12 12 2023

The gods toy with me, curse me with their joviality, and I not to care – did I ever?
- with any misspellings, of existence? All that matters, and am I not 'matter'? Is that I exist now, this
'being' on / in Ao Nang, Thailand. And the hardest journey was in fact, the first few hundred yards,
May Lane being long … I having to stop exhausted 3 times within that lane. The number 50 driver
kindly stopping to indicate where the bus station was. Difficult to enter, with all the road works,
etc,, and I struggling to find the scan of the code sent. And yet.. the eventual arrival at airport I was
quickly processed, and almost escorted unto the plane. Well eventually the right one (the Singapore
planes curiously parked next to each other.

13 12 2023
A Wednesday, apparently. Yesterday continuing reading Hitchen's Hitch 22. Interesting.
Finished Levin's Pendulum recently. Maybe make some notes soon. Both long gone.

14 12 2023.
Last night in Boogie Bar 'down the road' from N2MY (my initial confusion as to why they
wanted to name a bar after Nitrogen dioxide, Magnesium, and Yidium not to be allayed when it was
explained that N2MY means ' nice to meet you' – first time I'd heard that), and met the singer again.
Tight band. And 3 beers for the price of 2. My 'cleaner ' (another story there I'm afraid) had earlier
said 'buy 2 get one.' I had to explain the the addition 'free' had to be added. I had bought 4 pieces of
chicken from the local street vendor, and got one free. Earlier I translated 'nevilleanimusic' into Thai
(I'd done it years before, but now to be a T Shirt. Still taking the tablets. Are they working. No
question mark needed.

15 12 2023
A Friday.

16 12 2023
Yesterday went to a shop 5/6 miles away to get T shirt set up for nevilleanimusic in Thai and
then again in English. Further proof if any is needed that I exist. Then we went to cafe in Krabi
town and I fed the cleaner (she's very clean) another meal. Then she wanted to go shopping, and so
I made my own way back to Ao Nang. Amazed I found it. Eventually. Then she went to N2MY but
constantly calling later to find out where I was. I don't answer any more. Don't think she realises
how sick I am. Bought myself 3 beers. Slept intermittently. This time last week shitting my guts out,
but nothing since. Keep taking the tablets. Watching The New Statesman, collected Twilight Zone
episodes, various documentaries.

17 12 2023
Started intermittently shitting in the middle of the night, tablets finally intermittently
working. Bao in hospital again. I'm thinking she likes the attention, being fit enough to meet us at
the other side of Ao Nang for coffee and then again locally. She goes off to Phuket for 3 days,
whereas I am unable to, to see... xxx. Went for ride this afternoon, Nood (?) taking a random
circular route around. Took some photos, ended back at Sweet and Sour, for a coffee. Bought Ped a
toasted cheese sandwich, and 3 Changs for myself. Helped a bit last night. Fucking bloated pain.
Curiously, macabrely comparing death dates. I seem to be outliving a lot people, and I with the
childhood scarred wreckage of a body. And now surviving merely long enough to give away the
remains of my money. I had, and have given up, but the gods taunt me.

18 12 2023
Thought I'd do the Proust questionarie, a la Hitchens (Hitch 22 p 333) :
Lowest depth of misery. Difficult one, since my life has been one – certainly now – of pain. I would
not inflict my body, or my childhood upon any other human. Where would you like to live?
Wherever I am, and at the moment I am back in Thailand. But to be alive is the very essence. What
is your idea of earthly happiness? To be pain free would be a beginning, but life is suffering, eh...To
what faults do you feel most indulgent? Tricky one to answer, being ambivalent question. I like
drinking, if it eases pain, which it doesn't, at the moment. What are your favourite heroes of fiction?
Well, Proust of course, even though I know the first and last volumes were written first, his body
surviving enough for him to continue. And I named In Time after the last two words of
Remembrance of … Dislike his perpetual use of 'I', but the film Time Regained captured the
essence of his existence. My other hero is myself, that I survived long enough to write In Time.
What are your favourite characters in history? The key word in the question is 'characters', for they
are not real, merely now characters upon whom stories, legends are draped around. They existed,
but are the 'stories' true? Winston Churchill existed – it seems he was a repulsive human being, and
yet I am glad it was him and not Fairfax who became PM. Who are your favorite heroines in real
life? Finally an easy one. Prof Bronwen Price, Prof, Rachel Lowe, and Rachael Neyman. I 'should'
have married Bronwen, but the wreckage of my body and upbringing excluded normalcy, Rachel
Lowe was an ex music student, attaining Grade 8 in Pianoforte, Grade 6 in Guitar, Grade 4 in
Clarinet. And a nice singing voice – she once sang # Desperado # for me alone before a lesson
began, a great honour. And her personality was lovely. And Rachael – wasn't she my baby? Who are
your favorite heroines of fiction? Can't answer at mo. Your favorite painter? For a long time, pop
artists, I aware of Walter Benjamins essays, then Post Impressionist. Did a GCSE art history exam
at school. But recently Bosch, having a large print of Garden of Earthly Delights (not quite full size
unfortunately,) and relevant books 'explaining'. Your favorite musican? Difficult one, since it was
my job. Bartok's Mikrocosmos was interesting – I remember Sting correctly pronouncing its title, I
was impressed. I admired Rachel playing Clare de Lune from my own childhood copy (although it
might have been Martin's (Woodman), he bizarrely writing out the individual notes of the first few
bars, before giving up. {You need to know the keys of A flat, the sub Dominant D flat etc before
attempting – his 'method' was an idiotic attempt at building a forest whilst assembling twigs}.
Poulenc I liked, both early, Perpetual Motions, and later sacred works. Beethoven's 6th. And that's
merely the classical stuff. And what of the Beatles? Too much to discuss there, although I did laugh
at McCartneys comment ' We did quite well'. And the songs were killers as well, as were the
basslines, vocals, etc etc. And all on 4 track. Impossible, but there you go … The quality you most
admire in a man? Not stealing my time and my money, crimes both Paul Curtis and Angel Shaw
were guilty of. Curtis happy to use my mixer and (music desk) engineering skills for £75 a track,
We recorded 13 tracks for his Grace musical (some of the melodies were very good, and
orchestration too). I'll leave you to calculate total. Having finished I went to Australia for 2 and a
half months. Upon my return we composed some tracks for .. too polite to mention, and then he
borrowed a further £300 to pay for his obviously defaulted upon rent before disappearing from my
life. Sorry Paul Curtis, you had and have a bad reputation, even arguing with someone over my
phone about what you had promised at an earlier time. Self obsession has its limits, and you vastly
exceeded them evidently many times. Curiously enough I had mentioned to Jenny that the voice on
the phone sounded exactly like Paul who was asking for a room at an earlier time.
19 12 2023
The quality you most admire in a woman?
Is there any difference now? Women can be at much monsters as men. Re Angel Shaw. I
gave her and boyfriend Danny Clinton a room, sorted her out with a job from a friend (she hadn't
been requested a job reference- I wouldn't have given her one, not being able to hold down a job at
the end of the road – and yet she still she was 'unable' to repay the 2 loans made. She and Clinton
eventually stole a video player from my bedroom (conveniently forgetting that that was my
bedroom) after I insisting after 4 months, pay the rent or move out. I gave her/them a years grace
before taking legal action which of course I won. Some people are simply self destructive.
20 12 2023
Your favorite virtue? A sense of self deprecating humour. Least favorite virtue, or most over
rated one? Religious fervour. Your proudest achievement? I wanted to become the best music
teacher in the world, and the only way to 'prove' that was within the framework offered, the
ABRSM (acronym probably wrong now) i.e. the total number of passes, which exceeded over a
hundred? It was nice to be in the papers, but the group photo is iconic. All that before I was 40.
Should have stopped then, but the money was too good. Your favorite occupation? Putting my
music to my animations. God, I was talented. And the gods have given me the time for the
remembrance of these Final Daze. Who would have liked to be? A pointless and dangerous question,
for again these are imaginings, and if you are that person can you know of it in their or this time?
Your most marked characteristic? Probably intellectual arrogance. And short temperdness not
helped by perpetual pain. What do you most value in your friends? Too disillusioned now to have
any. Experience eroded their existence. Your principle defect? All of the above. What to your mind
would be the greatest misfortune? To have to live it all again. What would you like to be? I am,
being. What is your favorite colour? Spectrums. What is your favourite flower? Van Gogh's
sunflowers. What is your favorite bird? The owls in the Garden of Earthly Delights. What word
or expression do you most overuse? I have taken, almost as a chant, and saying out loud, 'Let It Go',
a paene to life, existence. I am in a LOT of pain, and yet still survive, still exist.
Who are your favorite poets? Not many I know of, although I recall 'My parents kept me from
children who were rough, and threw words like stones' which may well be Spender. I cut out a
poem from an A level exam, now long gone. I got an A at about age11 for a poem in class, entitled
Fear. Now of course lost, by Woody, discarded with indifference and ignorance probably. There are
'poems' within my text of In Time. What are your favorite names? Rachel, Bronwen, Rachael.
What is it that you most dislike? Myself. What historical figures do you most despise? A
dangerous question, for my opinion of them is irrelevant and had they not existed the world now
would be very different, and my very existence questionable. What contempoary figures do you
most despise? Tony Blair, unconvicted war criminal, multi millionaire tax dodger.
What events in military history do you most admire? What natural gift would you most like to
possess? How would you like to die? In a bike accident here in AoNang. But always the reflex is to
survive. What do you most dislike about your appearance? What is your motto?

21 12 2023
Last night finally run out of the money I'd brought with me; a thousand £ in Thai Baht, and
the same in hard cash. This 'cleaner' very much an unwitting parasite. Happy with a drink of
Chang, or Hong Thong (a rum of some sort). Spends her time on the internet, facebook mostly,
sending me me facile cartoons/gifs. Hoping she'd moved out this week, but no, cleaning her
mattress. She's very clean. Relentless almost. Last week she bought a T shirt and the very same day
she was washing it. I don't know why I find that disturbing. Last night managed to see 3 bands
along the 'strip', wearing my nevilleanimusic T shirt in Thai and English. A minutes video in each
one. Grasp this existence.

22 12 2023
And thus it comes to pass : 25 years since I've seen my beloved Rachael. Now a grown
woman in her 30's. But I still talk to her ghost as if she's 9, going on 10. I hope Jenny has not
destroyed her, if any, ambitions. Very hard to overcome working class origins. I did, but always the
legacy remains. So instead of Rachael inheriting my assets as I obviously wished any monies is
gifted to Andrea's daughter. At least she's doing something with her life, and her origins were far
poorer than Rachaels. Went for bike ride around nearby Ao Nang. Took pix, videos. A quarter of a
century is a long long time. But only for us humans.

23 12 2023 A Saturday. Intermittent sleep. Awoke afternoon,now 13 15. The bloated pain of
existence. Out of curiosity looked up Proust's original answers to 'his' questionaire. And also's
Hitchen's. Not to be adored by mama was Proust's fear. Interesting selection, worth looking up if
interested. Hitchen's was more disturbing. The admission he would rather continue an argument
than be bored was revealing. A curious fellow, all in. His deference to his peers, that he knew them
was also revealing. Martin Amis is only famous because daddy was Kingsley. I tried to read The
Rachel Papers at the time... and … this was high art? This was a literary club that Hitchens rejoiced
in belonging to. An curious revealing incident was that his brother Peter (still alive, pontificating
whatever religious stuff he's interested in, with that ridiculous accent) recently discovered that their
heritage was Jewish. So what? Hitchens latched unto this, now yearning for an imagined past. No
self respecting Jew would live in Isheil. My own amusement is that when a child I wanted to skip
assembly because the catholics didn't have to attend. Curiously bizarre as my mother was, I much
later discovered, catholic, with all the attendant religious baloney that entailed. Not sure she went to
mass or anything. A peaceful day with Noon elsewhere . And consequently unable to ask for money.
She will though.

24 12 2023
Just watched a timeline docu on Richard 2nd. Always wondered if the peasants revolt had
succeeded how different the world would be today. Pointless speculation, but fun. But then, if
Harold had won 1066 would be merely a numeral...

25 12 2023
Very sick,bloated. Still my body hangs on. Make it to 68? Fuck, I hope not.

28 12 2023
A few days missed, Noon having sneezed in my face. A couple nights ago she was washing
at 11 pm. Bathroom flooded out and I slipped over. Notice given the next morning. I gave her 3000
baht for the rent (supposed to be given at end of my tenancy) and immediately the excess was spent
on Hong Thong. Still brings me food every day though. Essentially a good person but mad and a
drunk. Is that a saying? Hallucinating / recollecting a lot at the moment. These bodies, lives relived ,
moments past. Should be grateful I'm having them but it's just pain.

30 12 2023
Just watched Tinker Taylor in one hit, uploaded by R52 Films Even better now than I
remembered it. Berly Reid incredible. Alec Guinness spellbinding. Last night to see Bom, who had
just arrived on leave. Prawns on the barbie. Everybody soon subsumed back into the smartphones.
Went round the corner, where Noon's friends had arrived from ...somewhere. Did a quick video of
them singing a Thai song.
 04 01 2024
A few days in Koh Lanta. Managed to catch up with a few familiar faces Mr Green, Irie Bar.
Happy Cat, Liam, but overall a sadness, everything was different, bars, Galaxy was still there, but
some places I was even unable to find. Sweet and Sour actually demolished. Utopia unrecognisable.
Bizarrely bumped into Melody outside Cozy bar, I thinking she was actually singing there (she just
happened to be there!). Ordered the bus early next morning, the ticket man recognising Bao's
Utopia T shirt, he pointing out the now demolished Sweet and Sour and OK Salons . Now just gaps
in the ground. The Muslim landlords of Koh Lanta (there are 5 families) very destructive.
Exhausted now. Still bloated.

09 01 2024
A couple of days ago Nood suggested we go for a bike ride in the afternoon. Since I haven't
been able to get out I agreed. Unfortunately it was just a scam to get a free meal in a fancy
restaurant. Yesterday I I turned up at sweet and sour to discover that the remains of HongThong had
been drunk. She actually put her hand out for more money. Enough, and goodbye. I biked to Irish
bar, which was surprisingly empty, then wandered a bit before returning to Old Man Pub, to see the
band. What's astonishing is that I haven't fallen off my bike once in the 2 months I've been here. I'm
actually proud with myself, at my survival. Despite the pain. It all ends soon though.
I should be grateful for this extra given time, to recollect past lives, experiences, to ponder
over unlived lives. I will die in agony, as I have been in for the last 9 years, and yet all time is a
bonus, and the last 9 years are recorded in Final Daze, and perhaps it is a journal, not merely of my
time but of this time. Already a quarter of this century gone ... and it was only yesterday.

25 01 2024

Back in UK a few days. Went down to St Leonards, finally met up with Sarah, unseen since
2005. Personality the same. Almost the same conversations, excepting her completely new life
owning, running her new bar, Oscars On The Square. Highly recommended. Difficult initially to
find but I got there. Collapsed on second day, to hospital for stomach clear out. Discharged whilst
still in pain and actually shitting myself. Mr Raj Harshen actions of Has Richard Ticehurst SAU
wards to be permanently recorded here. A few days in St Leonards, her 'new' daughter in law lovely.
Jack drunk when we met again, so whether he will recall is anyones guess. Then to London to see
Ray and Di, unseen since 2015, when I had to return to UK to get new passport. A lot of water
under the bridge since then. Of course. Back to Birmingham where I had officially been declared
missing. Police searching flat for corpse, despite earlier, mid summer saying to Glynis I was going
to try to see friends in the south (not then sure if I would be well enough to return to Thailand) and
leaving wine and a note to Tammy that I would be collected. Shattered now, but I did it.

31 01 2024

Back 8 days, still shattered. It's over, but I did it, lived it. Walking with difficulty, staggering
more like, a few yards to the toilet. Not even been to the other room To have everything and not
able to do anything... two and a half bottles down on whiskey. Pain killers not working, just
dizziness. Waiting merely for any money to come in, to give away. Seems like I am to make it to 68.
The gods curse and fuck with me, a mere plaything of the universe.

Copied from 2022?

July 20th. Johnson finally goes. The disaster not over but contained. Next election lost as
Penny Mordount outvoted in final round. Looked the part and was not part of the establishment,
despite some uninformed policies.
Watching superficial drivel TV. Did a search (again) of PMP. Survival rates not impressive
considering state of body. Last year they were reluctant to undertake further surgery as body
already a wreck, so PMP or simple 'constipation' (idiotic diagnosis since I've had to return to UK -
as if you can suddenly become constipated on the 15th of November 2015) can make no difference
to my survival rate. I've suffered from constipation through my wrecked body all my life, and so I
know that this is NOT that. Plenty of time to reflect in these 6 years. Yes, I rowed at Henley, at
Hereford, I danced at Edinburgh, I've canoed across lakes in Wales, Skied in Wengen, cycled from
Aviemore to Frennis, from Windsor to West 4.
Yes, I was fit. Thoughts of lovers no longer friends - posted vid of Natalie on Tumbler. She
came so close and never realised it. I went kiss her Hello in Warsaw and she pushed me away,
saying 'No no, I need to adjust!' Good luck adjusting my love. Perhaps you'll find another suitably
flippant partner but my money is on a rapid divorce.

20 08 2022 Put up loads of edited videos over past week or so. Boat trip out to Koh Lanta
bridge was nice, adding Tao's beautiful voice with his Thai song. Today, an eclectic mix, Ascent of
Man vid of Stephan, an electronic mix. Putting up pix of 'old' Koh Lanta shots. 10 years ago is
nothing. Very, very sick. Can't even be bothered to contact locals to give my stuff away. Not even
sure last time I had a shower. Heart races every time I stand up. Manage now to get across the
street every 3 days. Fucking hell, how far I've fallen. 2nd class stamp now 68 pence!! What the fuck
has happened to this country?

24 08 2022 Just found these literary fragments. From so long ago. Unedited. Never mind.
Stomach very bloated. Lot of pain.

(Wednesday 12th December 2007.)

The Time Before.

How did I come to be here, in this uncertain, dire situation, having lived all the lives I have
lived?

And as the scapel sliced through my flesh, a baby fresh born but as yet, and for some time to
be of no sentient consciousness, did the cleaving sensation, the separating, electrifying, before
thought was possible,
laying a multilayered a grid of a myriad possibilities, and the subsequent pains survived;
frequently, a searing, collapsing agony, perhaps that knife, entering my unwitting (with no chance
my brain showered with sparkling synapses, which quickly enough, through the slow but always in
my life the ever present, perpetually dull ache.
Did the severed nerves fire synapses through my brain? Did they cascade as through unlaid
wires, of experiences?
I cannot, of course, remember. But as an ageing adult reflecting now upon the many, some
reluctantly, some joyously, of lives lived, reflecting upon the survival, through the pains of my body,
throughout my childhood and the consequent traumas and triumphs of my adult life, my conscious
thoughts tell me, 'yes', it was the seminal moment. Perhaps that event, unremembered but
subsequently reflected too often upon. Yet it is always the eternally asked human question : Why do
I exist?

[Bizarrely, a doctor, a Anja Raja, in recent times (2019? before that surgery was closed
down)), when examining vertical scar inflicted at birth enquired 'Do you remember it?' A few
laughs on facebook after posting. She is named for referring me, and appointment made, to a wrong
department within the hospital, an appointment cancelled by relevant specialist 2 weeks before
appointment, I already having waited several months. ]

In retrospect our childhood are dreams, occasional flashes of startling colour through a
faintly lit film in a distant cinema, and in our childhood our dreams seem as real as any reality - did
they really happen, those things? Or was it just our imagined story? I have often asked this of
others, of their early memories, for mine is only a flash, of a shout as I was dropped. She is bigger
than me, this image of arms, she herself is only three. The shout is from (of course) Woody. I myself
can only be eighteen months or less, for I could not walk. I am left on the floor. The divine comedy,
this life. Full of coincidences and chances, of random miracles, on an early infantile unwilling
body, not yet conscience of pain, incapable of 'feeling', inchoate, process of evolution, coalesced
and congealed forming multilayered networks to form a mind. And which In Time led me to pursue
the lives I have led. And In Time the debilitating dullness eroded my existence.
I discover now as an adult, this girls name is to be 'Gayleen', and we were never to meet
again after two years or so, if you can call infants together in care 'meeting'. Her father, Gaylord, a
voice for a puppet character Bill And Ben.
The random chances? : my musical achievements will become clear enough in due course,
but this girl too went on to become a guitar professor years later, and were we to meet again we
would not recognise each other, have nothing in common, the level of conversation and
communication would be (I imagine) quite limited, apart from discussions upon Sor, Tarrega, etc.
Such is the life. [But how much of this can be true? Peter Hawkins provided the voices for The
Flowerpot Men, and was Gayleen ever to be a classical guitarist? I remember seeing a photograph
of her somewhere, but that in itself might be a false memory. Peter (Woodman) affirms that Woody
would often made confusions.
Another would be that the queen mother would often (yearly?) come down Stavely Road to see the
lilac flowerings. Even as a child I found that preposterous.

Another memory, the next; crying, shaking the wooden slats of the cage, having been
abandoned in a cot in a hospital, as someone, seemingly a stranger walked away. Perhaps that time
was for operation two. Children were cattle then, mere fodder upon a machine, the callous,
indifferent, brutalizing effects of the war perhaps still evident in the behaviour of the nurses. Or in
their routine acceptance of sickness.

The blur of people solidify. Who was that garrulous squat woman appearing on a scooter
on a Saturday afternoon? Not every Saturday but consistently enough to be a regular event. Woody
tells me she is my mother, but then who are you? She speaks very quickly this woman, my mother,'I
said he said I said he said. Tree times I said he said.'
Why then was this other woman feeding me, washing me, yet shouting and hitting me? It
appears that the tall, slim, quiet figure that appears on Friday evening at 7pm is my father. He
leaves promptly at 10pm, as I grow to recognise the clock. Did I ever feel comfortable with him? -
After all he is my father I am told, so perhaps I understood the filial duties even as an infant, but
only for 3 hours a week. And why did he seem to say so little, to be so ... deferential? When you are
young everything that happens is the norm. There are other children there, but they appear and
disappear soon enough; are not my brothers or sisters. Are they? The voice, the shout, always
Woody's. Woody takes me, and the other children, for there are always two or three, in a big pram
to Chiswick Park, near a hillock. It is a struggle to run up this hillock, to the base of the tree. But
once reached I play hide and seek around the tree. There is a cafe there near the small green, a
curious attempt at Art Deco and a weeping willow tree near rectangular earth mounds. Decades
later I was to joke to Rachael 'That's where they bury the dead gardeners!' a memory of Rachael to
be constantly, if sadly, forever relived. This memory is as yesterday. Forty years later I would play
on the hillock and play hide and seek again, with Rachael. That memory too is as yesterday. There
are slopes to an ornamental garden outside a glass conservatoire. I roll down them. Forty years
later Rachael of course does the same, but the technology has evolved; video footage exists: she is
real, and the memory can regular occur.

A blur of colour of a face, a voice, the realisation of shock in others: the face is of Dudley
Foster passing before and above me, as he made his way between rehearsals in the church hall
opposite to the flat in Kent House,[I was to play there in that church hall opposite a few years later
(6?) an infantile piece as Dorothy M Warren gave a concert of her students. She was a useless
teacher, but I was not allowed 'stoppage'] (Dudley)being offered and fed a meal by Woody, dinner
courtesy of Woody, his strange persona disconcerting even to a three year old, until his
disappearance and sudden non attendance for food. How sensitive children are, to pick up the
vibrations of another person; he was to become 'famous', and his face is familiar to me still,
instantly recognisable in those television programmes of the late '50's and '60's, but his ultimate
destiny was to commit suicide in the early '70's. By then, not yet an adult - that privilege and ability
was to grace me much later - Woody's youngest son, Martin, read the obituary in a newspaper, and
mentioned the fact that the money Dudley Foster had left amounted to 39 000, which was a
sizeable amount, at that time; equivalent to the purchase of two houses in Chiswick.

Kaleidoscopic snapshots are all we have of our childhood memories : the shock, on my
tricycle the tiny layby outside Kent House in 1959, 'Unky' walking bemused in front of Kent House
in disbelief that his new car had been stolen, Ford Consul registration XLP 103. [I remember this
probably because of Fireball XL5] Remarkably it was recovered undamaged within a few days, and
made to last another 15 or so years. The rear axle cover grew warm during journeys and as a child
I was able to huddle against it, often sleeping and reluctant to leave
the warmth to enter the cold flat. I once enquired, even having a toy Ford Consul (?) steering wheel
stuck to the back of the seat, 'How does the car know which way to go?', to be answered by of
course coarse laughter. Nowadays, later, my wonderment is that infants can be so verbose, that
strange osmosis of evolution that enables the mind so structure so quickly complex sentences and
questions.
Sensations, without thought, events happening, but I always querying; who were these
people? These other children? These adults passing through? Am I supposed to know them? To like
them? Playing soldiers with a child called Tony on the paths of Kent House. Filmed by Woody's
middle son Peter. What happened to him, this child? We meet 15 years later, there is nothing in
common, in fact he's a ruffian, but I could have been him. There is a school opposite, Hogarth,
where I was to attend to for one year. I have to occasionally hide during
playtime because I cannot easily control my bodily functions.
Such are the quirks of history, age 5, leading Woody, pushing her pram but lost, I pointing
across the motorway to our new home in a side street road saying,'Over there'. I now know this was
1961.[Peter Woodman would know the exact date!] The garden at 7 Eastbourne Road was unkempt
and wild, and led all the way past a shed to a garage in the next street, the longest garden of the
road. I was happy for it to remain wild, but it is soon enough partitioned to vegetable sections, and
a gate installed.

(Doctors and Nurses)

The other children join in this game, singing, 'We all pat the dog! We all pat the dog! Ee-
eye - ee eye, we all pat the dog!' I do not mind the bruises. Soon enough 'Doctors and Nurses' with
the other children would have to suffice, but as I take my clothes off for another imagined operation
(but so many real already!) Woody shouts, 'Put your clothes back on - you'll catch your death with
cold!' But she starts patting my back anyway.

And I found comfort when she rubbed my back, pushing down towards my buttocks, as if
smoothing the passage of pain away. Did it ease the passage of excretion through my body? - I
don't know, become but it appeared soothing, and it did ease the pain, but still often I would
collapse. Only later, as my body and stomach grew, I did begin to digest food adequately. But never
comfortably. Perhaps my stomach was then too small to enable the meat to digest properly.
During a routine health check (of which I have no memory, excepting it must have been at
Grove Park School) I am ascertained to be deaf, and fitted with a large bulky box. The health
officials suggest I am sent to a special hearing school in Heston, but Woody - and such are the
quirks of fate decided, insists I go to the local primary. The box whistles when the earpiece and
speaker are close together. I sometimes teased the teacher and classmates leaving the earpiece
together then separating them, leaving unexplained the ethereal sounds.
Fifty years on I accept that Woody made 'a good call'.

But such was my fear that when I dreamt I had hit her I later asked her on the stairs - such
was the vividness of my dreams that I could not be sure. And I so wanted to apologise, for I needed
her love, and I feared rejection, as she had so often threatened me with rejection before. I asked her,
plaintively, 'Did I hit you Woody? The other day?' And she seemed surprised. 'No. You didn't. And I
wouldn't allow you to.'
But with my adult perspective, the experience now of many lifetimes, it seems chilling that a
child could be so subordinated; that he felt the urge to strike out at the one who had caused him
such pain, and at the centre of his life itself, and then felt the need to apologise, in fear.

But there was no attempt to explain my situation for there was nothing to explain: it is just
the way it is. But as consciousness emerged, why was it that my parent's did not want me? If they
had their own children, why not me? It became a pathetic mantra, 'Do you love me?', a question
asked repeatedly of Woody, incessantly, to the point of irritation, unable as I was as a child to
understand the relationships of the adults around me. And that tall, thin, silent man, who always
appeared at 7pm on Friday, yet leaving promptly at 10pm ... In later times, as a young an adult I
had still sought his approval, yet strangely feared him, for this non explanation, these hours of
mumbled inarticulations, of anything, but during the final 20 years of his life I never saw him, and
I made no attempt to contact him. I feel sad, now, but not at his death, but at my own eventual
indifference to his life and fate: I discovered more about my father through a few days with my
uncle in law in Adelaide, than a lifetime of never made explanations of events and circumstances.

Always the fear of cold. I was sent for piano lessons to a mock gothic victorian house in
which in which I made to sit on a carved dark mahogany seat in the hallway before the lesson
began. The aura was of gloom and darkness. Dorothy M. Warren sat by the gas fire out of sight and
earshot behind me, objecting if I should turn around to hear her instructions to play another
tedious exercise or scale. Should the telephone ring and she left the room, I would play a tune I had
learnt from a book, expecting affirmation that I was enthusiastic enough to learn a repertoire
outside the required syllabus of the Royal Schools of Music. But all I received was a curt instruction
not to play when she out of the room. Once, my stomach congealing into solidity, I was unable to
walk and I had to be fetched in a car, being unable to ride home on martin's motorcycle. The
lessons lasted from age six to fourteen, before suggesting that a competent teacher would teach me
for free at school. This was true, but I only had one lesson with this 'younger' woman, perhaps then
in her thirties, and then I lied that she no longer attended school, and therefore I was no longer
able to receive lessons. That it was necessary for me to adopt this deceit to escape the dungeon now
seems ridiculous, whereas I could have simply maintained I was continuing lessons.
[During a Saturday job, many years later, at Lidgate's butcher shop, one of the staff had
heard I was giving piano lessons so she sacked Dorothy M Warren, and offered the job to me, and
at the same rate; 1£ a lesson.]

In Hunstanton, where Woody's older sister Mag lives,a garrulous fat woman, the sea freezes.
Early morning I look out a cold bedroom window, at this ice wall seemingly rising into the sky.
Beyond comprehension. I sight I have not seen since, causing me to wonder, was that then
imagination? This must be 1963. [Decades later I meet Philip McCathy, a bit of a guitar strummer,
on Koh Lanta, who was originally from that area, Snettisham (5 miles south of Hunstanton), and
confirmed my memory]

Billy's (Woody's oldest son) wife to be, Carol, aged 17, has arrived from Zambia, Africa.
Upon arrival to London the thick white blanket persists, and so enveloping the land that it enthrals
her, never having seen snow. Very soon Carol runs out to embrace this new sensation. She returns
quickly enough indoors, shuddering. 'It's very cold.' The novelty has soon enough evaporated,
unlike the snow. Later, huddled closely together in the front room,for there was only a small electric
heater bizarrely attached high up on the wall (central heating was for a much later age), we would
watch films on a small black and white TV. It seemed incredible to me even then that Carol had
never seen a television, and the channel switch was a internal mechanical rotary device which
clunked as it changed channels. BBC 1 was channel 1 and ITV was channel 9. I used to switch off
the television mid channel change, so that when switched on again the clunking would continue
suddenly.'It needs time to warm up.' I explained to Carol. 'Really?' she asked, as if bemused by the
noises of modern technology. In those days the frequency was 405 lines to the screen, and I
explained to her that if she stared closely she could see other pictures between the lines, which
elicited the expected response when Woody entered the room. (It is curious that in later times these
gaps were used for teletext information, so perhaps I should have patented my idea, aged 7.)
So they were married, Billy and Carol, at Turnham Green Church, and my parents were
invited to the wedding [why?], but the wedding photographs show them standing at different ends
of the large group and Woody central, clutching tightly as always my shoulder, lest I make my bid
for freedom.
Throughout the years I have thought of that day as the proceeding decades fall away, as I
have often passed that church, on a bus, or cycling, or walking, the stones resolute in their
indifferent silence, standing still in their centuries old sentry duty. And although I have requested
since that time a copy of that wedding photo, I have no desire now; they are all dead, and gone,
only existing within my thoughts, and now upon this page.
The new in laws, Tom and Gillian, invite Woody and Unky to Africa, ' ... and of course, your
youngest son.' Billy protests that this would be expend his generosity too much, perhaps because I
am not truly a son, but a private deal is hatched and my father (?) is made to give a donation. I am
grateful for this, for thankfully my recall (as you might have gathered) is clear.

Upon at their home in Lusaka I remember the actual moment of keeling over, despite my
determination to stay awake, to fall asleep upon my arrival upon their sofa.

In the following days we flew over the Victoria Falls, visited the statue of Livingstone, and I
cut the rubber trees with Anne (Woodman), then possibly 4 or 5. The tree sap was white and sticky.
Due to me undergoing genital surgery at that time Woody forbade me from riding this
bicycle which had a fake noisy motor, a rule quickly disregarded by simply switching noise
generator.
Upon our return to school we were asked to write about 'what we did in our school holidays'
but my account was disbelieved... it was indeed a little too far fetched for those days.

Woody's son had built a house on the Sussex downs near the sea, (In later decades I was
able to walk over the downs to Woody's retirement bungalow), and I was often taken into Brighton
(where in later decades I was to visit my sister at university), to the cinema. My enjoyment of The
First Man in The Moon, of which that I be dressed up in extremely tight uncomfortable shorts for
the occasion, as if to go to the cinema should be considered an early example of conspicuous
consumption by Woody's insistence a special occasion of cultural significance,
But any sadness now is not of those times, but of the time when I watch The First Man In
The Moon now, not that of course the story is infantile, but that I can't recapture the sensations of
colour upon me. The Czech animations of the early '60's are likewise gone; The Tinder Box, or the
story of the mermaid who swam up to the surface, but perhaps it is best to have 'merely' the
memories of those stories, and perhaps same sense of wonder I experienced as a child.
(In later decades I would unwittingly insult Keith Yallop when he mentioned that he had
"dressed up, suit and tie" to visit the theatre with his girlfriend. "You're so provincial." I had said,
too instantly, but even by then in the early '80's I had seen far too many plays and films to regard
them as outside normal experiences. But perhaps the earlier above uncomfortable memory was
somewhere inside However it seemed he had taken my words too much to heart though, wearing a
casual jacket to Richard Chomiac's wedding.

Hospital memories.
And as the light glared, and consciousness faded, I realised, even as a child, without
explanation, that I had no power to change my situation; I was a minor, in the hands of adults, the
gods who dictate actions and events. And my parents and guardians, inadequate not in their
concern, for that was real enough, but in their comprehension of events overtaking me.
My mother, collapsing, uncomprehending at the words mumbled (I did not hear them) by
competent doctors, who must surely know best? Collapsing, kneeling slowly to the floor, a
crumbling sack of despair, kneeling at my feet, grasping at my hands, but was any explanation
offered to me, other than instruction? Many years later I contrast my own actions and concerns
with regards to Rachael, where even a minor fracture elicits organisation of doctors, and
delegation and instructions. My concern is a recollection of, and a reaction to, the indifference and
ignorance of my guardians. Was the wrecking of my body necessary? I did not know then, and I do
not know now. The medical files disappear into the abyss of time, now unused, unread, and to be
unwritten upon, for as an adult I realise the general incompetence of the professional; these are my
peers and colleagues, vulnerable as all people are to the flavour of the moment, susceptible to the
impressions of opinions.

And afterwards, awakening,as I lay there,scar tissue cutting into my side, unable to laugh,
unable to move without a literal side-splitting pain, I tried desperately to look forward to, within
perhaps the universal innate, innocent optimism of youth, a future as yet unknown. But to lie here,
conscious but unable to move, for five days ... I placed the radio over my ears. There were heavy
and bulky, too large by far for my nine year old head, but I turned the black Bakelite toggled
volume control set into the wall to maximum. I, even in pain, laughed and exclaimed, 'This is loud!'
But whereas Woody was relieved, happy that I was well, alive even, and was able to speak, and
even reluctantly smile, my father headphones raised his hand to his mouth and gestured, 'Shss!',
fearing public opprobrium, sternly aware of decorum; to keep a 'low profile', not to attract attention
to yourself, to blend in with the crowd. My unselfconsciousness and jubilation at still existing was
sternly corrected by my father's notion of decorum.

My mother had promised me a shilling if I managed to return my model of the Kitty Hawk
intact to the house in Eastbourne Road, and I felt a sense of triumph that I had ferried the fragile
plastic aircraft successfully upstairs, from Hammersmith to home. The attention and concentration
required in agony forced upon my fragile creation had distanced me from the pain of my body,
but upon the completion of the ascent of the stairs I collapsed, crushing the biplane. I cried, but not
at my pain, that was normal, but at the futility of my long hours of concentration. Upon my mothers
Saturday visit it was explained that I had in fact successfully returned aircraft intact, as agreed, and
my mother paid me the promised shilling but also the replaced the aircraft, which I remade: but of
course it was not the same - the achievement of boredom of the hospital had been now replaced by
the excitement and potential of the outside world.
{ 06 10 2022} A memory resurfaced. I was not present but overheard parents talking to
Woody(?). Apparently the doctor - the local locum who had attended both Grove Park School and
Chiswick Comprehensive (although it might have been called Chiswick secondary modern then) for
routine medical checks - made the comment 'Well you've done all right off the NHS', to which my
father at least made the response 'We've paid for it.' A conversation of no consequence you might
think, except I had noticed the tattoo earlier upon Protheroe's arm; she was a holocaust survivor :
she had been saved by the allies, but no thanks there, and in fact employed by the NHS set up in
1948. Therein always lies the jewish problem. They scream 'Look what they did to us!! Give us our
own land!!' yet consequently create their own despicable apartheid state in occupied Palestine.
Recently a Palestinian journalist was shot dead and they even joustled (my contribution to the
English language)her coffin, which was broadcast worldwide. Sorry, these people are vermin, still
using the holocaust as an excuse to obliterate others. Starmer expels a jew from the labour party
for her support for Palestinian rights. This is madness. Apparently she is now a self hating jew, a
statement which is meaningless, and insulting to a sitting
MP. Starmer might win by default, the 'opposition' being so inept, but no zionist will sit at my table.
Since this may well be my last entry, body collapsing, a drug addled Thai today slaughtered many
children in a primary school. The evil in distant strangers, always close.

So, of the memory of abdomen and other scars - no knowledge of purpose, although always
the wish to say FU, - see what I've done with my life.

The educational result of being hospitalised was disastrous; I 'failed' my 11+ plus exam due
to due to having my body savaged by strangers. I have no recollection of having taken it.
Consequently I was sent to a secondary modern school. The ethos of that time, the middle sixties
(not too distant since I am still alive!) was distinct and different from today. Or perhaps not. The
secondary modern school was intended to provide the carpenters, the metalworkers, and other
industrial fodder,whilst the grammar schools were intended to provide the middle classes, the
doctors, the lawyers,the accountants. And so I was on the treadmill, another cattle to the slaughter.
The headmaster, a bully of a man called Davies, gave a group of six of us detention in the first
week, for talking at the dinner table where we sat. We assembled outside his office, but one of the
six, a boy called Robin Hamilton, said 'I'm not hanging around for this,' and left. By an unfortunate
coincidence another boy was sitting waiting and as Davies emerged he was to be included in our
party of six. I admired Hamilton's recklessness, and his brazen indifference. I was to learn from
this. The rumour was soon to spread that Davies had been head master of a borstal institution.
Perhaps it was true. In the same week my primary school friend Philip Edge was to break his wrist
in his first lesson of PE, under the tutorlege of Ben Storkey...Therein is to lie another tale. And the
triumphs of that first year were small; being called by my first name at the end of an English class
towards the end of the 'academic' year, of getting an 'A' for my poem called Fear, I adding a + sign
for an even higher mark, a poem sadly now lost, unable now to reread my words, with an adult's
sensibility, thrown away by Woody at some stage, probably read but not understood, as most
children's words are not. I cut pictures from a Spiderman book and glued them to the pages,
inventing my own story. I do not pretend that they held any literary merit. But towards the end of
that first year they held a talent contest, I playing Fur Elise by Beethoven and then accompanied by
Lewis Rockels flute playing to perform an infantile dirge. Lewis, of whom I have no recollection of
meeting - perhaps we walked home the same way - he lived in the next road, Milthorpe. But that
fact that two children could organise a duet, however infantile the tune, had impressed the teacher
judges enough for us to win.
There had been broadcast the previous night an adaptation of The Casting Of The Runes
(March 22 1968), and that morning I had cut some symbols from a breakfast cereal box and stuck
some temporary given away tattoos to these symbols and I asked Lewis before the concert, 'If these
fall, we fail, but if they should fly we rise.' And, astonishing, as I let this letters fall to the ground a
gust of wind seemed to gather them together as if grasping them in a fist and swept them upwards
and away over the roof. We stood looking upwards, as others surrounding did, at this curious event.
'The casting of the runes.' a voice murmured. (Where a talismatic document must be passed ever
onwards to avoid destruction.)
However, consequently we were awarded the first prize, of a box of toffees. As we walked
away to share the toffees, to later count out individually, a figure passed us in the playground,'Well
done mate.' he said patting my shoulder and giving me a thumbs up.'Who's that?' I asked, of the boy
wearing Beatle boots. 'Um.. I think he's called Graham.' Lewis replied. And therein lies many later
tales...

It has a playful whimsical charm; # Pennies From Heaven #, in later years a song I was to
familiar with through the violin playing of Rob Williams, and now my memory of children
scampering around the garden collecting their golden nuggets thrown from the window above by
Woody is to that melody, monetary baubles descending, promises also of sweets perhaps, scattered
as if confetti, or if collected, to be stored in a toy car. But the cultural mores has changed, and
affluence has debased those memories. Should children be in awe of coinage
itself, of benign and beneficial handouts, rather than acceptance that earned currency is rather a
fluid mechanism to enable you to pursue dreams? I remember that joy as a child of collecting the
scattered coins from amongst the grass, gifts from above, but as an adult I resent the recollection of
poverty, the desperate arbitrary scramble for money.

Huddled closely together, for there was only a small electric heater attached to the wall
(central heating was for a later age and development and still very expensive in the late 60's) we
would watch films on a new television gigantic 26 inch colour screen, (I can still recall the magical
intensity of the colours), an early example of conspicuous consumption - I cried as Captain
Courageous drowned, and Woody comforted me, telling me it was good that I had feelings, and that
I shouldn't hide them. Excepting of course, anger.
(Paul Merton made a joke last night (08 10 2022) about the clear plastic
wrappings of quality Street chocolates, that he used them to colour the TV screen, TV's of the time
being only black and white. I used to hold two, to create a 3D effect, to little effect. The audience
probably had no idea what he was talking about.)

Woody had friends, Gretel and Frank, who had fled Germany during the war, and lived in
Paddington. Frank had a long distinctive face, lined with experience, but not wisdom, and it is to
my regret that I did not take a picture of him in his old age during the early 80's, for there was a
certain day I knew that I would not see him again, but had I made a portrait of that face many
stories would be told or written.
He often played scrabble with Unky on a Sunday afternoon, and instigated a new rule that
in lieu of your turn of placing a word upon a word the board you could substitute letters in a word
already down provided it remained the same length.(This is actually an interesting rule change.)
His wife Gretel was a small slightly fierce woman who pushed past me every time I opened the door
for them.
Once we visited them in Paddington, passing where in earlier times Woody had lived and
even then had taken care of children. She suddenly pointed out, declaiming,'That's Brendan Behan's
house. He took me to see his play, The Queare Fellow.' I did not know at that time (and not sure
even now) who Brendan Behan was. As we walked further along she recognised a man she had
known from after the war, tall and gaunt, who mumbled quietly his greetings, and they talked
shortly of Gretel and Frank, and how they too had fled. He looked at me and smiled, and I
remember the sadness in his eyes. But as he walked away Woody said, matter of factly, as if it were
an everyday occurrence, 'He survived the war by pretending to be dead. The Germans threw him
into a pit and he pulled bodies over himself to stop the burning of the lime.'

It is strange that when I reflect upon my early life it is this age, ten, I choose as the marker,
that I might have died undergoing such major surgery, but only because I have survived to this time
that I have had the chance to 'reflect', for I have often wondered that death at the hands of the far
riskier surgery at age nought would of course negated any memory, any notion of future / past
'reflections.'
 And it is as if I have always been aware, in some negatively nihilistic existing, but also
existing, and only now that I can write these words without any doubt that I am not crazy. For had I
died then my memory of Simon, who I was to meet the next year, would not exist today, forty years
later. I had known Simon only briefly. That first year we had joined, or perhaps formed, the UFO
sighting club, meeting after school in a chemistry lab on a Friday night with two other boys. They
had then seemed much older but now, thirty five years later, I realise the other boys were perhaps
only fourteen, or fifteen. Simon and I had spent our free time during the school breaks gazing at the
sky. I had spotted a silver glint and duly reported it to the UFO 'committee', but boredom had set in,
and an innate realisation or knowledge that the threatening, visiting aliens would not be
particularly interested in an insignificant part of the universe. By flying over Heathrow.
After that speculative, talkative week Simon and I never made the effort to attend again. I
wondered if the two other boys would later realise who Simon had been: would they recall the tall,
lanky, fine straight-hair cut to a fringe above his eyebrows youth in later years? I think not. The
arbitrariness of life, of survival, of existence - that this is all borrowed time, an unwanted free time -
that normal is just a word,and that is not normal. Another footnote in another history. To them. But
to I that week would be formative, for the two boys, with the foolish, stupid, innocence of youth had
discussed the dismantling of World War 2 bombs. I had insisted that sometimes the bombs were
booby trapped, that he would not even consider, one if, - and what was the fantastic probability
against ever finding an unexploded bomb anyway?! - but Simon had insisted he could defuse a
bomb, should he ever be lucky to be given the opportunity. A conversation that would have faded
into oblivion, as a yellowing newspaper page decays into his bomb, and I had refused to donate any
money to the flowers sent later to Simon's parents. Why had he not listened to me?! I was angry that
my advice had been ignored. The arrogance and insolence of youth. I shared had his life, his
marriage, his career - how would his life panned out? Would he have been happy? You could spend
your whole life looking for destruction, and not find the bomb to destroy you. Yet Simon had found
his unwitting destruction a mere six weeks after our conversation. Simon's parents moved to the
country over that summer: Simon had found obliterated himself, but immortalised the conversation.
(novel excerpt?) He stared at the ceiling. A tear trickled from my eye. Why not me? Why not
me?! Simon could have that path, an innocent arrogance that you could outwit a relic from a long
distant past. What god would give him the opportunity? What benign lord would inflict such a thing
upon a child? He rolled over to his side. The tears welled and overflowed. Perhaps Simon or his
parents had been religious. Perhaps Simon had been an angel and taken early to heaven. If only he
could believe it. But he did not.
(Simon became the main character in my novel In Time,though I changed the sex to Simone,
and made her appearance earlier in Saint's life, at
Grove Park primary school).

Black tussled haired tanned figure called Colin Harrington, who Woody constantly found
attractive. Colin Harrington. Therein to lie many tales, more than any other in the lives written of,
written here. He was a mentor, a father figure of sorts, ever present throughout my life, and it is
only in this time now, that I haven't seen him for so long. For 2005 was a marker year, as if not
merely a year closed, but as if the final chapter of a long book had finished. Natalie and I went up
to visit him in Bangor, a long way from his farm and cottage, Gronnant,on the Snowden
mountainside, the last cottage before the ascent.
But in 1967 we schoolchildren as a group joined the 17th Sea Scouts, and I am grateful now
for those times. For there was a richer education than the drivel dolloped out in classes, packaged
useless information, and those are the memories of good times. Sailing and canoeing at Ham, wide
games in Chiswick Park, opposite the schools gates, I throwing myself to the ground to escape
being discovered by a chasing John Troake, discovering a hidden water duct that led out from
under Chiswick house grounds to the main road, our camping trips to Malvern, to the grounds of
his cottage on the mountain. And no attempts, fortunately, to dissuade me from sliding down the
mountain upon corrugated roofing with John Troake, and leaping, sliding off before the it crashed
upon the mountain path leading up to Colin's cottage.
After that first year of form 1 Gunnersbury, Simon having left for extinction, I had by then
met Lewis Rockel and his twin Matthew (very different in mass, intelligence and temperament) and
John Troake, and together we elected to join the scouts run by Colin and Dave (Whetton).
Once Woody, having little imagination of the immediate world outside of herself, sent me off
to such a trip to Wales with a flimsy sleeping bag, with what would now be called negligible Tog
value, essentially being thin coloured sheets sewn together, and I promptly froze, shivering into the
morning. Colin drove me off to the doctor in nearby Llanberis. The doctor, in his examining my
torso, murmured, 'What a rich tapestry we have here.' But no special favours were granted, just a
raised camp bed to keep me off the ground. My aversion to coldness did not end there. Still, happy
days with Colin, as my mentor, Volvo Reg 4686 KP, and he too has his own story.

An annual football event was touted by Troake Snr and it is curious now that I remember the
perception of me by others. Being regarded as quiet or shy an assumption was made that I had no
interest in the inter-forms' competition to play each other at football, and in the selection I was
picked last. However, we went through each round, winning easily, I scoring 2 goals, and we won
the tournament. The perception of me by others changed, but my memory is of the indifference of
winning. Perhaps I hadn't even realised there had been a competition.

A tall building used as a teaching facility of some kind, with a top flat which was offered to
my father during the summer holiday. He 'played' his clarinet, a broken instrument (and the irony is
that not only my own clarinet playing and teaching days are also long gone but I realise 'now' how
bad that instrument and consequently his playing was) upon the staircase the air escaping through
the broken reed, causing horrendous screeches to echo throughout the building.
I mouthed 'Power To The People" as the record played, and Glynis and Elizabeth laughed
as I saw Bolan for the first time on TV, singing # Hot Love # I had bought a empty large pad of
writing paper as if in anticipation of words to be written. 'Going to write your memoires?' laughed
'Ma,'(what actually was her real name?!) with a strange mocking inflection of derision, as the
others laughed too. Such is/was my paranoia.
We walked into Guildford along a path and a curious memory is that I bought 2/6, 5/-,
10/-,and 1, the pre decimal postal issues, a sizeable sum for a young teenager. At that time I used
to collect blocks of four of new issues of stamps, perhaps intimations of an early 'business' move. (I
was later to sell a collection of philately magazines to a Borneo(?)Michael Eric Brent Thomas, an
identity so specific you would have though it would be easy to track him down) for a vast profit).
Although I had placed the pre decimal postal issues within my new empty manuscript book
they had fallen out as we walked back along the road. Only after I had handed 'Ma' the the
manuscript and she insisted they were missing that I run down the road and found that they still lay
unsullied upon the ground. I still have them, although they are left to my nephew, possibly always to
be unappreciated, for gifts given are always mere baubles.
My father allowed me to reverse drive his car around the school park, offering an early
driving lesson. I asked him if Glynis would like to try, but he muttered as if this idea was dismissed.
Once, as we walked again, later along the path beside the river, I noticed that boats were
offered for hire, and I said 'Let's do that!' and my father and I walked up to the counter to be asked,
'Can you swim?' I enthusiastically replied, 'Of course!' but my father, strangely lacking the obvious
inference of the question, replied, 'No.' shaking his head in honesty.'Ah well, you need to be able to
swim.' explained the woman. This somehow this further reflected to me his under enthusiasm, about
everything. And it wasn't as if we needed life jackets, as I had noticed the hull was large and flat
bottomed. My father later apologised for lacking quick wittedness.
And as the days passed there was this sadness within me that this illusion of a family holiday
would pass. My father approached me as I stood on the steps of that large house, having been
prompted by 'ma' to come downstairs to talk to me. Apparently he had been wary of talking to me
because I might have wanted to go back to Woody's.(Apparently I had asked to go back to Woody's
when I was sick at the age of 8 in a caravan we had stayed at.) I had asked could I stay with them,
for it was apparent to me that the education Glynis was receiving was superior to mine, even if only
a stability of some sort, with my envy of her family life, whereas I was offered merely only an
occasional holiday.
And having had that holiday in Guildford, there was this temporary illusion of a family I
wrote to Glynis who rarely (never) wrote back.
I was later spend a few minutes in the front room, Woody furiously knitting away, and I
subsequently discovered that as I went to the toilet Woody had examined my spelling and panic
ensued, bizarrely worrying that I was now in love with my sister (!?), whereas my longings were not
of course of lust (although she was very beautiful in a Pre Raphaelite Burns Jones sort of way), but
the imagined notions of a family.
In a much later time Glynis was to accuse me of failing to maintain contact, and accused me
of lack of interest, but by then I had already lived many other lives, and it is all too little too late.
There is a sadness though that I now haven't seen Elizabeth for decades also, for I remember I gave
her my discarded stamp collection of countries in subsequent times I have come to visit, to know
now where they exist, and are not merely coloured images, and sometimes of portraits of faces that
have come to have, in my adulthood, political resonance.
She had written somewhere that her cousin had come to visit. It is possible that even now, a
lifetime later, that she might still think of me, in her memories, as a cousin, for unless told
otherwise, how is she to know different?

Always the fear of cold. I was sent for piano lessons to a mock gothic victorian house in
which in which I made to sit on a carved dark mahogany seat in the hallway before the lesson
began. The aura was of gloom and darkness. Dorothy M. Warren sat by the gas fire out of sight and
earshot behind me, objecting if I should turn around to hear her instructions to play another
tedious exercise or scale. Should the telephone ring and she left the room, I would play a tune I had
learnt from a book, expecting affirmation that I was enthusiastic enough to learn a repertoire
outside the required syllabus of the Royal Schools of Music. But all I received was a curt instruction
not to play when she out of the room.
Once, my stomach congealing into solidity, I was unable to walk and I had to be fetched in a
car, being unable to ride home on Martin's motorcycle. The lessons lasted from age six to fourteen,
before suggesting that a competent teacher would teach me for free at school. This was true, but I
only had one lesson with this 'younger' woman, perhaps then in her thirties, and then I lied that she
no longer attended school, and therefore I was no longer able to receive lessons. That it was
necessary for me to adopt this deceit to escape the dungeon now seems ridiculous, whereas I could
have simply maintained I was continuing lessons.
During a Saturday job, at Lidgate's butcher shop, one of the staff had heard I was giving
piano lessons so she sacked Dorothy M Warren,and offered the job to me, and at the same rate; 1£
a lesson.

'And if you don't behave, I'll cut you out of my will!' Always the threats, the attempts at
subordination, domination, to break me and accept her will without question. But I had already
outgrown her by twelve or thirteen, already intellectually aware and developing an uncertain
independence, both physically and mentally. But I was still weak, emotionally. I had recovered from
the hospital ventures, but Woody's ... how can I define it now, thirty years on? ... Woody's bullying
hampered my emotional development. Always the shouting, the threats -'Behave yourself or I'll
throw you out!', always the domination. Even at the age of eighteen she attempted to fix a
curfew,'Be in by eleven or I'll lock the door.' She could never accept that children grew up, become
independent beings, do not remain children, and since she herself had not matured, her own
emotional level of maturity was that of a child, and she was incapable of allowing others to.
 I was thrilled at the excitement, the real risk and the threat of Roderick's extinction - the
south downs when he revealed another minor indiscretion to Woody, and I was then punished by the
brute force of her acerbic threatening tongue? Had I chased him down the hill at his betrayal? My
memory tells me I did, but it is an angry memory, and the anger might reveal that that was the
natural order of things; but what a way to die! - the sea, longingly enveloping him, to be dragged
away by the waves, sucked into aqual oblivion. I would not then have to put up with him any more,
with his petty little whinges, his betrayals of wrongdoings, breaking the unwritten code of children's
secrecy. Perhaps he was older in years and experience, when a year held significance, but to me he
had broken the children's code of camaraderie, the unwritten but understood notion that adults and
children live different lives. Had I actually hit him on Ashurst Avenue in Saltdean up into the south
downs and flung my fist into his face? Incensed rage having altered the memory as opposed to the
reality of that time. But as the wave dragged him Woody, with her short, squat, brutal strength strut
into the water and grasped Roderick's arm. His puny body was an easy prey to the sea but the
unremitting body of a bigger, older, ruthlessly determined woman was not; she held him above the
water and dragged him across the pebbles to the safety of the land. I did not rejoice in Roderick's
survival, and the inevitable shouting later. In my childish, selfish indifference I was only interested
in my own well being.

I put the book on astronomy down and stared at the stars from my tiny bedroom bed. There
was hope, wasn't there, that there was a planet there, somewhere, and I could be on it. As I looked
into the night, drawing back the curtains to gaze into a cloudy blackness. I had earlier read that
this distant star was travelling away from the earth at an enormous speed, two hundred miles a
second, and in my youth, to imagine such a speed was, (as it is now!), incredible. To travel so fast,
and to be so distant! I wanted to be near that star, if it had planets;I wanted to live there, to be from
there. And I believed I that I was from there, that somehow I had been born in the wrong in this
solar system, or even in the wrong galaxy. Surely I could not be from this earth? with all this
suffering, this pain? Surely there was a perfect place, somewhere else? I knew that none of those
flickering points could be Barnard's star, but one of them might be - the faint twinkling of a distant
star cutting through the gauze, I imagined that that flickering point of light was Barnard's star. On
the other side? elsewhere? Why did the voices not call me away, to enlightenment? of the truth of
those feelings: I was so unhappy that I wanted to be elsewhere, not even of, or from, this earth: I
had wanted to be elsewhere, in another land or continent.
But now, thirty five years on, with my adult reflection upon my childhood dreams, and
remembering my emotions at that time, I recall them with sadness, and with acknowledgement
Woody had not, and could not of course, recognise any plea for an escape - how could she
recognise it when all the chaos, the bizarre surroundings where everything was regarded as
normal?
In my childhood I had longed to be far away, anywhere other than where I was, and in the
newspapers there were advertisements such as 'Poms wanted!' and for 10 you could emigrate to
when I became 18, - and she had laughed at this fantasy with my father, who, in his peculiar silent
reticence failed to mention that all his family were there in Australia, but I was only a child, and, as
I was later to reflect upon my youth,I held no power. 'I want to go and live in Australia!' I said to
my guardians, and they laughed, dismissing his yearning as a childish fantasy. Only when he paid
his weekly visit to his son did my father incidentally mention, after my guardian recounted the
fantasy of my proposed emigration, that he had relatives in Australia: and everyone was surprised;
they had known Bill all these years and he had never once mentioned he had relatives
in Australia! That his entire family where there, having emigrated in 1955. But such was the secrecy
of my father, I thought, introverted to the point of absurdity. If a child notices that his beloved father
is seriously introverted, then the adult has a problem.

My thoughts had often cast back to that curious event years earlier of my home made runes
being swept away over the rooftops before winning the talent competition. It was of course a
curious coincidence, one of many in my life, of no particular significance unless given by thoughts,
or the words written upon this page. But perhaps my interest in magic, the effect of illusions were
enthused by that event, given a magical significance. But was there also a sense of hiding, the
dexterity of deceit? That things could be hidden? that random events could be given significance,
that mere synchronicity might not be mere chance?

I manufactured this chair out of plasticene, and carefully, manually placed the mirror at an
angle of 45 degrees,(as I had years before in primary school constructed a periscope out of balsa
wood - others had tried unsuccessfully to use protractors) to reflect the chair floor. It was effective;
the hidden, invisible recess at the back easily hid the body to reflect the head propped upon the
balanced pole. At a later time I made a friend gasp [the elusive Michael Eric Brent Thomas] when I
turned a random mishmash selection of five playing cards instantly into a royal flush with a wave of
a hand. It took some preparation, cutting that and glueing half cards upon the opposite side, but the
end result justified, even if only momentary, the effort.
I could lay out cards in grids of five by five, and tell which pair a punter had selected, using
the formula ; MUCUS COTIS NOMAN DATID. (Each letter is somewhere repeated). Another trick
was to read peoples' minds and to tell them the card they had chosen from the pack without even
touching their card. I could do this for up to four people. The facial contortions I pulled convinced
them I was mentally wrestling with their minds - I always identified the correct cards - but the
mental mangling were true enough, my efforts to remember the sequence of taken cards playing
cards of the entire deck, having glanced at the bottom of the pack as the cards were memorised in
an order. I am ashamed to say now, breaking the code of silence in revealing magician's secrets that
I sold the secrets of that trick to two boys for half a crown (12.5 pence in todays money, such is
inflation) and that they subsequently sold on the secret for sixpence (2.5p) a time. the Perhaps they
even made a profit.

Perhaps as a result of this interest in magical illusion I invented a game called Conjunction,
drawing coloured ellipses upon a board, and miniature planets encircling a central sun. The object
was to obtain, with coloured counters, a conjunction with the sun, winning the game. If I were to
design this game today, I would the fill the board with further information, and more accurate
pictures of the planets, for such satellite images did not exist then, giving the game more of an
educational value.

With my teenage enthusiasm for practical projects, as if there was a magic in electricity,
and with (I now realise) my desire to please my father, he having this alchemic power over
electronics, able to entice flickering pictures from dead televisions, I wrote to the magazine
Practical Electronics asking not for designs for a shaver inverter - for I did not then shave - but for
a plan for a musical synthesizer, a revolutionary instrument at the time, voltage controlled
oscillators controlling pitch. This letter, duly published, had a curious consequence. A teenage
Iraqian wrote to me, expressing a similar interest. Of Ramsay Ismail more later ...

Like cattle we were allocated the correct sheds to assemble in, the doors were incorrectly
labelled, and I knocked and entered the wrong room. The teacher queried why I was late, and I
explained, puzzled, that I had been sent from the main hall. As I sat down I realised my mistake, for
there was I an 'O' level class, and next door was my correct 'GCSE' class. The difference between
rooms C1 and C2. I remained silent. I was to play the same educational 'trick' two years later, but
this time consciously, as I entered an 'A' level English class but with only a 'B' at GSCE. I had been
unhappy with only attaining a 'B' since part of the examination was a group some of my primary
school friends who had been allotted a grammar school place. Keith Yallop was there,(to become K
in In Time) and Briget Taylor, (of more later). My ruse at 'A' level was never discovered, but I was
forced to leave school the next year, only one A level being completed, Woody deeming that work
was more important than education. Thus was to begin two years of hell. That story is for a later
time.

At fourteen Carol and Billy Woodman split up, Billy having, according to the gossip passing
throughout the house, come home from a trip filming abroad to find Carol in bed with another man.
An inevitable divorce ensued and I often came home from school to find him crying on the stairs,
with Woody trying any explanation to comfort him. He would rant and rage, crawling at the air as
if to scratch from an imaginary bark. It was sad but he soon enough revealed a greater emotional
immaturity as he accused me of cheating. We used to play a game called Battleships where cards
representing ships were placed opposing each other upon a board and each ship held a point
dis/advantage against another. There were also mines and minesweepers. The point was to capture
your opponents harbour. We had played this game during the months Billy had stayed with us in the
turmoil of his divorce.
But one day Lewis Rockel (the flute player with whom I had won a talent contest) came
round, and I explained I had to leave the game to play with him. So the board was pushed to the
corner and resumed some hours later. As I pushed a minesweeper in front of a mine he jubilantly
cried out 'Mine!' but my sweeper nullified it and he at once accused me of cheating, of memorising
the positions of all the cards before leaving to play with Lewis. It was such a ridiculous accusation
that even Woody burst out laughing as she came to see what his raving was about. 'You must be
phsyhic!' - and a running joke was invented, that Neville was 'sick et!' We never played and game
after that, and we rarely spoke. He spent the rest of those months there, before he and Carol
remarried. He was to killed being hit by a truck in South Africa - he'd been the cameraman for a
journalist, John Simpson (?), in the days when film had to be chemically developed.

Rubbish presets from father; already obsolete wave form oscillator the green glow of the
cathode screen already passe and dated by the early 70's,a Rolls Razor(a shaving blade of some
kind. Never used.) I gave him a television (given to me by my mother which kept breaking down, as
she had earlier given me a motor scooter which wasn't hers, no key of course). Later my father paid
me 5 for two days painting work, a figure I was curiously insulted by, this assumption I would help
to enable him to get an early start for his next job - this figure who made a cursory guest
appearance on a Friday night. Was he frightened of me? Because I had been ill in my childhood?
That I might have been some sort of genetic defect? I wish I could believe that. But it was more
likely that he was just his usual inarticulate self? I actually had to ask him if he'd got the early next
gig. (He had).

Discovery of sister Diana Madeline after 'Unky's death my mother seemed inability to
realise Woody's grief, to reveal this secret, yet my inevitable eventual indifference to Michele, but
having 'dated' her, attended her wedding, probably all engineered by my mother. The ultimate
irrelevance of meeting her again as an adult: all too little too late. Be careful what you wish for. Of
mother and Michelle (Diana Madeline).
In a much earlier time in the evening we went along the road, around the corner from Oak
Grove, to the working men's club, to the brown beer swilled stains upon brown tables, to play
bingo, which even then I found a pointless waste of time. (In the event I won sixteen shillings.)
Eventually mother decreed, 'I'll be off then. You two can stay.' Whether it was an instruction or a
request I cannot now recall, but of course I was glad to left alone with this young girl. So my
mother had left us in this working men's club to talk amongst the beer glass stains. My first date,
and I hadn't even requested it. She had been introduced years before as Margarite's daughter, a
French woman who cared of me for the first ten weeks of my life. Margarite had married and had
two children, I was told.
So I was left with Michelle. I was not mute, but silent or shy enough to perhaps appear
mysterious. Michelle was slim with blond hair. A pretty teenager, as perhaps all girls are.
Strangely, later, at mother's bequest we sleep either side of her during a time she was also
staying at my mother's at 9 Oak Grove, a small house filled with trashy plastic trinkets bought from
markets, as if a stall had been imported from the few yards outside or from the Hong Kong sweat
shops. I was ill that night, soiling my pyjamas. The cleanliness of the building left something to be
desired.
Once, in an earlier time, but perhaps only a year before my mother had brought Michelle
along as she had taken me and my father out for a meal in a Wimpy Bar near Euston (?). I had
thought it was a strange introduction - to try and fix me up with a girlfriend - but, in a later time,
with the tempered reflection of adulthood I realised the awful significance of what she had done. We
were later to see a movie together at Golders Green cinema, and afterwards I gave her an
affectionate shove, to be admonished by a passing adult,'Girls shouldn't be hit.' We laughed at the
adult, and held hands. She later claimed to have subsequently watched the film (Kes) several times.
We met again for a few times,

4.09 2022 The manipulating cunt that was my mother. Michele to discover that Maureen (if
indeed that was her actual name) was her actual mother, only by accident due to a birth certificate
request of some kind. For years Michelle's true identity was kept from me for no reason (except
possibly Catholic guilt of some sort) only for her to eventually, finally admit to me this 'terrible'
secret. I was later to discover that Woody had been asked to look after Diana Madeline (her true
name) but that Woody had refused, saying I was a handful. Bizarre that she was to go on to foster
hundreds more. When asked earlier by Woody if mother was pregnant mother replied the doctor
said there was a growth. She claimed that she had accidentally bumped into Margarite in the street
(I'm sure even then biological parents weren't allowed to see offspring) and thus inveigled herself
back into this child's life. But the final insult: Michelle grew up claiming never having a father
figure and never having met her father, and yet there we were, the 4 of us in a Wimpy Bar. This
woman will die believing she'd never met her father. They are all dead, thank god.

Later I was to work on a Saturday as a greengrocer shop assistant, for a man named Stagg
in Fauconberg Road. There were vending machines outside delivering triangular milk, or orange
cartons at 6d. I'd had a little experience as my mother and new husband Richard (Wigley ? - whom
she was soon enough to nick name Wiggles) had a greengrocers in Crickleworth Lane, and I
occasionally, rarely, helped out. They had to get up very early to get to Brentford market (now a
sport/leisure complex), and by chance Stagg had met them. Naturally I became a topic of interest.
Memories of me at seventeen, now forty seven. What a difference thirty years makes. Now
there is the instability of shops, of their exact location: They are not where they were. Time has
moved them.

The joy of the moment. Always that oscillation between the extremes, but only very rarely
totally incapacitated by depression, alternating with acts of endless creation, the joy to fill the time
between not being born and the time after death.
And there is that time, when those before you are dead, that those memories of events past
become merely a possible past - did those events happen in actuality, so long ago? Or is it just an
internal cinema, eternally, and randomly playing incessantly, until you yourself are dead, and you
become an actor, or a memory in someone else's dream? For there is an emptiness when they are
dead; that the faces and hopes and ambitions instilled in you throughout that time of your
childhood might come to mean nothing; for when finally my parents died, ironically within a short
time of each other at the end of my journey into the abyss, as if there had been a curious umbilical
cord tying them together throughout for their demise, but for myself; that I felt nothing; the
realisation final, that there had been no family as such, and consequently, and ultimately no
emotional, financial or intellectual support at any time. My strength today is my strength; I am a
self made man. All this apart from my body which will forever remain fragmented. But and how I
was allowed to become so unbalanced: the young adults I have met since have all had their varying
degrees of happiness, or relative despondency, but always present is the assumption that the game
of life is worth living, and playing.
 Yes, in retrospect it seems as if in a dream, or a faintly lit film in a distant cinema, but it was
real, it happened, and only now, can I reflect upon that episode in my life with any sense of
detachment. To take pills, to wish to die, absolutely long for oblivion? Yes, I had been that crushed.
And the anger I feel now is not at my actions then, no self-recrimination at the stupidity of it all,
that eight years later, in hospital again from an overdose, Woody and my father were asked to wait
outside whilst the psychiatrist asked what he thought to be probing questions. As an young adult
now, but already beginning to understand and comprehend the traditions of these new religions, a
teenager in bed and wanting to die, I was unsure how to answer the question 'Do you masturbate
often?' It was a trick question obviously, but what to answer? a) frequently b) rarely or c) I'll get my
next girlfriend to do it for me. In the event the shrink seemed satisfied by my answer, I having
assumed that to answer 'a' would conform to the psychiatrists imagined template of deviant
behaviour,and the short interview was terminated by a handshake; evidently I was sane and
unlikely to try to top myself again. But my father, upon re-entering the room, made a customary
caustic jibe, the words not now precisely remembered, but along the lines, 'Don't let them get their
hooks into you.'
As before, no playing (?) - this is never questioned. But I had questioned it, or perhaps if the
question had been asked now, I now knowing the traditions of those new religions, the theoretical
origins of the purpose of the questions asked. But then, as a teenager, in bed and wanting to
die,before, no concern at my predicament, only a resentment at my being submerged in an imagined
malevolent social web, but muttered with such irritation that I was made to feel that jibe. Woody
had felt humiliated at my actions, that despite all her love that this was how I had I was unsure how
to concern at my predicament. At my lowest point psychologically in my life, when I needed
support, and any degree of comfort to help me through my barrenness, there was none, only a bitter
ironic jibe. Perhaps my silence was not merely shyness but a realisation that and awareness that
any protest or comment was useless, that power lay not in my hands, but in the realms and wishes
of others. To be an unprotected child ...
Upon my 'return' I pinned the Sartre book cover 'Loath my childhood.' upon the bedroom
wall alongside the Beatles and the Waterhouse nymphs. It goes unnoticed. Perhaps thought of as an
example of modern art. Or more probably seen and met with with simple incomprehension.

But there are happier memories. One day in 1973 the school is given a holiday due to the
marriage of Captain Mark Phillips to Princess Anne. Four of us, Anne, Jackie, and John decide to
spend the day together and we first go to Hammersmith for a meal then to Twickenham where there
used to be a cinema on the corner. We see A Touch Of Class with Glenda Jackson and George
Seagal. By the end of the evening John and Jackie were together, and have been ever since. Thirty
years later I sent them the stamps issued on that day in 1973, affixed to an envelope. And John did
so well, having struggled to pass his 'O' level English to eventually attain an MA and a
headmastership in his early forties. (The headmastership came first, and the MA became irrelevant
but was finished anyway, having previously entailed so much work}. Truth, as if ever was needed,
that life is what you make it,and proof of the irrelevance of exams. And what happened to Anne?
She disappeared soon enough, and went to live in a caravan with a husband and baby in the late
70's. Her story is to remain forever unwritten.

I had managed to persuade Colin to give me the keys of this small box room, and in it were
obsolete lead pipes, of various lengths which Graham and I dumped in the large waste bins outside.
This shows remarkable lack of any business sense because even then lead piping had a monetary
value, but we were more concerned with room for ourselves and our basic, effectively no
equipment, but two names; Cult, and Destiny, since this tapped into my then vague interest of the
occult, or various pseudo religions.We put up posters of Marc Bolan, and after school Shirish Joshi
joined us to improvise music in the main hall. It was of limited success, since we had no songs, and
the headmaster, Hands, walked in wondering what we were doing there, and I received an electric
shock as I pulled the plug from the wall as he asked us to leave.
 (By a bizarre coincidence I was to discover that Hands had actually been Peter Woodman's
teacher decades before. He recounted an incident where Hands had scaled the classroom wall and
the then headmaster had entered, but not seeing Hands mentioned how well the class behaved when
teacher wasn't present. Having seen an athletic Hands in a school production of a Gilbert and
Sullivan show I can believe this anecdote)
The next day the music teacher Smith spotted the lead pipes sticking out of the bins and all
hell let loose, since the pipes were irreplaceable.
I thought I was going to be expelled such was Colin's fury. In later times I was told plastic piping
was used to pump air and replace the abandoned pipes. The key was taken back, and Bolan's
picture removed. And so the band was abandoned and Graham soon enough left to work at
Gillette's along the Great West Road. Two years later Shirish was to bring round Graham to
Eastbourne Road, and our friendship resumed, and often the four of us went to The Bulls Head on
Strand On The Green on a Thursday night picking up Philip Edge in Graham's green
Triumph,living as he still did next to Grove Park School and presumably remains there to this day.
It's curious that we were, in later years, G and I to both get engaged in the same week, and he
married Yvonne, although I was to eventually escape the clutches of Christine. And yet now ..
Graham long divorced .. well he's here in the building somewhere as I write. We are mere
characters in life, or perhaps bit parts from The Likely Lads. It's curious also that I last saw Shirish
on my 40th birthday .. As I did Barry (Punter?)..the one who'd had the fling with Bridget Taylor
when I had lusted after her. BT and I were to meet man years later, but of course the years had not
lightened her..(Very polite is I. Keith Yallop had bizarrely mentioned mentioned the her, one night
when we were at the Brentford Arts centre (no recollection for what, excepting that Sue Bremner,
Graham was also with us) that I had loved her at school but advised her not to get involved with
me. There was a certain personality flaw in Keith of ...gormlessness, which is why we never worked
together musically. But this bizarre comment raised BT's hopes, which was to lead to the eventual
collapse of friendship, too many ships had sailed by then .. Yes, Keith Yallop. He never pursued his
proclaimed interest in journalism, and became instead a damp proof surveyor - apart from our
very intermittent musical endeavours together; his bass playing was excellent, inventive, and he
could read. Why he turned down the opportunity to join that professional touring band I'll never
know, but you have to answer the door when opportunity knocks. (I am guilty of failure here too of
course) Once we both travelled up to Colin Harrington's Welsh hideaway, Gronnant, to set up the
tents for the later arriving scouts. Decades later to attempt hang gliding on the Sussex downs,
whilst staying at Woody's Peacehaven home, an ineffectual and expensive waste of time.

(Of father) And in discussion with him, when he could hear his muted, mumbled tones, he
would explain how he had made the wrong choices, how 'all the luck' had been dished out to
Gladys, not to him, and how a single choice made before I had been born had determined his life.
He had chosen not to go to Australia, when all the rest of the family had decided that there lay a
better life. But there was no explanation why his father had not ventured forth, I had asked, but
there had never been a definitive answer. Besides, all this was before my father had met my mother.
I was not sure how to take this - was he being blamed for being born? and had acted as an anchor,
rooting his father to an unwanted territory? - that had he not existed his father could have made a
better life? I pondered, it was a novel concept, to imagine what the life of others would have been
like had they never known him, had he not actually alive.
Yet such was my desire to please him, to win affection, to seek approval, that I embarked on
wholly inappropriate 'A' level courses. What need had I of mathematics, when it was obvious to all
I was a musician? But expecting support or guidances for these choices I received none. An offer of
tutelage was never forthcoming, despite my father's self avowed competence.
It meant, of course, that there were other lives that might have been, others that might have
passed through his life, and shaped it, or affected his actions, had he not been merely afraid; the
painful shyness, compounded by a curious defeatism, that life and circumstances had defeated him.
Whereas I have plan it, and do it. A job title may sound exotic, but the title is just an abstraction of
the reality of work. How effortlessly it was then to lie, to imagine, to falsify my total of 'O' and 'A'
levels, and how effortlessly my claims were accepted; a recruitment agency one day, Manbre
Sugars the next. My employers asked if I was to go 'up to' Cambridge university - did I then relent,
admitting that my grades weren't good enough, although the total was impressive? No! Of course I
was going to Cambridge! Anything I wanted - anything you wanted me to study I would! for
excellence in marketing self I excelled, a triumph of style over content. But I, thirty years on,
wonder at the root cause of my actions; I was of course being coerced into finding a job, despite my
protestations that I was to go to college, but now, upon a more distant reflection, the stamp of my
father's approval lay heavily upon me; I was seeking his approval, even though his approval could
never be won. How I longed for a token gesture of appreciation, a(ny) genial conversation, but
there was never any counselling, consoling or guidance: when I gregarious, the pubbing, the
clubbing - effortless fun! But from my parents and guardians I moderately recall .....
To be a writer was his idea of a fantastical job - what a perfect life that would be! whereas I
have never thought of myself as being a writer, or anything else that I have endeavoured,
songwriter, animator, etc - I just did it.

For there is a dull ache in my stomach and in my mind, the hollow left by the gap of a
friendship, killed by, but before its just time. Unlike Hamlet, mercifully killed at his moment of
maturity, I am spared: to survive is to suffer. But maturity comes at different times to different men.
But are such reflections meaningless? Would I recollect her, if any of the others had taken me? And
still there is an anger,a latent anger, that in my days of utter desolation my father was not there to
support me (not financially of course, because he wore his poverty with pride; how his imagined
noble spirit had been crushed by a malevolent state system called capitalism, rather than his
detestation of psychiatry to colour his behaviour towards me; my welfare and survival was
irrelevant to his discontent. I never forgave him; I wanted his affection, but he was incapable of any
such extroversion.
My whole life contrasted between body failure and mind pride; a determination to be self
sufficient. Seeking the joy of the ...any moment.

Lost in the mists of time is my motivation for becoming a cub scout leader, excepting
perhaps I wanted to emulate my mentor Colin Harrington. But I remember offering my services and
being invited to help by the current 'Akela' who I remember being called Chris. I remember my first
instant sighting of Martin Saffery as he walked softly across the floor of the Arch, smiling slightly at
me, somewhat bemused as to my presence. And I by whether Jenny Saffery was his tall cub scout
assistant. Martin Saffery was an attractive handsome man, and his marriage to Jenny seemed
slightly incongruous, a supposition that proved correct as within weeks of my assistance she had
eloped with Chris. Martin was to ask me, 'Did you know about anything?' and the truth was of
course not, as two hours a week over the few sessions I had helped was not long enough to
ascertain how people were related emotionally or otherwise to each other. I was left to run the
group myself and I asked Christine, my then girlfriend, to assist. We subsequently did the weekend
training course, and I received my certificate. Curious memories of those days, and of the cultural
mores of the times. Once we were ushered into the office by a visiting local neighbouring Akela
because an old ex Akela had come into the arch, as if to relive past days.'Don't leave him alone with
the children, as he's ...' he whispered, and two thoughts had instantly flashed through my mind - we
can't leave him alone with ... why then was he left alone with these boys? and why should a
homosexual be considered a threat to young boys? I was about to ask 'Has there been any evidence,
any convictions?' when even the irrelevance of these thoughts had left me, as Christine had earlier
produced semi obscene, coarse cartoons of cub boy scouts and proceeded to show me and in my
shock I forwarded them across to **** when asked. (This nutcase was also to accuse me of
attempting to hold a boy underwater at Brentford swimming baths later - nowadays I would refer
him to the police.)
 ARCH ADDRESS

I could have used my arch address, perhaps then there was the distinctive shift possibilities
of a query as to the habitability of Number 1 Arch, Kew Bridge, after all, they were only letters
upon a page. The trekking across London to check the validity of an address was remote, but in my
fear I gave an official my girlfriend's, Christine's, address, an address promptly denied by my
prospective father in law, causing lost communications. Eventually those that surfaced arrived at
Bruna's, at the end of Eastbourne Road, where I taught Gina, her daughter, piano, and later,
Michelle. (They were to come to Woody's funeral 21 years later in 1997).

MEDICAL

There was the obligatory medical, to reassure the college I would not die, a cursory legal
requirement and examination. He seemed curious, however, curious about the scars upon my body,
and around my genitals, and that I was able to articulate an adult response, presumably of
indifference or acceptance, about my disfigurement. He bizarrely surmised therefore that I was
sexually active and very probably homosexual. Such was the mores of the times. He muttered,
questioning, and I re-assured him of my heterosexual, and therefore normal, leanings, and he
seemed satisfied, signing my release form, my entry to further education, suitability as to teacher
potential, and my escape from the arch of the bridge. Ah, the ironies of life.
( Another bizarre irony is that Matt (Rockel), twenty five years later was running the same
cub scout group. My memory tells me it was the 5th/9th group. I paid a visit, visiting the old
haunts.)
And as I later sat in that ruin, unable to sleep on the flea ridden sofa, I began to weep, with
the a total sense of betrayal by my appointed guardians. They had made living with them
unbearable, by attempting to force me live to within their own constricted constraints; their beliefs,
their aspirations had always been contradictory, provincial, selfish; they had attempted to mould
me to what they believed was best, without concern for my own needs or desires. It seemed to me
contradictory, - would I not be following in his footsteps? What higher accolade could be offered by
a child to his father figure? I wondered. Only as I grew did I realise that he had scraped into that
profession by chance; at the end of the war a training program was announced and he saw his
chance - he had always been a shopkeeper before the war at Cullens, but now, as a sergeant he was
eligible for retraining. Only after many years later when I looked at his school notebooks did I
realise how ... repetitive, mechanical, had been his training and instruction; basic arithmetic,
elementary algebra, all absolutely essential for primary age children, but his workbooks still had to
be checked and signed by the headmaster, a Widrig, right up to his semi-retirement at 73. He had
been a popular teacher, well liked, respected, and a good watercolour artist and yet the question
was asked 'But what if you don't get to college?' Yet when I suggested I would consider an
alternative only if I failed to be accepted, Unky, a teacher himself, was unable to consider this. I
asked, had he not also gone to college? Yet this was met with incomprehension, as I in my turn did
not comprehend. It always amused me that he always voted conservative, despite benefiting from
this socialist agenda of educating people. Woody herself voted liberal, liking Len the weekly
insurance man.

And in time all your friends will betray you, all those you have loved, desired, honoured,
respected - they will sell you into indifference, ignominy, a distant, distracted, irrelevant memory.
As I have betrayed, lied and cheated, and ... But who am I to lecture now? To hector at the past? To
yearn to relive it?
How I was allowed to become so unbalanced: the young adults I have met since in my adult
life have all had their varying degrees of happiness, or relative despondency, but always present is
the assumption that the game of life is worth playing. But this life has been thrust upon me, and
despite having survived the anesthetist's gas, I had already been to the brink; my values were
always different, and this took me thirty years to recognise. An unwanted adult side effect -
consuming prodigious amounts of alcohol seemed to have no effect. And in a future time I will
reflect upon my relationship with my parents, as all children do, as they approach that age of
reflection. But I am shocked by my callousness and indifference now, even though it is justified. The
infantile adolescent yearning for the idea of a family has long since eroded into indifference, but it
is sad that I feel, even now, anger and hate towards my parents. And at this age, a middling into old
age. What, after all, did my mother do? Perhaps I spent a night under her roof, or perhaps two,
even a week, in Tralee in the late 70's, but I had been fobbed off, farmed out to a French woman,
Magarite, for ten weeks, and then unto Woody. Woody, who, if the truth be now told, should never
have had children placed in her care. But I weep because I had loved, or wanted to love them, these
guardians - they had taken me in and cared for me when I was sick, whereas my parents, it seemed
to me, had rejected me. But as I wept, it seemed I was worthless. Surely I was not evil? to have left
them. As I look back on that year from this distance of a century later, I feel vindicated, of course as
a teacher, but that my spirit hadn't been crushed or subliminated to another's, Woody's will, but
embarking on my own rite of passage, my right to determine my own future at whatever cost. By
leaving, even to sleep in the gutter as it were, the animal instincts helped me survive those early
years, until some semblance of intellect helped me - or did it?! - independence was disapproved of
until the inevitable rebellion. My whole life contrasted between body failure and mind pride; a
determination to be self sufficient. Yes, our memories just disjointed fragments, burnt frames
celluoid stitched randomly in our mind, firing synapses to be constantly, unwantedly replayed, to
Either: Or. I cannot go back, to not having known Rachael, and I can never wish not to have a
memory of playing with a child merely because she wanted to play with me.
Yes, In Time; no longer any peaks of experience, any moments of significance, but now In
Time eroded to the sludge of existence, be recoloured as our emotions wont, but never to be relived,
merely recalled : For you can never return. If : Then. Yes, Rachael : I had known her, for in her
childhood innocence she held joy in her hands - is this what my life was wanting anything other
than my experience at that time?

In the Sunday Telegraph, an advert suggested how a simple financial strategy could
maximise your returns over a short period of time, and Colin (Harrington) believed. And despite
having explained what I did, by use of an analogy, Colin had not understood, or had paid
insufficient attention to understand: once Colin had read of a similar example in a popular tabloid,
it was as if by being in print the idea became a reality, and true, not merely a spoken or written
opinion: I remembered how my 'mother' had believed everything on television, it was the 'gospel
truth', and everything in the papers must be true - 'they wouldn't make it up would they,' delivered
as a statement of fact. Even as a child I realised this could not be true, there were always too many
conflicting stories. But there was no point in I suggesting to my 'mother' that perhaps ... I would
have been shouted down, 'Don't get ideas above your station', 'Know your place', and my opinions
would have been worthless, as my 'mother' still imagined me to be, a child, to be cosseted, cradled,
comforted, but not allowed to grow up, she wanted my domination, but I was to become
independent, to have informed opinions. It was sobering to I the shift in his perception of my
'mother', from filial dotage to awareness of her incomprehension, her stupidity, her brutality. And
how my relationship had changed between myself and Colin over the years, from pupil to master?
Colin had held power over me as a child, and I had respected him as a mentor, a leader, but now?
This incomprehension?

[Story inserted to In Time ?]

As he looked down at Ben, his pale and now gaunt face enfeebled by age and disease D
started; he realised that he had known Ben for over forty years, and in that time how absolutely
their relationship had changed. D would have gladly killed Ben, when as a young teacher he had
inflicted pain upon himself as at child. He had not forgotten that anger, and that anger had been
real - the injustice of it, to be made to run around the school grounds again, because the first lap
hadn't been fast enough and been under a notional, nominal time limit! And how D had applauded
at the school assembly, at the years end when it was announced Ben was leaving! Had his applause
been applauding loudly? in celebration? And of course he hadn't been 'Ben' then. It was 'Mr.
Starker, sir.'Known colloquially as 'Starkers Raving.' D wondered if any child had ever murmured
or irritatingly muttered those words in Ben's presence. He doubted it - D had not even mentioned
his nickname, forty years on. Forty years. And now he was going to marry his daughter. Incredible.
The road is long and winding.
'Full circle.' The softly spoken words awoke Ben. His eyes focused slowly and he smiled
upon recognising D. 'You're still alive then, you fascist bastard?' Ben smiled wanly. 'Please don't
make me laugh, the stitches hurt.' D leant forward. He tried hard to keep the irony out of his voice.
'Yes, I know.' For Benhad not known of D's surgery at primary school. Ben was to apologise in the
later decades. But apologies are just words. And now he was strong and Ben was weak.

Of Basil Rathbone. Economics teacher. Always attempts at humiliation by snide remarks,

requesting stupid pernickety details (which class had I belonged to in the year preceding before, A
or B? and I of course not to know or care), drawing cartoon pictures through boredom upon my
book and being caught, consequently failing mock O level with the lowest mark (was it really
12%), and yet passing exam, as opposed to Richard Irving, having received highest mark in mocks.
Due to his obvious incompetence I was to give up his A level class, opting to self teach.
Passed anyway. The final irony being that I made my money in much later times in this way.
Rathbone would probably think the Black Scholes model was the colour of a car. Curious to
discover in much later times that his wife was a performer of some kind, Al from BAC having heard
of her.

Sean Cronin's (who he, fellow classmate?) ambition was to be a RAF pilot, which even at
that time was not being realistic as we were streamed in the lower section. His sister (or cousin, for
her child was in care with Woody for a short while and he used to come and collect her) was
married to pilot, and one of the original members (although I did not believe this until he sang a
song upon the guitar) of The Who. It was perhaps my first shock of realisation that anyone could do
it.
Where are they now, these ghosts of the past?
My early ambition, as then requested of by our teacher Bernard Pearce, was of becoming a
physicist, a high yet realistic ambition, as it seemed so effortless, my marks always being over 90%.
Only one girl in same classroom could consistently beat me, and her name was Jackie Blanks.
Where is she now? In a much later time I was to take the Open University's S 102 science course,
which was enjoyable.
Yes, jobs of the past too. I worked at Lidgates as a butcher's shop assistant, scrubbing the
blood stained wooden block. I met Trevor, who claimed he went to karate classes. Surprised that I
guessed his underpants were red. (Perhaps he had asked?) He being thirty seven I was quite
surprised. His wife and kids came over for tea one Sunday, but Trevor was absent due to strop.
Quite surreal, tea and cakes yet no guest. Went to his place another time with Christine, I fed but
not her! Returned following week as arranged, but apparently unexpected. Christine now furious,
understandably, and we left Trevor at the lift door. There are winners and losers, being gregarious
doesn't help you pick the winners. We went on to visit C's grandmother in nearby Brixton. It's
curious that despite our several year on/off relationship I have no memory of the last time of seeing
Christine. She eventually married and emigrated to New Zealand, only to divorce. She did tend to
nag, and now, decades later I can see the similarities with Woody. A lucky escape then ...

By chance I found a room in Hampton Wick, I persistently ringing up a Silke Ziele (?),
obviously a German woman, who was a professor at the local college (?). The initial 'interview'
was with a girl called Argentina. I was recording at the house of the muso from Camel band, a
melody and song I can still recall and probably have again subsequently recorded when I made the
concluding, confirming call. It was not an unhappy time, though Silke went off for her summer
meditation retreat, in fact with my new fellow lodger, but she left me in charge of a fellow lodger's
friend to whom she had given permission to stay, a boy far too young to be left with any
responsibility. At the time I had (wrongly) invested in a record company run by a conman called Joe
Stanley, and had agreed to put up (crap) singer for a short while. The mistakes we make... By a
bizarre coincidence the Iraqian Ramsay Ismail, who'd written to me via my letter to Practical
Electronics years before had emigrated to London and was in fact living down the road in the
tennis club at Teddington. He wanted a few guitar lessons. (I had also been teaching a girl next
door, who quickly stopped because I was too young! 40 years on, still don't get that one) I didn't
remain long in Hampton Wick, but by chance I'd met Silke's gardener, a Richard Dance, of much
more later. Ramsay Ismail was to offer me a room in his Teddington cottage - the address actually
was; The Cottage, Tennis Grounds, Teddington - and I was to stay there for short while. He
annoyed me me, for having moved my piano there, he promptly informed me that he was moving
elsewhere, causing me some inconvenience. Still I'd stayed in Switzerland in his hotel room before a
holiday in Venice for a few days. Met a girl on the train through the alps, should have ... Richard
Dance and Frank Bowe (I'd taught his daughter piano, and soon enough to become a drinking
partner, down at the Irish Centre in Dukes Avenue) helped me move my piano back to the garage (a
strange quirk of 7 Eastbourne Road was that there was access to the next road - they had been
lucky to have eventually been given a mortgage by the council due to Woody's foster work), where it
remained until I was offered the top floor flat at Chiswick Lane. Richard Dance had offered me a
flatshare, and I occasionally helped him with his gardening work. A briefly happy time. One day the
phone rang in the hallway. I answered and this girl's voice asked, 'Can I speak to Mr John?' (an
elderly polish exile?). I duly went downstairs, knocked on his door, no answer. Returning to the
phone, the girl explained, 'Oh, it's about the flat upstairs...' I duly made the connection, that the top
flat was soon to be empty. I asked Mr 'John' about the flat, who duly reported to the owner, a
Itlikowski, my interest. And thus by chance whole lives can be changed. For if Mr 'John' had been
in ... Sometimes a closed door can open opportunities...

An early job during those dark years was as a tyre builder at Firestones. A hot stinking hell.
I met Simon Wadmore again, a fellow scout,and slalom canoeist - he claimed to hold the record for
the most 'roll the rolls' which was possibly true. We motor cycled around housing estates in the
early early morning. And then he just ... disappeared. We were to meet again twenty years later with
Colin (Harrington) Lewis, Matt (Rockel)at the George and Devonshire, and again ten years later at
Matt's house warming. To be recognised but not recognise. To discover his wife drew human
anatomy pictures, but not with a tablet. Incredible. Even I had and used a tablet by then, so knew
what she was attempting was near impossible.

A christmas job was as a postman, 2 years I recall, (I remember later (?) going for an actual
job interview but I was horrendously overqualified), then as a Bontempi organ demonstrator. I'd
gone for the interview, and not considered suitable, having just finished college (?) but I'd been
rung up as the sales assistant couldn't stand the children bashing away on the keyboards. In W H
Smiths in Ealing. The next year I was invited to the training seminar. So at least this time I got fed.
This time it was in Hammersmith. Bizarrely I had Wednesday free, so I biked up to .. wherever, to
teach Frances Tomelty, and husband Sting on my day off.

No pride to be gained, no strength of character, only unwelcome, unnecessary memories, in

the days of those menial industrial jobs. Memory of lying on my bike in the sun at the plastics
factory during a break. Is this life? Or is it better to be dead? Always the absolute question to be
asked, having been had the absolute experience. Yet delivering office equipment for a couple of
days was enjoyable, the other's name from Industrial Overload now long forgotten. But as a
motorcycle courier, on the one day drenched to bone? No, not that life. A bought a table from my
friend Saffery's and sold it for a small (?) profit. Does that make me a antique furniture dealer?

Still, a film maker. Shorts; After Midnight. When Rachael Went To The Moon, And Pluto. A
Deeper State Of Mind. Tonight's The Night. Should I include Bootleg Beatles Play Sydney? Or all
the hundreds of video compilations in my - this - time?
Still, a writer; stories, scripts, plays, composited into Analects. The masterpiece, the novel
In Time, finished in a back room on Koh Lanta, the culmination of 33 (?) years, all the sub texts
melded together to form a cohesive whole. Will it be understood? And I not to care.
Still, a recording Studio engineer, producer, owner. A Songwriter. Music teacher. Becoming
the best in 1995, with more passes in more different instruments than anyone else, ever. (A memory
of the McGregors, Oliver and Victoria. At that time I mentioned to Victoria I'd been teaching them a
third of my entire life and half my adult teaching life! Both to grade 8 level in pianoforte) Yes,
Philip Lye and Stuart Latham were the early guitar students in the late 70's, both passing grade 4
guitar. Philip was to get into college a year 'early' but fooled around with his girlfriend - I had
fixed him up,they were together 3/4 years. Rachel Lowe always the favourite; piano, guitar, violin.
And now a professor. Still, the sadness; Joan Francisco, her fate to be murdered.

A strange compulsion had 'forced' me one night to leave Eastbourne Road and walk to the
Town Hall (opposite the green where Billy had earlier married Carol 20 years before) and join in a
dance movement group. The strange consequences of unconscious desires. I was to meet Gloria
there, and eventually she was to introduce me later to dancer and choreographer Bryony
(Williams). She was putting an ensemble together her husband Robin, a violinist at that time with
the hit show, Les Miserables. (He got me tickets, which were at the time like gold dust) Another
member of this 'troupe' was Marsha, whose daughter by a bizarre coincidence I had taught the
piano to for a couple of lessons only months earlier. I was supposed to be a musical stand in but
Bry 'made' me attend dance rehearsals for this Edinburgh trip and performance. After the second
performance's press review I had a fit of the giggles because Rob and I got the good reviews,
although the obvious effort had been put in by the dancers. Rob died in 2003, having already been
dumped by Bry, due to his excessive alcoholism. Curiously Winston (Morson) had played for him
his penultimate night (we had months before performed as a trio at a garden party for a rich
Swedish banked called Icky),and Bry was surprised that I knew already of his death. I didn't attend
his wake - six people had died around me in 1997/98, which affected me mentally. Jenny's refusal to
let Rachael stay with me again pushed me over the edge. She remains unforgiven.

But I was, or have become, essentially genial, and in adulthood I have experienced the
grace of strangers. And as I enter the final portion of my life, with the reflection of experience, and
perhaps with a calmness and peace, I can recollect the fear of my childhood, at that time inchoate,
overwhelming me into silence, a expressed ... How effortlessly the words are uttered now, with the
practised repetition of a lifetimes mutterings - they overwhelmed me - the pain in my stomach, the
silence of my ears, and the violence, implicit silence that rendered me inarticulate at critical
junctures - the critical juncture - in my life. At the rare moments of emotional intimacy, of
confidential secrecies of the past exchanged, my lovers have astonishment that I am now so
normal,so genial, so emotionally generous...
For there is a dull ache in my stomach and in my mind, the hollow left by the gap of a
friendship, killed by, but before its time. Unlike Hamlet, mercifully killed at his moment of maturity,
I am spared: to survive is to suffer. But maturity comes at different times to different men. But are
such reflections meaningless? Would I recollect her, if any of the others had taken me? And still
there is an anger,a latent anger, that in my days of utter desolation my father was not there to
support me (not financially of course, because he wore his poverty with pride; how his imagined
noble spirit had been crushed by a malevolent state system called capitalism, my father,
introspective to the point of absurdity, perhaps silently bewailing the fates thrown at him, seeking
imaginary injustices, allowing his detestation of psychiatry to colour his behaviour towards me; my
welfare and survival was irrelevant to his discontent. I never forgave his ineffectual actions, his
inability to articulate any wishes or desires, intellectual, sexual, emotional. I wanted his affection,
but he was incapable of any such extroversion. Consequently my whole life contrasted between
body failure and mind pride; a determination to be self sufficient. Well, I succeeded, and
experienced many joys of moments.

On Bronwen

And she was a good woman, caring and thoughtful, but in the end she had her needs and
desires, her own unwritten, unconscious acceptance tolerance of events. I had my own burgeoning
awareness of that, yet when a man offers marriage, and the offer is serious, a woman refocuses. At
an earlier time she had implied her needs to me, and I had not responded. And in my youthful
arrogance I assumed she would wait for me (after all, had we not known each other for many years
anyway?) until such time (and what time was that? I could not then say) I was ready. But my offer
of continued friendship had been understandably rejected, an offer possibly misunderstood, for her
words veered alarmingly from the subject to her own needs. I was shocked. Could I have so easily
been misunderstood? I left abruptly. And I was never to see her again, except once in the distance. I
telephoned her once later, but the 'conversation' lasted a few seconds; she could not talk, she was
with her boyfriend. A friendship lasting years abruptly terminated into indifference. I was angry,
with myself, my circumstances, my past. Surely they had coloured my words, perceptions and
actions? But I think of her everyday. She was, and she is still, unlike anyone else I ever met. Is it
those youthful infatuations, I ultimately indifferent to them, as I have ultimately remained
indifferent to others an obsession? I was promiscuous, I had other women. As I have ever since. I
desired Bronwen, but made no move, even when she suggested a possibility, towards her. I made the
ultimate sacrifice of sacrificing my own happiness so that she could lead a happy life. A normal
woman needs a normal man. There was compassion in my soul once. But not with any deep
meaning, for time has eroded compassion: when I cared I was silent. For although I appeared
seemingly indifferent, I was illiterate; emotions and experiences inchoate; and explicit experience
of the 'home', neutered any normal expression. But I was, and am, essentially genial, and in
adulthood I have experienced the grace of strangers. And I had cared for her but not imposing,
never the situation; I wanted her friendship even more than I wanted to possess her body. I was to
live a future inchoate, and unformed but somehow inevitable. And in my compassion for her, and
now I realise, in this different time, my own shattered self esteem, I remained silent; her friendship
was enough, and I would not expect her to care for my fractured mind and shattered body, such was
my pride and self reliance, even then. I realise now, of course, with retrospection and experience of
I was normal, but in a very abnormal situation, that she would have cared for me, for her needs
were solidity and stability, as most normal women desire. At the time solidity and stability were
imaginary concepts to me. But in the final moments any notion of friendship was irrelevant to her;
she was a one man woman, and any other relation consumes time, I later saw that the house was
empty, and then I realised that the mother had moved, probably south to be nearer her daughter,
and grandchild, that I felt sadness. There is no certainty, no stability, all is flux.
And having asked for the silver spoon, the token to be placed in my mouth upon the failing
moments, the final joke to be played reflecting the total absurdity of my and of all lives, And in
those final moments, before the last decibels of recorded sounds, memories and lights fade to
stillness and silence, what will be the final mumbled syllables, images and reckoning? Will I utter a
final paean to Bronwen, a regret of the other, unlived life, or will I wish that Rachael was there
beside me, so that I could murmur the delights that her youth gave me, of the happiness, the
exuberance, of her unawareness of the joys and delights of being alive, memories that are lacking
from my own childhood, or will I, and most probably, as we all ultimately live and die, alone. I will
say now, before the chaos of failing misfiring synapses, the final sleep engulfs me, I will say now,
before the incoherence descends into the nothingness, 'I have lived, I have lived, I have lived.'
 27 08 2022

Yesterday dropped documents of at the office, Tammy helpful as ever. Staggered across the
road to pay half rent, bought milk, 2 chocolate bars at 50p each (Penquins now upped to 1.25, a
25% hike, fuck em),and a discounted sandwich, the first food ingested for over a week. It was a
struggle to eat. Heart rate pounding even standing up. Stomach 'fat' now extending over right thigh.
Tried to watch film whereupon I fell asleep for 14 hours, awakening the morning at 1.35 am. Things
are bad.

28 08 2022.

Another erratic sleep session, just falling asleep through the exhaustion of pain. In the
middle of the night edited Krabi footage, and 2 songs from Jack ... already forgotten his ..Goodall.
Just done an edit, no sound, of pix of me, knowing now that these are final days.

31 08 2022

Last night watched Cinema Paradiso again, having found the file on old storage. Still
magical. It needs to be the full version, where he sees a replica of his first true love, and reunites
with her (mother). And the second time
can never be as the first. Thinking of Bronwen of course. Another beautiful touch is where the
knitting unstitches as Toto's mother realises he has returned. Glad I saw it again before its all over.
Will try and watch Time Regained soon. Black hairs sprouting from thinning arms. My body keeps
going, don't know how ...

03 09 2022

Did a couple of videos in the middle of the night, not being able to sleep. Just finished a
short edit of La Ronde intro, the film never now to be finished. But more lives lived than most it
seems. Hope to finish editing the above scraps, otherwise PDF them as Final Daze up on scribd. In
a lot of pain. Very bloated.

05 09 2022

Watched some crappy 'thriller' last night about nuclear threat from Russia in the early 80's.
Jack Ryan? By chance managed to stay awake to watch an excellent film, La Belle Epoch, where
the protagonist wants to recreate his meeting with his wife 40 years before. Naturally there is a
company that provides this. At great expense of course. Raised some thoughts. Yes, the date I would
go back to is 09 03 1980, where I should have proposed to Bronwen as we walked down the street,
returning from the Post Impressionist exhibition. Our friendship effectively over a year (to the day)
later when she was unable to come to 25th birthday in cottage in Teddington, having to pack for
moving to Cardiff. Why didn't I? Took a long time to recover from childhood, as the recovered diary
above attests. Does one ever recover? No. Putting up vids of the old day memories on the one page
I can get facebook to work (the other 2 mysteriously inaccessible).

08 08 2022

In a lot of pain. Stomach burning. Managed to put up short vids of Highbury Park,
discovered by chance this morning.

09 09 2022
 Another tooth disintegrated. Queen dies. Unable to access facebook yet again, having
commented earlier today about the Queen supporting the United Kingdom, and not merely
England. Watched Time Regained, reading the wikipedia plot line as I went along. Nice images,
attention to detail, and all slightly irrelevant - not wishing or wanting to associate with such
privileged elite clowns. Enough of them in this real life. John Malekelvich's French being superb
though. And of course my own masterpiece was entitled In Time, the final 2 words of a la temp ...
Sobering that I've outlived Proust by 15 years. Although that ends very soon.

11 09 2022

Watched posting of Ukraine News TV, an update of the war. Day 200. It's obvious that Putin
will lose. So this century will belong to Zelenski as the last did to Churchill. To stand and fight
alone ... Watching drivel TV, a series
called Unforgotten, poorly written, unlikely plot mistakes, basic police errors. Fills the time, not
quite overcoming pain and exhaustion. Vivid dreams - dreamt of Langkawi footage somewhere lost
on a hard drive. Perhaps it really is.
A very strange thing happened. I thought to myself Try logging into facebook under neville powell
(something I haven't done for years, and as I was doing this I thought ..use your (very)old freeserve
email address. Surprised I
remembered the password, and Lo! and Behold! neville powell existed. I have more friends than
neville animusic! Then the site bizarrely reverted to neville animusic and instructions to log in with
just a password. Doesn't quite work
but never mind. Of course it might have resolved itself as I'd put up a screenshot of my page being
unable to log into on Tumbler... and they couldn't stand the bad publicity ...

12 09 2022
Got a video up. Very bloated, in pain. Managed to find 'neville collected (part one)' on a
hard drive somewhere. I knew that I'd done it. To present this collage of images over the past 10?
years. The end is very near.

13 09 2022
Did a couple of edits in the middle of the night. Uploaded one or two before facebook
crashed YET AGAIN. Just want to get as much stuff up before its all over, which will be very soon.
Hope to PDF this and upload to scribd. Collate a little of La Ronde. Did a longer edit of neville
collected. That's all our lives are; random collected, collated images and sensations. And for the
next generation to play the game and get fucked over too. Thank god I don't have any children,
although I would have adopted Rachael.

15 09 2022

Disintegrating fast. Yesterday, or was it 2 days ago, fell asleep after editing some shorts in
the middle of the night and work up 12 ? hours later. It was twilight. Watched 3 films last night; An
Indiana Jones movie, no 2 I think, slightly dated with its sexist attitudes, then Sicario, just as good
as I remembered, and finally an excellent Searching, told through modern social, I not know what
was true (sites) or fake. A revolutionary movie, spoilt only by the happy and not very realistic
ending. Back on Facebook, by a bizarre chain of events. I thought I'd check in under neville powell,
which took me to another neville powell - why I have no idea, the image was not of me, but as I was
about to scroll away I noticed that facebook friends had left messages in the top corner. And there
was the musical group photo of me. Bizarrely the page asked, Do you want to interact as neville
animusic ? And there I was. Again. Put up a couple of short vids, yesterday, photos of long lost Koh
Lanta days. Did a Nottingham sequence today. No music added yet. I don't know how I managed to
get to Nottingham, but that was 3 years ago, at least. Can get across the road now, just about.
 16 09 2022

Very late last night spent hours collating Textual Healing : .... title forgotten already. Put
music on today, plus a couple of other vids. Very vivid dreams. Awoke sometime this afternoon, I
think. Put Nottingham vid up. Discovered another Koh Lanta local had died. Absolutely chilling the
number of deaths from that place in the last 10 years. Is it really a statistical aberration though?
But .. all gone; Pascal, Urs, Som, Philip (which is fair enough, being in his 70's and a bit of a piss
artist), a couple of others. I was never a friend of Aidans, a bit 2 faced for my liking but was
initially happy to spend my pennies in Saladan, whilst his wife cooked my burger. But surely he was
younger than me? Always that irony, that I with the wrecked body should survive. A few days left
perhaps.

18 09 2022

Last night watched (I've just looked up) 3 movies; the 3rd Indiana Jones, better than the first
two, less sexist, strong women etc, Snatch, with everybody overacting, could have shot it as a
cartoon, and Layer Cake, as good as I remembered, a bit of infantile ogling disregarded. I think it
launched whatisnames 007 career. Exhaustion of existence overcoming me. Determined to
finish the few bits left. Strange that I've been given this time, this opportunity to do this.

21 09 2022

Been reasonably creative. Uploaded Goodbye (Koh Lanta) video. Did an edit and render of
Neville, will check what it looks like later. Watched a lot of Clazy House/Chill Out (Neng) videos.
Nostalgia isn't ... but it is. Feeling fucking terrible.
Bloated, in pain.

22 09 2022

Uploaded neville collected, to a selection of my songs, worked a little on La Ronde movie,

obviously never to be finished. Discovered that I'd already done a dance edit to the # After Midnight
# section. Quite good. Uploaded to facebook (which actually at this moment works). Last night
watched 4 episodes of Our Friends In The North. Everybody looking insanely youthful, although
shot in 1996. Christ, I was already 30 then. Watched The Dead Center. Seen before, but still
surprisingly scary. No happy ending, a realistic change. The worse ending ever was The War of the
Worlds, where Tom Cruise ... even Natalie snorted at that crap.

23 09 2022

Managed to get across to the shops, a 2 minute walk away. How absurd that sounds. And is.
With the coffee ate a small slab of chocolate. In fucking agony. Managed to upload La Ronde demo.
Started work on When Rachael Went To The Moon, And Pluto,the original file being larger than the
uploaded one now found. Hope to overlay Kate Judes original pixs. They were difficult to work
with, but good quality. A 6 minute animation. Hope to make it to the 27th, meaning I've been back
in UK waiting for treatment longer than I was ever out in Thailand. How absurd that sounds. And
is. Watched Borderlines, A French movie from decade past. Quitegood, based on Neyret affair (?)
then tried to watch Beast, a Korean remake of something, but too tired to concentrate.

26 09 2022

Did a rough demo of When Rachael .. Will look at it later. Uploaded short visual at 2 am,
and also vid of HatYai. Awoke this afternoon at 1. Vivid dream again about missing videos. Crazy
things not working; having to sign into Channel4 every single time. Same with iplayer. Internet
bank account refusing to remember account number. Bizarre. Chaos reflecting outwards. I've made
it this far, another day no difference.

27 09 2022

Back in the UK 6 years today. Now equivalent to the time in Thailand. Posted vid of Jessica
and Bao up. Watching drivel on screen. England watched on highlights, equalised 3-3. This is a
triumph of some kind. Awakening in pain. Bloated,burning. Obviously over, yet still I live. Against
my own wishes. Finish When Rachael Went .. and this text. Enough is enough.

02 10 2022

Put a couple of vids up, old stuff, new soundtrack, what in modern parlance be called a
mashup (?). Reached the end of Our Friends In The North. What was impressive was how good
Daniel Craig was, sometimes unrecognisable, and Peter Vaughan. Watched Hell or High Water
again. Still good, the cafe attendant stealing the scene, 'What don't you want?' Somehow still prefer
Fearless, despite all the other excellence. Hitler docs earlier. Still haven't finished Fest's bio.
Completely erratic sleep patterns. Going to stagger across to the shop, buy chocolate. Yes, stagger.
How that word amused the flippant, superficial Natalie. Hope she hasn't destroyed her life.

06 10 2022

Complete disintegration of time. Falling asleep, waking at bizarre hours. Fell asleep last
night (?), awoke today at 3.45 pm. Going to make an entry after the hospital diary memoire, a
memory resurfaced. Edit this for eternity. Curiously hoping (?) to make it to the 15th, which means
I will have retired(?) for 12 years. Still, lived a lot, many lives, even since that time.

07 09 2022

Staggered (again that word) across the road. Card machine not working. Went next door to
post office ATM, couldn't remember correct sequence due to different layout. Pain didn't help
concentration. Might try later. Didn't sleep at all last night, perhaps from 10 to 1? Just watched doc
about air collision in 2002. Remember mentioning to Ray (Brittan)about the absurd possibility of
such an event happening. And yet it did. Grief consumed a Russian, who subsequently murdered a
Swiss flight controller. Forwarded doc to his son Gary. 20 years ago already. 7 since I was last
visited Chiswick. Next week (Oct 15th - I tore out the calender from what was to be my local cafe
bar Mr Green for that date) 12 years since I left London. Time, gone.

10 10 2022

Actually managed to collate a selection of portraits a couple of days ago. Final short
methinks. Card not working. Absurd that for 10 years used card without fail, perhaps the numeral
order was remembered habitually but now gone. New pin number to arrive in a couple of days.
Slightly irrelevant somehow.

12 10 2022

Put some music to Kate Jude's short sequence for When Rachael Went To The Moon ,,,
Uploaded. Heartbeat 120 when I stand up. Bones protruding through skin, unable to close left
hand, premature rigor mortis? Aircraft noise in my head.
 Going to try to hang on for 3 more days. Humans : Always giving significance to
insignificant dates. And to all lives. And I, having lived more lives than most is 'happy' to rejoin the
atoms. But In Time .. oh yes,that's my book.

06 02 2024

14 days back. Still shattered. Can get across road, that's about it. Stomach painfully bloated.
Tried to order pain killers via The Independent Pharmacy, spending a long time wading through all
their questions. Eventually, having submitted much personal data, including bank details, I was all
set for a bi monthly subscription of Uprofen, except … it wouldn't recognise uploaded photo of
passport. Thanks a lot for wasting 2 hours of my time, fuckers. Yesterday, microsoft outlook
express refused to recognise my email address, despite having used it for years. Possibly because I
was looking for an obscure Japanese film of 30 years ago. Who knows with these clowns. No way
to log back in. Everyday just the same madness.
Recently there was a 3 part series on the miners strike. Part 3 was interesting to me – from
what I could make out no ballot was actually called for a general strike, Scargil forcing silence
through somehow. Orgreave demonstrated a police state, but then I've always known that – the
police can go unto the london underground and shoot someone dead, and escape justice. And don't
get me started about Blair...

09 02 2024

03 04 am. Sleep patterns so disjointed it could be ..

14 02 2024

15 02 2024

Astonishing to think that 3 months ago I made my way up May Lane. Not sure I could do it
now. Already Thailand is again a distant memory. Glad I made it though, despite being sick,
occasionally even vomiting up whatever it was. Glad to get south to see Sarah and later Ray and
Di. Got a feeling this is it, but been here before. Only walked a few hundred yards in 3 weeks.
Today did video of Russian air crash in '85, to a vocal of # One Day I'll Fly Away # cover by ….
forgotten already. (Martine Fleming) Recently watching docs and films and series'. ITV did one on
the Cambridge spy ring, and also one on John Stonehouse, so good I bought the book on it. £3
something. The irony, I can't get into my emails but can instantly buy a book with 2 clicks. Watched
a sci fi movie last night, title forgotten, about a time traveller who turns out to be every character in
the movie. I suspended my disbelief. Perhaps I was drunk. Reindeer Mafia was very good. Watched
Trial and Retribution in reverse order. The first episode (the last watched) not convincing, there
being reasonable doubt, better for him and plotline to be acquitted then killed by disgruntled ….
The second episode – horrendous editing, the star witness recovering from death to a miraculous
appearance in the witness box. Got better throughout the years. David Hayman being very
convincing. Split screen editing effective.
Fell asleep exactly in the middle of The Simpsons, 6 45pm. Awoke 22.03.

19 02 2024

22 02 2024

A month back it seems. Yesterday slept a day? Watching intermittent films, docs. Winter's
Bone was very good, as was Platform 7. Jasmine Jobson going to be a big star. Wondered how she
was going to escape being a ghost – it seems anger did the trick. Should be a lot revenge in the
world then. Bayeux Tapestry doc last night, V interesting. Actually managed to walk to next post
office yesterday(?), the local one still not open. Yesterday collapse in the house of commons,
speaker might be ousted. All to do with the slaughter in Gaza, and no one wanting to admit that shit
starmer is a zionist. This is what the UK has fallen to, toadying to isheil.

14 03 2024

The 69th year.

Astonishingly, yesterday I produced 5 shorts, 4 of my own, and one cover edit of a Thai
song. Fell asleep at 4am?, awoke this afternoon at 3.45 ish. Reminds me of a time when I fell asleep
in the early morning after a long editing session only to be reawakened at 6, by the noise of a
shower. Who the fuck is using the shower at 6am??!!! In the front room there was a message from
Howie on answerphone (at 6am?),then a knock at the door as downstairs girl wanted to pay the rent.
Turns out I had slept something like 13 hours and it was actually evening... And that was nearly 20
years ago... This body just never gives up.
Yesterday a disgraceful day in the house of commons as the speaker (no capital letter for
you) refused to call Diane Abbot, her life having actually been threatened by a rich tory opposite.
Uproar in the media and papers today. As I watched this, I was unaware that she had stood up 46
times in order catch the speakers eye. He deliberately ignored her. As I was watching the pmqs I
actually thought 'is it coz I iz black', which was a catch phrase from a comedy show (in the 80's?).
This is how far the UK has fallen. Kid starver is going to be a disaster. What the fuck happened to
this country?!

18 03 2024

Awoke 15.15 ish. Last night trying get through Under The Banner Of Heaven, a several part
serial, based around an obscure (to me) religion, and the conflicts within. Very hard to hold empathy
or sympathise with bonkers religions. Struggle through to the end though. Last night vid of space to
# Time Is On My Side # cover by The Lady Shelters. Feeling sick, exhausted. Dreams of escape
now impossible. Time is no longer on my side it seems. Glad I made it out to Thailand and later to
see Sarah and Ray and Di. Even such a journey seems impossible now.

20 03 2024

Yesterday watched the most bizarre film I've probably ever seen, Love Emotion, a 4 hour
Japanese epic. What to make of it?Infantile, sexist, offensive, with strangely surreal captivating
sequences. Also downloaded A Girl She Is, this time a Japanese short. Might do some editing on it.
Edited some Prisoner clips yesterday. Might compile them later today. I am not a number...
Exhausted all the time. Was going, hoping to make it to The Station to see/hear music on monday.
No chance. It's over.

22 03 2024

A Friday. Did Singapore take off edit, from recovered footage. Red Monarch excerpt, where
couple gets reunited and Stalin (Colin Blakely) reveals his betrayal then dares victim to call him a
liar. Very sad. Jupiter edit at this very mo, to 2 pianos. Ao Nang street vid, time lapsed very early
this morning, being unable to sleep.

23 03 2024
 Watched Pain and Glory last night. Seen years ago(?) but forgotten how good it was. The
sadness was finding the picture of himself, discarded by his mother years before, in a art junk shop.
(There's a joke in there somewhere, but having just watched a vid on the conning tax dodge art
market I'll leave it) The artist now long gone, untraceable. Antonio Banderas very very good.
Thought of Keith Yallop whose personality was such that he made it difficult to work with. Not sure
if we ever actually completed a song together. I remember we did something called # Blown #. For
further info read In Time. And I not to care if you do. Makes me ever more amazed what the Beatles
achieved – they must have actually loved each other. The success was just chance, but they had the
subsequent talent … 'Wasted' a few minutes on colouring in vid. Uploaded. Just watched a critique
of Parasite, a Korean film I'm now hoping to see again soon. The director also did Snow Patrol,
which I remember being excellent.

24 03 2024

Edited footage to create vid. Took a long time. Put wav file # Did You Catch The Bullet? #
unto sequence, uploaded to facebook, Veoh, then fell asleep for nine hours. Now, evening, Watched
The Gone, a strange amalgam of Irish and Moari plotline, set in New Zealand. Dubious explanation
as to why the two were mixed, but never mind. Glad to see Maori subtitles. Should been more.
Freeze framed a pic, 'It's gob shite, not gob shit.' Uploaded. Have ...

26 03 2024

Yesterday downloaded lots of early animations, always an interest of mine. Hope to collate
them to short video. Then got urge to update my Chinese, always an abandoned passion.
Downloaded HSK 1 – 3 stories. Obviously forgotten everything... we'll see. Slightly pointless
learning, but isn't everything. In a lot of pain, stomach very bloated. Skin actually shrivelling.
Unable to cut toe nails.

30 03 2024

Disintegration continues. Yesterday struggled into Kings Heath in order to buy whisky,
coffee from Liddles. Queue too long and not having found coffee, left. To Iceland, which used to
sell cheapish ice cream, but no longer. To bank, closed? But still managed to withdraw cash. So no
whisky, no coffee. Short wait for bus fortunately. Checked date, it was actually good friday. Now
I'm missing days. Fell asleep at 5.15, awoke this morning 3.15 am. After downloading Mandelbrot
vids (was hoping to make images to songs, but files way way too big, many gigabytes) book arrived
this morning, Tetro's Con Artist. Discovered names I'd never heard of; Robert Wood, Bernard
Buffet, Frederick Remington. Surprised Tetro has such a high regard for Norman Rockwell. Took
pix of Obama meeting Ruby Bridges on 15th July 2011, made edited impressionist image for pic.
Still only 12.42. Bloated, in pain. The exhaustion of existence overcoming me.

07 04 2024

I've realised a personality trait : it is all sensation. Yesterday a random Japanese movie
appeared on my youtube, obviously an algorhy suggestion. It was a 1926 silent movie, A Page of
Madness. Scrolling through the comments someone had written that they were watching this as a
Lustmord (?) track was playing. I downloaded track and merged the two, having to speed up movie
marginally. Astonishingly it visually worked. Uploaded to Veoh. Today just edited the masks
section. Sensation? I've been lucky, able to react to immediate events and then … do something
creatively with them. Downloaded many Chinese lessons, wading my way through them. Several
animations this week, gasping at immortality. Not even depressed that my hands have seized up.
Keyboards, guitars unplayed for years now. Somewhere on this laptop is the entire Garrington
orchestra, but too sick to even install it. Or perhaps I tried. In a lot of pain. Reading book on
Stonehouse, and Tetro's Con Artist. Trip to Cymbran? A deluded fantasy methinks.

21 04 2024

Effectively bedridden. A real struggle. Started another book, False Impressions, the hunt for
big time art fakes. Almost an academic treatise, compared to Tetro. There was something about that
book that made me suspect it itself was a fake. Watching a lot of 'TV' (what an archaic term!). Last
night 1408. Seen before, but surprising how good it was – the vague remembrance must have
compelled me to watch again. Terminator Dark Fate still stupid, the notion of a mother forgiving
an emotionless machine for the murder of her son. Visuals excellent though. Talking of forgiveness,
watched recently a drama where the mother recognises the murderer of her son in the local
community, is assured by 'the authorities' that she is mistaken, is forced eventually to apologise to
individual who thereupon confesses. He takes her to site of murder, details the randomness of the
killing - ' he would just never stop talking ..' - whereupon the mother forgives him. Who writes this
shit? Can't remember title thank god. Good performances though, name actors. Talking of names,
The Twelve was very good, that Sam Neill is in everything- must be competing with Jim Broadbent
for most prolific …. Sam Neill seems ageless, remember seeing him in some quirky new zealand
movie years before even The Dish. He found his niche in life. Do a pop music video collage
everyday if I can, this gasping for immortality. Chinese edits. Will do an edit now, capturing time
lapse of cities etc, listening to Chinese dialogue at half speed..

28 04 2024

As far as possible, an animated film to music everyday. In the 'olde days' used to use After
Effects and Photoshop (had to 'retrain' completely for Photoshop – it took a while) but now too sick
to use. Just use VideoPad, which is useful enough for the simpler work I am only now able to do. I
use 4K downloader, then … mostly my own music/noises of course. Going to forward to sis new
will, leaving all financial assets to Nicola Tadeja. Glynis can delegate musical equipment to whom
she wishes. Just watched a Poirot episode on ITV. Plots way way too complicated, almost to the
point of farce. Completely disorientated regarding time. Didn't even sleep last night, just collapsed
in the middle of a documentary midmorning. Yesterday watched Without Sin. Feeling I've watched
it before, but so long ago couldn't remember any of the plot line. Memory not too short just long
term then. Last week Red Eye, which was very good except for 2 glitches; the heroine was selected
because she was Chinese. Well we all know all chinks look the same (coarse joke) but she was from
Hong Kong where they speak Cantanese, not Mandarin, a legacy of British occupation over the
centuries. Careless error. There was also the absurd notion that when the hero was stabbed the
Chinese woman had somehow inserted a sim card into his wound. There was a flashing clip shown
how she did this in final episode, but hardly convincing.

30 0 2024

Watched 3 part documentary on Miriam (a trans beauty) who fell from great wealth to
seemingly committing suicide in a back alley near her home in Mexico. The idea of fooling six(?)
self proclaimed alpha males in a several part series completely insane. No apology from Jo Juson of
Brighter Pictures. She didn't come across well; 'It's all about ratings'. The six paid off, Miriam
shown. She fooled them all. For those that think you cannot be fooled – I lived in Thailand for 6
years 4 months, easy enough to make a mistake. Time dislocated, Fell asleep early morn, awoke
3.15, now 20.35. Managed to eat 2 pieces of fish yesterday.

01 05 2024
 Watched Harry Brown last night. No recollection of seeing it before, yet somehow familiar...

06 05 2024

Effectively bedridden. I don't like. Still, a video edit everyday if poss. Very bloated. Too sick
to get to chemist. Did a video edit of HSK 1 this morning(?), cutting out the english translation. A
couple of days ago Watched Gattaca, a visually sumptious film, but farcical. No space suits needed
in the far outreachs of space, just business suits. Watched series about defection of Ceausues
number 2, set during Carters administration. It held my attention, but based on true facts ? - I've no
idea. Did research his death photos though. People always look more better alive, or if they're
played by actors. Did edits of car journies to versions of # Drive #, of which there are many. Too
sick to correct spelling mistakes. Fucking hell.

0705 2024

Last night watched Zulu, not even a remake of the original, which is fair enough. Shot in
drug infested outback. More accurate than original then. Just finished will, leaving all financial
assets to Nikola Tadeja, daughter of ex-lodger. I always admired Agneta's ability to keep it together
when the two of them were lodging in that room downstairs. Decades ago now. Hope their reward
covers the years of rent they paid.

12 05 2024

Complete dislocation of time. Not even sure if I slept last night. Just collapse and wake up
when I awake. Just done 2 edits of downloads from the web, the first, The Memory of Brains (no
sound yet) and the other already title forgotten. I put them up on Veoh in order of creation, so an
index of my life. Watching movies in this incapacitated state, yesterday browsed through A Perfect
Spy, only watching where subtitles are included. Supposed to be his most intimate novel, his father
being a rogue. Comparisons to my own father meaningless. Last night watched Insidious: The Last
Key. Apparently it was number four in a franchise, but some effective scares. Earlier watched a
repeat of Alfred Malina's portrayal of Tony Hancock, which was convincing. The day before two
movies, Dead Presidents and then Sleepless, the later of which I preferred. Been meaning to do a
review of my output to Veoh, only a year ago joined but already (it seems) several hundred uploads.
I is creative I is, like... 10 02 2023 first upload, just to see if it worked. Simple animated graphics,
no experimentation. The next upload was 02 03 2023. Why the delay I have no idea, but a much
more interesting vid, old demon footage spliced to weird drum sounds. Next, Absurdity;images of
nazi/klu klax klan seguing to Dada movement, the irony not lost to me. An early song of mine,
probably 1995, no vocals. Perhaps the review of my own stuff will be an Autobiography of
Videographics : nevilleanimusic. In a fucking lot of pain. Will stop now.

15 05 2024
Someone uploaded Abbey Road vocals only sequence. Very beautiful. Tracked Golden
Slumbers sequence, adding a little high end etc. Put up edit of Natalie to GS. God they were good.
Gods actually. Immortal. Did a couple of Chinese edits, this farce of existence. Finally solved email
stuff and got a new telephone number. The mundane always dominates.

16 05 2024

15.00 Just finished short vid. Used old music of mine. Can't remember when recorded, but it
sounds like Krome, so in the last 7 years.

17 05 2024
 Just put up # And In My Youth # theme to videographics to youtube, Veow, and it's not even
11 am. Strange dream of Juah, a lover from now decades past. The dream was in the front room of
Eastbourne road, my childhood home. Curiously bizarre. Perhaps I was thinking of her breasts. Too
bad I was to awake at 7. Just done a little more editing on HSK 1 vid, removing English. Yimin very
attractive, which helps.

18 05 2024

Came across vid, Robert Crumbs America to Joni Mitchel's # They paved paradise .. #
Sound quality terrible so uploaded funky version, Tal Wikenfeld with Scary Pockets. Had to do a
complete re-edit with new scenes inserted. Days work done by 11 am. Downloaded Crumb
documentary, not knowing that much about him. Vaguely remember Frizt the Cat, though no
recollection of seeing the movie. Started editing Yimin's Chinese HSK 2. Yesterday watched
Resistance (Marcel Morseaue wartime biography). Didn't quite work, but never mind. Very bloated,
in a lot of pain. Wish I knew the end date, so I can go out on a blaze of glory. Well this is called
Final Daze, so perhaps this is it.
Just uploaded Martin Henson's pinhole camera image of stone angel. V impressive what can
be obtained with such 'primitive' technology.

19 05 2024

Just finished Crumb video. Downloaded all Wagner episodes from 1984. Maybe edit the
Venice scenes later. Bit on HSK 2. Watched David Starkey lecture earlier. Sometimes he comes
across as a rabid tory, but with occasional good points. His assessment of B.Liar is correct – the
worse prime minister ever. And now a multi millionaire tax dodging prick. Watched The Running
Man last night, filling time with a b movie. Actually fell asleep at a normal time to awaken mid
morning. Can't eat food any more so liquids to survive.

25 05 2024

Awoken V early, probably pain. Managed to do a little editing on Boeing wing assembly
(time lapsed effects) before falling asleep again. Weird dream; somewhere Di Brittan said, at a party
possibly, 'why are you still here, aren't you teaching?!' The clock read 6 something. I rushed off, sad
to leave, but it was sunny though past 'teaching time'. At 'home' looking for a while for my jeans,
then decide it was too late now to go. Tried to recall their telephone numbers. The other figure
present (Polish but not known to me) needed cash to buy a car which his friend lent to him. I
stepped outside, not recognising the location. Two nights ago another fragment; there was heavy
snowfall over a narrow strip of land, but sunny either side of it. Funnily enough I might have an
explanation – I rode with Bao to her home town (many years ago) and there was this curious gap of
a few feet of gravel between perfectly paved roads either side. It was quite surreal, possibly a land
dispute of some kind, but very strange it matched the dream. Awake, but not refreshed I finished
Boeing and uploaded to cover of # Leaving on a ...# by Renee Dominique. Yesterday edited and
uploaded time lapsed world tourist locations to Julie Covington's # In My Life #. She sang the
original Evita album. Don't know why she didn't take the stage part - she knew the words! Last
night watch 3000 days of longing which strangely I found slightly tedious. Visually stunning, but
you have to believe in genies, or whatever he was. He initially appears as a giant, then as she returns
from the door he is almost normal size. Didn't quite work for me alas. Last week, The Man Who
Came Back From The Dead, a 3 part serial on Nicolas Rossi was riveting. And astonishing.
Gobsmacking. A few nights ago The Intruder, Dennis Quaid very convincing. During the adverts I
was watching Deadfall, an early Caine movie. Depressing ending, no hero there. Election called,
July 4th obliteration for the tories. Corbyn standing as independent, having been kicked out of his
own party yesterday. A labour party member since he was 17. Kid starver is going to be a fucking
disaster. Someone is standing against him. Feinstein should walk it.

27 05 2024
Wish facebook would STOP fucking about with my account. Posts go missing ALL the time.
They've destroyed my account 4/5 times? It's even a joke amongst my Thai friends. Just watched
chilling documentary on murder of Elaine O'Hara. Details too distressing to elaborate. Found a page
from an old posting :
A tall building used as a teaching facility of some kind, with a top flat which was offered to
my father during the summer holiday. He 'played' his clarinet, a broken instrument (and the irony
is that not only my own clarinet playing and teaching days are also long gone but I realise 'now'
how bad that instrument and consequently his playing was) upon the staircase the air escaping
through the broken reed, causing horrendous screeches to echo throughout the building.
I mouthed 'Power To The People" as the record played, and Glynis and Elizabeth laughed
as I saw Bolan for the first time on TV, singing # Hot Love # I had bought a empty large pad of
writing paper as if in anticipation of words to be written. 'Going to write your memoires?' laughed
'Ma,' with a strange mocking inflection of derision, as the others laughed too. Such is/was my
paranoia.
We walked into Guildford along a path and a curious memory is that I bought 2/6, 5/-, 10/-,
and £1, a sizeable sum for a young teenager. At that time I used to collect blocks of four of new
issues of stamps, the pre decimal postal issues, perhaps intimations of an early 'business' move.
And although I had placed the pre decimal postal issues within my new empty manuscript book
they had fallen out as we walked back along the road. Only after I had handed 'Ma' the the
manuscript and she insisted they were missing that I run down the road and found that they still lay
unsullied upon the ground. I still have them, although they are left to my nephew, possibly always to
be unappreciated, for gifts are always mere baubles.
My father allowed me to reverse drive his car around the school park, offering an early
driving lesson. I asked him if Glynis would like to try, but he muttered as if this idea was dismissed.
And as we walked along the path beside the river, I noticed that boats were offered for hire,
and I said 'Let's do that!' and my father and I walked up to the counter to be asked, 'Can you swim?'
I enthusiastically replied, 'Of course!' but my father, strangely lacking the obvious inference of the
question, replied, 'No.' shaking his head in honesty. 'Are well, you need to be able to swim.'
explained the woman. This somehow this further reflected to me his under enthusiasm, about
everything. And it wasn't as if we needed life jackets, as I had noticed the hull was large and flat
bottomed. My father later apologised for lacking quick wittedness.
And as the days passed there was this sadness within me that this illusion of a family holiday
would pass. My father approached me as I stood on the steps of that large house, having been
prompted by 'ma' to come downstairs to talk to me. Apparently he had been wary of talking to me
because I might have wanted to go back to Woody's. (Apparently I had asked to go back to Woody's
when I was sick at the age of 8 in a caravan we had stayed at.) I had asked could I stay with them,
for it was apparent to me that the education Glynis was receiving was superior to mine, even if only
a stability of some sort, with my envy of her family life, whereas I was offered merely only an
occasional holiday.
And having had that holiday in Guildford, there was this temporary illusion of a family I
wrote to Glynis who rarely (never) wrote back.
I was later spend a few minutes in the front room, Woody furiously knitting away, and I
subsequently discovered that as I went to the toilet Woody had examined my spelling and panic
ensued, bizarrely worrying that I was now in love with my sister, whereas my longings were not of
course of lust (although she was very beautiful in a Pre Raphaelite Burns Jones sort of way), but
the imagined notions of a family.
In a much later time Glynis was to accuse me of failing to maintain contact, and accused me
of lack of interest, but by then I had already lived many other lives, and it is all too little too late.
There is a sadness though that I now haven't seen Elizabeth for decades also, for I remember I gave
her my discarded stamp collection of countries in subsequent times I have come to visit, to know
now where they exist, and are not merely coloured images, and sometimes of portraits of faces that
have come to have, in my adulthood, political resonance. She had written somewhere that her
cousin had come to visit. It is possible that even now, a lifetime later, that she might still think of
me, in her memories, as a cousin, for unless told otherwise, how is she to know different?

01 06 2024

Disintegration continues, whilst I maintain the creativity. Just put up a vid of # Rain #
to original 60's Beatles cartoon (not ever seen by me) to a cover by Grace (about whom I know
nothing), good bass playing, with sisters (?) singing. Last week (?) did # Eleanor Rigby # to same,
as long as the lyrics are portrayed. Yesterday uploaded # Within you, Without you # to just George's
voice and Indian background music. Infantile lyrics unfortunately. As Woody used to say, 'It's the
backing..'. Fortunately the original backing then hid the lyrics. Did two or three other Beatle songs
to the 60's cartoon. Sometimes difficult to edit. Yesterday watched again The Long Shadow, a
chilling reveal of the astonishing attitudes in '70's Britain. A few nights ago The Bay Of Fires,
which I found surprisingly quirky and funny, with the occasional killer one liners. It held my
attention, which is becoming rare. Election continues, kid starver becoming ever more zionist.
Forced to allow Diane Abbott to continue standing. The others blocked should stand as
independents, but the election is going to be much closer than expected, Starmer pissing everybody
off. We shall see.

02 06 2024

Watched vid then uploaded, edited, of air crash Air Canada 621. Put music of Alchima to it
(Thai pianist). The memorial park has 109 tiles in its grounds. Very touching. Design flaw of the
DC 10. Long before the day of Boeing's ineptitude and concealment of necessary – essential –
information, merely in order to maintain – maximise – profit. Did a vid of Rybinski's Imagine
video, a song I've always loathed, to a more funky backing by India Carney. Finished HSK 2
editing, now merging with HSK 1. Random thoughts in my mind always. The chant 'Let It Go'
effective enough. Watched 3 parter last night; Gabby Petito. Astonishing that he returned alone and
they then went on a holiday. When the police queried her missing, they were given the families
lawyers number! WTF?! Didn't the alarm bells ring then? Bizarrely the parents eventually surfaced
to help with the search, and on that very day they found his body, well bits of it. The whole thing
stinks … as did his body presumably. She should have left him as soon as first assault occurred,
which astonishingly was filmed by local policemen. One assault is one too many. Memories, then of
Joan ///, piano student (grade 7) murdered by her boyfriend. Once dead, to then never exist.

03 06 2024

Did a time lapse edit of starship construction, having for the third day to launch.
Constructive day. In a lot of pain. Very bloated. Bit of Chinese editing. Pain killers, alcohol useless.
Watched Bones and All movie last night. Didn't work for me. A curious cross genre piece, relying
on sensationalism of body part eating, to hide a basic love story. A pity, as the acting was very good.
Fresh was good, an attractive woman kidnapped by a charming man, to be served up as fresh meat.
A delicacy apparently. Good prevailed in this one, unlike real life.

04 06 2024

Very sick. Bad feeling now.

05 06 2024
 Did a vid edit of And Your Bird Can Sing to beatles 60's cartoon, and just now, 19.31, an
edit from ao nang of I want To Break Free. Independent Faiza to stand having been deselected by
the zionist kid starver. Fuck yeah, there is hope. If only they'd do this down in Brighton. We cannot
have zionists running the country, having selected themselves from the NEC. Labour is finished.

08 06 2024

Wasted trip to chemist, it was closed. Steel shuttered. So the agony continues. I no longer
have delusions about 'escaping'. Trapped here now. Pain intense. So bloated difficult to walk. Did a
couple of vids; Found an interesting TV feedback video from a Autumn Jing, to which I married #
Threshold #. Turned out to be visually hypnotic, and thus effective. Did another to downloaded
animation, squashed to one minute (from 12), to an early (now within the last 6 years) track from
Krome Keyboard. Watched Apocalypse Now last night. The final final final edit? Today the
documentary about it. Both interesting. Recently watched Bad Boy sequence. The first, banter
between stars was good, the second, laborious, perpetual whizz bang car crashes becoming tedious.
Didn't get to end. Watching crime docs now able to be solved due to DNA advances. A lot of
murders completely pointless, heartless. Three nights ago, Flag Day, Sean Penn very good and later
Bombshell, about Fox's sex scandal. 'Based on true facts.' as Woody used to say. Since she believed
that everything on the news was true this movie might have shocked her. Did an edit of # Not A
Second Time # to Beatles cartoon. Can't remember who did the cover. Already. (The Quaramen)

11 06 2024

Just watched a fascinating if chilling vid, How America Really Runs Britain. Common
knowledge that US runs UK I would have thought, but what was amusing was, apart from Aaron
Bastini seemingly unable to stop talking and actually ask a question, was his claim that he was a
Marxist Socialist. He then subsequently revealed that he paid £20 per month to Amazon Prime! Bit
of a contradiction there my son. His guest, Angus Hanton, was interesting and lucid. He also
admitted spending £20 per month to Chat GPT (which means nothing to me). Another interesting
point was the deliberate policy by card companies to try and restrict cash usage. I have been a
victim of such a scam. My local coffee shop, apart from putting up absurd glass panelling, suddenly
refused cash payment for coffee and cake! I thought s/he was joking, but apparently not. Sorry
Gorilla Coffee, you've lost a customer. Yesterday uploaded a Laura Cantrell cover of # Trains and
Boats and Planes # to 1925 Henri Chomette footage. No I hadn't heard of him either.(Brother of
Rene Clair) Cantrell's version was/is delightful, and the footage speeded up a little very effective.
Downloaded and edited other animations last night. In a LOT of pain, sleeping erratically.

15 06 2024

Did a couple of edits to Autmun Jing's video feedbacks. Quite effective. Yesterday upload of
# Breathing # cover by Bella Nick to a edit of Toshio Matsumoto's Ki (breathing). It works, and
Bella Nick's cover is very very good. And it's live. Watched The Silence, a Croatian crime drama.
Very tightly scripted, effective. Thought about UK. We really don't have borders as such, whereas
europe does. Always wondered how 'borders' evolved; the border between Thailand and Malaysia
(Satun) is through the national park - having visa refused I tried to cross through the jungle, a
catastrophic mistake, ending up more inland inside Malaysia than before. Ended up staying illegally
inside Thailand for 14 days before catching the bus and merely walking across the border. Last
night watched Slice, a bizarrely black comedy about ghosts, vampires amid a killing spree.
Bizarrely it worked.
16 06 2024
 Just finished an edit of # Slow Down # with a cover by The Two Beats to an obviously early
Beatles song, presumably from first album. Song not known to me until this morning. (06.27) Not
too difficult an edit. Now 22.49. Found an old (this year) vid. Now recoloured, uploaded. Dated
today.

17 06 2024

18 06 2024

Last night watched Limbo, about a Syrian exiled in a remote Scottish asylum, awaiting visa.
Quirky, effective humour. The musical performance very convincing. Then Shoplifters, a Japanese
film which was breathtaking. Cheers this morning, oldies but goldies. Funny that I watched Fraser,
downloaded in Thailand before I even knew of Cheers. Yesterday married Emmylou Harris's
beautiful version of # For No One # to a heavily edited Echoes, a beautifully animated short about
loneliness after the death of a partner. A productive few hours work. When I finished it, due to my
erratic sleep, I have no idea. Could have been 17th.

20 06 2024

A few hours ago downloaded video of space station and put an early song of mine to it. So I
found a use for # Actions Speak Louder Than Words # after all. 1989 I believe. Wrote it in an Indian
airport whilst a man was praying / chanting beside me, then disappearing for a while before
returning and repeating the entire process. Several times. Yesterday edit of Beatles cartoon, an
heavily edited Toshio Matsumoto short (the one using Polaroids). Sort of could see what he was
trying to do, but I tightened it up a bit. Used # Salvation # as backing, another early DAT recording.
Modern technology always soon to become ancient and obsolete. Edited HSK 1 and 2. Such a
shame I can't remember anything … 6 vids uploaded last night; one of Eak (Ko Lanta Local)
playing percussion, one of poem Questions From A Worker Who Reads, three from Will Vintins
collection, and finally, Imagined Heavens (experiences from Near Death survivors). Always busy
then. The thing, irony, about NDE's is that they survived, so that their imagined heavens cannot
possibly exist. Actual experiments on terminal patients (how they got permission was not explained)
was there was a massive increase in brain activity in their final seconds before death.

21 06 2024

Transferring hard drive to another through this laptop. Still 2/half hours to go. Data from
earlier computer I recall. Interesting to find file you'd completely forgotten about. Longest day
today, apparently. Still delusional dreams of travelling again. Very bloated. The once vertical scar
shifted, warped an inch from the vertical. Bizarre black hair growth, some even reaching my belly
button. 'Oh, you're constipated!' Fucking idiots. At least they said they were reluctant to operate yet
again because it might leave me even worse, which is fair enough. Had enough pain for many
lifetimes, methinks. Watching intermittently The Thick Of It, a 21st century equivalent of Yes,
Minister. Too fast for me so need subtitles, and the camera way too shaky, it actually distracts. Can't
actually believe they swear so much, but there you go. A real election soon enough. 14 days?
Labour is finished, kid starver a blatant, odious two faced liar, actually believing the plebs can't see
through him. And I, of all people probably to vote Green. At least they have a policy. Might be too
sick to get up there. We'll see. 2 hours 10 minutes left. Up to S. Transfer finished I merged two road
tracks to sync with an electro backing I did some while ago. Upload to Veoh. So effective I
shortened clip to sync with # I'm On The Road To Nowhere # cover by The Divine Comedy.

22 06 2024
Just watched Tropic Thunder, a spoof movie of some sort. Childish yet with moments of
humour. Tom Cruise almost unrecognisable except in close up. Excellent dance sequence at end.
Definitely got what it takes. Earlier a doc about the movie Cabaret, which I now must watch again.
And when was that? 30, 40 years ago? Rendering out a short vid with Buddhist images at mo,
using up further old music.

From A Year Ago :

June already. Against all odds, against the gods, my body survives. Against my wishes, truth
be told. Shattered hulk, expanding bloated stomach, disabling. No longer to ski, to dance, to move,
even. Still, time to relive, reminisce, in time given, even if unwanted.
Day 2. Watching endless short docs; one on Walt Disney, Zodiac killer (I think), Liberaces
death, obviously of aids, several shorts on Pitcairn - always wondered why they burnt the
ship,island not being rediscovered by Americans 20 years later but fascinating. War in Ukraine
continuous. Highlights of Ukraine - Scotland football match. Not normally interested, but there you
go. If Ukraine play like that on the battlefield Putin has no chance. Watched a documentary
(probably more than one) on Ukraine situation and politics earlier. Watched 3 part drama on
conman casonova (The Widower)last night. Astonishing how easy it is to fool people. In a lot of
pain, but what's new.
Day 3. Just remembered I had a shivering fit last week. Nothing like that since I was 10,
before diagnosis of yet more surgery needed. Was it really needed? Who knows, but I remember
awakening in agony, partly because it was practice in those days for nurses to bang saucepans to
keep you awake. Unconsciousness equals death. It took me a week before I could walk again, a
round of applause from the other patients. Kept bumping into same patient upon each of my return
to hospital (I had been several times). Heart problems I remember. Building sold and refurbished
later (closed in 1993), but I could, and can, if I am ever to return to West London Hammersmith
Hospital, which is unlikely, point out the exact room of the agony. Too many lives lived, too young.
Day 4. Just watched a Red nose comic relief (?) sketch featuring French and Saunders with
Judi Dench visiting The Repair Shop (a TV series?). Vaguely amusing until I heard the name
'Finty', when I recalled that I had looked after a sausage dog called Finty for Kathy Harrington's
son Colin (my ex scout leader). Then I recalled that Kathy had asked (Judy?)if she could name her
then new sausage dog Finty (after her daughter?)to which there was no obvious objection. Though
it seems to me a strange request. Still, the dog was fun. Colin had said Finty would need to be
carried upstairs due to her long body, but as soon as Colin left I said 'If you want to get fed, up the
stairs!' to which the dog effortlessly ascended. Bit of a purve, every time I wanted to kiss my
girlfriend she wanted to join in. Last time I saw the dog, at Kathy Harrington's wake at Questors
Theatre the dog of course recognised me and salivated (!) to be picked up. Strange and sad day.
The last time I saw Eric Bird, who filled me in on some of the staff room back stabbing shenanigans
(by Peter Cramier, physics teacher) of Chiswick Comprehensive.{Memories of Basil Rathbone;
economics teacher. Attempts at humiliation by snide remarks, insistence on stupid pernickety details
(which class had I belonged to, A or B? in the preceding year), me drawing pictures through
boredom upon my book, failing mock O level with the lowest mark but passing exam, as opposed to
Richard Irving failing (having received highest mark in mocks) I giving up his A level class but
passing anyway.
The final irony being that I made my money on the options market and am aware of and understand
the Black Scholes model, which presumably Rathbone didn't.} Yes, the politics of the staffroom and
of the cub scouts office are the same - Enoch Powell once made the astonishing claim that
Shakespeare could not have written his plays because of lack of political experience. More fool him.
{ However I am now tending towards the idea that Shakespeare might well have been a front}
And the last time I saw Gloria; I wandered down Denmark Road and knocked on her door. There
was no answer and was about to enquire from a neighbour when she finally opened. All her
belongings were packed and she was moving to Unst (!). I explained that I had called her but her
number had already been transferred to someone else. (The same thing was to happen to me only 6
years later - I don't know how the 'new' poor sod managed to put up with calls from ex's who called
in the middle of the night!). Idle conversation ensued. Still, memories etc... 2004 was a strange
year. 3 holidays; Sweden, Slovakia, Atlanta, US. Many stories to write of, in this naked planet.
June 7th Watched a charming documentary of a walk between Chiswick and Hammersmith.
Passed through Chiswick Park, my old haunt in decades past, then up to Fullers brewery, 200 yards
from my old home. I never did the tour strangely enough, but this sufficed. He even pointed out an
obsolete pub down the lane (which I had decades before pointed out to Murray Kinnairds father, to
his obvious disinterest,since it wasn't a real pub. Then to Hogarth's tomb, the graveyard, but
curiously forgetting to mention or point out Whistler's monument, which is quite prominent.
Enjoyable stroll past The Dove, with the smallest bar annex in the world (? might need to go to
Amsterdam for that), but didn't mention Clinton's visit and a chat to a local old codger. The secret
service took Clinton's glass - better safe than sorry I suppose - all those terrorists duplicating the
leader of the free worlds DNA. Then a strange diversion up the high street to a now extremely
expensive winery. Perhaps they were sponsoring program. I remember the premises as being the
local men's working club. Times change. Chiswick long gone now, already 12 years ago, and
having lived there my entire life. Returned a few days in 2015, merely to renew passport and renew
Thai visa, but that was it, no time to wander, or wonder. Watched a 3 part doc dramac on Steven
Lawrence. Good. Didn't know Alan Partridge could act, but there you go. Watched Lullaby /
Chanson douce, not quite convincing, but nice shots of octopuses. Teeth cracking, hands stiffening.
June 11. "a nameless number on a list that was later misplaced." Quote from Doctor
Zhivago, regarding Lara's fate. Watched 3 part serial, astonishingly already 20 years old yet never
seen by me. Both the Lean version, taken to be seen by 'Unky' in Hammersmith, at the time and
before I knew the geography of 'Hammersmith', use the device of Zhivago seeing Lara and dying
before he can reach her. The TV version was very effective, although the movie remains
unforgettable. I can remember being 'exulted' as we walked back to Eastbourne Road. The film
could not have been made without Omar Sharif, Julie Christie (an original contender had been
Sophia Loren!! - that well known virgin) and Tom Courtenay, whose face filling cinema screen was
chilling. The main actress in the TV version was far far too clean, somehow the revolution seemed
not to have swept over her. A plot absurdity was Lara and Zhivago meeting in Yuriatin in the remote
Ural Mountains, equivalent to me meeting local bar staff outside Ringo's in Dehli at 4 am in
the morning. Oh, I stand corrected, that actually happened. I used to play Jarre's # Lara's Theme #
as a child. Its stood the test of time. The TV version looks like it was shot in the High Tatras region,
Slovakia. Nearly bought a flat there many moons ago. When I could ski of course..
Day 13 Yesterday, by chance (as all existence is of course) I watched a Hitler documentary
by John Lucaks, a prosopography (a summary of other people's opinions). An interesting hour.
He recommended Fest's biography, of which I managed to buy a very cheap copy from Abe's
bookstore whatever. I mention Abes because it's the only online bookstore I can actually
just buy a book : all the others, Amazon etc take the order then refuse to deliver without Santander
bank verification! Verification for a book costing £ 3? Fucking idiots. Giffgaff have a lot to answer
for - they stopped taking the monthly direct debit, no idea why, consequently disconnecting my
number a year later. No way to verify payments or even renew sim, since verification is impossible.
The endless loop of self destruction. Facebook and google also disconnected, no idea why. The
faceless fascism of idiocy. Also yesterday, watched Grace series. Nice shots of Saltdean, Brighton,
Peacehaven. Memories, of taking beloved Rachael cycling along Telscombe Cliff's waterfront.
Looked up 167 Roderick Avenue, then 67 Ashhurst Avenue, where Peter Woodman built his house in
the 60's - Woody's son had built this house on the Sussex downs near the sea, (In later decades I
was able to walk over the downs to Woody's retirement bungalow), and I was often taken into
Brighton (where in later decades I was to visit my sister at university), to the cinema. My enjoyment
of The First Man in The Moon, of which that I be dressed up for the occasion, as if to go to the
cinema should be considered an early example of conspicuous consumption by Woody's insistence a
special occasion of cultural significance But any sadness now is not of those times, but of the time
when I watch The First Man In The Moon now, not that of course the story is infantile, but that I
can't recapture the sensations of colour upon me. The Czech animations of the early '60's are
likewise gone; The Tinder Box, or the story of the mermaid who swam up to the surface, but
perhaps it is best to have 'merely' the memories of those stories, and perhaps same sense of wonder
I experienced as a child. I remember his younger brother Martin hitting his forehead with a
pickaxe when help Peter quarry the chalk. Once or twice I drove to the end of Telscombe Village, a
dead end, but driving carefully and very, VERY slowly over the rubble you could emerge (how
appropriate that sounds now) a few yards from Roderick. A line from the TV show mentioning The
(Brighton)nLanes took me back to when you could (perhaps still can) wander down to the whole
food store (?) and buy a bucket of peanut butter. Peter now in his 80's and still flying. Took me up in
his Auster when young. Let me fly for a few seconds while he adjusted something. So there you are,
flown a plane. Not sure I'd even pass a medical to get on a plane now. So thanks,Grace.
Day 15. Just watched Honour, a 2 part, chilling dramatising of Banaz killing. Raised a lot of
internal concerns for me. There is no way to deny it: I am racist. We've invited, welcomed these
immigrants into the UK and they behave like barbarians, importing their bizarre rituals and
expecting, demanding, that we adhere to their bonkers beliefs. Many moons ago, when the USSR
collapsed, a nutter wrote The End Of History, a farcical assertion that the new Russia would by
definition award democracy to themselves. Hasn't quite worked out like that : Putin sees himself as
Nicolas, or is it Peter the great? It is impossible for western democracies to comprehend or accept
foreign cultures. Living in Thailand confirmed me of that. Curiously enough, Blair added to the
damage, introducing 'faith' schools which merely segregates the nations education into religious
factions. The worse prime minister ever - even Blobbo Boris hasn't started a war.
Day 16. Watched a 3 part 'psychological' thriller last night Sticks and Stones which was
quite good. Explored workplace bullying - very hard to prove, but 'hero' managed to record
racialist confession before dismissal. One curiously unconvincing penultimate scene was in a
backroom where 'hero' was taunted to prove masculinity by touching a now semi nude co worker.
Too bizarre to work. But evential payoff as it's implied that 'hero' gets a payoff vastly in excess of
offered redundancy package. By chance, today, watched an interview of someone I had never heard
of
before, Karl Pilkington. Very deadpan and yet hilarious. Decided to look up his other works. An
Idiot Abroad (China) is hilarious. Not even wry observations, just the way he sees it. And lest
people accuse him of racialism (and the offered food clips were disgusting) bear in mind I have
seen a Chinese advert where a negro was rinsed through a washing machine to emerge a cleansed
Chinese toyboy. In a lot of pain. Aircraft drone noise in left area, strange morse like clicking in mid
and right. Very bloated. PMP or blood leaking internally. And yet I still live. Would be ironic to get
to Sept 26.
Day 17 . I hadn't heard of Sean Lock, only of his passing, so was unaware of his humour or
reputation. I never watched the TV sitcoms. But discovered 15 Storeys High, first broadcast 20
years ago. Sublime, surreal genius.3nd episode of An Idiot Abroad (wasn't able view ep 2 on India,
having to log into google to prove my age. Was tempted to respond with 'not yet dead' but couldn't
be bothered) wasn't as good as ep 1, obviously staged, unfortunately. The kidnapping by 'terrorists'
in Israel so farcical it demeans Pilkington's fake demeanour. Affable idiot might be a better
description. Read a few further pages of Fest's Hitler. V good. In a lot of pain, lots of mistakes even
typing this out.
Day 21. Watched some mediocre French serial, title already forgotten, The Wagner Effect?
about a hypochondriac detective, also bizarrely unsure of his sexuality, but rest assured his mother
happens to be the political leader of the county/city. I only watch such drivel due to physical
incapacitation. Yesterday watched ep 1 of Cadfael (from 1994). Novice monk obviously female. No
attempt to discolour face in accordance with medieval accuracy. One must remain forever
beautiful. Even if only in celluloid. Very vivid dream, probably recycling the seen plotlines, and I
awoke, I thinking it might be 7 am ish, but was 4.45. Body disoriented for some time now.. Burning
sensation left groin, bloated mass of stomach. Constipation my arse. Right leg swelling again.
I have been 'lucky' enough to live in 'this' time, a relative peace in my existence, but soon enough to
dissolve into chaos again. I don't believe the USA can survive without another civil war, if only
because the difference between the haves and have nots is so obscene. And Russia ...? Up to page
135 of Fest's Hitler. What is chilling that a nobody can emerge to destroy the world. At least I don't
have any religion; there is a beauty in knowing that the earth is a product of the residue of several
suns exploding (and that our own sun, being of an insignificant size, will have little or no effect
upon its own collapse # Across the universe#) and, in human measurement / calibration terms can
have no comprehensible meaning. { Memories of Barnards Star.I put the book on astronomy down
and stared at the stars from my tiny bedroom window. I knew that none of those flickering points
could be Barnards star, but one of them might be. There was hope, wasn't there, that there was
a planet there, somewhere, and I could be on it. And as I looked into the night, drawing back the
curtains to gaze into a cloudy blackness, the faint twinkling of a distant star cutting through the
guaze, I imagined that that flickering point of light was Barnards star. I had earlier read that this
distant star was travelling away from the earth at an enormous speed, two hundred miles a second,
and in my youth, to imagine such a speed was (as it is now!), incredible. To travel so fast, and to be
so distant! I wanted to be near that star, if it had planets - I wanted to live there, to be from there.
And I believed I that I was from there, that somehow I had been born in the wrong solar system, or
even in the wrong galaxy. Surely I could not be from this earth? with all the suffering, and pain?
Surely there was a perfect place, somewhere else? During the daytime I re-read Chocky, by John
Wyndham. Where was this perfect place, on the other side? elsewhere? Why did the voices not call
me away, to enlightenment? But now, thirty five years on, with my adult reflection upon my
childhood dreams, and remembering my emotions at that time, I recall them with sadness, but with
acknowledgement of the truth of those feelings: I was so unhappy that I wanted to be elsewhere, not
even of, or from, this earth: I had wanted to be elsewhere, in another land or continent. I had told
Woody that I wanted to emigrate to Australia, that furthermost distant point on the earth's crust
- the newspapers told me I could emigrate there for £10, when I became 18, - and she had laughed
at this fantasy with my father, who, in his peculiar silent reticence bizarrely failed to mention that
all his relatives, the entire family had emigrated there in 1955, and that was in fact the last time he
ever saw his own father. Yet Woody had not recognised that this was a plea for an escape - how
could she recognise this when all the chaos, the bizarre surroundings where regarded as normal?}
Day 22. Just finished watching The Chalet, French 6 parter. Bit too long but infinitely better
than Wagner whatever. Too complex with lottery winner motive thrown in towards the end. Issue not
resolved. Did they collect? Watched PMQ. Johnson staggers on. Last week missing an election
meeting to fly to Ukraine, having already informed he was on the train up north (?). Watched a
couple of short docs on the evolution of birds, another on the next massive asteroid to hit us -
several hundred million years +/- several hundred million years is the best guess. 'Guess' will
suffice. In a lot of fucking pain.
Day 26. America's descent into madness continues, Roe V Wade being overturned by 2 of
Trumps appointees, rushed through against the protocol of waiting decently for the dead to pass.
And by a president, and not for the first time, without a political majority. Johnson loses by
elections last Thursday, a safe seat held for 140 years. Party chairman resigns. Boris claims he will
win the next 2 elections. Madness everywhere. They say as you get older time passes quicker. Well
the months are racing by. Another Sunday already. Some movie last opened with shots of Stone
Mountain, Atlanta. The insane ticket prices in the UK can be compared by this anecdote : I took the
train to Stone M, a journey equivalent to from central London to Windsor Castle. Not exactly local.
Price was 1$. Halfway the change was to a bus and I paid again 1$, but the driver, quickly
realising that I'd just got off the train, left his seat and gave me back the 1$. Can you imagine such
courtesy in the UK? I think the expression is Fuck No. Stone Mountain was in fact a mini
disneyland, a lift to the peak, a railway encircling the attraction. In fact great fun. I did a lot of
footage of Atlanta, destroyed now by Youtube.
Day 27. Just watched McCartney at Glastonbury. An 80 year old slaying the crowd and
ripping up the record books yet again. Gobsmaking. A reviewer wrote 'What an honour to be alive
in the time of McCartney!' I concur. Another comment was a remembrance of the watcher also
having been to the 63 Odeon concerts. I had my chance, my mother having bought tickets, but I
didn't want the screaming to damage my ears. Fucking idiot. Still, I was to see him at the Odeon at
a later time, possibly mid 70's, again when G#, Wendy and I drove up to Liverpool, astonishingly
managing to get 2 rooms in a house (I think they moved their family downstairs for the night), and
again at Earls Court. The Liverpool one was the best I'd ever seen, until last night. How did he
keep going? 3 hours?!I can't even walk across the road. { Memories of Graham: I had managed to
persuade Colin [Harrington] to give me the keys of this small box room, and in it were obsolete
lead pipes, of various lengths which Graham and I dumped in the large waste bins outside. This
shows remarkable lack of any business sense because even then lead piping had a monetary value,
but we were more concerned with room for our own basic, limited equipment. We put up posters of
Marc Bola. We had no songs,but two suggested, by me, names; Cult, and Destiny, which tapped into
my then vague interest of the occult, or various pshyedo religions. One evening after school Shirish
Joshi joined us to improvise music in the main hall. It was of limited success, and as the
headmaster, Hands, walked in wondering what we were doing there, I received an electric shock as
I pulled the plug from the wall as he asked us to leave. The The next day the music teacher Smith
spotted the lead pipes sticking out of the huge bins and …} We are mere characters in life, or
perhaps bit parts from The Likely Lads. (I have no idea what that means).
Day 28 Remembered the childhood films of the early 60's. The marvels of the internet, found
them. Remembered them as animations but they were in fact films. Not in colour as evidenced now,
but back then black and white TV 405 lines sufficed. The wavy underwater world was in fact Shirley
Temple in their 1961 adaptation of The Little Mermaid. Couldn't watch it all the way through,
colours way too florid. The same of The Tinderbox,1959. Disgusting political statement from
Glastonbury - an American girl group(?) publicly namimg and praising the supreme court of the
US for overturning Roe Vs Wade. Fucking disgusting. Why wasn't the mic turned off?! Keep your
garbage in your own disaster area, yanks. A few days ago watched (skipped through it
was so bad) Rig 45. A curious mixture of 10 Little Indians and Aliens. Farcically absurd. Once
inside 'rig' it was all mod cons with tons of space. And who was the killer at the end? Don't know,
don't care.
June 30th. Watched Sherwood, a drama loosely based on events of the miners strike 40
years ago. Infiltrated by police spies, one of whom remained in the village having fallen in love.
Lovely to see Philip Jackson, a piano student from the late 70's, now looking suitably grizzeled,
with appropriate accent. We all age, unsuitably. Through him I got to know and teach Helen
Cooper, Jonathan Kydd, still doing the voice overs I hear, (pun intended) Frances Tomelty, Sting.
Still, my favourite student remains Rachel Lowe, now a professor, a world authority on dengue
disease I believe. Grace and beauty, and talent. Passes in piano (of course), but also gifted on
guitar - performed Villa Lobos's Prelude No 1, Clair de Lune (from my own childhood sheet music)
and also a pass (grade 3?) in violin, having gifted her an old violin I'd bought from the barman at
the George And Devonshire. I 'wanted' to be the best music teacher in the world, and achieved it
with passes in ... and what is it now? 9 different instruments? Too many to list. Wasn't happy with
the newspaper photo (total shit) so commissioned proper group shot which, when sharpened
marginally, was adequate for publicity. And all that decades ago now. 1995? Sounds about right.
Was just before my 40th. Should have stopped then, but the money was so good. Last day of June.
Better upload.

Just before midnight. Slept all day it seems. Always exhausted. Bad feeling now. Didn't even
realise that today is a 'Saturday'.

23 06 2024 00.54

Am watching Ronin again, 01.39 The car chase just finished. Incredible. Always wondered
how long it took to film. Witty, acerbic dialogue, 02.02 movie just finished. One of the greats. Then
the final minutes of The Long Good Friday, as he enters the wrong car. Brosnan looking gorgeous -
that film got him the Steele gig (never seen it) then the Bond franchise. Then Brightburn. Apart
from the farcical beginning, where they adopt a satellite's baby? Remarkably adopting a human
form. Naturally taking over the world by the films end. 06.26. Uploaded several vids from
transferred collection, plus Venetian Gondola song Op 30 No 6 to ancient Venice footage. This
strange gasping for immortality, as are the words here. Still a bit disturbed that Friday vanished.

24 06 2024

Yesterday watched Lawrence of Arabia. Still visually stunning, but, having now checked lots
of historical inaccuracies. Only covers the war years too. Much more complicated an individual.
Peter O'Toole giving a staggering performance. Alec Guinness given an Arabic role. Not the last
time playing a native either. Miscast, but the money's good. Just finished (11.12 )a compilation of
the Analogues performance of the White Album to Morgan James's vocals. Doesn't quite work, but
never mind. Might just render her performances of certain songs I like. Watched doc about the
making of the Rutles. Neil Innis grotesly underrated, even now. Yesterday finally bade farewell to
old Sony camcorder. In those days you could go into the bank and withdraw the £1300 cash to buy
it. It served me well these last 20 odd years. Tape jammed so actually had to break case open. Tape
split already but might be able to splice it. Around the world that camera, many times, so its earnt its
keep.

25 06 2024 02.52

Fell asleep after The Simpsons (7pm ) to awake just now. Watched the Harry Smith
(animator) edit I rendered, which took a long time. I asleep for most of it it seems. Just watched a
vid on Lolita by 'Horses'?, which was excellent, The story massacred by the film. Lots of images of
butterflies throughout the vid – wondered if the narrator was familiar with The Collector, by John
Fowles. Edited footage, downloaded # The Song Of The Butterfly # (Hungarian 2014 jam session)
and rendered. Very beautiful music. Added / tracked tracks, hi/lo end pseudo stereo. Days work
done. Always grasping for the sensation of the new. Found Solaris movie again. (Tarkovsky), forgot
about the long road trip through Tokyo. Edited to fit # Drive # cover by Clemens Wenners. Good.
Just finished editing 100 basic Chinese words. Tried to book flight to Phuket, site (bank) not
recognised. Yesterday coffee jar refused to open. Had to cut through lid. No kidding. The madness
that pervades this existence, everyday.

26 06 2024

Fell asleep at a 'normal' time to awaken at 8 ish. Edited clip from Nostalghia (Tarkovsky) to
a backing of mine, # Threshold #. Downloaded short 'cartoons, artworks from recent times. Re-
edited old, my first animation # After Midnight #, adding count ins from downloaded 'cartoons'.
Effective.30 years on I still admire my piano solo on that one, despite that the whole thing is mine.
In a lot of pain.

27 06 2024

Yesterday edited and uploaded Beethoven's 6th, Pastoral. Did an edit before but tracked for
clearer sound. Couple of other edits too, trying to get hard drive memory down. Did one on Natz to
# Let Her Down Gently # cover by Harriet. Just watched vid appraisal of Monkey Magic, after a
facebook posting, a children's TV series unknown to me. Looked like fun.

28 06 2024

Downloaded bizarre movie, but with amazing ambient music. Sound to be stored.
 03 07 2024

Try to do a vid everyday. Bought book from SinkySnaps, where she takes humorous snaps
of potholes 'manned' by toy action men and women. One was from St Leonards, so I bought a book.
Will forward to Sarah at Oscars On The Square. Election tomorrow. Feeling very very sick.
Bedridden for a long time. Bought laptop yesterday. Whether I can get up to Maypole (about 2
miles away) we shall see.

04 07 2024

Shattering day. Will explain later. Voted. This is how far the country has fallen,that I, of all
people, so far left I'm barely visible, have voted Green. They actually have a manifesto. Labour
doesn't, can you believe it? It's now past 10 pm,so will give results in real time, as far as possible.
Sleep will engulf me, I fear.
23.15 Houghton and Sunderland South. Lab. 23.35 Blyth and Ashington (new
boundary) Lab. Internet down. Swindon South Lab gain. 1.32 Gateshead held. Lab.2.01
Leeds held (Rachael Reeves) 2.19 Reform wins Ashfield. 2.53 Shit starmer retains seat.
Fuck him.3.29 Corbyn (of course) wins as independent. 3.31 Farage wins for Reform.
4.10 Penny Mordant out.5.16 Piss in Bog out.

06 07 2024

Difficult to accept it's all over. Two days ago, voted then caught the bus up to Maypole but
alighted too early. Managed to get up to Sainsbury, collect laptop, then, eventually made my way
back. A long way it transpired, only stopping 2/3 times. Collapsed unto bed exhausted, fell asleep.
This is bad. Stomach bloated and blocked. But not constipated. There is something else going on,
burning sensations lower left groin.

07 07 2024

Due to pain awoke at 04.20. Dreams of David Barker, a student who died of leukemia (?), I
visiting him the day before. 1997-1998 being the death years, 6 around me gone. Of Rachael of
course, torn from me needlessly. The exhaustion of existence to overcome me. Watching The Water
Margin,in the now futile hope of at least picking up some Chinese – recognise some characters.
Should play at half speed, but balancing existence against time. Yes, I actually just wrote that. Put
vids up yesterday, some edited from past, a couple of originals. Just finished another vid, 06.57.
Creative morning then, despite physical limitations.

08 07 2024

Complete disorientation of time. Sleeping, awakening, random hours. And yet to know
where I was 40 years ago now. In Brentford swimming baths, my lover getting married at 11
o'clock, obviously elsewhere. I have of course thought of her often, that marriage now dissolved.
Richard always slightly pretencious, even putting the announcement of their child's engagement in
future times in the Daily Telegraph. # Who Knows Where The Times Goes # No question mark
needed. In a lot of pain.

12 07 2024

Yesterday, or was it the day before? I recaptured and re-edited Atlanta footage from 2004.
Surprising how well the footage held up. Also a Mongolian clip from a file somewhere on this
laptop. And a short of Robin Williams from Rutles 2. Still been meaning to see Mork and Mindy. A
sad loss. The bloating of my body now very visibly apparent. Fell asleep 3 ish, now 18.04. Probably
in time to see The Simpsons. Hope resides.

14 07 2024

Uploaded edited clip from Mork and Mindy, where Williams dances with, and other things
(what other way of description?) with manniquin. Crazy guy, a genius. Saw A King's Man last
night. These films are now called 'prequels'. Surprisingly good. Watching The Water Margin.
Curiously bizarre. Watched a bbc series, Crime and Punishment, from the 70's (?). Everyone looks
young – well they would, it being from decades past. Probably from before all the corruption within
the police was exposed. Still some way to go – the police can go unto the London Underground,
shoot dead an electrician, and still escape prosecution. A new MP almost refused to swear an oath to
the king, saying he supported a republic. There's a vague hope there somewhere. Watching various
docs. Just finished an optical effects vid, yesterday a short on 1920's airships, to music from Scott
Joplin. Decades now since I played them. Fell asleep at dawn, awoke at 11 ish Looking and feeling
very sick. It's apparent now even to the shopkeepers. 'Determined' to hang on 'til 70. Last Rites to
70 has a ring about it. And that ignores everything I've done 'in between', which is quite a lot. But it
ends soon enough. In a lot of pain, yet to die in this country is a failure.
Evening was productive. For some years (how easily the years fall away) I've been meaning
to set up the microphone I'd bought but found too difficult to install and use. Had to buy the new
laptop, install Audacity, fiddle about with the leads and settings until a sound was recorded. A few
words on paper cannot explain the aggravation of leads, settings, blah blah blah. But it's done.
Tomorrow test the camera, which I also found difficult to set up (again) last year (?). If it records
sound I'll revisit keyboard dv rom I did decades ago, edit it. Probably my last contribution to
education. Well it kept me employed for 30 years. And being freelance it meant holidays any time I
wanted. Who was the lucky one, in this life?And not merely for my survival. Tired now though.

15 07 2024

16.21 Awoke. Fell asleep after Cheers this morning, so 08 something. Vivid dreams.
Watched 2 movies last night; The Green Mile, which strangely enough I have no recollection of
seeing, except flashes of recollection of certain scenes. The flaw in the plot is that the warden could
just have mentioned the killers confession, although administered by supernatural means, saying it
had been confessed to him personally. Would have wrecked the supernatural plot line, but never
mind. Later I watched Die Hard, a film now preserved in the US film vault. Still excellent. Working
10 hours on Moonlighting (?), then to film this at night. Surprised he didn't collapse from
exhaustion. 'Shoot the glass.' Am watching The Eyes of Tammy Faye at the moment, a person, and
movement,unknown to me. The main actress is very good, although the premise escapes me.
Anchorman 2 later, so will be able to laugh, even if in pain. I felt compelled to stay awake to watch
again the Chinese film The Farewell, a masterpiece. God, it's good. Now 03.55.

16 07 2024

Four and a half hours sleep then. Looked up The Eyes of Tammy Faye and the comment was
that the documentary was better. It was. Almost the same length it revealed how startlingly accurate
Jessica Chastain's depiction was, the TV interview in the film was almost identical to the
documentary The Pastor, The Playmate, and the Christian Pimp, the latter of which I preferred.
Hilarious scenes of the 'pastor' selling food containers at the end. Just watched Queenpins, which
had a few laugh out loud clips, but the screenplay needed a lot of work. Then Pixie, an Irish movie,
with a much tighter script, a few familiar faces, nice landscapes. The thing that struck me about
Queenpins was the rush to spend the ill gotten gains, better to pace yourself out over a much longer
time scale. The mint/ bank of England currency robbers, a big story 10(?) years made the same
mistake, suddenly appearing with expensive cars as soon as the con was underway. In 10 years they
could have retired to somewhere exotic instead of spending their time in jail. How do I know this?
Well, whose the one that spent 7 years in Thailand? And that excludes all the other holidays. In
pain,but I'm the winner.

17 07 2024

Started work on resurrecting piano method I did 20 years ago. Will take some time. Watched
Top Gun : Maverick, Tom Cruise returning to a film, never seen by me, involving jet planes. Good
flight sequences. Farcical plot line towards the end, with pilots disobeying orders left right and
centre and the capturing an old plane etc etc. Then Airplane! Still holding up, but then familairity
breeds content.

20 07 2024

Watched Mulholland Drive again last night. First time for decades. Then 2 docs about it.
First by LondonCityGirl, and the second by Twin Perfect. Both excellent. I now realise that Mul
Drive is a work of the first magnitude, a long long way from Eraserhead, which I saw in the late
70's. The most obscure reference was the hired assassin first appears with two differently coloured
eyes. 'Obviously' referencing David Bowie, in that in 1980 Bowie disparaged the Hollywood myth
saying the whole place should be burnt down. Now that attention to detail, noticed by Twin Perfect,
I admire and respect. Hollywood cleaned up a little since those days. Shame that Watts didn't get an
oscar for her role .. but that would have been the final irony I suppose. Two nights ago watched
Carrie again. Always mixed feeling about supernatural stories, but Spasek carried it. Working on an
edit of Norman McClarens animations at the mo. Was going 'uptown' to cash in some silver, but
feeling very sick. Have a very bad feeling now. Bedridden effectively.

21 07 2024

Finished editing and rendering McClaren edit. Lot of stuff to work with. Did an edit of Thai
day trip with nood, Uploaded. Did an edit of visual vid , putting music from my vast catalogue of
music to it. Fell asleep for a few hours. Biden withdraws from race. Did a fantastic job, apart from
Palestine. Managed to re open veoh account, under the name of animusicneville. Took a long time,
fiddling with email address. Uploaded # After Midnight #, my very first animation, from all those
many moons ago. Impressive if I say so myself. Try to upload in order of creation.

22 07 2024

Came across this story from the very early '80s :

Every Other Day

Leave the bicycle by the wall. Ring her from the 'phone box by the Post Office. As you do
every other day. Squeeze in through the brown wooden doors. Doubly hinged and difficult to
shut. Wipe the paint from my hands with the stained tissue. Lift the receiver. Dial the number,
2214093 never to be forgotten. She answers quickly. As usual. The urgency of expectant hope.
Slot, slip your money in. Wait for the mechanical silence to pass. 'Hello?' she answers. 'Hello,'
you reply. 'I thought I'd ring to check about tonight.' A hesitation. 'Oh gosh. There's been a
change of plan. I've arranged to go with ... I mean, it would be important for him to go. To
broaden his experience.' Almost she slips up. I never know his name, just that pause, a few
seconds of hesitation, as she realises. 'I'm sorry about that. Do you mind?' Silence. 'Say you
don't mind. It's just that he does need it more. You don't.' 'Thank you.' 'Oh no ... don't take it
like that. You're involved with, in a different world. You know.' I know. 'But please ... come to
dinner. Tomorrow? Will you? we can talk as we always do.' 'Tomorrow?' 'You're angry, aren't
you? You seem quieter than usual. More distant. Look. I'm so sorry. Listen ... I do so want to talk
to you. I have a problem. I know you'll help me.' I murmur neutrally. As always. She offers, 'Say
one o' clock then? I look forward to seeing you. 'O.K, 'til tomorrow then.' I reluctantly concur.
A click. I put the receiver down and turn to look at the man waiting outside. He props his
bicycle against mine. A businessman, elderly but seemingly efficient. He holds his black
briefcase tightly. Probably containing the music of his latest recording. Push the door open.
Almost we nod politely, the pretence of recognition, acknowledgement, but always we then
avert our eyes, the shyness of strangers. He changes his mind; he doesn't want to make a call
after all. He cycles away. I make my way home. Slowly. ‘Til tomorrow then?‘ had she said? 'Til
tomorrow then.' had I replied? I ring the bell. No answer. I press the button again. Longer,
louder. Many more seconds. Eventually, she opens the door. Mozart's Requiem on the record
player. Loud. His version. No wonder she hadn't heard the first time. She throws back her mass
of black hair and tentatively welcomes me in. I shut the door. She slowly dances down the hall;
a gentle undulation, almost in a trance. I follow her into the main room. I stand still and look
around. This place always excites and amazes me: every other time I visit I'm fascinated by the
beautiful objects that lie enhancing the surroundings; that gold leafed wooden harlequin, arms
outstretched and leg poised in the air as if always about to commence in some crazy dance, or
that small bronze of a cellist, encrusted now, with age and time, with its green patina - it would
be so fitting outside the Festival Hall, if enlarged to life size. Sometimes I study the numerous
framed pictures - there's even two early, original photographs of Sarah Bernhardt adorning a
corner. They lie propped against the radiators. That we possess such generosity. 'Would you like
some tea?' she asks. I nod and smile, in agreement. She disappears from view. I walk across
the room, through the open partition, past her ornate brass bed, and stand before the window.
Her bicycle lies between two trees. Brought back from Amsterdam. Not cycled but carried on,
into the aisle of the plane. Occasionally a wind catches the branches, twisting and whipping
them; the trees seem to stab at each other, stalking gladiators warily probing for the other's
weaknesses. She calls from downstairs. I walk along the corridor, skip down the steps. 'Eggs
and asparagus?' she asks. I nod and smile, again in agreement. I lean, arms folded, against the
door. I watch her prepare. She moves too quickly. She's tense. Uneasy. 'What's wrong?' I ask.
She shrugs. I help her with the cutlery, piling cups and saucers upon the wicker tray. Shall we
go into the garden?' I suggest. 'Yes. Good idea.' She looks out, 'It's quite sunny, isn't it.
Wouldn’t it be nice to go for a bike ride later?' 'I haven’t brought my bike.' I answer. 'I’m sorry.
I’ve left it locked ...' I wander around the kitchen while she prepares, murmuring hello's to the
three luridly coloured hardboard cut-outs of men that adorn the table. They are still not quite
dry. My skillfully executed painted facades sit propped up against the chair backs, effectively
creating the illusion of company. 'You are keeping well, I trust?' I ask them, but no cassette-
recorded murmured reply greets my query today. Perhaps the batteries I installed are now flat.
Finally she is ready. I take the tray and follow her upstairs. She unlocks the door to the garden.
We walk to the table by the trees, and load the tray, then sit down. Make ourselves
comfortable. I dab the asparagus into the melted butter and quickly bring the tip up to my
mouth. I don' t catch it all and a trickle begins to run down my cheek. She smiles, 'It's an
acquired habit.' I watch her carefully. She cuts her egg and the yoke falls neatly away from the
albumen. The reason for my presence? I ask, 'What's your problem?' 'Ha, you remember!' Of
course; my curse is Memory. 'Well. I'm not sure where to begin. It's a personal problem. It
doesn't seem to have any resolution.' She stops, wary of continuing. She needs prompting. 'Go
on.' 'Well ...' Still a hesitation. Finally, 'Well tell me, do you love me?' A blunt question. I reply,
'I love you sometimes.' 'Yes.' She looks down, the averting eyes, but not of shyness. 'Listen, do
you think I treat you badly?' 'In what way?' 'Am I responsible to you?' 'No.' She begins to
pour out the tea. 'I have this friend. I've known him for some time. And sometimes I treat him
badly, or so I think - but he never says anything - he simply does not make any judgement. But
then, I don't want to feel responsible in any way. Not to him or anybody. He says he loves me.
This man. Sometimes. Only occasionally does he make a comment about my behaviour to him,
he sometimes thinks I'm flippant.' 'Are you?' She laughs. 'Oh not me, flippant! And you
thought you knew me!' Then, seriously, 'I need to protect myself. It's just that, sometimes, I
don't like his own music.' She gestures towards the house, 'It's not ... this.' I hear only silence; I
thought the Requiem had died. She bows her head. Her eyes water, she begins to cry. Take the
plate from her lap and rest it on the table amongst the debris of our meal. Stand next to her,
cup her head in your arms. She yields a little. Not much. Stroke her hair. Look at the pair of
trees, struggling. Slowly, month after month, they tilt further towards the ground, wearied now
with battle. Eventually they'll collapse, the exhaustion of defeat. One year. She pushes me
gently away. 'I'll be all right. Soon. It's lovely for you to be here when I'm like this.' Wipe the
tears from her eyes with your tissue. 'Thank you.' she smiles. She leans across to take her cup.
'There's something else I hadn't told this man - I didn't know if it would come between us, what
precious little friendship we had,' She sips her tea, then replaces the cup in the saucer. ‘Have.‘
she corrects. Another hesitation. 'I'm having an affair with a man, it's casual - I don' t love him -
he' s just someone to share my bed, do you understand?' Nod in agreement, acceptance,
knowing always of the fucking desperation of the abandoned. 'He's much older than I. Married.
He's wise, he's not expecting too much. In the long term. For the first time she looks directly at
me. 'Do you think I'm cheap?' 'No' 'What's your opinion?' I shrug. 'I don't have one. You
asked me whether I loved you. Well isn't this what love is all about? I can't condemn you for
your actions, you're free to do whatever you want. That's how you know I love you.' 'Yes?'
'You sound doubtful?' 'Oh no, Just thinking about what you'd said. Tell me, do you have a lover?
and you don't have to answer if you don't want to.' I answer 'I have ... someone. I see her every
other day.' 'Yes? I'm glad to hear that. So ... you don't think I treat you badly?' I make to reply,
then stop, the dead silence now broken by the carol of intermittent bells, 'The telephone is
ringing?' 'Yes!' she rises and skips towards the garden door, the jubilation of hopeful
expectancy. She throws her hair back. I watch her disappear indoors. I get up, pile the plates
and cups on to the tray and make my way indoors and downstairs to the kitchen. I place them
neatly in the sink. It's the least I can do. I hear her talking on the telephone as I walk down the
hall. Whispered voices: almost an intimate conversation. Slip out without a sound. The click of
the latch. It's a long journey home on my bicycle. Perhaps in my life I am to make much longer
journeys, but for this time a few miles will suffice. Perhaps I lied, to her, about leaving or
locking it somewhere. And always during the rush hour it seems. It'll be dark when I emerge,
finish off this journey. Late.
Every other afternoon. Finish painting; more bodies, faces. Look at the clock. Can you
make it before he does? Quickly wash your hands. Keep an eye out the window - sometimes,
rarely - he passes along this street, cycling furiously. Always humming some melody motive
he’s working on. Too chromatic. Even for me. Out the front door. Brisk, cool air. At the bottom
of the street turn left. Under the subway. Alongside the dual-carriageway. He's not in sight. Yet.
Yes, the booth is empty. Squeeze in through the brown wooden door. Doubly hinged and
difficult to shut. Wipe the paint off my hands with the stained tissue. Lift the receiver. Dial.
2214093 never to be forgotten. She answers quickly. As usual. Turn your head, a businessman
cycles towards you. He wants to make a call, but, seeing the booth occupied, changes his mind.
He begins to ride away. Slip, slot your money in. Wait for the mechanical silence to pass.
'Hello?' she answers. 'Hello.' you reply.

Unread by me for 40(?) years. Found on my Tumbler blog, which I abandoned some time
ago. Posted it here, completely unedited. Stood the test of time. 'Discusses' my 'relationship' with
Helen Cooper, a piano student who, after separation from Jeremy, went on a binge … of sorts. He's
still around. How he makes money I have no idea, having sold his art shop decades ago. Wrote a
novel, which I attempted to read but couldn't get into it. Helen eventually ended up with Mike
Bradwell, a competent director, but somehow of limited social skills. And always drunk. And
overweight. So he's the one that got lucky, that house is worth millions. And I do not jest.
Having just checked his first novel was called Ruth, published in'86. As mentioned I couldn't
get into it, but I remember Helen or her mother mentioning that they didn't like the way they were
portrayed. Maybe I should read it.
Uploaded # A Deeper State Of Mind # to animusicneville on Veoh. The 2nd animation I did.
Very impressed with my creative juices from way back when. I could use After Effects then, which
is quite a difficult program to get into. Wouldn't be able to do it now. Just using a cheaper, simpler
substitute.

23 07 2024

# Tonight's The Night # uploaded. Dance vid in progress, no music yet. Fell asleep after
Cheers to just awaken, 11.19. Exhausted as usual, now. Still, later in the day uploaded Dancers, a
video collage of three different sequences, then Trip To Frombort, a video I'd forgotten about but
discovered on hard drive, Short and sweet. Uploaded When Rachael Went To The Moon, And Pluto.
Little work needed, just tracking of the audio, adding treble and bass. Finished, A Life, Lived,
originally video backed by snippets of my songs but now expanded with images from short video
snippets to four songs, nine minutes in all. Busy day all in, this pathetic grasping for immortality.
Watching again Blood Simple, a minor gem of tight screenplay And it's already

24 07 2024
19.34, so I slept since Cheers this morning. How we calibrate our lives, sadly. Edited and uploaded
Portmeirion, from Natalie days in 2005. Added new backing track # Threshold # to it. Hidden gems
on old hard drives. To be re-edited in these Final Daze still left. How we calibrate our lives. Sadly.

25 07 2024

Fell asleep after Cheers, just awoke 16.10. Perhaps this is the new 'reality'.

26 07 2024

16.00 The exhaustion of existence overcomes me. Managed to stay awake until Cheers this
morning. Stomach completely blocked and bloated. Actually changes my centre of gravity. Difficult
walking.

28 07 2024

Doing edits of vids found on old hard drives. Put up 2 or 3 already today. Already shattered
and its only 14.08. Probably collapse unto sleep again soon. Watched the Godfather trilogy over the
last 3 nights. Still fantastic. Last night 3 movies; Moonfall, which was the funniest comedy (?) I've
seen for a long time. Stupendous graphics married (?) to a farcical plotline and horrendous dialogue.
It should have been posterised and released as a cartoon. Then Commando (1985), Swazy looking
very young. I checked the girl, Alyssa Milano, now obviously an adult but still young (50). I
thought she was actually the model for Little Mermaid, Ariel, but could find any reference to that
today. Finally, Possessor, which I have mixed feelings about. Didn't quite cohere, or gel. Managed
to stay awake to watch it though.
Fell asleep mid afternoon. Awoke just now, 23.16. Pain always. It's over.

29 07 2024

By chance watched Le Week-End, which was excellent. Broadbent, Duncan, and Goldblum
on top form. A minor masterpiece.

30 07 2024

Yesterday fell asleep mid afternoon, awoke 21.14. All shops opposite closed (at 9 pm!). Well
it is the provinces. Watched 2 movies; River, an effective Japanese time locked comedy thriller, and
then Airplane 2, which fails to equal in any way its predecessor. And now 05.30. Will watch Cheers
at 6.25, then to collapse again.

31 07 2024

Managed to stay awake 'til 7 pm, after Simpsons, … now 07 13 the next day. Cheers just
finished. Slept with jeans on apparently. Normally I switch the wi fi off as it overheats, but not now.
Put up Our Day Out On The Top Of Europe on Veoh and other sites yesterday and one other
Autumn Jing track. Could be why I'm shattered all the time. Ordered Hebborn's book Drawn To
Trouble on ebay yesterday, £9,40. One click, bought. The modern world. His murder still unsolved.
Too many candidates, unfortunately. Put up video Cha (tea) to a 20's singers, Jack Buchanan
backing. # Everything Stops For Tea #. Rich guy apparently. He and cohorts financed Kings Head
theatre in Hammersmith, and also Riverside Studios. A former local venue of mine. Left side of
body burning. Just uploaded Our Day Out In Warsaw Central Park. From 2005.And Uluru footage
of terrible quality, squashed by youtube algorhythm.

03 08 024

Working on Scottish bike trip and edit of Edward 3rd documentary, separating landscapes
from medieval pix of kings etc. Started on Hebborn's book. Worst childhood than mine apparently,
although he was able bodied. Apparently a bit fabricated though, according to his sister. Burning,
bloated sensations. Curious excessive black hair growth all over. Should make an interesting
autopsy. Too bad I'll be dead.
Just ordered Invasion, £5 down. One click. Why that movie flashed though my mind I have
no idea. My mother took me to see it when I was 10, in 1966, and all I can remember is the car
crashing into an invisible force field. Apparently the aliens were Japanese, a fact that escaped me
aged10. (Yoko Tani) Will give a review in due course. Uploaded short vid entitled August Bling,a
distorted vhs vid to an old track of mine. This desperation for immortality, depressing.

04 08 2024

Started watching The Thing late last night before collapsing from exhaustion. Finished this
morning. Surprising that I'd never seen it before. Very good. The amusing computer graphics from
1982. We've come a long long way.

06 08 2024

Watched All The Presidents Men yesterday. Still have mixed feelings about it as a movie.
Lots of typing of course. Bernstein still around. Watched vid on Birmingham jewellery robbery a
couple of years ago. Extensive convictions, especially for the sledgehammer wielding maniac.
Watching Irish serial Kin, which has held my attention. Compulsive viewing, managed 6 episodes
before collapsing.

07 08 2024

Finished Kin, which was excellent. A couple of stupid gaffes, a shooter trapped in a doorway
somehow shooting himself, Perhaps the bullet rebounding from the brass doorknob? But the
gangster Bren from season 2 very convincing. (Francis Magee). A convoluted, twisting plotline. Am
bedridden and bloated. Could be a song there. But nothing rhymes with pain. Watched Harris
introduce her vice president pick. He seems a nice bloke. Lovely pic of him with kids he just won
free lunches for. A lot of enthusiasm and energy there. I think she's going to walk it.

08 08 2024

Watched Stand By Me last night. A sort of rite of passage for the young Steven King.
Apparently, when shown the film he went into another room to reflect (?) upon it for 15 minutes. I
can see why. A couple of good sequences. The puking scene was effective as it was a story being
told by the young King. Puke everywhere, which sums up his early style. Watched Invasion. An
adequate B movie for 1966. The crash scene was horizontally reflected in my memory. The same
sometime happens in other movies revisited. Memories, always distorted.

11 08 2024
Yesterday was busy. Edited and uploaded Chinese vids to 3 songs by Tao (Thai musician and
friend), and landscapes from edward 3 vid to # Threshold of Existence #. That one took a lot of
editing, always a glitch of an image creeping in. Watched doc on John Quincy Adams. Tried to look
up a PDF of his diaries, which do not exist as they would be massive. Tooth fell out. Large enough
to keep as a souvenir if I were so inclined. Last night watched Deja Vu, having forgotten the
plotline. Surprisingly good. And whatshername always glamorous. Later, a bizarre comedy(?)
entitled Spontaneous where young adults, 17 ish, spontaneously exploded. A feeble comparison was
made between if all the monkeys in the world were given typewriters they could write shakespeare's
works (if indeed he did write them) and the possibility therefore that bodies could therefore
spontaneously explode. Bizarre or what. Fell asleep at 1.30 to awaken today at 11.30. Vivid dreams
of editing, understandably. To make coffee now and read a bit more of Hebborn's Drawn To
Trouble.

12 08 2024

Last night watched 3000 Years of Longing, and just now looked up the reviews which
exactly matched mine : visually sumptious feast, mediocre love story. Later I watched Ben Hur (not
the original) which culminated in astonishingly realistic chariot race. Farcical ending where
brothers end up reunited. Later was captivated by a 3 part doc on The Kerry baby killing of 1979.
PC plod disgraced themselves, torturing a family into giving false, obviously insane confessions,
with the subsequent public enquiry a farce. A common fault of public enquiries in every country.
The girl and family eventually received 3 and a half million euros compensation 20/30 years later.
Recently (2013?) the murdered child's real parents were identified, but still no prosecution.
Something rotten in the state of....

13 08 2024

Slowly transferring vids from hard drive to animusicneville on Veoh, adding music to empty,
new videos. Added # When The River Runs Dry #. Tried to clean up crap guitar solo by
compressing it. Put up intro to King Of Marvin Gardens, Jack Nicolsson always convincing even in
the early '70s. Various pics from my tumbler collection. Watched Copshot (?), a thriller set in a
prion detention centre. The female shot cop miraculously surviving everything.

17 08 2024

Just completed editing of three Harry Smith cut out animations/collages. Took some time.
Feeling very very sick, clutching my stomach all the time. It's very bloated. Black hairs sprouting
everywhere. Finished an edit of Hat Yai, which took a couple of hours, then fell asleep for 3 hours.
Now 3o'clock. Watching various short docs. No concentration. Put up another 3 / 4 vids. # Boats
and Trains and Planes # a favourite, a slightly speeded up Henri Chommet 1890s Paris boat ride to a
cover. Just put up a cover of # Only You # to a Japanese movie clip, the lyrics bizarrely incorporated
unto screen. Watching astonishingly feeble film Honest Thief. What compelled Neeson to take this
gig I have no idea. Farcical plot. Just keep the money and live your life. Found myself writing this
instead. And watching the implosion of Trump's 'campaign'. A clearly insane man. Watched a few
more minutes of HT. Manages to get into hospital and rescues his injured girlfriend ...without
anyone seeing them leave!If only it were a – and now the villain actually calls hero on his mobile!
and... Enough. The money must be good, to make that movie.

18 08 2024

Fiddled about a lot to get the 3 wifi working. Plugs straight into laptop. Wondered what that
socket was for. Absolutely shattered, staggering around the room. Just watched The Final Days
(1989) Lane Smith (1936 - 2005) giving a stunning performance.
 19 08 2024

Just did a quick edit of Tomorrow People (a 70's ? children's TV show) because I liked the
graphics. Earlier watched a doc on Mississippi burning. Astonishingly the clan weren't convicted of
murder due to FBI / state conflicts. Chilling, the dark days. Yet now, the 2nd 'black' president to be
elected, 50 years later. And a doc on Robert De Nero. Astonishing career. A couple of nights ago
Mean Streets was shown. God, he was good.

21 08 2024

Collated Koh Lanta footage. And Hat Yai trip. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be. Uploaded to
animusicneville on Veoh. And facebook, tumbler. Watched bits of DNC convention in Chicago.
Shame Michelle Obama wouldn't stand, she'd walk it. Clip of Alexandria Ocsai Cortez being
interviewed by Stephen Colbert dressed as a country hick. Very convincing – I didn't recognise him.
And Cortez in a very tight dress. God, she is sexy. And she's going to be President one day. You
heard it here first. Watched her clip on the Colbert show she first got elected 6 (?) years ago. She
came from nowhere. Last night watched The Murder of Ashlie and Olivia, a 4 part channel 4 doc.
Chilling, the callousness of humans. If Rachael had been shot dead (they were the same age) I'm not
sure I would have survived. As it is, I still have conversations with her as a 10 year old, even though
she's 35. Just watched Oblivion. Good special effects, especially the few seconds Tom Cruise is
weightless, but essentially a flawed film. Always the happy ending. The war of the worlds being the
worse, even Natalie snorted at the absurdity of it. Uploaded another vid, Daze Work Dun. I is so
creative I is. Even in this pain.

22 08 2024

Just watched Tim Walz's speech at the DNC. Incredible. And he comes across as a lovely
guy. Last night downloaded and compiled several images of Paul Jacoulet, a woodcut coloured in
over several images. Never heard of him before, but an interesting life it seems. Fell asleep twice
today, having woken at 5 ish. Watched Cheers then fell asleep until 11.30, then again from 3 to 5.

25 08 2024

Last night fell asleep at a normal time, 11.30(?) to awaken at a normal time 10/11 ish.
Checked my output over the past few days: a take off and landing vid from Krabi to Singapore, a
gangster vid compiled from a 2 part doc on 20/30's gangsters, using some of the music from that
period, Unto Penang Bay, compiled from from recently rediscovered photographs on an old hard
drive, put to # One Day I'll Fly Away # (always a favourite of mine), Brum Graffiti short vid of
when I was able to get up to Selly Oak way, already a distant memory, and last night / today a time
lapse vid. My creativity astounds me, but then again I'm effectively bedridden. I don't like. Watched
The Italian Job, always a classic, though I noticed there was no explanation as to how Caine got
back into, and exit from, prison to offer Coward a share of profits etc. What a waste of cars, now
would be worth millions. Watched Barbarian, made on a tight budget of 4 million, for a return 10
times that. Didn't work for me, the absurdity of buying a house, and lo and behold! There were
tunnels hidden,where a grief stricken woman of superhuman strength lived in grief of her dead
daughter. Men was far superior, although the end was grotesque. But that's what grief does to you.

01 09 2024

Did vid yesterday of satellite dishes to cover of Message In A Bottle by Best Night Ever.
Effective and it works. Ordered boxes of wooden alphabet letters, as if I'm going to superglue
together to compile latin sayings/proverbs. We'll see.

04 09 2024

Disintegrating. Yesterday downloaded Mongolian vid and music, to compile. Just finished a
'buddhist' fluid video, the effects merging images. Like to know how they got that effect. Called it
isms, available free on animusicneville on Veoh. Feast yourselves on the pleasure of my existence.
Editing a Borsh video. Maybe finish soon. Pain, pain, pain. Various birthdays of various lovers
today. Wish I could remember them all. Although Mari and St Claire were born on exactly the same
day, although I met them a year apart, 86,87. Both American so that explains a lot. I wish.

05 09 2024

Just finished Mongolian (very) short vid to # You Give Me Reason To Live #.

08 09 2024

Saw that an old student of mine died recently. Vikky, only 43. So David, Joan gone. I must
be the only pianoforte teacher whose students have died from leukaemia (?), murder, and now …
perhaps another student will tell me the cause. At some future date. Bedridden. Uploaded long
Mongolian vid to music by NAIR (Mongolian band). Downloaded Chinese cinema film history
which I'm editing at the mo. Watching films. Yesterday, Miss Perigrine's House. Visually stunning,
but the genre must now be exhausted, when children have superpowers and can do anything all you
have left are visual effects, which were excellent. After, Tropic Thunder, an enjoyable farce, with
occasional laugh out loud moments. The pre film 'ads' were also effective. Two nights ago, Under
Siege. Passable, yet convincing portrayal of close quarters within ship. And obviously a very real
ship. Wonder who they borrowed it off. Then, later, Den Of Thieves, which is always watchable.
Relentless gunfire can become wearisom soon enough. Thursday, French Exit, a mess held together
by Michelle Feiffer's performance, then the classic Trading Places (1983). Jamie Lee well
developed in her role. Tried to watch Blood Simple, another classic but fell asleep half way through.
No longer trying to hold to 70, now merely Oct 15th, which will mean .. I'll tell you then.

14 09 2024

Stayed awake to watch Kamala demolish Trump in debate. She forced his hand by offering
hers by initially walking towards his side of the stage and shaking his. A 'debate' that instantly
enters history. Even the Russians, having watched a transcript on RT, discussing how Trump was
crushed. And these clowns are Trump supporters. Dominating news even now, several days later.
Taylor Swift, about whom I know nothing, endorses Harris and voter registration increases several
hundred thousand. A pop star could swing an election. This world, eh? Seems Trump is having an
affair with an extreme right ring nationalist, who comes across as completely bonkers. Melania
might wait until election defeat until filing divorce papers. It's the least she could do. Yesterday
downloaded and edited The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting, a short movie I hadn't even heard of
a few hours previously. Effective human tableau where protagonist wanders amongst them. Did an
edit.

22 09 2024

A Sunday. Time completely dislocated. Fall asleep after Cheers, awake several hours later at
16.40, the exact same time as yesterday. Doing vids, uploading. Watching old TV shows, the
wonder of the internet. Downloaded and edited the very first New Faces. Body continuing to re
arrange itself, feeling, hearing? the creaks.
 01 10 2024

Horrendous bus crash and explosion in Thailand this morning. 25 (?) dead already. Coach
too hot to explore. Very sad. Yesterday by chance I found the original Brimstone and Treacle Play
For Today with Michael Kitchen and Denelm Elliot. Very good. Everybody looking unbelievably
young. I went in search of even earlier Plays, finding a season 2 episode entitled Evelyn, with a
young Edward Woodward, and an actress I'd never heard of before, Angela Scoular. Attractive, so I
looked up her history. A very chilling and tragic tale. Eventually marrying Leslie Philips she was to
commit suicide after 20 or so years together by drinking drain cleaning fluid and smearing her body
with same. Jesus christ. There's no way even I could ever do the same, even with the wreckage of
my body, and incapacitated as I am. I can't even cut into my stomach with a scapel to ease the pain.

09 10 2024

A Wednesday, so I've missed a day. Such is the erratic sleep over these recent times. In a
LOT of pain. Stomach completely blocked. Uploading various vids, several over the past few days.
Yesterday, a short compilation of bears interacting with humans. All viewable under animusicneville
on veow. Kamala Harris on Stephen Colbert show this morning. Incredible that there's even a
debate as to whether she's going to win. But Trump still at 40%. How is this even possible?!
Transferred a vid called, astonishingly, Trump, A Conman, a short story from the 50's?, who looks
exactly like Fred Trump, so maybe there's the connection.

10 10 2024

After watching The French Dispatch last night, a very curious film, I fell asleep to awaken at
9.43 this morning, after very vivid dreams. Just collated, random memories and imaginations, of no
meaning unfortunately, just the brain recalibrating and reconfirming itself. Tried to order co-
codomol, a powerful painkiller apparently, but forbidden to order more than one box, so the expense
was equal to the postage of the single box. Farcical. Editing a Mandelbrot vid at mo, squeezing it
from 2 hours to 17 (?) minutes. Taking a long time to render out. Watched a Twilight Zone episode,
where her timepiece can stop time. Frozen end shot of nuke falling over a cinema showing Dr
Strangelove. Clever reference.

11 10 2024

Slept from 11ish to awaken 3 am. Mandelbrot still rendering. (eventually turned out to be 8
Gb, far too large to be used at present). Did a short vid of Natz, soon enough to be 20 years ago. I
hope she hasn't screwed up her life due to her (self proclaimed) flippancy. And now she never to
know how close she came. But 'No, no, I need to adjust' (after not seeing her for a month for a
proffered kiss) killed off any hope of anything serious. Just finished Moors video, putting a much
earlier orchestral piece of mine to it. I wanted to write something in 5/4, and I did. 3 in the
afternoon, probably collapse soon enough.

12 10 2024

In great pain I caught the 76 to Kings Heath. Managed to get laxative and co codamol
tablets. A little bit of shopping. Glue from The Works. Santander bank closed. On a Saturday
afternoon? What fuck are they doing?! It's very hard to accept that something is seriously wrong
with my body. Two people questioned whether I was all right. Got a bad feeling now.

14 10 2024
 Yesterday watched A Room With A View again. Still magical, but then I was in lurve in
1986. Helena Bonhem Carter still holding her own, 40 years on. Wish she'd hold mine. The day
before watched Romancing The Stone, unseen since those far off days, so no remembrance of
plotline. Average, I guess. Started watching Inspector Lynley show. The first one was interesting, I
instantly recognising Chiswick House. What was clever was the segue to another part of the
grounds (where I had previously filmed Mark Dalton's (yes, brother of ..) showcase) as if it were
connected to the main house. Just a mirror did the trick. Today used the glue bought to start affixing
letters to cardboard, spelling out simple Latin words. Painkillers not really working. Yes it's that
bad.

15 10 2024

And thus it comes to pass : 14 years since I left Chiswick Lane. Many, many lives lived
since then. And before :

Wednesday 12th December 2007.

The Time Before.

How did I come to be here, in this uncertain, dire situation, having lived all the lives I have
lived?
And as the scalpel sliced through my flesh, a baby fresh born but as yet, and for some
time to be of no sentient consciousness, did the cleaving sensation, the separating, electrifying,
before thought was possible, laying a multilayered a grid of a myriad possibilities, and the sub-
sequent pains survived; frequently, a searing, collapsing agony, perhaps that knife, entering my
unwitting ..with no chance my brain was showered with sparkling synapses, which quickly enough,
through the slow existence but always in my life was the ever present, perpetually dull ache. Did the
severed nerves fire synapses through my brain? Did they cascade as through unlaid wires, of
experiences? I cannot, of course, remember. But as an ageing adult reflecting now upon the many,
some reluctantly, some joyously, of lives lived, reflecting upon the survival, through the pains of my
body, throughout my childhood and the consequent traumas and triumphs of my adult life, my
conscious thoughts tell me, 'yes', it was the seminal moment. Perhaps that event, unremembered
but subsequently reflected too often upon. Yet it is the eternal human question : Why do I exist?
[Bizarrely, a doctor, a Anja Raja, in recent times (2019? before that surgery was closed down)),
when examining vertical scar inflicted at birth enquired ' Do you remember it?' A few laughs on
facebook after posting. She is named for referring me, and appointment made, to a wrong
department within the hospital, an appointment cancelled by relevant specialist 2 weeks before
appointment, I already having waited several months. ]
In retrospect our childhood are dreams, occasional flashes of startling colour through a
faintly lit film in a distant cinema, and in our childhood our dreams seem as real as any reality - did
they really happen, those things? Or was it just our imagined story? I have often asked this of
others, of their early memories, for mine is only a flash, of a shout as I was dropped. She is bigger
than me, this image of arms, she herself is only three. The shout is from (of course) Woody. I myself
can only be eighteen months or less, for I could not walk. I am left on the floor. The divine comedy,
this life. Full of coincidences and chances, of random miracles, on an early infantile unwilling body,
not yet conscience of pain, incapable of 'feeling', inchoate, process of evolution, coalesced and
congealed forming multilayered networks to form a mind. And which In Time led me to pursue the
lives I have led. And In Time the debilitating dullness eroded my existence.
I discover now as an adult, this girls name is to be 'Gayleen', and we were never to meet
again after two years or so, if you can call infants together in care 'meeting'. Her father, Gaylord, a
voice for a puppet character Bill And Ben.
 The random chances? : my musical achievements will become clear enough in due course,
but this girl too went on to become a guitar professor years later, and were we to meet again we
would not recognise each other, have nothing in common, the level of conversation and
communication would be (I imagine) quite limited, apart from discussions upon Sor, Tarrega, etc.
Such is the life. [But how much of this can be true? Peter Hawkins provided the voices for The
Flowerpot Men, and was Gayleen ever to be a classical guitarist? I remember seeing a
photograph of her somewhere, but that in itself might be a false memory. Peter (Woodman) affirms
that Woody would often made … confusions. Another would be that the queen mother would often
(yearly?) come down Stavely Road to see the lilac flowerings. Even as a child I found
that preposterous.]
Another memory, the next; crying, shaking the wooden slats of the cage, having been
abandoned in a cot in a hospital, as someone, seemingly a stranger walked away. Perhaps that time
was for operation two. Children were cattle then, mere fodder upon a machine, the callous,
indifferent, brutalizing effects of the war perhaps still evident in the behaviour of the nurses. Or in
their routine acceptance of sickness.
The blur of people solidify. Who was that garrulous squat woman appearing on a scooter on
a Saturday afternoon? Not every Saturday but consistently enough to be a regular event. Woody
tells me she is my mother, but then who are you? She speaks very quickly this woman, my mother,'I
said he said I said he said. Tree times I said he said.'
Why then was this other woman feeding me, washing me, yet shouting and hitting me? It
appears that the tall, slim, quiet figure that appears on Friday evening at 7pm is my father. He leaves
promptly at 10pm, as I grow to recognise the clock. Did I ever feel comfortable with him? - After
all he is my father I am told, so perhaps I understood the filial duties even as an infant, but only for
3 hours a week. And why did he seem to say so little, to be so ... deferential? When you are young
everything that happens is the norm. There are other children there, but they appear and disappear
soon enough; are not my brothers or sisters. Are they? The voice, the shout, always Woody's.
Woody takes me, and the other children, for there are always two or three, in a big pram to
Chiswick Park, near a hillock. It is a struggle to run up this hillock, to the base of the tree. But once
reached I play hide and seek around the tree. There is a cafe there near the small green, a curious
attempt at Art Deco and a weeping willow tree near rectangular earth mounds. Decades later I was
to joke to Rachael 'That's where they bury the dead gardeners!' a memory of Rachael to be
constantly, if sadly, relived. This memory is as yesterday. Forty years later I would play on the
hillock and play hide and seek again, with Rachael. That memory too is as yesterday. There are
slopes to an ornamental garden outside a glass conservatoire. I roll down them. Forty years later
Rachael of course does the same, but the technology has evolved; video footage exists: she
is real, and the memory can regular occur.
A blur of colour of a face, a voice, the realisation of shock in others: the face is of Dudley
Foster passing before and above me, as he made his way between rehearsals in the church hall
opposite to the flat in Kent House,[I was to play there in that church hall opposite a few years later
(6?) an infantile piece as Dorothy M Warren gave a concert of her students. She was a useless
teacher, but I was not allowed 'stoppage'] being offered and fed a meal by Woody, dinner courtesy
of Woody, his strange persona disconcerting even to a three year old, until his disappearance and
sudden non attendance for food. How sensitive children are, to pick up the vibrations of another
person; he was to become 'famous', and his face is familiar to me still, instantly recognisable in
those television programmes of the late '50's and '60's, but his ultimate destiny was to commit
suicide in the early '70's. By then, not yet an adult - that privilege and ability was to grace
me much later - Woody's youngest son, Martin, read the obituary in a newspaper, and mentioned the
fact that the money Dudley Foster had left amounted to £39 000, which was a sizeable amount, at
that time; equivalent to the purchase of two houses in Chiswick.
Kaleidoscopic snapshots are all we have of our childhood memories : the shock, on my
tricycle the tiny layby outside Kent House in 1959, 'Unky' walking bemused in front of Kent House
in disbelief that his new car had been stolen, Ford Consul registration XLP 103. [I remember this
probably because of Fireball XL5] Remarkably it was recovered undamaged within a few days, and
made to last another 15 or so years. The rear axle cover grew warm during journeys and as a child I
was able to huddle against it, often sleeping and reluctant to leave the warmth to enter the cold flat.
I once enquired, even having a toy Ford Consul (?) steering wheel stuck to the back of the seat,
'How does the car know which way to go?', to be answered by of course coarse laughter. Nowadays,
later, my wonderment is that infants can be so verbose, that strange osmosis of evolution that
enables the mind so structure so quickly complex sentences and questions.
Sensations, without thought, events happening, but I always querying; who were these
people? These other children? These adults passing through? Am I supposed to know them? To like
them? Playing soldiers with a child called Tony on the paths of Kent House. Filmed
by Woody's middle son Peter. What happened to him, this child? We meet 15 years later, there is
nothing in common, in fact he's a ruffian, but I could have been him. There is a school opposite,
Hogarth, where I was to attend to for one year. I have to occasionally hide during
playtime because I cannot easily control my bodily functions.
Such are the quirks of history, age 5, leading Woody, pushing her pram but lost, I pointing
across the motorway to our new home in a side street road saying, 'Over there'. I now know this was
1961.[Peter Woodman would know the exact date!] The garden at 7 Eastbourne Road was unkempt
and wild, and led all the way past a shed to a garage in the next street, the longest garden of the
road. I was happy for it to remain wild, but it is soon enough partitioned to vegetable sections, and a
gate installed.

The other children join in this game, singing, 'We all pat the dog! We all pat the dog! Ee-eye
- ee eye, we all pat the dog!' I do not mind the bruises. Soon enough 'Doctors and Nurses' with the
other children would have to suffice, but as I take my clothes off for another imagined operation
(but so many real already!) Woody shouts, 'Put your clothes back on - you'll catch your death with
cold!' But she starts patting my back anyway.
And I found comfort when she rubbed my back, pushing down towards my buttocks, as if
smoothing the passage of pain away. Did it ease the passage of excretion through my body? - I don't
know, become but it appeared soothing, and it did ease the pain, but still often I would collapse.
Only later, as my body and stomach grew, I did begin to digest food adequately. But never
comfortably. Perhaps my stomach was then too small to enable the meat to digest properly.
During a routine health check (of which I have no memory, excepting it must have been at
Grove Park School) I am ascertained to be deaf, and fitted with a large bulky box. The health
officials suggest I am sent to a special hearing school in Heston, but Woody - and such are the
quirks of fate – decided, insists I go to the local primary. The box whistles when the earpiece and
speaker are close together. I sometimes teased the teacher and classmates leaving the earpiece
together then separating them, leaving unexplained the ethereal sounds.
Fifty years on I accept that Woody made 'a good call'.

But such was my fear that when I dreamt I had hit her I later asked her on the stairs - such
was the vividness of my dreams that I could not be sure. And I so wanted to apologise, for I needed
her love, and I feared rejection, as she had so often threatened me with rejection before. I asked her,
plaintively, 'Did I hit you Woody? The other day?' And she seemed surprised. 'No. You didn't. And I
wouldn't allow you to.'
But with my adult perspective, the experience now of many lifetimes, it seems chilling that a
child could be so subordinated; that he felt the urge to strike out at the one who had caused him
such pain, and at the centre of his life itself, and then felt the need to apologise, in fear.
But there was no attempt to explain my situation for there was nothing to explain: it is just
the way it is. But as consciousness emerged, why was it that my parent's did not want me? If they
had their own children, why not me? It became a pathetic mantra, 'Do you love me?', a question
asked repeatedly of Woody, incessantly, to the point of irritation, unable as I was as a child to
understand the relationships of the adults around me. And that tall, thin, silent man, who always
appeared at 7pm on Friday, yet leaving promptly at 10pm ... In later times, as a young an adult I had
still sought his approval, yet strangely feared him, for this non explanation, these hours of mumbled
inarticulations, of… anything, but during the final 20 years of his life I never saw him, and I made
no attempt to contact him. I feel sad, now, but not at his death, but at my own eventual indifference
to his life and fate: I discovered more about my father through a few days with my uncle in law
in Adelaide, than a lifetime of never made explanations of events and circumstances.

Always the fear of cold. I was sent for piano lessons to a mock gothic victorian house in
which in which I made to sit on a carved dark mahogany seat in the hallway before the lesson
began. The aura was of gloom and darkness. Dorothy M. Warren sat by the gas fire out of sight and
earshot behind me, objecting if I should turn around to hear her instructions to play another tedious
exercise or scale. Should the telephone ring and she left the room, I would play a tune I had learnt
from a book, expecting affirmation that I was enthusiastic enough to learn a repertoire outside the
required syllabus of the Royal Schools of Music. But all I received was a curt instruction not to play
when she out of the room. Once, my stomach congealing into solidity, I was unable to walk and I
had to be fetched in a car, being unable to ride home on martin's motorcycle. The lessons lasted
from age six to fourteen, before suggesting that a competent teacher would teach me for free at
school. This was true, but I only had one lesson with this 'younger' woman, perhaps then in her
thirties, and then I lied that she no longer attended school, and therefore I was no longer able to
receive lessons. That it was necessary for me to adopt this deceit to escape the dungeon now seems
ridiculous, whereas I could have simply maintained I was continuing lessons.
[During a Saturday job, many years later, at Lidgate's butcher shop, one of the staff had
heard I was giving piano lessons so she sacked Dorothy M Warren, and offered the job to me, and at
the same rate; £1 a lesson.]

In Hunstanton, where Woody's older sister Mag lives, a garrulous fat woman, the sea
freezes. Early morning I look out a cold bedroom window, at this ice wall seemingly rising into the
sky. Beyond comprehension. I sight I have not seen since, causing me to wonder,
was that then imagination? This must be 1963. [ Decades later I meet Philip McCathy, a bit of a
guitar strummer, on Koh Lanta, who was originally from that area, Snettisham (5 miles south of
Hunstanton), and confirmed my memory]

Billy's (Woody's oldest son) wife to be, Carol, aged 17, has arrived from Zambia, Africa.
Upon arrival to London the thick white blanket persists, and so enveloping the land that it enthrals
her, never having seen snow. Very soon Carol runs out to embrace this new sensation. She returns
quickly enough indoors, shuddering. 'It's very cold.' The novelty has soon enough evaporated,
unlike the snow. Later, huddled closely together in the front room,for there was only a small electric
heater bizarrely attached high up on the wall (central heating was for a much later age), we would
watch films on a small black and white TV. It seemed incredible to me even then that Carol had
never seen a television, and the channel switch was a internal mechanical rotary device which
clunked as it changed channels. BBC 1 was channel 1 and ITV was channel 9. I used to switch off
the television mid channel change, so that when switched on again the clunking would continue
suddenly. 'It needs time to warm up.' I explained to Carol. 'Really?' she asked, as if bemused by the
noises of modern technology. In those days the frequency was 405 lines to the screen, and I
explained to her that if she stared closely she could see other pictures between the lines, which
elicited the expected response when Woody entered the room. (It is curious that in later times these
gaps were used for teletext information, so perhaps I should have patented my idea, aged 7.)
So they were married, Billy and Carol, at Turnham Green Church, and my parents were
invited to the wedding [why?], but the wedding photographs show them standing at different ends
of the large group and Woody central, clutching tightly as always my shoulder, lest I make
my bid for freedom.
Throughout the years I have thought of that day as the proceeding decades fall away, as I
have often passed that church, on a bus, or cycling, or walking, the stones resolute in their
indifferent silence, standing still in their centuries old sentry duty. And although I have requested
since that time a copy of that wedding photo, I have no desire now; they are all dead, and gone, only
existing within my thoughts, and now upon this page.
The new in laws, Tom and Gillian, invite Woody and Unky to Africa, ' ... and of course, your
youngest son.' Billy protests that this would be expend his generosity too much, perhaps because I
am not truly a son, but a private deal is hatched (I suspect) and my father is made to give a
donation. I am grateful for this, for thankfully my recall (as you might have gathered) is clear.
I remember the actual moment of keeling over, despite my determination to stay awake, to
fall asleep upon my arrival upon their sofa.
In the following days we flew over the Victoria Falls, visited the statue of Livingstone, and I
cut the rubber trees with Anne (Woodman), then possibly 4 or 5. The tree sap was white and sticky.
Due to me undergoing genital surgery at that time Woody forbade me from riding this
bicycle which had a fake noisy motor, a rule quickly disregarded by simply switching noise
generator.
Upon our return to school we were asked about 'what we did in our school holidays' but my
account was disbelieved by Mr Johnson (later to become head of Grove Park)... it was indeed a little
too far fetched for those days.

Woody's son Peter had built a house on the Sussex downs near the sea, (In later decades I
was able to walk over the downs to Woody's retirement bungalow), and I was often taken into
Brighton (where in later decades I was to visit my sister at university), to the cinema. My enjoyment
of The First Man in The Moon, of which that I be dressed up in extremely tight uncomfortable
shorts for the occasion, as if to go to the cinema should be considered an early example of
conspicuous consumption by Woody's insistence a special occasion of cultural
significance
But any sadness now is not of those times, but of the time when I watch The First Man In
The Moon now, not that of course the story is infantile, but that I can't recapture the sensations of
colour upon me. The Czech animations of the early '60's are likewise gone; The Tinder Box, or the
story of the mermaid who swam up to the surface, but perhaps it is best to have 'merely' the
memories of those stories, and perhaps same sense of wonder I experienced as a child.
(In later decades I would unwittedly insult Keith Yallop when he mentioned that he had
"dressed up, suit and tie" to visit the theatre with his girlfriend. "You're so provincial." I had said,
too instantly, but even by then in the early '80's I had seen far too many plays and films to regard
them as outside normal experiences. But perhaps the earlier above uncomfortable memory was
somewhere inside ...However it seemed he had taken my words too much to heart though, wearing a
casual jacket to Richard Chomiac's wedding.

Hospital memories.
And as the light glared, and consciousness faded, I realised, even as a child, without
explanation, that I had no power to change my situation; I was a minor, in the hands of adults, the
gods who dictate actions and events. And my parents and guardians, inadequate not in their concern,
for that was real enough, but in their comprehension of events overtaking me.
My mother, collapsing, uncomprehending at the words mumbled (I did not hear them) by
competent doctors, who must surely know best? I remember my mother kneeling slowly to the
floor, a crumbling sack of despair, kneeling at my feet, grasping at my hands, but was any
explanation offered to me, other than instruction? Many years later I contrast my own actions and
concerns with regards to Rachael, where even a minor fracture elicits organisation of doctors, and
delegation and instructions. My concern is a recollection of, and a reaction to, the indifference and
ignorance of my guardians. Was the wrecking of my body necessary? I did not know then, and I do
not know now. The medical files disappear into the abyss of time, now unused, unread, and to be
unwritten upon, for as an adult I realise the general incompetence of the professional; these are my
peers and colleagues, vulnerable as all people are to the flavour of the moment, susceptible to the
impressions of opinions.
And afterwards, awakening, as I lay there, scar tissue cutting into my side, unable to laugh,
unable to move without a literal side-splitting pain, I tried desperately to look forward to, within
perhaps the universal innate, innocent optimism of youth, a future as yet unknown. But to lie here,
conscious but unable to move, for five days ... I placed the radio over my ears. There were heavy
and bulky, too large by far for my nine year old head, but I turned the black Bakelite toggled
volume control set into the wall to maximum. I, even in pain, laughed and exclaimed, 'This is loud!'
But whereas Woody was relieved, happy that I was well, alive even, and was able to speak, and
even reluctantly smile, my father headphones raised his hand to his mouth and gestured, 'Shss!',
fearing public opprobrium, sternly aware of decorum; to keep a 'low profile', not to attract attention
to yourself, to blend in with the crowd. My unselfconsciousness and jubilation at still existing was
sternly corrected by my father's notion of decorum.
My mother had promised me a shilling if I managed to return Kitty Hawk intact to the house
in Eastbourne Road, and I felt a sense of triumph that I had ferried the fragile plastic aircraft
successfully upstairs, from Hammersmith to home. The attention and concentration required in
agony forced upon my fragile creation had distanced me from the pain of my body, but upon the
completion of the ascent of the stairs I collapsed, crushing the biplane. I cried, but not at my pain,
that was normal, but at the futility of my long hours of concentration. Upon my mothers Saturday
visit it was explained that I had in fact successfully returned aircraft intact, as agreed, and my
mother paid me the promised shilling but also the replaced the aircraft, which I remade: but of
course it was not the same - the achievement of boredom of the hospital had been now replaced
by the excitement and potential of the outside world. So, of abdomen and other scars - no
knowledge of purpose, although always the wish to say FU, - see what I've done with my life.
The educational result of being hospitalised was disastrous; I 'failed' my 11+ plus exam due
to due to having my body savaged by strangers. I have no recollection of having taken it.
Consequently I was sent to a secondary modern school. The ethos of that time, the middle sixties
(not too distant since I am still alive!) was distinct and different from today. Or perhaps not. The
secondary modern school was intended to provide the carpenters, the metalworkers, and other
industrial fodder,whilst the grammar schools were intended to provide the middle classes, the
doctors, the lawyers,the accountants. And so I was on the treadmill, another cattle to the slaughter.
The headmaster, a bully of a man called Davies, gave a group of six of us detention in the first
week, for talking at the dinner table where we sat. We assembled outside his office, but one of the
six, a boy called Robin Hamilton, said 'I'm not hanging around for this,' and left. By an
unfortunate coincidence another boy was sitting waiting and as Davies emerged he was to be
included in our party of six. I admired Hamilton's recklessness, and his brazen indifference. I was to
learn from this. The rumour was soon to spread that Davies had been head master of a borstal
institution. Perhaps it was true. In the same week my primary school friend Philip Edge was to
break his wrist in his first lesson of PE, under the tutorlege of Ben Storkey....Therein is to lie
another tale. And the triumphs of that first year were small; being called by my first name at the end
of an English class towards the end of the 'academic' year, of getting an 'A' for my poem called Fear,
I adding a + sign for an even higher mark, a poem sadly now lost, unable now to reread my words,
with an adult's sensibility, thrown away by Woody at some stage, probably read but not understood,
as most children's words are not. I cut pictures from a Spiderman book and glued them to the pages,
inventing my own story. I do not pretend that they held any literary merit. But towards the end of
that first year they held a talent contest, I playing Fur Elise by Beethoven and then accompanied by
Lewis Rockels flute playing to perform an infantile dirge. Lewis, with whom I have no recollection
of meeting - perhaps we walked home the same way - he lived in the next road, Milthorpe. But
that fact that two children could organise a duet, however infantile the tune, had impressed the
teacher judges enough for us to win.
There had been broadcast the previous night an adaptation of The Casting Of The Runes
(March 22 1968), and that morning I had cut some symbols from a breakfast cereal box and stuck
some temporary given away tattoos to these symbols and I asked Lewis before the concert,
'If these fall, we fail, but if they should fly we rise.' And, astonishing, as I let this letters fall to the
ground a gust of wind seemed to gather them together as if grasping them in a fist and swept them
upwards and away over the roof. We stood looking upwards, as others surrounding did, at this
curious event. 'The casting of the runes.' a voice murmured. (Where a talismanic document must be
passed ever onwards to avoid destruction.)
However, consequently we were awarded the first prize, a box of toffees. As we walked
away to share the toffees, to later count out individually, a figure passed us in the playground,'Well
done mate.' he said patting my shoulder and giving me a thumbs up.'Who's that?' I asked, of the boy
wearing Beatle boots. 'Um.. I think he's called Graham.' Lewis replied. And therein lies many later
tales...

It has a playful whimsical charm; # Pennies From Heaven #, in later years a song I was to
familiar with through the violin playing of Robin Williams, and now my memory of children
scampering around the garden collecting their golden nuggets thrown from the window above by
Woody is to that melody, monetary baubles descending, promises also of sweets perhaps, scattered
as if confetti, or if collected, to be stored in a toy car. But the cultural mores has changed, and
affluence has debased those memories. Should children be in awe of coinage itself, of benign and
beneficial handouts, rather than acceptance that earned currency is rather a fluid mechanism to
enable you to pursue dreams? I remember that joy as a child of collecting the scattered coins from
amongst the grass, gifts from above, but as an adult I resent the recollection of poverty, the
desperate arbitrary scramble for money.

Huddled closely together, for there was only a small electric heater attached to the wall
(central heating was for a later age and development and still very expensive in the late 60's) we
would watch films on a new television gigantic 26 inch colour screen, (I can still recall the magical
intensity of the colours), an early example of conspicuous consumption - I cried as Captain
Courageous drowned, and Woody comforted me, telling me it was good that I had feelings, and that
I shouldn't hide them. Excepting of course, anger.

Woody had friends, Gretel and Frank, who had fled Germany during the war, and lived in
Paddington. Frank had a long distinctive face, lined with experience, but not wisdom, and it is to
my regret that I did not take a picture of him in his old age during the early 80's, for there was a
certain day I knew that I would not see him again, but had I made a portrait of that face many
stories would be told or written.
He often played scrabble with Unky on a Sunday afternoon, and instigated a new rule that in
lieu of your turn of placing a word upon a word the board you could substitute letters in a word
already down provided it remained the same length.(This is actually an interesting rule change.) His
wife Gretel was a small slightly fierce woman who pushed past me every time I opened the door for
them.
Once we visited them in Paddington, passing where in earlier times Woody had lived and
even then taken care of children. She suddenly pointed out, declaiming,'That's Brendan Behan's
house. He took me to see his play, The Queare Fellow.' I did not know at that time (and not
sure even now) who Brendan Behan was. As we walked further along she recognised a man she had
known from after the war, tall and gaunt, who mumbled quietly his greetings, and they talked
shortly of Gretel and Frank, and how they too had fled. He looked at me and smiled, and Iremember
the sadness in his eyes. But as he walked away Woody said, matter of factly, as if it were an
everyday occurrence, 'He survived the war by pretending to be dead. The Germans threw him into a
pit and he pulled bodies over himself to stop the burning of the lime.'

It is strange that when I reflect upon my early life it is this age, ten, I choose as the marker,
that I might have died undergoing such major surgery, but only because I have survived to this time
that I have had the chance to 'reflect', for I have often wondered that death at the hands of the far
riskier surgery at age nought would of course negated any memory, any notion of future / past
'reflections.' And it is as if I have always been aware, in some negatively nihilistic existing, but also
existing, and only now that I can write these words without any doubt that I am not crazy. For had I
died then my memory of Simon, who I was to meet the next year, would not exist today, forty
years later. I had known Simon only briefly. That first year they had joined, or perhaps formed, the
UFO sighting club, meeting after school in a chemistry lab on a Friday night with two other boys.
They had then seemed much older but now, thirty five years later, I realised the other boys were
perhaps only fourteen, or fifteen. Simon and I had spent our free time during the school breaks
gazing at the sky. I had spotted a silver glint and duly reported it to the UFO 'committee', but
boredom had set in, and an innate realisation or knowledge that the threatening, visiting aliens
would not be particularly interested in an insignificant part of the universe. By flying over
Heathrow.
After that speculative, talkative week Simon and I never made the effort to attend again. I
wondered if the two other boys would later realise who Simon had been: would they recall the tall,
lanky, fine straight-hair cut to a fringe above his eyebrows youth in later years? I think not. The
arbitrariness of life, of survival, of existence - that this is all borrowed time, an unwanted free time
that normal is just a word,and that is not normal. Another footnote in another history. To them. But
to I that week would be formative, for the two boys, with the foolish, stupid, innocence of youth had
discussed the dismantling of World War 2 bombs. I had insisted that sometimes the bombs were
booby trapped, that he would not even consider, one if, - and what was the fantastic probability
against ever finding an unexploded bomb anyway?! - but Simon had insisted he could defuse a
bomb, should he ever be lucky to be given the opportunity. A conversation that would have faded
into oblivion, as a yellowing newspaper page decays into his bomb, and I had refused to donate any
money to the flowers sent later to Simon's parents. Why had he not listened to me?! I was angry that
my advice had been ignored. The arrogance and insolence of youth. I shared had his life, his
marriage, his career - how would his life panned out? Would he have been happy? You could spend
your whole life looking for destruction, and not find the bomb to destroy you. Yet Simon had
found his unwitting destruction a mere six weeks after our conversation. He had chosen never,
touching indeciphers, had not Simon's parents moved to the country over that summer: Simon had
obliterated himself, but immortalised the conversation. (novel insert) A tear trickled from my eye.
Why not me? Why not me?! Simon could have that path, an innocent arrogance that you could
outwit a relic from a long distant past. What god would give him the opportunity? What benign lord
would inflict such a thing upon a child?
He rolled over to his side. The tears welled and overflowed. Perhaps Simon or his parents
had been religious. Perhaps Simon had been an angel and taken early to heaven. If only he could
believe it. But he did not.
(Simon became the main character in my novel In Time,though I changed the sex to Simone,
and made her appearance earlier in Saint's life, at Grove Park primary school).

Black tussled haired tanned figure called Colin Harrington, who Woody constantly found
attractive. Colin Harrington. Therein to lie many tales, more than any other in the lives written of,
written here. He was a mentor, a father figure of sorts, ever present throughout my life, and it is
only in this time now, that I haven't seen him for so long. For 2005 was a marker year, as if not
merely a year closed, but as if the final chapter of a long book had finished. Natalie and I went up to
visit him in Bangor, a long way from his farm and cottage, Gronnant, on the Snowden mountain-
side, the last cottage before the ascent.
But in 1967 we schoolchildren as a group joined the 17th Sea Scouts, and I am grateful now
for those times. For there was a richer education than the drivel dolloped out in classes, packaged
useless information, and those are the memories of good times. Sailing and canoeing at Ham, wide
games in Chiswick Park, opposite the schools gates, I throwing myself to the ground to escape
being discovered by a chasing John Troake, discovering a hidden water duct that led out from under
Chiswick house grounds to the main road, our camping trips to Malvern, to the grounds of
Colin's cottage on the mountain.
After that first year of form 1 Gunnersbury, Simon having left for extinction I had by then
met Lewis Rockel and his twin Matthew (very different in mass, intelligence and temperament) and
John Troake, and together we elected to join the scouts run by Colin and Dave (Whetton). Once
Woody, having little imagination of the immediate world outside of herself, sent me off to such a
trip to Wales with a flimsy sleeping bag, with what would now be called negligible Tog value,
essentially being thin coloured sheets sewn together, and I promptly froze, shivering into the
morning. Colin drove me off to the doctor in nearby Llanberis. The doctor, in his examining my
torso, murmured, 'What a rich tapestry we have here.' But no special favours were granted, just a
raised camp bed to keep me off the ground. My aversion to coldness did not end there. Still, happy
days with Colin, as my mentor, Volvo Reg 4686 KP, and he too has his own story. And no attempts,
fortunately, to dissuade me from sliding down the mountainside upon corrugated roofing with John
Troake, and leaping, sliding off before the it crashed upon the mountain path leading up to Colin's
cottage.
An annual football event was touted by Troake Snr and it is curious now that I remember the
perception of me by others. Being regarded as quiet or shy an assumption was made that I had no
interest in the inter-forms' competition to play each other at football, and in the selection I was
picked last. However, we went through each round, winning easily, I scoring 2 goals, and we won
the tournament. The perception of me by others changed, but my memory is of the indifference of
winning. Perhaps I hadn't even realised there had been a competition.

A tall building used as a teaching facility of some kind, with a top flat which was offered to
my father during the summer holiday. He 'played' his clarinet, a broken instrument (and the irony is
that not only my own clarinet playing and teaching days are also long gone but I realise 'now' how
bad that instrument and consequently his playing was) upon the staircase the air escaping through
the broken reed, causing horrendous screeches to echo throughout the building.
I mouthed 'Power To The People" as the record played, and Glynis and Elizabeth laughed as
I saw Bolan for the first time on TV, singing # Hot Love # I had bought a empty large pad of writing
paper as if in anticipation of words to be written. 'Going to write your memoires?' laughed
'Ma,'(what actually was her real name?!) with a strange mocking inflection of derision, as the others
laughed too. Such is/ was my paranoia.
We walked into Guildford along a path and a curious memory is that I bought 2/6, 5/-,
10/-,and £1, the pre decimal postal issues, a sizeable sum for a young teenager. At that time I used
to collect blocks of four of new issues of stamps, perhaps intimations of an early 'business' move.
Though I had placed the pre decimal postal issues within my new empty manuscript book they had
fallen out as we walked back along the road. Only after I had handed 'Ma' the the manuscript and
she insisted they were missing that I run down the road and found that they still lay unsullied
upon the ground. I still have them, although they are left to my nephew, possibly always to be
unappreciated, for gifts given are always mere baubles.
My father allowed me to reverse drive his car around the school park, offering an early
driving lesson. I asked him if Glynis would like to try, but he muttered as if this idea was dismissed.
And as we walked again, later along the path beside the river, I noticed that boats were
offered for hire, and I said 'Let's do that!' and my father and I walked up to the counter to be asked,
'Can you swim?' I enthusiastically replied, 'Of course!' but my father, strangely lacking the obvious
inference of the question, replied, 'No.' shaking his head in honesty. 'Are well, you need to be able
to swim.' explained the woman. This somehow this further reflected to me his under enthusiasm,
about everything. And It wasn't as if we needed life jackets, as I had noticed the hull was large and
flat bottomed. My father later apologised for lacking quick wittedness.
And as the days passed there was this sadness within me that this illusion of a family holiday
would pass. My father approached me as I stood on the steps of that large house, having been
prompted by 'ma' to come downstairs to talk to me. Apparently he had been wary of talking to me
because I might have wanted to go back to Woody's. (Apparently I had asked to go back to Woody's
when I was sick at the age of 8 in a caravan we had stayed at.) I had asked could I stay with them,
for it was apparent to me that the education Glynis was receiving was superior to mine, even if only
a stability of some sort, with my envy of her family life, whereas I was offered merely only an
occasional holiday.
And having had that holiday in Guildford, there was this temporary illusion of a family I
wrote to Glynis who rarely (never) wrote back.
I was later spend a few minutes in the front room, Woody furiously knitting away, and I
subsequently discovered that as I went to the toilet Woody had examined my spelling and panic
ensued, bizarrely worrying that I was now in love with my sister, whereas my longings were not of
course of lust (although she was very beautiful in a Pre Raphaelite Burns Jones sort of way), but the
imagined notions of a family.
In a much later time Glynis was to accuse me of failing to maintain contact, and accused me
of lack of interest, but by then I had already lived many other lives, and it is all too little too late.
There is a sadness though that I now haven't seen Elizabeth for decades also, for I remember I gave
her my discarded stamp collection of countries in subsequent times I have come to visit, to know
now where they exist, and are not merely coloured images, and sometimes of portraits of faces that
have come to have, in my adulthood, political resonance.
She had written somewhere that her cousin had come to visit. It is possible that even now, a
lifetime later, that she might still think of me, in her memories, as a cousin, for unless told
otherwise, how is she to know different?

Always the fear of cold. I was sent for piano lessons to a mock gothic victorian house in
which in which I made to sit on a carved dark mahogany seat in the hallway before the lesson
began. The aura was of gloom and darkness. Dorothy M. Warren sat by the gas fire out of sight and
earshot behind me, objecting if I should turn around to hear her instructions to play another tedious
exercise or scale. Should the telephone ring and she left the room, I would play a tune I had learnt
from a book, expecting affirmation that I was enthusiastic enough to learn a repertoire outside the
required syllabus of the Royal Schools of Music. But all I received was a curt instruction not to play
when she out of the room.
Once, my stomach congealing into solidity, I was unable to walk and I had to be fetched in a
car, being unable to ride home on Martin's motorcycle. The lessons lasted from age six to fourteen,
before suggesting that a competent teacher would teach me for free at school. This was true, but I
only had one lesson with this 'younger' woman, perhaps then in her thirties, and then I lied that she
no longer attended school, and therefore I was no longer able to receive lessons. That it was
necessary for me to adopt this deceit to escape the dungeon now seems ridiculous, whereas I could
have simply maintained I was continuing lessons.

During a Saturday job, at Lidgate's butcher shop, one of the staff had heard I was giving
piano lessons so she sacked Dorothy M Warren, and offered the job to me, and at the same rate; £1 a
lesson.

'And if you don't behave, I'll cut you out of my will!' Always the threats, the attempts at
subordination, domination, to break me and accept her will without question. But I had already
outgrown her at twelve or thirteen, already intellectually aware and developing an uncertain
independence, both physically and mentally. But I was still weak, emotionally. I had recovered from
the hospital ventures, but Woody's ... how can I define it now, thirty years on? ... Woody's bullying
hampered my emotional development. Always the shouting, the threats -'Behave yourself or I'll
throw you out!', always the domination. Even at the age of eighteen she attempted to fix a
curfew,'Be in by eleven or I'll lock the door.' She could never accept that children grew up, become
independent beings, do not remain children, and since she herself had not matured, her own
emotional level of maturity was that of a child, and she was incapable of allowing others to.
 I was thrilled at the excitement, the real risk and the threat of Roderick's ( a child in her care
then?)extinction - the south downs when he revealed another minor indiscretion to Woody, and I
was then punished by the brute force of her acerbic threatening tongue? Had I chased him down the
hill at his betrayal? My memory tells me I did, but it is an angry memory, and the anger might
reveal that that was the natural order of things; but what a way to die! - the sea, longingly
enveloping him, to be dragged away by the waves, sucked into aqual oblivion. I would not then
have to put up with him any more, with his petty little whinges, his betrayals of wrongdoings,
breaking the unwritten code of children's secrecy. Perhaps he was older in years and experience,
when a year held significance, but to me he had broken the children's code of camaraderie, the
unwritten but understood notion that adults and children live different lives. Had I actually hit him
on Ashurst Avenue in Saltdean up into the south downs and flung my fist into his face? Incensed
rage having altered the memory as opposed to the reality of that time. But as the wave dragged him
Woody, with her short, squat, brutal strength strut into the water and grasped Roderick's arm. His
puny body was an easy prey to the sea but the unremitting body of a bigger, older, ruthlessly
determined woman was not; she held him above the water and dragged him across the pebbles to
the safety of the land. I did not rejoice in Roderick's survival, and the inevitable shouting later. In
my childish, selfish indifference I was only interested in my own well being.

I put the book on astronomy down and stared at the stars from my tiny bedroom bed. There
was hope, wasn't there, that there was a planet there, somewhere, and I could be on it. As I looked
into the night, drawing back the curtains to gaze into a cloudy blackness. I had earlier read that this
distant star was travelling away from the earth at an enormous speed, two hundred miles a second,
and in my youth, to imagine such a speed was, (as it is now!), incredible. To travel so fast, and to be
so distant! I wanted to be near that star, if it had planets; I wanted to live there, to be from there.
And I believed I that I was from there, that somehow I had been born in the wrong in this solar
system, or even in the wrong galaxy. Surely I could not be from this earth? with all this suffering,
this pain? Surely there was a perfect place, somewhere else? I knew that none of those flickering
points could be Barnard's star, but one of them might be - the faint twinkling of a distant star cutting
through the guaze, I imagined that that flickering point of light was Barnards star. On the other
side? elsewhere? Why did the voices not call me away, to enlightenment? of the truth of those
feelings: I was so unhappy that I wanted to be elsewhere, not even of, or from, this earth: I had
wanted to be elsewhere, in another land or continent.
But now, thirty five years on, with my adult reflection upon my childhood dreams, and
remembering my emotions at that time, I recall them with sadness, and with acknowledgement
Woody had not, and could not of course, recognise any plea for an escape - how could
she recognise it when all the chaos, the bizarre surroundings where everything was regarded as
normal?
In his childhood I had longed to be far away, anywhere other than where I was, and in the
newspapers there were advertisements such as 'Poms wanted!' and for £10 you could emigrate to
when I became 18, - and she had laughed at this fantasy with my father, who, in his peculiar silent
reticence failed to mention that all his family were there in Australia, but I was only a child, and, as
I was later to reflect upon my youth, I held no power. 'I want to go and live in Australia!' I said to
my guardians, and they laughed, dismissing his yearning as a childish fantasy. Only when he paid
his weekly visit to his son did my father incidentally mention, after my guardian recounted the
fantasy of my proposed emigration, that he had relatives in Australia: and everyone was surprised;
they had known Bill all these years and never once had he mentioned he had relatives in Australia!
That his entire family were there, having emigrated in 1955. But such was the secrecy of my father,
I thought, introverted to the point of absurdity. If a child notices that his beloved father is seriously
introverted, then the adult has a problem.

My thoughts had often cast back to that curious event years earlier of my home made runes
being swept away over the rooftops before winning the talent competition. It was of course a
curious coincidence, one of many in my life, of no particular significance unless given by thoughts,
or the words written upon this page. But perhaps my interest in magic, the effect of illusions were
enthused by that event, given a magical significance. But was there also a sense of hiding, the
dexterity of deceit? That things could be hidden? that random events could be given significance,
that mere synchronicity might not be mere chance?

I manufactured this chair out of plasticene, and carefully, manually placed the mirror at an
angle of 45 degrees, (as I had years before in primary school constructed a periscope out of balsa
wood - others had tried unsuccessfully to use protractors) to reflect the chair floor. It was effective;
the hidden, invisible recess at the back easily hid the body to reflect the head propped upon the
balanced pole. At a later time I made a friend gasp [Michael Eric Brent Thomas] when I turned a
random mishmash selection of five playing cards instantly into a royal flush with a wave of a hand.
It took some preparation, cutting that and glueing half cards upon the opposite side, but the end
result justified, even if only momentary, the effort.
I could lay out cards in grids of five by five, and tell which pair a punter had selected, using
the formula ; MUCUS COTIS NOMAN DATID. (Each letter is somewhere repeated). Another trick
was to read peoples' minds and to tell them the card they had chosen from the pack without
even touching their card. I could do this for up to four people. The facial contortions I pulled
convinced them I was mentally wrestling with their minds - I always identified the correct cards -
but the mental mangling were true enough, my efforts to remember the sequence of taken cards
playing cards of the entire deck, having glanced at the bottom of the pack as the cards were
memorised in an order. I am ashamed to say now, breaking the code of silence in revealing
magician's secrets that I sold the secrets of that trick to two boys for half a crown (12.5 pence
in todays money, such is inflation) and that they subsequently sold on the secret for sixpence (2.5p)
a time. Perhaps they even made a profit.

Perhaps as a result of this interest in magical illusion I invented a game called Conjunction,
drawing coloured ellipses upon a board, and miniature planets encircling a central sun. The object
was to obtain, with coloured counters, a conjunction with the sun, winning the game. If I were to
design this game today, I would the fill the board with further information, and more accurate
pictures of the planets, for those satellite images did not exist then, giving the game more of an
educational value.

With my teenage enthusiasm for practical projects, as if there was a magic in electricity, and
with (I now realise) my desire to please my father, he having this alchemic power over electronics,
able to entice flickering pictures from dead televisions, I wrote to the magazine Practical
Electronics asking not for designs for a shaver inverter - for I did not then shave - but for a plan for
a musical synthesizer, a revolutionary instrument at the time, voltage controlled oscillators
controlling pitch. This letter, duly published, had a curious consequence. A teenage Iraqian wrote to
me, expressing a similar interest. Of Ramsay Ismail more later ...

Like cattle we were allocated the correct sheds to assemble in, the doors were incorrectly
labelled, and I knocked and entered the wrong room. The teacher queried why I was late, and I
explained, puzzled, that I had been sent from the main hall. As I sat down I realised my mistake,
for there were place. I was in an 'O' level class, and next door was my correct 'GCSE' class. The
difference between C1 and C2. I remained silent. I was to play the same educational 'trick' two
years later, but this time consciously, as I entered an 'A' level English class but with only a 'B' at
GSCE. I had been unhappy with only attaining a 'B' since part of the examination was a group some
of my primary school friends who had been allotted a grammar school place. Keith Yallop was there
(to become K in In Time) and Briget Taylor, (of more later). My ruse at 'A' level was never
discovered, but I was forced to leave school the next year, only one A level being completed,
Woody deeming that work was more important than education. Thus was to begin two years of hell.
That story is for a later time.

At fourteen Carol and Billy Woodman split up, Billy having, according to the gossip passing
throughout the house, come home from a trip filming abroad to find Carol in bed with another man.
An inevitable divorce ensued and I often came home from school to find him crying on the stairs,
with Woody trying any explanation to comfort him. He would rant and rage, crawling at the air as if
to scratch from an imaginary bark. It was sad but he soon enough revealed a greater emotional
immaturity as he accused me of cheating. We used to play a game called Battleships where
cards representing ships were placed opposing each other upon a board and each ship held a point
dis/advantage against another. There were also mines and minesweepers. The point was to capture
your opponents harbour. We had played this game during the months Billy had stayed with us in the
turmoil of his divorce.
But one day Lewis Rockel (the flute player with whom I had won a talent contest) came
round, and I explained I had to leave the game to play with him. So the board was pushed to the
corner and resumed some hours later. As I pushed a minesweeper in front of a mine he jubilantly
cried out 'Mine!' but my sweeper nullified it and he at once accused me of cheating, of memorising
the positions of all the cards before leaving to play with Lewis. It was such a ridiculous accusation
that even Woody burst out laughing as she came to see what his raving was about. 'You must be
psyhic!' - and a running joke was invented, that Neville was 'sick et!' We never played and game
after that, and we rarely spoke. He spent the rest of those months there, before he and Carol
remarried. He was to killed being hit by a truck in South Africa - he'd been the cameraman for a
journalist, John Simpson (?), in the days when film had to be chemically developed.

Rubbish presets from father; already obsolete wave form oscillator the green glow of the
cathode screen already passe and dated by the early 70's,a Rolls Razor(a shaving blade of some
kind. Never used.) I gave him a television (given to me by my mother which kept breaking down,
as she had earlier given me a motor scooter which wasn't hers, no key of course). Later my father
paid me £5 for two days painting work, a figure I was curiously insulted by, this assumption I would
help to enable him to get an early start for his next job - this figure who made a cursory guest
appearance on a Friday night. Was he frightened of me? Because I had been ill in my childhood?
That I might have been some sort of genetic defect? I wish I could believe that. But it was more
likely that he was just his usual inarticulate self? I actually had to ask him if he'd got the early next
gig. (He had).

Discovery of sister Diana Madeline. Mother's inability to realise Woody's grief, yet my
inevitable indifference to Michele, but having 'dated' her, attended her wedding, probably all
engineered by my mother. The ultimate irrelevance of meeting her again as an adult: all to little to
late. Be careful what you wish for. Of mother and Michelle (Diana Madeline).
In the evening we went along the road, around the corner from Oak Grove, to the working
men's club, to the brown beer swilled stains upon brown tables, to play bingo, which even then I
found a pointless waste of time. (In the event I won sixteen shillings.) Eventually mother decreed,
'I'll be off then. You two can stay.' Whether it was an instruction or a request I cannot now recall, but
of course I was glad to left alone with this young girl. My mother had left us in this working men's
club to talk amongst the beer glass stains. My first date, and I hadn't even requested it. She had been
introduced years before as Margarite's daughter, a French woman who cared of me for the first ten
weeks of my life. Margarite had married and had two had taken children, I was told.
So I was left with Michelle. I was not mute, but silent or shy enough to perhaps appear
mysterious. Michelle was slim with blond hair. A pretty teenager, as perhaps all girls are.
Strangely, later, at mother's bequest we sleep either side of her during a time she was also
staying at my mother's at 9 Oak Grove, a small house filled with trashy plastic trinkets bought from
markets, as if a stall had been imported from the few yards outside or from the Hong Kong
sweat shops. I was ill that night, soiling my pyjamas. The cleansiness of the building left something
to be desired.
Once, in an earlier time, but perhaps only a year before my mother had brought Michelle
along as she had taken me and my father out for a meal in a Wimpy Bar near Euston (?). I had
thought it was a strange introduction - to try and fix me up with a girlfriend - but, in a later time,
with the tempered reflection of adulthood I realised the awful significance of what she had done.
We were later to see a movie together at Golders Green cinema, and afterwards I gave her an
affectionate shove, to be admonished by a passing adult, 'Girls shouldn't be hit.' We laughed at the
adult, and held hands. She later claimed to have subsequently watched the film (Kes) several times.
We met again for a few times,
4.09 2022 The manipulating cunt that was my mother. Michele to discover that Maureen (if
indeed that was her actual name) was her actual mother, only by accident due to a birth certificate
request of some kind. For years Michelle's true identity was kept from me for no reason (except
possibly Catholic guilt of some sort) only for her to eventually, finally admit to me this 'terrible'
secret. I was later to discover that Woody had been asked to look after Diana Madeline (her true
name) but that Woody had refused, saying I was a handful. Bizarre that she was to go on to foster
hundreds more. When asked earlier by Woody if mother was pregnant mother replied the doctor
said there was a growth. She claimed that she had accidentally bumped into Margarite in the street
(I'm sure even then biological parents weren't allowed to see offspring) and thus inveigled herself
back into this child's life. But the final insult: Michelle grew up claiming never having a father
figure and never having met her father, and yet there we were, the 4 of us in a Wimpy Bar. This
woman will die believing she'd never met her father. They are all dead, thank god.

Later I was to work on a Saturday as a greengrocer shop assistant, for a man named Stagg in
Fauconberg Road. There were vending machines outside delivering triangular milk, or orange
cartons at 6d. I'd had a little experience as my mother and new husband Richard (Wigley ? - whom
she was soon enough to nick name Wiggles) had a greengrocers in Crickleworth Lane, and I
occasionally, rarely, helped out. They had to get up very early to get to Brentford market (now a
sport/leisure complex), and by chance Stagg had met them. Naturally I became a topic of interest.
Memories of me at seventeen, now forty seven. What a difference thirty years makes. Now
there is the instability of shops, of their exact location: They are not where they were. Time has
moved them.

The joy of the moment. Always that oscillation between the extremes, but only very rarely
totally incapacitated by depression, alternating with acts of endless creation, the joy to fill the time
between not being born and the time after death.
And there is that time, when those before you are dead, that those memories of events past
become merely a possible past - did those events happen in actuality, so long ago? Or is it just an
internal cinema, eternally, and randomly playing incessantly, until you yourself are dead, and
you become an actor, or a memory in someone else's dream? For there is an emptiness when they
are dead; that the faces and hopes and ambitions instilled in you throughout that time of your
childhood might come to mean nothing; for when finally my parents died, ironically within a short
time of each other at the end of my journey into the abyss, as if there had been a curious umbilical
cord tying them together throughout for their demise, but for myself; that I felt nothing; the
realisation final, that there had been no family as such, and consequently, and ultimately no
emotional, financial or intellectual support at any time. My strength today is my strength; I am a
self made man. All this apart from my body which will forever remain fragmented. But and how I
was allowed to become so unbalanced: the young adults I have met since have all had their varying
degrees of happiness, or relative despondency, but always present is the assumption that the game
of life is worth living, and playing.
Yes, in retrospect it seems as if in a dream, or a faintly lit film in a distant cinema, but it was
real, it happened, and only now, can I reflect upon that episode in my life with any sense of
detachment. To take pills, to wish to die, absolutely long for oblivion? Yes, I had been that crushed.
And the anger I feel now is not at my actions then, no self-recrimination at the stupidity of it all,
that eight years later, in hospital again from an overdose, Woody and my father were asked to wait
outside whilst the psychiatrist asked what he thought to be probing questions. As an young adult
now, but already beginning to understand and comprehend the traditions of these new religions, a
teenager in bed and wanting to die, I was unsure how to answer the question 'Do you masturbate
often?' It was a trick question obviously, but what to answer? a) frequently b) rarely or c) I'll get my
next girlfriend to do it for me. In the event the shrink seemed satisfied by my answer, I having
assumed that to answer 'a' would conform to the psychiatrists imagined template of deviant
behaviour,and the short interview was terminated by a handshake; evidently I was sane and unlikely
to try to top myself again. But my father, upon re-entering the room, made a customary caustic jibe,
the words not now precisely remembered, but along the lines, 'Don't let them get their hooks into
you.' As before, no playing - this is never questioned. But I had questioned it, or perhaps the
question had been now, knowing the traditions of those new religions, I know the theoretical origins
of the purpose of the questions asked. But then, as a teenager, in bed and wanting to die,before, no
concern at my predicament, only a resentment at my being submerged in an imagined malevolent
social web, but muttered with such irritation that I was made to feel that jibe. Woody had felt
humiliated at my actions, that despite all her love that this was how I had I was unsure how to
concern at my predicament. At my lowest point psychologically in my life, when I needed support,
and any degree of comfort to help me through my barrenness, there was none, only a bitter ironic
jibe.
Upon my 'return' I pinned the Sartre book cover 'Loath my childhood.' upon the bedroom
wall alongside the Beatles and the Waterhouse nymphs. It goes unnoticed. Perhaps thought of as an
example of modern art. Or more probably seen and met with with simple incomprehension.

But there are happier memories. One day in 1973 the school is given a holiday due to the
marriage of Captain Mark Phillips to Princess Anne. Four of us, Anne, Jackie, and John decide to
spend the day together and we first go to Hammersmith for a meal then to Twickenham where there
used to be a cinema on the corner. We see A Touch Of Class with Glenda Jackson and George
Seagal. By the end of the evening John and Jackie were together, and have been ever since. Thirty
years later I sent them the stamps issued on that day in 1973, affixed to an envelope. And John did
so well, having struggled to pass his 'O' level English to eventually attain an MA and a head-
mastership in his early forties. (The headmastership came first, and the MA became irrelevant but
was finished anyway, having previously entailed so much work}. Truth, as if ever was needed, that
life is what you make it, and proof of the irrelevance of exams. And what happened to Anne? She
disappeared soon enough, and went to live in a caravan with a husband and baby in the late 70's.
Her story is to remain forever unwritten.

I had managed to persuade Colin to give me the keys of this small box room, and in it were
obsolete lead pipes, of various lengths which Graham and I dumped in the large waste bins outside.
This shows remarkable lack of any business sense because even then lead piping had a monetary
value, but we were more concerned with room for ourselves and our basic, effectively no
equipment, but two names; Cult, and Destiny, since this tapped into my then vague interest of the
occult, or various pseudo religions. We put up posters of Marc Bolan, and after school Shirish Joshi
joined us to improvise music in the main hall. It was of limited success, since we had no songs, and
the headmaster, Hands, walked in wondering what we were doing there, and I received an electric
shock as I pulled the plug from the wall as he asked us to leave.
(By a bizarre coincidence I was to discover that Hands had actually been Peter Woodman's
teacher decades before. He recounted an incident where Hands had scaled the classroom wall and
the then headmaster had entered, but not seeing Hands mentioned how well the class behaved when
teacher wasn't present. Having seen an athletic Hands in a school production of a Gilbert and
Sullivan show I can believe this anecdote)
 The next day the music teacher Smith spotted the lead pipes sticking out of the bins and all
hell let loose, since the pipes were irreplacable. I thought I was going to be expelled such was
Colin's fury. In later times I was told plastic piping was used to pump air and replace the abandoned
pipes. The key was taken back, and Bolan's picture removed. And so the band was abandoned and
Graham soon enough left to work at Gillette's along the Great West Road. Two years later Shirish
was to bring round Graham to Eastbourne Road, and our friendship resumed, and often the four of
us went to The Bulls Head on Strand On The Green on a Thursday night picking up Philip Edge in
Graham's green Triumph, living as he still did next to Grove Park School and presumably remains
there to this day. It's curious that we were, in later years, G and I to both get engaged in the same
week, and he married Yvonne, although I was to eventually escape the clutches of Christine. And
yet now ...and Graham .. well he's here in the building somewhere as I write. We are mere
characters in life, or perhaps bit parts from The Likely Lads. It's curious also that I last saw Shirish
on my 40th birthday .. As I did Barry (Tucker?)..the one who'd had the fling with Bridget Taylor
when I had lusted after her. BT and I were to meet man years later, but of course the years had not
lightened her..(Very polite is I).Keith Yallop had bizarrely mentioned mentioned to her, one night
when we were at the Brentford Arts centre (no recollection for what, excepting that Sue Bremner,
Graham was also with us) that I had loved her at school but advised her not to get involved with me.
There was a certain personality flaw in Keith of ... gormlessness, which is why we never worked
together musically. But this bizarre comment raised BT's hopes, which was to lead to the eventual
collapse of friendship, too many ships had sailed by then .. Yes, Keith Yallop. He never pursued his
proclaimed interest in journalism, and became instead a damp proof surveyor - apart from our very
intermittent musical endeavours together; his bass playing was excellent, inventive, and he could
read. Why he turned down the opportunity to join that professional touring band I'll never know, but
you have to answer the door when opportunity knocks. (I am guilty of failure here too of course)
Once we both travelled up to Colin Harrington's Welsh hideaway, Gronnant, to set up the
tents for the later arriving scouts. Decades later to attempt hang gliding on the Sussex downs, whilst
staying at Woody's Peacehaven home.

And in discussion with him, when he could hear his muted, mumbled tones, he would
explain how he had made the wrong choices, how 'all the luck' had been dished out to Gladys, not to
him, and how a single choice made before I had been born had determined his life. He had chosen
not to go to Australia, when all the rest of the family had decided that there lay a better life. But
there was no explanation why his father had not ventured forth, he had asked, but there had never
been a definitive answer. Besides, all this was before his father had met his mother. I was not
sure how to take this - was he being blamed for being born? and had acted as an anchor, rooting his
father to an unwanted territory? - that had he not existed his father could have made a better life? I
pondered, it was a novel concept, to imagine what the life of others would have been like
had they never known him, had he not actually alive.
Yet such was my desire to please him, to win affection, to seek approval, that I embarked on
wholly inappropriate 'A' level courses. What need had I of mathematics, when it was obvious to all I
was a musician? But expecting support or guidances for these choices I received none. An offer of
tutelage was never forthcoming, despite my father's self avowed competence.
It meant, of course, that there were other lives that might have been, others that might have
passed through his life, and shaped it, or affected his actions, had he not been merely afraid; the
painful shyness, compounded by a curious defeatism, that life and circumstances had defeated
him. Whereas I have plan it, and do it. A job title may sound exotic, but the title is just an
abstraction of the reality of work. How effortlessly it was then to lie, to imagine, to falsify my total
of 'O' and 'A' levels, and how effortlessly my claims were accepted; a recruitment agency one day,
Manbre Sugars the next. My employers asked if I was to go 'up to' Cambridge university - did I then
relent, admitting that my grades weren't good enough, although the total was impressive? No! Of
course I was going to Cambridge! Anything I wanted - anything you wanted me to study I would!
for excellence in marketing self I excelled, a triumph of style over content. But I, thirty years on,
wonder at the root cause of my actions; I was of course being coerced into finding a job, despite my
protestations that I was to go to college, but now, upon a more distant reflection, the stamp of my
father's approval lay heavily upon me; I was seeking his approval, even though his approval could
never be won. How I longed for a token gesture of appreciation, a(ny) genial conversation, but there
was never any counselling, consoling or guidance: when I gregarious, the pubbing, the clubbing -
effortless fun! But from my parents and guardians I moderately recall .....

To be a writer was his idea of a fantastical job - what a perfect life that would be! whereas I
have never thought of myself as being a writer, or anything else that I have endeavoured,
songwriter, animator, etc - I just did it.

For there is a dull ache in my stomach and in my mind, the hollow left by the gap of a
friendship, killed by, but before its just time. Unlike Hamlet, mercifully killed at his moment of
maturity, I am spared: to survive is to suffer. But maturity comes at different times to different men.
But are such reflections meaningless? Would I recollect her, if any of the others had taken me? And
still there is an anger,a latent anger, that in my days of utter desolation my father was not there to
support me (not financially of course, because he wore his poverty with pride; how his imagined
noble spirit had been crushed by a malevolent state system called capitalism, rather than his
detestation of psychiatry to colour his behaviour towards me; my welfare and survival was
irrelevant to his discontent. I never forgave him; I wanted his affection, but he was incapable of any
such extroversion.

Lost in the mists of time is my motivation for becoming a cub scout leader, excepting
perhaps I wanted to emulate my mentor Colin Harrington. But I remember offering my services and
being invited to help by the current 'Akela' who I remember being called Chris. I remember
my first instant sighting of Martin Saffery as he walked softly across the floor of the Arch, smiling
slightly at me and was somewhat bemused as to my presence. And I by whether Jenny Saffery was
his tall cub scout assistant. Martin Saffery was an attractive man, and his marriage to Jenny seemed
slightly incongruous, a supposition that proved correct as within weeks of my assistance she had
eloped with Chris. Martin was to ask me, 'Did you know about anything?' and the truth was of
course not, as two hours a week over the few sessions I had helped was not long enough to ascertain
how people were related emotionally or otherwise to each other. I was left to run the group myself
and I asked Christine, my then girlfriend, to assist. We subsequently did the weekend training
course, and I received my certificate. Curious memories of those days, and of the cultural mores of
the times. Once we were ushered into the office by a visiting local neighbouring Akela because an
old ex Akela had come into the arch, as if to relive past days.'Don't leave him alone with the
children, as he's ...' he whispered, and two thoughts had instantly flashed through my mind - we
can't leave him alone with ... why then was he left alone with these boys? and why should a
homosexual (if indeed he was) be considered a threat to young boys? I was about to ask 'Has there
been any evidence, any convictions?' when even the irrelevance of these thoughts had left me, as
Christine had earlier produced semi obscene, coarse cartoons of cub boy scouts and proceeded to
show me and in my shock I forwarded them across to **** when asked. (This nutcase was also to
accuse me of attempting to hold a boy underwater at Brentford swimming baths later - nowadays I
would refer him to the police.)

ARCH ADDRESS

I could have used my arch address, perhaps then there was the distinctive shift possibilities
of a query as to the habitability of Number 1 Arch, Kew Bridge, after all, they were only letters
upon a page. The trekking across London to check the validity of an address was remote, but in my
fear I gave an official my girlfriend's, Christine's, address, an address promptly denied by my
prospective father in law, causing lost communications. Eventually those that surfaced arrived at
Bruna's, at the end of Eastbourne Road, where I taught Gina, her daughter, piano, and later,
Michelle. (They were to come to Woody's funeral 21 years later in 1997).

MEDICAL

There was the obligatory medical, to reassure the college I would not die, a cursory legal
requirement and examination. He seemed curious, however, curious about the scars upon my body,
and around my genitals, and that I was able to articulate an adult response, presumably of
indifference or acceptance, about my disfigurement. He bizarrely surmised therefore that I was
sexually active and very probably homosexual. Such was the mores of the times. He muttered,
questioning, and I re-assured him of my heterosexual, and therefore normal, leanings, and he
seemed satisfied, signing my release form, my entry to further education, suitability as to teacher
potential, and my escape from the arch of the bridge. Ah, the ironies of life.

And as I later sat in that ruin, unable to sleep on the flea ridden sofa, I began to weep, with
the a total sense of betrayal by my appointed guardians. They had made living with them
unbearable, by attempting to force me live to within their own constricted constraints; their beliefs,
their aspirations had always been contradictory, provincial, selfish; they had attempted to mould me
to what they believed was best, without concern for my own needs or desires. It seemed to me
contradictory, - would I not be following in his footsteps? What higher accolade could be offered by
a child to his father figure? I wondered. Only as I grew did I realise that he had scraped into that
profession by chance; at the end of the war a training program was announced and he saw his
chance - he had always been a shopkeeper before the war at Cullens, but now, as a sergeant he was
eligible for retraining. Only after many years later when I looked at his school notebooks did I
realise how ... repetitive, mechanical, had been his training and instruction; basic arithmetic,
elementary algebra, all absolutely essential for primary age children, but his workbooks still had to
be checked and signed by the headmaster, a Widrig, right up to his semi-retirement at 73. He had
been a popular teacher, well liked, respected, and a good watercolour artist and yet the question was
asked 'But what if you don't get to college?' Yet when I suggested I would consider an alternative
only if I failed to be accepted, Unky, a teacher himself, was unable to consider this. He was a
teacher himself, I asked, had he not also gone to college? Yet this was met with incomprehension, as
I in my turn did not comprehend. It always amused me that he always voted conservative, despite
benefitting from this socialist agenda of educating people. Woody herself voted liberal, liking Len
the weekly insurance man.

And in time all your friends will betray you, all those you have loved, desired, honoured,
respected - they will sell you into indifference, ignominy, a distant, distracted, irrelevant memory.
As I have betrayed, lied and cheated, and ... But who am I to lecture now? To hector at the past? To
yearn to relive it? How I was allowed to become so unbalanced: the young adults I have met since
in my adult life have all had their varying degrees of happiness, or relative despondency, but always
present is the assumption that the game of life is worth playing. But this life has been thrust upon
me, and despite having survived the anesthetists' gas, I had already been to the brink; my values
were always different, and this took me thirty years to recognise. An unwanted adult side effect -
consuming prodigious amounts of alcohol seemed to have no effect. And in a future time I will
reflect upon my relationship with my parents, as all children do, as they approach that age of
reflection. But I am shocked by my callousness and indifference now, even though it is justified.
The infantile adolescent yearning for the idea of a family has long since eroded into indifference,
but it is sad that I feel, even now, anger and hate towards my parents. And at this age, a middling
into old age. What, after all, did my mother do? Perhaps I spent a night under her roof, or perhaps
two, even a week, it were, until I was fobbed off, farmed out to a French woman, Magarite, for ten
weeks, and then unto Woody. Woody, who, if the truth be now told, should never have had
children placed in her care. But I weeped because I had loved, or wanted to love them, these
guardians -they had taken me in and cared for me when I was sick, whereas my parents, it seemed
to me, had rejected me. But as I wept, it seemed I was worthless. Surely I was not evil? to have left
them. As I look back on that year from this distance of a century later, I feel vindicated, of course as
a teacher, but that my spirit hadn't been crushed or subliminated to another's, Woody's
will, but embarking on my own rite of passage, my right to determine my own future at whatever
cost. By leaving, even to sleep in the gutter as it were, the animal instincts helped me survive those
early years, until some semblance of intellect helped me - or did it?! - independence was
disapproved of until the inevitable rebellion. My whole life contrasted between body failure and
mind pride; a determination to be self sufficient. Yes, our memories just disjointed fragments, burnt
frames celluoid stitched randomly in our mind, firing synapses to be constantly, unwantedly
replayed, to Either: Or. I cannot go back, to not having known Rachael, and I can never wish not to
have a memory of playing with a child merely because she wanted to play with me.
Yes, Time; no longer any peaks of experience, any moments of significance, but now a Time
eroded to the sludge of existence, be recoloured as our emotions wont, but never to be relived,
merely recalled : For you can never return. If : Then. Yes, Rachael : I had known her, for in her
childhood innocence she held joy in her hands - is this what my life was wanting anything other
than my experience at that time?

{Is this from a novel?}

And despite having explained what he did, by use of an analogy Colin had not understood,
or had paid insufficient attention to understand, once Colin had read a similar example in the period
of time, he believed I : it was as if by being in print the idea became a reality, and true, not merely a
spoken opinion. I remembered how his mother had believed everything on television, it was the
'gospel truth',and everything in the papers must be true - 'they wouldn't make it up would they,'
delivered as a statement of fact. Even as a child I realised this could not be true, there were always
too many conflicting stories. But there was no point in I suggesting to his mother that
perhaps ... he would have been shouted down, 'Don't get ideas above your station', 'Know your
place', his opinions would have been worthless, as his mother wanted, become independent, have
informed opinions. It was sobering to I the shift in his perception of his mother, from filial dotage to
awareness of her incomprehension, her stupidity, her brutality. And how his relationship had
changed between himself and Colin over the years, from pupil to master? Colin had held power
over him as a child, and I had respected him as a mentor, a leader, but now?

[Story inserted to In Time?]

As he looked down at Ben, his pale and now gaunt face enfeebled by age and disease D
started; he realised that he had known Ben for over forty years, and in that time how absolutely their
relationship had changed. D would have gladly killed Ben, when as a young teacher he had inflicted
pain upon himself as a child. He had not forgotten that anger, and that anger had been real - the
injustice of it, to be made to run around the school grounds again, because the first lap had not been
under a notional, nominal time limit! And how D had applauded at the school assembly, at the years
end when it was announced Ben was leaving! Had his applause been applauding loudly? in
celebration? And of course he hadn't been 'Ben' then. It was 'Mr. Starker, sir.' Known colloquially
as 'Starkers Raving.' D wondered if any child had ever murmured or irritatingly muttered those
words in Ben's presence. He doubted it - D had not even mentioned his nickname, forty years on.
Forty years. And now he was strong and Ben was weak. And going to marry his daughter.
Incredible. The road is long, and 'Full circle.' The softly spoken words awoke Ben. His eyes focused
slowly and he smiled upon recognising D. 'You're still alive then, you fascist bastard?' Ben smiled
wanly. 'Please don't make me laugh, the stitches hurt.' D leant forward. He tried hard to keep the
irony out of his voice. 'Yes, I know.'
 Physics my ambition then was of becoming a physicist, as it seemed so effortless, my marks
always being over 90%. Only one girl in same classroom, could consistently beat me, and her name
was Jackie Blanks. Where is she now? In a much later time, decades later, I was to take the Open
University's S102 science course, which was to realise that ambition.
Sean Cronin's ambition was to be a RAF pilot, which even at that time was not realistic,
being as we were streamed in the lower section. His sister, (or cousin, for her child was in care with
Woody for a short while, and he used to come and collect her) was married to pilot, and one of the
original members (although I did not believe this until he sang a song upon the guitar) of The Who.
It was perhaps my first shock of realisation that anyone could do it.
A Saturday job : Butcher's shop assistant. Trevor, a butcher there, taking karate classes,
despite being thirty seven. Wife and kids came over for tea one Sunday, Trevor absent due to strop.
Later went to his place with Christine, I fed but not her. Returned following week as arranged, but
apparently unexpected. Christine furious, leaving Trevor to chase us to lift door. Subsequently
visited her granny in nearby Brixton.

Other jobs from the madness of that time : Postman, an xmas job. Office equipment delivery.
Van man, Industrial Overload. Packing, menial industrial. Tyrebuilder at Firestones. Motorcycle
courier. Bontempi organ demonstrator. Two consecutive years, teaching Sting on my day off.
Antique furniture dealer. A bought a table from my friend Safferys and sold it at a nominal profit.
No pride to be gained, no strength of character, only unwelcome, unnecessary memories. Memory
of lying on my bike in the sun at the plastics factory during a break. Is this life? Or is it better to be
dead? Always the absolute question to be asked, having been having lived through the absolute
experience.

Where are these ghosts of past lives now?

Hospital : allowing a figure in authority to decide what is best for a child, even though it is
manifestly not so. Perhaps my silence was not merely shyness but a realisation that, and awareness
of, that any protest or comment was useless, that power lay not in my hands, but in the realms and
wishes of others. To be a child ... - the madness of my childhood, any attempt to break free, if only
into death, if that should bring freedom, away from the bullying of existence. Yet how I was
allowed to become so unbalanced: the young adults I have met since have all had their varying
degrees of happiness, or relative despondency, but always present is the assumption that the game
is worth playing. This existence thrust upon me, and despite having survived the gas of too many
operations, I had already been to the brink; my values were always different, and this took me thirty
years to recognise, to the point of absurdity, perhaps silently bewailing the fates thrown at me,
seeking imaginary injustices. So has my whole life contrasted between body failure and mind
pride, a determination to be self sufficient? Time erodes any guilt I felt then.

Edinburgh Trip and performance. I shamefully getting a fit of the giggles, to Bryony's
disdain, because Rob (Williams) and I got the good reviews, although the effort had been put in by
all the dancers. He died in 2003, already 21 years ago.

Yet In Time to become, a writer; stories, scripts, plays, later composited into Analects.
Recording Studio engineer, producer, owner. Songwriter. Music teacher. Becoming the best in 1995,
with more passes in more different instruments than anyone else. Film maker. Shorts; # After
Midnight # When Rachael Went To The Moon, And Pluto. # A Deeper State Of Mind # # Walking
Down Love Street # # Rock In The Middle # … too many other vids to list now.
And too many women. Too many to name or care about, or of, now. Time erodes any guilt I
felt, then.
 On Bronwen

And she was a good woman, caring and thoughtful, but in the end she had her needs and
desires, her own unwritten, unconscious tolerance of men, and my own burgeoning awareness of
that energy, that when a man offers marriage, and the offer is serious, a woman refocuses. At an
earlier time she had implied her needs to me, and I had not responded. And in my youthful
arrogance I assumed she would wait for me (after all, had we not known each other for so many
years already anyway?) until such time (and what time was that? I could not then say) I was ready.
But my offer of continued friendship had been rejected, an offer possibly misunderstood, for her
words veered alarmingly from the subject to her own needs. I was shocked. Could I have so easily
been misunderstood? I left abruptly. And I was never to see her again, except once in the distance. I
telephoned her once later, but the 'conversation' lasted a few seconds; she could not talk, she was
with her boyfriend. A friendship lasting years abruptly terminated into indifference. I was angry,
with myself, my circumstances, my past. Surely they had coloured my words, perceptions and
actions? But I think of her everyday. She was, and she is still, unlike anyone else I ever met. Is it
that youthful infatuation, ultimately indifferent to them, as I have ultimately indifferent an
obsession? I was promiscuous, I already had too many other women. As I have ever since. I desired
Bronwen, but made no move, even when she suggested a possibility, towards her. I made the
ultimate sacrifice of sacrificing my own happiness so that she could lead a happy life. A normal
woman needs a normal man. There was compassion in my soul once. But not with any deep
meaning, for time has eroded compassion: when I cared I remained silent. For although I appeared
seemingly indifferent, I was illiterate; emotions and experiences inchoate; and explicit of the home,
neutered any normal expression. But I was, and am, essentially genial, and in adulthood I have
experienced the grace of strangers. And I had cared for her but not imposing, never exploiting the
situation; I wanted her friendship even more than I wanted to possess her body, a future inchoate,
and unformed but somehow inevitable. And in my compassion for her, and now I realise, in a
different time, my own shattered self esteem, I remained silent; her friendship was enough, and I
would not expect to care for my fractured mind and shattered body, such was my pride and self
reliance, even then. I realise now, of course, with retrospection and experience of I was normal, but
in a very abnormal situation. She would have cared for me, for her needs were solidity and stability,
as most normal women desire. At the time solidity and stability were imaginary concepts to me. But
in the final moments any notion of friendship was irrelevant to her; she was a one man woman, and
any other relation consumes time. In a much later time I later saw that the house was empty, and
then I realised that the mother too had moved, probably south to be nearer her daughter, and
grandchild. Then I felt sadness. There is no certainty, no stability, all is flux.
But I was, or have become, essentially genial, and in adulthood I have experienced the grace
of many strangers. And as I enter the final portion of my life, with the reflection of experience, and
perhaps with a calmness and peace, I can recollect the fear of my childhood, at that time
inchoate, overwhelming me into silence, a expressed ... How effortlessly the words are uttered now,
with the practised repetition of a lifetimes mutterings - they overwhelmed me - the pain in my
stomach, the silence of my ears, and the violence, implicit silence that rendered me inarticulate at
critical junctures - the critical juncture - in my life. At the rare moments of emotional intimacy, of
confidential secrecies of the past exchanged, my lovers have astonishment that I am now so
normal,so genial, so emotionally generous...
For there is a dull ache in my stomach and in my mind, the hollow left by the gap of a
friendship, killed by, but before its time.,Unlike Hamlet, mercifully killed at his moment of
maturity, I am spared: to survive is to suffer. But maturity comes at different times to different men.
But are such reflections meaningless? Would I recollect her, if any of the others had taken me? And
still there is an anger,a latent anger, that in my days of utter desolation my father was not there to
support me (not financially of course, because he wore his poverty with pride; how his imagined
noble spirit had been crushed by a malevolent state system called capitalism, allowing his
detestation of psychiatry to colour his behaviour towards me; my welfare and survival was
irrelevant to his discontent. I never forgave him; I wanted his affection, but he was incapable of any
such extroversion. My whole life contrasted between body failure and mind pride; a determination
to be self sufficient. Well, I succeeded, and experienced many joys of many moments.
And having asked for the silver spoon, the token to be placed in my mouth upon the failing
moments, the final joke to be played reflecting the total absurdity of my and of all lives, And in
those final moments, before the last decibels of recorded sounds, memories and lights fade to
stillness and silence, what will be the final mumbled syllables, images and reckoning? Will I utter a
final paean to Bronwen, a regret of the other, unlived life, or will I wish that Rachael was there
beside me, so that I could murmur the delights that her youth gave me, of the happiness, the
exuberance, of her unawareness of the joys and delights of being alive, memories that are lacking
from my own childhood, or will I, and most probably, as we all ultimately live and die, alone. I will
say now, before the chaos of failing misfiring synapses, the final sleep engulfs me, I will say now,
before the incoherence descends into the nothingness, 'I have lived, I have lived, I have lived.'

27 08 2022

Yesterday dropped documents of at the office, Tammy helpful as ever. Staggered across the
road to pay half rent, bought milk, 2 chocolate bars at 50p each (Penquins now upped to £1.25, a
25% hike, fuck em), and a sandwich, the first food ingested for over a week. It was a struggle to eat.
Heart rate pounding even standing up. Stomach 'fat' now extending over right thigh. Tried to watch
film whereupon I fell asleep for 14 hours, awakening the morning at 1.35 am. Things are bad.

28 08 2022.

Another erractic sleep session, just falling asleep through the exhaustion of pain. In the middle of
the night edited Krabi footage, and 2 songs from Jack ... already forgotten his ..Goodall.
Just done an edit, no sound, of pix of me, knowing now that these are final days.

31 08 2022

Last night watched Cinema Paradiso again, having found the file on old storage. Still
magical. It needs to be the full version, where he sees a replica of his first true love, and reunites
with her (mother). And the second time can never be as the first. Thinking of Bronwen of course.
Another beautiful touch is where the knitting unstitches as Toto's mother realises he has returned.
Glad I saw it again before its all over. Will try and watch Time Regained again soon.
Black hairs sprouting from thinning arms. My body keeps going, don't know how ...

03 09 2022

Did a couple of videos in the middle of the night, not being able to sleep. Just finished a
short edit of La Ronde intro, the film never now to be finished. But more lives lived than most it
seems. Hope to finish editing the above scraps,
otherwise PDF them as Final Daze up on scribd. In a lot of pain. Very bloated.

05 09 2022

Watched some crappy 'thriller' last night about nuclear threat from Russia in the early 80's.
Jack Ryan? By chance managed to stay awake to watch an excellent film, La Belle Epoch, where
the protagonist wants to recreate his meeting with his wife 40 years before. Naturally there is a
company that provides this. At great expense of course. Raised some thoughts. Yes, the date I would
go back to is 09 03 1980, where I should have proposed to Bronwen as we walked down the street,
returning from the Post Impressionist exhibition. Our friendship effectively over a year (to the day)
later when she was unable to come to 25th birthday in cottage in Teddington having to pack for
moving to Cardiff. Why didn't I? Took a long time to recover from childhood, as the diary above
attests. Does one ever recover? No. Putting up vids of the old day memories on the one page
I can get facebook to work (the other 2 mysteriously inaccessible).

08 08 2022

In a lot of pain. Stomach burning. Managed to put up short vids of Highbury Park,
discovered by chance this morning.

09 09 2022

Another tooth disintegrated. Queen dies. Unable to access facebook yet again, having
commented earlier today about the Queen supporting the United Kingdom, and not merely England.
Watched Time Regained, reading the wikipedia plotline as I went along. Nice images, attention to
detail, and all slightly irrelevant - not wishing or wanting to associate with such priviledged elite
clowns. Enough of them in this real life. John Malekelvich's French being superb though.
And of course my own masterpiece was entitled In Time, the final 2 words of a la temp ... Sobering
that I've outlived Proust by 15 years. Although that ends very soon.

11 09 2022

Watched posting of Ukraine News TV, an update of the war. Day 200. It's obvious that Putin
will lose. So this century will belong to Zelenski as the last did to Churchill. To stand and fight
alone ... Watching drivel TV, a series called Unforgotten, poorly written, unlikely plot mistakes,
basic police errors. Fills the time, not quite overcoming pain and exhaustion. Vivid dreams - dreamt
of Langkawi footage somewhere lost on a hard drive. Perhaps it really is. A very strange thing
happened. I thought to myself Try logging into facebook under neville powell (something I haven't
done for years, and as I was doing this I thought ..use your (very) old freeserve email address.
Surprised remembered the password, and Lo! and Behold! neville powell existed. I have more
friends than neville animusic!Then the site bizarrely reverted to neville animusic to log in with just
a password. Doesn't quite work but never mind. Of course it might have resolved itself as I'd put up
a screenshot of my page being unable to log into on Tumbler... and they couldn't stand the bad
publicity ...

21 10 2024

Took a long time to edit from 15th 10th . Watched Smile last night, Chanel 4 capitalising on
new film out today(?) Smile 2. Quite good. Watched Amulet. Mixed feelings. Lighting atmospheric,
performances good and yet...plot too bizarre for even me to accept. Bedridden. Supposed to go up
to jewelry centre on Friday to cash in silver coins. 72 of. We'll see.

22 10 2024

Just finished a video edit of Buddha images to electronic sound track. Uploaded to all sites.
Exhaustion of living overtaking me.

27 10 2024

2 days ago set off to jewellery quarter. Actually managed to get to end of May Lane without
stopping, unlike this time last year, stopping 3 times before bus stop. Astonishingly managed to
walk from Birmingham central to eventually find J quarter without stopping once (probably 3
times) before being directed to correct address. Had a coffee, eventually haggled a price for the 79
ounces of silver, found bus as instructed by coffee shop owner and eventually found my way back.
Its taken 2 days to recover (now Sunday). Fell asleep midday (?) yesterday, to awaken to watch
High Rise, a mess of a film, reduced to chaotic scenes to no plot line. On Saturday night watched 2
films; Firestarter. Always a problem with S Kings novels, since supernatural things can't occur,
however enjoyable the images might be. Misery remains the best adaptation, because there is the
possibility of reality. Later watched X, which was far superior, with a Mia Goth playing 2 roles, a
sexy babe and the old crone. Suffice to say she was unrecognisable as the latter. Today did a vid edit
of elements documentary. Might put some sound to it tomorrow. Very difficult to accept it's over. A
lot of pain, all the time. Siam a distant memory to be..

30 10 2024

Bedridden, watching movies. Last night Crank, occasional flashes of laugh out loud humour
held together by excellent editing. Earlier, Alita:Battle Angel, which was visually stunning,
although having no idea of a plot line, if any. Doing an edit today of American war images to # I'm
Afraid Of Americans # cover by Bones UK(?). Kamala Harris delivered 'barnstorming' speech last
night, outside the capital which Trump tried to overturn 4 years ago. How is he still allowed to
stand? - a question that still perplexes the rest of the world. Also did vid of Davy Jones's dance from
Head. Sobering that that is already nearly 47 years ago...

31 10 2024

Watched whole series of Totally Completely Fine which I thought was very very good,
exploring friendships, guilt, suicide, sexual relations etc. Probably the best thing I've seen for many
a long day. The creative gravity is moving away from the west, as is the economic gravity. The
perpetual slaughter in occupied Palestine demeaning the US and the UK. Just finished edit of #
Revolution #. Put up clip of Will Allen, of Pickwick days, a clip somehow suggesting itself to me
through youtube even though, apparently, nevilleanimusic doesn't exist. Put up vid of Winston
Morson's Off The Cuff gig in Ealing many moons ago.

02 11 2024

Already over a week since I made that journey to the jewellery quarter. Astonishingly (?)
watched a commercial TV series called DI Ray, which was passable enough, with images of the
quarter, I recognising the clock tower, I had walked down only the week before. Such significance
we give to the insignificant coincidences of life. Nice shots of night skyline too. Then, the White
House murders, of which I only vaguely remember. Perhaps I was at college {Murders took place 9
years later}. It revealed, as if we didn't already know, of the corruption / nepotism, incompetence of
the police force. Never trust an adopted son. But Jeremy Bamber, eventually, receiving justice of a
sort.

03 11 2024

Just watched skit on a show, a comedian reflecting on herself running as Kamala, only for
the reflection to be Kamala Harris. Audience went wild. And the skit was funny. She's going to
walk it, otherwise America collapses.

05 11 2024
 Election day in the US. We'll see. Very sick. Bedridden. Stomach horrendously bloated. Put
up video of lakes somewhere with Mahler film footage. Daze work done.

06 11 2024

Am watching US election. Trump already at 207 to Harris's 91. What the fuck is wrong with
these people!!?? He's obviously unwell, mad even. Better watch that movie Idiocracy (2006) again,
to gain some insight. A little stupidity goes a long long way. Late last night watched The Mummy. A
remake? Not having seen the original. Good special effects. There is always something I find
disturbing about Tom Cruise though, although I don't know what it is. He's always good in
everything he's done. Watched a short doc about Tolstoy, and then one about history of playing
cards. Remembered that I had several packs as a child, and doing card tricks. Could remember half
the deck at that time, using mnemonic tricks.
And thus America dies.

07 11 2024

The gifted present of a fragile tapestry that was woven by hands over the past 200 years to
unravel, the wrapping torn apart by only a few fingers.

Watched doc on Nefertiti bust. Obviously a modern fake. Its companion piece, discovered
next to it, merely rubble. But even the fake should be returned to Egypt, from where it was stolen.
Watched Ralph Nader interview on Democracy Now! Remarkably accurate summation on Harris's
defeat. I noticed that she only referenced the middle classes in her speeches, which I found slightly
strange. Once you get the money the poor get left behind. Reminded of a clip during covid - Nancy
Pelosi in front of a 30 000 dollar fridge eating 15 dollar cartons of Ben and Jerry's ice cream to
show how she was surviving covid. 'Let them eat cake' sprang into my mind. In this country Angela
Raynor quickly enough corrupted. In the early '80's I canvassed for Ann Keen, only for her to be
engulfed in a second home scandal soon enough. Such corruption normalised these days. Oh, and
Nader soon enough to be 91...
Just watched the sentencing of a Thomas Kwan, a GP, for the attempted murder of his
mothers partner. Chilling and astonishing. And pointless. Patrick O'Hara was already 73. Having
already sourced fake number plates Kwan could just have run him down, instead of months of
researching toxins, easily found on hard drive. So, 35 years … for what? The mother left 'new'
partner a share of the house? So what? Won't be the first time a doctor killed … never mind. Still, I
never saw or spoke to my own mother after she gave away the house at 9 Oak Grove, Kilburn, a
house that should have been divided between Graham, Michelle and I. It's what parents do. Normal
ones that is. No good crying for me when you're dying. Not sure when Michelle last spoke to our
mother either, mother having lied to her that someone else was her mother. Can't remember her
name {Margarite}, but she might well have looked after me after my initial birth. Chilling to admit
it, but they are all dead, and I am glad.

08 11 2024

Just watched Until I Kill You, terrifying, and with a staggering performance by Anna Martin
Maxwell to Delia Balmers book. Late last night Free Guy, which was impressive in its special
effects, and original storyline, man trapped inside video game, Reminded me of Tron, way back in
the early days of computer graphics. That film failed, partly due, in my opinion, to the botched
ending, where Jeff Bridges, after all the adventures he's had, happily rejoins family playmates as if
nothing had happened. We've come a long long way since those days.
 09 11 2024

Of course not 11 09, that's because yanks can't even get their dates in order. Last night
watched in one take 4 part channel 4 documentary about Nicholas Rossi. The hours past in a flash.
Probably the best doc I've ever seen. Did an edit today of the visual bits. If Rossi had not checked
into hospital with covid he might have gotten away with it. A thoroughly repulsive person. Sent
down for 35 years, so he might get parole at 70ish. Hope not. Stomach really bloating. Pain pain
pain. Co Codomol tablets useless. As is alcohol now. Watched short doc on Kennedy, nothing new
revealed, then one on Steve McQueen. Forgotten that he died so young. The Mexican doctor
disgracing himself by claiming a government operative entered McQueen's room to kill him. Would
like to know killed Epstein though.

15 11 2024

Disintegrating fast. Put up a couple of vids, one of Edinburgh to a song # Edinburgh #.

Watching various docs, short serials of varying quality. Curious sensations of getting to the end and
being convinced I'd seen it all before. Maybe that's the life. Difficult to admit I'm really sick and it's
all over. After all,wasn't it only 14 days ago I managed to walk to the end of May Lane without
stopping? And then even to the jewellery quarter? Doing an edit of Thai, Nepal and India clips.
And of Rhode Island, Utah. Burning sensations lower left groin. Scan revealed nothing at all all
those years ago. The day of the insurrection. Looks like he got away with it. And to be elected
again, what the fuck is wrong with Americans!? Although Biden is too to blame – 4 years to raise
the minimum wage and to do nothing? $7 an hour? That's merely a fiver here. Shit on the people
and they shit on you.

17 11 2024

Watching TV serials of varying quality. Some seen before, but so long ago no memory of
plot lines. Watched Inglorious Barsterds again last night. Enjoyed it more once the imaginary,
farcical history abandoned. Christoph Waltz giving a dazzling performance. There was one
horrendous mistake, so bad it was obvious: both UK and America measure in miles, yet there is this
absurd scene where a map distance is measured in kilometres. What was Tarantino thinking?! If this
is deliberate there is no connection to rest of script. Redemption had some nice shots of Dublin and
surroundings, but strayed too much into 'woke' agenda. In the same minute assistant revealed she
didn't like boyfriend so she became a lesbian, and then detective discovers her grandson has a
boyfriend. Too much information, too soon. Oxen was OK. Watched Cheers this morning, my body
clock being completely out. Managed to get across road to get some food.

18 11 2024

Watched Syndrome E. last night. Must have had a big budget, they were flying all over the
place. Bit messy continuity in parts. Plot line vaguely cribbed from Japanese horror thriller. What I
did like was the 'hero' detective has conversations with his imaginary daughter (who had been killed
some years before). I have conversations with Rachael all the time, as if she is still 10, although in
reality she must be 35. There are videos of her in '98 in my front room which I still can't bear to
look at. Watched 3 episodes of Cheers this morning, introducing Woody, Coach having died.
Sobering that Colasanto was only just 61. Thought he looked much older. Sobering that that's
already nearly 40 years ago. Hoping myself to hang on 'til 70, 16 months away. Last rites to …
who's the winner? Just finished an edit of places past put to Tao's gorgeous voice.

19 11 2024
 Managed to have something resembling an ordinary night, awakening at 6.30 ish. Very
strange dream where I'm online ordering a very large graphics tablet before realising my
measurements were wrong, ordering a massive A5 (? - it filled the wall) instead of a normal A4,
before deciding I didn't need one at all. Weird or what?! Finished watching Interior, a French thriller
set in a lunatic asylum. Terrible continuity, and farcical, the detective having a sexual relationship
with the cellist, who could have done with some lessons to convincingly portray playing.

21 11 2024

Last night watched Suspect, a several part thriller. A complete mess. Only sickness enabled
me to reach the end. Uploading vids to FC2. Gives me a chance for nostalgia, many many lives
lived. Did one of Natalie in 2005 to covers of # Fields Of Gold # by Sara Niemitz and Mark Fossen.
Just put up trip to HMS Victory with Ray and Di from decades ago (now).
Checked my passport, left UK 13 11 2023 so will upload this now. Do a monthly diary from
now on. Feeling very sick.