The Black Dog Is Back

Not much to say today - nothing I really want to recall of a Déjà vu day other then an inkling that the beady eye of a black dog has me in sight.

An air of melancholy joined me for dinner so I busied myself by starting "The Giant Book Of Villains"*, though listening to Dory Previn's "Mythical Kings And Iguanas" and a good dose of Van Der Graaf Generator's "H to HE" and "Godbluff", have left me with a wistful nostalgia for my youth.

Looking back is OK I guess but looking forward (to something) is always better I've been told; and though the rational side of me would agree, my present mood could be labelled "fuck off!".

Anyway - thoughts of yesteryear reminded me of this poem and the tingling sensations of togetherness on an Autumnal night that induced me to write it.  For Julie Jenkinson, the gentlest of souls

* "The Giant Book Of Villains" by Ian Schott, a Magpie Books paperback (ISBN 1-85487-335-0, 474 pages) from 1994.

A disappointing book if you are a blood and guts voyeur as there are no pictures. This book is chaptered by each "villain" whose history/lifestyle/predilections are recalled with the dryness of a secondary school teacher earning pin-money during a summer break. The editors seem to have recognised this as well, as amongst the texts there are many curious asides, each in a black border and bearing no relevance to the surrounding story. Don't buy this, don't borrow this; and if someone gives you a copy don't read it. Just rip out a page when required in the toilet.

EAUX England LAURENCEAU 

PARK RAIN

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls6nGCmgyKE

The rain rodded down,
pock-marking the pond
as the moon shone
in a halo of colours.
Sheltered we stood
by a roof and our hearts
whilst the rain fell,
spitting to the ground
in a crackling dance
to a whispering breeze;
for the wind was light
as the feeling inside
and I held your hand
as you held my heart.
You kept me from the cold,
for you warmed me from inside;
and I loved you then.

Now read the whole story...

BLOG Blogger LYONEL

Truism (looking for a logical proof)

You are more likely to be a terrorist then die in an act of terrorism. (Keep calm and carry on)

(I dreamt this up and though it sounds somehow right but I am not bright enough to logically prove it to be a truism or not - over to the "geeks".)

Wazbag

It appears be the case that I am a married curmudgeon (according to some), who loves riding motorbikes and my wife (deliberate innuendo – duh!), but mostly I love my wife (now and again), who has not been well lately. She is the rock of my life and sometimes the rocks in my pocket when I feel like swimming in a different way, but all ships need ballast to stay on a true course and I guess she must be mine, for she has been a long time in the hold.

I really am in mixed metaphor mode today, but I guess you know what I’m going to say Wazbag. I hope you get a bit better (and thinner) and enjoy your holiday in Egypt. Don’t swap your sister for a camel - she’s worth two goats at the most.

For you readers out there (who I am guessing must be sat on the edge of my very own event-horizon, for I currently see none of you at all), I would like to show that I am not a totally irreverent malcontent by revealing a poem of mine from last year's valentines day. Not too bad after 28 years service.

P.S. Do not call me a wrinkly! 

The real deal - lovely

RING

There's a ring of truth upon my finger
protecting me from the past.
A ring of contentment white with age
for evermore to last.

A sign of fidelity
confirming reality,
in a groove of mutated skin,
proving my tears
after all these years,
are only wept for you.

There's a ring of truth upon my finger
fusing my soul to yours.
A golden truth, for all to see,
a bonding force twixt you and me,
a cover for still youthful skin
a proof of love, through thick and thin.
MARRIAGE Married BETROTHED Partner LAURENCEAUX England LAURENCEAU Lawrenceaux LAWRENCEAU Laureanceaux LAURANCEAU Lawranceaux LAWRANCEAU Loranceaux LORANCEAU Lorranceaux LORRANCEAU POETRY Prose POEMS Social Comments HUMOUR Humerous SMILE Smiling LAUGH Laughing LAFF Laffing CYNICAL Truism TRUISMS Welcome HULL Kingston-Upon-Hull Kingston Upon Hull KINGSTON-ON-HULL Kingston On Hull YORKSHIRE East Yorkshire HUMBERSIDE Yorkshire DEPRESSION ThisISUll FED-UP Pissed-Off LONELY Disgruntled DISSOLUSIONED Blue BLACK Thinking BLOG Blogger LYONEL

RING

There's a ring of truth upon my finger

protecting me from the past.

A ring of contentment white with age

forevermore to last.

A sign of fidelity

confirming reality,

in a groove of mutated skin,

proving my tears

after all these years,

are only wept for you.

There's a ring of truth upon my finger

fusing my soul to yours.

A golden truth, for all to see,

a bonding force twixt you and me,

a cover for still youthful skin

a proof of love, through thick and thin.

MARRIAGE Married BETROTHED Life Partner LAURENCEAUX England LAURENCEAU Lawrenceaux LAWRENCEAU Laureanceaux LAURANCEAU Lawranceaux LAWRANCEAU Loranceaux LORANCEAU Lorranceaux LORRANCEAU POETRY Prose POEMS Social Comments HUMOUR Humerous SMILE Smiling LAUGH Laughing LAFF Laffing CYNICAL Truism TRUISMS Welcome HULL Kingston-Upon-Hull Kingston Upon Hull KINGSTON-ON-HULL Kingston On Hull YORKSHIRE East Yorkshire HUMBERSIDE Yorkshire DEPRESSION ThisISUll FED-UP Pissed-Off LONELY Disgruntled DISSOLUSIONED Blue BLACK Thinking BLOG Blogger LYONEL

THE COWARD

The coward

couldn't tell the truth

the coward

could only lie.

The coward

deceived and tricked,

the coward

played the injured

lapped the sympathy

and the coward set to cry.

The coward

wouldn't tell the truth

played her hand with flair,

and the coward got her way in the end

for I no-longer want to be there.

COWARDS Cowardly LAURENCEAUX England LAURENCEAU LAWRANCEAU 

FREE ASSOCIATION

It was becoming a crime;

my poetry wouldn't rhyme

and I was wasting my time

and there was nothing sublime

and from my mind or my pen

there is nothing of-ten (sorry!),

but then sometimes

a light shines

and a poem falls out,

and struts with a pout

and without doubt

boldly crosses my page,

which is good and quite bad

and 'of't makes me sad,

as I feel that some are not mine,

as if there's another inside

who's better by far

at all that I long to be mine.

PROSE Rhyme LAURENCEAUX England LAURENCEAU Lawrenceaux LAWRENCEAU Laureanceaux LAURANCEAU Lawranceaux LAWRANCEAU Loranceaux LORANCEAU Lorranceaux LORRANCEAU POETRY Prose POEMS Social Comments HUMOUR Humerous SMILE Smiling LAUGH Laughing LAFF Laffing CYNICAL Truism TRUISMS Welcome HULL Kingston-Upon-Hull Kingston Upon Hull KINGSTON-ON-HULL Kingston On Hull YORKSHIRE East Yorkshire HUMBERSIDE Yorkshire DEPRESSION ThisISUll FED-UP Pissed-Off LONELY Disgruntled DISSOLUSIONED Blue BLACK Thinking BLOG Blogger LYON

I'm still thinking

Ah ha - we meet again! I am still thinking about this blog lark and wondering if it's for me. Do I want to tell anyone anything about me or just try to amaze people with wit and eloquence (fat chance!). 

Do I want people to know "me" or what I tell them is me? 

Am I doing this for me or for "you", to fill my life or yours? 

Today for instance I feel like ranting on about my public sector employer; where planning how to tick boxes seems far more important then actually doing work that allows the boxes to be honestly ticked; where "post-implementation review" is a phrase heard so rarely that I have almost forgotten it means to measure achievement and useful functionality against that expected from a program of "planned" changes, that we ..... 

There you go - that's what I mean! That sort of blog is not me. That's called moaning and is boring to write and even more boring to read, though to tell you I prefer woman with small hips and black people with small lips is so personal that such a blog would not be prudent and once again boring to read. 

I have to give this blog more thought. I have to review my personal "Freakonomic"* imperatives for continuing with it. I hope to see you again....... 

* "Freakonomics" by Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner, a Penguin Books paperback (ISBN 9780141019017 - 336 pages) from 2006. An intriguing book; detailing the underlying economic imperatives behind many apparently unrelated real-world activities and observed realities. By processes of regression and deconstruction (with a light touch in the book), "freakish" truths are "proved". This book starts well, but by page 200 it starts the decent into repetition and self-publicising aggrandisement. Borrow it if you can.

Should you buy asparagus imported by Morrisons from Peru?

I ask this because I think it rather obscene the such simple foodstuffs are regularly transported huge distance to reach their market(s). Transportation (Lorry / Train / Flight or Ship / Lorry) alone is polluting out of all proportion to the importance of the goods delivered; it only happens because someone can "earn a buck" without consideration of global damage. I buy locally sourced products and ask you to do so too.

If you had to die now who's hand would you want to hold?

 

Mothers hand?

The phenomenal human mind

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid! Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? Yaeh, and I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt.

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UNLIMITED SOCIAL AILMENTS

Andrea was a coke-head,

she took it to the max.

She peppered her body regularly,

but never knew the facts.

She knew she was lovin' it,

she knew she had wiiings,

She knew she had tracks,

but didn't want those things.

Andrea was lovely

but lived the utopian dream,

of believing all the adverts

and trying all the creams.

She tried the weed

she tried the speed

she tried old mr H,

she had a night with charlie,

which really made her parlez;

then she rocked her life away.

Andrea was lovely,

but wrecked at the end,

by the dreams that are promised,

but America cannot defend.

Truism (for personal hygiene)

Socks before jocks or itchy cocks.

From my coach and former England International rugby league player Gerald (Ged) Dunn, in order to avoid athlete’s foot in the panties.

Ged Dunn RIP

N.B.

If your groin stinks like your feet it's time to get the whole truth.

Don't talk to me!

We all get them - you know; the veiled atavistic threat of damnation (or misfortune at the very least) that accompanies many chain-mail, pseudo social viruses that frequently arrive in your inbox. I usually tempt Beelzebub straight away by binning them as my friends and me are not really into schmaltzy, puppy-eyed, clap-trap; super-sexist, hyper-racist (tribal as I prefer to say) or zodiacal rubbish that circulates the "intersphere" of the fourth dimension of reality that is known to us as the World Wide Web, the Internet, the Arpanet, the Milnet, or whatever else you remember it once being called. Anyway - I digress.

I bin them, but every now and again a "blood-boiler" arrives, that for some reason makes me wish I was a dictator of Stalinist proportions (although others are available from various outlets on the global high street), who could vent the bile and spite of the backwaters of my psyche (mostly inhabited by politics, waste and the state of the nation amongst others), without some PC arsehole reminding me of the rights of man; other men usually.

Here is an example of a "blood-boiler" that arrived today, feeding a Pavlovian aversion of mine to monumental waste by our government(s), that is funded by ever-more contrived taxation and legislation:

The next time you hear a politician use the word 'billion' in a casual manner, think about whether you want the 'politicians' (Including Quangos and NGOs) spending YOUR tax money without at least checking with their treasurers. (Us you fool!)

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but an advertising agency did a reasonable job of putting one into a perspective:-

A billion seconds ago it was 1959.
A billion minutes ago Christianity is though to have fired-up.
A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.
A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.
A billion Pounds ago was only 13 hours and 12 minutes at the rate our government is currently spending it, mostly through taxation, of which not one of these existed 100 years ago:

Building Permit Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Income Tax
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Hunting License Tax Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax (a tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Local Tax
Luxury Tax
Marriage License Tax
Petrol/Diesel Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Road Usage Tax
Service charge taxes
Social Security Tax
Unemployment Tax
Vat Tax (Re-raised!)
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Workers Compensation Tax

100 years ago Britain was probably the most prosperous nation ever, we had absolutely no national debt and when we spoke no-one laughed openly at us. Now we are just a (bad) joke.

What has happened?

Like all good propaganda this pressed my buttons and I boiled over; silently of course because I am British (and a devotee of "Mayism" - after James May of Top Gear fame).

When I can think dispassionately I may return to this blog item, but I'm off for now.

N.B. It's not just me ...
LAURE

FLAG

I saw our flag

flapping and stuttering against its pole.
I saw our flag straining,
writhing and contorting
in a wind of change.

I saw the pole unbending.
Dogmatic in its stance,
leashing and lashing the flag
that gently stroked with fraying edges
its master's stand.

I saw our flag,
with a gentle embrace,
envelop the greasy pole
and then, as if to retain dignity,
I saw it fall.

That flag caressed my soul,
but I saw a truth profound
as I picked it from the ground;
for there is a hole through which all can pass
to corrode us from inside.

Our flag had lost its heart.
As we have lost our heart.
At the foot of our gallows pole.
PATRIOTISM Patriot PATRIOTIC Immigration LAURENCEAUX England LAURENCEAU Lawrenceaux LAWRENCEAU Laureanceaux LAURANCEAU Lawranceaux LAWRANCEAU Loranceaux LORANCEAU Lorranceaux LORRANCEAU POETRY Prose POEMS Social Comments HUMOUR Humerous SMILE Smiling LAUGH Laughing LAFF Laffing CYNICAL Truism TRUISMS Welcome HULL Kingston-Upon-Hull Kingston Upon Hull KINGSTON-ON-HULL Kingston On Hull YORKSHIRE East Yorkshire HUMBERSIDE Yorkshire DEPRESSION ThisISUll FED-UP Pissed-Off LONELY Disgruntled DISSOLUSIONED Blue BLACK Thinking BLOG Blogger LYONEL

First Impressions

Napoleon Dynamite (watch that film!)

I've spent a short while fiddling with the layout of this blog and for now I'm happy. I will share web links I have found useful or entertaining, along with a label list that may grow over time and a usual blog archive.

I'd like to introduce you to my poems, though not many are beyond naivety I believe, my "daily thoughts" and an ongoing list of "truisms" as they come to me.

I'm closing today with a short poem ...

What To Say?

Speaking to friends I have had conflicting advice: "say what you like in your world", "use your blog as a platform for change", (of me or the world I am not sure), "publicise yourself", "slag off the Americans", "piss on the poor", slander the "rag-tops" ..... You know, the sort of advice that comes freely with a pint or two; but I remain unsure.

My natural disposition is to like people, though with age I am becoming less tolerant, so I hope you find this blog fair, maybe funny, maybe thought provoking and generally worth a read. I'm probably going to say stuff I'll regret (as I am prone to do), but at least what you read will be "unspun" me.

For now I do not plan to engage in debate, nor am I ready for feed-back. I'll post stuff and anyone can pass it on for debate, comment or consideration elsewhere - I don't mind and I don't really care.

I have a few ides about future LAURENCEAUX content but being new to this lark, I'm gonna investigate Blogger content to review my options.

OK! - blog 2 finished and no harm done, so I guess I'll be off until we meet again.

Here we go!

Where to start - what to say? 

Like most people (I know) I always feel like there must be a bit more to life, without really having a burning desire for change. I am drifting through life, sometimes with anger (at myself or "the world"), but more often, with stronger conviction, that I really ought to shut-up and realise how lucky I really am. I think I know of lots of things but really know nothing. I can comment on almost anything but wonder if anyone really cares. Such is the result of life in a modern world? 

Wow - where did that bit of rambledom come from? This blog site may go on to intrigue you or just prove to be one of millions of self indulgences that we offer ourselves now and again. 

Anyway, WELCOME!