Aimless

In that moment.

The weight lifts
The planet recedes
Endless silence.

No decisions
No authority
No dilemma

Endless forward movement
The west is lost
Head for the dark.

New music thing: Camel Blue/Khaki Green

Haze

Something is stirring. A ghostly flicker on a video tape, trapped between frames, or a half recalled smell from childhood. Unreachable.
Tightly curled, slowly unfolding, buried deep but pushing for the surface.
There is light behind the clouds.
A trill note dancing side side, up and down. Behind you, above you, swirling beyond your grasp.

Branch line

A sweeping graceful curve
Ivy clad trunks reclaim the land
A wall of wildness
Underfoot lies stones
rough cut blasted, stained and washed clean
A column of of trees, marching away towards the coast.

In front of your face

Running and chasing
Exhilarating
To swear
is a dare
Throw
Glide
Run
Slide
Anything but the uncomfortable pencil hold
while chastened adults chide and scold

Tonight's task

I have never created a film. I have edited and shot footage for some little instructional videos but never tried to make something imaginative so I wrote a brief script and shooting plan. 

?

Rambling thoughts, unedited/unfinished

What is the new modernity to be?

I've been reading Mark Fisher's work recently. It is terribly sad to have just discovered his insights only to then discover his death a matter of days later. One of Fisher's central contentions appears to be that without a sense of 'the modern' then the world is stuck in an aimless trough, repeating itself endlessly, suffused with a vague but essentially meaningless nostalgia.

This idea has nestled quite deeply in my mind, reading several commentators describing the reasons for the seemingly seismic political events has also led me to feel that it is the inability of people to summon up an optimistic vision of the future which leads them to turn away from the centrist liberal ideas with such surprising vehemence.

I have no desire to explore Brexit or Trump. It is what it is. What I think I do want to do is wrestle with this notion of modernism and modernity. They aren't the same thing on a level of academic discourse, but I don't especially want to have academic discourse. I want to probe a topic, to prompt a similar probing in others and I'd like that to be a broad notion, an easy to stomach concept that doesn't need a history or philosophy qualification.

Modernism is, to me, a sense that the lot of the human race can be improved by intelligent application of technology to the problems of living. It is a question of thinking fresh thoughts, or redesigning things to be explicitly different than the past. It is many things, but it is not nostalgic or sentimental. When it visits the past, it quotes it, as opposed to recreating or aping it.

Modernist thinking brings us redefined living spaces, it brings us are which recycles the form of previous styles but with a fresh purpose. It is a movement which does not accept that they way it now is the way it will be tomorrow, because we can do things different, use things differently, build things differently.

This is what has died over the course of the last 50 years. It's the belief in a radical social vision, a belief in change on a big level. You can see it everywhere you look, from the housing estates peddling identikit homes which show no real changes in design since the 1960s, to the complete disinterest in solving transport issues, to the steadfast refusal of TV executives to put on anything that might challenge, confuse or frighten people in it's form or content.

We are in a period of stasis. The change might feel radical but really, it's just a retread of old ideas. There is, of course, a modernity in our social attitudes towards individuals. There is a flourishing culture of ideas around gender and identity in particular. This is positive, but this is also fragile. In order to protect the social advances we've made, we have to think radically as the politics of the individual rely on the society around it. In short, I think what I'm saying, is: If acceptance and liberality (on a social level) is to flourish, we have to question what are hings we want and need from a broader society, what are the universal (or near universal) requirements of our people to achieve a sense of contentment and happiness.

Slavoj Zisek is much maligned, but he is spot on when talking of a desire to here what happens in 'V for Vendetta 2' - how does society reform itself 'after the revolution.' In other words, the progressive, the leftist, the radical, the discontented has to not simply oppose the force of darkness but act as if the revolution is here, now. It has to set forth radical notions which appeal broadly to people because they are intrinsically good ideas which improve the lot of the human being.

For a long time, the rhetoric of the above group has been simply 'more opportunity, more fairness, more kindness' - essentially, the same thing but softer, nicer, more thoughtful. Whilst on one hand the progressives have created a more open, tolerant and frank society, on the other, they have done little address inequality or economic freedoms. They've also failed to stop the dismantling of the apparatus of the state, the erosion of workplace representation or the saddling of the nation (both the nation as a literal state and the individuals that constitute it) in debts accrued by a tide of baseless, thoughtless consumerist recklessness.

So here we are. It is modern in the sense it is now. What is it? An echoing mall filled with bawling voices shouting hate and obscenities at each other about things they only half understand. A strange matrix world, where we lie suspended in our bubbles, fed on a soylent green-esque diet of reaffirming opinions and lifestyle jealousy. A kitch sitcom where we dress like 80s kids or 50s kids and laugh knowingly at our in jokes and lay out our clever cultural signifiers of own unique reference points without ever quite knowing why they are funny or clever because irony or something until one day shit gets real and actually we wake up and actually we're in ALDI and we're living in late era the Soviet Union really for all the difference it makes but with better cars and worse schooling.

So yeah, that's now, maybe, maybe not. Who cares, who wants really to analyse, this subgroups cultural significance, or the self referential nature of this or that. What we need, what we must do is move beyond the navel gazing about 'what it all means' towards a sense of what we can DO. What can be BETTER.

Where do we begin?

First of all, we change the rhetoric. We don't need opportunity as much as security, as stability. Opportunity is a word which has become synonymous with employment. I want opportunities to socialise, to congregate, to celebrate, to muse, to wander, to travel, to discuss, to exercise, to play, to learn and so on. I want opportunities which time brings. Which security brings. I want a freedom from anxiety and the precariousness of every modern existence. I want more than two days to drag myself out of a semi comatose state, into a feeling of possibility. This is opportunity, every bit as much as the opportunity afforded by employment which generally runs counter to these desires.

Secondly, I want to see technology harnessed for social good. I want to see everything become easier, better, quicker faster and universally available. There is an incredible opportunity to radically rethink so many things, from work, to the notion of citizenship, to education, to the way we live and the places we live if technology is embraced and invested in in a massive way. There is no earthly reason to build a project like HS2 when there is such deep inequality of access to information and culture. This could be addressed in so many ways. Maybe we don't need libraries. Maybe we do. But the fractured and ad hoc approach to digital culture, in which we have invited corporations to control the very network and access points, to curate the way we explore it, to choose what we see, to advertise to us through the content of our 'private' messaging is disturbing. We could do much better. Much, much better than this.

The single biggest failing of New Labour in terms of promises versus actuality is the question of transport. Here, we move far beyond the question of nationalised or privatised rail. We need to make car ownership feel like what it is. An anachronistic burden. We need to give opportunities for travel in quick, clean and spacious surroundings, moving seamlessly from mass transit, to smaller vehicles. Again, technology offers some hope here, but are we actually building the world around this possibility, are we enthused and romanced by this potential vision? There are so many ways in which this could be about equality, about a levelling and crucially, a levelling of something that doesn't matter. There is no reasonable argument that could suggest that it is infringing on someone's human rights or basic freedoms by building a super fast transport network which only utilised standardised vehicles. Which gave everyone the same access to those standardised vehicles. Surely in such an instance, the enormous benefits to the majority outweighs the classic white elephant of choice.

In media, we decry the 'dumbing down' of television, the 'nasty right wing' press, but what do we offer instead? Do we create, fund, support, write, submit? Do we have a vision of what we want the media to actually be? Do we make the noise that disturbs or seduces? Are we arguing for or arguing with?

EXPAND: SIMPLICITY VS CHOICE (REFRAME CHOICE AS DILEMMA)

SMALL VICTORIES - RECLAIM COMMON SENSE>

Self loathing

Searching for answers to questions which do not matter
Flirting with purchasing.
No aims
Other than to destroy time itself.
Nothing you have done is of any value on any level according to any half legitimate way of valuing your life.
Sleep well.

The Call Centre: An unfinished playscript/screenplay

I wrote this stuff a while ago and tonight spent 30 mins cleaning it up and formatting it. I don't really know what it is. It might work best as a kind of dreamy film or perhaps as a radio play. I didn't really write it for any reason other than someone I know works in a call centre and I thought it was fascinating that she just follows different scripts to 'be' different companies.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Call Centre

Sound of telephone line, various ring tones and clicking of receivers. Mashed up prerecorded messages and static. Reversed sound of easy tinny easy listening waiting music  "This training call is for purposes may call recorded training for maybe"

Voice 1: There are booths. Small booths, small desks, chairs, headsets, enough space on the desk for a photo or a trinket and to rest your elbow so you can cradle your head when the calls are going on if you wish but most of the space is taken by the keyboard and monitor. If you stand up or walk round, you can see over the top. Like, when you’re sat down, you feel like you’ve got privacy but really anyone can look in on you whenever they want. It’s like a metaphor in so many ways.

This is repeated but in sync with different voices saying the same thing at a different pace. The effect is dreamy.

Voice 1 (adds)

She laughed, took a drag on her cigarette and said. What the fuck am I on about with metaphors anyway? I get ten minutes off to think about having no life and I kill myself a bit more.

Voice 2:

You know what a lot of people don't know or realise? They think the people who ring them up work for companies. Work for the companies that ring them up I mean. Like when they are shouting at, or crying to or ignoring the gasman or the catalogue company or whatever, it's actually the gasman or the catalogue company?

It isn't. It's me.

See, we do calls for loads of companies, we just get a script with some set mantras and phrases and a manner to adopt and away we go. I work for all manner of different companies.

It's chameleonic. It's the way it is. That's what it is.

So you talk to me about how or why I should care about this or that because it's my job and in my head, I'm just not even there.

VOICES - RECORDED CALLS, some overlap to previous lines

Image of sea but in wire frame form, swelling and falling, physical routine of calling, answering logging. Little details of movement, stretching, rubbing eyes.

 - and I waited in because your company said before 12 and it was 2 whole days...

 - children to feed, and a 13% increase? I didn't even get a letter from you...

 - cancer appointment, so what could I do at that point? I used your service for 22 years, never paid late

 - dangerous! Water everywhere, what are you going to do, I mean, I've got insurance but I don't see

 - where's the lady who phoned last time? Debbie? I liked her voice

 - I sent a letter, it explained everything! Y'know, why I can't pay and what's been happening. Have you got it? Have you got it there? I put to whom it may concern. Is that you? I felt bad, because I didn't want to concern you. I mean. I wouldn't want to concern anyone but I don't know what to do otherwise. Talking, explaining, it makes things better I always think. Y'know, even if they can't get better, it makes them seem better, you know, last time someone called...

 - you know where I live? You could come round! I'm being serious. You could help me finish

 - d'ya know what I think? It's your bosses who are ruining this country, all their money and their mates in the government selling them the businesses all ready made. At least they ain't got fucking rag heads ringing me up. Nothing against them, but why don’t they just call up their own and hastle them. Although, actually, no offence but you could be. Like it's hard to tell now innit. But you can, I reckon. Most of the time.

 - sorry? What? I'm... No. Up a ladder! No. Ha! That's my mate! Yeah, this the company number. Yeah, it forwards to both phones. Well, I could either drop the phone or climb down.  

Voice : I like the night shift. It's quieter. You get people who seem more civilised. Like. Maybe their kids are in bed so they don't want to wake them and just are more controlled with their emotion. Or maybe they're just exhausted, or even I dunno, just lonely and a voice in the night makes them a bit happier. Like, a bit more human. Like maybe they don't talk so much, not because they don't want to but because they don't go out or they don't really know anyone or they've got I don't know, a phobia or something which makes it hard to relate to people in the flesh.

Enthusiastic Voice

We like to think our call centres offer a fast response to our customers needs. A person facing information portal accessible on demand.

As such our operatives are of vital importance to us and we have made every effort to reach out to everyone affected by the planned changes to the logistics and location of some of operations.

Voice 1. The systems are a joke. You log in and you've got this person on the line swearing blind they've done x or y, sent this, had this letter, paid that, y'know and you check the records and it's just an error message or an access request failure.

And you know, it's not because computers can't handle this, but because there's a 15 year contract been signed ten years ago somewhere and you’re trying to use 8 year old software that's useless to sort out this person's problem and you just don't have answers.

Voice 2: (someone is with them) I sometimes dream I'm going rogue. That I could just ring up and say whatever I like. Like a kid in a phonebox, y'know, you'd ring up a random number and pretend to be someone? I did! No, I'm not a freak, loads of people did it! (laughs) no, you’re the fucking freak, we always did that! How old? I dunno? 12 or something. You must have heard the thing about ringing China? For free? No? Jesus, did you grow up in a bloody priests training home or something? Yeah, you could ring up a number, it went round school and I tried it and someone answered in Chinese. Or whatever. I mean, it could have been any number of languages but it wasn't English and it was free. You'd giggle and say something in an awful Chinese voice and then slam the phone down.

What was it though? What was that strange free phone number that got answered in Cantonese or mandarin or whatever language it was?

I'd like to know.

I'd like to know who answers the phone when I call. Who it really is.

Everyone is just an address, a statistic, a series of payments or non-payments, a sale or a non sale.

I’d like to call and say.

Have you a moment?

Is this a good time for you?

I'd like to discuss...

I'm calling from...

I'm calling about...

Would you take a pencil and paper to bed and write down the first thought that comes into your head when you wake? Can you call back and tell me what it is please?

I'd just like to know, do you think it's normal for a grown adult to feel tired and depressed most of the time. Just to want to be alone.

What is the first smell you remember from your childhood?

What do you regret not doing? Why didn't you do it? Is it too late?

Why do people allow things to go on they know are wrong? Why do people allow things to just be? Even when they know that everyone else knows they are wrong, they just let it be? Is that human nature? Just to stand by and let life flow by like a river? Is that it? Not good, not bad, just ambivalent?

What worries you? What frightens you? What really scares you?

Would you like to sing? Right now? Down the phone line? With me! Just sing? Anything. We can just make noise if you like?...

Enthusiastic voice: This is a cubical. In here people spend the large part of their time here. There is a computer screen. A keyboard. A chair. The chair can be angled to the preferred position of the worker. There are headset, which can be placed over the corner of the screen. The computer is connected to the telephone network. People call in or we call out. We can see the details here. On this screen.

The chair can be adjusted to the preference of its occupant.

This chair might be occupied by different people with different sized bodies, but it can be adjusted. The neck support, the back, the height. All adjustable. It's down to people's priorities.

Sometimes people will mention discomfort, but often they've not considered the adjustability of the chair. The back-rest, the neck-rest, the height. All adjustable. So we tell them. We remind them of their responsibility to their own comfort, to remember to adjust the chair.

We say we are sorry they've experienced discomfort, but the chair is adjustable to the preference of the different occupants.

Some people still bring a cushion or sometimes fold up a piece of clothing and sit or lean on that. That's fine. We are happy with that. Totally happy to accommodate that. It doesn't impact on call quality. In fact, if someone called your phone and spoke to you today, you'd never know. You'd never know there was a non standard approach to comfort and that's why it's fine. We know everyone is different, everyone is a different shape but that shape has no impact on the ability to provide a consistent and efficient customer focus.

Voice 3: You can get caught out at first. Your voice gives it away. You call someone and they laugh and say 'heavy night?' or 'you don't like your job do you!' but you get used to the tone required, the crisp, clear voice. It's a voice which can't sound too automated but can't give too much of yourself away either. Of the you that exists outside of the walls. So you get used to switching yourself off. It's kind of like unplugging a hard drive from the main body of the computer. There's all this, I dunno, 'data' there, but until you plug it back in it's just dormant. I mean, it's there, but you can't access it, can't do anything with it.

So if you've been dumped, or if you're worried about an appointment at the Doctors or if your child is sick or your parent have died or like God, I remember, like the woman who was three rows up from me who lost her husband and child. Car. Hit them. Just a blind spot, just a moment and then the kid was alive just and the husband was dead, but just after that, a few days or something, the kid was dead too.

I saw her go.

She wore a little jacket, quite formal, like she wanted to dress well for work, y'know, like even though there wasn't a rule about that sort of thing as such, she wanted to be proud of herself. I didn't know her. I mean I don't know her. I didn't know what I made of the jacket, someday I'd think it was like an, um... Affected thing, a bit of an attempt to be better than where she was and other days I'd think, y'know, good for her. It's not a big deal, I mean, she probably got it second hand or something or had it from an old job. That was it I think, I mean, she was, is a bit older, maybe she used to work in an office or a bank or something. Or a travel agency or some other agency where she'd wear the jacket. And when she lost that job, or left that job or whatever, she thought she'd keep the jacket and now she just wore it because it was better than throwing it out.

Like I say, I didn't know her at all then, but I noticed one of the supervisors come over and speak to her, waiting, hovering for her to finish the call, then leaning in to stop her before she started a new one. She left, in a hurry and I knew it wasn't some sort of discipline thing, because there was no anger or shame in her movement. She peeled of the headset and grabbed her bag and started out for the door and the supervisor was at a loss for a second, he looked a bit dazed

I couldn't see their faces because she was in the cubical in front and to the side and it's a bit of a stretch to see right over the barrier without standing right up and it being obvious you are staring.

It was the way he stepped back from her, he stepped back to let her go but then it was like he felt he should do something or say something or invoke some sort of protocol but he'd been left in her slipstream. Like he'd fallen from a boat, into icy water and by the time he came to his senses and realised he could swim, the boat had gone.

I didn't know what had happened and I didn't see her for the next day or two but then I saw the local TV news and I knew. I mean I didn't think I'd see her again anytime soon but it was only maybe a week or two when I was just standing up, to stretch. I was just ahead of the call schedule and I'd bought myself a chance to stretch out a little and I saw her coming in. Like, I can't really put it into words. She came in, like a ghost? Or like a boat cut free from moorings, a boat without sails. She just kind of drifted. Drifted in. She looked, concussed, numb, rudderless, I think that's it. Like she was just being carried there. And the same supervisor was behind her, in the doorway, just hovering, watching and with eyes that made it seem like he was playing out in his head what had happened to her family happening to his. Or maybe, the word I said before was right, like she was a ghost. He looked haunted, like he'd seen something he couldn't explain, something that chilled his insides and she, the ghost ship sailed across the light blue carpet flecked with cream and white dashes towards the island of her desk and he stood and watched as if on the opposite shore, as if stranded.

We caught each other's eye. The supervisor and i, caught each other's eye I mean and there was this look. I don't know what it is, whether there's even a word for it, like a tight little grimace, a funny little thing with your mouth almost a smile and your eyes kind of radiating the horror of it all and I remember sighing, and sitting down, thinking that it was the most human moment I'd ever had there.

The supervisor. He told me later when I was training to be one myself, he said...

Supervisors voice takes over.

...what else could I do, I mean I don't know her other than what I know about her call records and that she dresses quite smart, she's reliable and accurate and I think she has a box of those fruit teas, those infusions I think you call them in the staff room cupboards. I mean, what the fuck was I supposed to say to her? I muttered something about it being nice to see her when I saw her on the way in and then though, shit, what the fuck have I said? So I sort of followed her but I felt like she didn't want to talk and then I remember reading something about how we project our feelings onto other people so I was thinking perhaps it was me who wanted to read that in her so I kind of just watched her get to the desk, feeling like I should run across and just shout to her or hug her but at the same time thinking that was the stupidest idea I'd ever had and she collapses into the chair, takes a moment, dies the deepest breath I've ever seen someone take, eyes closed and then just breathes out, lifts the headset, pushes the little touch switch under the monitor and then, fingers skimming across the keys like a dancer at double speed begins to enter her password and username.

CALLS MAYBE MONITORED FOR TRAINING PURPOSES.

New voice: Distant. At the heart of the machine is data. A database. It's in the heart of the machine like a fire is at the heart of a steam engine. If it's not in the database it's not something that exists. If it's in the database, then it's our truth. It's your truth. Except when it's wrong

So then, when it's wrong we change the database to ensure that it's true apart from the next time it's wrong.

SUPERVISOR: I listened to her first call. I mean, I had too, I wanted to be able to cut her off, y'know, if she started crying or lost it or something. I mean, kind of for her own sake as well as mine.

New voice: Distant: The database is attached to other databases. We can cross reference data in different places. But sometimes that data is wrong too and that's not our data. So we can't change that data.

Supervisor: I thought she sounded a bit quiet, y'know, a bit hesitant in the first bit of the first call but it was bad line and that can throw you off a bit and she got through the call. She got through it and delivered the script. That's what we say, in training. Deliver the script. Don't think too much, deliver the script, don't take too long, but don't be so robotic that it feels like a script to the person on the other end of the phone. Make them feel like you are *talking* to them, not *reading* to them. That's how it goes, the training. That's what I was trained to deliver anyhow. So i did.

New voice: Distant Sometimes the other databases are wrong and we can't do anything. We have to advise that people contact somewhere else and ask them to change the database. That's all we can do. It's like we can go through the door but everything is behind glass. If it's outlr own database, that's OK. But if it's someone else's, no. That's not something we can help with.

Supervisor: So, I had to do a little bit of paperwork, I mean I didn't have to, really. I mean, it's something you are supposed to do every time you monitor a call. To check, to fill in the sheet and score it. It needs to be a score of 21 in order to pass and failing to pass will result in training or a discussion or both. I mean, I wasn't going to score it! But I kind of thought, well, I can't really decide if I think she's OK to be here. I mean I can't consult the HR book for this, so I thought I'd fill in a form and just satisfy myself that she was OK

Y'know, to be doing the calls.

New voice: Distant: When I say we can change the database. I mean, we can't do that. We can leave a request for the database to be changed. That request will be stored in the database as well and if all goes well, will be followed up and acted upon. Unless it isn't. So, I suppose our own database is a bit like a room where everything is behind glass as well

Supervisor: I scored her 9s for the accuracy of her use of the script and the pace of the call but I had to give her 6 for the warmth of the tone to the customer. I thought it could have been the line, it's hard to establish that warmth sometimes when the line is bad.

New voice: Distant: It's also not true to say everything goes in the database. It should. But it doesn't. And sometimes if you ask us to change the database, then the request doesn't go in the database, or it doesn't go in the right place, or the right person doesn't look for it in the right place so it be there, but then again, might not be. There's also bits we can't see. Like bits hidden from view and sometimes you have to ask other people to go and look in those bits and tell you what they can see.

A new piece of music: slab

A new piece of music:


I think it needs another layer with a really skeletal idea of melody or changing tone. I'll come back to it sometime.

Redraft of city/bus

In an unfamiliar city. Alighting from a train. 

Waiting at a bus stop. Not knowing whether the bus will get me there. I am anxious about it. There might be one of those systems where you have to buy a card and scan it. I don't know. This is not my city. I could always ask I suppose but there is no-one else at the stop aside from a kid, big headphones on, leaning against the stop and spitting, little blobs of phlegm, bullet like. I keep staring out from where I am, past him. I am keen to give the impression I am not avoiding his gaze as such, but equally keen not to meet it. He is thin, wire thin, one leg out straight, the other bent, foot in firm contact with the wall of the shelter. He looks like to cross him would be an object lesson in potential energy, attracting his ire releasing it like a controlled explosion. His jacket is white. So white. As is the hat pulled tight over his head. I count the cars between spits, sometime 6, sometimes 7, one time 8. I consider if anyone has built a rhythm for a symphony around the spitting of a youth at a bus stop.

Finally, in the murk there is the tired drawl of the bus engine. It looks squat in the distance, fat and square compared to sleek, low cars. I scrabble in my pocket, fingers teasing an array of coins into the palm of my hand. I worry that I might need the right change. I worry that I might need to feed the money into a machine, that somehow I am expected to know how much to put in. There are no posters, no signs, nothing to guide me. To be in a city unknown to you is to be a little bit alien as has been noted by others. Nowhere is this more evident to me than in the unspoken, often completely unexplained vagaries of purchasing a ride on the cities mass transit network.

The bus arrives with a jolting halt. In a way that seemed so futuristic only 10 or so years ago, the bus lowers the front end to the pavement. Now it seems almost unimaginable to climb up on to a bus. Despite reminding me of how the present was once the future, this isn't the newest of busses and the worn feel of the surroundings is punctuated with the sound of whooshing air and wheezing pistons and the descent of the bus to street level is more arthritic than graceful.

The kid glances up from his saliva projecting trance, acknowledging the bus. His head barely turns, his eyes swivel. He looks at the bus, then at me. He barely seems to have enough fat on his face to form an expression. I hesitate. I've stood back to let the people off. One man lurches from the bus, walking in an alarming way that could be described as jaunty if it weren't for the fact he seems to have one leg which won't fully cooperate with the speed he wants to go. A lady heaves what looks like a red and blue plastic mesh weave bag of washing that must equal her own body weight. Headscarf on and an implacable, stoic expression.

I hesitate again, I want him to get on, I want to observe how he navigates the act of ticket buying. Does he just proffer a standard fare? Does he state a destination? Does he swipe a travel card?

I really don't want him behind me, he has a kind of nervous energy, pent up. Granted he has waited for the bus with a kind of Zen like focus on the same spot of pavement, peppering it as if in target practice mode for the world spitting championships, but I don't want to be stammering and rooting for change, asking questions about what the right stop for my destination is, all with my out of town accent which I know is ridiculous, after all this is a sprawling metropolis, a cultural melting pot, a crossroads of the world, not some Devon village where heads turn if a tread they don't recognise is heard walking toward the bar door. Still, I am conscious this is not my city. 

He glances at me directly, the bus driver looks out, I can hesitate no more. The kid does a lazy push off with the foot that was still tucked up against the Plexiglas wall, rubber sole kissing the spot where a lighter has been held against it till the plastic bubbled and browned.

I'm now trapped, no way out, kid behind me, door of the bus in front. I take the step quickly, gait trying to exude confidence. I mutter a request for a single to my destination. The driver nods at the coin tray. 'How much?' I enquire, disappointed to have had to break cover and speak. It's £3.20.

I drop the nearest I can manage to correct money in the tray lingering to see if he gives me change and to my surprise he does. I tear the ticket, pleased at the fact it comes away clean. I turn to see the rest of the bus, engrossed in their own world, tapping and caressing devices, staring mutely out the window or grimly at their own knees.

A kid talks too loud to a woman who looks not to be listening too intently. A fat man is wearing just a shapeless t-shirt and faded sweatpants even though it is raining and the wind blowing it in unpredictable icy squalls against the windows of the bus. Two girls sit formally and quietly as if at job interview. Neat hair and sensible clothing, I guess they must be foreign students or something. The fat man has carrier bags I have to turn side ways to get past. I wonder why he has such old carrier bags, the white plastic seems stretched and discoloured and I wonder idly why he doesn't upgrade them as this area of the city is hardly suffering from a shortage of discarded ones.

I pause for a fraction and consider the seat. I never want to sit too near the front for fear I'll take the seat from a disabled war veteran or someone with an oxygen tank struggling for breath as they struggle to a hospital appointment to try and prolong the struggle that every waking moment of their life must be.

I feel the presence of the kid behind me and decide to decide quickly. I move in what I hope is a lithe and athletic way towards the first of the raised seats above the rear wheel arch. I grasp one of the poles which extrude from the backs of certain seats and use my momentum to spin into the seat and finally relax.

The kid takes the seat two back from me on the other side of the bus, swaying as he sits as the bus pulls out into the traffic.

I lean back on a 45 degree angle, with no-one next to me, I can enjoy a view of the whole bus more or less from the raised platform. I look at the ceiling, the strip lighting which gives the bus a real feeling of warmth against the grey almost sleet weather outside. The bus is actually warm as well.

I close my eyes briefly and then struggle, almost habitually with headphones. The kid is still talking, but I drown him with sound and gaze at the adverts on sloping part of the bus, where the wall meets roof. An orthodontist, a phone card advertised partly in Arabic script. A job agency with a man in a hard hat and green body warmer and a smiling woman in a suit and a clipboard. Is she his boss or supposed to represent the job agency? Perhaps she just represents a different job and I'm not supposed to wonder if they're connected. I wonder idly if they paid for actual models or used their own staff or clients. Neither of them are unattractive but they don't look entirely comfortable in front of the camera.

I wonder if collectively as a society we are more comfortable in front of the lens since we hit an era of cameras everywhere, of documenting our every move.

The bus waits at lights then pulls out into big crossroads and takes a sweeping right, for a moment the rain stops lashing but it quickly resumes but with more focus on the other window. For a brief interlude we ride a duel carriageway and the view across the sodden city is thrilling. You could imagine from here, such is the weather, it's like being in cloud, that the city goes on forever.

Unedited free writing - city/bus

Waiting at a bus stop. Not knowing whether the bus will get me there. I am anxious about it. There might be one of those systems where you have to buy a card and scan it. I don't know. I could ask I suppose but there is no-one else at the stop aside from a kid, headphones on leant against the stop and spitting, little blobs of phlegm, bullet like. I keep staring out from where I am, past him. I am keen to give the impression I am not avoiding his gaze, but equally keen not to meet it. He is thin, wire thin, one leg out straight, the other bent, foot in firm contact with the wall of the shelter. He looks like to cross him would be an object lesson in potential energy, attracting his ire releasing it like a controlled explosion. His jacket is white. So white. As is the hat pulled tight over his head. I count the cars between spits, sometime 6, sometimes 7, one time 8. I consider if anyone has built a rhythm for a symphony around the spitting of a youth at a bus stop.

Finally, in the murk there is the tired drawl of the bus engine. It looks squat in the distance. I scrabble again in my pocket, fingers teasing and array of coins into the palm of my hand. I worry that I might need the right change. I worry that I might need to feed the money into a machine. To be in a city unknown to you is to be a little bit alien as has been noted. Nowhere is this more evident than in the unspoken, often completely unexplained vagaries of purchasing a ride on the cities mass transit network.

The bus arrives will a jolting halt and then in a way that seemed so futuristic only 10 or so years ago lowers the front end to the pavement. This isn't the newest of busses and the worn air of the surroundings is filled with the sound of whooshing air and wheezing pistons and the descent of the bus to street level is more arthritic than graceful.

The kid glances from his saliva projecting trance at the bus. His head barely turns, his eyes swivel. He looks at the bus, then at me. I hesitate. I've stood back to let the people off. One man bounds of the bus, walking in an alarming way that could be described as jaunty if it weren't for the fact he seems to have one leg which won't fully cooperate with the speed he want to go. A lady heaves what looks like a red and blue plastic mesh weave bag of washing that must equal her own body weight. Headscarf on and an implacable, stoic expression.

I hesitate again, I want him to get on, I want to observe how he navigates the act of ticket buying. Does he just profer a standard fare? Does he state a destination? Does he swipe a travel card?

I really don't want him behind me, he has a kind of nervous energy, pent up. Granted he has waited for the bus with a kind of Zen like focus on the same spot of pavement, peppering it as if in target practice mode for the world spitting championships, but I don't want to be stammering and rooting for change, asking questions about what the right stop for my destination is, all with my out of town accent which I know is ridiculous, this is a sprawling metropolis, not some Devon village where heads turn if a tread they don't recognise is heard walking toward the bar door.

He glances at me directly, the bus driver looks out, I can hesitate no more. The kid does a lazy push off with the foot that was still tucked up against the plexiglass wall, rubber sole kissing the spot where a lighter has been held against it till the plastic bubbled and browned.

I'm now trapped, no way out, kid behind me, door of the bus in front. I take the step quickly, gait trying to exude confidence. I mutter a request for a single to my destination. The driver mods at the coin tray. 'How much?' I enquire, knowing that for this journey my cover is blown. I'm marked out, not from round here, or perhaps worse, not used to getting the bus. It's £3.20.

I drop the money in the tray lingering to see if he gives me change and to my surprise he does. I tear the ticket, pleased at the fact it comes away clean. I turn to see the rest of the bus, engrossed in their own world, tapping and caressing devices, staring mutely out the window or grimly at their own knees.

A kid talks too loud to a woman who looks not to be listening too intently. A fat man is wearing just a shapeless t-shirt even though it is raining and the wind blowing it in unpredictable squalls against the windows of the bus. Two girls sit formally and quietly as if at job interview. Neat hair and sensible clothing, I guess they must be foriegn students or something. The fat man has carrier bags I have to turn side ways to get past. I wonder why he has such old carrier bags, the white plastic seems stretched and discoloured and I wonder idly why he doesn't upgrade them as this area of the city is hardly suffering from a shortage of discarded bags.

I pause for a fraction and consider the seat. I never want to sit too near the front for fear I'll take the seat from a disabled war veteran or someone with an oxygen tank struggling for breath as they struggle to a hospital appointment to try and prolong the struggle that every waking moment of their life must be.

I feel the presence of the kid behind me and decide to decide quickly. I move in what I hope is a lithe and athletic way towards the first of the raised seats above the rear wheel arch. I grasp one of the poles which extrude from the backs of certain seats and use my momentum to spin into the seat and finally relax.

The kid takes the seat two back from me on the other side of the bus, swaying as he sits as the bus pulls out into the traffic.

I lean back on a 45 degree angle, with no-one next to me, I can enjoy a view of the whole bus more or less from the raised platform. I look at the ceiling, the strip lighting which gives the bus a real feeling of warmth against the grey almost sleet weather outside. The bus is actually warm as well.

I close my eyes briefly and then struggle, almost habitually with headphones. The kid is still talking, but I drown him with sound and gaze at the adverts on sloping part of the bus, where the wall meets roof. An orthodontist, a phone card advertised partly in Arabic script. A job agency with a man in a hard hat and green body warmer and a smiling woman in a suit and a clipboard. Is she his boss or supposed to represent the job agency? Perhaps she just represents a different job and I'm not supposed to wonder if they're connected. I wonder idly if they paid for actual models or used their own staff or clients. Neither of them are unattractive but they don't look entirely comfortable in front of the camera.

I wonder if collectively as a society we are more comfortable in front of the lense since we hit an era of cameras everywhere, of documenting our every move.

The bus waits at lights then pulls out into big crossroads and takes a sweeping right, for a moment the rain stops lashing but it quickly resumes but with more focus on the other window. For a brief interlude we ride a duel carriageway and the view accross the sodden city is thrilling. You could imagine from here, such is the weather, it's like being in cloud, that the city goes on forever.

Bathtime

Shackleton - Devotional Songs

Dubstep, it's the crazy new sound of the future, have you heard?

Shackleton is brilliant. If you don't agree then listen to the tracks below and then agree that you're wrong and I'm right.

This new piece is magnificent though, really. It recalls Coil, Throbbing Gristle type stuff, from time to time the sound of Shackleton's own earlier work, medieval sounding stuff and bizarrely put me in mind of musical theatre, some of the vocal work has a Sondheimesque quality to it, not so much in the content (though it could be lifted from some imaginary musical about pestilence, murder and plague) but in the delivery.

The whole piece has an orchestrated feel to it, yet is simultaneously self consciously synthetic. This 'digital orchestration' works almost better than I've ever heard, I'm struggling to think of a piece of 'orchestral' electronica where I've enjoyed the arrangement as much. More remarkable is the way the instrumentation really works - Synthesised violins sound like electronic instruments, choirs sound like sound effects but that's all good. I can't put my finger on why - I think it's the deliberate incongruity of the medium and the source material and how masterful the arrangement is.

This is music which in part could happily sit on Radio 3 yet has moments where you feel the hazy futurism and the beat swells in just the right way. It also has lengthy organ explorations which sit just the right side of irritating, being anchored by tight, fascinating percussion and the feeling that they are heading somewhere. Where though is another question. The record evokes medieval villages whilst at the same time evoking a mid future dystopia. It's a digital Wickerman in parts, tribal and ritualistic.

It's a shape-shifting force of a record, a magnificent example of having expectations defied and I'm struggling to think of a something released this year (ok, last year) which has sounded more intriguing and engaging through repeated listens. I like it precisely because it does things that leave me thinking, ' do I like this?'

It is for sale here

Are good memories always nostalgia?

The accidental music of the AM radio.
TV programmes finished for the day.
The other side of the world is a million miles away.
The Antarctic beckons.

Art leaves town when money moves in

First track edited in cloud on chromebook.



More of an experiment in editing than anything else.

Beyond the street lamps: The music of Richard Skelton.

What we revere in nature is not always natural. Fells blasted and quarried, grazed and shorn of trees.

How we see this world is not always as it is. We see something better than the sprawl and depravity of the city but nature is not some moral agent, not some harmonious balance.

Nature is a story of starvation, of disease, of territory and scavengers​. It is a story of flux. A story of tiny details and ugly beauty, of burrowing insects and fungus, of lichen and larvae.

There is nothing bucolic or idyllic about the fellside in the dark. The carcass of some creature lurking in the heather, stripped clean in a matter of days by the brutal ecosystem.

There are countless artists who make their mark in the world of 'darkness' imbuing the world with a presence of some kind of looming evil.

There are many who find their expression creating a sense of the 'light' giving the world a sense of optimism or beauty.

There are fewer who can record the world in such a way that it just is. Skelton sculpts vast soundscapes which evoke the soul cleansing majesty of landscapes like the West Pennine Moors and the quieter, wilder parts of Cumbria. Crucially though, he does this without recourse to sentiment and he captures both the light and shade.

Think the sheer primal delight of a mountain stream and the scent of thousands of tiny flowers but think also of the, plunge, grip and kill of the falcon, beak hungrily ripping life from bone or the vast expanse of nothingness swept by squall of icy rain or beset by a freezing, cloaking fog.

These landscapes may not be natural but they are something primal, something entirely separate from the faddish temporary fetishism of city life. There is something intrinsically timeless at least from our fragile human perspective of a landscape where the main physical features were moved by the last ice age.

In the glacial shifts of Skelton's music there is something beyond words, something that is almost (perhaps there is no need for the tentative qualifier almost) elemental. It is true. It is a music which speaks of life outside the narratives we construct to distract ourselves from the essential reality of life. It is the sound from the darkness beyond streetlights. If that sounds unwelcoming, ponder that the streetlights blind us from see seeing the stars. If we cannot gaze at the stars, how can we know who we are?

Hauntology

Redraft: Unfinished sketch for psychogeography project.

Here was hawk hovering high above tangled briar.
Gnarled stem and unchecked thorns run through twisted metal. Sheets of rusting corrugated iron punctured by bramble.
Here was foxes swift trot, unhurried, unharried except by the torchlight swift shadow of lead thieves.
Here lay slate, broken into four pieces, one big, three small on ground of rust coloured puddles.

Up there was a bow window, jutting over a road. Up there was grandeur, windows intact as if in respect to the memory of men who in years gone by smoked and worried about dwindling sales and foriegn markets
Here was badger, black, white and red in tooth and claw, her set abandoned as diggers roll in and the jaws of metal roughly paw and scrape at the earth.
There, in that patch of sky, were oily grey clouds, reflected in oily grey water of the pond that formed in the foundation of a building where strangely the door frame had been left standing like the single tooth a stinking hopeless mouth.

Accross the fetid rainbow slicked surface skimmed the shadow of starlings, a flock big enough to funnel, weave and turn as if folding the air. Then settling again on red brick walls all askew, half brick endings, undaunted in flight by the remaining wires strung between buildings, reminding me of communications in some trench in a war being forgotten by the minute.
The little birds just bobbed or dipped. Then landed and waited again. What they waited for I do not know.