Windy Cove

 A Visit to Windy Cove

Introduction

Regular readers will know our eschatological devotion to wind, and greet with a knowing groan news that the downwritefiction spent part of their vacation at its very epicentre. Just round the headland from Flat-U-Lent Point and neatly tucked into the arse end of Boffin Gulf lies the nut brown swathe of Windy Cove. Famous as the place where the first intact pfaert to cross the Atlantic Ocean came in to land, the cove now sports a modern Visitor Centre and a nearby Campsite/GB Caravan Club Park.

 

History

It was in the year 1882(1), two decades before Macaroni discovered The Algonquin, that a perfect pfaert was blown intact across the pond. To the splendour of a ticker-tape send off, and with the hoots of many transatlantic liners, the ill wind set off on its perilous course. It took the familiar trade route and, though the navigation technology of the day was crude, managed to avoid all that Nature threw in its way: icebergs, the Gulf Stream, fields of sargassum and a succession of anticyclones. Manufactured on the East Coast through a combination of Germanic know-how, Irish brawn and Anglican cunning, the pfaert remained intact - flaunting the laws of physics, cocking a snoot at a Newtonian Universe, and offending the sensibilities of Queen Victoria herself. That West-East should be its vector, and not the reverse, there was no mean feet in it succeeding both to elude Her Majesty’s Customs & Excise and embarrass the US Coast Guard at a time of rising Protectionism. The pfaert, for its own part, had quite another agenda: to rule the waves and – as the old saying goes – to waive the rules. This it did to some considerable triumph and not a little acclaim.

 

Specifications

The exact volume of the pfaert went unrecorded at the time of its launch. As to colour, density and humidity, surely the facts speak for themselves. Odour, of course, is a separate matter. A considerable amount of cheese and egg contributed to its make up. Then, as it made its way across the ocean, it is said to have absorbed trace quantities of ozone, Benzole and karaoke.

 

Parking

While eletric vehicles stay free of charge, horse-drawn carts, four-wheelers and phaetons pay and display. There is no change machine so be sure to have the right coins ready. The park is plagued by hordes of touts and pedlars, many of whom are clearly underage or on-the-run. Patrons are recommended to leave one of their party at the vehicle, armed with a shotgun. 99s with strawberry sauce dipped in ground nuts are available at the vans.

Visitor Centre

While the beach itself is not worth a candle, and swimming is prohibited (except for nude bathing by moonlight), the visitor centre is a snip, with entrance fees starting at £35. The hands-up experience is both a multi-media and sensory pot-pouri. Charting the progress of the pfaert - from lunch to landing - visitors are guided through a series of tableaux in which sound, smell, touch and even light are employed to provide an all-round, memorable experience. Not a second is wasted and there is little queuing (apart from at the Toilets), the whole show is over before you can say Jimmy Riddle - meaning no time for screaming kids to demand another 99. Moreover, the Gift Shop at the Exit will sop up any remaining funds you have, with genuine Banksy depictions of the pfaert in 20, 50 and 100ml bottles.

Temple

When it became known that Jeremiah Hodge - the retired ship’s carpenter who came across the pfaert as it came in from the sea - had inadvertently ignited it, the Royal Society of Pseudo-Zarathusians immediately pounced. Lighting his pipe with a smoker’s match (Vesta Swan), the pfaert – which was 87% methane – exploded in an odorles blue flame, blowing Hodge’s straw boater off and singeing his whiskers. Thereafter the Royal Society erected a small temple on the beach above high water mark. With separate entries for Ladies and Gents, plus a chamber for the ritual washing of babies, the Temple is open from 9am to 5pm. At other times, a key may be obtained from the Warden for a small charge.

Campsite

Do not under any circumstances attempt to camp, light fires, park caravans or sleep out in the camping area & caravan park. To do so will incur a fine of forty shillings. 

Never Say You Weren't Warned

---

(1) That is year 1882 of the Common Era; scholars of the Contrarian School assert the first intact pfaert made the crossing in year 1882 BCE.

Melinta - Dinosaur or Dreadnought?

Superficially, an unremarkable pebbled strand were it not for the beached Dreadnought or – given its age, hardly less likely – a dinosaur rock that juts straight into the blue wine-and-water Aegean at the crook of its western quarter. Closer examination of the bedrock and stones strewn across the narrow shoreline reveals clusters of sedimentary conglomerates with embedded pebbles and veins of plain or reddish quartz. Layers of high grade ignimbrite intrude everywhere across the region, and although it is known in Turkish as garlic stone (sarımsak taş) it has a lovely light pink colour. Various stages of greenschist (I’m guessing, from the olive green of its powdery precursor) through to the fully vulcanised harder-than-marble product – are common, but they far from dominate; the beach is a scrapyard of remnants from the massive volcanic action that disrupted Lesbos, and set it adrift from the Anatolian shores around 23 million years ago. Melinta - like Drota, further along the coast to the West - is an amateur geologist’s dream and nightmare rolled into one puzzling package.

Looking seaward, Sou’-Sou’-West, lie the Greek islands of Chios and (just visible during a clear sunset) Psara; while to our extreme left the dark hump of the Karaburun peninsula can be spied, along with a steady stream of cargo ships heading to and from the Turkish port of Izmir. The Dreadnought is broken up at an incredibly slow rate, slightly abetted by the goggled excrescence of human swimmers. However the rock was laid down and partially metamorphosised, the layers of it now lie perpendicular to sky and shore, where its armour plates are pried apart by wind and sea; but meantime a hardy species of olive bush manages to sprout here and there in the crevices.

Melinta was once home to a factory or warehouse, connected to the olive oil industry that dominated Lesbos a century ago. There is no chimney here, though, and its proximity to Plomari, the regional centre of soap exports to Odessa and Alexandria and made the locals rich enough to construct mansions. Here, all that is left are a few walls, the foundations of which at the shore end mostly eroded and undercut by the sea. It was probably a staging post for the hinterland, and served by coastal traffic (though there is no evidence of an old pier or jetty). But there remain a few historic beach houses, three stories high if you include their stone foundations.

Some are not so old, and accommodate restaurants, pensions or both; and there are tourists staying here, with many day visitors, so parking becomes something of a problem weekends. Beyond the row of seafront buildings adjacent to The Rock and stretching Eastwards along the shoreline, enterprising folk have constructed holiday homes, many quite large, though nothing high enough to cause much of an eyesore. As yet. On the other side, a handful of battered properties have fared less well against the raging sea.

The wrecks of inflatable boats and discarded lifejackets of refugees are found even here on the far side of Lesbos. Most of them land on the Northern shores that face Assos, but there have been so many that some have either overshot the sandy coves of Tsonia and Petra; or else they’ve launched from Dikili or the beaches of Karaburun.

The miniscule growth of Melinta, like other seaside settlements hereabouts, was inhibited by piracy until the mid-nineteenth century. Locals preferred to live high up in the safety of the surrounding hills, so towns and villages such as Megalochori (for Plomari), Akrasi (for Drota) and Palaiochori (for Melinta) are much more historic. Each is located on one or more streams that flow only in stormy weather, bringing much of the pebbles and sand down that make up the strands. Beyond Plomari at Agios Isidorus only this year a flash flood turned the concrete floor of its stream into the bed of a raging torrent that carried several parked cars out to sea, and flooded the basements of seaside pensions.

Stretching back through Ottoman, into Byzantine and ancient times, local fishers pulled up their simple boats, turned them over and buried them in the stones of the strands. They would carry their catches home in woven baskets. These would have been self-sufficient communities for centuries, until demand for olive oil soap brought them into a modern globalising world. The Drotas, Melintas and Plomaris of today no longer rely on the olive for their existence, and soap hasn’t been made hereabouts in half a century. Ouzo production, however, sourcing local spring water and herbs - is gradually modernising. Tourism, with the restoration and new building of holiday homes, dangles a new wave of prosperity in the eyes of locals and speculators. George Kakes, a local civil engineer, is talking about a coast road, snaking Westwards towards the seven kilometre sands of Vatera. We have been here before.

No Dinosaur!

New Summer Book Bitch

another pink un?

After almost a decade spent basking on the shelves, downwritefiction's Summer Book Bitch is back with six all new titles compulsory spooling on the Musk Implant Reader©. Plus extras… 

Also Rans in the Artificial Cheese Award:

Atsum Point

by

Chicken O’Hooligan

Another stunning topographic romp along the contours of cartographic suspense, this time taking the reader (sic) on perilous dives from their garden's end to the undergrowth of Simpleton’s Crotch. In the franchise that never stoops to Googleplex, one wonders just how long the bot can go on delivering geographic intelligence of this calibre. Digital text includes the option to Autoread with freak ribs, pop-up spoilers, and GoTo Cheese buttons. Complete with choice of seven weird and five nonsense endings, eleven Sex and Violence settings and an Ex Midlands vintage holiday coupon.

The Soxicologist

by

Snerpy Doodah MP

Further poisonous snacks from the stubby pencil of Constable Doodah, The Soxicologist is a three course novella with bald sexism, coy nudity and a wondrous digestive tract. Unsuitable for teenage environmental terrorists, featherweight politicians and blatant squares of all shape and size. Come and vomit with us under the bridge in the dark. Contains a free Palace of Westminster security pass.

Shot In The Foot

By

Ricco Shea

Not a very catholic book, written on the back seat of a London cab during two world wars, printed in North East and South West Looe, published by Albie Dammed, sold down the market in Nu d’Orleans, publicity by Predictable, cover photograph by Telly Kenesis, blurb by Slurdis Wurtz, sponsored by The British Crime Safety League, and taxed by the US Gov. Other than that, it’s a fairly standard foot-shooting tome which will appeal to most lovers of the genre.

Shutt of the Antarctic

by

Penguin Bucks

A sweltering heatwave typeset in Cobalt Crude, it relates the fable of Neville Shutt, an unassuming doorman from Dorchester, who is roped in by his nemesis/false friend Peter The Saint. Together they stagger across the dried up bed of the South Atlantic towards the Great Antarctic Plateau with little more than a few tins of pilchards and a sixpack of huskies. Will they ever reach the summit of their goal, or Go To Gaol without stopping for a Jimmy? Don’t read this book! It’s not a book. It’s the collected betting slips of a demented doorman on MDF. Gateway to the pearls of Mars. Exit straight into the jigger. Black hole of nearby Cluster Galaxy XXXIVa.

O Sausage Water

by

Klint Sadvocation

You won’t find Sausage Water on the Moon, or posted under Main Battle Tanks of WWII, nor caught sleeping on a bench in the Shoreditch Old DHSS Office. The Sausage Water is truly elusive, though only offensive to true Russian oilygarchs. Running through the usual suspects takes time, but tedium is avoided by a frequent guzzling of cocktails and always having herds of cows to milk. Nor can you claim this is a book about nothing without the risk of being sued by AN Author, which is part of its bleeding charm. No need to lie on a bed of nails or indeed to darn your smelly foot-sex. Intelligent, artificial, surreal, porridge with gravy, what more do you want on a Tuesday morning in the rain?

Disposable Housewives

by

Zantium Tcheaze

Augmented insanity minus the Pope’s official opinion on everything from the curse of winter tyres to debt celebration clocks. With gogo-stop-stop-go animations and a soundtrack by The Steelyard Boos, plus Pippa Plughole on flags and plaques, Disposable Housewives rocks but never rolls. For gods shaken not shared, chapter by chapter each episode slightly differs from the frames of a Moron’s Glamour Frieze: peeling wallpaper, screeching axles, and all the fun of falling off the planet. Comes with Green Dustbin Stamps.

Extra Extra Extras… 

Last Year’s Winner of the Artificial Cheese Award

A Safe Pair of Balls

by

Cowboy Jane

The Deadwood Stage it ain’t, tho’ no calamity there, for what constitutes the film parallel, two-tone text on canvas? Show not your ignorance of The Great Unknown by reeling in this old canal bicycle with algae & testimonies of other summers wasted on the beach. Ho hum, so you’ve been here/there/everywhere before. So what? Haven’t we all. No? Read it again to understand less, fool. But this time, try the hardback. 

And in throwbacks:

The Canton Pizzas

of

Zerox Quid

Published here for the first time in a single two-page volume, seven and a half recipes for pure water-chestnut-fed buffalo crap.

The Worst Land

by

TS Idiot

Connecticut or Maine is not the point. Martha’s Vineyard or Nantucket, who gives a peeking duck? Stick it up your sweat lodge, Babe. All the fun of the unfair to penguins brigade. And what’s more, there IS no Waste with this one; when you’re through, just throw it away. 

Forthcoming Titles:

Sir Jimmy Riddle

is life by

P Sorff

From Ray to Ryan Gosling

A survey of Celebrity by

A Nonimus

Finger’s Cave

self-help (manual) by

Feelicks Meddlesome

and…

The Silly Isles

or Genealogy v. Geology

by your very own Zonk Pifflesquate 

Not AI, then?

cut to the cheese

 

money squawks

 

just titanic when

5 adventurers

grab the headlines from

5 refugees

 

quite ironic too

how the depth of high

life engulfs the rich

trumps to the poor

 

the iconic few

versus did I say

5 yes all aboard

kids going down

 

gin & tonics or

sips from plastic cups

famous lasts at least

crushing is quick

 

aye the tragic 5

beats another 5

hundred give or take

these are the breaks

 

 

goodbye Mr Chits

 

folks bewail it but democracy

soldiers on when unfit rulers die

Caesar by others’ hands Atatürk

drank himself dry

 

Hovis too has sacks of enemies

populism’s Comeback Kid they ain’t

yet but time is on their side they might

still become Saint

 

Gee a force for sumpin least the bad

hair brigade’ve scored a champion now

maybe cross the pond they’ll find a new

home for their show

 

they and Princess Whatstheirface the new

Stan & Oily garths or queens of dragged

through a privet backwards screaming blue

murder type lags

 

social democrats beware them white

minstrels got some clever tricks no black

balls can spoil their ballots bounders just

don’t give a frack

 

 

Hovis ain’t brown bread

 

bold Odysseus lost all those men

woe betide such fools as took his side

drowned or gobbled up by Cyclops trans

formed into swine

 

nothing’s down for them besides their parts

acted out in poësy portrayed

on mosaics or as extras paid

off by the day

 

never stick your hands up boys & girls

sleep with Ithaca’s elite in fields

not the palace Troy was sacked with more

mercy he yields

 

only when the gods have raised their brows

will Athena save you nay your match

staged for necrophiliacs who crunch

nuts as they watch

 

bold Odysseus to give the man

half his due the individual

has their place in this imperfect world

leave him a goal

 

 

how now POW wow

 

when their time had come

summonsed to enlist

wore the uniform

didn’t resist

 

never volunteered

shunned that kind of twist

drowned their qualms in beer

should they exist

 

taken prisoner

shackled hand o’er fist

shall we treat em fair

smiley or pissed

 

share like hearth & home

with the antichrist

Wagner’s on the phone

gonna insist

 

this Amerikar

bring on spouse & kids

Liberty like yah

free to the heist

 

 

Swindler’s Lift

 

It would be the heist of the twentieth century, a long game lasting twelve years before the perpetrators were hunted down, liquidated, ticked off or lost to the chaos of war. Pifflesquate remarked, in the crass squalor of their glee,

The opportunity to play this character’s too great to miss, a once in a lifetime opp. Where’s me cozzie?

 

 

hard act to follow

 

Hovis was a fibber Blair

too told blatant lies but kills

count for more so what’s the score

thousands to nil

 

getting Brexit done or half

baked more like when Covid struck

Pan’s pandemic came unstuck

hardly a laugh

 

thousands died but not because

Hovis caught a chill they sneezed

yes with others copped a dose

dropped to their knees

 

aye they partied folks would whine

shame on them the hypocrite

lost their job & paid a fine

easily but

 

Putin only has to quote

Tony on Saddam Husein

for the cheek to score the most

points on Ukraine

 

 

the intelligence of stones

 

time has passed the test it set itself

up as umpire once the human mind

let it loose across the universe

therefore a blind

algorithm cutting paths through space

bouncing like a 3D pinball up

down & round the hidden bends of black

holes to be cup

winner there’s the treble in the bag

only trouble left us far behind

fiddling with the mother ship’s controls

those & the wind

solar wind that is you get my drift

mastering the galaxy we tripped

half its fuses now to put things straight

all hands on deck

gotta shed some ballast throw them stones

overboard ignore their screams they feel

nothing just display the rules of rhyme

rhythm & doubt

 

 

ravin@68

 

toe the line of duty Babe

pay yourself a compliment

step aside & make believe

future’s for rent

 

all the rides you ever rode

put them out to grass you said

running races on the side

fever’s gone dead

 

cryogenically freeze

sickness till one break of day

presto hey the cure is here

time to awake

 

sell yourself a dozen years

more not less & this is how

pledge your house then take the plunge

mortgage the now

 

sign your name draw up some plans

think of all the friends you’ll make

plus the memories no fake

safe in our hands

 

 

sex on The City

 

more indecent gross

markets opened last

year than in the whole

decade before

 

paid illicit sex

crime experienced

soaring growth despite

falling returns

 

boys accepted less

men demanded more

this while kiddie porn

bucked its decline

 

now investors hope

females will reverse

years of negative

growth to relaunch

 

strictly pervert life

styles protection free

trading on police

silence no tax

and no smell

the Tatlock manifesto

car boot find

 

genuine organic nonsense up for grabs

unintelligible art non fungible

tokenised & wrapped in promissories still

wet from the horse trough

 

just a sec Lord Whatsyerface me bunioned feet

scarcely brushed the ground you say this job lot’s worth

twice its weight in cosmic waste no shit it’s more

valuable unboxed

 

tip the lot across the yard we’ll get some mad

keen apprentices on sorting isotopes

from the spent Picassos Warhol prints & owl

Salvador Dalis

 

crypto clues aside how much d’you reckon John

give or take a half-life pack the grafting in

buy ourselves a floating home or camper van

move to the Far East

 

oi you’ve stabbed me right between the shoulder blades

what the Dickens for you dirty rat I’ll tell

Mother think you’re clever well I never dis-

honour among thieves

 

 

strip chess

 

red night

takes

white porn

 

rook pops

up

that’s check

 

your top

please

my turn

 

mate in

eight

moves what

 

no thong

sex

or quits

 

 

the Tatlock manifesto

 

tapioca pud

jam like Kelly’s Eye

not a hand grenade

dropped in yr gruel

 

bloody good you can’t

beat a bit of white

poison just desserts

pardon my frog

 

semolina you’re

waltzing up our street

coronation style

rhubarb & egg

 

custard talking stewed

prunes the stones foretold

who’d be rich from those

coveting loaves

 

beggars never said

they were professised

now I’ll fetch me owl

lollypop stick

 

 

keep this to yourself

 

there's no

telling you

can’t say

 

stick two

blighters down

one hole

 

ten days

pass the time

intact

 

oh folks

do exchange

stuff but

 

neither

pole would make

contact

 

 

husbandry for all

 

some Egyptians worshipped sacred bulls

mummified their cats had bird & dog

headed gods the thieving beetles what’s

that all about

ancient Greeks gave women snakes for hair

Disney raised a mouse to sorcerer’s

app & Goofy what became of him

janitor bore

houyhnhnms & yahoos I dig

held many a convo with my Ben

Jobs he ran away neglected no

not out of food

chickens are another matter love

counts for nowt without their daily grain

eggs will not emerge a fair exchange

always been veg

though I ate my share of Sunday lambs

as a child the gramps a slaughterman

what I’m tryna say is animals

ain’t got no beef

 

 

cheese island

 

cite specific laws

striking robot attitudes

ditch the dreamboat clause

every think is wrong

lyrics root replacement moods

do another song

fix that broken muse

switch to B sharp major chords

see what nothing proves

play the pink notes force

folks to listen there’s the gong

submarine’s on course

land crabs sing along

seascape paintings spot the nudes

losers don’t belong

 

 

skin on drums

 

poets in their sheds

two sheds down the banks

holidaying all

summer the swine

 

wallowing in pure

inspiration full

board & extras kit

washed for a song

 

time of reckoning

pays your money takes

what you fancy eh

grabbed by the tail

 

chances are you’d flog

Auntie Jean as white

traffic just the one

thing to get on

 

play the cherub you

smile & quote a line

Whitman wrote some time

during the war

 

 

sick note

 

caught me out

kafam gone

uptake slow

 

here’s a card

sent in by

God Themselves

 

says I’m owed

fifty leaves

man of means

 

see Me now

bring your watch

chain is all

 

signed in real

bloody ink

msg ends

 

 

Wagner on ice

 

do the Russians dunk

men in yolk before

they’re deployed

or preferring hard

boiled devour them like

salted nuts

downing vodka shots

either way what counts

not the rate

but the cost per day

bed & breakfast lunch

evening meal

ammo clothing boots

casket flag & ten

gun salute

 

 

Peer Gynt & I

 

Armageddon’s neither close at hand

nor afoot it’s as they say the game

never up until Brunhilda’s voice

shatters the ice

while the transit of the Valkeries

cross the Baltic zooming Hitler’s gang

down to the hall of the Mountain King

start of Act Three’s

nowhere near the ending anyroad

fantasies are just like proper life

persons who only exist in time

archetypes free

spirits live forever or at least

resurrection automatically

brings them back as soon as they have gone

off for a Burt

on the other hand who knows with death

fairly common best watch out be true

to oneself neglect heroic try

staying alive

 

 

Orpheus in Squidland

 

how can China change

sides like Eric Blair

claimed to use his real

moniker eh

 

or will Orwell do

trust an Eton man

walking holidays

dressed as a tramp

 

was Tiresias

half as mad to learn

how the others felt

but the Chinese

 

they’re inscrutable

Marco Polo came

home & flogged some tales

porcelain too

 

doesn’t mean a thing

Georgie boy was fly

hedged his bets no way

China is fey

wilderness song

 

given you my word

choice is take or leave it yours

silence the absurd

 

I’ll accept a sneeze

cough or whispers overheard

shooting like the breeze

 

but you have a spare

organ play a tune for me

flash your derrière

 

well the answer’s mean

come again there’s nothing there

calling that obscene

 

echoes cut the air

through the empty atmosphere

predators draw near

not seen on radio