Friday 1 November 2024

Mumbo-Jumbo Sure Ain't Gibberish

In the fourth year of Secondary School, Form 4b of Alsop Comp for Boys Only were due a lesson in Godknowswhat. A couple of pals and I arrived early, dunno know why, but for some reason I boldly chalked,


..on the squeaky owl blackboard. When the bell went off, we bundled out of the room to queue up with the rest of our mates in the corridor and wait for the Master to show. I don’t remember who he was, fifty-odd years hence, but what has stuck in my mind all this time was that he taught without erasing my words. Whatever he was supposed to be on about, what I’d written on the board was the real subject. Needless to say, I struggled not to laugh and give myself away as the author, and I wasn’t alone, it being one of the few occasions in the five years we were together I earned the title of Class Wag – quite a honour... (another time involved a pair of sliding blackboards with a sausage wedged between). All I can say about the lesson was that the Master ended up teaching - in no uncertain terms - that Mumbo-Jumbo Definitely Was Not Gibberish, even if none of us at the time could tell quite how he had pulled this off, and he musta been blissfully unaware, or maybe superaware as teaching folk sometimes slyly are.


As to the meaning, I wouldn’t mind having a stab at it now, should the Reader permit...


Note that the Leftovers - for whom I was a prominent left back - had the most extreme knockabout games that have ever taken place in or out of Liverpool, far from the watchful gaze of sadistic sport’n’science Masters. Sorry, am I getting sidetracked down the jigger behind Memory’s Cul-de-sac? A-hem! Or, “A-homme!”, as some might cough when a Master entered stage right...


You see, to us school was not a place to learn very much beyond when to duck or dive, if to lie and how not to tell the truth. Oh, you might – if you paid extreme attention – have stuffed some trigonometry or Shakespeare up your sleeve. You may have been versed in the causes of the First World War and the effects of
 light & humidity on the behaviour of woodlice; you might have parroted a bit of French or Spanish; and if you were exceptionally bright, you could also have shone in the revelation that electricity came in both AC and DC, long before Australia had music that didn’t come in only Rock’n’Rolf. Apart from all that, just the lads who were good at sports excelled in anything that seemed to matter. For sports read football, soccer and togger.


So let us examine this Mumbo-Jumbo - incidentally the title of a surrealist novel by Ishmael Reed, first published in 1972 (2 years after the events related here, see below for link). The term itself suggests mumbled, jumbled-up utterance; not entirely nonsensical, but neither penetrable by much analysis. It is often deployed against pointlessly technical jargon or the bogus dogma of a dubious cult. Hence I think Winston Churchill used it in an early memoir to refer to the creed of the established church. Or maybe that was “rigmarole” – so what? The same difference will apply. Of course, to the initiated (if not the inebriated), Mumbo-Jumbo is not gibberish at all; but to those not in on the lark, this fact might still need pointing out.


The so-called lower primates gibber incorrigibly, and though the sounds thus produced probably make perfect sense to themselves and each other, to most of us Gibberish appears a poor approximation of language as we know it. Human Gibberish is also somewhat imbecilic, and may be punctuated with such delicacies as spittle and drool. Gibbering, then, is not Mumbo-Jumbo in the sense that whatever it expresses, there is little or no meaningful exchange of information.


So, what the hell you may say, chalk sure ain’t cheese, either. But I would say the distinction to a spotty fourteen year old was in itself a revelation on a par with Empson’s
 Seven Types of Ambiguity, which I was about to attempt reading... (and to give up on at page 3). The first of many trite remarks, crass impertinences and half-witticisms. Read on, MacDuff... 

*

Click here for Ishmael Reed's Mumbo-Jumbo

*


shallow truths

 

fe’ral judge in document

case has ruled themselves a joint

stick it up your jumper ban

that’s how it works

 

Mr President your right

hand should never know what’s left

wave & smile we’re passing thru

Washington State

 

all the way to Florida

keep a beedy eye out for

somewhere on this road now turn

round one more shot

 

gee it’s hot I mean to say

she but pronouns tend to lie

down just when you need their Please

Please me or Help

 

oh another thing I tried

opening the window but

quite a lot of paperwork

blew the hell out


*


In a note from our spinsters,

“Pardon me, Nuestros Amigos Naughtyamericarnos, but God, Satan & that big feller with the axe will punish you for voting Shyster & Co. back in. (Also, your membership of The Owl Civilisation Mob royally flushed.)”


*


Tolpuddle revisited

 

for a thousand years or so

everything was black & white

rich folks ran the bloody show

god & their right

 

then the colour bar was raised

Winston Churchill voted out

slowly things began to change

still there was doubt

 

agriculture industry’d

pulled the rug from under us

common land which had been free

flogged to the boss

 

common folk with many skills

driven from ancestral homes

put to work in gaslit mills

giants to gnomes

 

little better off than slaves

few retained their heritage

time we started making waves

under the bridge


(verses Excerpted from the forthcoming chapbook, "Dismal Stories")


No Bull Obliged!


Tuesday 1 October 2024

dismal stories

with apps. to Js. Gillray

…work in progress…

 

Around twice a year I put out a chapbook of verses, often on topical themes. The next one is due out before Christmas. Called “dismal stories”, here are a few examples of how it’s going…

 

 

MAD girl

 

someone fix my toy pram bomb

please it’s scuffed wobbles & one

wheel’s begun to squeak I mean

what if I scream

 

how much HMX was put

up my dolly’s bum you brute

see her swollen cheeks are red

soon she’ll be dead

 

yes I know revenge is sweet

look at the state of our street

I’d prefer a new arm though

when do we go

 

Ahmet Teacher seemed so glum

told the truth was martyrdom

did he have to use that word

what does he care

 

paradise will be so nice

peaceful there the only price

we shall miss my brother’s birth

day goodbye Earth

 

 

odds are even

 

epicentre crush

forces build below

only so much time

walls gonna blow

 

calculated risks

what insurance tax

free no MoT

car bomb attacks

 

earthquakes hurricanes

rivers burst their banks

meteorites explode

rolling of tanks

 

swordsmen run amock

schools get low on blood

loved celebrities

led out in hoods

 

guess it’s Murphys Law

rich or poor no dice

loaded gun the catch

checking it twice

 

 

birds café

 

waitressing’s a lark but hard

work as watchers we should know

how they keep their cool I dare

say it’s an art

 

earning tips & spurning looks

cheeky buggers throw their way

no the gorgeous dish you see

ain’t à la carte

 

seasonal of course the job

pays but cash in hand one digs

teaches them deportment pride

seconds no dice

 

with misunderstandings like

Tit-Head takes offence & hits

out not on they have to take

steps it’s decide

 

how the greater good is served

learn karate that’s a fair

chop but this young woman gives

twitchers The Stare

 

 

no-brainer

 

finding new

ways to maim

kill outrage

shame

 

dropping old

ways to talk

understand

walk

 

sending young

people home

eye for eye

cloned

 

choosing no

compromise

seconds out

lies

 

ending this

message now

big mistake

wow


Wot No Progress?



Sunday 1 September 2024

A Tale of Three Sisters


A Tale of Three Sisters

It was early in '98, on a job in Riyadh, and I would tune in to BBC Radio’s World Service. One evening, I heard Alistair Cooke of Letter From America fame sarcastically compare US President Bill Clinton's State of the Nation Speech to the utterings of a Christian Knight, Sir Gawain or Sir Galahad, I forget which. Well overnight, the guy’s cheeky denial of having intercourse with that woman (22 year old Monica Lewinsky) had become the biggest political scandal since Watergate. Remember that one? No? Well, anyway - eventually - President Nixon was forced out of office, but somehow Clinton managed to wriggle on. How? A case of cherchez-la-femme? Meanwhile the wife who stood by him, Hillary Rodham Clinton, has ever since been tarred with complicity in that rotten saga of equivocation and tittle-tattle. I think millions of American women – whether feminist or not – could never forgive Hillary for letting the man get off with a sanctimonious warning. Surely she should have divorced him and stood for office as an independent woman? As it was, she did become a New York Senator and Secretary of State, then won the Democratic nomination to stand against one Donald Trump in 2016; and though Master Trump won the election via the Electoral College system, she got 2 million votes more than him. So there! Take that, Populist! Shucks, if only she had dumped the old Bill, she might even have beaten Barack Obama to the Whitehouse, putting women’s rights before those of blacks. Instead, she stood behind that barefaced adulterer; and they have remained together ever since, bucking just about every marital trend in the manual of a Modern Marriage.

Michelle Obama – Robinson, to give her bachelor name – did not want her hubby to become a politician. He was a part-time activist when she met him, but her admiration for his ideals and commitment were part of the reasons - she says – she fell in love. She disliked politics, and knew that with her Barack becoming first a Congressman, then President, she and their children would miss out on his company. But she stuck by him, campaigned alongside him, and put up with the vagaries of being a politician’s partner. As First Lady she, along with Hillary, had enjoyed & endured high office of state without personally being elected. In that sense you could argue both women had a kind of amateur status - until Hillary chose to go professional, as it were. Michelle hasn’t gone back to work in the traditional sense. She is an activist of sorts, lending her name to causes, supporting and advising the next generation of women and black people in the on-going struggle for rights and opportunities. Right on!

Both former First Ladies made the kind of sacrifices radical women were supposed to deplore, and yet both have become feminist icons. When Barack Obama was standing down, people pleaded with Michelle to run for office, as though she were the only hope in town. She wasn’t, though she might have fared better than Hillary… who, having become the hero who stood up to Trump, is now very much the elder statesperson, and – one hopes, when the last of the Ex-President’s stool pigeons are laid to rest and the man himself is brought to justice – will get the last hurrah. It is their younger sister Kamala who is in line to be the first woman president, the first woman of colour to be at the helm.

Is it a curious thing that all three of these women are lawyers? Or that along with Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, the Law has been their route into politics? All five had promising, lucrative legal practices before devoting their lives to full-time politics. Since the 80s, the only career politician in the Democratic camp has been Joe Biden. On the Republican side, it’s mainly been about those who were in business before. Reagan was an actor before slipping into the role of California Governor; George Bush The Younger was a failed oilman, while Donald Trump was a property speculator & television clown. With Blair and now Starmer, there’s been a similar trend this side of the pond, too; the right having been mainly in the hands of finance hounds (Major, Cameron & Sunak) with the odd entertainer thrown in. With the possible exception of Cherie Blair, none of the UK prime ministers have had a very prominent wife or husband.

So far, Kamala Harris is a relatively unknown quantity. Although she has avoided biological motherhood - unlike her aforementioned sisters, becoming instead the step-mother of husband Doug Emhoff’s children from a previous marriage. But let us not go off down that beaten track. Meantime, she has served in the role Obama’s daughters had recommended for their Pa before running for president, i.e. she’s been Joe Biden’s deputy. Now her story will unfold. She was elected Attorney General for the state of California, and in that capacity went after crooked businesses, including educational scams – the like of which Master Trump has been involved in. Unlike Hillary and Michelle, who have natural gravitas in their voices, she’s a little shrill and perhaps short on substance. I mean, what does she stand for, besides adherence to The Law? Maybe that is enough for now, given all the bad guys and corporations that continue to plague US individuals and communities. Let’s just hope that along with the felons, she ain’t forced to prosecute any wars.

Don't Blow It!



Thursday 1 August 2024

All Washed Up


hustings fun

 

smells of fairground food

doughnuts popcorn hot

dogs with onion bread

hamburgers fries

 

orangeade in beer

mugs you gotta try

knickerbocker cor

blimey the size

 

vomitoons aside

Savoy truffle hell

skelters far & wide

there goes the bell

 

now the gloves are off

Elon Musk has stuck

bubblegum in some

Wurlitzer cars

 

yeuch my party dress

ruined I’m concussed

out of pocket just

show me the bus

 

 

solidarity with soft fruit

 

2 bananas hiding in a pair of owl

socks while carrot-tops upturn their owner’s flat

make a solemn pact to fight for yellow fruit

rights with a blood oath

 

skinny suits which started out an olive hue

should they peel connections off to heritage

strings of sage & onion round their pretty necks

promising brave deeds

 

yet they cower while the vegan fascists pull

rifle through & smash the ticky-tacky drawers

toppling wardrobes then defenestrating all

down into Broad Street

 

who or what will rescue them the Food Police

that’s a laugh authority won’t intervene

barring human lifeforms on the line they’ll stand

tittering no joke

 

yes their only hope’s that folks believe in them

cross-bred greens like quasi-tropical legumes

refugees deserving empathy not words

converts to our side

 

 

time for bed Jed

 

half a mo

Jo next time

get a go-

go

 

take the wrong

stuff & back

down the left

track

 

Jack both feet

on the gas

radio

off

 

jumping Jeez

chalk’n’cheese

wars let’s get

home

 

stick your coat

Up Pompeii

dig the ref

Ref

 

 

trump trump trump

 

what’s your object not to rouse

national sentiments or love

but to shatter & fragment

music my nose

 

violins can never right

wrongs against this circus song

stifle trumpets muffle drums

strike down the band

 

fighting music on its own

terms won’t work you gotta like

deconstruct that mass appeal

starting with tunes

 

klaxons gunshots fall of bombs

lorries braking accidents

babies screeching arguments

amplified bums

 

then instead of counterpoint

play the bloody lot at once

don’t repeat at intervals

everything goes

 

 

guilty as hell

 

less than half this height

how a devil would

occupy my head

sorry for that

 

took me umpteen years

countless big mistakes

wrestling for control

still having fits

 

once I burped no words

stomach curdling air

right in someone’s face

what did she think

 

self forgiveness no

difference let the side

down a lifetime’s shame

just for the crack

 

talking grave misdeeds

here I’ve stamped on rats

vegetarian

hypocrite pest

 

 

comment ain’t free

 

lift your tail when letting go

said a horse to anyone

that’d listen but the truth

never came out

 

strict equestrians

smile because it’s true

laughing though’s taboo

actors say corpse

 

while your clever clogs

is the rider who

blinkered deaf & dumb

trots in reverse

 

universal shame

nosebags all they say

meet their Vindaloo

torching of barns

 

veni vidi vici Dick

nuff to make Tom Cobley cry

foul no bloody worries Cock

horses reply

 

 

summer horror

 

stench of rusty iron pipe

bloody come to nuzzle it

damp beneath my hands & knees

crawl to the hall

 

floorboard splinters aging wood

slanted shafts of daylight slit

through a haze of hanging dust

hot as you like

 

dirty broken leaded lights

smoking in the dazzling gloom

let this radiation in

god knows what for

 

try to turn the old brass door

knob it sticks a quarter way

round and so the grown-up way

won’t let me through

 

maybe just as well a loud

buzzing sound strikes up outside

fifty million insects all

sawing as one

Not if I Sawed You First!


Monday 1 July 2024

Keep On Tracking!



election special

 

nude offence

ministers

sporting sore

bums

 

could be worse

President

Boomerang’s

back

 

moonlighting

seniors with

genial

warts

 

Mars Attack

victims rare

Civil War

cards

 

yep it’s show

one & all

how the West

charts

 

*

 

a peroration

 

I’ve already milked the Mosleys once*, but since Mr Michael was apparently no relation to Oswald & Sons, Max or Nick, so - for the love of Pete - here we go again...

The dry Hellenic hills like those of Western Türkiye, even when in sight & sound of the super marine, are downwrite merciless. Mocking breezes blow across their jutting stones and spiky shrubs. Beads of blood sprout from the shins & ankles, while sweat pours down the faces of trekkers as the scorched air extracts every trace of liquid from the quick, the slow, and even the dead. Rays of a nuclear sun penetrate to the bedrock, whilst above the blueblack heavens rage in awesome, silent fury. Put another way, these are not zones meant for casual visitation, least of all by the midday English, with or without their maddening dogs.

City folks who yearn for the ascetic independence of island life – from Ynys Môn to Mytilene, in my case – do so with such desert scopes always wire brushing ankles & toes or salt clawing at the shoulders. From the semi-barren sandhills of Niwbrwch Warren to the crags of South Stack, from the steep, emaciated slopes of Datça to the desertified forest of Sigri – impossible looking hardships challenge each lonesome, passing soul. The lure of walking, scrambling and climbing from one feat-defying feature to the next is an ever present danger. It is an inner treasure hunt, the goal to arrive at some welcome Ne’er-be-Ne’er land, torn & weary but somehow enhanced and therefore more intact. One rewarding return to civilisation might be the taste of a simple draught of cool water; another an ice-cold gasp of beer. More enduring will be the thud of achievement, the memory of heart-stopping moments, when even the invisible crickets desist, transfixed in the silent roar of existence.

I don’t know if Michael Mosley was a frequenter of such landscapes. I do know he was a explorer in his own mind & body, an experiencer of the limits. Indeed, he carved a whole career from them, and though one might comment nice work if you can get it, “Good for him!” is mine. On an otherwise unremarkable day he began, umbrella in hand, an impromptu task - one that ought to have lasted an hour or less, taking the path to a holiday settlement normally reached only by sea. Perhaps he saw himself arriving there from no-man’s land, sweaty & somewhat scratched but hardly the worse for wear, and being recognised (or not) offered a seat in the shade and politely accepting (or declining) the aforementioned refreshment (as against his religion, hic). Somehow, it appears, he lost his way, following a convoluted route that took much longer than it should. Until, eventually, within hailing distance of scoring seaside gold, his heart gave out. He stumbled, fell and died - I fear - a rather horrible death, painful and with no one & nothing to comfort him, apart from a faith, which I hope for his sake did not desert him at the end.

And there the poor man’s body lay desiccating for four days before being spotted – not on the ground by any of the search parties sent out, but - by a photographer examining a long distance shot taken from the sea. His own children in vain had searched within 150 metres of the very rocks where he came a cropper. I guess this was as much because of the blistering heat hampering their efforts as much as by the difficulty of the spot the blighter had got himself into. Actually, looking at the last CCTV images taken of him as he strutted out of the village, huddled under an umbrella, I don’t doubt he missed his path. You should have all your wits – and watts - about you in terrain and heat like that. An umbrella, which blinkers you from your bearings, can do more harm than good - which seems to have been the case here.

So, what do we make of his passing? He who had done so much to warn us of life’s complications: over-eating, inaction, obsession - to iterate but a few. ‘Just one thing, ’ he would say, when offering some new insight on fitness or health. Should his fate deter us from taking any of that advice? ‘Physician, heal thyself!’ the sceptic will snort. But who knows what drove him on that scorching day. Some private demon, perhaps? The Greek authorities say he died of natural causes, whatever that means. I wouldn’t know. But please let us not be put off the challenge. I guess most cats have at least nine lives. It doesn’t matter what did for him at that untimely age, we should still go where he led. He was a very gallant man, whose calm reassuring voice many will miss. And, as someone wrote on his remembrance page, who else is there to guide us through the seventies and eighties of this life?

*The character (Sir) Freddie Earlham, who features in the final part of “My Heart Forgets to Beat”, was inspired by Nicholas Mosley’s portrait of his father in “Rules of the Game”.

 

 *

 

great brutish bog off

 

shame about The Bogeymen

rummage under armour straw

sly their pilot went to plan

series a bore

 

dialogue was fun in parts

some location shots went well

but like Marilyn in warts

bound to appal

 

can’t ignore that je’n’sais quoi

smell of soap & facial squeeze

quote unquote a well worn path

cut to the cheese

 

anyone who votes for them

gets to take Marine LePenn

home for gentlemen prefer

dyed over fair

 

c’est la girl they would of said

Oban Putin Trump Farage

dodgy grammar in the end

turning the page

 

 

shallow truths

 

fe’ral judge in document

case has ruled themself a joint

stick it up your jumper ban

that’s how it works

 

Mr President your right

hand should never know what’s left

wave & smile we’re passing thru

Washington State

 

all the way to Florida

keep a beedy eye out for

somewhere on this road now turn

round one more shot

 

gee it’s hot I mean to say

she but pronouns tend to lie

down just when you need their Please

Please me or Help

 

oh another thing I tried

opening the window but

quite a lot of paperwork

blew the hell out

 

 

 

anthem for doomed oldsters

 

raise this Turkish coffee cup

scoop of blood & swear by messed

opportunities you know

nothing is good

 

no religion was at fault

burned the tie they gave your dad

damp the book of matches you

found in the vault

 

sneak along the corridor

hold your tongue & feel the power

even some who’ve come through war

fall at this hour

 

tell the king the rotten truth

leaving nothing out but in

stead of how’s-your-fathers let

Cate out the bag

 

then retire without a word

go & live your final years

plucking ticks from donkeys’ ears

that’s how absurd


Don't Not!