And Now – Here is The History Of The News

Posted on October 18, 2011 by emmacalin

I ask this question rhetorically……When did the idea of “The News” first come up. There must have been a time before “News”. I guess when cave persons (see how PC I am) were sitting round their roasted dinosaur crumb roasted twizzler, they told tales of the day’s hunting and gathering. Maybe a tribe member had met his destiny under a mammoth foot or a French-cave-lady had discovered a new way to cook lizard gizzard in a wine and shallot sauce.( I bet some Madame de cuisine has already done it). Mainly I guess they told tales of recent history. Perhaps a smooth guy turned (stony faced) to camera and smiled “And now for the Olds”.

Every day on my bus I drive out to my first pick up. I listen to BBC Radio 4. The “Today” programme brings me news and analysis of all those things that are just so important TODAY. I know that when I pick up the kids they’ll be yelling for moooosic. I really resent having to miss all the important NEWS about all those things that I hadn’t realised even existed or were possible. It’s a bit like Alcoholics Anonymous. You have to admit that you are a NEWS addict. Just imagine….the dramatic anticipatory communicatory music fades away – the grave presenter opens the bulletin and says “Today there is no news. Instead we are playing you the new recordings by Pixie Lott and Kelly Clarkson.” Bloody hell – if they are new recordings there is some news! Who produced it, who wrote the lyrics? There must be an expert somewhere to give me some informed analysis. No News…. Sheesh, they had me worried there.

Years ago there was an advertisement on TV for a product called 1001 ( They had a jingle-“A Thousand and one cleans a big big carpet for less than half a crown”. That’s about 13 pence-20 cents ). All that was before I was born – but my father used to sing it when he used the vax. He never had much in life you know. But today the numbers of one thousand to one have jingled and jangled all day on the NEWS. There has been much discussion as to whether or not the release of ONE Israeli man equates to the release of ONE THOUSAND Palestinian men. Some correspondents have kinda viewed it as a deal like buying a car -“Hey, if you’d hung in there you coulda got some alloy wheels. If you’d have toughed it out you coulda got the car for free!” I say – measure the deal in the joy it brings to all those families. Then I say- tell me what joy any slaughter has ever brought to any man. Think of the thousands who cannot return from the dead. What would you pay to rescue one of them if you could? And I’ll tell you something else. The name of the Israeli soldier who was released was known to every soul in Israel and many folk beyond that. You cannot read out a thousand names and so it is a statistic and the deal sounds like betting odds. Mankind can do better. We can. We know we can. Let’s start tonight in the homes and hearts of everyone set free this day to write a future.

And so, to the point where I meant to start my blog. I have never been to war or been a soldier. I am a hedonist saved from debauchery because I can’t afford it. I have scrimped and saved to debauch as much as possible though. This afternoon I finished Bert Carson’s book “Fourth and Forever”. I will admit that I still don’t fully understand American football. What I do understand is that Bert’s breakdown and social analysis of the whole Vietnam War and its aftermath is more succinctly portrayed here than in any lengthy book on psychology/sociology. You see – the guy was there! He was there! Just think about that and the difference it makes. One day there won’t be anyone alive who was there. To a foreigner, the Vietnam War is like a kinda watershed in American political life that seemed to me as a kid to play out like a civil war that divided the USA far more than it divided communism from capitalism. In a few paragraphs Bert clarifies the whole experience of Vets returning to a homeland with no comprehension of what their warriors had been through. Soldiers suddenly lost the bonds of comradeship that had sustained them and returned to a job at the shopping mall with flash-backs of courage and horror to be kicked up the ass by bright shiny executives for day dreaming on the job. Actually it’s amazing that so many of them just got on with it, at least in public. “Fourth and Forever” is a book about coming of age in one sense and about coming to terms in another sense. It is an inspirational story written honestly in a plain word style that Hemingway could not have faulted. While I was reading it I kept thinking of a screenplay for a film…Come on Hollywood, catch this ball and run with it.

Emma thinx: Pin a label on your enemy. Pin a name on a fellow man.

No Spare Tyre

Posted on October 17, 2011 by emmacalin

I once went on an “extended interview”. The job was as a minor official with an eminent UK cycling organisation. I arrived in a room containing about 30 people. Oh yes – we were all there for the same job. We were going to spend the day in teams working on issues and projects whilst we were monitored by important assessors. Then, a final long list was to be drawn up and over the following month or so more interviews and tests would eventually lead to the appointment of the lucky person to a job at about minimum wage. During the day we all had to give power point presentations which we had prepared at home on the subject that “Cycling is seen as a posh middle class activity.” I think they meant people with “Stand Aside” 4X4’s with bikes on the roof for kids called Tamsin and Tarquin Foreskin-Smythe. Then we had to do role plays with other applicants, analyse pages of accident statistics and discuss areas such as strategies, marketing and presentation. Smug but smooth managers moved among us mumbling holy words like “Anticipated roll-out profiles within contexts of multi-layered platforms of social interactions.” In one of my own exercises I had to plan a multi-cultural fun experience transcending stereotypical attitudes whilst heightening ecological issues. I suggested a carnival procession without hydrocarbon entitled “Chilli con carnival” featuring a flypast by the “Red Barrows” (The Red Arrows are the crack Royal Air-Force display team). Red wheelbarrows could be zoomed around by ethnically neutral persons making aeroplane noises. I thought the examiner was gonna choke. It’s been a couple of years now and it’s beginning to look as if I didn’t make the cut.

The above experience came to mind tonight as I had to solve a problem. Imagine yourself driving a bus loaded with handicapped children. The bus starts to steer a bit heavy and you know there’s a puncture. You can’t really leave the bus or wait on the carriageway when you know there will soon be toilet issues. I spot a service station which is about big enough to take 3 family cars. I attempt an heroic shunt onto the forecourt. People run for cover. The Air line is out of order. I decide to head for the bus depot and make it with the wheel rim rim intact. If only those clever assessors could have analysed my strategy development.

Emma thinx: Liberal authoritarianism -you are free to obey.

Pick And Mix

Posted on October 16, 2011 by emmacalin

Ever since the demise of Woolworth’s our world has lacked the joy of the pick n’ mix sweets display. If I were to be really pompous and OTT I could say that it represented a philosophy of opportunity, infinite choice and reward. It was the free market of anticipated pleasure. Now why is this daft old Doris in the fried egg and banana sweet display? Well, watching the “global” demonstrations against “Corporate Greed” the image of the Pick and Mix keeps flashing into my mind. Should I join the jelly baby, fruit chew and dolly mixture coalition, the Red Strawberry Brigade or should I stand up and march goose-step in black uniform with the Liquorice Jugend? The choice is mine if I can ever be certain enough to dip my scoop and pay up. We live in interesting times when the old political show is indeed like some dated summer camp concert. As a spleenager I used to love punk music – (you should see me pogo guys!). There is a lyric in the 1977 song “Anarchy in the UK” which reads “Don’t know what I want but I know how to get it.” A further line reads “Your future dream is a sharpie’s scheme.” My dictionary gives a definition of “sharpie” as a “dishonest or cunning person. Now, as a very grown up parent with a life hard lived, lusted and busted I still see the fresh anger and confused accusation of this song. The modern young generation have an itch they cannot scratch – indeed because they have jumped nothing but focused educational hoops, they have received no word for that itch. They were told the pedlar had everything in his pack for them and that they could be even richer pedlars themselves. They have no anthems, no heroes and no leaders ….YET. In troubled times the winning slogan will be simple. The leader will wear some kind of boots – style to be decided. Sandals or slippers are unlikely.

I know that I overwork the word JOY. The reason is simple. In the universe of our hearts there is so much of it and yet we allow ourselves so little. Just now and then life gives you a booster jab of joy. Today, the joy was not my own – but danced and flung itself in ecstasy from the canvases of an artist. When Gilles spotted a sign advertising an exhibition outside a house as he was driving home I expected a polite amateur show of “local” art. We wandered along this afternoon to take a look at the paintings of Sara Barnes. Let me say simply that it is a long time since I desperately wanted to write a poem. The picture below speaks so vibrantly of the defiant fragility of blooms against the sky, the hidden force of their roots feeding their cry of mortal beauty into the deaf indifference of the ocean.

Then we have a canvas of Exbury Gardens which needs no words and is a visual feast of atmosphere,light and colour.

Then an unwitting careless study of innocence, hierarchy, fascination and that peculiar English childhood of rock pool discovery. The disequilibrium of the child in green, reflects a gauche accidental view of vulnerability and mortality.(Literatti among you might wish to check out “The Shrimp and the Anemone” by L.P. Hartley which explores this theme).

And finally a picture of that transcendent quality of motion that ballet sets out to achieve. Here a dancer leaps into the space of possibility that our imagination sketches ahead of us in time.

Feel the joy in that flight! I arrived too late to buy the above picture and paintings were flying off the walls. Remember the name: Sara Barnes (artist).

Emma thinx: A pure vacuum has no choice of what it sucks in.

Lean and Mean.

Posted on October 10, 2011 by emmacalin

It’s all toppling you know. Everything we believed in and trusted lies trampled in the dirt of experience. Bloody good thing too if you ask me! Today the British nation learned that Big Ben is leaning. It’s only a small lean – but in 4,000 years it could topple. Apparently the lean of 1.5 inches is perceptible to the naked eye from Parliament Square. Well, I can tell you that my ex husband would not have been able to spot it. He used to think that a spirit level was the whisky department of the supermarket. We had shelves that looked like the doors of a gull wing Mercedes. But they did have a certain charm. Many a dinner guest asked if there had been an earthquake. The completely vertical tower of Pisa just does not have any cachet does it? My suspicion is that all of this stuff is a part of a tourist promo – “see it before it’s too late” stunt.

Then there is far more serious leaning from vertical in the actual Houses of Parliament. Now, I want you all to note that this is the first and probably the last time that I speak well of a Tory. (That is a Conservative politician). Poor old Dr Fox (Minister for Defence) is being hounded by the righteous because his mate has been bragging about “My friend the minister” and hanging about in the corridors of power. Look – the whole Power and influence thing is based on friendships, insider deals and assortative matings. The minister appears to have a loud mouthed friend who loved bigging himself up and fancies himself as a bit of a fixer. Now the righteous are all huffing and puffing. The main hound-master admitted that his own Party had taken money from this same guy to assist with “Policy Development”. OK readers – I’m gonna give you £10,000 pounds to fund a nice policy making trip. No strings attached – but let’s all be friends eh. Hypocrisy and tub thumping methinks.

Scientists at the local university are suddenly in the spotlight for asking if bees are affected by diesel fumes. The theory is that small particulates of combusted fuel disturb the function of their brains and they cannot find their way home. Almost certainly this is true. Many bus drivers who have lived their whole lives in diesel fumes cannot find their way anywhere. I still know where my home is in France and I long to be there.

And finally on the subject of leaning towers I was once in Venice and asked a guide why the Campanile had fallen down in 1902.
“I don’ta know – ma – no worry – we make again esattemente the same – no deefference.” Might be one to watch. If leaning structures are your thing check out Fred Dibnah.

Emma thinx: Power accepts no friendship. No friendship accepts Power.

Offside Default Swap – Simple!

Posted on October 8, 2011 by emmacalin

Since I am supposed to be a writer of books I really ought to say something on the subject now and then. Writers can be some of the world’s least interesting people since they sit writing – often with quite a grumpy and taciturn manner. When I was in my poetic mode I did a fair bit of wistful wandering. Then I would have a couple of drinks and forget what I had thought. Poets like me can be quite up themselves to be honest. However, in my guise as Laureate of the virtual supermarket shelf I am experiencing a few moments of glory this weekend. My book “Knockout” is at No.2 in the Kindle Interpol section and at No.28 in both the Romantic Adventure and Adult Romance tables. This is astonishing to me. My short story “Sub-Prime” is at No.2 in the “Workers Rights” section and at No.6 in the “Working Class” section. Come on now my dear dear readers – lash out that 99 cents/86 pence and make a middle aged bus driver feel like a No.1 best seller. Thanks in advance guys – I knew we could make it together.

Dear Oh dear on the economy stuff. Seemingly we are all doomed. The market tail is throwing the dog off balance. The politicos will not do as they are told and guarantee to bail out infinite debt.(As soon as you pay some off they increase the interest rate and want more). I actually heard a City guy moaning that politicians are too aware of the voters and tax payers. The solution is simple. Get rid of the politicians and democracy and have free elections for bankers, traders, spivs and gangsters instead. It looks increasingly to me that the big players have nearly jockeyed themselves into a position where their hedges/ default swaps et al will clean up the plate and it will be advantageous to crash the show. Governments will then pour liquidity into the sieve and the well placed hands will catch it. I wish all the free marketeers good fortune and merely comment that the rule of Law and the universal acceptance of property rights will only ever be maintained by the State. Be careful how much you crash. Barbed wire might be a good investment.

Since I have been working more or less full time I have not been able to read as much as I would like. I am still with Bert Carson’s “Fourth and Forever”. I’m enjoying the read but cannot quite grasp the rules of American Football. In soccer I’m afraid that the offside rule is even more baffling than most items on the financial derivatives market. Wouldn’t you worry about a best selling romantic old trollop who could run the line with a flag and deal you a forward rate agreement?

Emma thinx: If the markets are free why do they enslave us?

Brown Eyes To Turn France Red.

Posted on October 6, 2011 by emmacalin

I wait at the end of a block of lock up garages. The usual lad is not there. Above us is a concrete village in the sky of about 8 storeys. I watch a woman of close to my own age dragging herself on crutches down some steps towards me. She hauls herself breathlessly up to my window. I notice she has two lip rings.

“Ee’s not comin’ today – ee’s got an ‘eadache. I would ‘ave phoned but me credit’s gone,” she says.

I thank her and reverse the bus as she struggles back up the concrete steps to the sky village. The radio plays “It’s all about tonight” by a young electro-warblesse called Pixie Lott. The pumped out pop culture kinda overlays the grey inarticulate desperation of so many lives. This is the way we are – a proletariat of tinsel, piercings and tattoos, climbing the stairs of manipulated individualism towards a nirvana of that lottery win, that Friday night out, that romance like what they does in them trash books.

Well, that cheered you all up didn’t it. My home seems far away this week as I watch the fallen leaves begin to swirl more and more in the Autumn gusts. In France the socialists slug it out to see who will challenge Sarko for the presidency. The departure of DSK from the picture threw everything into disorder. Last night I watched Martine Aubry speaking on the French News. From the distance of the UK I find myself warming to her. She may or may not have had a few problems in the past (it is a job to tell when there are so many dirty tricks). But, if she has had a few issues then she knows about struggle and humanity. She answers questions patiently and has an air of being a neighbour to whom you could chat. She also has kind eyes. Martine – I would vote for you if I had a vote. As it is I’ll just tell Gilles to vote for you. The poor old boy slogs up and down to London directing his branch of the corporate world. He wants to go home. I’m gonna cook him some moules tonight. A couple of weeks ago he saw a rabbit running across the sports field. He glanced at me with a grin. I know what he was thinking. Oh yes I do!

Everyday is a school day. This morning I learned about a style of architecture called “Brutalism”. Essentially it means that 60’s concrete slab style. When I was young it was thought to be modern and artistic. There’s a big debate over whether or not to demolish Preston Bus Station. There’s some folk who want to keep it as a monument. I can see both sides to this. Speaking as a bus driver it looks as if there is plenty of shunt room. Take a look at the picture and let me know. Comments from fellow bus drivers very welcome.

Emma thinx: Room to manoeuvre – get your guy to tidy the lounge.

That curtain smile

Posted on October 3, 2011 by emmacalin

From the genteel parks and terraces of Leamington to the cab of my bus this morning. “Ee’s doin’ is teef.” Came the voice from the 23rd floor. Regular readers will know that this is the standard response when I call to pick up a particularly time challenged student. “Could ee do is teef before the bus comes?” I reply.

“Wah? We dunno when you’re gonna be ‘ere?”

“Get ‘im ta do is teef when ee gets up.” I reply in dialect

“Ee does – ee gets straight aht a bed and does ‘is teef.”

I wonder if I’ll ever meet the voice from floor 23. I suspect she has a hard life up there. At least the dental hygiene should be OK.

I’m never really sure how to feel about animals. I always keep in mind how much I enjoy eating quite a few of them. I know that as a Romantic novelist I should be a cat and dog lover with at least a frilly poodle called fartio. I can never quite get over the knowledge that cats torture little birds. Dogs on the other hand roll in dung and lick their own and other dogs’ bottoms before moving on to your face. Both species can be infected with parasitic worms that cause severe illness and blindness in children who are apt to pick up cat and dog faeces. If this kinda stuff worries you check out Toxocariasis here. I only mention this because a friend’s daughter lost her vision on account of this problem. I suppose that my attitude to animals is unsentimental, practical and culinary.

All the same, I can see the charm of dogs. In the yard where the buses sleep there is a rag-bag of sheds, grease pits, vehicle repairers and various oily humans who appear to have been absorbed in an osmotic process by their overalls. All sorts of welding, car cutting, foreign tongues, hammering, revving engines, paint spraying and diesel smoke merge to form a synthesis of something I call Fumanity. I adore the place. In amongst this mechanical stew lives Alf – the workshop dog. He is a terrier and looks like he is a kinda mobile wiping rag. So many lubricated hands pat him that he has taken on the colour of sump oil. He kinda growls out with lop-sided white teeth through an axle grease beard. Most of the time he runs about with an old football begging for anyone to kick it for him to chase. Then he dives under or into trucks, bins, piles of scrap, greasing pits or buses to retrieve it. He also attacks any kind of water hose – the water just beads off the grease. If anyone wants me to investigate the full story of Alf please let me know. I believe he has lived there for many years.

Just as an aside I must admit that since I have been back on the buses, grinding out a working life, all that romance fiction seems wonderful, yet for me un-writeable. I just can’t imagine swooning in the arms of a billionaire hunk. I dream of traffic and hooting road- ragers. If a spillionaire (saturated with uncountable wealth) hunk cut me up in his Ferrari I’d probably smack his smug orthodontically perfect gob.

Emma thinx: Do it doggy fashion. Collar him and take the lead.

Graffiti On The Wall Of Time

Posted on October 2, 2011 by emmacalin

In something of a departure from my normal rantings, today there will be rather more photos than words. We have just arrived back from the Midlands having spent the night in Royal Leamington Spa. This is a lovely town which grew prosperous as a spa where the wealthy came to take the medicinal waters. Judging from the crowds of youngsters in the park in the hot sunshine (29degrees C – that’s 84 F), the waters have turned to beer and cider. Wow – once the world gets to know this the town is gonna boom. I must say that what impressed me was the huge cosmopolitan diversity of good natured folk – the boozers, snoozers, cruisers, rowers, throwers, snoggers, sloggers and bloggers all getting along. If we could get rid of all the nonsense (tribe,religion,social class) of this world and just let all folk live with enough beauty and dignity we’d crack it wouldn’t we. SO WHY DON’T WE? For a couple of magic hours I kinda saw a bit of a vision of hope in Jephson Park.

But, comrades – the park had to be there. And it is there because of public funding. In the short term you could save a fortune by closing it down. I bet there are grey gutted bean counters who could tell you to the cent. The park was constructed originally for the wealthy visitors – but the poor were allowed in between 7 and 10am. After that you had to pay. Since then municipal (public) funding has opened the show to one and all.

Various monuments around the park attest to the philanthropy of various men who probably sought (perhaps egotistically) a form of immortality. Well guys, you have lived on far as me and I’m sure as far as all the folk basking in the Autumn joy. Edward Willes, Henry Jephson, Dr Hitchman and Alderman Davis you boys all done good – and you’re still doing it. Also my sincere thanks to the Warwickshire District council for funding the facility. I guess you guys are under pressure but as long as folk have souls and hopes, you should never take the short term view.

As I write the crows are calling out their names and scribbling their graffiti tags on the wall of time. They write a heritage on each dying moment of future. Chance has brought me for a short while to hear them. Yes – there is joy. Yes there is!

Emma thinx: Go to the park. Ask why?

Great Rooks From Little Acorns Grow.

Posted on September 30, 2011 by emmacalin

Near to my temporary home here in the valley of the River Test there are three oak trees. Two of them contain colonies of rooks while the other is a kind of neutral uninhabited territory between the two tribes. Living here I am able to indulge my love of crows. I am certain that they are at least as bright as I am. As far as I can tell the two trees contain two separate tribes. When I put food out on the lawn one tribe or the other make the first raucous swoop. When the other lot appear they peck at one another rather than the food. At the first hint of risk they all fly off – all except one hero whom I have named “Hook-Beak”. At first Gilles thought I was talking about him because he does have a rather Gallic snoz. Hook-Beak kinda wanders round all the various shamozzles with his hands behind his back. As others flap and squabble, he eats. He looks like a retired old crow who never made it to the government but never got defeated either. If I can get an interview with him I’ll post it on here. It’ll be Frost and Nixon with feathers. First question will be if he has any ideas for peace in the Middle East

Today the guys are feeding on acorns. They edge out carefully like old time sailors in the rigging. Then they harvest the acorn neatly and fly off with their prize. On this beautiful autumn morning I am alive and able to sit at my window and share in their endeavour. I lead a very privileged life. I’ve been trying to get a photo of Hook-Beak but I can’t get close enough.

Friday is a relatively easy day on the bus. My biggest problem is getting the dear little souls out of their front doors. At the tower block today I pressed the intercom and spoke to a lady. “Ee won’t be long Love – Ee’s doin’ ‘is teef.” She advised me. Now, since he lives on the 23rd floor and has to take a lift (if it works) it means at least a five minute wait. If 14 kids all make me wait 5 minutes I’m gonna run at least an hour late since the schedule assumes that I suck the students onto the bus with a Star Trek tractor beam without stopping. When I hear executives talking about stress I wonder if they know what life is like on the bottom. Saturday tomorrow – joy joy joy – I won’t have to get up at 6.am.

I see the Saudi lady driver is now not to be whipped. I knew that once the king read my views he would change his mind.

Emma thinx: A stitch in time saves some smug bastard from telling you so.