Darren Poyzer - Blogs, News and Information and

15th December 2008
It's The End Of The Year As We Know It ...
Time is a four letter word. No sooner are we in the moment we are out of it again, and whether that moment be a cutter or a groover, we move on and ultimately it's imprinted in some ghostly form, to be recycled as future hopes, fears and potential.

Hello, my name is Darren John Poyzer. At this point some people will stop reading and go elsewhere. It's cool ... even the man perceived as the son of god had his detractors. I am this age, that age, seen more often digitally these days than real life, and then in real life judged depending on whether I am binge eating or not, wearing a blue hat or worried brow, passing on knowledge through teaching or throwing an acoustic music party somewhere.

I have this year twice been on the very edge of giving up the very thing that has been my heart and soul work for so long, that being songwriting and live performance. And yet here I am, buzzing on a mix of outrageously fun shows and beautiful acoustic gatherings, and about to record a new batch of songs that have found me reaching once more for melodies and creation, the like I thought I would never reach again. I will be careful though - this time last year I was investing money with friends into studio recordings, and we literally came down like a stick ... the recordings were great, however that whole thing that comes with moving forward, making commitments and all that, I guess was just too much at that time. There's that word again ...

This year it's more of a me thing with the new songs, and I think in hindsight it has to be. There's so much of the personal in the things I write, that whilst there's potential for self-indulgence, this is little more than airing some personal observations, so I ain't being no precious boyo. Oh no ...

Like everyone I will end the year looking back and looking ahead - that's the opporutnity this time in the calendar brings, and whilst this is the cut of my very being for a little while, I do sense in the back of my mind there will be a time when my writing will exorcise my demons and I will indeed stop, and allow the moment to simply be, to rest, to embrace a little closure and who knows, maybe some satisfaction.

Of course outside of music, there's the life that is love and passion, family, friends, the bigger picture, chance and opportunity. I could share so much of that with you here and now, of course I can, and yet I find that whilst typing on a keyboard might be good for the occasional rant, there's nothing like the scent of real flesh and bones to get us right down to the nitty-gritty of human relationships. So, we'll meet again, some time, and let's talk, look each other in the eye and embrace with real feeling, if the moment says this is what we should do.

For now, for always, for Christmas, New Year, and your own time of life,
I wish you the very best with surprises and joy,
Darren :-)

1st November 2008
The Dripping Tap
Just recently I had a dripping tap. As an ex-city boy living in the country, I didn't realise the consequences of this until the sceptic tank started to overflow. What, I thought, if having left the tap to drip for so long without thought or concern, vast armies of revolting shit invaded every aspect of my life and home, and what's more into every waking moment of my poor helpless neighbours?

Looking back at places where I've lived before, I've seen communities slowly being suffocated by the un-relenting dripping tap. It's been the way since I can remember, with just a few rising above it all, some with a helping hand for others, some quite knowingly riding on their shoulders.

I can't help therefore but offer a rancid smile at this whole recession thing. Sure we're all going to have to wind it in and give up on dreams, love, ambitions, desires, expensive essential gadgets and all other reasons for living, but you know as far back as I remember, people I know and love have always had to do this.

Don't tell me that the collapse of any bank brought about dwindling funding for hospitals, the closure of schools and the utter calamity that is the stuttering failure of social services for the sick and disabled. These things were already happening, it's a process that's been ongoing throughout human history ... as one person builds something for the community, another seeks to destroy it and build a monolith to self-gratification.

Whilst we struggle to protect community best practice, greed and legalised crime - or to put it another way, free markets and kick-the-poor capitalism - continue as root causes of hurt and evil. And with many a vile excuse for grotesque wars hidden behind the snarling mask. Seeing the odd monolith to capitalism therefore crumble before our eyes isn't something to mourn, it's actually an opportunity.

Never in my life have I treated the word 'prosperity' with anything but contempt. There are people suffering endlessly, losing loved ones in horrific situations, giving up constantly until eventually they lay down in their own piss, and for as long as one person on this planet suffers that level of indignity, there isn't one country or individual that is rich or properous.

We're all poor, so let's not bemoan a little change in the weather. Maybe just maybe each and every one of us will look to those around us, not the pampered puppets of media moguls. We have long since needed a wake up call ...problem is, maybe the nightmare of the dripping tap has become too real, and maybe just waking up is going to be too little, too late.

Sure there's the fear factor, so hang in there becasue we'll have that thrown in our faces to ensure we fall back into line. Think of America without capitalism - a handful of hungry little babies, their bible carrying mothers wiping their tears on the empires flag as they struggle to climb the capitol steps, or a nation humbled to accept a different and more caring outlook for all hungry babies worldwide, fulfilling it's potential to promote peace and save the planet from it's plunge towards violent destruction?

Wanna talk about recession? Go see the people of the Congo, China, Siberia, Cambodia, Thailand, Brazil, Colmbia, Cuba, Glasgow ...

How's your community then? A little know radio show wants your opinion, so that as usual, the mainstream media can walk right over your sorry arse ... maybe those young people with their hoods up and knives close to hand are trying to tell us something, has anybody been listening?

7th September 2008
Money, Football and The End of The World
It's a weird one football ... try to be the modern man, fair, decent, edging towards socialist principles in as much as you do and think, and yet when the weekend comes and there's a big match on the radar, those old tribal instincts kick in and it's us against them, the enemy, those who must be beaten ...

I've always had my football in my life; as a younger dude I would play at an amateur level, twice capped for Somerset Boys, there's still a good few trophies around in need of a polish, and like many I attended 'trials' only to suffer a nasty groin strain on the first morning. It just wasn't to be, you know the script, and in my last ever Sunday football match, I was sent off whilst playing for a losing pub team in the lowest league, for hopelessness in despair of former glories.

The professional club I followed throughout childhood and still do today - but to a slightly lesser extent - is Manchester City. Ah yes, for those who know the trials and tribulations of 'Carry On City', I've been there through thick and thin, and what a ride it is.

Now before I have a little rant about the political upheavals at the club, I must tell you why exactly it is I choose a team, a flag and a badge for football, when in all other areas of life I am a little less tribal. You see, my Dad supported City, it was a family thing, it was all to do with who we were, where we were from, our culture, our working class, our social gatherings and our sense of identity.

Ask any football fan - except for about 90% of Manchester United supporters (chuckle) - and most will tell you it's about where they're from, their identity, their culture and social status. And why not? - yes I have friends who ridicule the idiocy of football fandom, however it's clear to see that throughout human history, some form of cultural identity is important to each and every one of us.

Football though has it's traumas, and in many well publicised cases over the years, so called football fans have declared violent wars on supporters of other teams, using the geographical boundaries as reasons for pointless 'neanderthal' barbaric hatred of others. I have no common passion with such idiots who support my club or country. And let's put the record straight - 99% of people who follow football are good people, out to enjoy the atmosphere of sporting challenge, without the disgrace.

Indeed I much prefer the level headed, passionate rivalry I enjoy with good people who support other clubs - I respect that their own passion is their own sense of identity, and in the traditional Olympic spirit of peace and goodwill through sport, I do to this day celebrate football, and all sport, providing of course the playing field is level! Now of course, here's the real world. Whilst drugs will never again allow the Olympic Games to be true to their reason for being, money in football has long since done away with the game as a sport.

The sport in football now is currency - silly despicable amounts of money, vast amounts taken out of countries where many live in abject poverty, whilst those who have plundered, find in the English Premier League a safe haven, a place to launder their dirty washing and gain instant stardom, unconditional hero worship and saturated media coverage.

Maybe this isn't true for the entire Premier League - ok, I can probably name two clubs where this is the case - however it is most certainly the way things are going. My personal dilemma, is that one of those two clubs at the forefront of bringing in dirty money, is my own Manchester City. Recently taken over, they've now become the richest club in the world due to an influx of despicable amounts of oil money, and the previous owner remains as honorary President, even though he is Thaksin Shinawatra, a man on trial in his home land Thailand, for fraudulent abuse of power, with a presumed track record of state murder and large scale corruption.

Whilst the spirit of football has been well and truly humbled by money for a good few years now, there remains a good few with their feet on the ground still. Many Manchester City fans remain so and will support the team through thick as we have done through thin, for the same cultural and social reasons. We do not give any loyalty or worship to owners, businessmen and politicians, but merely gather as we always have done to celebrate our game and our team. And I'm sure that many in the game will continue to place political and social pressure on the money men to distribute money through social welfare - this is after all the heart and soul of football culture.

And it's the same throughout - whether you support Hyde United in Conference North, of Real Madrid in La Liga, in the vast majority of cases, it's a cultural thing, a tribal gathering of people saying to each other, this is who I am, this is where I come from, these are my people.

So, here we are - all of a sudden, the great disaster that is Manchester City is suddenly the richest club in the world, looking into the face of almost guaranteed amazing success. The only thing that can stop us now is the end of the world ...

30th July 2008
Some Women and Children Just Want To Watch The World Burn
I've recently realised that if you have a binge personality with traces of bi-polar unpredictability, as I probably have if I were to bother with such labels, people with acute concern might think that due to lack of recent blog, you are dead. Notice for those with a few minutes spare for the muse of a non-celebrity, that I am still alive ... hi :-)

Actually, as it goes, very much so this year, and it's been due to the un-bloggable aspects of working with children with 'special needs' that I have been otherwise enchanted in a creative sense. There's a life saving thing going on, for me as much as anyone I guess. When I think of the times I've been at the bottom of the empty place these last few years, I appear to be motoring along relatively smoothly right now. The kids are great, as honest as ever you will find human beings to be.

Of course with life there's always a few idiots in the road, but you know it helps every now and then if you just move them to one side, so that you can interact with the people who truly care about the bigger picture, without the hypocrisy and the stabbings.

As always there are so many things to comment on, and maybe I'm a bit flooded right now, especially when the word 'politicians' comes along. Take for example Conservative Shadow Home Secretary David Davis - in layman's terms a right winger looking for US sponsors to provide him with a castle in the country - who resigned his post as British MP on an issue of civil liberties.

"Ha ha", said the left wing 'opposition' (a tragedy of language in Brit politics) - taking great joy in this, rounding on his pro-death penalty lobbying.

"Ha ha" said the gallery, "your civil liberties in Iraq have brought the death penalty to over a million people".

As Michael Caine says in that Batman film, "some men just want to watch the world burn". The fact that those men in the real sense are satanic generals, politicians, their bastard sponsors and the empty cold blooded demons they employ, doesn't make life easy, especially when the 'democracy' they dictate is an over-inflated bubble of hot air.

And Michael dear boy, it ain't just men is it ... and bloody flip, it ain't just politicians. Our own generations, our own 'working class', littered with some of the most idiotic, arrogant, bullying, two faced lying bastard world burning fuckwits this planet has had the utter contempt to present us with ...

No wonder the kids have their hoods up. Come on everybody, let's point at the hooded youth on the street corner, fear them and their hapless parents, they're to blame for everything ... now don't we just need an easy target, especially when there's a credit crunch, or whatever our greedy masters are calling it this week.

Anyway, since the advent of My Space and Facebook, and indeed the whole blog thing, it's great that anyone and everyone with a wad of spare cash in their pockets, wads of time on their hands, accomplished literacy and a clear head free of personal emotional strife and distress, can openly take part in the joys of free speech and debate.

Oh and it helps if you have a career in the entertainments industry to promote ... and if you do certain 'social circles'.

Yes my friends it's Blog for this, Blog to that, Blog my giddy Aunt's new movie, her son's manufactured hair cut indie band and his half-sister's career in popcorn television - a time for change in the world, every single human being can now get mad about this and elevate to the grand status of total gobshite. Or voice of the people, depending on just how refined their arse to head ratio is.

I have to confess on this last point, I would like one or two previous blogs of my own to be taken into consideration. And this one ... and the next. Just be thankful I have fuck all to say about fashion trends, pop music, drug taking wasters and emotionless 'reality' people ... how so many can drown in something so shallow is beyond me, truly.

Now you can think that throughout 24 hour news, opinion sharing and politicising, nothing is actually changing. Or maybe it is. Maybe we're in an age when news is so refined and processed - mostly to suit it's advertising potential and political masters - we can be forgiven for thinking that suddenly everything's turned ugly. Maybe because we're on the front line of challenging the attrocities of history, as well as recent times, we feel that the world is a bag of shit that requires we hate someone, or drop out and pay allegiance to Hollywood's whores. Either way, yes that's it, come here, you'll do.

Now consider the 'condensed history' at www.unitedhumanrights.org ... in context, such documentation is very powerful and soul destroying, and yet the writers here have opened the gates of history hell for all to see and react against, to ensure history does not repeat.

"The Armenian Genocide, the first genocide of the 20th Century, occurred when two million Armenians living in Turkey were eliminated from their historic homeland through forced deportations and massacres." Armenian Genocide - 1915-1918

"It began with a simple boycott of Jewish shops and ended in the gas chambers at Auschwitz as Adolf Hitler and his Nazi followers attempted to exterminate the entire Jewish population of Europe." History of the Holocaust - 1938-1945

"Bosnian Muslims were hopelessly outgunned. As the Serbs gained ground, they began to systematically roundup local Muslims in scenes eerily similar to those that had occurred under the Nazis during World War II, including mass shootings, forced repopulation of entire towns, and confinement in make-shift concentration camps for men and boys. The Serbs also terrorized Muslim families into fleeing their villages by using rape as a weapon against women and girls." Bosnia Genocide - 1992-1995

Some say ignorance is bliss, that history needs to be disguised, forgiven and forgotten and we should let that go and teach children to hold hands and sing happy songs about the slaying of demons. Whichever way this goes, I remember the enthusiasm and the spin that came prior to the new millenium, the latest crusades that have fuelled increased terror for people on all sides across the Middle East, and so on, and I have sat there as one of those very children myself in a school where we were blatantly lied to about our world's history.

I was helpless as we were then picked off with all manner of nicely polished careers to support a machine that fought ongoing wars, that continued to take excessive resources leaving millions of victims in it's wake, that left it's own lower classes to fester on little dignity, the stench of celebrity shit and fucked up tv.

Later in life, I was turned around when I met a Muslim chap who denounced terrorism and wanted to play football on my team; when I worked with incredible Jewish teachers whose humility is wise and considered, who's sense of family love is magical; and enchanted when my sister married a Turkish lad, as pleasant a caring and most decent young man as I have ever grown to admire.

It took me to a new place entirely when one of the most incredible and inspirational poets I had the pleasure to study first hand and work alongside, was not a festering rambling white academic from the middle ages, but a young black man in his early 20's who had been fostered as a child out of homeland poverty into an English family, and subsequently grew up a victim of bigotry and racial abuse. That same young man and his poetry I am happy to tell you, is now known to mllions.

I fear however that despite all this human joy and poetry, the last of the oil and the anger of our poorly planet will test even the most humane of beings across all borders. The Day After Tomorrow anyone ... ? It's only a film I know but don't you just love the way the Russian ship is a cold ghostly death trap, inhabited by a hungry murdering pack of dogs, the way the stiff upper lip Brits just roll over and die for the cause with their scotch whisky and their soccer, and the whole point of everything is to save American children and a copy of the Bible, even at World's end. And the overseeing 'voice of God' is good old NASA. Yet again ...

Maybe a mention here is out of context, and I'm nowhere near getting my head around Zimbabwe, but when Mugabe stands up and states that the attrocious habitual human rights abuses of other world leaderships are no different to his own, you do get a sickening feeling that he has a point. If he didn't, or if he was sitting on a gallon or two of oil and worth a few gusts of hot air for the good old democracy bubble, he'd be out on his arse and hung from a tree for all to see on You Tube.

The fact that Mugabe remains as a world leader with support for using hideous violence against democracy, is one of the most condemning of situations of our time. Future generations of school children will despair at this, the sum total of the human race living on the spoils of 2,000 years of civilisation ... providing of course their teachers have it in their curriculum to tell openly the truth when it comes to political history.

If you consider yourself aware of some of the hideous untruths that our manufactured society protects, and you're consistently cut to ribbons by the devastation these cause, think of this: maybe we're just in the same old front line the human race has always been in ... looking for new ways to settle old disputes, whereby one small bunch of fuckers commit attrocity and abuse, another bunch of fuckers realise there's money and ground to be made protecting them, and all hell breaks loose. The soldiers come along, take a good wedge for their captains, build walls, lock gates and children are taught happy songs about the slaying of demons. And oh yeah, someone somewhere places economic sanctions to ensure the greedy thrive behind castle walls and the desperate seek escape through abuse and ultimately when the squeeze gets tighter, attrocity.

How on Earth do we break the cycles of violence; the steps we take to starve someone else's child so that our own may grow plump; the hit first / ask questions later carnage that raw anger brings, when the roots of anger are so often not to be found in the blood of the victims? Just pray to your being that your skin colour or bone structure does not resemble that of the percieved demon.

Billy Joel, a pop star in a jazzy suit who had a certain coolness about him in the same way that Fern Brittain has that come to bed look about her, once said "we didn't start the fire, it was always burning since the world was turning". And you know, he was right ... the two world wars, the aftermath of which we were born into, didn't just happen one day ... the things that manifested there were merely a continuation of ongoing push and shove. Nowadays the castle and the wall are replaced by the nuclear arsenal, chemical and biological suppression and stealth warfare, and of course the economic sanctions remain, the squeeze is on as millions of people continue to live desperate lives ...

I scream inwardly and outwardly for a peaceful world, one that makes the things I do have some meaning beyond my selfish bubble. The songs by which many people here know me, are the echoes of those screams ... the sweat of a live performance, my attempt to cleanse my blood of anger. I hope one day to write a blog that isn't about me. I find it difficult to write songs these days, I place a little of what faith I have left in the children of the future. That last line is bollocks.

15th April 2008
A Simple Englishman's Dilemma
There's something going on here in England, in fact it's been going on a while now. In the wake of the onslaught of political correctness, that sinister little extreme right wing politic is moving out of the shadows, lurking it's way into the working class public conscience yet again. It's as if the BNP have struck a chord somewhere along the recent line, the voice is saying "I am white and I want your bones and your blood".

I write as we approach St George's Day, an annual non-event as a rule to be honest, and yet there are whispers abound that it should be something more. I am concerned. Ours is a population that hasn't suffered any great historical displacement, and therefore there really isn't any natural requirement to sing songs of yearning for the homeland, etc. I think it's fair to say though that our heirarchy have caused their fair share of population displacements through the centuries, and whilst the soil here may be blessed with the trophies of much conquering, there's hardly a look of anything but shallow pride amongst many a decent Englishman.

There is a part of me that says ok, time to stand up and be counted, take back the flag from the nationalists, wave it loud and proud in the spirit of welcome and international socialism. However, the more I think of it, the more I am nudged alarmingly by the rabid voice of this nation's one-eyed media; the more I despair as the population of this island further implodes with cut throat selfishness; the more I am suffocated by the market forces of greed and the bile of Thatcher's bastards as they reek havoc on England's innocent children.

You know, I think it's fair to say that when it all comes out, I'm quite ashamed of my country, of it's recent and historical roles in global affairs, it's weakness both as empire in it's own making, and as piss pot to an even more despicable bunch of righteous tyrants from across the Atlantic. And the way that this country's politic has turned it's own people on each other, with despicable violence on the weekend streets of virtually every town and city community, the tip of a titanic blood soaked iceberg.

On St George's day this year 2008, I am playing at an event promoting Oxfam, a global charity that seeks to aid the poorest people of the world. A good friend of mine, in all good manner and respect, suggested that we should promote the event as a St George's Day special, highlighting the talents and cultural identity of English songwriters. I get the gist but I'm not too sure about that and, in all honesty I have to confess, the one song that I will look forward most to playing that night as a tribute to Oxfam's reason for being, was written by a Welshman.

Maybe I just don't belong here. Maybe a few union jack waving meat heads would say exactly that. Thing is, now more than ever, those of us who feel emotionally for the decline of English humanity do truly belong, right here, right now.

Long live the voice of discontent, the empire is dead meat heads - deal with it - and on Wednesday April 23rd, I won't be alone in publicly declaring this through a public address system, as well as issuing a few other rants of concern / hope / reasons to wake up and embrace the whole world. In the name of England and St George of course ...

"In Christian hagiography Saint George (ca. 275-281 – April 23, 303) was a soldier of the Roman Empire, from the then Greek-speaking Anatolia, now modern day Turkey, and is venerated as a Christian martyr.

Saint George is one of the most venerated saints in the Eastern Orthodox Church and Oriental Orthodox Churches. He is immortalised in the tale of George and the Dragon and is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers.

St. George is the patron saint of Aragon, Canada, Catalonia, China, England, Ethiopia, Georgia, Greece, Montenegro, Palestine, Portugal, Russia, and Serbia, as well as the cities of Amersfoort, Beirut, Ferrara, Freiburg, Genoa, Ljubljana, and Moscow, as well as a wide range of professions, organisations and disease sufferers."

17th March 2008
Our Enemies Are Here Not Abroad
That’s a profound statement – it’s a statement that has been written into my psyche in indelible ink, further and repeatedly embossed by government policies, blinding institutions and corrupt financial fascists as they continue to poison the populations of our own countries, our loved ones and dearest, and the billions caught like rabbits in the headlights.

Our Enemies Are Here Not Abroad
It was actually a piece of graffiti, written on a wall somewhere in the US, captured on a photograph, framed and displayed on a wall in a side street Austin Texas art gallery, up two flights of stairs. Viewed by a posse of visiting touring writers in 2002, it was placed by a jazz musician called Harold MacMillan, a bass player whose charming smile, energy and improvisational skills helped make our visit across the globe spiritually rewarding.

Our Enemies Are Here Not Abroad
Think about it and question everything, especially prior to taking any oaths to allegiance!

Smells a hell of a lot more like the fecking BNP than a Labour Government ...!!!

Love Hope Strength was co-founded by Mike Peters and promotes fund-raising for cancer sufferers in some of the most remote parts of the world, as well as general awareness of the continuing battle against cancer. Mike is surviving his own battle against cancer, and when he publicly announced his all-clear at The Alarm's Manchester gig in 2007, I was the opening support act. It was a poignant and very moving occasion ...

The Everest Rocks trek of 2007 included Nick and Mike, as well as the likes of Glenn Tilbrook and Slim Jim Phantom. Whilst my trip won't be officially linked to the foundation's own treks, which this year include Snowdon Rocks and a trek to Peru, I'm hoping to contribute a little awareness-raising of my own, whilst taking on board a whole soul full of headspace, up in the mountains. What's more, this has already helped me lose a stone in weight since Christmas, an early attempt to get fit and ready!

I'm thinking that I might take a guitar along the way, I don't think my own trek will be quite like this, but maybe with a video camera I can capture something interesting, if not quite so rock'n'roll!

17th February 2008
WTF?

"At least 80 people have been killed in a suicide bombing in the Afghan city of Kandahar - in what appears to be the deadliest attack since 2001.

The blast hit a crowd of people watching a dog-fighting competition.

Dog-fighting competitions are a favourable pastime in Afghanistan. They were banned by the Taleban regime.

At least 300 people were attending the event on the outskirts of Kandahar, including militia leaders said to have been the target of Sunday's attack."

Were those US and UK backed militia by any chance??

Overseeing a little 'public sport' to please a blood thirsty mob.

Educating children and local people in the ways of 'culture'.

And shock surprise, another blood thirsty mob decide to blow them apart with high explosives.

Where's "regime change" and "peace and stability" now then??

Funny how we don't see the internet loaded up with petitions against the abuse of women and animals these days, like we did in the build up to the military invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq ...

The desire and petitioning to 'free' those people from terror has waned, gone, down the fast food plughole.

Behind all the spin and political posing, as this story reveals the true norm and a real picture of what is really happening, and what will continue no doubt, it seems we have managed to forget laws and moral values against cruelty, murder, torture and terror.

Imprisoning and pushing the people of these lands back into the clutches of medievel brutality is about all we seem to have achieved.

It's a fucking free for all, as was predicted by those who cared about the aftermath of these political crusades. There never was any moral or legal attachment to those invasions, there never will be, and for the sake of all those who have died and / or been mutilated, the sooner Bush, Blair, and all their political and financial supporters are brought to justice for war crimes, the better.

It won't happen of course, not whilst The X Factor's on, or Big Brother, or some maverick 'off the wall' comedian is telling jokes about his penis on The Masturbation and Acne Channel.

We've acquired oil profits for a few billionairres though ... they'll give you a well paid job in their private armies if you're a good little boy.

Utterly, utterly appalled ... angry non-smiley

15th February 2008
Nature, Life, Death ...
Since moving out to the countryside to get myself some life saving head space, I've had those old conflicts with town centre dickheads replaced by a whole new conflict of thought and almost daily consideration. And in retrospect, I kinda feel it's a much more serious kettle of fish food ...

It's nature. Yes, that little consequential 'thing' that sits alongside 'God™' and the Universe in so much as you can't really say what it is without getting into a serious head shit spaghetti. It's all around me, and where I used to have the sound of cars and buses, domestics and leftovers from pub fights, I now have the glorious sound of birds sending fierce shrills of terror at their prey, a charming prelude to live flesh tearing and consumation that somehow sounds cute and brings smiley admiration and Spring-like goodness.

Like everything in Life and Nature, I guess you can't go thinking too deeply without a high pressure diving bell, so most of the time I truly love the existence of life in all it's shapes and colour. I have to tell you though of an incident last Autumn, an incident I was reminded of today when walking the dog.

There's a path out the back that leads up a small hill with a view. It's not the best view in the area, but it is a back garden stroll of comfort and relaxation that I enjoy. Along the path, there is a part where a section of rock and earth appears to have been channelled to make way for the path, presenting a very small 'alleyway'. From out of this rock and earth, the roots of a large tree, that strides majestically over the top of the path.

I was returning from a walk with the dog one day last Autumn, when out of the tree, down onto the rock and eventually landing in leaves on the path, a very young bird. It seemed an incredible coincidence that this should happen at this time, for I would not have noticed this if the bird had fallen seconds before or after.

I'm not a nature buff, but I believe this was a baby sparrow, and straight away I noticed that it wasn't going anywhere. It was alive, breathing very, very heavilly and rapidly, but otherwise completely paralised. I yearned for it to sit up, to flutter it's wings, walk around, come out of it's daze and fly away, and yet even as I prodded the surrounding leaves to promote some movement, the bird remained unable to move. Only it's rapid breathing showed the will and ability to embrace life.

Not having a bag or a box, and with a yapping impatient dog at my heels, I felt at first that I should walk away, that nature had a plan for this creature, and it would recover or die, irrespective of my involvement. And yet, it was so coincidental that it should land by my feet. I was but a few yards from my home, and so I decided that if the bird was to live, I would be able to take the dog in, get a small box with a couple of air holes, and return for the bird. Not knowing for sure if the bird would be safe from further harm, I partially sheltered it in a handful of leaves, promising to return shortly with a promise of temporary residence.

I wondered how it had come to be where it was. Maybe too young to fly, it had simply fallen from the tree. Maybe it was being carried off, and had fallen from a much higher place. It certainly had hit the rock with a bang, and was severely stunned at the very least. There were no visible signs of struggle or wound though.

Nature can be a right bastard. A bigger, or at the very least, an equal bastard to that which is the cursed line of mankind that dictates suffering for millions of it's own; that carries out random extinctions for short term gain; that hunts for the blood sport. As I turn to take the return path for the little bird, I find myself comparing this to life and death in the human sense. If this were a dying child, I would do the same, I would look to save it. But what if this was a nation of dying children before me, embroiled in civil war, the path laced with landmines? Would I simply move house to protect my own, live a life of ignorance, or have the courage to fight against the 'natural' order of things, as they have been presented to me in this life? There's a part of me you know, that keeps urging to go abroad, and work for an aid agency, and this is where this particular thought stream is going.

I returned to the little bird, hoping on the one hand for survival, and yet considering how stunned it was with it's injuries, wondering if the kindest thing might be for it to die and be free of it's discomfort. Still, in the very spot where I left it, lay in a bed of shallow leaves, the tiny bird breathed no more.

I did not cry though I was very sad, and yet tears appear to remain, ready to peep out of eyes at any moment when I think of this and similar cruel fate. You see there are parallels here for me, deeply personal tragedies that shadow my footsteps. It seems that I have issues with nature, and ultimately the 'God' I was brought up to believe in that subsequently became the focus of some of my anger in this world. To have a row with some pissed up dickhead is difficult, but ultimately not as difficult as the conflict I feel when I consider the fate that befelled the two helpless baby brothers I lost, and the crippling fate that made my Father as helpless as that fallen bird, due to a motor bike accident. His fall ultimately brought him death also, and there was nothing I could do.

Peace of mind. Do we ever find it? Can we ever deal with the consequences of what we are, of what we consume, of what is done to us, for who we leave behind, and as an evolving race of knowledge hungry individuals, what we may yet achieve or destroy in the future?

I wonder sometimes if when I have had my fill of the countryside, will I become an astronomer, seeking as so many have done throughout the history of mankind, an answer from whatever it is out there, that created the world we have here? For now, I simply wonder and wander ... just me and an impatient dog called Shannon.

13th February 2008
Every Generation Throws A Zero Up The Pop Charts
Call me, er ... oh fuck it, anything you like. Here's a little something that got me thinking a thought that has no end, and like the Universe itself, has no beginning that man could possibly relate to.

So there I was, in my environment destroying car, full of self-righteous Tesco goodness, coming out of Wrexham on the main artery death-trap that is the A534, when I nearly knock down two teenagers, boy and girl.

They look not at the car that's about to hit them, other than a short glance from the boy, hoping I guess that I will stop and give him the customary beep stress and grown up rant full of cliches.

I've learned my lesson now, I think. It's not the first time, and this particular stretch of road is notorious for the desire of the locals to stroll across boundaries for a conflict. I slam the brakes on, look with a grimace, consider calling them a pair of dim fuckwits, but drive on instead powered by higher moral standing.

Now come on, is someone trying to tell me something here? Is the 'youth of today' (apologies, I desperately didn't want to write that) trying to tell me (the former youth of today) that the world is pretty screwed, and they're angry about it?

It's not new kids. We all need positive solutions and understanding, not crippled teenagers lining the hospital waiting rooms. Yes I drive too fast, yes I am too full of my own ego to stop and talk through the issues, but let's face it if I did, your current incarnation would label me an easy target weirdo for doing so.

I think if there's one thing I have learned in my life, it's that nothing and everything changes, no matter how wise the scientist in us all thinks he or she is. For every new invention and insight, and at whatever age you are awakened by it, there will always be someone, stood in the middle of the road, reminding you that there is no clear route to anywhere.

Even space, if the fastest Captains amongst us ever get out there, is a road where angry young rocks hurl themselves at you, just to prove the point that there is a point, and at the same time, no point whatsoever.

I know what I'll do. I'll write a song. I'll show them not to mess with me ...

Kenya troubles 4th January 2008 - Kenya and other troubles

Makes the blood boil when you see writing suggesting that Kenya has been the shining light of stable democracy in Africa ... it has been the spirit of strength through suffering of it's people, and nothing more, that has given the nation a chance, and now we see yet again how greed and so called 'free marketing' has been cutting it's people to ribbons

Africa is a desperately, desperately troubled continent that continues to produce some of this world's finest magic and civilised human spirit, that has for the history of human kind been a playing ground for brutality and continually well-armed ancient feuds, leaving the bitter pain and anguish of poverty and severe starvation, not for one or two screaming children, but for millions ... how on Earth can this happen, and continually so?

if you've been to Kenya, and seen the level of civilian desperation that has been the breaking backbone on which 'stable democracy' has been resting it's lazy paunches, you'll probably have a good insight into current troubles

so the people are fighting back, standing up and making the point that they have rights, and what we are seeing now is merely the iron fist and bullets of enforced democracy and capitalism without mercy, that never ever ever will be stable as long as people are broken and suffering

scratch the surface of many a so called stable democracy, and you see something very similar ... it's amazing how so called intelligent civilised people act so surprised when populations implode and reach breaking point, leading to fear of having to give up something amongst the ignorant in their ivory towers, leading to attrocities and the great moral cause of evil excuse

Kenya troubles I guess few people in the UK or US give a shit about Kenya, or Africa, so let's be eternally thankful to those individuals and agencies who do, and ok some might dedicate a song to the cause, thank you ... but to bring this closer to home, would anybody say our own countries possess this wonderful, thing called 'stable democracy'?

in our time people, we are seeing the same wars between the need for good and the doing of great evil that have blighted our push for 'civilisation' ... despite evolution being step as a step forward, are not our political bricks, bombs and bullets of false democracy and freedom to kill marketing the very things that are keeping us as though we are beasts and savages?

it is continual, we may build cocoons and castles, but the outside the walls of our ignorance, the fight for survival continues

happy new year ... may you all be blessed with insight into what is really happening out there, so that maybe, just maybe, the great superpower that is the hearts and minds of the people, can make a better difference

be strong, you have something to say and it needs to be said
dp x

See Previous Archived Blog > Here <