respect

last saturday's guardian ran a feature by leading poets on ageing. roger mcgough - one of my all time favourite beat poets
revisited this poem, updating it 40 years on. i couldn't find the updated version on the tinterweb but i love the original anyway.


Let Me Die a Youngman's Death

Let me die a youngman's death
not a clean and inbetween
the sheets holywater death
not a famous-last-words
peaceful out of breath death

When I'm 73
and in constant good tumour
may I be mown down at dawn
by a bright red sports car
on my way home
from an allnight party

Or when I'm 91
with silver hair
and sitting in a barber's chair
may rival gangsters
with hamfisted tommyguns burst in
and give me a short back and insides

Or when I'm 104
and banned from the Cavern
may my mistress
catching me in bed with her daughter
and fearing for her son
cut me up into little pieces
and throw away every piece but one

Let me die a youngman's death
not a free from sin tiptoe in
candle wax and waning death
not a curtains drawn by angels borne
'what a nice way to go' death

Roger McGough

PaRTY PIEce

He said:

'Let's stay here
Now this place has emptied
And make gentle pornography with one another,
While the partygoers go out
And the dawn creeps in,
Like a stranger.

Let us not hesitate
Over what we know
Or over how cold this place has become,
But let's unclip our minds
And let tumble free
The mad, mangled crocodile of love.'

So they did,
There among the woodbines and guinness stains,
And later he caught a bus and she a train
And all there was between them then
was rain.

Brian Patten

Cake

i wanted one life
you wanted another
we couldn't have our cake
so we ate each other.

Roger McGough

Viva la revolucion!

A few days ago, I was transfixed by a documentary about the many ways Cuba is boosting its internal food production. One of them is the growing use of highly productive organic allotments found between tower blocks and all sorts of land that would be otherwise unused. Cuba has over 7000 urban allotments know as “organopinics” — around 40,000 hectares. These organopinics are green, use waste and feed whole communities for mere pesos. What a great idea!

How do they do it? Cuba imported global organic expertise and is celebrated for its use of permaculture. Permaculture uses complementary planting and biological techniques to reduce digging and to make it easier to produce crops. Instead of monoculture, where one uniform homogenous crop is grown, interplanting makes it easier to avoid pests and to maintain soil fertility. Organic waste such as vegetable peelings is composted and used to restore soil nutrients. Worm bins are particularly important. The worms accelerate the breakdown of compost, turning waste into horticultural gold.

That isn't Cuba's only commitment to being green. While US President George Bush attempted to derail international action on climate change, Cuba has been a world leader. It was one of the first countries to sign the Convention on Climate Change and its successor the Kyoto Protocol. The country was one of the first to move to low energy light bulbs to cut CO2 emissions.

While Cuba now swaps oil with Venezuela in exchange for health care, it has developed renewable energy on a large scale, including solar and wind generated electricity. In March, Cuba’s deputy minister for industry, Jose Manuel, told the Cuban Society for the Promotion of Renewable Energy Sources and Environmental Respect that Cuba had saved the equivalent of one million tons of oil in 2006 and 2007.

As Michael Moore's film: Capitalism - a love story exposes the pitfalls of capitalism where 90% of the wealth is held by 10% of the people and employees are referred to as 'dead peasants' – greed is not good! Capitalism as we know it is unsustainable. By creating unsustainable consumer patterns in industrialised countries and sowing impossible dreams throughout the rest of the world, the developed capitalist system has caused great injury to mankind. It has poisoned the atmosphere and depleted its enormous non-renewable natural resources, which we'll need in the future.

But as Cuba shows, an eco-socialist model does work. Other Latin American countries are following its ethos of consume less, share more, be happy. Perhaps we should follow its example?

Ban the Burkha

I'm all for multiculturalism and acceptance of different religions, but I cannot accept the burka, which is growing like a virus. Nothing in Islam requires women to wear the full veil. But the premise for wearing it is that a woman should not reveal herself to anyone outside her family. Fine, but the men dress freely, so one rule for men and another for women. It's more a statement about the position of women and the threat of men who apparently cannot control themselves if they see a woman's face, hair, hand or ankles, than an item of clothing. It also physically cuts women off. Maybe that's the intention. Keep women covered up and in the home, whilst the men are free to do whatever they like.

France is the first European country to propose a ban. It hasn't happened yet, but the debate is ongoing. Interestingly, Fadela Amara, a Muslim female politician in France, has come out in favour of a ban. Only a tiny majority – 1,900 according to one estimate – of France’s 5m Muslims wear the garment. But its spread is seen by some political leaders as a worrying sign of the rise of fundamentalist Islam in France, home to Europe’s largest Muslim community. Sarkozy has spoken of "this feeling of sharing less and less a common culture, a common imagination and a common morality." In his view, becoming French means "adhering to a form of civilisation, values and behaviour." And surely that's the whole point of social integration. Whereas the burka encourages separation.

According to a poll for Le Point magazine last week, 57 per cent of French people are in favour of a total ban on the burka and figures from a Harris poll show similar numbers back it here in the UK. I'm one of them.

R.I.P the pug!

Man...we all loved that pug so much! And in his short life he brought so much joy to so many. He was a god amongst dogs!

If only the good die young - he was the very essence of James Dean, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, John Bonham, John Lennon, Elvis, Brian Jones, Phil Linnot, Bon Scott, Freddie Mercury, Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Holly, Keith Moon, Sid Vicious,
Curtis Mayfield, Jeff Buckley, Tupac Shakur, Joe Strummer, Luther Vandross, Michael Hutchence, Ian Curtis, Ronnie Van Zant,
DJ Screw, Marvin Gaye, Ray Charles, Bob Marley, Jerry Garcia, Keith Moon, Sid Vicious, Aliyah, Notorious BIG, Johnny Cash,
Marc Bolan...and any others rock dogs I've missed!

8th wonder?

On a cold, cold day last month, I walked and walked from uptown to central Madrid in search of the Prado. Little did I know how far it was or how cold it was gonna be in Spain's capital at that time of year. Despite wind-chill factor 10, one of the great pleasures of walking was happening upon this amazing vertical plant wall at the CaixaForum Madrid. It's an art exhibition space sponsored by The La Caixa Foundation that opened in February 2008 as part of their social and cultural outreach efforts.

Designed by French botanist Patrick Blanc, this wall of green has 15,000 plants of 250 species covering a 460 m2 wall in the square in front of The CaixaForum. Blanc's theory that plants don’t need earth, only water, minerals, light and carbon dioxide, clearly hangs. And on a parallel level, it got me thinking about how much we think we need in life to sustain us. And how much our consumerist society feeds our need for greed and having the next best thing. But in reality a roof over our head, work, food and love – the basics are all we really need for happiness.

Queen Bitch!

Genuis, pure genius. I love these images as they capture the spirit of Queen Bitch!

My all time favourite line...

'she's so swishy in her satin and tat with her frock coat and bipperty bopperty hat'

I'm up on the eleventh floor
And I'm watching the cruisers below
My heart's in the basement
My weekend's
at an all time low
He's down on the street
And he's trying hard
to pull sister Flo

'Cause she's hoping to score
So I can't see her
letting him go
Walk out of her heart
Walk out of her mind

[CHORUS]
She's so swishy in her satin and tat
In her frock coat
and bipperty-bopperty hat
Oh God, I could do better than that

She's an old-time ambassador
Of sweet talking, night walking games
And she's known in the darkest clubs
For pushing ahead of the dames
If she says she can do it
Then she can do it,
she don't make false claims
But she's a Queen,
and such are queens
That your laughter
is sucked in their brains
Now she's leading him on
And she'll lay him right down
But it could have been me
Yes, it could have been me
Why didn't I say,
why didn't I say, no, no, no

[CHORUS]

So I lay down a while
And I look at my hotel wall
Oh the cot is so cold
It don't feel like no bed at all
Yeah I lay down a while
And I look at my hotel wall
But he's down on the street
So I throw both his bags down the hall
And I'm phoning a cab
'Cause my stomach feels small
There's a taste in my mouth
And it's no taste at all

It could have been me
Oh yeah, it could have been me
Why didn't I say,
Why didn't I say, no, no, no

O frabjous day!

Curious and curiouser why this wonderful fluid jibberish bonkers nonsense isn't on the school curriculum?


JABBERWOCKY

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Lewis Carroll
(from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)
`

Cover-up

"He wanted Carney in court so he could ask him why, why had Carney raped him? That never happened and the way things are going, the way the police and the clergy are handling it now I can't see it ever happening."
Bridie Dwyer, mother of Paul, raped by Carney at age 13.


How many more serial child abusers are at large - hidden and protected by the catholic church? As a mother and former catholic, I'm disgusted and horrified by the church's blind eye approach to an all-pervasive problem that is no doubt causing a downturn in congregations.

Last night's Newsnight fetched up the case of former priest Bill Carney – named as one of the worst cases in Dublin's Catholic diocese in the Murphy report into clerical abuse there. He's abused at least 32 boys and girls and for the last 10 years has been free to live quietly in Britain - oh and was paid off to the tune of £30,000 by the church!

Newsnight reporter Olenka Frenkiel tracked him down. He'd married and was running a 'family friendly' guesthouse in St Andrews near the golf course. His wife knew nothing of his murky, abusive past. How disturbing must that have been for her to find out she's been sharing her bed with a paedophile and putting her own children at risk?

All the children in Ayrfield, Dublin, knew fun-loving Father Bill Carney - not just the altar boys and those who met him through school, but members of the scout troop he ran and the groups of local children he took swimming. His door was always open, there was a ready supply of coke in the fridge and in the 1980s he had the very latest thing to lure youngsters in - a video player. Adults disapproved of his swearing and crazy driving, but the catholic church was still so trusted, no-one suspected the truth about him. Indeed, I remember a similar such swearing, hard-drinking, golf-playing priest from my past who liked to sit us young girls on his knee!

But back to Carney...the nasty truth is, he's at large in the Canary Isles now and neither the catholic church nor the Guarda have informed the authorities and he's not even listed on a sex offenders' register. The psychiatric report said Carney was a serial psychopath who didn't recognise his wrongdoing, so cannot be 'cured'! And the aftershock of his behaviour is that Paul Dwyer, one of Carney's rape victims was so traumatised by the lack of justice that he committed suicide. What a terrible waste of life!

As a mother I find it outrageous that priests like Carney have slipped away, but not surprising as the church is deeply entwined with the state in Ireland and both are incredibly paternalistic. Thing is, as with the recent Venables case - it's in the public's interest to be informed of paedophiles. Nothing could be more horrific than entertaining a child abuser if you have children. And nothing could be more despicable than finding out the authorities knew, but did nothing!