Jon Elkon

Author: Jon Elkon

  • Election Daydreams….

    Map courtesy of the Guardian 7/10/16
    ELECTION DAY
    Musing on Election mourning (beware – it’s pun time!)
    Don’t predict anything! The blokie on the Today programme has just said.HC has a 4% lead in the polls. Well, pre-Brexit polls misled millions into thinking we would stay in Europe. It’s about the Hispanics in some states – they can turn things Hilarious. Whereas the so-called blue collar rust belt voters could Trump the lot. Nomenclatural Determinism, the theory that one’s name declares one’s fate, makes my heart sink in dread. A Trump, in the bourgeois card game of Bridge wins the game. An Ace of Spades trumps everything. Perhaps Hilarity is a good omen. Don’t predict anything!
    An Ace of Spades is also the death card. Hm.
    A quick summary of the system in case you don’t know: it’s not about the number of individual votes nationally, but the number of Electoral College votes. Individuals in each state vote, and their electoral college delegates then make their vote according to the outcome in the state. Each state has a number of EC delegates allocated according to their populations, so big states like California have more EC than Utah. Therefore each state  “Returns” a number of delegate votes and whoever gets the most wins. Simple. The winner needs 270 out of a total of  538 To win. Simple. Simple????
    Up for grabs – the whole election will depend on these “swing” states. Ohio usually goes for the winner. New Hampshire, shaped like a tiny erect penis. Florida is big, but because of the high number of Hispanics, may go to HC. Similar story in Arizona which flip/flops each election. Watch for those results!
    Probably blue (Democrat – HC): the biggest is California. New York is big, also Pennsylvania and Illinois. See the map for the relative number of Electoral College votes.
    Red (Rep=Trump) the biggest is Texas, West Virginia – also penis shaped – one of the smaller ones. The littlest dicks are  North Dakota and South Dakota.
    Results have started coming in already – in the tiniest corner of the tiniest electoral district HC got 17 votes to DT’s 14. Hallaballoo! (Take THAT, spellcheck) – the electoral officer was concerned: he said his district is usually much stronger for the Democrats.
    The coverage in the media if you want to watch this, the bitterest contest in history: BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2016-37842981
    I will be bopping between BBC Radio 4 (from 10pm) and World Service; BBC TV and CBS. Al Jazeera will be interesting! Russia Today are hysterically (!) pro Trump. The Chinese are anti.  Fox News, being the right testicle of Rupert Murdoch and the Rump Republicans, may get a tormented glance.
    WHY IS THIS THE UGLIEST MOST DIVISIVE NASTIEST ELECTION IN US HISTORY?
    Two words. Donald Trump. He has no limits, no filters, no responsibility. He decided to be president and so any lie, any insult, any strategy or tactic was acceptable to him. And as soon as he identified his fans and they identified with him, he picked up on their fears and hopes and just gave them the lies they wanted to hear. Are they the Deplorables, as HC has called them? Nah. Just weak, not too bright, trusting, extremely  brainwashed, ill-educated, unhappy run-of the mill bigots.
    Will they win? I promise you, if Trump wins he will not hesitate to dump them if they get in his way. Watch.
    RESULTS
    • 11 pm – first polls close
    • 12 pm – first exit polls – from Virginia and Georgia. Likely to fall to Trump.
    • 12.30 – Ohio exit polls! As I said, Ohio usually gets it right.
    • 1 am – Florida exit polls – critical for HC to win.
    • The rest will then come fast and furious. 
    • 5 am – 6 am, end game. If Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania go for Trump, it’s the end of the world as we know it…
    Trust me and the idiots like me: this is HISTORY and will shape all our lives, wherever we live.
    COVERAGE
    • BBC1 Election Night in America from 11.15
    • ITV Trump v Clinton: the result from 10.20
    • Fox News (Yuk) America’s Election HQ from 11pm
    • Sky News (39% owned by Rupert Murdoch) America Decides from 10pm
    • Al Jazeera: America Votes from 10 pm
    • For me, the backup will be BBC Radio 4 from 10 pm.

  • THE US ELECTION – AN IDIOT’S GUIDE AND COMPANION

    WHO ARE YOU CALLING AN IDIOT?
    Like so many of my fellow idiots, I have been held like a rabbit in headlights by the incredible (literally) buildup to the US election. Why “idiots”? Well, most British simply shrug and say, what’s it got to do with me? There’s nothing I can do about it and it won’t affect me. And maybe they are the smart ones. They won’t be lying awake on Tuesday night glued to the BBC coverage. They won’t get ulcers. They will have a jolly Wednesday followed by lunch in the pub and a good screw in the evening. Whereas I and my fellow idiots are likely to suffer intense trauma, and if our nightmare is fulfilled, we will need in-depth treatment for PTSD by Thursday.
    IN DEFENCE OF IDIOTS
    Well, maybe the thought of squirrel-head’s finger on the nuclear trigger is what makes us idiots writhe in fear. Knowing that he is impulsive, prone to throwing tantrums if he doesn’t get his way, revengeful and has a head full of his own bloated importance, seems incapable of empathy and is by all the indicators described by psychologists,he is both sociopathic and narcissistic, maybe it’s not such a good idea to put weapons of mass destruction and armies in his hands. Knowing his business history – he started with a huge inherited fortune of I think 9 billion, now has a mere 3 left after having launched a slew of businesses which failed because of inadequate planning or leadership – maybe it’s not such a good idea to put a country’s huge economy in his hands. Knowing he does not believe in climate change and has pledged to renege on the US government’s commitment to reduce carbon emissions, maybe having him in the White House, backed up by Congress and Senate packed with climate-change deniers is not a bright idea. For the planet.
    “Idiot”, the smart people say, “he won’t be allowed to do whatever he wants! There are checks and balances! There is a civil service to hold him back. He will be forced to conform to a semblance of sanity!”. Well, being an idiot who reads history, I am aware of how Stalin, how Hitler, how Mussolini, how Idi Amin started and of course sane people say “Idiot! Now you’re seriously overdramatising!” I say, so was Cassandra. Google her if you don’t know who she was. Most people called her an idiot.
    I travel to the US on Thursday, two days after the election! SO, I propose to post a daily Idiot’s Guide to the election and it’s aftermath. I will be mainly in California and will report on the PTSD of supporters on both sides. Frankly, if squirrel-head loses, I expect riots, cries of “foul” and every tithead in America on the streets. If he wins I expect riots, cries of “immigrants out!” With concomitant attacks on anyone who looks foreign, and the likelihood that I won’t even be let into the country as, let’s face it, I do look a bit Muslim! 
    So watch this space! 
    Tomorrow, the vote! and like millions of other idiots I will be blogging Facebooking and tweeting. I can’t wait…

  • Short story? Not Long Now

    December 1932

     

    Clouds scudded through Berlin skies. Seated on a bench in the Tiergarten, Ilse and me, just looking at the sky together. “Do you see the cloud there?” She asked, “that one!” She pointed almost above our heads.

    I laughed. “It’s a clown!”

    “No it isn’t,” she said, blowing a puff of smoke right into my face. “Watch! Look properly!”

    Four billion years had passed. Our ball of earth had been through the torments of birth and becoming and for the shortest of time was allowing the microbes infesting its surface to breed and become, breed and become. Action, reaction, action reaction. The fantastically complex pattern of karma had so conspired to put me and Ilse right there, at that exact time, looking at these clouds.

    And clouds in those precise formations and those precise shapes had never existed before in that place, at that time, for four billion years.

    And Ilse and I, representatives of the microbial infestation, were there to see it.

    “It’s a devil,” she said. “It’s the devil. See the horns? See the tail?”

    I laughed and held her hand more tightly. “It’s a cow” I said.

    “No you’re just being silly” she snapped her hand away. “LOOK. Use your eyes!”

    I wanted to make a joke out of it. I wanted to get her off the subject and back to the apartment so we could fuck. “No, it’s a clown ” I said. “See the hair?”

    “I don’t know why you refuse to see it. It’s Satan. It’s Armageddon”

    “Why do you always make everything political?” I asked, exasperated. “Let’s go home and fuck. It’s probably about to rain anyway.”

    “It certainly is,” she said.

     

    Being a highly intelligent person (well, you’re reading my blog) you will understand the rather heavy-handed metaphor in this piece. We are reliving December 1932 now – the week before the election of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany. Is Trump really as dangerous as Hitler? He is certainly as mentally unbalanced. Every descriptor of the Sociopathic personality applies according to Tony Schwartz, co-author of ‘The Art of the Deal’, Trump’s so-called autobiography. Schwartz dealt with Trump regularly and his description of the process is hair-raising. Interviewed on the PM Programme BBC Radio 4 on Friday 28th October, Schwartz stated that the idea of a Trump presidency was “terrifying”, and he is arranging to take his wife and family to Europe in the event Trump wins. Trump’s popularism is the exact equivalent of Hitler’s. His racism too. Chants of “JEW S A” ring out at Trump rallies.

    And this narcissistic sociopathic populist demagogue could have his finger hovering over the nuclear trigger. That’s the main difference.

     

     

  • A Short Story that Isn’t…

    A Short Story that Isn’t…

    I need to unlock myself. I need the writing to flow again as it did two weeks ago. I am beginning to understand “writer’s block”. Before, not writing was just due to inertia. Laziness. Busyness. An absence of any reason to write.

    Block is different. It is all of the above plus the heavy fog of hopelessness, of what is it for, of no-one reads it, so why bother. In my low moments, I just wonder if maybe I am as ephemeral as last week’s lottery ticket. If everything I have done, everything I own, is just passing through.

    Well it is.

    There was the dreadful de- Sylvain experience. Sylvain died a year ago – and his family had stayed away from his flat, unable to face the task of sorting, selling, clearing. I offered to help – Sylvain had been important to me.

    Nuncle Sylvain: delightfully rotund, invariably cheerful. A friend of my mother’s family since the 30s when they used to lark about and swim together in the pool of the garden of mum’s grand Victorian family mansion in Parktown, Johannesburg.

    Decades later he became the husband of my favourite Aunt, Pam. He was her second husband: the first, Stan, had been controlling, abusive, unfaithful and violent. Then, after all those years, Sylvain met Pam again and she became his second wife – the first, Hilly, had died of cancer after giving birth to Graham, Laura and Jennifer, in that order.

    Pam died in 1996. Cancer. (I have written elsewhere about this amazing story – somewhere back in the blogosphere there exists romance, discovery, excitement, despair, disillusion, death…and there’s stuff written by me as well…) She had a wonderful few years with Sylvain in which they travelled the world and enjoyed his diamond wealth to the full. Eventually they moved into a one bed flat in a gloriously posh Deco mansion block in Chelsea which they filled with classy antiques, paintings and the weekly laughter of Sylvain’s children and grandchildren all of whom except Jennifer had moved to homes nearby in London. Jennifer opted for New York – her delightfully quirky personality was perfect for that city.

    Sylvain was devastated by his second wife’s death from the same disease that had deprived him of his first. But he was an erudite gentleman whose deep love of art kept him from despair. So he revived his love of painting and travelled extensively around the UK painting – sometimes with a companion, often alone. His watercolours vary from the charm of his early naif period to the later competent and occasionally mysterious and exceptional portrayals of bizarre landscapes, or deeply mysterious stairways or tortured trees.

    I think there came a time when he felt as if he had done it. Achieved whatever heights he was ever likely to reach in the medium. Depression lurked in dark corners.

    Concerned and fearing he was falling into depression, I suggested – insisted – he write an autobiography. “Your duty to your children and grandchildren!”

    To my great relief, eventually he began and as the project progressed he began to get more into the craft of writing. Possessed by a pedantic determination to perfect his style, he barraged me with extracts and chapters. I was careful to give him the right mix of encouragement and criticism. Not easy! I did, fortunately, partially cure him of excessive subordinate clauses and concatenations of commas…if only I could do that for my own writing….

    Eventually the book was finished and edited with a certain amount of delicacy and tact by me. We found an excellent service, Print-on Demand at Blackwells bookshop and produced copies for the whole family. The title was Before you Knew Me. My dear friend Axe designed a delightful cover. We were proud of our product.

    Hiatus set in. Post-coital despair. Ok so now I am beginning to sound like a narcissistic control freak – So I suggested he keep writing. Short stories. “You have SO many stories! Fact and fiction!”

    And he did. By this time I had discovered Amazon and Kindle, and was beginning to publish my own books online so when he’d written sufficient stories for a book, we used Amazon to make them available to the world with Graham’s invaluable technical help. Sylvain designed the jackets himself and this first book entitled “Its Always Sunny in the Suburbs” tumbled out into the world wide web like a flea into a horse’s hair. “At last!” He said, “I am a published author!”

    The stories, like his paintings, vary from the naif to the brilliant. He has a great talent for description as well as for plot. He transports the reader without any apparent artifice right back to the thirties or the fifties. To New York or Moscow or London or Johannesburg. You can smell the cigar smoke and taste the brandy. His South African Apartheid era tales are as real as I am. The language he uses is beautifully correct and classically constructed, yet immediately accessible. The tales are comic, or tragic, or all three. Many are part of me, hard to separate some if his stories from my memories of my own.

    I suppose he expected to become an instant viral hit. Of course that didn’t happen. Self-publishing on the web without a presence on Twitter and Facebook and Snapchat and LinkedIn and WhatsApp and whatall is a fart in a snowstorm. So he did it again. In his Chelsea eyrie, he merrily churned out more and more stories and they flew at me on paper and digitally together with his demands to read, comment, amend.

    The second collection, called “The Hypnotist” was completed and Kindled. This collection shows tremendous progress as a writer – his voice is already fully developed – that of an avuncular, charming, wise companion straight out of Agatha Christie. If you were to be sat next to him on the Orient Express all the way from Vienna to St Petersburg you wouldn’t have even a second of boredom.

    He started work on the third. Working title, “Up in Smoke”.

    Then he got ill.

    It started with a brown mole on his ear. A concerned GP had a biopsy done and yes, it was a malignant melanoma. They cut that part of his ear off.

    But the cancer had not finished with him. Into his lymph nodes it plunged. Not content with having destroyed both of the women he had loved, the beast feasted on the man himself.

    I cannot understand why people believe in a loving god.

    Despite the illness he completed Book 3. But tormented by the treatment, he couldn’t face designing the cover. The collection sat on the back burner, while he struggled on to produce book 4 between the grind of radiotherapy and chemicals which ripped unto his system destroying, destroying like a frantic firefighter in a burning house with an axe. Entitled, with a kind of dull irony, “Full Circle” the stories in this volume are distinctly darker. There is menace and danger, and yet his Favourite Uncle sense of humour still leaps out and catches the reader.

    By the time the beast was sated, Sylvain’s fine mind was eroding.

    And so he died almost a year ago. Invited to the tombstone unveiling ceremony I made my offer again and a week later found myself with Graham, Laura and Jennifer, as well as his grandson Gavin, in that flat packed with its memories. Unchanged from the days when I visited to read manuscripts, or go to lunch with my delightful Nuncle. (I called him Nuncle because he was not an uncle by blood)…nuncle could hold an erudite opinion on anything. Politics, philosophy art…a fantastically wide-ranging and deeply well-read autodidact, a pleasure to be with…memories everywhere in those rooms, as if he’d just stepped out…

    I had dreaded the experience. I imagined his children and grandchildren overwhelmed by the range of goods and possessions in there, redolent with his thoughts, ideas, his dna sticking like an invisible aura to everything.

    But there was very little emotion – visible anyway. Yes his children had their own thoughts, nursed and sometimes shared their own memories. But there was so much STUFF! I think there were fifty shirts – some still in their original wrapping. Socks! How many goddam socks can a man use???!!! Ties, drawers of scarves. Cufflinks. All the accoutrements of the fifties Gentleman About Town. Coats…suits…all good stuff. Charities were called and finally one agreed to pick up and we began to fill crates with STUFF. The kitchen! Never have I seen so many pots and pans, spices, tins of anything, pasta, rice…He had loved cooking and his rotundity had been well earned by decades of fine dining, both at home and in restaurants.

    So the project became, how to get rid of the STUFF.

    Including the antiques and the paintings – around a hundred of his own watercolours, a mere thirty or so framed and on the walls. Then, a small collection of rather good oil paintings by someone famous, I don’t know who. And someone else famous too. The fellow from Christie’s got fairly excited. But, of course, sneered at the antique furniture. “There’s just no market for Brown,” he said with a sigh, “it’s all too big, just so out of fashion…”

    “My house is full”, his children chorused.

    “So is mine,” I said sadly. Although I did accept two framed photographs, one of Sylvain and Pam and a rather glam black and white picture of Pam doing her Greta Garbo impression, as well as a couple of ornaments that reminded me of her. I laid claim to one of his better watercolours too, which I am sure I will receive some time…but my house is full!

    And so the refrain became, what are we going to do with all this STUFF.

    His life, his fascinating, adventurous, diamond-dealing, globe trotting, loving and losing, wonderfully well-read and opinionated, charmingly humorous, music loving, LIFE!….WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO WITH THIS STUFF……?

    I don’t blame his family, they will always have their memories. And the books, too. The autobiography – I know they will keep that precious. And I am determined to publish the last two collections of short stories on both Kindle and paperback. Graham will help.

    But then that thought smacked me in the face…what will happen to my STUFF when I die? Someone will find it such a nuisance to dispose of. And when that Brown furniture hits the charity shop or the dump, the dna I have left all over that wonderful George I Chest of drawers or the paintings or the tsatskes I rescued from Sylvain’s flat will stick like an invisible aura, a miasma of me, undetectable by anyone passing in a rush to get stuff…

    And all my writing too.

    Who will love it?

    You?

     

    So many words…poems stories books cries in the night and hysterical laughter too…

    All written because I love you! Especially if you read this whole piece to the end…

    IDEA: I am going to hide little notes in deep dark corners of the things I have loved. Just a few words about what I know of their history, and what they show about me. Immortality is a delusion; but as my mom once said, “all I want to do is draw a line on the sand. So what if the sea takes it away…”

    “Its Always Sunny in the Suburbs” and “The Hypnotist” are both available now on Amazon Kindle. Highly recommended. Shortly to be published in paperback. “Up in Smoke” and “Full Circle” will be published in both formats in the new year.

  • A Beautiful Sail…

    A Beautiful Sail…

    Barquing up the Right Tree
    When I was eight, I painted a moonlit scene using watercolours and gouache. A ship, becalmed. The moon lying huge on the horizon, its reflection linking ship and moon like the silvered undulating road between birth and eternity. In my memory the picture is perfect…and when my art teacher (Her name was Barbara Driman, I think. Her house was at the top of Whitely Road in Johannesburg. She was an artist who taught kids Art in the afternoons, so that their mummies could play bridge.) held her annual exhibition of kiddie work, it sold immediately. Somewhere in Johannesburg this legendary picture may still adorn a wall.
    And yesterday evening, I saw it. Not the picture – the real scene, exactly as it exists in my memory. From the deck of a three-masted barque, the STS Lord Nelson. And I was smitten.
    The Lord Nelson is not a pretty sailing ship. It is a three masted Barque, tall and elegant for sure. But the deck housings are too big; the bowsprit is a strange berailed metal thing that sticks out like half of a miniature train line. There is no figurehead to keep an eye out for rocks. The hull is metal, the masts and spars mostly aluminium.
    But it is beautiful.
    This is a ship that goes straight to the heart. Built for the Jubilee Sailing Trust in 1984 specifically to provide a sailing experience to people with a range of disabilities. That bowsprit, for example, is designed so that a wheelchair can be pushed out there and its occupant can be delighted by that “I am the Ruler of the World” experience DiCaprio acted so well in Titanic. The interior, too, is designed for wheelchairs. There are lifts on the main stairwells and the passageways are especially wide.
    On deck the handrails have braille notices, so that a blind or partially sighted sailor can find his or her way around.
    The old hands – people who have been on many voyages with crews including many disabled – tell stories of partially sighted people climbing merrily up masts to swaying spars high above heaving seas; of hoisting wheelchairs up to the crow’s nest with a delighted occupant  – of the massive contribution disabled crew members make to the running of the ship from cleaning (“happy hour”) to raising and lowering sails, to navigation and steering. The effects can be imagined, on self esteem as well as fitness.
    A voyage on a JST tall ship changes lives.
    There are two ships maintained and sailed by the Trust – the Lord Nelson and Tenacious. These magical vessels have been all over the world, have weathered the Bay of Biscay and Cape Horn too, travel regularly to the Canaries and the Trust has a major presence in Australia. Both ships participate in a range of Tall Ship events, and will soon be off to Canada to participate in a series of adventure voyages to celebrate Canada’s 150th anniversary.
    Here comes the inevitable plug: maintaining and running these ships takes a great deal of money, which is raised by a variety of means. Donations of course (see jst.org.uk), events held all over the country and you too can sail on either ship for a price! Absolutely worth it for the rich experience and unique excitement of life aboard a beautiful sailing ship as well as the chance to meet wonderful people both able bodied and disabled.
    The Lord Nelson: One of the world’s most beautiful sailing ships crewed, maintained and financed by beautiful people. I can’t wait to go for a much longer sail….it’s in my DNA….Join me?

  • Spam Nation

    So who says I don’t get comments? So many of them are just pure spam, people looking to sell plugins and telling me off for my naivety – hell, I really don’t care if my posts are forgotten, ignored, not massively reviewed or shared. I have loyal readers and I am really sorry if I don’t approve your comments for posting – I am so deluged with spam that often I just don’t notice them.

    Please continue to comment. If you are a deluger and have been sending me 180 attempts to sell me stuff, please stop!

  • Poetry Inundation – Trash and Treasure

    You Decide…..

    I have disinterred around a hundred pages of my poems going back centuries…I have always been shy about my poetry. Occasionally to test it out, I have sent various poems to poetry websites and some have appeared in printed collections. I was even awarded first prize in a Forward Poetry competition (I can’t remember which poem snaffled this strange accolade). But now I find I have well over a hundred pages of the damn things. What to do? Some are truly dreadful – embarrassing even. I hate predictable rhymes. There are too many cliches to avoid them all..

    But there are poems I think deserve to be read. Capsules of emotion, or truth, or pictures.

    But which is which? YOU decide! I am going to post various extracts from my Collected Works every week, say 8 – 10 at a time – and all I want YOU to do is please feed back? E-mail preferred or comment here. Which trash? Which treasure?

     

    1988 – 2000 – A Few Non -selected Poems

    A & E Saturday 4.45pm

    There are no emergencies here,

    Simply

    Anxieties

    Expressionless sobriety.

    A calm of blond children

    Exchanging banalities

    Parents patiently

    Exuding fatality

     

    An ache-exchange.

     

    America

    on the day they refused to set targets for emissions Nov 00

     

    Just

    How much air do you NEED?

    You greed-infested

    Speeeeeeeeeeeeed freaks?

     

    Just

    How much Bloooood

    Do you want us to Bleeeed?

    You earth-devouring feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeders?

     

     

     

    REPEAT IN DIFFERENT WORDS

     

    Once again my old old friend

    Anger, my clutch, my grab,

    My sting of fist and grasp of heart

    My tearing my own dear stomach apart,

    Each breath dark blue, caught

    At the top of the twisted diaphragm

    Of words which go:

     

    ‘Why do others –

    Too many others –

    Stab their fingers in my pie?’

     

     

    Lifetime Bicycle Warrior Part 3

     

    I’m just goin’ on my fragile way

    From Point A

    To Point B –

    Today’s a sunny day

    Shines on me –

     

    Just goin’ my fragile way

    From A

    To B

     

    I’m just stopping here to say

    A word, and

    Then I’m free….

     

    From here to day-to-day

    And then, eternity….

     

     

    Trippin’ my fragile way

    From A……

     

    To victory

     

     

    Bristol Poly refectory, May 1989

    I decided to become a teacher after years in Business when my first novel was published. At the age of 40, joining in student life!

     

    Summer shadows in this room

    This body-bag of bustle

    Bubble Babble Muscle

    Bared to thighs unused, unhumble

    Thrust-out youth, preparing

    For trimming, shaping, filling,

    Sullying,

    Child-rearing,

    Making, settling, scurrying

    And then, busily dying

     

     

    MARCH 15 1994

    (First episode of Atrial Fibrillation. Ambulance to hospital from the Doctor’s surgery, accompanied by cuz. Who is a doctor, was staying with me on holiday from New York. My symptoms seemed minor to him. But when we went to see the GP, panic and ambulance. In the hospital they shocked me 3 times. The first, the heart stopped. The second, nothing. The third, it started again. C’est la vie.)

    At the age of 45 I began to fall apart

    When a small wild bird got trapped in my heart

    And fighting to break free

    Was killed by three

    Shocks.

    O sweet bird of youth!

     

    BZZ BZZ

     

    I yam a little buzzing fly

    With lotsa germs I wanna die

    And buzz buzz in your cosy ear

    And lay my little germies there

    Before you take a hate to me

    And so-what me into history!

     

     

    Brompton Cemetery

     

    The cruel dead

    Who, resting on our laurels

    Have no complaint

    Who

     

    Left us ignorant

    Blessed us with lies

    What a legacy

     

    The thoughtless dead

    Who, wanting to leave their scratch in the sand

    Left

    A cough in the night

    And lie in the land here,

    All about me.

     

    ‘Always a place in our hearts’

    Poor boy

    Another John Smith forgotten

    In acres of forget-me-nots

     

    This last summer day

    Surrounded by the rotten,

    Lies carved in marble

    A magpie

    Two Spaniards

    A dog

    A cyclist

    And the lying dead

     

     

     

    THERE IS SOME SORT OF CONFLICT GOING ON

     

    The farcical forces of fat-arsed Fred

    Vs the forcical farces of the happy thigh-led

    Riders of rosebuds, the banged-in-the-head

    Heroes of pleasure who’ll rave ’till they’re dead –

     

    (O witness the silly

    And soulful and sad

    Stride straight up Piccadilly

    To the Dance of the Mad)

     

     

    CUL DE SAC

     

    I’m getting thoroughly sick of this

    One-way love affair

    When I run my verbiage through your hair

    And tickle your fancies with my smudgy pen –

    Say, when will you give me

    Some love back,

    …Eh?

     

    When?

     

    LIAR!

     

    Q: How does it feel to love a liar?

    What wastes of mind does it inspire?

    Wastes of words

    Wastes of feelings

    Assaults on my vanity?

     

    These compilations of uncertainties

    Exhausting banalities

    The tapping fingers

    The sliding eyes

    And the shifting-sand morality?

     

    The was it wasn’t it

    The where was it if it was

    And where not if not?

    Not

    Just that, how about WHY?

    Look me in the eye

    I don’t WANT to spy on you

    My BRAIN fries!

     

    A: Take it or leave it.

    It’s the price….

     

    LONELY AGAIN

    Illegitimate thoughts

    (Disallowed by exigencies

    Disowned by necessities

    Buoyed by illusions

    Ignored by hopes

    Independent friends)

    (Some of them right and true)

    Bear me up

    Keep me from you

    All.

     

    (Body-language showing fear.

    Inappropriate responses

    Whichever,

    I am alone

    Here

     

    THE MALE CHORUS

    Please explain now, if you can –

    Why life is shorter for a man

    Is it because he will stick this

    Right up the nearest orifice!?

    (Though some do miss…)

     

    And why his thigh-led useless slaughter

    Aint handed down unto his daughter?

    Could this be the explanation

    That all man kind is but one nation?

    That uses women for procreation?

     

    With plenty excuses.

     

    And all that males do here espy

    Is fuck, die, fuck, die, fuck, die?

  • TEACHER WORKLOAD – the correspondence!

    Hello dear colleagues and ex colleagues. Instead of my hysterical satirical blog, here is the sad and lonely History of the Failure of the Workload Challenge and my participation in it. Read how Nicky Morgan and I were like THAT; how the good intentions of the civil servants in the DFEE were undermined by politics; how we are today almost exactly where we started in 2014… 

     

    NOTE: When reading apparently grovelling sweetness and willingness to engage etc, please forgive my attempt to use child psychology on the  Rulers of the Roost.

    E-mail to to Nicky Morgan on her appointment 2014

    Encouragement to read this: 16 years in business, 22 years in teaching in a single sex VA C of E comp and in an inner-city comprehensive serving one of the most deprived areas of London;  I have a consistent record of superb results, have received a Teacher’s Award, hit a 2 on the ALPS scale for my A2 group, an Enterprising Teacher Award etc etc etc. My attendance/punctuality is close to 100%. Therefore. Boast. Boast.Will retire soon.

    1) The Financial Issue: Take all financial issues out of schools for example:

    1. a) Take the ridiculous burden of running a budget off Department Heads. All exercise books, textbooks etc can be ordered centrally within a school or a consortium of schools. A school bursar is a good idea. A department head is not a businessman/woman. He/she is a teacher. This way schools take advantage of economies of scale! – meaning the books, stationery etc are cheaper per unit when ordered in quantity. A person ordering centrally can make sure they get a good deal.  The absurdity of a Department Head finding money left in the budget in March spending it frantically on useless things to ensure he/she gets the same amount or more in the next financial year wouldn’t occur any more saving time and money. It’s simple.
    1. b) Take the burden of financial management away from Head Teachers and devolve it to either local authorities or the DFEE. Headteachers are teachers not CEOs. Let them manage teachers not a business. Where does this leave the Academy programme? Where indeed. I have seen three head teachers being terribly burdened by the responsibilities and constraints of finance, spending money on useless things, being left with insufficient money to retain good staff.

    2) Assessment:

    1. a) Most schools are madly overburdened by people checking people who are checking people. If teachers achieve good results leave them alone to run their kingdoms. If they don’t, don’t! Which brings up
    1. b) OFSTED – obviously crying out for reform and simplification. Much of the burden on teachers arises from terror of OFSTED. And I do mean terror.

    3) BTEC involves teachers in a massive overbearing mark load. Frankly the whole qualification is a Pearson Plot to maximise their income. BTEC has a limited value for some students but in many schools low ability students are forced into the qualification purely to make up the numbers in Sixth Form which has a financial benefit on their budgets. Bring in much higher requirements for students doing BTEC and cut by 1/3. Make up for this by true vocational qualifications in plumbing, plastering, bricklaying, computer programming, and the other areas in which we will need workers in the next decade.

    4) Time:

    1. d) Useless activities such as the PDR process put teachers under massive pressure to meet targets, many of which are based on ridiculous ‘predicted grades’ which don’t take into account the extent to which pupils change from KS2 to KS5, the fact that they may have problems at home, are doing drugs or alcohol, have just broken up with their girlfriends…teachers are blamed for pupils’ poor performance! Which impacts on pay. Solution? Teachers whose students consistently under perform, new teachers, should indeed have to be monitored. Not ALL teachers. Leave experienced teachers with good results alone to run their kingdoms. A manager in my school said ‘I can’t give you special treatment’ – why not? Repetition: I have a consistent record of superb results, have received a Teacher’s Award, hit a 2 on the ALPS scale for my A2 group, an Enterprising Teacher Award etc etc etc. My attendance/punctuality is close to 100%. Therefore. Boast. Boast.

    The assumption that teachers are skivers, moaners and work shy is simply not true. Ok, there may be 3% who are. The vast majority are committed, professional, dedicated, get all their joy from the success of their pupils. We are also massively stressed, vastly overburdened, many have become alcoholics, etc, and the truth of this is proven by the scary drop-out rate of new teachers.

    SEE  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y  

    Plenty more. Put a group of experienced teachers together in a Focus Group. Maybe made up of Teaching Award alumni (one of Pearson’s better activities, as sponsors). Include me. If the Conservatives win the next election prove to the electorate that you understand that good happy teachers = good happy pupils. One more goalpost move should do it. Then no more please for 5 years. The era of the Govation of schools based on Theory X needs to go. Theory Y will, with intelligent committed people, work far better for everyone concerned.

    1. a) Marking: The Teachers’ Conditions decree the number of hours which must be spent on X, Y and Z. But not useless exercise book marking (despite the ‘myth busting’ document -precisely what is meant by ‘Deep Marking’????) Out-of statutory hours marking is a massive burden with the constant moving of goalposts responsible for a massive amount of stress. I spend at least three days of every half term catching up and two weeks of the Summer break so don’t give me that ‘long holidays’ nonsense.
    1. b) Extracurricular activities: we all give our all and much more, running after school clubs, coursework catchup sessions, trips…
    1. c) Duties: As a result of a recent consultation at our school the absurdity of five teachers standing outside the school gates before and after school, three in the quad, eight in the playground etc has receded. I am sure there are many schools in which teachers do far too many duties, further cutting their time for marking etc.

    Your sinseriously

    Jon

    Nicky replied:

    17 Nov 2014

    Dear Jon,

    Thank you very much for taking the time to write in to the workload challenge and for being one of the first to respond. As you can see, your email has certainly been read and we are responding personally to the vast majority of emails we have received in the ‘workload.solutions’ inbox. It is clear from your response that you are passionate about teaching and improving life chances for your pupils. You have also very helpfully added your solutions to each identified problem: thank you. Can I reassure you that we value and appreciate the dedication, commitment, professionalism and hard work of all of our teachers who are delivering high-quality education to their pupils. We can understand that you feel angry about the amount of time you believe you spend in unnecessary tasks and we are sorry that you have such a heavy workload. This is exactly why we want to take action to help the situation and to enable you as a professional to be able to make decisions that will affect the outcomes for the children in our schools – our future.

    The specific details you have given will help paint a picture of teacher workload across the country. The results will be considered by us and a new ‘Sector Challenge Panel’ made up of teachers and school leaders. This panel will help us to develop a programme of action which will be published early next year. We are committed to working with teachers to find solutions and share good practice to address unnecessary workload.  I can assure you that we will act on the findings from the ‘Workload Challenge’.

    We would like to post some anonymised quotes and examples on the Workload Challenge website, making sure that no one person can be identified. We may decide to use some of your email. Please let us know if you would not like your words used in this way.

    Thank you again for sending us your views,

    Nicky Morgan, Secretary of State for Education and David Laws, Minister of State for Schools

     

    I REPLIED:

     9 Nov 2014

    Dear Nicky

    Well I am pleased it WAS read and this is not a token exercise. As I said, I would be happy to help in the process of reducing workload at any level. If you would like me to participate in the Panel, workload permitting, I’d be delighted.

    I have now taken the opportunity to opt for semi-retirement which means I work three days. In school! I have, alas, discovered that it is impossible to do everything I have to do in the three days and will be working at least four. Help! It’s the youngsters, new entrants into the profession we need to think about. How do we make sure they don’t leave? I am currently also working as an Associate Lecturer at Middlesex University, working with PGCE students once a fortnight.(I forgot to mention I have been an in-school mentor for PGCE students for around 20 years) I happily took on this commitment when I went to three days. Not my best decision from a workload point of view. But they are so bright and bushy tailed, so keen to get into the profession and make a difference. Working with them is a great pleasure.

    Make sure they’re still in it in five years time, please?

     

    THEN:

    6 Jan 2015

    Dear John,

    In your response to the recent workload challenge survey you indicated that you would like to continue your participation in the challenge.

    We are convening two focus groups to consider suggestions for solutions to workload issues and as well as providing an opportunity for you to comment on the policy proposals currently being developed. We would like to invite you to one of these groups which are being held in:

    Sheffield (DfE, St Paul’s Place) on Tuesday 20 January, 2-4pm

    London (DfE, Sanctuary Buildings) on Wednesday 21 January 2-4pm

    If you would like to be involved and you would be happy to work as part of a constructive, positive group, please reply to this email by the end of Monday 12 January at the latest, stating which group you would like to attend, or if either date and location is possible.

    Please note we are inviting you in your own right rather than as a representative of a school, union or any other group. Please also let us know if you are not able, or do not wish, to attend.

    If you accept, please also complete the attached information sheet and return it so that we have your full contact details. We will send out more details of the meeting once we have heard from you. We are able to pay for standard travel to the event and supply cover expenses (up to one day) if necessary.

    There may also be further opportunities to be involved in developing solutions for workload issues in the future, and we will keep you informed of these as they come up.

    Many thanks, and looking forward to hearing from you by Monday.

    Kind regards

    Philip

    I said YEH! You betcha! And sent Nicky an email

    21 Jan 2015

    Dear Nicky

    I am about to go to Sanctuary Blgs as part of the Focus Group, so thanks for the opportunity to contribute.

    I took the day off school in order to look carefully through the documents and look at the approaches of other bodies inc Unions etc. I have also collated my own research from my school as well as contacts through Teacher Awards, the Union, colleagues and contacts in other schools etc. I have a huge amount to say and contribute – as have so many others – my concern is I may not be able to feed back an idea I have had, so I would like to share it with you in advance. There won’t be enough time this afternoon for everybody to have a say.

    OFSTED is listed by everybody as a huge cause of stress and increase in workload. Part of the solution is to change their remit and conduct a root and branch reform, so that teachers do not regard an inspection as a hindrance and impediment to their teaching. Make a major part of their remit reporting on teacher motivation and workload. With follow-up visits scheduled for schools which don’t meet standards for managing workload effectively. They need to be seen as contributing to motivation, not the opposite as is currently the case. Their visit would include interviews with teachers, with HR  as well as the SLT and head teacher. The HR interview would require a good look at the leaving interview minutes. A key indicator would be staff turnover. A measure of Motivation can be devised and introduced. Maybe change the name of OFSTED, to get rid of the negative connotations. (How about OFIE Office of the Improvement of Education – no, too much like OFFY…which I suppose is fairly funny and friendly…)

    Nicky, good performance arises out of high teacher motivation, low staff turnover, an effective and supportive management structure, simple appraisal and reporting procedures and marking in proportion with the requirements for enhancing learning.

    The situation is desperate – on Monday I was lecturing PGCE students at Middlesex Uni and in my discussion with their course tutor he revealed that he has never, in all his years in his position, known such a decline in the number of graduates wanting to do the PGCE course. He was at a recruitment fair – in past years he didn’t stop talking to and explaining to prospective teachers. This year people who wanted to talk to him could be counted on the fingers of one finger.

    The situation is desperate – teachers are falling over each other in their desperation to leave the profession.

    The situation is desperate – no need to conduct any further surveys, there is a huge amount of data available, there just isn’t time for prevarication – It’s the kids who suffer.

    Sadly, Mr G has side-swiped and smacked the profession across the face. Then, leaving everything in tatters, off he goes, and there you are. There are votes in fixing this. Mine, for one. …but you know all this….

    If you’re in London at Sanctuary House pop in to the meeting and say hello. I presume you would have done this anyway. If not, happy to meet with you any time and help.

    Love and kisses

    Jon

    12 Jan 2015

    Hi Jon,

    Thank you for letting us know, pleased that you can make it. I can confirm your place at the focus group in London on 21 January, and once we have finalised group numbers we will send round further information later this week.

    Best wishes,

    Philip

    And then, finally, months later, at last, published in TES and all over the place, with gurning pictures of Nick Clegg (yes, his role in smacking students in the face is well known) and Nicky babe: The FINDINGS

    See:

    https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/teacher-workload-challenge-your-a-glance-guide-final-recommendations

     

    …aftershock!

    8 Feb 2015

    Dear Stephen and team

    When I met all you wonderful people on the Focus Group at the DFE and read the draft documents I really believed here was a sincere attempt to tackle the problem. I’ve now looked at the recommendations and while they will help in the long term, there are no solutions presented for the day-to day stress created by the excessive workload which has caused the crisis in teacher motivation, the high staff turnover, the floods of people leaving the profession and the fall in recruitment of new teachers. We are in crisis for heaven’s sake. I thought that the DFE had finally recognised the need to take some action. I agreed with almost everything in the draft. The research was comprehensive and the analysis absolutely accurate.  I awaited the recommendations with an optimism I haven’t felt about my profession for years. And what came out of this excellent process?

    1. A) Minimum lead times for reforms – nothing new there, Nicky Morgan promised a moratorium on reforms when she took over – it’s the reforms we are implementing now that are driving us crazy.
    1. B) No changes in the OFSTED framework – that will help, but the real workload issue is the fear of an inspection and the hyper-preparation that takes place in every school with bizarre making audits, observations, masses of paperwork and data analysis.
    1. C) Engagement with Head Teachers – great stuff, but refer to the actual workload implications of the reforms and how they can be tackled holistically on the ground, in each school.
    1. D) Ofsted ‘reviewing clarification document’ – all very well but there is a massive variation between teams of inspectors in what they do and do not want to see. I believe firmly that many of them are unaware of the clarification document.
    1. E) Shorter inspections for good schools – great! But an inspection is an inspection and ANY inspection causes fear and paranoia amongst head teachers who will always require staff to over-prepare.
    1. F) Evidence base of good classroom practice – very helpful for some teachers but in some schools these resources will become prescriptive and will be rigidly enforced and teachers observed causing MORE workload and stress.

    Am I to suspect that the dread hand of the politicians has  slammed down on any solutions that may show any level of compassion or sympathy for the plight of teachers?  Frankly, there are more votes in teacher-bashing than there are in supporting those professionals who are responsible for the happiness and success of our children and ultimately for the future of our country. An opportunity missed.

    WHAT WE NEEDED: 

    1:OFSTED reformed! With a requirement to measure teacher job-satisfaction and workload against agreed national criteria and recommend changes.

    2: Schools to audit workload, identify where excessive marking and duplication and bureaucracy can be cut down. This needs to involve all staff and be the focus of CPD for at least six months.

    3: Schools report back to the DFE on staff turnover with reasons based on exit interviews conducted by an external person(!) (Needs careful consideration…)

    4: Trust the teachers! MOST of us are not workshy skivers with a confrontation-based mentality, we just want our students to do well and be happy, our local and national community to benefit. To do this we want to have the time to prepare and deliver excellent lessons, do marking that genuinely helps the pupils to progress, and to have time, with all this, to have a decent work-life balance. Trust the teachers! We take our greatest pleasure in the achievement of others. It’s the best job in the world. Don’t let us down.

    Don’t let us down! If you do, you’re letting the children down. We need SMART targets for reducing workload right now. In every school. And a framework in which to enact them.

    Love, kisses

    Jon

    Yeh yeh yeh….and that’s that folks. Little or no change. No sense. Nonsense. And since then, “all schools to become Academies” thank goodness, defeated by the Unions, and a furious electorate. Nicky went a bit crazy so was replaced by Ms Greening in the new May government. Will she be more amenable to the Real World? Time will tell. The next battle, of course is May’s idiot Grammar School initiative. More social engineering from the party who gave us Austerity, and the assault on the welfare state….

     

    And so back to my Barking Blog: THIS time, no escape from the story of my becoming NUT Union Rep…going NUTs!

     

     

     

  • Heathrow – No Go

    Heathrow NO NO

    NO go Heathrow!
    The roaring at my window –
    My morning hello –
    Your beasts with their cargo –
    All in a bloody row…
    NO GO, Heathrow!
    And you with your Duty Free!
    Your duty
    Is to free me.

  • Flash Fiction: A Retirement

    Flash Fiction is a Short Story in either 100 or 500 words. Here is a 500 word tale, based on a very real story. (See http://www.flash500.com/index.html)

    31 Years

    She had worked for the Council for 31 years and on her last day they gave her a card. She opened the envelope and along with the card there was a single pound coin. On the card were the signatures of her former colleagues, two of whom had scrawled “Good Luck” above their signatures.

    She ripped card and envelope to shreds with her long taloned fingernails and threw the pieces into the air, obscuring the face of her smug line-manager in a blizzard of spite and hatred.

    The street snatched at her heels, the ground sucked at the two huge Sainsbury’s bags containing her papers, the notebooks full of the agonies of spilled egos and destroyed lives, the coffee mug with the stain that looked like Jesus, about 16 pens, ten of which would never work, the framed photograph of her with ‘my boys’.

    Revenge. That bully will regret this, she thought.

    Her eyes leaked tears like blood as she climbed onto the bus which had taken her home thousands of times in that 31 years. So much effort, dissolved by time! So much of her heart, her mind enmeshed in the words she had created for the sake of the Council, dissolved by time, bathed in acid.

    And every work night she had sat on this bus still thinking and planning for the Council, still teeth clenched over the clients she had seen. And lying awake at night so often, seeking and finding solutions for the Council…ideas for the Council…

    Yes she had annoyed people. She had never had time for fools, and very often a solution was extremely clear for her and she would say so and implement it as she eventually gained the power to do so. Her theory was always if a solution was the right one, however it was implemented, people would realize, appreciate and applaud the result.

    She had been wrong about that obviously!

    What a waste.

     

    Home was a wasteland. The living room is bland, scraped clean of any colour, any personality. She had never had time for home…the Council, the Clients had been all that mattered. The cleaner cared more for her home than she did.

    Revenge! Grindr, that would do it. A simple matter to install the app, chat up the campest man she could find in the persona of her ex line manager. Some gloriously erect photographs from the net snagged an extravagantly camp, desperate young man. “I can’t wait!” she typed. “Come to my place at ….” The address “and if a woman opens the door tell her you’re my slut, she knows all about it, and explain what we are going to do together…” His wife will explode. His children will scream…….! Bastard!

    In the bathroom cabinet, the sleeping pills. Whisky in the cupboard. Still clutched in her hand, that coin.

    Not actually a pound. A gold Victoria sovereign.

    In the bedroom, a flourish of flowers delivered this morning, arranged by the cleaner.

     

    497 words. Do you know what the last 3 are?

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