my boils. Three emails I've sent her and not one reply, not one! Well I've had it. I have taken action. A quick inquiry to the student support mob in Embra and they were right on to the staff tutor for the Arts Faculty. He immediately sent back an email reassuring me that he would look right into it. Decent sort of chap. That's what we need, more men about the place instead of all these wretched old women with hardening of the bloody arteries. Got to go now, the Colloseum awaits.

Saturday, November 05, 2005

Tutor Marked Assessment - The Open University

I am about to blow my reputation as an erudite student of the humanities right out of the water with the following. This represents the answers to the philosophy questions in Tutor Marked Assessment 02 in my course. It is, I will say in my defence, a level 1 course and therefore we mere students are only expected to skim the surface of the deep well of philosophical thought and knowledge that has been passed to us from Pluto, Socrates, Descartes, Nietsche, and others too difficult to mention.

The questions were about - What is an argument? - What is a sound argument? - What is an inductive argument, as opposed to a deductive argument? - and so forth. And you can see from the below the expert grasp I have on the subject. Now I know what you're thinking. Surely, you are saying to yourself, surely this is the work of a thousand monkeys sitting at a thousand typewriters, or perhaps it is the work of just one monkey and a spell-checker. No, alas, no. It is I. Now the study guide I have open here beside me poses the question, Why study philosophy? And it answers itself by telling us; "One important reason for studying philosophy is that it deals with the fundamental questions about the meaning of existence. Why are we here? Does God exist? What is art? Why is there a monster under my bed?" And so on. So having grappled with these questions, and having practiced pacing up and down with our hands behind our backs for hours on end, we were given this assessment. I cannot tell you how relieved I was. I was afraid they would ask us - Could our lives be a dream?- or something. I had even started to formulate an answer to that one. I goes like this:
If my life is a dream and I wake up then I will exist in real life and therefore my life cannot be a dream. On the other hand if my life is a dream and I do not wake up then my life is a dream, or I am dead. On the other hand if my life is someone else's dream and they wake up then I am dead also. And on the other hand (that would be the fourth hand, wouldn't it) if my life is someone else's dream and they don't wake up then I hope it's a wet dream. 'S a fucking nightmare really!

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

An Analysis of a Poem by Keats


WHEN I HAVE FEARS THAT I MAY CEASE TO BE
JOHN KEATS

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;--then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

The repetition of the word ‘when’ has the effect of making the reader want to read on to discover the answer to what happens ‘then’, while the repetition of ‘before’ increases this sense of tension. The use of ‘never’ seems to lead the reader towards expecting the worst, and the mood is gradually blackened until at the end there is a feeling of desolation and fatalism.

In the octave the poet is reflecting on the transience of life; how his talents may be prematurely stilled, and how he may never experience the true nature of love or ‘high romance’. This inward reflection in the octave turns, in the sestet, to an outward statement directed at his love (‘fair creature of an hour’) expressing fear of love’s loss. The turn between the octave and the sestet ‘And when I feel..’ signals to the reader that the questions asked in the octave are about to be answered. Finally, the with the words ‘then on the shore’, the poet tells us how he comes to terms with whatever fate holds for him.

The rhyming of ‘brain’ and ‘grain’ emphasise the poet’s talents while, in the second quatrain, ‘face’ and ‘trace’ emphasise the poet’s skill at capturing nature’s beauty. The tone of the third quatrain is downbeat with the sadder sounds of ‘hour’, ‘power’, ‘more’, and ‘shore’.
The poet’s message in the final couplet seems to be that he will put no great store by transient fame or shallow love, and there is an acceptance of whatever fate will bring, with the emphasis on thought and solitude.

Now, the above is what I wrote for my Open Univerity analysis of this poem by Keats but what, dear reader, do I really feel? Well, you've got think, haven't yer, that the 'fair creature of an hour' - 's a hooker i'n'it. I mean stands to reason du'n'it! I know short time usually means thirty minutes but after he was waxing lyrical for a while it prob'ly took up the hour. She was prob'ly right browned off, prob'ly she was thinking 'I hope I shall never see thee more. You're doing me out of my bizness, you are. It's so brisk these days if I had anuvver pair of legs I 'd open a branch in Peckham', and you're lying back there going on about the faery power. I knew you was a poof straight off'. All poets are, stands to reason'.
Am I right, or am I right!

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

An Allegory of the Vanities of Human Life

This is 'An Allegory of the Vanities of Human Life' by Harmen Steenwyck 1621. As part of my OU course I have to write a descriptive account of this. Now as a self-styled 'bloke' I have almost never visited an art gallery and rarely on purpose so; how about this then:-

At 39.2 cm high by 50.7 cm across the objects in the picture would be rendered slightly less than life size and, allowing for viewpoint and perspective, the proportions would appear realistic. The perspective gives us an angle of vision low down, at just above the height of the table, as if the viewer is seated at a slight distance from the table contemplating the objects.

The objects are bundled together to the right of the frame, except the shell which seems to balance precariously on the left front edge of the table. The skull is prominent at the front of the composition, two thirds from the left and two thirds from the top. This placing makes the viewer focus on the skull, and then the eye drifts outwards taking in the other objects.

The picture is lit from above and to the left, as if from a high window. The light comes down in a shaft rather in the nature of a spotlight, highlighting the objects and leaving the rest of the picture dark. The room and background are bare and sparse, almost cell-like. The painter is saying ‘Look at these things. What do you see?’

The tonal range is wide, giving the objects a realistic and dramatic aspect. The colour range is mostly browns and gold, autumnal colours. The pink cloth is a counterpoint, perhaps to remind us of the gaiety of life in contrast to the more serious symbolic imagery.

The objects are: a lute, a shawm, a flute, two books, a dying taper, a shell, a Japanese sword, a chronometer, and a flask. The musical instruments symbolising the pleasures of the senses; the books, learning and knowledge; the sword and shell, wealth; the snuffed-out lamp and the chronometer, the transience of life; the skull, death.

Saturday, October 29, 2005

Ramblings & The Time Traveller's Wife

I'm back. I could rattle on about how pissed off I am with my work but I won't. Suffice it to say that Croatia is a nice place to be as long as you don't expect anyone, in the work environment, to be organised. There are very many first class engineers, technicians etc. in this country but there seems not to be the requisite number of good project managers, at least not around the job I am involved in.

But (Can you start a paragraph with 'But'?) I have decided that this blog will have nothing to do with my work, rather it will be somewhere I can come to get away from work. So, what to write about? Well the obvious thing to reflect on just now is how badly I am prepared for the first Tutor Marked Assessment which I will have to submit to the Open University. This is solely because of my work (sorry) commitments and I am seriously questioning whether I have bitten off more than I can chew. On the other hand I can hang in and force myself to get it done and hope for the best. We'll see.

But books! Now there's another thing. I have just finished reading The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. I can't praise this book highly enough. I am not an enthusiast of science fiction or fantasy. I like stories which are strongly character driven but also rooted in the real world. I can thus identify with and/or empathise with the people in the story. This was something different. A perfectly laid out narrative told in the first person by the two central characters, Henry the librarian time-traveller and Clare, who he meets when she is six years old and he has travelled back in time from a point in the future when he is already married to her. When he meets her in real time, when Clare is twenty and he is twenty eight, he has not yet travelled back to her childhood so he does not recognise her. She, however, recognises him and the story of their relationship develops from this point. The time travel aspects are so logically laid out that you are never confused and therefore you can concentrate on the lives and relationships of the central characters. I will quote one reviewer from the Amazon.com website

".... the story is written so well, so touching, so heart-breaking at parts, so loving. Reading this novel was such a joy for all the emotions it made me feel. Most books published nowadays just do not do that to me. This one made me feel. And it was such a great reading experience. What all great books are made of. Wonderful."

I could not agree more. Look forward to Ms. Niffenegger's next book with keen anticipation. If her creative talents are not all expended by this tour de force then we should be in for another treat.

Thursday, October 20, 2005

I'm going to be away fora while

Look Guys,
I'm going to be away for the next seven or eight days on business. Check back with me from the ist Nov. and I'll be glad to update you.
Best regds.
West Coaster.

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

CHICK LIT. PART - 2

This is too early in the morning for any erudition. I'm just out of bed and sitting here in my shorts without the benefit of a bath or a shave. Anyway, I just wanted to clarify for Lingo Slinger who said "I always though Chick-Lit was more lighthearted reading that was primarily of interest to a female audience... "

That's the thing about labels. Rachel's Holiday is marketed for the Chick Lit./Young Female audience with its frivolous cover illustration, and the quote from the Sunday Times review prominent on the front "A gloriously funny book". And I think it's fair to say that Marian Keyes would not herself spurn the Chick Lit label, after all it helps to sell the book. It is a funny book. There are laugh out loud moments in it and the quirkiness of the Irish dialogue is a constant entertainment throughout. And, of course, there are a lot of girlish references to boyfriends, hair, make-up, and clothes which makes it very accessible to a certain age and gender. That does not detract a whit from its central virtue. It's a good story. And that is important to me, and the fact that I am a fifty six year old man is neither here nor there. Except that the marketing types would exclude me from this book by deflecting my glance on the bookshop shelves toward a more 'manly' or 'serious' cover illustration, and that is a disservice to me and to the writer.

All this serves to underline that you can't judge a book by its cover, and we should all be wary of marketing.

Monday, October 17, 2005

IS CHICK-LIT ANY GOOD?

I want to say a little about what I'm reading just now. My friend The Writer gave me, some time ago, Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes. It tells the story of Rachel, a Dublin girl working in New York and on a downward spiral of addiction, hitting rock bottom and being compelled by forces outside of her own control to return to Ireland and enter a rehabilitation clinic.

I was gripped by this story. I thought it was so well executed and the characters, especially that of Rachel the central character, so well drawn. The story is written in the first person from Rachel's viewpoint and follows her from her admission to the residential clinic near Dublin, through to her release and redemption. There are flashbacks to her life in New York and visits in the clinic from her friends and family who are observed through Rachel's eyes as they tell another side of the story to that which Rachel is portraying to the reader. Needless to say Rachel is in complete denial about the seriousness of her condition and the reader is drawn skillfully on to her side, and is in a sense, complicit in her denial, for some way into the narrative. The author's skill is in gradually making us aware how wrong Rachel is, and this is revealed by degrees as various members of her family and her friends from New York are brought to confront her in the clinic. The author cleverly makes the reader become aware of the true nature of Rachel's drug and alcohol dependency at the same pace as Rachel herself becomes aware. There is no feeling of inevitably about the ending as Rachel faces various crises after her release from the clinic and the final chapter brings a satisfying conclusion.

The narrative cascades forward carrying the reader on a journey in turns swift and then more leisurely. The sheer bulk of the paperback at 625 pages makes one ask, before opening it, if it is not a deal too long. After one is drawn into the story however one is sorry when the journey finally ends.

This is so-called Chick Lit. I think that this appelation diminishes this book. A serious subject is treated with humour and with seriousness. Above all it is a good story. I don't suppose many people would label it as "literature" but that, to me, is irrelevent. Ultimately what most people, certainly what I want, is a good read with characters who are well drawn and who the reader will want to follow to see 'what happens next?'. This they will get in spades from Rachel's Holiday.

I have since read four other novels by Marian Keyes; Angels, Last Chance Saloon, Sushi For Beginners, and The Other Side Of The Story. While I enjoyed them all, I do not think that any of them are a patch on Rachel's Holiday.

Sunday, October 16, 2005

A BAD MAN RAN AWAY – eTMA 01 - Part 1 – 9/6/05

This was a presented for my Start Writing Fiction course in the summer. I think the tutor liked this. This came as a surprise to me as I did not think it very strong. She said it was .. well I'll leave you to judge if you like it.

I saw the whole thing, Mum. I saw that man. I’ve seen him before. He’s just ordinary and fat and he looks a bit simple, and he’s got greasy hair. I don’t like him. He’s always coming round here in his car and Sandra says we’re to keep out of his way because he’s not nice. I saw his car coming round the corner. It’s a big red car and he’s got these big furry dice that dangle in the front window. You always see those furry dice on rotten old cars with rust all over them don’t you. When I grow up my car is going to be nice and shiny and white. I like white cars with that roof that comes down. And then this man’s car stopped in front of Mr. Singh’s shop. He’s nice Mr. Singh isn’t he and he looks funny with his big hairy beard and kind of popping eyes and he’s always shouting except when Mrs. Singh is in the shop and he’s dead quiet then and Mrs. Singh is shouting at him, but they’re always nice to me, and they always give me a sweet when I go in with you Mum, don’t they Mum. And then this man got out of his car and went in to Mr. Singh’s and I don’t know what happened then because I was too far away and Sandra came up and showed me her new trainers that she had just got that have got these sparkly lights in them when you walk. I don’t like them but Sandra was going – Oh aren’t they lovely – I think she was trying to make me jealous. And that’s when this man came running out of Mr. Singh’s and he had blood all over him and he tried to get into his car and it looked like he had forgotten he had locked it and he couldn’t find his key and then he ran across the street and then Mr. Singh came out of his shop and he was holding a cricket bat and he couldn’t see this man ‘cos he was running past me and Sandra and he was saying that bad word and calling Mr. Singh a paki and even I know Mr. Singh’s not from Pakistan so he really must be simple. Then this policeman came up and a big crowd gathered around Mr. Singh’s shop and I couldn’t see because there was too many people and Sandra and me went over and I heard somebody say – Is she all right? and then the ambulance came and the people stood back to let them in the shop and that’s when I saw Mrs. Singh and she was lying on the floor and the ambulance men were kneeling beside her and they had put this oxygen thing on her and somebody said she’d had a heart attack and now she’s dead but she can’t be dead because then Mr. Singh will have nobody to look after him. So she’s not dead is she Mum… Mum?

Saturday, October 15, 2005

A Night In

It's a quiet night for me tonight. Last night was just too much; too much hilarity, too much jollification and too much drink. It started off as a civilised dinner at the Masline restaraunt off Marmontove with English John and The Writer, after which we de-camped to Kristijan's caffe-bar for a gargle. We've been in the habit of going there on a Friday night for a while and we recently met The Ollie there, so it was not a surprise to meet him again last night. It was a very pleasant evening with much friendly banter. I learned a new card game called Shithead and, coincidentally, my head felt like shit this morning, so I wonder if it had anything to do with playing cards.

I have spent the afternoon in trying to apply myself to Block 1 of An Introduction To The Humanities. I'm late into this and trying to catch up is difficult. Today I was reading about form and space in painting and perspective. I did find it somewhat interesting but I'll need to take it up again tonight in bed just to try and get more of it out of the way. This part I'm doing now should have been completed two weeks ago.

My studies were interspersed with visits to the kitchen while I made an enormous pot of soup. I like to make a lot and I can live off soup for dinner for the next week or so. Then I also had to sit mindlessly in front of the telly from time to time. My concentration span needs to improve if I'm going to achieve anything with the OU. I'm also learning a little more about blogging which is evidenced by the appearance of hot links on the page. I feel rather proud of myself.

There's a game of football planned for tomorrow. Dare I try it? It might be flirting with a coronary. We'll see.

Thursday, October 13, 2005

An Introduction To The Humanities

This could be an introduction to the humanities of Split. That's a bit gauche, n'est pas? (Pretentious! Moi!). What I mean is that perhaps I could say a little of the characters I know in this town, just to take my mind off the intellectual maunderings of the OU course presenters.

For example -
"It is not simply illusion that the spectator assents to or agrees to entertain. It is not just the apparent transformation of the sheet of paper into a space with a sphere in it that holds our attention in such pictures as Russell's. Rather what is intriguing is the curiously paradoxical experience of seeing the paper as both literally flat and and imaginitively fathomless."

I mean, for fuck's sake! This is like Father Ted trying to explain perspective to Dougal by holding up a wee toy cow and saying 'very small' and pointing to real cows out the caravan window and saying 'far away'!

So, what's it like living in Dalmatia? I'm glad you asked. In the summer it's fine. The sun shines most of the time. The temperature is pleasant and it's only in late July through to late August that the humidity get's a bit uncomfortable. A few of my aquaintances congregate at the Backpacker Cafe and while the idle hours away. I might have gone to the flicks with them tonight but I decided to stay in and study. Now I'm doing this. I started to write about the people I have come to know here, the patrons of the Backpacker Cafe, but it was too hard-edged and I did not want to hurt anyone's feelings. Suffice it to say their is a disparate group of ex-pats who have made their home here, some permanently, some less so. They span the spectrum from writers (well one writer) to actors (okay one ex actor) to property speculators (a slack handful including the ex actor) to others who are just taking time out of normal life. As this is a kind of crossroads for people going into or coming out of Eastern Europe or touring south Dalmatia then there is a regular tide of humanity washing through all summer, so it's always vibrant and interesting. Once summer passes it's so much quieter. I hated last winter here at first. I arrived in February and it was truly miserable but, once I found a friendly pub it wasn't so bad, and then spring was cancelled and we leapt straight into summer in mid-May and life was good.

I'll see you later.

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Thanks to 'Anonymous'

Well now, here's a pleasant surprise. I've got an audience; at least, an audience of one! 'Anonymous' kindly commented that I've got a great blog here and he's (I say he - could be she) going to bookmark me. Well stripe me pink! There I was in a hotel room in Palermo thinking - you know you should be keeping up this blog a bit more. And also admitting that I'm not producing the goods, creatively speaking, which is true and mostly due to the work and business life being a bit hectic at the moment. Anyways I looked at the blog to remind myself what I should be doing about it and, blow me down, there's a twinkling little '1' at the comments button. And what a pleasant surprise it was too. So, if a person is good enough to bookmark me then I should be good enough to give them something to look at - isn't it?

The thing is, and here come the excuses. I'm back in Dalmatia from Palermo and waiting for me when I got to the office was a large courier package containing all the good stuff from the Open University for my next project, viz: Level 1 'An Introduction to The Humanities'. The faint hope is that this might be the first step towards a degree, but that's too far down the road to get hung up about. Suffice it to say that with studying for the course and working full time it might be a bit of a stretch to promise to write creatively enough to satisfy the hopes of anyone who liked the foregoing posts. Which is just a cop-out really, isn't it. I know I should be at least keeping a journal. And there is no better place to keep it than here. But the question is begged, whenever I consider doing a journal on the blog; how personal can it be? Let's see what we can do. The least I can do is post the progress of my OU studies and this may interest those engaged in similar stuff to make encouraging remarks.

I did complete the 'Start Writing Fiction' short course and gained a pass mark and 10 academic points. I submitted 'The Right Thing' for my final Tutor-marked Assessment and, while it was successful enough, the tutor's comments made it clear that she did not feel it was a very strong story. There was a lack of tension, for example. It was clear from the beginning that the adoption would go ahead. Everybody liked each other, etc. etc. It was fair comment really and I took it on board.

So, at the moment I'm just back from the Palermo trip; There's a pile of stuff to catch up on at work, and another pile of stuff to catch up on from the OU. So I'd better get my finger out. And if you're wondering what Palermo was like, well I'll tell you. Boring, and littered with dog-shit, but don't let me put you off if you're intending to visit. There is a very good restaurant called the Lord Green and the wine was superb, so it wasn't all bad. I'm glad to be back in Dalmatia though.

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

The Right Thing

“But why do we have to change anything?” Jack’s anxious tone resounded across the kitchen. “We’ve already got the perfect boy.”
Helen looked at him quietly. She understood how he felt but she knew in her heart that this was the right thing. She did not want Tom to be an only child. He was in danger of becoming hopelessly spoiled as it was.
“He’d love a little brother or sister, you know he would.”
Jack had to admit this was so. Tom had once or twice talked about it, and he knew also that his little mind was very family focused. Tom knew he was adopted, although at four years old his concept of adoption was somewhat vague. He accepted that that was the way of things and quite cheerfully told his friends, and any adults who were around, that he was adopted and did not come out of his mummy’s tummy like other children.
“Anyway” Helen cut into Jack’s thoughts, “Elspeth says she has to talk to you on your own and, if you agree, then we go through the process again, although it should be quicker this time. Because we never actually removed ourselves from the prospective adopters list, we’re pre-approved, as it were.”
“Okay, I’ll phone her and at least listen.”
Helen came over and put her arms around him. He looked down and kissed her on the nose. He could see that she was quietly determined but, as far as he was concerned, they would do nothing to upset Tom’s little world. Whatever happened, Tom’s happiness was the first priority.

--------------oo00oo----------------

“Are you nervous?” Elspeth looked over at Jack as she manoeuvred the small Citroen across the Kingston Bridge towards Glasgow’s northern suburbs.
“What?” Said Jack. “No, just deep in thought” He turned round and smiled at Helen in the back seat. She had not heard the exchange, and smiled back absently, her thoughts on the meeting ahead.
Jack had eventually got around to phoning Elspeth. When they met at her office he was still somewhat resistant. His reluctance somehow dissipated once he started trying to explain himself to Elspeth. He could see Helen’s point of view and his own views seemed somehow selfish when exposed to scrutiny. So here they were, four months on and on their way to meet Kate, the mother of a new-born baby boy.
“Well, how do you feel about meeting the birth mum?” Asked Elspeth.
Jack had to think about this before replying. “I’m not nervous, perhaps a little apprehensive. What about you, love?”
“I am a bit. I just hope she likes us. It’s a bit strange this ...”
Elspeth looked into the rear-view mirror to speak to Helen. “I know. It’s a new culture of openness now. But don’t worry, she likes you already which is why she picked you. It came down to you and that other couple, and I think the fact that you had Tom swung it in your favour. At least that’s what Harriet told me. She’ll be there with Kate, and you’ve got me to keep you company.”
Jack was glad Elspeth was with them. They both liked her and, as she was the social worker who had been with them through Tom’s adoption, they had gotten to know her pretty well.
Soon they pulled into the car park of a suburban lounge bar. There were few other cars and, as they made their way inside, it looked as if they were the only customers.

As they crossed the threshold from the bright afternoon daylight they hesitated and, as their eyes became adjusted to the gloom they saw a tall, middle aged woman approaching them.
“Elspeth, you found it then.” The woman turned to Jack and Helen. “Hello, I’m Harriet. I’m Kate’s social worker. She’s over there, and she’s dying to meet you both”
They followed Harriet to a table in a quiet corner of the lounge. A small fair haired woman, perhaps in her middle thirties, rose from her seat as they approached.
“Kate, this is Jack and Helen. And behind them is Elspeth.”
There followed a confusion of handshaking and hellos and nice to meet yous which started to sound slightly ludicrous. Kate and Helen simultaneously burst out laughing.
As they sat down Jack was pleased to see Helen taking a seat next to Kate. He could see that behind her smile Kate was nervous, and she looked exhausted. He remembered that it was now only a month since she had given birth. The baby had been in a foster home almost all of that time. Seeming to read his thoughts Helen asked, “How are you now, since ….”
“Och, I’m fine. It was okay.” She looked at Helen and for an instant Jack thought she was going to break down. She began to fumble with a paper handkerchief in her lap. When she looked up there was a determined set to her chin.
“I really wanted to meet you. I wanted to be sure.”

Jack and Helen had been given some basic information on Kate’s circumstances. They knew that the baby’s father was also the father of her three older children. They also knew that he was again absent from her life, as he had been until approximately a year ago. She seemed to Jack, despite her present circumstances, to have an inner strength. There was something about the way she held herself that would not allow pity.
“Let me go and order us some coffee.” Elspeth interjected.
As she left Harriet leaned across to Helen. “Did you bring any pictures with you?”
“Oh, yes. They’re in my bag.” Helen reached in to her handbag and brought out a sheaf of photographs in a Supasnaps envelope. She leafed through them and handed one to Kate. “This is his big brother.”
This took Jack by surprise but the natural way she said it, and the brief acknowledging smile from Kate, told him that it was the right thing.
Kate looked at the picture closely. It showed Tom on the beach at Santa Ponsa two months before. He was grinning cheesily at the camera and clasping a beach ball to himself. His dark hair was covered by a peaked cap with his name and a number on the scoop.
“He got lost once when he wandered away from the pool.” Helen explained. “So Jack wrote his name, and our mobile number, on the scoop of his cap.”
Kate smiled across at Jack. “You’re a careful dad.”
Kate reached into her own bag and took out a similar package of snaps of her older children. They were happy scenes from a caravan holiday in North Berwick.
“Doesn’t your middle one look a bit like Jack.” Said Helen.
“Oh, he does a bit, doesn’t he; around the nose.”
Poor bugger, Jack thought, if he’s got my nose.
The women seemed to have taken over and he was content to leave it to them.
At last the conversation began to stall. Kate became quiet and still and Harriet reached across to her and held her hand.
“Are you alright, love?” Harriet asked.
“Don’t worry about me, I’m fine”

Harriet and Elspeth briefly outlined the next steps. The papers were already being prepared for presentation to the courts, and the adoption would become official in about six months time. Up to and including the court hearing the process could be reversed if Kate changed her mind. Jack saw the worried look in Helen’s face. So did Kate. She looked directly at Helen.
“I’m not going to change my mind. I’m doing the right thing. I know that now.”
Jack wondered at the reserves of strength in this small woman. He would never know the desperation that had brought her to this situation.
“I’ll never turn him from my door.” She said.
The phrase seemed odd and out of place, but he knew what she meant. She wanted to give this boy a different life, a better life than she thought she could offer. She wanted to protect him and the only way she could do that was to give him up to strangers, but she would always be there. She would always be his mother.
They stood to go and moved towards the door. Outside the late afternoon was turning to dusk.
Jack stood opposite Kate and she held out her hand towards him. Jack instinctively put his arms around her in a hug. He wanted to tell her it would be all right. That, whatever happened to her, her son would be safe with them. He wanted to tell her all the reassuring things that she wanted to hear and he could not find the words.
“You did a great thing.” He said.
He let her go and Kate and Helen hugged in farewell. They turned away and walked towards Elspeth’s car. As they drove away they could see Kate’s small figure walking towards Harriet’s car.
Jack looked over at Helen. He took her hand in his.
“You’re right.” He said. “You’re always right.”

Thursday, June 23, 2005

EXCERCISE IN WRITING

The idea here is that you have to construct a story around these phrases. I guess it is practice in being able to to something to order rather than just working from your own imagination.

  • Sarah threw the book out of the window.
  • On Friday it was all over.
  • For years now she had thought of doing this.
  • They had ham and eggs for lunch again.
  • Bravery, she knew, was often underrated.
  • ‘If you even think it, I’ll ….’
  • The doorbell rang.
  • ‘You’re so beautiful …..’
  • It was early afternoon.
  • She recalled a particular phrase her mother had once said.
  • Beyond the garden wall there was a school.
  • Her dress was the colour of wet slates.
  • The mirror was set in a gold frame, and she remembered the day he had bought it for her.

Here is the result of my efforts:-

A NEW START – By West Coaster

She had talked it over with her mother on Wednesday. On Friday it was all over.
Before he arrived she looked at herself in the hall mirror. Her dress was the colour of wet slates. The drab colour matched her mood. The mirror was set in a gold frame, and she remembered the day he had bought it for her.
What a tosser, she thought. Him and his stupid gifts. Ludicrous furniture and books on self improvement.

It was early afternoon. The doorbell rang. She opened it.
“Hello Simon, just go through to the kitchen.”
He stepped in and, rather awkwardly, thrust a brown paper package into her hand. “It’s a little present for you.” Without looking at it she laid it down on the table in front of the mirror.
She followed him into the kitchen. “I thought you were going to eat with your parents.”
“I was.” He said. “But they just won’t cut down on their cholesterol. They had ham and eggs for lunch again.”
She pictured him, hectoring his ageing parents about their diet.

“You’re so beautiful, that colour suits you.” He gazed at her with large bovine eyes.
She looked out of the kitchen window at the garden as she mixed a salad for him. At least she could give the condemned man his last meal. Beyond the garden wall there was a school.
His van was parked in the playground. The sign on it’s side read ‘Simons Objects Darts’. The man was a cretin.
He seemed to read her thoughts.
“Please don’t leave me.” He said. “If you even think it I’ll probably kill myself.”
“Oh really Simon. Don’t be so wet, and stop snivelling. It’s over, I’m moving on”. She felt now a feeling of liberation. She recalled a particular phrase her mother had once said.
“Never get involved with a man unless he looks like he’s good for least one orgasm a day”.

She led Simon back to the front hall. There was just one more thing. Bravery, she knew, was often underrated. For years now she had thought of doing this.
“Goodbye, Simon, and here”. She hefted the heavy gilt framed mirror from the wall and gave it to him.
“Goodbye Sarah”. He tottered unsteadily down the path.
Sarah absently picked up the package that Simon had left and went back to the kitchen. She sat in front of the open window enjoying the afternoon breeze. She unwrapped the package, it was a book, its peremptory title shouted from the cover. ‘Start Writing Fiction!’ What a load of old bollocks, she thought. Sarah threw the book out of the window.

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

THE PERFECT HOUSE

That story, The Big Easy, was going nowhere. I am engaged now in a project to write a story based on pre-written lines. I am finding this difficult. I had an idea to write it as if the story was about writing the story. It idea seemed good in my head but I could not bring it out. Meanwhile I will post the following:


“Oh Jim, it’s perfect. Look at that view, I love it. I’ve always wanted a view of the river but I never thought we could afford it. You are so clever, I’m so lucky to have you for my husband. I’ve just met the downstairs neighbour. She’s so glamorous but she seems nice all the same. She’s coming up now with the key to the roof terrace. Oh that’s the bell, I’ll get it.”

“Jim, this is……”

“Hello Scarlet, I thought you were in New York”

“Hello Jim. I was for a while, after we …..”

“Laura. I’m sorry darling; I’d like you to meet Scarlet, my ex-fiancée.”

Friday, June 17, 2005

Big Easy

I don't know where this is going. I would like to develop a short story but all I have is this atmosphere. I know this bar. It is there on the South Side of Houston. So the easy part was describing it. What happens next?

It was a big room. The waitresses’ arms and legs were decorated with tattooed fantasies and they wore skirts just concealing enough so you had to guess the end of the story. . It was called the ‘Big Easy’ and it lay just outside the Loop on the south side of Houston. The name suggested New Orleans but there was nothing of the frayed grandeur of that city around this section of Houston, it was just frayed. The building was almost a cube, but somewhat wider and deeper than it was high. It wouldn’t have taken an architect to design it, just a builder with a square and a plum line. On the left as you entered the place were three pool tables with a couple of raised benches against the wall behind them, for spectators or players between games. On the right was the stage, and just in front of that a wooden dance floor maybe big enough for about ten jiving couples. There were tables arranged between the dance floor and the bar at the far end of the room opposite to the entrance. Here and there around the room an occasional neon beer sign glowed tastefully, otherwise the walls were decorated with old posters featuring various blues artistes who had passed through. Behind the bar a clutter of liquor and wine bottles sat below a gantry with two rows of optics. Next to the optics a row of beer taps was arranged above a grubby looking stainless steel sink. All in all it looked better in the dark.

I had been coming here once or twice a week for just over three months now, and I was becoming a familiar face to the waitresses, and occasionally I got a friendly nod from one or other of the regulars at the pool tables. It was dowdy but I liked it, mostly because it was a relaxed kind of place and the crowd was neither one thing nor the other, just a mix. Young and old, rich and poor, black and white, and everything in between; middle-aged Harley riders and well pressed young oil traders, labourers and tool pushers, everybody seemed to fit right in. And the music was good, which was why I had come in the first place.

The band on stage now was blowing out Elmore James’ ‘Dust My Broom’. The lead guitarist was a white boy with long, blonde hair. Behind him the rhythm guitarist was about thirty with the look of an Irishman about him. The drummer was a pale skinned black man of indeterminate age, with a cigarette dangling from his lips, and the bassist was a stooped, elderly, black man, so immobile you had to look closely to make sure his fingers were moving on the strings. The dance floor was crowded and the people at the bar, and sitting at the tables, were relishing the kid’s performance. I watched him for while and turned back to the bar to pick up my beer. As I turned ……

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

CROATIAN INTERLUDE

She liked a gargle. She had just told me this, about how she was the wild child in the family, how her mum always worried about her and here she was thirty five years old and still not married and all her friends had settled down and what was going to become of her. I looked at her across the table of the slightly fancy restaurant I had taken her to. Her returned gaze was open and direct. We had just met less than an hour ago on the riva, as the locals called the café bar promenade. I had noticed her earlier in the day when she had walked by among the crowd. She was medium height with a generous figure and her dark hair was a wild tangle of long curls. I noted a strong pair of calves and sandalled feet below a long dark blue skirt. She disappeared in the late afternoon throng and I resumed my people watching.
Then later, on another part of the riva, I saw her again, sitting alone at a table reading a paperback. I couldn’t quite make out the book but I guessed it was English and I wondered if she was also, or an Australian perhaps hitching around Europe. By this time the sun was setting over the hill beyond the harbour, although there was still a comforting warmth rising from the old stones. I debated with myself as to whether I should try and approach her. I was alone in the town and she looked like she would be pleasant company. I wasn’t exactly unattached, neither was I thinking about contriving a pick-up, but it would be a nice change to have someone to talk to.

I sat at the table next to her and tried to observe her without being too obvious. The book lay on the table and I could see it was a John Grisham. As I looked over I noticed that she was watching me quite openly with an amused smile on her face.
- I’m sorry, I said. – Somehow feeling stupid and awkward. - Are you English?
- No, she said, still smiling. I’m Irish. Where are you from?
- Scotland, but I’m working here for a while.
I rose from my seat and moved over to her table.
- Would you mind if I joined you, I said. Sometimes you get desparate for a yarn.
She smiled warmly.
- That’s what I was thinking too.
Her name was Maeve and she was from Cork. She was a social worker, working with handicapped adults. This was her first holiday in a couple of years and she had decided to start the first week on her own then she would meet up with her friends down in Dubrovnik later.

Our conversation drifted around for a while and then coasted to a stop. I wanted to stay with her but I wasn’t sure if she was of the same mind.
- Look , I said. – Have you eaten? Only, there’s a nice fish restaurant just up the hill there and I’m usually eating on my own, so…
She picked up her book and placed it in a bag, smiled at me and said
- Let’s go then.

Now here we were in the restaurant. The food was as good as I had told her. We had shared a bottle of wine and I felt easy in her company.
I studied her face for a while as the conversation lulled. She held my gaze with greenish-brown eyes behind which I could sense a warmth.
- What are you doing tomorrow? She asked.
I thought for a while about what exactly I had to do the next day. There was a busy work schedule, I had to phone home and find out how our youngest had got on at school.
I noticed, as I looked at her, a small mole on her left cheek just outboard of her lips. As she smiled the mole sank into a dimple.
- I don’t know, I said. What would you like to do?

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

REDUNDANT

Harry sat on a low stool beside his workbench. His toolbox was open in front of him and he was smoking the last cigarette of his last day as a patternmaker. . It was late afternoon and a beam of sunlight shafted through the high window at the end of the workshop, highlighting the dust that always hung in the air. His flat cap was pushed back on his head and he was wearing bib overalls with a tartan working shirt below. His elbows rested on his knees and his sleeves were rolled up. The muscles of his forearms arms stood out, tight and hard.

He was a small man, perhaps five foot six inches tall, lightly built and his grey flecked hair was short and neat. He was forty five years old and he was being made redundant. Patternmakers working in wood were a thing of the past now and the company was closing the pattern shop and the moulding shop. It was cheaper to buy in parts from the Far East than to maintain out workshops with out of date methods. He knew this was true but it made him sick all the same. He looked up at his workmates, tidying up their benches and packing their own tools away. There were only four patternmakers left now, soon to be none. He remembered when this shop had nearly thirty tradesman and half a dozen apprentices. Harry could put a name on every empty bench.

He breathed in through his nose and he noticed now, although he never normally did, the ever present smell of soft pinewood, resin, and glue. He remembered when he started here as a storeboy in nineteen fifty, almost exactly thirty years ago. And he thought of all the men he had worked with over the years, craftsmen, who had taken him under their wing when he was a young apprentice and showed him how to do things right. Some of the tools in the box in front of him were handed down from those old guys, lovely objects of wood, brass, and steel which would never wear out as long as they were cared for.

Harry looked down at his hands. In his right hand was his cigarette and the first two fingers were stained brown with nicotine. He turned his hands over and looked at his palms, the skin hard and calloused from years of chiselling and carving. He had loved this work, this craft, and the company of his workmates, and now he wondered how he would feel on Monday when he had no work to go to.

Monday, June 13, 2005

TIME OUT OF TIME
A Short Story by West Coaster

Rory MacIntyre walked quickly through the narrow lanes. It was June and the monsoon season was at its height. It was nearly midnight and, although it was not raining at the moment, the cobbles were wet and slick underfoot. It was almost completely dark but occasionally the moon shone between dark, racing, clouds. In her note Miyoko had said she would meet him at the Spectacle Bridge and, as he turned the last corner, he saw her there. She was wearing a dark cloak over her kimono and, although her face was half hidden by the hood of the cloak, he knew it was her. Junko, her maid, was standing in a nearby shadowed doorway discreetly awaiting her mistress’ bidding. Miyoko heard his heavy tread on the cobbles and looked up at him as he approached.

“Miyoko-chan”, he said, “you are here. Are you sure this is not too public?”
Miyoko Watanabe, daughter of the provincial governor of western Japan, looked into Rory’s eyes and smiled.
“Do not worry Rory-san, another girl meeting her lover at midnight on the Spectacle Bridge will not arouse too much interest.”
They stood close to each other, not touching. Rory wanted with all his heart to hold her tightly to him but he knew that she would not allow it.
“They are calling me back to Tokyo”, he said. “And then I’m on the next available ship to England.”
“I know”, she said. “My father told me.”
“What will happen with you?” He asked.
“I am to go to Kyoto to live with my aunt until this scandal, as my father calls it, has blown over.”
“Does your father know you are here?”
“I don’t know Rory-san, and I don’t care. I only know I had to see you again.”
Rory saw that she was crying. He made to embrace her but she drew back and turned her head away from him. He waited, and in a moment she turned back , her face composed.

Rory recalled the first time that he saw her at the consulate reception. It was April 1939 and in Europe there was nervous talk of war. Rory’s father, Air Marshal ‘Jock’ MacIntyre, had delayed his retirement in order to strengthen the RAF’s strategic planning department at the War Office. In Japan, for now at least, there was a patina of normality overlying diplomatic relations with Britain, and the consul was hosting this gathering to introduce the new attache for trade. Rory, the new consular assistant, was on official duty.

He remembered looking across the crowded room at the pretty girl in her formal kimono. She was standing alone on the balcony looking out at the old port city. Her face was, he thought, like the most delicate flower and, when he had wangled an introduction, her smile, so unlike other young Japanese women that he had met, was open and direct. She was twenty two years old and the only child of the most powerful man in the western province. Her father, Yasuo Watanabe, was an industrialist, a politician, and an aristocrat. He also saw himself as a moderniser and he had sent his daughter to the United States to complete her education. Miyoko had studied art history in New York. Rory was delighted to meet a young woman who was near to his own age and who also spoke perfect English. Miyoko, in turn, was captivated by this handsome, red-haired Scotsman. They spent the rest of that first evening talking, and she laughed readily at his jokes and the way he affectionately mimicked some of the pomposities of his superiors. Rory loved the way Miyoko spoke, and he gently mocked, while she pretended to be offended, her American accent. It seemed as if they could see into each other’s hearts, as if they had always known each other. He confided to her how his father had wanted Rory to follow him into the Royal Air Force but he had resisted, entering the Foreign Service instead. She told him of her dream, to be able to study art in Venice. She did not want, in spite of her parents’ pleadings, to settle down to life as the dutiful Japanese wife. Her father, she wryly explained, blamed her mother for not being firm enough and her mother blamed her father for encouraging these notions in the first place. Rory knew they had to meet again and she, although bound by convention, encouraged him.

They met discreetly at first and then more openly, although there was always the quiet presence in the background of Junko-chan. One night, some two months after they had first met, she told him to meet her at her friend’s house. When Rory arrived he saw that, apart from Junko, they were alone. Miyoko had said that she wanted to make him tea and, knowing that her friend was away, had contrived this private rendezvous. Rory knew they were both being reckless but he also knew that there was something between them which was somehow fated. They kissed for the first time and, as their lips met, the universe was reduced to only them, and at its centre was this kiss. Junko was gone and they were finally, truly, alone. Miyoko took Rory’s hand and led him from the living room to the adjacent tatame room.
“I love you, Miyoko-chan”, he said when they lay together.
He undressed her, always looking into her eyes, his hands worshipping her perfect, pale, smooth skin. She kissed his face and neck then arched forward, pushing herself into him.
“I love you, Rory-san”, she said. “Please don’t stop.”

It couldn’t last, and in their hearts they both knew it, but they kept meeting, with the ever discreet Junko as a kind of chaperone, but always, eventually, managing to be alone.
“We are not living in the real world Rory-san”, she said to him one night.
“This is time out of time Miyoko-chan”, he said, believing that they could live, for now at least, outside of the real world. “No-one can touch us here, and who knows how things will turn out later. Let us just live this now”.

When her father eventually found out about them he was furious. In the present political climate his daughter’s entanglement with this minor diplomat, this gai-jin, could not be tolerated. The consul was summoned, the ambassador in Tokyo informed. Rory was told his career would be finished if he did not follow orders. The word, it seemed, had also reached his father. Events were moving and Rory was being moved with them as surely as if he was on a train.

Now they were here on the Spectacle Bridge, meeting for the last time.
“I love you Miyoko-chan”, he said.
“I love you too, Rory-san, but this love hurts too much”.
She could not help herself and moved closer to him. Rory wrapped his arms around her as she held her face up close to his. The rain was beginning to fall again. Rory knew then, at last, that there was no such thing as time out of time. There is only time and it washes over you like a wave and then it passes. He knew, because some logic told him so, that some day he would not feel this pain, but at this moment he did not want to believe it. He wanted this ache in his heart to be always with him, because it would be all that was left to him of this time and the love of this beautiful girl, and when the ache ceased then so would life itself. He kissed her and the rain mingled with their tears and the roar of the river rose up and surrounded them like the coming storm.
“Goodbye Miyoko-chan. Sayonara”.
“Goodbye Rory-san”.
She kissed him on the lips one last time. He let her go then and she turned quickly and walked away. Rory stood on the Spectacle Bridge and watched her until she was out of sight behind the small wooden buildings of Nagasaki.