Some opening lines for stories never to be written…

But first…
Dulltown, UK/Europe: Today’s confused film stars are: Sank Frinatra and Wohn Jayne.
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‘Look over there Mickey!’
‘At last!… That looks like the long-lost spaceship of Captain Snaith!’
‘But what the hell is that, looking out of the shattered view-port?’
‘It seems to be emerging, and it’s singing! Listen, Joey!’
‘Oh god! Look at those boss-eyes and those waving slimy green tentacles!’
‘It’s singing an Elton John song – and it’s Candle in the Wind, one of Snaith’s favourites! Look out! Look out! Oh no!…’

The lights unexpectedly came on! Alicia Moods blinked at the sight of an enormous untidy pile of shining gold ingots. She walked stealthily across and picked one of them up, gasping in surprise at its weight; her gasp echoed and bounced around the steel-lined vault; the ingot slipped through her slim fingers and landed back on the pile with a resounding metallic clunk. The lights slowly dimmed to a warm glow, they then paused, and then suddenly went out. There was then the sound of gurgling rushing water, it was accompanied by the foetid smell of old neglected sewers…

Walking across Regents Park in the summer sun Reggie Dupple felt at one with the world that day; he had a full hour away from his office in the bank. There were many people lying on the grass enjoying the rays, there was a hum of busy bees, and the laughter of distant skylarking children. As he approached a man lying prone in front of him, he noticed a wallet bulging with foreign banknotes next to the man’s shoulder. Dupple paused and was about to say something, when, and without looking up, the stranger spoke, ‘Hello Reggie,’ he said…

Dirty leaden anvil clouds decorated the deep vault of the sky; a thin ragged slash of yellow flirting with the idea of red was carefully balanced on the tops of the horizon hills; a perfect disc tangerine sun was reluctantly sinking. The black crisp silhouette of a bobbing cabin cruiser out on the lake threw a feeble green starboard light in Brad’s direction. An impish and chill gust of wind blew a few scampering autumn leaves around his well-shod feet – he smiled for a moment, and then took his ukulele out of its case…

It was the best of rhymes, it was the worst of rhymes. Seth Woomera stretched out on an old well-stained single mattress on the dirty bare floor and rubbed his shaggy head with both hands. To his left was a betting shop stub pen and a small open spiral-bound notebook, to the right the floor was littered with several screwed up discarded half-written pages. By the door, was a roughly opened airmail envelope, and in small torn pieces was Seth’s letter of acceptance for Harvard Business School. Seth yawned, stretched again, and then picked up his little pen…

You know, I think that might be Cupid…

But first…
Dulltown, UK/Europe: Today’s quotation is another nice one from Vladimir Nabokov’s 1928 novel King, Queen, Knave, which I am currently re-reading:
The table was laid for two, and a dark Westphalian ham reposed on a dish, amid a mosaic of sausage slices. Large grapes brimming with greenish light, hung over the edge of their vase. Dreyer plucked one off and tossed it in his mouth. He cast a sidelong glance at the salami but decided to wait for Martha.
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And what new madness is this!…
Come on dear reader, let us examine what we have here.
Well for a start, as I often remark to a photographer friend of mine, it’s never a good idea compositionally to have the frame divided with a horizontal feature across its middle – as I have done here. She is quite fond of having her ‘portrait oriented’, upright rectangular pictures divided by the horizon, slap bang half-way up – that sort of thing makes me uneasy, but when I mention it she says she likes it that way. For me it splits the composition into two equal halves and the viewer’s eye can’t decide which half to concentrate on, you keep bobbing between the two, and are probably put off from delving more deeply into the picture. Anyway, I have done it here with that red strip of… What is that? Plastic sheeting?
Having got the compositional issues out of the way, what else do we have?
We seem to be in a very large room with an arched roof, we have a white cherub with a bow, obviously Cupid, a strange multi-storey tiled roof birdhouse, two or three oversize mushrooms, and just peeping in, staring at us over the red thing, some beast with golden ears and an unpleasant moist-looking snout. All this behind steel mesh fencing.
I was wondering if I could tie all these things together with some sort of interesting narrative, but no, nothing has bubbled up. Perhaps I should instead come clean and explain:
We are in the Dulltown Interchange, this part is the old Victorian railway station, where the owners rent out space to a company selling flowers, plants and garden ornaments.
The picture was obviously taken on a Sunday when the business is closed, the sheeting and mesh placed there to stop passers-by, and Saturday night drunks, from pinching stuff. After a few pints of beer, who could manage to resist wobbling off home with an easy cherub under one’s arm?…

How about some TV forensics then?…

But first…
Dulltown, UK/Europe: Today’s carefully selected colours are: carburettor cream, manifold mauve, radiator russet, alternator azure, sump sienna, and petroleum puce.
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Of course, when you flick around the channels, and land on one of these things that’s just starting, and you notice that certain names have been changed because some of the people involved don’t want to be associated with a trashy TV show, and that some hired actors will be playing the non-cop characters, and that the cops will play themselves, you think that you might as well stick with it for a while, as you are confident that good will triumph in the end, and the awful perp will be seen at the end, wearing an orange jumpsuit and in tight nipping handcuffs, as he or she, is sentenced for the dastardly deed that you have just witnessed in strange lighting and jerky slow motion – and everyone will go away slightly scared, but somehow satisfied, and also impressed by the great slow grinding rusty wheels of justice. (I think dear reader, that might be the longest sentence I have ever written.)
Yes, it’s those US ‘real life’ police, forensic, scientific, drama, re-enactments that are so very popular on our TV screens. Yes, isn’t it great, sitting eating your poached egg on buttered toast watching some terrible scallywag fleeing the scene in a stolen truck (almost always a red one) pursued by overweight cops with small blinking eyes and sad serious mouths?
I only watch these things so that I can jot down some choice snatches from the voice-over and dialogue to create a sort of, for want of a better word, poem, for you dear reader:

When a neighbour dialled 911 – just an average guy, on an average day – during this time-frame word begins to spread – were drugs involved? – I was ecstatic of course! – he was pretty much a sunk puppy then – it separates the DNA – and those unusual tyre tracks! –  three blocks from the scene – a SWAT team in the house? – neighbours can get very vicious – burglarized places – a single shadowy figure – there are no coincidences! – just for the thrill of it – but no new leads – a palm print? – the guys and gals out on the street – you feel powerless – his thirst unquenched – peering in the window – it was scoured for hairs – police finally got a break – entered into the database – unrepentant – now thinking about a life behind prison bars.

 

Brownlow, the professor and the tart…

But first…
Dulltown, UK/Europe: Today’s quotation is from Vladimir Nabokov’s 1928 novel King, Queen, Knave, which I am currently re-reading:
Once again in her drawing room that fool of a painter, a languid rascal with dirty fingernails, glued his lips to her bare neck and she waited a moment to make out what she felt, and feeling nothing, struck him in the face with her elbow.
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‘Brownlow…’
‘Yes professor?’
‘What’s that thing, in your in-tray, wrapped in tissue?’
‘Eh?’
‘Is it the ancient Egyptian relic from the Cairo Museum?’
‘No sir, it’s a couple of pieces of my Aunt Cissy’s chocolate tart. I was going to have them with my…’
‘Ah, your Aunt Cissy, fine woman Brownlow! Pass me one over, don’t hog them man!’
‘Oh, alright sir.’
‘I think your Aunt Cissy might have changed her phone number recently – you don’t happen to have…’
‘Oh, er, no professor, I don’t seem to have her new one yet…’
‘My, my, this tart is particularly good… By the by, where is that little artefact from Cairo Brownlow?’
‘Oh, it’s there, by your tobacco pouch – have you identified it yet sir?’
‘Oh yes, a piece of cake.’
‘A piece of…?’
‘No man, I recognised it immediately as a practical item, a simple safety device often used when the body cavities were stitched up prior to the start of the mummification process.’
‘Oh, how very interesting.’
‘These were pretty common items, but this one is rather special… You don’t have Cissy’s mobile number then?’
‘Eh?… Oh, er, no…’
‘You see, it was a chance find when the temple was moved at the building of the Aswan High Dam in 1968 – it has an unusual single hieroglyph on it.’
‘Oh really? What is it?’
‘It depicts a musical instrument popular in the king’s court – but that’s not the only remarkable thing about this item Brownlow.’
‘No?…’
‘No, because it was so very unusual, and of course collectable, several rather good copies of it were secretly made in the 1970s…’
‘Oh?…’
‘And a number of them were sold off to unsuspecting collectors as being the genuine article – there was a terrific scandal about it back then!’
‘Goodness me!’
‘I wrote a piece for The Times on it, they consulted me, and I of course received a nice fee for my efforts.’
‘I’ll look it up online sir, what was the title of your piece?’
‘The Abu Simbel Cymbal Symbol Thimble Swindle.’
‘Could you say that again please, sir?’
‘No…’
‘Oh… It was, er, a very catchy headline professor. Was that your idea?’
‘Why yes Brownlow, it was…’
‘I though so…’
‘You don’t mind if I have that other slice of Cissy’s jolly nice tart, do you? It is very good! Slide it across here…’
‘Oh… Alright…’

This is not art. No. 43…

But first…
Dulltown, UK/Europe: Today’s giraffe is the one attempting to drive a vintage motorbike and sidecar, but having trouble using the foot-operated gears and brakes – look out, stand back, here she comes again!…
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Oh, my dear reader! What an arresting and striking piece of work this is!
An outstanding composition, both in colour and in form. Although a relatively recent creation, it has a timeless and monumental quality to it – does it hint at hard-edge painting of the mid-twentieth century? Do the radiating cracks and splinters refer to Duchamp’s Large Glass of 1923? Is this a political, and possibly an anarchic, piece?
Let us stand back for a moment and take note of the use of colour. The Stygian aggressive black running riot across the grubby spattered off-white surface, which looks reminiscent of day-old pavement snow corrupted by urban filth, with an added overlay of dirty cracked ice – do we have cause and effect depicted here? Yes, I think we have.
The pale blue, desperately trying out the role of a shadow to the strident black, and failing badly, looks too delicate, and too pleasantly sky-like, to be even present in this stark turgid drama!
The whole piece is dominated by the giant ‘X’ – is it backed by the silhouette of a capitalist tower block? It is shouting ‘No! No! Enough! Enough!’ Can you hear it dear reader? I certainly can!…
Or, is this a religious work, with the Christian Chi Rho, taking centre stage? I don’t know. Do you know? Who knows? It doesn’t matter? But let us relax for a moment, and let the work speak to us in its own language – the timeless abstract language, of rectilinear form, and bleak colour…

Yes, you see, someone, probably a drunk person on a Saturday night, had, just for fun, bashed the window of one of the Dulltown centre shops or bars (I can’t recall which it was) and on the Sunday morning the owners had been called in to make it safe using a handy roll of sticky tape. And what a nice job they made of it! I think those blue areas might be ‘glue side’ of the tape that has been applied to the inside surface of the glass.
As soon as I saw this I whipped my little camera out, and – click!

Some snatches of overheard and misheard cafe conversation…

But first…
Dulltown, UK/Europe: Today’s dictionary words are: antiphon, antimasque, anticous, antichlor, antirachitic, antitragus, and wistiti. Please have these words looked up and placed in suitable sentences ready for Professor Mouldie first thing after breakfast tomorrow morning. The professor may turn up wearing a Lincoln green outfit and rakish matching hat with a feather in it, and carrying an English longbow and quiver. You should not allow this to distract you from your studies. Any student possessing a quarterstaff should bring it along.
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‘Let’s say it in a later report Tony.’
‘Sopny, an egg, an egg – I’ll see you tomorrow!’
‘Where de-ell? Gebby parnoy?’
‘Heh heh heh heh! A blue full derby.’
‘I’ve still got a face on the wall though Pat.’
‘Egg pounds?’
‘Even E, even E, and wedding shoes!’
‘It was mackerel-wear?…’
‘It’s a standard head-street cut.’
‘No, I’m not making a line of it this morning Jeff.’
‘It was wishy-weighted, just a sample leg.’
‘It is quite clever, sucking the peel off it like that.’
‘Maurice talking – sat there – he can’t afford one weak step!’
‘It was donkey doom, but a major role!’
‘Argumont?…’
‘A popple bag?’
‘Karen! Read the one-year contract!’
‘Moon-dyke padget-form?…’
‘Hurry now, climbing fingers.’
‘It was a five-way sway.’
‘Jemmy Bubster?’
‘It was a last minute hammer Barry.’
‘A cool fan with smooth speciality hair’
‘No, not even a grape’s difference.’
…
For some information on how these lines are compiled, you could click here.

Yes, I was feeling quite well, until I…

But first…
Dulltown, UK/Europe: Today’s dance is the Bygdedans from Norway.
Come on Stella! Let’s Bygdedans round the kitchen for a while! Look out, mind that big pan of hot porridge bubbling away on the stove!…
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Do you remember that TV series, House MD, from fifteen or more years ago? It had that jolly good British actor Hugh Laurie in the title role, acting American surprisingly well. (click)
I liked it. I recall being glued to it weekly; it was well written and acted, and the plots were always surprising, oh, and the dialogue was always consistently witty (you don’t get much wit on TV these days!) and it was engaging and sometimes even shocking…
Of course when some TV thing like this is successful the company can’t seem to let go of it, and they usually drag it out for far too many episodes, well after they have used up all the best plots – what a pity that is – but they all seem to do it – yes, it always comes down to money over art.
Why am I going on about this?
Well, one of the more obscure Freeview TV channels has been showing a couple of episodes from one of the early series every day – and I’m really enjoying watching them again. (click)
The trouble is though, that when I notice in myself: the slightest sniffle, itch, ache, blemish, ear-wax noise, joint click, mad dream, hiccup, stubbed toe, guitarist’s elbow, little cough, eyelid flicker, unusual smell, wobbly knee, funny taste in the back of the mouth, writer’s cramp, sudden ankle cramp in the night, existential angst, relentless irritability, occasional clearing of the throat, shiver, wheeze, gastric tardiness, snotty nose, gurgling tubes, creaking neck, tummy butterflies, blinky watery eyes, and excessive yawning in the morning – it makes me think I’ve got some hard-to-diagnose extremely rare disease, that can only be cured at the last minute, following a long series of exhaustive and spectacularly unpleasant tests and procedures…
It was a great show though!
But I wish I had Dr House’s phone number… Hugh Laurie’s would do, at a pinch…