Mon FEB7, 2000
Professor Chommy, who is in charge of the archaeological dig up at Barts Moor Farm, gave a talk to the Accrington Intellectuals last week. Ogden Pinolin, the Arts Critic for the Accrington Gazette, introduced him as Professor CHUMMY & was corrected in hissing fashion by our token female Shiela Okky.As the Prof stood up, he acknowledged Shiela with a smile and nod of appreciation.
The mysterious stone tablets, which had been unearthed, supplying the Gazette with several startling headlines:
RANDY ROMANS IN NUDE SEX GAMES
WHAT ROMANS DO WITH ACCRINGTON PUSSY
NUDE ROMANS IN SEX FRENZY
turned out to be nothing more than Victorian Guttering. One of the diggers had fed the newshounds with his Drug Induced imaginings. The Professor was rather annoyed by the sensationalist stance of the local press (though in fact the Nationals had picked up on it also) claiming that they were not interested in the real world & had to invent lecherous news to generate sales. “Surely the public in Accrington are interested in the truth of the history of their town, even if it is of a more mundane nature. Roman Accrington consisted mostly of a minor Fort supported by a small civilian service industry. However there is evidence of ANIMAL ABUSE and some BIZARRE PAGAN RITUALS.”
With guests of the calibre of Prof Chommy there was no question of the usual vitriolic dissent and physical intimidation of a normal AI evening, so everything was quaintly sedate, we even enjoyed some FAIRY CAKES during the tea-break.
On Saturday night there were a lot of lights up in the sky. They pulsated & gorged themselves on their patalumination. The reds were redder than any reds I have ever seen. The yellows were golden and sparkly. Those UFO’s really know how to give a display. Of course I fool myself! It was only the drugs for my LIGGYLIP activating my senses, re-inventing the world afresh, making it dance to my own brief, luxurious tunes………..da da de dee dum da de de dum da de dum ….Plums and Finigins!
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Sat FEB12, 2000
The closet pigs, harmonising
Are not invoking parables of friction.
Let them free
To browse among the sleepers
(Blythe Tooks ‘Casual Wishes’ 1934)
I was up on the moor today, listening to the wind singing through the long grass, casting my eyes (light blue with a touch of glimeys) about, looking for the poetic & finding my attention drawn to my rumbling stomach and a pain gestating in my groin. Tanya Oxeles, my hairdresser, was supposed to meet me but she didn’t show – not surprised really, all that mindless frivolity that one indulges in getting sheared. I seemed to remember saying something to the effect that she should meet me up on the moor and she seemed to agree, saying it would do her good to get out since she usually stayed in on Saturdays perming her kittens & doing freeform Origami (she had a 1st edition of DO IT WITH PAPER by Crivvy Hardbin – they sell for upwards of £30 now, all because of a dust-jacket illustration by David Hockney.Later editions just have mouldy Crivvy Hardbin with a paper THING on his head and some paper THINGS ranged on a table in front of him.) Anyway truth be told, I only have her as my hairdresser because she’s cheap & smells of peppermint + she has a pleasing tone to her voice that hypnotises me into mindless tranquillity. I find myself talking complete drivel and not worrying overmuch…….”Oh yes, charity shops ARE wonderful places to pick up old jigsaw puzzles and such nice views, not like todays, oh yes AND souvenirs de…….did she say that? Well really that’s a bit……..what a lamby….oh no just a frill with taught edges…………Bacup is it? Well I knew there was one in Haslingden……..”
So there I was alone on the moor with the wind singing through the grass, the sun diffracting between my eyelashes chromatising the distant hills moulded by an intermittent Northern sun. Do you know? I realised that I hadn’t suggested anything of the sort to Tanya Oxeles, I was just running a fantasy tape through my head triggered by a recollection of a phrase she had used last week when I visited her at the boutique (SHORNS of ACCRINGTON) – she said “I love a walk in DE WINTER. It is so DE-LICIOUS”. Ah yes, I knew now. The FRISM had collapsed & I was free to SONAR DE MENCHE i.e. Scour the hills for pictorial emblems suggesting immortality.
Thu 17 FEB, 2000
So peeps (as the Brit-Babes might say, God rot them) Emma phones me up out of the blue and says she’ll give me visiting rights to see Crispin (my cat) twice a week. Apparently she’s ditched the new boyfriend (reasons unspecified, but I can guess – FICKLENESS) & is living up on Hanson Crescent in Accrington with a rather posh girlfriend of hers – Rachel.
I asked Emma, smiling inwardly, what she was feeding Crispin on? Still tuna chunks in mayonnaise? Or had it moved on to smokey bacon crisps or doner kebabs?
“Oh just ordinary ‘Whiskers’ from Budgens!” she replied demurely. I couldn’t believe it. Could it be true? It then occurred to me in a rare moment of lucidity that perhaps the catapuss was just unsettled at my place and felt rather insecure, wheras with Emma it was on a firmer footing and could partake of normal comestibles. I asked her, rather flippantly, if she’d stolen the old boyfriend’s cat as well, but she said in a deadpan voice that he didn’t have a cat, just headlice and some miscellaneous creatures of the foot area (I think she implied CRINOTOSIS but I didn’t pry). We arranged to meet for a snack at the Café Splendid the following evening, and we got on as good as new. I think it helped that she didn’t feel obliged to take me to task for not living up to her expectations. She showed me a photo of Crispin, looking quizzical, sitting on a violently stripy settee (Bridget Riley would have been in heaven strobing herself into ectoplasms!) and also a photo of herself standing next to her old boyfriend outside a church.
“Was he a church-goer?” I asked.
“No. He’s an estate agent. The building behind us is a conversion into studio units. I think it was the rancid commercialism that put me off him.”
“Not the headlice then?”
“Oh No. They came in handy for a night-time snack. He had his good points!”
We walked under a beacon moon and delivered our souls unto the glaring tat of the town centre, pointing out to each other the obnoxious commercialism that everywhere spat in the face of even the lowest aesthetics. Truly we were a dewy-eyed duo.