A great day in Skreeworld
Wednesday 28 September 2011
Chimney Stack
8 ceramic chimneys, 2 aluminium aerials, bricks, tiles, lead flashing and various plants.
Why Rugby League?
some have asked. Commonly known as 'The Greatest Game of All', Rugby League serves as a metaphor for the north/south divide, also for honesty and corruption.
Dicky Lockwood was the David Beckham of his day. After the Great Schism Lockwood was stripped of all his medals and written out of Rugby Union histories. The miners that played the common game could not afford to lose their saurday mornings pay. The RU said that the game should be purely amateur. By this time, the Northern teams were better supported and had beaten the public school educated sothern teams for a decade. The Northern Union, later called Rugby League was formed by enteupernaurial Northern business men. For a century if an RU player so much as had a trial for an RL team, they were banned for life. Now, the two sports are different games.The ball is in open play for 80% of an RL game, 40% of an RU game. League is a game of try scoring, ball handling prowess. RU has disintegrated in to a game won on infringements and subsequent penalties. Northern hemisphere teams do not even attempt to score tries, drawing each match in to a mess. Southern hemisphere teams at least attempt to score tries. RU is an unwatchable affair based from top to bottom on deceit. The honourable code, though small is a game to watch. The crowds sing and cheer, enlivened by its' intensity. RU cowds stand, silent. 
I met a 'freind'
I went to see a freind play music, we are close lifelong freinds. An overexcited Facebook 'freind' I had let in during a moment of benevolence kept interjecting preventing us sharing precious moments. The moral of ths story is never 'meet' your 'freinds'.
View from the garage where my car is
Let us hope all goes well and economically manageable on the Skreeworld prime vehicle. The vehicle has magic properties. The driver has bn pulled over on two occassions when he was clearly at odds with common law. Either the police have it marked as being involved in an operation, Free Masonry has Skreeworld under its' wing or a Guardian Angel protects ts driver; whoever it may be. At Skreeworld we believe the Arch Angel that Soloman has become since his untimely death whilst on Skreeworld research watches over us, protecting our important work. The only test of this is to keep the
vehicle on the road, even if this goes against financial logic. We know our work to be righteous and hence laws of Forbidden Physics trump all other systems. Also, if the garage overcharges the repurcussions are beyond the control of earth bound beings.
vehicle on the road, even if this goes against financial logic. We know our work to be righteous and hence laws of Forbidden Physics trump all other systems. Also, if the garage overcharges the repurcussions are beyond the control of earth bound beings.
Concrete
Henry' Demons. Henrys' Dad had thought a lt about what Henry knew a lot about. Mental illnes. Henry had spent many year in Mental institutions and had escaped over 30 times. Read 'Henrys' Demons.'
Sunday 25 September 2011
Late Autumn
Since my recent period of despair that led to my therapeutic recovery period up north where I began writing the auto biographical pieces as a kind of question to myself on how I got in to such a mess, I have begun to feel my powers returning. I feel open, exposed, free, clear headed but ready to put things right. Without stepping out of ones situation it can become a virtual impossibillity to see things clearly. It is too recent to write about in detail and to claim I am recovered may be premature. I can, however, see the poverty of higher morallity that I could have drifted further toward. There are many things quite out of character I have said and done these last 3 or 4 years. This period includes the time I have been writing this blog. To go back and delete would be as dishonest as it would be to deny that I have been and done wrong. To move forward it is necessary to draw a line in the sand. Since returning, in fact since leaving I have had to take a day one approach. By looking at mistakes from my past I am old enough to spot traits or character errors, times when I have fallen victim to similar traps. Rebuilding the Skreeworld Empire will be long and hard but I have a greater inner strength now that I must nurture like a young plant. It will be a fair while before we bloom once more yet I believe we will.
Skreeworld 2009 Flashback
Just in case anyone who is reading Skreeworld blog who read it in the early days, here is a picture from our beginnings. Back then, we were in to climbing industrial architecture that had significance to me. Here is the Water Tower in Moortown, North Leeds from the foot. I had scaled this many times as a boy so me and K went on a specil mission, from Somerset to reclimb it. Things had changed up there. The fence used to be a wrought iron afair, the type with beaten pearheads passing through two flat, steel plates. One had been removed, another bent so a child could easily slip through. Now, the common security fence of pressed galvanised steel bent in to a tri pronged top, above which are coils of razor wire. Our hands were torn and bloody and we scaled this with a ladder which we through over. Inside in the old days we would shiny across a pipe that had a final hurle of another fence round the pipe. On our return anothe fence encloses the Tower. To scale this fence we were fortunate to find a cable real that we rolled over and climbed this, then the fence. The ladder got us on to the base. The spiral wrougt iron spiral stairway has ben replaced by a ladder nd backscratcher. This is harder work but somehow less frightening. At the top a safety fence has been erected. As boys, this was a nine inch wall, very scary. The tower is one of the highest points in Leeds and allows one to view the city in a way otherwise impossible, much like Londons Eye.
Saturday 24 September 2011
Burner
This burner lies redundant in hope of a new home. It was made at Dragon Works by the smithy that used to make the metal work for McCloud lighting. The business closed as Kevin went in to TV work though some of the workers there began a new one. A freind who I was in business for a while brought it to our studio where we installed it. After the closure of that studio we moved to another then another, at all locations it kept us warm through many winters. Last year, M was given a new, more economical burner and this beauty burnt its' last. Unless, of course someone needs it. It can take long branches and can be loaded up to last the night. 
Drainspotting
I hought I had got all the daincovers in the town photographed but I found this little beauty hidden away. I also saw that the horrible black tarmac the Council have used to replace missing flagstones in the historic Shepherds Barton is being replaced. Yesterday, a gang of local workmen were curing this unpleasent defect.
Evil artist spotted at Satanist coffee shop
It came as no surprise to anyone at the Skreeworld offices that the Evil Artist is in talks with the leaders of the local Satanist cafe. Yesterday, one of our reporters spotted him on a street in Frome, Somerset. The Evil Artist whose most well known work was a performance piece performed to an audience of none. Here damp, discarded clothing was hurled on to the roof of the extension of an elderly lady. The meaning and significance of the work remains unclear though many believe it was carried out either to appease or summon up the arch demon Satans Santa.The appearance of the Evil Artist is an aproximation of an inverse Satans Santa, who sports long black hair and a dark beard. He is known as the giver of cursed presents to children, small broken animals smeared in dog dirt and wrapped in dock leaves. Pulled through infinity you have the EA like a left hand to a right hand glove, sporting long white hair. Our reporter claims that the EA has shaven off his goat or 'devil' beard. He was drinking a foul dark brew, its' fetid fumes caused passers by to retch, cough or reach for hankerchieves to minimise inhalation.La Satana is well known as the haunt of local satanists that, through coded words purchase the foul juices that are the urine of demon loins. Only initates are wise to the muttered key words that allow staff to know their kin. Dressed in black they brazenly flaunt their wares at the top of a seemingly normal street. The 'cafe' as now expanded its empire to a nearby shop that sells the tools of the hellspawn, strange french and itallian objects sometimes baring the names of the demons they are instrumental in the rituals practiced to summon up these beings.
Locals meanwhile make a stand to save their town from the evil, preffering to drink the beverages available in the holy Market Cross cafe. Here a Milky Coffee can still be bought and a fried breakfast includes the local delicacy of bubble and squeek.
The future of the town lies in the balance though whilst some may feast on the scab like flakes of croissant there are still many who stand against the trend eating the food of our ancestors. Indeed, history has shown, you can't win a war on a cup of coffee and a croissant for breakfast.
Friday 23 September 2011
How did I get here? Part 8
Writing about ones weaknesses is the hardest part. There is the fear that you will be seen to be seeking pity. I have read some autobiographical pieces on mental illness that have been far from that and, given one in four will suffer some sort of mental illness during their lives there still is a shortage in books that tackle the subject.
I have always had periods where the connections in my head become unwired, where the information I am taking in strays, sometimes dramatically from the truth. Other members of my family have also suffered so I believe a genetic predisposition combined with the right circumstances can trigger episodes. There are many I have met and spoken to with far deeper problems than I have had, through it all I have mostly managed to work enough to support myself, taking responsibility for ones own life was drilled in to me from a young age. There have been many times where I should not have been so hard on myself; sought help rather than self medicating. Few drug addicts and alcoholics do it for fun, the majority have mental health issues. Doing anything that is slowly killing you goes against all natural survival instincts. Even in school where I first was taken to a psychiatrist I was showing a deviant streak. I believe that my use of drugs at a young age, before the brain is fully developed may well have a baring on this. There isn't the money for the National Health system to provide continued trained support and proffessional help given to individual cases so many end up self medicating. The subject is taboo in all strands of society. The working class, or what little remains and certainly an attitude I got from my dad are taught to knuckle down, show no weakness, work through it all. Often this is what I have done yet frequently drifting in to substance misuse to self medicate.
My earliest memories were after my second mushroom season, aged 14. Each trip I had done, and there were many, I came down less and less from. Fractal colours still dot my vision. Part of me enjoyed the manics I had then that the subsequent depressions seemed a price worth paying. During those manics I could work tirelessly on mad projects. An example would be when unable to get in the house, the glass from my sisters window had been smashed out during some high jinks some months back and lay in front of the porch. I began arranging the fragments of glass, they felt as defined and predesigned as a jigsaw, for hours I rummaged through them making a giant crow on the concrete. The same dedication I would apply to paintings in the school art block, usually destroying them for imperfections and flaws others couldn't see.
By moving to first Cornwall and then to the Yorkshire Dales I managed to get away from drugs that were so clearly damaging me. Everyone I knew there at least smoked dope. During the brief stint between living in these two places I spent maybe 10 months in Leeds. One time, not due to any acid hallucination the flat seemed to be darkening, like a gas or smoke was gradually increasing. I couldn't smell it and this helped me to confirm it wasn't real. I was back in the second world war in some air rade or defensive shelter. I knew storm troopers were lurking outside so escape was impossible. The world was closing in on me. It was with some relief I moved to the country. This presents its own problems as spending too much time alone allows incorrect readings to grow unhindered.
After living in Birmingham, following my girlfreind of the time, for a few months, the lack of stimulus saw my mind drifting. There were 4 murders in the area I lived and walked while I lived there. This didn't scare me, they were all parts of themselves. In the house directly behind me a schizophrenic bloke killed the girl in the flat below him. One morning I had to take a different route to work as police had taped off a road where a young asian lad had killed his young girlfreind. Afew months later, in the road parrallel to that a man thought his two young children were posessed and beat there heads in on his garden wall. The last was a more mundane drug related killing in an all night cafe. As I said, none of this scared me yet one weekend alone there I became so agraphobic I couldn't evcn get to the shops. The tarmac was shifting and changing, pavements had clifflike drops, hedges forest like. I was clean as a whistle so this was all in my head. I saw a doctor who prescribed me valium which helped. He booked me an appointment with a psychiatrist. Inside the mental hospital which was one of the old victorian type asylums, High Royds in Leeds was similar, I waited. What is it with psychiatrists? do they do it on purpose? they all seem to have an affectation that gives them away. This one wore a pink polka dotted shirt, a bowtie and round cicular Lennon glasses perched low down his nose. I left learning nothing. As is often the case, once you book an appointment with any doctor all symptoms seem to disappear on the day you need to be ill. I guess I wasn't mad enough for him.
Though I had a few ups and downs I didn't seek any further help for another decade. Once I got through my early twenties, the more schizophrenic like symptoms had calmed down. To this day I have the odd bout of this sort but they are largely manageable. This period of mental stabillity saw me through my travelling days and through the five years I spent studying. It was after this that saw me in poor condition. Having set my sights on lecturing my plan paid off. After a year as a technician that I thoroughly enjoyed I applied for a lecturing position at UCE in Birmingham. Having landed this job, The University of Wolverhampton asked me to do two days a week, this made 4 and a half days full. Hugh, my old course tutor asked if I could squeeze in another day at Shrewsbury. Suddenly I was a full time lecturer at three different sites.
This was far too much too soon. Having gone through the preparatory stages for Birmingham. I set off for my first day. A 7 mile cycle ride to the train station then an hour and a half journey spat me out at New Street. Heading toward Aston Triangle I became overwhelmed with anxiety. I managed a day or two but on the third I ducked in to a shop doorway. I saw the students en mass like worker ants returning to base, I just couldn't face it. Being one was easy and I thought back to all times I had tried to disrupt teachers at school, the pompous duels of intellect I had engaged in with lecturers and felt massive guilt. It isn't easy to stand at the front; I am no natural performer either. Having no plan of explanation I headed back to the station and set off home. Calling in and admitting my failure was hard. The doctor had no time for sympathy but a great enthusiasm for his product. He had a Lustral mug of tea, a Lustral clock on his wall and wrote out a prescription for Lustral with his Lustral pen. He also had the kindness to prescribe me some sleepers too. I was allotted a psychiatrist who worked under that days authordoxy of finding the right chemical to put your brain into place. This was ridiculous. It was clear what was wrong. My job.
I managed, through the use of these two drugs and a lot of alcohol and codeine to get through a year at the other two colleges. Depression follows anxiety and this year was hellish gloom. These days I wouldn't be phased by it but I was too young or too unconfident. The drugs I was prescribed and the drink meant I couldn't do my job well. Once that worm has got in it niggles away. I wish I could go back and do that year properly. I wasn't at my best and let down those students. I was used to being good at things. Deciding, with hindsight for the best I didn't continue my positions the following year and moved to Somerset to recover.
I have always had periods where the connections in my head become unwired, where the information I am taking in strays, sometimes dramatically from the truth. Other members of my family have also suffered so I believe a genetic predisposition combined with the right circumstances can trigger episodes. There are many I have met and spoken to with far deeper problems than I have had, through it all I have mostly managed to work enough to support myself, taking responsibility for ones own life was drilled in to me from a young age. There have been many times where I should not have been so hard on myself; sought help rather than self medicating. Few drug addicts and alcoholics do it for fun, the majority have mental health issues. Doing anything that is slowly killing you goes against all natural survival instincts. Even in school where I first was taken to a psychiatrist I was showing a deviant streak. I believe that my use of drugs at a young age, before the brain is fully developed may well have a baring on this. There isn't the money for the National Health system to provide continued trained support and proffessional help given to individual cases so many end up self medicating. The subject is taboo in all strands of society. The working class, or what little remains and certainly an attitude I got from my dad are taught to knuckle down, show no weakness, work through it all. Often this is what I have done yet frequently drifting in to substance misuse to self medicate.
My earliest memories were after my second mushroom season, aged 14. Each trip I had done, and there were many, I came down less and less from. Fractal colours still dot my vision. Part of me enjoyed the manics I had then that the subsequent depressions seemed a price worth paying. During those manics I could work tirelessly on mad projects. An example would be when unable to get in the house, the glass from my sisters window had been smashed out during some high jinks some months back and lay in front of the porch. I began arranging the fragments of glass, they felt as defined and predesigned as a jigsaw, for hours I rummaged through them making a giant crow on the concrete. The same dedication I would apply to paintings in the school art block, usually destroying them for imperfections and flaws others couldn't see.
By moving to first Cornwall and then to the Yorkshire Dales I managed to get away from drugs that were so clearly damaging me. Everyone I knew there at least smoked dope. During the brief stint between living in these two places I spent maybe 10 months in Leeds. One time, not due to any acid hallucination the flat seemed to be darkening, like a gas or smoke was gradually increasing. I couldn't smell it and this helped me to confirm it wasn't real. I was back in the second world war in some air rade or defensive shelter. I knew storm troopers were lurking outside so escape was impossible. The world was closing in on me. It was with some relief I moved to the country. This presents its own problems as spending too much time alone allows incorrect readings to grow unhindered.
After living in Birmingham, following my girlfreind of the time, for a few months, the lack of stimulus saw my mind drifting. There were 4 murders in the area I lived and walked while I lived there. This didn't scare me, they were all parts of themselves. In the house directly behind me a schizophrenic bloke killed the girl in the flat below him. One morning I had to take a different route to work as police had taped off a road where a young asian lad had killed his young girlfreind. Afew months later, in the road parrallel to that a man thought his two young children were posessed and beat there heads in on his garden wall. The last was a more mundane drug related killing in an all night cafe. As I said, none of this scared me yet one weekend alone there I became so agraphobic I couldn't evcn get to the shops. The tarmac was shifting and changing, pavements had clifflike drops, hedges forest like. I was clean as a whistle so this was all in my head. I saw a doctor who prescribed me valium which helped. He booked me an appointment with a psychiatrist. Inside the mental hospital which was one of the old victorian type asylums, High Royds in Leeds was similar, I waited. What is it with psychiatrists? do they do it on purpose? they all seem to have an affectation that gives them away. This one wore a pink polka dotted shirt, a bowtie and round cicular Lennon glasses perched low down his nose. I left learning nothing. As is often the case, once you book an appointment with any doctor all symptoms seem to disappear on the day you need to be ill. I guess I wasn't mad enough for him.
Though I had a few ups and downs I didn't seek any further help for another decade. Once I got through my early twenties, the more schizophrenic like symptoms had calmed down. To this day I have the odd bout of this sort but they are largely manageable. This period of mental stabillity saw me through my travelling days and through the five years I spent studying. It was after this that saw me in poor condition. Having set my sights on lecturing my plan paid off. After a year as a technician that I thoroughly enjoyed I applied for a lecturing position at UCE in Birmingham. Having landed this job, The University of Wolverhampton asked me to do two days a week, this made 4 and a half days full. Hugh, my old course tutor asked if I could squeeze in another day at Shrewsbury. Suddenly I was a full time lecturer at three different sites.
This was far too much too soon. Having gone through the preparatory stages for Birmingham. I set off for my first day. A 7 mile cycle ride to the train station then an hour and a half journey spat me out at New Street. Heading toward Aston Triangle I became overwhelmed with anxiety. I managed a day or two but on the third I ducked in to a shop doorway. I saw the students en mass like worker ants returning to base, I just couldn't face it. Being one was easy and I thought back to all times I had tried to disrupt teachers at school, the pompous duels of intellect I had engaged in with lecturers and felt massive guilt. It isn't easy to stand at the front; I am no natural performer either. Having no plan of explanation I headed back to the station and set off home. Calling in and admitting my failure was hard. The doctor had no time for sympathy but a great enthusiasm for his product. He had a Lustral mug of tea, a Lustral clock on his wall and wrote out a prescription for Lustral with his Lustral pen. He also had the kindness to prescribe me some sleepers too. I was allotted a psychiatrist who worked under that days authordoxy of finding the right chemical to put your brain into place. This was ridiculous. It was clear what was wrong. My job.
I managed, through the use of these two drugs and a lot of alcohol and codeine to get through a year at the other two colleges. Depression follows anxiety and this year was hellish gloom. These days I wouldn't be phased by it but I was too young or too unconfident. The drugs I was prescribed and the drink meant I couldn't do my job well. Once that worm has got in it niggles away. I wish I could go back and do that year properly. I wasn't at my best and let down those students. I was used to being good at things. Deciding, with hindsight for the best I didn't continue my positions the following year and moved to Somerset to recover.
Thursday 22 September 2011
How did I get here? part 8
These early years seem like the memories of another person, perhaps they are, at least in as much as I have changed. I have no regrets nor pride in any of the stories from my younger years and these reminiscences are self indulgent though theraputic as I try to understand what brought me to where I am. Most peoples story is of interest, I know some who have brilliant autobiographies that will remain unwritten which is tragic. I have only written in detail about those who have died and have not dwelled or incriminated anyone. People that I have mentioned in passing mean more to me than I have said and others, particulaly the few who are in the public eye I have not mentioned at all, their history is their privacy and theirs to write. Life goes by so quickly and only now, with some distance can I understand why I did certain things. I believe, certainly for myself that we react to events instinctually, on an animal level. Afterwards we may rationalise our reasoning whilst little takes place. Their are those who have five or ten year plans but, probably due to my mothers death during my childhood I have never been able to think that way. The consequences of this can be good as I have tended to live in the moment, there are huge downsides. Living with the repercussions of ones actions can be a burden. The one time I did take a long term view led to my first real breakdown. After realising that supporting yourself through exhibitting work you have made from the heart can be an uphill struggle. Looking at older makers I had seen many who worked in relatively well paid lecturing positions that supported their 'Art', on a part time basis, I thought that I might do the same. This was the primary reason I went back to college and took proper training in a university setting to gain quallifications. These would allow me to lecture. It worked but I couldn't do it. Only in higher education can someone teach without any teacher training. This is ridiculous. Just because I was good at designing and making did not mean I could pass this on to others. I wasn't an entire failure; my first post at the University of Wolverhampton was fantastic. I got some students through who would surely fail. The intensity required in the commercial world, I had come from trade rather than throuh the conventional education route, is far greater than in the ponderous, playful world of students. One lad had three weeks to go. He had been encouraged to do that much preparity work, cutting up magazines, sketching, making models etc. that he had left just three weeks to finish making his final pieces. I blasted them out with him whilst working with the others. I was thrown in the deep end though and took on too much too soon.
The build up to this was wrong. My partner of the time had bought a cottage in need of repair in Shropshire, out in the wilds near Clun, the centre of British witchcraft. After I graduated, this is where I went. Her father did the architectural drawings and builders the heavier work whilst I spent a year there on my own working on the house. It was built in 1640, or there abouts and hadn't been touched since. The chimney was a vast structure that was central with a vast fireplace. We reduced this, using the stone for other walls. The end had a brick built area with bread ovens and old washing equipment. Beautiful but impractical for modern living. We knocked this down and I built a timber framed extension on to a hardcore rubble, insulation and damp proof membrane. The inside of the house had flags straight on to soil as the floor which we took up. Concrete was laid throughout. I used the bricks to make a path to the parking bay below a new wall that heald in the raised garden I built. The outside toilet was in an isolated shed. After taking down the shed there was a period where the loo was just that, you could see cars passing as you sat there and there drivers see you. Finally this was moved inside. The renovation was a great period though living on a building site can grate after a few months. After this was done I got some cabinet making work for a local furniture maker who lived a few miles away. This was quite a trek on a bike in winter, those hills can be quite wild. Not as cruel as the Yorkshire Dales where I had lived for a couple of years a decade or more before. I was paid £4 an hour. Those who hit out at Blair should remember his few good moves, like the minimum wage. When I was offered the lecturing jobs, some that paid £27 per hour I grabbed them without thinking. I jumped from one or two human interactions in a day to 50 or more. Learning to spread your attention from one to another and not dwelling on any individual is a skill I hadn't needed nor used since I was a student, even then I would be so engrossed in my work that I shut them out. Suddenly I was required to do a whole lot more.
The build up to this was wrong. My partner of the time had bought a cottage in need of repair in Shropshire, out in the wilds near Clun, the centre of British witchcraft. After I graduated, this is where I went. Her father did the architectural drawings and builders the heavier work whilst I spent a year there on my own working on the house. It was built in 1640, or there abouts and hadn't been touched since. The chimney was a vast structure that was central with a vast fireplace. We reduced this, using the stone for other walls. The end had a brick built area with bread ovens and old washing equipment. Beautiful but impractical for modern living. We knocked this down and I built a timber framed extension on to a hardcore rubble, insulation and damp proof membrane. The inside of the house had flags straight on to soil as the floor which we took up. Concrete was laid throughout. I used the bricks to make a path to the parking bay below a new wall that heald in the raised garden I built. The outside toilet was in an isolated shed. After taking down the shed there was a period where the loo was just that, you could see cars passing as you sat there and there drivers see you. Finally this was moved inside. The renovation was a great period though living on a building site can grate after a few months. After this was done I got some cabinet making work for a local furniture maker who lived a few miles away. This was quite a trek on a bike in winter, those hills can be quite wild. Not as cruel as the Yorkshire Dales where I had lived for a couple of years a decade or more before. I was paid £4 an hour. Those who hit out at Blair should remember his few good moves, like the minimum wage. When I was offered the lecturing jobs, some that paid £27 per hour I grabbed them without thinking. I jumped from one or two human interactions in a day to 50 or more. Learning to spread your attention from one to another and not dwelling on any individual is a skill I hadn't needed nor used since I was a student, even then I would be so engrossed in my work that I shut them out. Suddenly I was required to do a whole lot more.
Wednesday 21 September 2011
How did I get here? part 7
That first hitch hike down to Cornwall took just one day though all subsequent hitches up and down wer to take two. I arrived in Launceston and knew I had a 7 mile walk ahead. The lane to Trebullet is tiny and withou sign post so I wasn't wholly convinced of where I was heading. It was pitch black. The night there was always so clear; we would stay up all night watching meteor showers or the heat lightening that lights up the horizen. Once I found the house I felt safe. The smells were both strange yet like some long forgotten childhood conection. The Cottage was past Trebullet, down a narow hill where the roadside is banked high up with soil that is covered in wide varieties of wild plants and flowers that support an abundance of wild life. Ladybird glow worms speckle these at night with luminous green dots of light. Perched to the side looking out across the valley with a platform of a small untended garden fom where you could look out across the River Inny to the oakwood that spread in a vast mass. I moved down shortly after. We jokingly called it Leeds recovery centre. Here, no one took drugs but this didn't stop the police coming round 15 times in one year until we wrote a letter of complaint; no reply but no more police. Two occassions spring to mind. The electric meter took ten pence coins which we would feed it. Once full we borrowed the key, walked in to Launceston, changed it to notes in the bank and sent these to the landlord. I had, one time, changed the coins then walked two shops down to sit in a cafe. Four police came in and dragged me out. Sibyl, who I was with was sent to the cells whilst they drove me back to the cottage which they searched without a warant. After finding nothing they were pissed off and took me to the cells where I was brutally treated annd questioned about a series of robberies in a town I had never heard of. Finally they realised I was innocent and they grudgingly put me out.
Even Christmas eve was spoilt as I split wood to start the fire they arrived again.This time they said a tree had been taken from a nearby garden. I pointed out that the tree I had got fom some wodland, a mile away was a Larch, the stub he showed me was fom a Spruce. I took PC Turner up in to the woods to show him the stump. After our long walk back he was satisfied thugh non plussed as my freinds had decorrated his car with tinsel and paper chains.
I got my interest in wood here. The oak wood across the valley had many still standing dead oak trees seasoned and perfect firwood. Each morning I would cut one down and cut it in to three 7 foot lenghths about 8 inch diameter. Three journeys back through field and track with the logs on my shoulder. We had a backgarden where I used a bow saw to cut these in to burnable lengths the split them with a felling axe. The quallity of the matrial was incredible. English oak has a wonderful texture.
Salmon came up the river to spawn. Lizards and sloeworms, huge moths, buzzards circled overhead. In the summer our spring would run dry so we bathed in the river, carrying beer buckets of drinking water from a man down the lane and used buckets from the nearby stream to flush the toilet. Nature was my inspiration, new plants and animals I never knew before broadened my knowledge. I read voraciously. The Falklands war passed by unnoticed as we had no telly. A wonderful time of my life.
Ultimately, the loneliness and closeness to each other became too much. We all got to know each other too well. I left with Sibyl, returning to leeds. Aged 19.
Even Christmas eve was spoilt as I split wood to start the fire they arrived again.This time they said a tree had been taken from a nearby garden. I pointed out that the tree I had got fom some wodland, a mile away was a Larch, the stub he showed me was fom a Spruce. I took PC Turner up in to the woods to show him the stump. After our long walk back he was satisfied thugh non plussed as my freinds had decorrated his car with tinsel and paper chains.
I got my interest in wood here. The oak wood across the valley had many still standing dead oak trees seasoned and perfect firwood. Each morning I would cut one down and cut it in to three 7 foot lenghths about 8 inch diameter. Three journeys back through field and track with the logs on my shoulder. We had a backgarden where I used a bow saw to cut these in to burnable lengths the split them with a felling axe. The quallity of the matrial was incredible. English oak has a wonderful texture.
Salmon came up the river to spawn. Lizards and sloeworms, huge moths, buzzards circled overhead. In the summer our spring would run dry so we bathed in the river, carrying beer buckets of drinking water from a man down the lane and used buckets from the nearby stream to flush the toilet. Nature was my inspiration, new plants and animals I never knew before broadened my knowledge. I read voraciously. The Falklands war passed by unnoticed as we had no telly. A wonderful time of my life.
Ultimately, the loneliness and closeness to each other became too much. We all got to know each other too well. I left with Sibyl, returning to leeds. Aged 19.
How did I get here? part 6
Early days at school were alright. After my mothers death I lost all interest in it. Looking back I think that her drawn out death from cancer is probably the making of me. With hindsight I could have gone in any direction. Until this point, I was competitive and rarely came below second in anything. Maybe it is as simple as having someone to impress. She was religious whilst my father, like me, is a devout aetheist. She never smoked, ate healthy food, was a good person yet fate chose her for an early grave. I believe they were very much in love, I can recall no more than 2 or 3 arguments and these were all due to stress, either tiredness whilst transporting three kids around or any other moment that all humans have quick upset. Most of my freinds at school were from broken families, divorced parents. Like seeks like, but there is one fundamental difference. Children from broken marriages may lose trust in love. I never lost that. I did, however lose any belief in god, gain an early awareness of the temporary, that life can be snuffed out for no reason. That it has little baring on you chances to follow any conventionally righteous path, that karma doesn't exist. Whilst liberating me in some ways, I lost all faith in trying to do well at school. If death can intrude so suddenly on your plans then long term thinking is a folly. These weren't thoughts I was able to articulate, just how I reacted. I became disruptive. Used all strengths to spoil lessons, mine and others chances. I was in trouble continually from here till I left. Ultimatly I was banned from German, Physics, Biology, Maths, Chemistry; all these lessons I spent in the Art block. Along with my English lessons that I never tried in I just did Art. As I have said, my Art teacher, Mrs Steel was a solitary beacon and my space in her room a sanctuary where I would silently work. It was peace where all else in my life was chaos. She tried really hard for me; took me to Art colleges, trying to show me that therewas another way. At the time, at home we were left to fend for ourselves. I was cooking from nine years old to feed myself. My dad was broken hearted and overwelmed by the injutice of life and sought solace in alcohol. Though I was angy with him for many years, I have grown to see just how tough a hand he was dealt. It would have broken many people. I have made no better a go of it. He was young and lost. I seldom would see him. I had become entranced by music. Having discovered an older group of people, freaks who lived for chemical enlightenment through LSD, cannabis and mushrooms I took this avenue. Truancy became frequent. One time I was off so long I got scared to go back till social workers were sent out to reel me in. Psychiatrists were brought to the school, they had me down as a glue sniffer though I wasn't one. Mushroom seasons in the autumn became psychedelic whirlwinds that lasted for months. After a series of mushroom parties that me, Martin and Pig, a freind from another school who shared my taste in music parents became worried. The periferal kids were called to the Headmasters office. They fell like dominoes with the finger of suspicion falling in my direction the easy way out was to point the finger at those with least to lose. Me and Martin took the brunt of this though his parents took the terrible action of assuming that it must be me leading him astray and sent him off to a boarding school. I have strong feelings about this as Martin is now dead. There is a part of me that knows he looked up to me and followed my down a route that led to him going to college to study furniture at Rycotewood where as I was to go o Shrewsbury and High Wycombe. His parents, at his funeral seemed to think that the route had led to his death though by then I was in Shropshre, lecturing.
After a term , Martin could take no more. After being dropped with his bags at Leeds train station, he fled. Taking a hitch hike tour of England. The Evening Post led with 'Mssing boy with drg problem.' It read that havin returnd to Leeds he had fallen back in with his bad freinds who led him astray. He had turned up at school, drunk and in despair though I never though he'd run away. The story ran for several weeks. Secretly he had returned to Leeds and was living in the woods where we had built a den called 'The Bivouak'. I was taking food from home to feed him and spending most evenings visiting him. I don't know how we thought it would end but I think his girlfreind from whome he'd been ripped had talked. She didn't know where he was but must have got it from mygirlfrind Anthea. I heard that she had told him and ran 2 miles to try get to him to warn him but as I got to the entrance to the woods, I saw Police cars and Martin being led away.
I missed Martin but made freindships that last to this day with Feddy and Pig Penchion. The Headmaster had him down as some sort of pied piper leading his flock astray. Nothing could be further from the truth. At the inquisition I faced as the main mushroom head in school, the Head asked 'so who is Pin Cushion', his picture of some track marked junky flashed before my eyes, 'or is it Big Pusher?' he continued. Unable to continue as I was contorted with laughter. He shouted at me but I couldn't stop myself . After this I just did art.
Feddy is a successful musician. Pig is a technician. Martin is sadly no longer with us.
I was an Easter leaver. If you were a real numbskull you could leave before taking your O levels. I left home the same day. I would have been 15. I went to live with a gang of freinds a few years older than me in a large terraced house in Harehills. This was to be a halcyon period of my life. I was used to getting £8 a week so a giro seemed huge. We all signed on. Those who are still alive, Turps died some years back, have been very successful though back then you wouldn't have guessed. Our days would be spent smoking dope, our nights tripping on Acid, walking through parks at dawn as psychedelic warlords disappeared in smoke. To a sound track of Hawkwind, Pink Floyd and dub reggae we had our own little underground. Other houses in the area were dotted around where similar types lived. We would go to Stonehenge, Deeply Vale and other free festivals . Travellers and Hells Angels would drop by. Across the road, one night, whilst tripping we heard Music from a window opposite, the only lights on at such an hour. We got to know them and others. All sorts happened and it was a period of great light and happiness, many involved but I won't name as they are now grown up. We thought it would last forever. Drug scenes invariably turn dark. After this house fell through unpaid rent we all spun off in different directions. I moved in to a house with two squatters, began a relationship that was to last five years. These two were more streetwise than me. We got by on vegetables, pinched at night from allotments, milk stolen from doorsteps and wore clothes plucked from washing lines. I never progressed further as a criminal, right and wrong though hazy were still ingrained in me. One night Dalby never came back and me and Sibyl were left with his dog Pavlov, a wild but intelligent dog that regularly walked from one side of the city to another, staying with freinds here and there.
When this house fell, we moved in with Sten and Ron. Sten was drifting in to drug induced schizophrenia and Ron was learning to play bass. I wasn't to see him for 20 years when I met him again in Frome, by then, frontman in Hawkwind.
It felt dark here. Some freinds had moved to a small comunal cotage in Cornwall. Two were moving out soon so I hitched down to ask if me and Sibyl could replace them. Escaping Leeds for the first time was to change me again.
After a term , Martin could take no more. After being dropped with his bags at Leeds train station, he fled. Taking a hitch hike tour of England. The Evening Post led with 'Mssing boy with drg problem.' It read that havin returnd to Leeds he had fallen back in with his bad freinds who led him astray. He had turned up at school, drunk and in despair though I never though he'd run away. The story ran for several weeks. Secretly he had returned to Leeds and was living in the woods where we had built a den called 'The Bivouak'. I was taking food from home to feed him and spending most evenings visiting him. I don't know how we thought it would end but I think his girlfreind from whome he'd been ripped had talked. She didn't know where he was but must have got it from mygirlfrind Anthea. I heard that she had told him and ran 2 miles to try get to him to warn him but as I got to the entrance to the woods, I saw Police cars and Martin being led away.
I missed Martin but made freindships that last to this day with Feddy and Pig Penchion. The Headmaster had him down as some sort of pied piper leading his flock astray. Nothing could be further from the truth. At the inquisition I faced as the main mushroom head in school, the Head asked 'so who is Pin Cushion', his picture of some track marked junky flashed before my eyes, 'or is it Big Pusher?' he continued. Unable to continue as I was contorted with laughter. He shouted at me but I couldn't stop myself . After this I just did art.
Feddy is a successful musician. Pig is a technician. Martin is sadly no longer with us.
I was an Easter leaver. If you were a real numbskull you could leave before taking your O levels. I left home the same day. I would have been 15. I went to live with a gang of freinds a few years older than me in a large terraced house in Harehills. This was to be a halcyon period of my life. I was used to getting £8 a week so a giro seemed huge. We all signed on. Those who are still alive, Turps died some years back, have been very successful though back then you wouldn't have guessed. Our days would be spent smoking dope, our nights tripping on Acid, walking through parks at dawn as psychedelic warlords disappeared in smoke. To a sound track of Hawkwind, Pink Floyd and dub reggae we had our own little underground. Other houses in the area were dotted around where similar types lived. We would go to Stonehenge, Deeply Vale and other free festivals . Travellers and Hells Angels would drop by. Across the road, one night, whilst tripping we heard Music from a window opposite, the only lights on at such an hour. We got to know them and others. All sorts happened and it was a period of great light and happiness, many involved but I won't name as they are now grown up. We thought it would last forever. Drug scenes invariably turn dark. After this house fell through unpaid rent we all spun off in different directions. I moved in to a house with two squatters, began a relationship that was to last five years. These two were more streetwise than me. We got by on vegetables, pinched at night from allotments, milk stolen from doorsteps and wore clothes plucked from washing lines. I never progressed further as a criminal, right and wrong though hazy were still ingrained in me. One night Dalby never came back and me and Sibyl were left with his dog Pavlov, a wild but intelligent dog that regularly walked from one side of the city to another, staying with freinds here and there.
When this house fell, we moved in with Sten and Ron. Sten was drifting in to drug induced schizophrenia and Ron was learning to play bass. I wasn't to see him for 20 years when I met him again in Frome, by then, frontman in Hawkwind.
It felt dark here. Some freinds had moved to a small comunal cotage in Cornwall. Two were moving out soon so I hitched down to ask if me and Sibyl could replace them. Escaping Leeds for the first time was to change me again.
Tuesday 20 September 2011
Missed shot
This week has been the first when the realities of reccession have felt real. Of course I have had periods of feast and famine throughout all years of self employment stretching back to the early '90s and maybe it is the information barrage from TV, papers and radio but three local makers in my area have walked in to the workshop this week. We all run isolated buisnesses and hence have remote,subjective percepions of what the heat of the climate is. One is semi retired, one has had a patchy year and one has no work. The whole game is never secure, you can never see too far ahead but it has always felt, even when things were quiet that something would turn up. I'm not so sure now. I have work but seeing an older friend who I care for and respect, someone more technically knowledgable than me, out of work worries me. Luxury goods are first to suffer.
Sunday 18 September 2011
Travellers villified by racist British
It seems that the eviction of Dale Park farm will go ahead. I have not been to this site but I read that the previous owner worked in conjunction with the council; they provided the hard core and other materials whilst him and his crew created the hard standing. He ran it as a scrap yard, it was a mess, a brownfield site, not greenfield as some claim. I know many travellers near where I live, most Gypsies here live in houses and the travellers with sites are all happy. There are, however, a small band I have known for several years now. Eviction is a part of their lives. They are regularly moved on. What do the government expect those evicted from Dale Farm to do? They will have to live somewhere. The UN have said that they are against the eviction as have many religious groups. It seems those who have had connection or experience, even family memories of ethnic cleansing can see where the thin edge of the wedge lies. This is a community that have a lot conventional society has lost, a community that need not lock their doors, a community that still has the education of the extended family not just the nuclear family system we have where a child may grow up only knowing their own mother as an example of womanhood, only their father as an example of how a man should conduct himself. All the inbred perversity that the nuclear family creates. They have no need for carers where townies are too busy with work to care for their ill, no need for old peoples homes, their old are righteously revered, loved and cared for. The argument is that planning laws should apply to all equally. Under European Law the human rights of minorities should trump planning laws. I believe that in Europe they have seen the result of criminalising minorities, they are far more aware of the incremental steps that led to the Final Solution.
Friday 16 September 2011
London Design Week
Shows in London worth a visit this week include Gallery Fumo and Sebastian Fellows Gallery. Both galleries in Shoreditch have work in wood. Max Lamb has looked to the traditions of English furniture making and been inspired to make his range called Woodwear. He has focused on the age old dowel rod joint, used by turners and bodgers to make chairs for centuries. The furniture he has shown shows a contemporary angle on an Arts and Crafts feel that is also indebted to Scandinavian design.
Meanwhile, just down the road at the Fellows Gallery, Michael Wainwright is showing his 'Tunnocks Train Set'. Made from native yew, the whole train set is over a mile in length, though only sections are on show, a video shows the entire network. Wainwright, inspired by last years strike at the famous Scottish snack bar factory and impending rail strikes draws the two together to show manufacturings dependence on tea breaks and rail transport. An innovatve and political work.
For the lost Welsh miners
This weeks leading story of the brave efforts to save the four Welsh miners has been over shadowed by Cameron and Sarkozys trip to carve up Lybia. Behind all this the government is trying to slip through a law to take away the right we all should have to legal representation in a court o law, Labour already evicted the jury from fraud trials.
The first news story I remember as a child was the Lofthouse Colliery disaster. Our thoughts are with te families of the lost miners.
Plaguerism
It was the Remember Neville sign that gave me the inspiration for the oak block made for Richards grave. I carved 'Remember Richard' in to it. It sits in the undergrowth by the green burial area in Lawnswood Cemetery in Leeds. This plaque is in Frome, behind the Methodist Church at Wesley Slope.
Wednesday 14 September 2011
2009
I just skipped back to the start of skreeworld blog 2009 and was surprised how good it was. I hope any new comers will take the time to trawl back in order to understand why we began this herculian effort.
Bolshy
He strode in with the bolshy ignorance that only those who have never had to put aside what they want to do for what they have to do, be it to pay their rent, to feed themselves or their children. Some never get that gap to study but are thrown to the wind to fend for themselves. Survival comes before the five year plan some can afford. Those who have never known this seldom understand why others remain stuck. It would take the betrayal of all kith and kin to achieve what some take for granted.
Self Definition
Self definition can be problematic. In older times a person would take the surname of their trade; Joiner, Carpenter, Thatcher. Now your answer to the question, 'what do you do?' may lie elsewhere. As David Pye said, 'if the crafts are to survive their work will be done for love not money.' 'The continuance of our culture is going to depend more and more on the true amateur, for he alone will be proof against amateurishness.' The main part of a persons life, the part by which they define themself may rest in what some call hobbies. The woman on the check out tll may be better defined by th paintings she produces in her atic on an evening. She could more accurately call herself a painter than a check out girl. Not only is self definition dependent on what one does but is equally dependent on how one negotiates the world. Some bricklayers are philosophers, some factory workers steer through aesthetic intuition; others steer through this life throuh science, a man may load lorries for a living but through angling know the waters better than employed wildlife workers. Who is to deprive these peole the right to define themselves through the work they do in play? The good amateur will always beat the professional as finance is of no consequence. But for the hand of fate, early reproduction or fortune of birth, these people would be leaders in their field. As such I imagine the best philosophers, artists in fact those engaged in any area of understanding may never be noticed. 
Grounded-Out Front of Studio. On Success
Being successful in whatever you choose to do drives many Artists and Designers. Some fall in to the trap of hunger for approval. It is an extension of the pat on the back from Daddy or the hug from Mummy for having done a nice drawing. The idea of competitions, prizes, even exhibitons have a slightly sickening air. There is nothing wrong with doing something well; repairing our own car, fixing your own plumbing can be just as rewarding. Trying to impress ones peers is a hurdle to be crossed, involvement with a group or movement pins one in time, fashions change. Hunger for approval stems, usually from sibling rivalry or other early childhood dilemnas. Having lost my mother at a young age I can be unaspirational. There is a tendency for me to drift toward self destruction. Whenever I come close to the centre of attention something from deep within me intrudes, like a tourettes of the soul born of a lack of self worth. Any success dependant on the approval of others I reject. Success, some find hard to measure, I don't. It is the relationship between expectaion and hope compared to achievement. Usually those without this internal barometer look to wealth or attention to guage their success; looks like failure to me.
I have always admired those that reject the applause and awards choosing to self regulate. To accept plaudits can mean an end to endeavour; ones standards should always be higher. I do respect those who can accept graceiously as an occuptional hazard yet have little time for the squealing child remaining in some adults and utter disust at those who once stood as outsiders, berating the establishment only to kiss their cheeks once accepted. This is the selling of the soul; the denial of who and what you are.
Piss Test 4
In case you hadn't guessed, the Piss Test series are where I am looking after my first piss, after arriving at work of a morning.
Grounded
Today was a wonderful day. The conditions are perfect for a good mushroom season. As a Doctor of Forbidden Sciences I can tell the signs well. They are already out in some areas and seeing the trees in full leaf, the warmth for mid september and the early fungal growth it clearly meens a good season. My teenage years were spent in study of psylocibin, this years Liberty Caps will be abundant. Years like this can trigger vast developements and must not be missed. We may wait a decade for the same. Some pin the culture changes on the year, 67, 77, 87, 97, being the most commonly recited yet a far more accurate insight may well be drawn from the great mushroom seasons. Chantelles are already abundant here; it's wet knee time.
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