Jethro Tull BBC Promo Vid for Solstice bells 1976

Farewell to the Holly King, the Oak King returns...

Edge-y

'Today I'm gonna kill the bear!' shrilled Tuppence.
'Say it again,' yelled Val Nark.
'TODAY I'M GONNA KILL THE BEAR!' he shrieked.
'And again,' commanded Val, who was sitting cross-legged on a pile of rag rugs she'd brought back from a wildlife slash hiking holiday in Kerala.
'TODAY I'M GONNA KILL THE BEAR!!!'
'Excellent work Tuppence.  Now - at home, unpaid, in your own time mind, because this is training - '
'Is it optional, then?' asked Tuppence.
'No, no, it's mandatory.'
'Then surely - '
'No. Stop interrupting or you'll lose your job.  As I was saying - at home, in your own time, file the end of that plunger into a sharp point.  Weaponise it.  Hone it the way you've been honing your toilet cleaning skills.  You're sending yourself a vital message, remember,  and it could propel you on to a whole different level. YOU ARE IN CONTROL.  YOU CAN DO ANYTHING.  You could even win modern apprentice of the month, Tuppence, as well as being allowed to clean out the Portaloos at the building site all on your own.'
'Wot?' murmured Tuppence.
'Yes!' Val continued blithely, 'Imagine that!   Yes, as well as our thriving (-ish) yurt business, Dave and I now have the cleaning contract for the building site Portaloos.  This will be announced in our newsletter but I'm telling you first because you're the one who'll be doing the cleaning. We'll need a picture of you, of course, a lovely smiley one of you outside the Portaloos clutching your plunger.  You'll be doing one hour extra a week, Fridays, hosing them down.  Dave and I managed to undercut everybody else to win the contract, because we have YOU working for us for £3.50 an hour. You'll have to find a hose yourself mind. And because this is over and above your contracted hours you won't get paid. But remember - '

Later - down in the tunnels.  Tuppence is on his own, sitting on a barrel of Madeira, deep in thought, absently whittling at the end of his plunger with a pen-knife.
'If I got enough of these I could make a deadfall,' he murmured. 'Might come in handy one day...Weaponise, is it. Honed, is it. Finding a hose, is it.  Val clearly doesn't know about my brace of pistols and my bandolier of ammunition, and my habit of writing my initials on walls with uncanny accuracy in a hail of bullets. Neither does she know about my past history of arch-criminal activity and my facility for devising nefarious plans*.  I'm not going to be a modern apprentice toilet cleaner for £3.50 an hour, minus training time, for a moment longer.  No!  I thought I could stick it out till Christmas in order to glean more info. for my own evil purposes, but no, I can figure out other ways to do that.  Enough's enough.'

Next time - Tuppence begins to enact his nefarious plans - and Val Nark rues the day she hired him.

*please see e-books and paperbacks for details

'

Poem of the Day

Psyche

The butterfly the ancient Grecians made
The soul's fair emblem, and its only name -
But of the soul, escaped the slavish trade
Of mortal life! - For in this earthly frame
Ours is the reptile's lot, much toil, much blame,
Manifold motions making little speed,
And to deform and kill the things whereon we feed.

S.T. Coleridge

Coleridge is my favourite poet not because of his supposedly opium-fuelled Kubla Khans and Ancient Mariners (though I do love those too) but because he writes about life, and if I'm feeling grim and lonely I find a friend in him.  Nature, struggle, despondency, the Elements, transcendence, the Stars, cottages, fireside, the comfort of a dying flame and the vulnerable, doomed warmth of loved ones. I identify with his struggle, physical, psychological, spiritual, through howling winds and wintry blasts.  I can easily imagine going back to the early 1800s and spending a pleasant afternoon by a fireside chatting with Coleridge about ever-present Death and the difficulties and possibilities of transcending the trials of a doomed mortal life.

Hard graft for peanuts

'I explained to Val Nark that I didn't like being a modern apprentice toilet cleaner for £3.50 an hour.  What more can I learn, I said, once I know how to bleach and clean the U-bend?'
'I don't know,' I replied, unable to suppress a hint of pride. 'I've never cleaned a toilet in my life.'
'Val says there's all sorts to know about toilets though,' continued Tuppence. 'Starting with Thomas Crapper and moving right through'Shanks' to Dave Nark's chemical-free portaloo.'
'Oh yeah.'
'Yes.  The 'Nark' is basically an old-fashioned metal incinerator filled with straw or crumpled newspaper, with a seated compartment fitted inside.  Once the straw has reached maximum soil slash urine-saturation-point, or when the smell gets too bad, whichever  happens first, you set fire to it.  And then the whole cycle can start again.  One hundred per cent hygienic, no nasty 'compost pits' to dig, and no cleaning or harsh chemicals involved at any point.'
'Hey flaming presto.'
'Exactly Uncle Tuppy.  Isn't it wonderful?'
'Who knew.  You sound quite keen on the modern apprentice toilet cleaning and I've got to admit I'm disappointed in you, Tuppence.  In fact, I'm not just disappointed, I'm shocked, and I'll have to have a wee lie down.  Nobody in this family has ever, ever done hard graft for peanuts (or indeed anything) and I really think you're letting the side down.'  I folded my arms and glared at him sternly. 'We don't do cleaning and we don't do work.  I told you not to accept Val's modern apprenticeship offer, but would you listen? No you would not, and look where it's got you.  Thinking everything's rosy in the toilet world and accepting a pittance of £3.50 an hour.  Where's your pride Tuppence?  It's not like you've got a mortgage to pay.  You've got a roof over your head haven't you?  Food in your belly? I don't understand why you're even bothering.  You've gone right off piste Tuppence and I don't want to be controlling your life or anything but I don't like it and I have to tell you, it's unlikely to end well.'
'I've got plans Uncle Tuppy. Never fear.' Tuppence winked and tapped the side of his nose. 'And you know that when I do plans, I do 'em big.  There's more than £3.50 an hour and a roll of Andrex to be found in toilets, you mark my words.'
Whatever could he mean?

next time - Tuppence starts his own mobile lavatory cleaning business with a Raleigh pushbike, a plunger, a bottle of bleach (and is denied Universal Credit due to not reaching the low earnings threshold).  All is not what it seems, however.


'

Medicine, Snouts and Sustenance. Moral Dilemma #145690

Tupfinder Towers

'I don't see how you can say that it's morally wrong to steal from a food bank and sell the stuff on at a profit.  Isn't that what we're supposed to be doing nowadays - starting our own businesses and looking out for number one or whatever?'  Tuppence was sitting cross-legged on the edge of the settee, swathed in blankets and sipping hot Ribena from his favourite pewter mug. 'And what's more Uncle Tuppy - it's not like I've just thought this up myself.  I learned from the best.  From you and Uncle Geoffrey.  We did use to steal Madeira and crisps and baccy and stuff from the tunnels, remember.*  '
'We still do,' said Geoffrey, through a mouthful of chilli heatwave Doritos.
'Yes that's true,' I said, throwing another driftwood log on the fire, 'but I'm sure I read somewhere that two wrongs don't make a right.  Mind you, we've never actually sold on anything we've stolen from the tunnels.  We always consume it ourselves, taking only that which is sufficient to our needs, plus a bit extra in case of emergencies, late night snacks and so forth.  Crates of best brandy and snouts don't count, as brandy is medicine and snouts are treatment for our baccy addiction. And everything else is sustenance.  Which makes it kind of not stealing in a way, and therefore okay.'
'Get away!' said Geoffrey, 'The stuff in the tunnels doesn't belong to us.  Stealing is stealing.  The best you could say about it is,  we aren't involved in 'reset'.'
'Maybe if we gave up stealing from the tunnels and just focused on stealing from the food bank that would leave just the one wrong, making it right.'
'That sounds all very well on one level,' said Geoffrey, 'but let's face it, the stuff we get from the tunnels is top notch.  Best brandy, Madeira by the barrel, Turkish snouts, reams of silk...'
'Tins of korn bif,' added Tuppence.
'Of course!  Crates of the stuff.  And it's the real McCoy, not supermarket own brand,' continued Geoffrey.  'Tins of value rice pudding and cheesy pasta are not worth the candle.  And remember - the stuff in the tunnels was looted from wrecked ships by the rats.  It might not belong to us, but it doesn't really belong to anyone else either.  And better that we enjoy it than the rats.'
Tuppence drained his Ribena and set his mug down with a crash.  'Alright.  You've convinced me.  I kind of feel bad that I ever even thought about stealing from a food bank. Not that it's morally wrong, or that, to steal food from starving people - it just isn't worth it.  Part of me will always yearn to be a Victorian-style entrepreneur and I am DETERMINED, determined, mark you,  to find a way.' 

next time - the Narks offer Tuppence a job as an apprentice toilet cleaner, cleaning the yurt toilets for £3.50 an hour on an 'as required' basis.

*as explained in e-books and paperbacks, at great length

'What's wrong with the world?  What's wrong with people?  Why are they horrible? Why is everything rotten and stinking all of a sudden?'
Tuppence lay on the settee under five eiderdowns, raving in his pyjamas and sweating out a fever.  He's prone to fevers;  often they're psychological in nature, brought on by too much excitement or a need for attention, so we don't get too concerned unless his temperature goes over 150.  Even then, there isn't much we can do except -
'It's 149 and three quarters Uncle Tuppy!' shrilled Tuppence. 'I'm burning up!'
On this occasion it was all his own fault.  He'd been out late last night trying to flog his stolen tins of value rice pudding and he hadn't worn his winter pully.
He'd also used the computer at the mobile library this afternoon with the help of library assistant Craigy McFarlane (Chic's husband) and 'gone on the internet' and 'looked at the news'.  If that wasn't bad enough, he'd looked at 'Instagram' and felt inferior.
That was more than enough to trigger his current crisis.
Yes, we've finally got 'the internet' Hereabouts.  Tuppence wants to be a Youtube and/or Instagram star.  Unfortunately, he doesn't have a 'smart phone' or indeed any other piece of 'tech' as he calls it, and can only access the internet with Craigy's help via the library van. 
In my day, we aspired to being train drivers or - no, that's not true actually.  We aspired to Very Little because our window on the world was not a virtual window, with all the ghastly magnitude and mind-boggling awfulness that generally entails, it was a real window, and all we could see through the grime and bubbles in the glass was a tiny square of light in the morning, dimming as the day progressed,  and a tiny square of darkness at night, occasionally illuminated by a 'Hunter's Moon' or a meteor shower or such-like.
We had to turn inwards to our own firesides and learn about the world from occasional visitors from Far-flung Places, Co-op flyers and dog-eared copies of the Bunfettle Gazette.  And it didn't do us any harm.  Or Did It?  More on that later.
It won't end well.  It can't end well.  Tuppence's brain can't take it.

Tupfinder Towers and the soon-to-be-obstructed view

So what's been going on in the world for the last few years, and how's it been affecting us at the Rocky Outcrop?  The answer to the first question is a fair amount, and the answer to the second is, not very much, by and large, except that everyone's 'poor' and Dave and Valerie Nark have objected to the Council about a housing development (ten percent of which is to be 'affordable homes')  up beyond the tourist car park on the grounds that it will interfere with their yurt/glamping business and also destroy valuable wildlife habitat despite the hundred yard 'buffer zone' mooted by the developers. 
Mr and Mrs Tupfinder-general have also objected, as it will obstruct the view from Tupfinder Towers, and possibly encroach upon fragile overwintering sites for the Tupfinder's South American wasp colony, only he hasn't mentioned about the wasps due to it being illegal to keep them.
More on this later.
Another new 'thing' is the food bank.  It sort of evolved from one of the overflowing bins at the tourist car park (where Geoffrey used to get his crisps from, as readers will know).  It's run mainly by 'incomer' Chic McFarlane (more on him later) and seems to only have tins of 'value' rice pudding and packets of cheesy pasta, which would suit us fine as these are our favourites, only we don't get access to the food bank as despite our threadbare lifestyle we do have a roof over our heads, and aren't actually 'starving' and don't 'qualify'. 
Yet.
Tuppence has been in trouble - or would have been, had he been caught - stealing from the foodbank and attempting to 'sell stuff on at a profit'.  Not that he made much 'profit' from tins of value rice pudding.
'There's a market for everything if you look hard enough Uncle Tuppy!'  he shrilled, throwing his bulging rucksack to the floor with a massive metallic 'CLANG!'  'I'll stockpile it and cause a crisis in the market!  I'll make my fortune yet, you mark my words!'  and he collapsed on the settee exhausted.
More on that, and plenty of other stuff, later.

We Don’t Like Yurts and New-fangled Stuff

(an excerpt from Seapenguin(2) Three Tales of Woe)

May Day has come and gone, with its fires and sacrifices and such-like, and we’re still here. Another year whizzes by, like a juggernaut down the M6, speeding who-knows-where with its load of petrified animals or toxic waste. And who-cares-where, as long as it’s nowhere I have to be.

“The trouble is, Tuppy, the world doesn’t stand still,” preached Geoffrey in his most patronising and sanctimonious manner, as he stood by the stove stirring the lumps out of a packet of Value cheese sauce mix. “It moves on, and…”

“I know that! I’m not thick!” I snapped. “And by the way — you’ll need a whisk for that if you want to get rid of those lumps.”

“…you’re not a mover and shaker Tuppy, and neither am I,” continued Geoffrey, ignoring my culinary advice as he groped his way towards some sort of rather pathetic conclusion, or dare I say it — insight, “We don’t fit in any more. Perhaps it’s an age thing. We’re hardly in the first flush of youth.”

“We’ve never been movers and shakers Geoffrey. We never have “fitted in”. Yes, we’re geriatrics, chronologically speaking, but it’s not an age thing, as such. We’ve always had a geriatric mentality. We’re slow, dull-witted, boring, inward-looking, narrow-minded…”

“Yes!” Geoffrey agreed eagerly, “We’ve never liked strangers, and we hate change. Remember the Narks, who lived in the yurt in the tourist car park? We tried to make their life hell so that they’d go away and leave us in peace, just the way we like it. And they did! Were they communists Tuppy? I’ve always wondered.”

“I don’t think so Geoffrey. I think they were hippies-turned-capitalists, trying to turn a dollar or a groat or whatever from eco-tourism. If we hadn’t got rid of them, that car park would have been stuffed with yurts, and eco-toilets, and people selling crafts and hand-made shoes, and over-priced vegetarian food, and nutters running around on stilts wearing jester’s hats and before you knew it there would have been another car park covered with more yurts, and then another, and another, and then there would have been some sort of summer fire festival, and Dave and Valerie would have built a massive bespoke eco-house from recycled whisky barrels up on the moors, with a view out to the far horizon and its own helipad, and we’d have been driven off to some ghastly council home in a “town”, heaven forbid, and our ramshackle un-eco-friendly old home would have been bull-dozed flat in the name of progress….”

“Stop, stop!” cried Geoffrey, “I’m scared they’ll come back! If they were so powerful, and determined, they might…”

“Geoffrey — they have. They have come back. In fact, I’m not sure that they ever left. Weren’t you listening, when Razor Bill arrived with the post this morning? But never mind that now. Hurry up with that macaroni cheese — my stomach thinks my throat’s been cut.”

**********

After the talent night debacle, Geoffrey and I took some “downtime” in order to refresh ourselves and to give our bottom end tummies time to recover after the unwise ingestion of Mrs T-G’s extra black sausage rolls with extra blackness.

I was drifting into a fairly pleasant semi-stupor when Geoffrey piped up.

“Tuppy?”

“What NOW?!” I really, really, really couldn’t be bothered.

“Dave Nark was asking me how we managed to keep body and soul together when we have no obvious source of income. He was wondering if we work from home, or if we’re maybe on benefits, including tax or pension credit. I said I didn’t know. Do you know, Tuppy?”

“I might do, but I’m certainly not telling Dave Nark. He’s a self-righteous nosey git. Him and his so-called wife Valerie and their so-called eco-friendly-so-called-life-style, living in a so-called wind-powered so-called yurt in the tourist car-park. They eat goji berries and quinoa, Geoffrey! You’re not telling me that’s normal. And besides — they were a mite over-fond of the Peruvian hat before they became weirdly popular last winter. Never trust anyone who wears a Peruvian hat who doesn’t have to for medical reasons, Geoffrey.”

“I also told him that you sold your soul to the Grim Reaper a while back and so none of the above probably applied to you.”

“That is true. I’d forgotten about the vast, yawning, infinite black-hole-style vacuum that I drag around with me like a duffel-bag-ful of mega-spanners, that used to be my Soul. Do you know Geoffrey — it feels heavier than one of Mrs T-G’s rock buns made from Real Rock?”

“That’s terrible! What a dreadful burden for you! It must be all but intolerable!”

“Yes — it is rather — “ I began, hesitantly.

“Anyway — back to ME,” Geoffrey barged on, oblivious, “How on earth do I manage to keep body and soul together? Please tell me Tuppy because I haven’t a clue.”

“Your soul is stitched to your body like Peter Pan’s shadow, Geoffrey,” I said wearily, “I’m afraid the stitching becomes a little unravelled from time to time, which results in “moments”, such as the one at the talent contest the other night.”

“But everything always works out all right in the end — that’s what you’re trying to say — isn’t it Tuppy?”

“Yes Geoffrey. Everything always works out all right in the end.” And I glanced over my shoulder at the yawning darkness inside the duffel-bag that lurked in the shadows behind me….

BOOK AVAILABLE ON AMAZON — see link below

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Seapenguin-2-Three-Tales-Woe/dp/1521884234/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1507466188&sr=8-2&keywords=seapenguin

Bertrand Russell on the Romantic Movement

Thoughts expected during the coming year.

Loss of place, loss of community - memories of a time when islands were not, or seemed not, places of isolation.
These are the things that will be occupying my thoughts during the coming year.  When I can shoehorn them in among worrying about bills, getting the car fixed, damp-dusting, the 'ageing process', Death, World War Three, eating too many biscuits, did I use up the emergency UHT milk last Tuesday, bothering the doctor with my rheumy eye, will I die 'early and suddenly' (preferred option) or wither away, alone and ga-ga, in a work-house-style care home et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, that is.  Death and Money, basically.  And as one gets older, Death, naturally, tends to predominate.
If you aren't readying yourself for Death, ur not doin it rite. Life, that is.  I read that somewhere.  Or at least, something along those lines.
I'm forever readying myself for Death.  I have been ever since I was in my 30s when I expected, due to illness, to be dead at 42.  However that did not occur.  42 came and went, and a fairly large number of years have followed.  I count myself lucky.  Now I think of myself as being in a waiting room, waiting my turn, sweaty palms and dicky tummy, reading magazines I never usually read and eating sweets to try to take my mind off the horror of it all.  Lots of people have gone on before, let's face it.  It can't be that bad - can it? We all must open the door alone and find out what lies behind it, alone.  Perhaps it's not that bad after all.  We just don't know what lies beyond, because nobody's come back to tell us.  Fear of the unknown and all that.
Meanwhile, it's probably a good idea to set aside 'readying yourself' from time to time, and enjoy oneself as much as possible.  Otherwise one might become depressed and likely to move on from magazines and sweets to truly life-threatening things such as alcohol, drugs, fatty foods, dangerous 'sports' and so forth, in order to blot out the existential anxiety, thereby increasing it by increasing the chances of an earlier demise possibly through complications arising from morbid obesity.
Can I manage that?  Can I manage to set aside readying myself?  I'm not sure.   I am sure, and I know from experience, that reading and writing are two non-life-threatening activities which can blot it out, if the subject matter is sufficiently interesting and engaging.  Obviously that won't include (at least not when anyone's looking) articles about gluten-free baking,  Katie Perry's beach-ready-body and Cruz Beckham's singing career.  That is an excellent motivation.
On the other hand, why should one bother to avoid life-threatening things, when one is going to die anyway?  It's only putting off the inevitable and you can smoke and drink merrily knowing you will be saving the state a few quid by dying 'early and suddenly' of a heart attack or rapidly-advancing cancer.  Nobody lives forever.  The reason I don't presently tend to over-indulge TOO much is because I enjoy physical activity in a moderate kind of way, walking and nature and so forth, and I want to be able to do so for as long as possible.
On the other hand - or foot, since we've used up both hands - you never can tell.  One might not have to bother setting aside 'readying oneself'.   One might come to terms with one's mortality - biting the bullet, so to speak - as one potters along, and have a terrific time doing it.
Compliments of the season, and all that.

Germs and New-fangled Fivers

This post was inspired by the so-called new fivers, which are apparently impregnated with meat products, making them a horrible, weird, post-cash-society, both food and money-style hybrid. While waiting for the kettle to boil and leaving aside the obvious, i.e. they probably don't taste better than Spam but you might be tempted to make a sandwich from one if sufficiently intoxicated, I was contemplating the ways in which a meat-product-impregnated new-fangled fiver might be better or worse than a meat-free-but-filthy old-fangled fiver - the kind that emerges damp and falling apart and undoubtedly germ-ridden from smelly men's trousers during pub crawls or in the bookies.
The new-fangled fivers are certainly likely to be less of a health hazard. Or are they?  Perhaps there is a hidden danger lurking in your wipe-clean fiver.  Perhaps its shiny facade masks a deadly, germ-laden secret. Perhaps the Daily Express will do a terrifying feature on it.
Which germs does one really have to worry about, though, when push comes to shove?  Stuff from your backside and stuff from your nose and stuff from off of off food, and stuff that smells bad, obviously.  At least, it's obvious to me. Some may argue, of course, as they are fully entitled to do.  And some may not - and they are the clever ones because they agree with me.  I will reluctantly accept that what smells bad to one may not smell bad to another, and vice versa.  Nevertheless I hold to my point and I refuse to yield.
What else is there to worry about, in the germ realm, now we're on the subject and away from fivers?  Let me see.  Diseases, possibly, that you can catch from toilet seats and the tropics and the like.  Other than that...is there anything?  I dunno.
Some people like to tackle germs, by the way, with an 'evil spray', perhaps incorporating bleach and the like.  Does 'evil spray' kill germs though - the ones that count, at any rate?  Is it of any benefit? Does its germ-killing capacity outweigh the carcinogenic risk from its noxious toxic fumes?  Does one, in short,  get one's money's worth from the evil spray?  Because after all that is what everything boils down to in life.  Getting One's Money's Worth.  
Which is my next topic*, and brings me rather neatly in a forced kind of way, back to fivers.
*unless I get killed by germs.

Random Days Doing Nothing Don't Mean the Same Anymore

They just don't.  It's pretty much undoubtedly to do with the sense that there will be fewer of them.  When you're young, or even young-ish, days stretch ahead and boredom seems full of endless possibilities that slowly emerge like sailing ships through fog, adrift upon a mind-smothering and smothered-by-mind miasma which has been formed by doing nothing but sitting for hours in your pyjamas staring at a grey, flat stillness through the window, drinking too many cups of tea, and poking at shapes formed by biscuit crumbs at the bottom of the empty packet, and if you fail to choose one, which invariably you do because it doesn't matter, everything simply slides back into the timeless grey to emerge just the same on another dull day.
It's something to do with infinity and when you're older you know that infinity doesn't exist.  You've lost the courage to imagine it.  You can almost smell encroaching old age it's so close and you fear it.  You fear not managing.  You fear stumbling round the kitchen in a baggy acrylic cardigan and trousers that smell of urine, groping for the kettle with your arthritic fingers and barely seeing where the teabags are through your rheumy eyes and also because you've forgotten and there's nobody there to remind you except the underpaid under-trained nineteen year old care worker who pops in to change your leg bag at lunch-time - at least you hope it's going to be her and not the sixty-three year old care worker who steals from your wallet because she's angry and bitter about the dreadful state of her life and she's got no pension till she's seventy-one and her partner left her for a bloke and her daughter's an internet escort and she's lost all her money buying scratchcards and tattoos and paying off Wonga loans.  During those flat grey hours in your cold and empty house you look back on your cold and empty life and forwards to a cold and empty death.   You look up at the night sky as you struggle up the icy path to put the bin out and you don't wonder as you did when you were young, you don't see wonder, you can't, you only see that the stars are cold and distant and most of them don't even exist any more anyway. they're dead.  You're living on a planet spinning in a hopeless void and you've hardly any time left and it's all been for nothing and you don't know why.

Enjoy your day!

Steve Hillage - Hurdy Gurdy Man

Not as good as the Butthole Surfers' interpretation, for my taste.  However, always good to revisit the Canterbury school of prog.

David Lynch The Art Life - Clip 1: A Strangest Dream

11: Ladies Dancing