Life During Wartime

There are times when I can do chutzpah. There are times when my life has depended on me being able to do chutzpah. However, there is no way I can be brazen enough to return to posting and just ignore the fact that English Dreaming, English Rain has been dead for months.

I feel as if I ought to apologise and explain. I certainly feel like I ought to start pulling handwritten entries from the Moleskin into the digital realm before they become totally lost to the Southwell mound of paper. Yet the distance between ought and action can be tough to travel when illness cuts into your body and the Black Dog worries you like unprotected livestock.

Pain reduces you. Pain warps you. It crushes your spirit as it does the nasty business of crumpling and denting the body. Twisted out of shape for so long, you are often too weak to defend yourself from the Barghest growl.

It has felt like life during wartime of late, but that is no excuse not to write. There have been good days worth recording. Blessings of love and friendship that should have been caught with words. Giving up is not an option. English Dreaming, English Rain goes on and so does the verbose bastard writing it. There is even going to be backfilling. How can I not tell tales of Shadow London, Iain Sinclair’s indecipherable hand, Luke Haines and boys with dinosaurs?

English Dreaming, English Rain as an Illustrated Publication

In the last few days, many readers have asked me to post some pictures of Avignon, Musée d’Orsay and the Three Bridge Kingdom. I am afraid to say that this is not going to happen. As a writer, it is not unreasonable to expect that the focus of my primary blog is always going to be words.

Besides, photography is not my strongest area. I do not have the eye. All my good shots echo the tricks I learnt from working with and managing photographers when I was a newspaper editor. The little I know about composition and framing devices* rarely rises my pictures above the barely competent or commonplace.

While English Dreaming, English Rain as an illustrated publication is not going to happen, I have created a new blog where readers who want to see my photographic hackings will be indulged. Given the continuing need to occult certain information about my life from those that would stalk me or see some profit in making threats into manifest action, the new blog will be strictly invitation only. If you are a friend, regular reader or correspondent and want an invite, just email me at the usual address.

*Strangely, when I used be curious about Anne-Marie Forker, I saw that the photographs she was selling in galleries used the same ‘shoot through an archway/ogee or other dramatic window frame’ that I had demonstrated to her when we both used to take shots for one of her younger sister’s art projects. I guess this means that at least some of my framing devices do not suck.

Lost Entries

Between the fissure of intention and action, 208 entries of English Dreaming, English Rain can now officially be declared lost. Two Moleskines’ worth of words intended for remain unpublished. The sheer scale of missing dispatches makes me realise the vast difference between writing something and actually posting it.

Once externalised, some passages are too personal for publication. Others crumble under the urge to polish. Some stay in black on white scratching because there are times when I cannot forget the motto ‘know, will, dare and be silent’. Most often, they fail to make the jump because I leave too long between writing the review of an event in the little black book and typing it up. Whether Blade Runner live at the South Bank or pheasant curry at Rules, if they words are not posted within a couple of days, the failure of momentum makes me doubt their value.

Of all the lost entries, the ones I missed putting up most are ‘Changing the World One West Ham Fan at a Time’, ‘Pacific Highway’ and ‘Duke Vin and the Birth of Ska’. Maybe these tales of terrorist T-shirts, romance on the road to Port Macquarie and shaking hands with ska legends will have to emerge in some other form.

Boogled

Google Analytics is always fun. Aside from telling me I remain unloved in Greenland, a cult of one in Palestine, but surprisingly popular Patagonia, there is the warm glow which comes from knowing that I am widely read in Texas. Bill would be proud of me.

Of course, the biggest joy provided by Google Analytics is seeing which surreal searches have pushed people towards English Dreaming, English Rain. My favourites over the last few weeks include: ‘Michael Keaton sightings’, ‘celebrities and their Dobermans’ and ‘duck herding Essex’. However nothing quite tops ‘Kyle McLaughlin pursued by a bear’.

If my mind was not already boggling at though of Agent Cooper stumbling onto the darkness at hidden in the song Teddy Bears Picnic*, then it would definitely be boggled at some of the desperate searches for niche porn captured by analytic software. ‘Dirty pissing,’ ‘leather glove wank story’ and ‘Timotei advert girl fuck’ are probably all pretty standard things. Yet broadminded as I am, there is still surprise in finding people hit my blog looking for ‘Dame porn’, ‘wanking with ribbons’ or ‘badger sex pictures’.

David Icke and Anne-Marie Forker remain ever popular searches, though it is probably best not to interrogate some of the Boolean logic attached to their names by some researchers. There are cases with both of them where I think I need to move beyond the standard boggling and invent a new word, possibly boogled.

The biggest shocks and laughter came from those trying to answer really hard questions. ‘Is Stephen Grasso evil?’ ‘Is English jazz dead?’ ‘Where in the world is David Southwell? The chance of EDER ever being able to answer those imponderables remains slightly less than that of Southend United winning the UEFA Cup.

*Trust me, it is there. I can rumble the line: ‘If you go down to the woods today you are sure for a big surprise’ with such bear menace it makes children cry.

Searching for ‘Cockney Urine’

Google Analytics remains grand fun. The cryptic messages delivered via may have it stopped after I complained about enigmatic buggering around, but it keeps delivering both insight and amusement. There is something very gratifying about learning the average visitor from Russia spends 14 minutes and 28 seconds reading this blog.

It is also gratifying to see I am regular read by 47 of the 50 States making up the United States. I am not quite sure why the citizens of Idaho, Wyoming and North Dakota are immune to my charms, but I refuse to dwell on the puzzle. Any hint of sadness over this snub is eased by the warm tingle of knowing English Dreaming, English Rain is truly trans-national. With readers drawn from 53 countries, people stopping by from more than a 1,000 locations worldwide, tears over a trio of American laggards would be misplaced.

Among the more interesting searches casting unexpected people upon my shore so far this month are ‘what is a cult author’, ‘reptilians in British soaps’ 'lawyers for Charlie Richardson’ and ‘is Jello Biafra Jewish’. Anyone searching for ‘first class butt fuck’, ‘David Icke representative of God’ or ‘Nigella Lawson porn’ almost certainly went away disappointed. However, I would like to hope those searching for ‘Cockney Urine’, ‘Britannia Inferior’ and ‘Essexmania’ took something of value away with them.

In recent days, eight different visitors arrived at my blog after searching for my ex-fiancée Anne-Marie Forker. I am sure there will have been dissatisfied. There are few mentions in this blog of her photography or her human rights studies. Writing for me is exorcism, so they will probably be a even more disappointed when I eventually get around to using words to externalise the night I suffered a minor stroke and was left on the kitchen floor or the weekend of the dead kittens. At the time I unfairly blamed her for much of what happened. These days, I carry the guilt and blame myself. The wisdom of realising that things only happen to us if we allow them to is hard won. Pain is often the best teacher.