Stanley's Cover Girls

Memories of my first day at Punch as library assistant are a series of impressions, like the first day at kindergarten. I was introduced to Stanley Reynolds after lunch, during a visit to the editorial floor. He'd been made Charivari editor in a recent reshuffle, which he didn't seem entirely happy about--but the occasion was all a bit of a blur and the thing I remember most is Stanley swaying around quite a bit as he held forth. At that stage I was still trying to put names to faces generally and was somewhat shy--in fact desperate to scuttle back to the library and hide behind the mammoth typewriter on my desk and try and look as if I knew what I was doing.

A week or so later Stanley came into the library to check me out further. He began by asking what books/writers I liked with that relentless Gatling gun delivery of his. A bit at a loss, staring into the depths of the filing cabinet drawer and half wishing it would swallow me up, I replied, 'Well, I like Shakespeare an awful lot--I guess because he's kind of cosmic'. 'Cosmic?!' Stanley spat out the word as only he could. I never really heard him swear much to be honest. As Punch's literary editor for most of the eighties, Stanley's book review section (indexed under the fusty title of 'criticism') was a cornucopia of engaging delights. He also had charisma in spades and any other card suit you care to mention. I recall a passing handyman (who had been fixing something on the editorial floor which Stanley may have broken) asking me, 'Who is that guy with the American accent, is he famous?' 

Stanley had been hired by Punch editor William Davis in the early seventies and was billed as 'the funniest man in England' or words to that effect. In the library, there were various mug shots of Punch staffers grouped together in frames. Stanley was rather proud of his photo, he thought it made him look like Peter Lawford (half of his face in shadow--very noir). 
He wasn't in the same frame as Miles Kington, who had joined Punch a decade earlier and shone out from his like a Botticelli angel surrounded by provincial bank managers. Years later, I came across a foolscap folder of MK correspondence including a letter from Stanley from the mid seventies--a very rambling letter scrawled in slightly fuzzy magenta felt tip. Miles had commissioned a piece from him, but Stan hadn't yet got round to doing it, his excuse being the domestic chaos at home, something to do with dead leaves blocking drains and all kinds of mishaps, one thing leading another and a sheer delight to read and yes, very funny. I placed it in Stanley's biographical archive file (which was somewhat thin) along with the 'Stop Thief!!!!!' handwritten note he left inside a copy of the Bookseller shortly after his departure as acting editor. 'What happened to Punch? I used to see it every week' was his parting shot. This file is now in the British Library along with the rest of the manuscript archive.

Anyway, to recap a bit--by September 1988, things were unravelling at Punch--the managerial suits had muscled in and there were concerns about circulation, advertising sales and the magazine's appeal to the right demographic. The editor David Taylor was summarily dispatched after a reign similar in length to poor Lady Jane Grey's. Taylor's deputy, Russell Davies didn't hang around for long and went back to the BBC, so it was up to Stanley to step up to the plate. With Cap'n Stan in charge, the covers got a radical makeover and a full page of short cartoon strips was introduced. The latter probably Michael Heath's idea (Heath and Stan very much a double act during this time.)
Below is the cover of Stanley's Almanack, the Punch end of year double issue. Yes, a cover with cleavage. Something of a style departure from the beginning of the year, when the new look Punch (re-launched in a dentist's waiting room) featured cover caricatures of Raisa Gorbachev and later Mrs Thatcher as an NHS mummy covered in bandages. The photo of Koo Stark is by Stanley's photographer pal, Bob Carlos Clarke. 

Stanley's Punch Almanack, Dec 1988. The suits liked the cover, I wonder why?

I'm rather fond of this issue, as nestling inside the back pages is my review of a now obsolete Chinese restaurant in Hove. No byline, but the cost of the meal was reimbursed when you sent in the receipt. Stanley seemed quite hungry for these ad-hoc reviews (no doubt handy page fillers, easy to slot in alongside classified ads) and soon everyone was having a go and I thought well, why not? So I screwed my courage to that sticking place and took my hastily typed review to his bat cave of a room where the only light source seemed to be a desk lamp, like something from a dental surgery, glaring over the keys of his bashed-up typewriter. He turned out to be delighted, like a dog with a juicy bone and my feeble copy was duly fed into his portable to be subbed--plenty to chew over. The title I had given it, 'Peking Order' earned me a growl and one of those looks, but it stayed, along with the mention of the sexy lingerie shop next door, a rather unnecessary detail. I think Stanley was a bit of a title maniac, so I am chuffed he didn't change it.

Below is another Stanley cover from January 1989 (Farewell my Bimbo!?) which makes use of yet another Bob Carlos Clarke glamour pic. Nice use of lipstick colours in the type and the trashy script over a stark black and white image. The naked blonde waif, fragile but feisty, staring out at us from from that louche era of smugly entrenched sexism and bulging filofaxes, almost makes you want to dial social services on her behalf. It is a particular favourite of mine and I love her discreet Mr Punch tattoo. 
On the cover there is also the mention of Thatcher's satanic railways.  Yes, not only was there the hazard of being late for work using public transport in those days, but also the likelihood of risking life and limb. Not sure what the handful of loyal subscribers (mostly retired accountants) thought of the rest of the content and whether they would have found the 'bimbo or slag?' guide as informative as those high court judges being educated about 'Felix the Cat' and 'Russian boots' in George Morrow's 1920's cartoon.

The Bimbo cover: Ms London or Girl About Town gone off the rails.

I attended Stanley's last lunch as editor (Jan 27th, 1989). I think Hunter Davies was there too, but he 'beatled off' early. Things got interesting after the cheese and biscuits--but my lips are sealed--what happens at a Punch lunch stays at the lunch. After Stanley left the Tudor Street office, it really felt like the end. Punch continued for three more years before being axed by United Newspapers in 1992, seven months after the magazine's 150th anniversary.


(Thanks to Andre Gailani of Punch Cartoon Library for the png of the Bimbo cover)

The Mysterious Ursula

Ursula appears in a memoir published by her brother in law in 1988, called 'The Monument'. I read the paperback brought out the following year by Cardinal. In those days there was no internet, blogs or Twitter but in the circumscribed world of literary review magazines and Sunday broadsheets, it still caused something of a stir, or should that be a rustle?
Tim Behrens, the author, was a graduate of the Slade School of Art in the fifties and knew Lucien Freud and other artists and poets linked to the fast fading era of Fitzrovia. In the mid 1960's his younger brother Justin, at sixteen years of age and still cramming for his 'A' levels, became involved with a mysterious (married) blonde called Ursula (ten years his senior) and the book is about their life together and inevitably, their death. 
The book tries its best to lay bare their relationship, but the couple remain enigmas throughout. There is an awful lot of speculation and 'phone a friend' kind of opinion kicked around. Justin and Ursula lived abroad mostly and travelled to obscure places. The sort of places in the Middle East and Africa which now are so war torn or completely closed off to foreigners, it just wouldn't be feasible to contemplate travelling there, unless you were part of a UN aid convoy or similar. They created their own elevated version of a hippy trail--and it included renting a rather nice third floor bolthole in the Trastevere district of Rome for a few months of cultural respite after driving down dust tracks in remote tribal regions. Behrens wrote the book as a tribute to his late brother, but it is Ursula who emerges as the dominant personality or star. Somehow it is her we want to know more about.

My pencil portrait of Ursula from a photograph

Ursula is a mystery because her back story has never really been verified and she may have liked it that way. We are also told she had a joke spy's accent. Hungarian by birth (though her maiden name is never revealed) she came to the West a few months after the uprising in October 1956. Her escape on foot that winter to Austria, aged about 18, with a young acolyte in tow (who changed his mind and decided to return home) does sound highly romantic, this is ramped up by the fact that she had no passport or travel documents, only a slim volume of TS Eliot's 'The Wasteland' in her coat pocket. This so impressed the First Secretary at the British Embassy in Vienna that he practically granted her refugee status on the spot (if we are to believe the legend.) She may have been shot at by border guards as well--but there is also another version. In Brian Sewell's recent memoir he states that her escape almost ended in failure, namely if it hadn't been for an obscure shambling accomplice called George, who scooped her up from the snow (where she'd been nicked by a bullet, presumably) and hauled her over the line, this extraordinary love story might not have blossomed at all.

In Sewell's opinion, George, Ursula's rescuer, was rather 'uncouth' and her complete opposite, but they both 'came knocking' on the door of the Courtauld Institute of Art together, so one wonders at the connection between them. Ursula is a sure fire hit with her blonde beauty, well-read sophistication and cultural savvy and charms everyone (except Sewell of course.) There is a student whip-round in support of the refugees and the odd couple are accommodated at the august institute, no exams necessary. George later fades from the narrative, the only other mention is a flood at his lodgings after his bath overflows, which puts one in mind of another refugee of the period, Paddington Bear. 
According to Behrens, Ursula becomes Anthony Blunt's star pupil but ends up by disappointing him. He badly wanted her to become an academic, but she chose art dealing instead--a business that requires a hawker's flair, encouraging clients to overlook a ropey provenance and make them believe they have acquired something of inestimable value. Ursula's first husband states 'she could have been a great Byzantinist'. Sewell rubbishes this idea of Ursula being a favourite of Blunt (perhaps jealousy?) Anyway, one gets the impression she had a sharp tongue and gave the waspish one a taste of his own medicine.

Ursula marries a mature fellow student, Kenelm Digby-Jones, who already has a foot in the door at Sotheby's. She becomes a close confidant of Bruce Chatwin. One wonders if she got round to reading 'In Patagonia' fifteen years down the line, when her only outlet was her writing? There is no mention. They go dancing together at some boite on the Left Bank in Paris, Chatwin wearing a live snake accessory. Ursula is popular and has many friends and also lovers. Another close friend called Max gives her a special gift, a lethal dose of barbiturates, expensively wrapped, which she carries around in her handbag. Max's chic flat, which is described like something from a sixties Lambert and Butler advertisement, soon comes in useful. Needless to say her new hubby is kept out of the loop. One would like to know more about Ursula during this 'party' period because once she meets up with her fate (so to speak) there is a sense that doors are softly, but firmly closing, one by one.

Justin's father, Michael Behrens, is a rich businessman, one-time co-owner of the fabled Ionian Bank, an art enthusiast/collector and something of a philanderer (judging by Elizabeth Jane Howard's memoir.) He purchases some antique cupboards from Ursula's husband and they become friends and the couple are invited to visit his impressive 18th century house by the Thames. Justin, like any sixteen year old, hasn't decided what to do and he's a bit of a dare devil and not terribly academic. Justin and Ursula's first meeting is written up as an example of coup de foudre. Ursula then tries her best to brush him off, but the young man is persistent. She sensibly goes abroad with her husband on some art dealing trip, but Justin is on her trail and it seems, nothing will put him off.

Eventually, she caves in--Justin has won. Perhaps the idea is just too irresistible. Anyway, this is the sixties when it was the thing to 'drop out' and 'do your thing'. Perhaps Ursula had become tired of the narrow art dealing world and the limitations of her marriage, which did seem rather like a business arrangement. Justin offered her something different. A romantic elopement is another kind of escape. First stop is Egypt and a love nest in Thebes with a view of the Colossi of Memnon over the garden wall. Eventually cushioned by a modest trust fund provided by Justin's father, they set off on their travels. 

Tim Behrens' book then launches into a list of all the exotic places listed in Ursula's journals. She is very much in charge of the itinerary. In a way, one longs for the name of Basingstoke to appear between Isfahan, Benares, Hyderabad, Goa, Adjanta, Peshawar and Herat etc. It all sounds like some exclusively tailored Kuoni style trip tacked onto a hippy grand tour and these remote places mean little to most people. It also seems to be getting to Ursula, she wakes up in the middle of the night in Chunar, India, thinking she's in Burgundy, alas not Basingstoke--because of the distinct rustle of fallen leaves. There is also a mention of a house in Burgundy which must be a reference to her first marriage, so I wonder if this is also the rustle of regret?
There are quotes from her diaries about snake charmers, pathetic street orphans and stray animals inter-cut with her own death wish musings such as 'I wouldn't mind drowning here' or 'five more years would do me very well'. One wonders if she's bored. Classic authors (like Tolstoy) are read en route and mod cons are always out of reach. Justin seems to do all the grunt work, most of the driving and dealing with the petty logistics of their extended ramble. There is one telling incident, in Mexico or Puerto Angel to be precise, on the Pacific coast, when he falls from a very tall palm tree, in his eagerness to pluck a coconut for her. They buy some land on a remote headland in Greece (Nysi) and build a house. At the same time the flat in Rome is acquired and they attend evening concerts in the nearby churches--it's all starting to sound a bit like a retirement plan. 
Children, a family--is not part of this plan--they are the perfect couple-the two halves of a whole--one. Both of them experienced solitary, vaguely unhappy childhoods. Ursula's father is described as both domineering and remote while Justin's sounds like some benevolent tyrant ruling the roost. Both Justin and Ursula were sent away to school at an early age.

They both write, but neither of them get round to having anything published. Behrens quotes extensively from Justin's works (a mix of fiction and memoir) but we just get a scant outline of Ursula's offerings. After her death, Justin pens a lengthy paean to her. It bears the title of 'Style--which makes one think 'style over substance', unfortunately. There is an unfinished novel of Ursula's entitled 'The Monument' which is set in the Sudan and may be some kind of m/m re-working of the themes in Ruth Prawler Jhabvala's 'Heat and Dust' (Ursula praises this book in her journals, but Behrens is somewhat lazy at not realising the connection.) After Ursula's death, Justin gets the idea of sending the manuscript of 'Style' to Graham Greene and the elderly author is kind and gives it a lot of praise, commending some of Ursula's short stories, included in the text. It seems an unusual work, and probably rambles an awful lot and to date has not been published. 

Tim Behrens takes Ursula's novel title for his own book and gives us heavily edited excerpts from the couple's manuscripts and diaries. Everything they write has a coded 'roman a clef' air to it and loaded with autobiographical significance. They cannot escape from themselves. Everything they do is imbued with the old fashioned spirit of the dilletante. Ursula reads, sunbathes and swims a lot, while Justin submits poetry to 'The London Magazine'. The poems are rejected and he is told by his brother to give it another go, but Justin just dismisses the whole literary scene as being too trivial and not worth the bother. Shortly after Ursula's death, the volcanic rock on which she used to sunbathe (in Greece) breaks up and disappears under the waves like some mini Atlantis.
One wonders if Ursula cared about her writing enough to want to see it in print. She keeps a journal right up to the bitter end, when she is contemplating suicide in Nyala (Western Darfur)-- pitiless thorn country. She is living alone--in the sort of dwelling that isn't quite a primitive hut, but probably as far removed in the imagination from the old house in Burgundy she dreamed about all those years ago. She has split from Justin and has been pursuing a relationship, or rather--she has made herself sexually available to a local chief of police, called Ali. 
It seems she has decided on her fate. She feels too old at 42 and some sort of nihilistic sex/death scenario will be her final creative act. Justin has been pushed away. Perhaps she feels guilty about not ever wanting children or perhaps this younger man was both her lover/life-partner and child and she does not want him drawn into her death. Justin has become a handsome, self-possessed man in his early thirties with everything to look forward to, while her looks (and prospects) are deteriorating fast. She has become weary of life, troubled by niggling back pain from an old injury. This situation is too un-stylish for words and death is the only solution. This part of the story and Justin's reaction to her suicide etc, make grim reading. It is also the best-written section of the book. One can't help but think that Justin was collateral damage, somehow. Anyway, I'd urge anyone to read the book for themselves and come to their own conclusion. It is a very honest, moving account and took a lot of guts to write.

On the back cover of the paperback edition of 'The Monument' there is a quote from 'The London Review of Books' which states that the book is 'a cult in the making'. This piqued my curiosity, so I tracked down the original review in the magazine archive. It is written by Karl Miller, the editor of the magazine and starts off by trashing the bohemian pretensions of the monied Chelsea set in the late fifties and early sixties and presumably, though his preamble is difficult to follow--he thinks Justin and Ursula are in some way by-products of this particular set. After reading the book, I don't think they were members of any set except one uniquely their own, barred to all others, but there you go. 

Mr Miller seems very taken with Ursula, though some of his comments about her journal entries are rather mocking and insouciant in tone. One wonders what he would have made of her if he'd met her in person. Perhaps despite his misgivings, he may have been charmed like the fathers of some her fellow students at the Courtauld. According to Behrens she was a gifted conversationalist and a good listener. One wonders if, given the opportunity, she might have made a decent talking head on a late night cultural night slot on BBC2, or perhaps the accent might have hampered her, one will never know--because in her day if you didn't sound like Joan Bakewell, it probably wasn't on.
In his book, Behrens mentions his aunt, the distinguished historian CBA Behrens, commenting in a letter, that Ursula was 'straight out of Lermontov' a reference to Pechorin in 'A Hero of Our Time'. Karl Miller is much taken with this idea and picks up and runs with it--or rather, it is an excuse for a very prolonged ramble on the subject of the superfluous hero and you feel that Ursula is gradually slipping away from us. Ursula never mentioned Lermontov at all, which is curious, as she seems to have read an awful lot of Russian novels.* Sometimes it is dangerous to assume a living person is a character from a novel. I once suggested a friend was exactly like Dorothea in 'Middlemarch'. My friend had never read the book but still didn't speak to me for days, as she felt I was being presumptuous, which I probably was--but I was young.
Justin and Ursula's carefully crafted and considered lifestyle kind of sets itself up for parody and Mr Miller cannot resist. At one point he calls them 'Morecombe and Wise' which seems a bit broad. Anyway, I will give the full context for that quote on the back cover, which was surgically excised as a snippet of critical praise by Cardinal: 

'Waiting in the wings is a book by him about Ursula, entitled Style, which, according to Graham Greene, who was sent the manuscript, might be edited for publication. There may be a cult in the making--and one could imagine a film by Antonioni, whose scriptwriter, Mark Peploe was much intrigued by J. Behrens in his last days.'

So this 'cult in the making' is not exactly Behrens' book per se, but Justin's work, the mysterious manuscript kept under wraps, badly in need of editing. Karl Miller also vents some frustration at the way Behren's own account is written, saying it is like being shown a series of snaps from a family photo album.

'The Monument' is not illustrated (though I hasten to add I have never laid eyes on the hard-back version.) The cover of the Cardinal paperback has an illustrator's interpretation of a Rodin sculpture--a naked man kneeling before a naked woman, kissing her breast--a nicely judged example of high art with a dash of the sensual. Behrens describes Ursula's appearance and character in a very abstract, painterly way ('a heraldic animal or an Afghan hound' saying she also has the attributes of a clown, namely 'the compulsion to amuse while inwardly crumbling away with a generalised and inherited melancholy'.) Of course, the long blonde hair, which merges with the collar of her equally blonde mink coat, is the first thing to be mentioned, along with her huge pale blue eyes and pointy little teeth. Karl Miller seems to have inveigled or scrounged a photograph of Ursula from somewhere. I'm not sure whether it was taken by Justin--(he took many portrait studies of Ursula which his brother describes as vaguely enervating and somewhat depressing images.)
The black and white photo does not accompany the article but is slapped on the cover of the May 9th issue of the LRB. So Ursula is top trumps, you could say. I have sketched a copy (see above). I have tried to capture  her vaguely amused expression, but it is difficult to get exactly right. In my pencil version she appears more ethereal and remote, while in the photo there is a fleeting glimpse of something more down to earth, an appreciation of the quirks and absurdities of life--did she always take herself so seriously? One wonders. 
She is gazing to her right, almost over her shoulder, as if her attention has been caught by something. There is an awful lot of white in those wide eyes and it was tricky to get the correct shading. It reminds me of a glance from some 17th century painting, perhaps by Georges de la Tour, entitled 'The Girl and the Card Sharp' but that painting probably doesn't exist. Her neck looks pretty solid, by the way and I did wonder if it was the first thing to go, when she was worrying about her looks. I took care to render the silky blonde hair and I can clearly see the haughty 'Afghan hound' image. 
I kind of wanted to write about Ursula in a fiction piece--use her as a prototype of sorts. Then I realised I already had, in a story entitled 'Kensington Gore', about a classy lady vampire (the 'v' word is never mentioned) with a designer shoe fixation, who goes about her business with an air of existential ennui. Funnily enough, in his memoir, Brian Sewell tries to sum up Ursula and fails somewhat, labelling her a vampire in a throwaway kind of way (a convenient stereotype, no doubt.) Perhaps he noticed those pointy little teeth also--but one suspects he couldn't resist just being rude. Ursula does come across as a throwback who might have been happier living in a different age. I recently submitted my story to 'The London Magazine' so that's a nice twist of fate.

I don't know what to make of Justin and Ursula as a couple, except as some pure exhalation of the sixties zeitgeist minus the drugs. Perhaps they saw themselves as uber-hippies, the epitome of 'the beautiful people' many wanted to be. Ursula's (understandably disgruntled) first husband tells Behrens in the book that 'they didn't really do anything, so why bother to write about them?' Justin and Ursula would probably lose points today for their childless existence and lack of a proper job, no doubt. The only legacy is a plethora of notes, journals and manuscripts, still awaiting editing. Tim Behrens' book is the phoenix rising from the ashes, unfolding the story of an idyll that cannot last. 'Et in Arcadia Ego.'

*One feels that reading was another escape for Ursula from an early age. She was an only child and her parents did not get on. Her father's family were from Russia and her mother Italian (a Botticelli blonde) from the Veneto. Tolstoy and Gorki seem to be particular favourites of hers. Another free spirit who escaped from behind the iron curtain, taking an impulsive leap to freedom in 1961 (they were in fact born the same year) is given this accolade in her journals:
'London, November 1973. Nureyev's Nutcracker is Tolstoian. Every possible subconscious motive is cleverly exploited. Very impressive the way he hobbles, the way his face moves and is transformed by movement.'

The Bat Man Cometh

Batman has arrived in Brighton. Or rather, the Dark Knight, the 21st century version--or rather just one of 25 costumes used in the Christopher Nolan film franchise. Yes, because Batman himself does not really exist, he is an empty costume after all, to be filled by various actors. This one has been worn by Christian Bale and it looks as if CB is rather tall (for an actor--well, much taller than Tom Cruise--and when I'm saying it looks tall, I am taking the plinth into account.) Very like a suit of Tudor armour wrought by Pirelli combined with with the latest hi-tech wetsuit. The label states that it was designed by Christopher Nolan and a woman costume designer (sorry, must look up the name) and had a whole team of people working on it--well, not unlike a couturier's atelier in fact.

The Bat Suit--close up (thanks to SK for the photo :) 

Anyway, at last we have something interesting to look at in the Costume Gallery at Brighton Museum. Yes, Prinny's xx-large cambric knickers have been cleared out of the glass box in order to accommodate it. The exhibit does look very impressive indeed, as you approach the gallery from the Prints and Drawings section. A much-needed oasis of selfie heaven for visitors. While we were there, my husband was asked to take some pics on behalf of some middle-aged women who were both armed with heavy duty digital SLRs. The glass of Batman's box is already liberally smeared with the patina of adoring fans, etc. Quite tricky to photograph because of the glare/reflections from all those annoying info-mation screens dotted about the gallery. I had the same problem when I tried to photograph Benedict Cumberbatch's 'Sherlock' coat in the  Museum of London. Just as well this Batman costume has no connection with Cumberbatch, btw--or this exhibit would have been besieged by Cumberbitches and no doubt the glass would have been smashed and Batman's neoprene codpiece stolen, etc. But thankfully, Mr Bale doesn't quite have the same fan base.  

I recommend the side views. This Batman has a lovely cloak, which looks like velvet to me. Apparently, they had to make various different cloaks suitable for the action scenes. I'm guessing this one must be for the close-up shots. Indeed, the cloak made me think of Rotbart from 'Swan Lake' as the ears of the bat mask are similar to the owl aspect of Rotbart's costume. Then, looking at the way the cloak was draped I fleetingly thought of Dracula and then of course the way Rudolf Nureyev would have used that cloak. Rudi was the master of cloak manipulation--just watch him approaching the balcony in 'Romeo and Juliet' or as Albrecht in the final scene of 'Giselle'--in his hands the cloak becomes an animated thing, a being all it's own, a flame of passion, a tattered flag of romantic despair or a bleak column of mourning.

Back to Batman. He is a welcome addition, temporary though he is. Nothing has changed much in this benighted gallery for 15 years. I'm sick to death of looking at Fat Boy Slim's Hawaiian shirt or all that dreary and slightly phoney punk stuff. The historic costumes are too few and far between as everything has to be displayed in context now (but I've ranted about that previously, so won't go on, etc.) If you want to see a decent costume gallery, go to Worthing Museum--is my advice, in a nutshell. 

The reason why Batman is here is because of the forthcoming 'Costume Games' in September, based on those cosplay festivals, where everyone dresses up as cartoon/comic strip characters. We came across a cosplay convention in Vienna once, with a whole gang of 'Happy Feet' penguins wandering around, rather aimlessly--or perhaps that's the point, I don't know. Anyway, I guess it will be fun, etc. And it's nice to have a 'Baleful Batman' in situ, even though he's not real--the costume is the thing, I guess.

Rising from the Sea Bed

Thought I'd post some poems. Two of them (Portrait of Ray and Steerage) were published on Every Day Poets (Poetry?) which is now defunct and they can't be read, not even in an old fisherman's cache. They have been locked away in Davy Jones' locker on Atlantis Island for the past 18 months. It's about time they were brought to the surface--so here goes:

Notes From an Aquarium

Sea Life

Her delphic gaze holds sway

in monochrome relief,

contemplating some unknown folly submerged

in a floating world of obsidian depth.

An arc of old rope hangs aimlessly in the spotlight,

perhaps in lieu of an eel, or two?

Purple sea plants wave synthetic adieus--

the stage is set, but the fish have forgotten their cue.

Portrait of Ray

In the tunnel, children point and shout
as the giant ray steals past the glass--

the skirts of its fins ripple black to white,
a priest's surplice caught in a summer breeze.

To squeals of delight, it soars above us.
I take a photo and examine my catch--

a blurred underbelly in UFO livery,
two spaced-out gills mildly surprised,
either side of an alien mouth, aghast.

Steerage

At the bottom of the pool,
a nurse shark lies obsolete,
grounded--
a spent reactor cooling off,
its grey fuselage groomed
by a cordon of pilot fish.

We inch our way across by measured line,
while younger eyes look out for signs
of lethal geometry cleaving the surface
or a turtle emerging as an atoll awash.

Blunt flippers cause a stir of hope,
as they brush and bump the side of the boat--
oblique marker for their endless relays.

But most of us are looking beneath our feet,
at the shoals of small fry as they
fritter in and out of the fantasy wreck.

And in that gloomy arena of Victorian brick,
once the dearly beloved dolphins' crypt--
my mind turns over a century,
and makes that sandy bed a cemetery
of White Star Line dinner plates,
face down.

A Fountain of Polemic

I've got a bad summer cold. There's nothing worse, believe me. I mean it's so unseasonal--no good pretending its hay fever either--everyone twigs you've got a stinker of a cold and thereby assumes you must have a really unhealthy lifestyle, etc. Ho hum. Anyway, it's put me in one of those moods where I won't be taking any prisoners. No, not today, thank you. The muskrat gland is firing on all cylinders (not to mention the mucus reserves) but perhaps one better not mention anything like that--as it could seriously gross out one's Canadian readership, etc (if I have any.)

Here is a poem on a local landmark which has been in the news recently:

Lament for the Mazda Fountain

You were a carbuncle on

the face of the Valley Gardens project,

the wrong sort of heritage,

an awkward pensioner relative,

who has out-lived their welcome,

expensive to keep--

far too prodigal with water

and often the wind blew your voluminous jets 

hither and thither and people walking by

(including the odd wino)

got soaked as a result.

You sported their colour, but alas,

the Greens were never

likely to be enamoured of your

implacably ugly basin with its dreadnought

steel-plating from a coal-fired age--

you were always destined to be an affront to

the ideology--deemed not fit for purpose

(well, you are electric, which

combined with water makes you a rum mix of elements.)

They wanted you out of sight

marooned in Hove Lagoon for the duration

while they commissioned

a nice sustainable water feature

just like that one to commemorate

Diana in Hyde Park--oops,

perhaps not.

You were an obstacle in the way

of their blandscape nirvana--

their picturesque schemes
to plant new traffic roundabouts 
the shape of ciabattas with pretty paved

areas here and there, the significance of which

remains a puzzle to most pedestrians.

Above all, you were in the way

of the cycle path they wanted to build

and everything has to give way to cyclists now,

(although Brighton cyclists are a feral

bunch and rarely keep to paths or give way,

or even understand the symbol for it.)

I’m probably one of a small percentage

who has always been a fan

of your lumbering industrial chic

with all its design fails,

brazenly ensconced at the end of Victoria Gardens,

like a vision from a bad steam punk hangover,

your light show cancelled long ago,

your electric rings splattered with pigeon guano,

looking more suited to boiling an ostrich egg, perhaps.

Anyway, I always enjoyed the spectacle of your lavish jets of water

refreshing that arid corner.

There are rumours of a reprieve now those

Green despots on the council have been weeded out.

Indeed, why should they be the ones to decide

what's good or bad for Brighton?

The beast in all its naked glory (that tree isn't growing out of it btw, just a bit of tromp l'oeil)

So I took my poem down...

It's been a while. NaPo got in the way of my musing. I also took the previous post down as I got a pub for the poem featured in it, 'Bellwether-by-Sea', a satirical take on Hove's status as a marginal seat. Well, it was marginal at the time I wrote it, but towards the end of the month everyone was reckoning it was a shoo-in for Labour, which proved to be correct. 

You can read it in issue 17 of Alliterati which is devoted to political themes (if you don't mind squinting hard enough at the pdf format and fiddling with the little magnification widget). They've chosen a dessicated typewriter font that seems to be in at the moment. All the other contributions, including some intriguing art work, look effortlessly cool next to mine. My poem is trying a bit too hard--like Ed Miliband in those televised debates. It also seems too polite and neat for words. If it was having tea, its little finger would be raised and the sips would be noiseless. (Not sure if that analogy applies to Ed, as he's famed for his inelegant scoffing.) 
Anyway, within this Alliterati gathering, so to speak, everyone else seems to be biting into the rims of chipped mugs, squeezing out the last drop of soured milk from the warped carton (well, the mag began life as a student rag after all). Hmm, does milk still come in cartons? Perhaps not, too nineties for words. Anyway, I'm very proud to be included in the magazine--an old rat bag like me who can recall actual milk bottles made of glass. Oh yes and they would fit snugly inside duffle coat front pockets, if I remember correctly.

Here's another poem to make up for the one I took down. It's about election night, a rather singular take on it, you could say. I was followed recently on Twitter by a Lib Dem policy wonk called Nick. Hmm, don't they have any other names? Yes, they must be desperate for followers of any ilk, so I tweeted the link to my soundcloud reading soon after. Hope he got off on the last few lines :)

Nocturne written on Election Night, May 7th

I watched Cameron's car,

the armoured Jaguar taking him to the count,

as it purred along Oxfordshire

country lanes pitch black and as smooth as

Guinness--red tail lights flashing--

and this time we were the passengers

cocooned inside--trying to read our destiny

in the passing shadows.

I fought the desire to gather the dark silence

of that road and coat you in it

spill the questioning bleakness

into your mouth--a passionless

droll slit--my tongue gaining entry

like a ballot sheet needing to be folded

over again--stamping you afresh

with a meretricious kiss

forcing you to concede as we laboured ahead,

our physical union bound by

a coalition of drunken senses

blinkered by carnality

making us inseparable in that uncertain night--

desperate to escape the gloom

cast by the last exit poll.

My tongue was too engaging to ignore--

offering to lick your stubby pencil

held on a tight leash just before

you marked your cross in the booth where no one

could ever swing a cat--and then only then

was it free to spool around yours,

a fluent consort for the counting hours,

making each of us drool over unexpected results

after the joint declaration--

as partners in the last dance

before the Lib Dem House of Cards

collapsed and a weary Nick

was left standing alone

in his boxer shorts.