Fri Oct 1, 1999.                                                                  

  Yesterday evening, Iain Sinclair the famous novelist/poet duly turned up as guest of the Accrington Literary Club, which for this well attended event met in the Victoria Room at the Town Hall. Sinclair, a short balding man with beard, moved about sheepishly and clearly didn't relish being the centre of attention. He walked with a limp because of a recent walking accident- a car drove over his foot on Whitechapel High Street whilst he was engaged on one of his mammoth treks across London. After some preliminary banter he honoured us by reading an extract from his forthcoming novel 'The Blind Ocean'. During the tea break I managed to purloin his notes and take a photocopy. I can't resist printing it here for the first time. Here is the extract he read................

 

 "Renee Fusk was the man of his own dreams, a demy-god in denim, a half-price frock merchant out of Hackney Central; picks mushrooms at the weekends, hunts them down with a feral dog barking up the right tree. Tips the crumbs from his Cadbury's Flake onto passers-by from the 5th floor of his office on the Balls Pond Road - the punters think it's some new air-borne pollutant, genetically modified dog froth. Fusk pulled the birds all right - by their hair. His foreplay was a kick up the arse, a tenner down the cleavage, a sickening wink and a fart if you were lucky. He shifted home like a heartsick camel. His current stash was off Rotherhithe High Street near the Angel Pub. He’d pop in of an evening, jettisoning his meek persona for Pleistocene-man; clobber the nearest gimp with a barstool; throw casual pets into the river - tell them to "drink their fill" (he was a humorous bloke), no pets allowed, near him leastways. A woman would take his fancy, some sweet young 60 year old with a florid wig and pig dentures. “You’re just my type darlin'", he’d moan, trousers swimming on the floor, propane flatullating up his earlobes (Chinese Fritters, lovely jubbly) hair alive in the up draught, eyes like black holes sucking in every morsel of her being, stimulating him), making him big, but humble with it, saliva slipping down the random crevices of mount chin. The woman is in cryogenic shock, a Tussaud’s dummy done up like some elder Royal (Princess Past-it), the light bounces off the river onto her blushing fingernails as they attempt to grasp a cigarette, a feeble phallic barrier to the grotesque colossus closing in on her. It’d never been like this in the 40’s, men knew their place (and usually hers as it happened! titter-titter).  A flash of gold, a spinning mini-world UFO pound coin zips across the tension field, flicks a Fuskian forehead and disappears up a rat’s arse, en-route for the kitchens. (It changed its mind. The thought of food was suddenly of no importance) 

 

 It went down rather well.

 

 

 

  Sat Oct 2, 1999.                                                                                                                                     

 Shopping at my local Budgens supermarket. Out of town friends are amazed that there are any Budgens left. This one fell through the gap. The entrance is conveniently signposted by a pool of rancid liquid on the floor (an aid for the blind perhaps?). I head for the tinned peas which are logically stored above frozen black puddings; tea bags could be anywhere and frequently nowhere - I like that, somehow it’s reassuring to one’s expectant expectations in an existentialist kind of way. Old ladies thrash against you with their huge, turbo-charged trolleys. You stifle retaliation; the Security Guards’ speciality is to nail your head to the Fish counter (he’s a troublemaker down the Queen’s Arms Pub).  At checkout you feel like checking out of life, relinquishing responsibility for your shopping in a final futile gesture aimed at the surly college part-timer who berates you for not knowing the precise variety of some apples - “Cynthia! - this jerk has unlabelled fruit!” She looks at you as if you were a malignant sore on her backside. Lancing would be too good for me, electrodes zapping at my genitals was more like it.....zap-zippy-zap, nullify that tiresome masculinity! Yet somehow the place has charm, the kind of charm that only Accrington can supply. The Northern light spills in through the window, fighting past discount stickers and discarded trolleys, suffuses the checkouts with a promise of............... escape.  Shopping in 4 heavy carrier bags I stumble home, barging Veterans into the gutter, reeling against the wind, dodging buses that thrill past bemused trippers, their arms outstretched in a token gesture that asks politely, “could I stop you for a second to take a ride?” - no chance!  this delinquent bus driver stops for no one except Bus Inspectors and card-holding Fascists! I climb the hill, skid on a pile of dog shit and fall over a hedge into a garden. There’s a banging on the window (from the inside) and mute, threatening gestures, the gist of which is, “kindly remove yourself from my late-flowering Petunias. I retrieve some tins of ‘tuna in curry sauce’, wipe the dog shit from my shoes onto his neat lawn and tank-track through his hedge (in a pristine spot). It was probably HIS dog that was responsible, a hazard to innocent pedestrians!

 I seem to have become a character out of an Iain Sinclair novel. Must put a stop to this before I become fixated on Doss Houses!

 

 

 

Mon Oct 4, 1999.

Last night saw another meeting of the Accrington Intellectuals. The gamey ambience of the room below Shuttleworth’s the Butcher has taken its toll. The members are discontent, particularly after the shameful display at the last meeting when implements of a non-cerebral nature were tossed about. Indeed Shuttleworth himself has threatened legal action. A postal vote will decide a future locale. Dr.Finzi the Vice-President (and my doctor as it happens) put a motion about the compulsory wearing of jacket and tie but was defeated. The topic for debate was ‘Is Television Real?’. The consensus was that it was MORE REAL THAN REAL LIFE. Afterwards I adjourned to the Cafe Splendid to meet up with Emma. She has a theory about bar codes, that they’re invested with a malevolent force under the control of the ‘unseen’. A couple of transvestites at a nearby table were discussing, in loud gruff voices, a new attempt at staging ‘Love in a Doorway’ which was interrupted by a Police raid last time out at the Queen’s Arms. Emma stares at the bar code on a sauce bottle - “This one radiates heat! Feel it.” I feel it - “Hmmmm you’re right. Why don’t you collect a dozen or so and use them to warm you’re room?” “That’s not the point!” she says illogically. I say, if a malevolent force wants to heat your room for you, go for it!  Emma tries to cure my Liggylip by putting the bar code on a box of painkillers to my lips. It did seem to reduce the tingling but I’ll keep taking the tablets anyway.  Duncan has become infatuated with a woman he saw in a hairdresser. It’ll all end in a poem I’m afraid!  Wonderful, crisp sunny day today in Accrington. Went for a walk along the canal counting the dead fish - 14.The hills look so inviting but are very boggy after recent downpours. A man cycles fast along the path with a small furry dog in tow. It compliantly submarines through the endless puddles.

 

                        

Fri Oct 8, 1999.                               

I took Marshal, an old friend from my time at Oxford, on a tour of Accrington. He’s lodged somewhere in the new MI6 Building on the south bank of the Thames. He only tells me that he’s in a Department concerned with China. He’s fluent in Mandarin (and several other fruits for all I know). We went into Shuttleworth’s the butcher where Marshal started ranting in Chinese. All Shuttleworth said was, “Is your friend alright?”. I bought some sausages.                                                         We looked at the new art in the Blitz Gallery (was tempted by a small oil - swirls of mauve’s & deep blues overlying a montage of strange Cut-outs. We walked around Haworth Park, admiring the misty view. At weekends, Marshal lives in a houseboat in Little Venice, London. In his spare time he breeds Persian Blue cats, writes articles for the Spectator, draws superb little studies of London Street scenes and teaches Chinese people English in an informal setting in Soho. He thinks what I do a bit crass, not realising that I can’t do anything else. Anyway, I don’t mind the odd bruise now and again, and the Roses come up a treat!

 

 

 

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Sat Oct 9, 1999

 Dull and rainy in Accrington. The pigeons huddle up on street corners, “spare some crumbs bud?”, they ask plaintively. I toss them a few pennies from my deep pockets. On days like these I hood myself under a newspaper in the window seat of the Floral Grill on Houghton Street and tuck into a spiffing fry-up for £2.The grease insidiously permeates your being, lubricates the brain and frees up dormant ideas lurking there since childhood.  The people wandering outside shuffle towards the Market, hoping for a........cheap budgie? - a cut-price companion to ‘fill out’ their tawdry soulless lives, or perhaps they’re into plastics - you know the sort - scratched basins, soap dishes mauled at the edges, a discoloured segmented lozenge for housing eggs (or pebbles from the Ocean?).  Something is scratching at my leg. It moves upward, spreads out, enters my brain, scuffs about and then leaps into my mug of tea. There’s nothing like a fry-up on Saturday mornings, immersed in the vacuity of a town like Accrington to feed the imagination. I think I’ll return to the Market to buy that plastic Auto-feed Matrixollator. It was only 50p & I’m sure Crispin will enjoy hiding in it.

 

Mon Oct 11, 1999                                

   Last night I was down at the ‘Broadacres Dining Experience’ in Accrington (off Web Street, by the Public Baths). Emma

weeping a little, told me about her emotionalproblems brought on by contemplation of her, as yet, unmarried, childless state (she’s 32) “PULL YOUSRELF TOGETHER!” I screamed at her. And she did God Bless Her. No point moping is there?  Worse things happen at sea (or on land) - falling down disused mine shafts and being trapped there until you starve; contracting Reiffenblatt’s Syndrome and watching your limbs drop off one by one, helpless as a kitten; being victimised by sadistic Waitresses - I’ve had that. Lots of stuff. Anyway, kids just clutter up the house - before you know it there’s 20 of them, all demanding your undivided attention - “GIVE ME MORE CAKE!” they plead mutinously. “There’s no cake left you little brats!”. But that doesn’t work; they just eat you alive....  (or is that mice? I don’t remember).  I suggest to Emma that she swipes herself with some bar codes, but she’s gone off that theme apparently.  Sunny & cool today in Accers - went for a hike up Whipple’s Mount. Wonderful autumnal colours - purple, orange, green, fruit pink. For some unaccountable reason an old Steely Dan song came into my head, one I hadn’t heard for years - ‘Minor from China’. “Don’t flute my clouds man!” - wouldn’t dream of it Donald.

 

 

 

    Fri Oct 15, 1999.                                                                                                                                                             As  part of‘Community Support’ I visit various individuals with Special Needs in the Accrington area. Today I visited Tony, 24 and unemployed, living in a small room in the outskirts of town, next to a Brewery. I enter upon virtual darkness; the large window is almost opaque with centuries of congealed farts. Tony lives in dust-ridden squalor but seems to like it. He shows me his ‘Art’ on the peeling walls - pornographic calendars, 10 years old, encrusted with oil paint. Strangely, these items DO sell down the market at £10 a piece - I’ve seen old codgers buying them, stuck to a board and wrapped up in newspaper. I admit to having one myself called “Lilly likes to Lick” adorned with floral pinks & deep purples. It hangs in my bedroom. Emma thinks it’s disgusting. I paid him £5 for it on one of my early visits 5 years ago, when he delighted in showing me the toilet/bathroom he shares with 10 other tenants. He pointed out an interesting fungal growth on the ceiling, colours to die for (or be killed by, as pieces flake off into your mug of ‘beer in the bath’). Today he traced out the patterns made by snails as they attempted to escape the decrepitude of the floor area by struggling upwards toward the haven of the light bulb. I helped him to remove a lump of debris from behind the fridge. I suspect it was a control mechanism for a nuclear warhead secreted there by a Russian spy in the early seventies. It had buttons and lights on it.

 Tony likes to talk about his time in the ‘loony bin’. He says that he faked his bouts of manic destruction just for a roof over his head after living rough for 5 years - this after he burned his school down for expelling him.  I left him listening, entranced, to Darts on Radio 5 Live, his cat (Vim) retching in a corner. The multiplicity of human life in Accers is astonishing.

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