The night is still And the frost it bites my face I wear my silence like a mask And murmur like a ghost "trick or treat" "trick or treat" The bitter and the sweet
The carefree days Are distant now I wear my memories like a shroud I try to speak but words collapse Echoing "trick or treat" "trick or treat" The bitter and the sweet
I wander though your sadness Gazing at you with scorpion eyes Halloween......halloween
A sweet reminder In the ice-blue nursery Of a childish murder Of hidden lustre And she cries "trick or treat" "trick or treat" The bitter and the sweet
I wander through your sadness Gazing at you with scorpion eyes Halloween......halloween
Satan rejected my soul He knows my kind He wont be dragged down He's seen my face around He knows heaven Doesn't seem To be my home So I must find Somewhere else to go So I must find Somewhere else to go
So, take it - please It's free You'll never see You'll never see All the fun in life it's cost me
Satan rejected my soul As low as he goes He never quite goes this low Hes seen my face around He knows heaven doesn't seem To be my home So I must find Somewhere else to go So I must find Somewhere else to go
So, take it please It's really sly Come on, come on, ah Come on, come on, come on Take it please It's really sly Come on, come on, ah Come on, come on, come on Call me in Pull me in, call me in Come on, come on, oh Come on, come on, come on Pull me in, pull me in Call me in, haul me in, pull me in Come on, come on, ah Come on, come on La la la la la... Words and Music: Steven Patrick Morrissey Posing: Reece Shearsmith
It was around about the time of the Third Age of Gordie that I began to have bad dreams. I would wake up afraid, unable to breathe, and unable to shout for help. (To this day, one of the weirdest and scariest things about bad dreams is the way I try to shout for help and make no sound whatever.)
I suppose it's no big deal these days... is it? As Paul Simon once said, I don't expect to sleep through the night. But I don't feel right when I wake up in the night. I question myself, more fundamentally than I do in the daytime. I feel like I've been abandoned, I feel on the wrong planet.
I don't think I understand this song; I just like it. What's the lie he's talking about? Why is the cross in the ballpark? Anybody got any thoughts, please leave a comment.
I’m accustomed to a smooth ride Or maybe I'm a dog who's lost his bite I don’t expect to be treated like a fool no more I don’t expect to sleep through the night Some people say A lie's a lie's a lie But I say why Why deny the obvious child? Why deny the obvious child?
And in remembering a road sign I am remembering a girl when I was young And we said these songs are true These days are ours These tears are free And hey The cross is in the ballpark The cross is in the ballpark
We had a lot of fun We had a lot of money We had a little son And we thought we'd call him sonny Sonny gets married and moves away Sonny has a baby and bills to pay Sonny gets sunnier Day by day by day by day
I've been waking up at sunrise I've been following the light across my room I watch the night receive the room of my day Some people say the sky is just the sky But I say Why deny the obvious child? Why deny the obvious child?
Sonny sits by his window and thinks to himself How its strange that some rooms are like cages Sonny's yearbook from high school Is down from the shelf And he idly thumbs through the pages Some have died Some have fled from themselves Or struggled from here to get there Sonny wanders beyond his interior walls Runs his hand through his thinning brown hair
Well I'm accustomed to a smoother ride Maybe I'm a dog that’s lost his bite I don’t expect to be treated like a fool no more I don’t expect to sleep through the night Some people say a lie is just a lie But I say the cross is in the ballpark Why deny the obvious child? PAUL SIMON
There's a strange noise all around me. And I can't find where it's coming from. It woke me up at about three o'clock in the morning.
It sounds like a truck, parked outside with the engine running. Or a pump, filling a tank or draining it. It's not in my house... but when I go outside, the noise is quieter, and then it gets louder when I come back indoors.
I don't like not knowing what it is.
Gradually We became aware Of a hum in the room An electrical hum In the room It went mmmmmm
We followed it From corner to corner We pressed our ears Against the walls We crossed diagonals And put our hands On the floor It went mmmmmm
Sometimes it was a murmur Sometimes it was a pulse Sometimes it seemed to disappear But then with a quarter-turn Of the head It would Roll around the sofa A nimbus humming cloud
Mmmmmm
Maybe it's the hum Of a calm refrigerator Cooling the big night Maybe it's the hum Of our parents' voices Long ago in a soft light
Mmmmmm
Maybe it's the hum Of changing opinion Or a foreign language In prayer Maybe it's the mantra Of the walls and wiring Deep breathing In soft air
News from America this morning: in Tennessee, federal agents have foiled a plan by white supremacists to assassinate Barack Obama.
Meanwhile, in Texas, Amanada Jones, the 109 year old daughter of a slave, has cast her postal ballot in next Tuesday's election.
Come gather 'round people Wherever you roam And admit that the waters Around you have grown And accept it that soon You'll be drenched to the bone. If your time to you Is worth savin' Then you better start swimmin' Or you'll sink like a stone For the times they are a-changin'.
Come writers and critics Who prophesize with your pen And keep your eyes wide The chance won't come again And don't speak too soon For the wheel's still in spin And there's no tellin' who That it's namin'. For the loser now Will be later to win For the times they are a-changin'.
Come senators, congressmen Please heed the call Don't stand in the doorway Don't block up the hall For he that gets hurt Will be he who has stalled There's a battle outside And it is ragin'. It'll soon shake your windows And rattle your walls For the times they are a-changin'.
Come mothers and fathers Throughout the land And don't criticize What you can't understand Your sons and your daughters Are beyond your command Your old road is Rapidly agin'. Please get out of the new one If you can't lend your hand For the times they are a-changin'.
The line it is drawn The curse it is cast The slow one now Will later be fast As the present now Will later be past The order is Rapidly fadin'. And the first one now Will later be last For the times they are a-changin'.
Today is Global Handwashing Day, sponsored by UNICEF, and it seems that the further north you travel (in the UK, that is) the more likely you are to meet someone with poo on their hands.
The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, tested commuters at bus stops outside mainline railway stations, in the morning rush hour. Here are the results:
City Newcastle Liverpool Birmingham Cardiff London
Men 53% 36% 21% 15% 6%
Women 30% 31% 26% 29% 21%
I think it's interesting that there are huge regional difference between men's standards of handwashing, while women are more consistent (but grubbier than blokes, it seems, in the Midlands and the South.)
What is it with Northern men? I suppose they just love their allotments. Or fisting.
Perhaps Wife In The North can tell us. Or Belle de Jour. Belle has a new book out this week and was on the radio just now chatting to Mark Lawson - I would have preferred Nigella.
I picked this up from America's National Public Radio. It's a poet's response to the banking crisis.
$700 billion is more than enough money to buy every able-bodied American a chain saw, a solar-powered generator and a stake in a communal well and windmill. Also, red dirt and plum trees.
That would probably only cost about $100 billion, and you can use the other $600 billion to buy everybody their house outright.
Now everybody can own their house and be green and self-sufficient, and can go back to whatever they were doing before the world ended: watching TV.
Except for me. I was sharpening my chain saw.
It's an idyllic vision, worthy of Thoreau and Walt Whitman. There's only one thing I don't like about it: the assumption that Americans are all stupid sub-prime rednecks who contribute nothing to the world.
Doesn't that exclude most of the honest working class?
Or maybe the idea is that America should just give up on capitalism and allow the Asians to run the world from now on?
Okay, I get it now.
Meanwhile, back in jolly old Blighty...
Last week, on a day when the British government seized the assets of Icelandic banks, shares continued to fall, and inflation in Zimbabwe reached 231 million percent, the most frequently accessed article on The Guardian website was about local councils' attitudes to lap-dancing clubs.
Where are the ideas?
Where are the debates?
Where are the leaders?
“Every generation needs a new revolution.” Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence (picture posed by model)
Kamakura is a little town in Japan, about thirty miles south-west of Tokyo, and is home to the Hachimangu Shrine, and this wonderful statue of the Buddha.
The weak bioelectric current flowing across the surface of Midori-san's leaves responds to changes in the immediate environment, such as temperature, humidity, vibration, and nearby human activity.
Local software company KAYAC has developed software to translate the plant's awareness into Japanese sentences, which are then posted on Midori-san's blog.
I like my food, but have never been a 'foodie', or even much of a gourmet. Simple, tasty, nourishing dishes, in ample quantities, with beer and wine, and an extra portion of chips, is what works for me.
The only TV chef I ever liked was Keith Floyd, because he was usually drunk and charming, and would quote Bob Dylan lyrics. He once managed to fit an entire verse of Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues into a recipe.
He was also responsible for Kiwi Fruit and the Stranglers, two elements of Eighties culture without which life under Mrs. Thatcher would have been even harder to bear.
But times change, and now we have now we have to be entertained by gastric gnomes like Anthony Worral Thompson, Giles Coren (the humourless son of a humorist), and Jamie Oliver, whose tongue seems too large for his mouth and capable of vasodilation, which may explain why a) he talks in that lisping fake Cockney accent of his and b) he has managed to marry quite an attractive woman. Jamie is currently annoying the population of Rotherham.
But it gets worse.
Thirty miles up the M1 from Rotherham, the top match on Google for "seasoned and fried" is now the murder trial of Anthony Morley of Leeds, who went on a date with Damian Oldfield, after which he took him home, had sex with him, cut his throat, stabbed him repeatedly, then carved a piece of flesh from his thigh, seasoned it with fresh herbs and fried it in olive oil.
Morley then walked to his local takeaway kebab shop, wearing a bloodstained dressing gown and flip-flops, and told staff: "I have killed someone, call the police."
Isn't this just typical? One minute he's all pretentious and showing off, with his olive oil and herbs, like he thinks he's Paul bloody Newman or someone, then as soon as he's got what he wants, he's off down the kebab shop in a dirty dressing gown! Mr Morley, I'm afraid, is a cannibal bulimic and a junk food junkie, and very much in the closet about all of it.
I think Mr. Morley hasn't exactly been honest about his sexuality either, come to think of it. In 1993, he won a beauty contest as Mr. Gay UK. According to a contemporary report, to win the title he had to beat off stiff competition in front of a nightclub audience in Blackpool. (Oo-err, missus) I'm not sure I could have managed that.
Then, he was the "gay scene's best known and talked about lad" who listed as his hobbies "pleasing other people". Now he says he's never been happy being gay, and claims the other man raped him. Sad, if it's true, but still no reason to kill your date and eat them.
I loved books. Then somebody told me I could write. And suddenly, I discovered myself. I wrote stories,I wrote poems, and within a year, I was a published author, with my picture in the paper.
That same year, people around me started dying. A boy in my class, who got cancer. And my Uncle Ken, who just expired one day, and I don't remember being told why.
I think the first funeral I went to would have been Robert's. The little boy coffin, and then a while later, a different church and an adult coffin.
Uncle Ken was a painter, and my Auntie said he'd gone to paint houses in Heaven. I hope he did a good job. I hope they paid him properly.
I'm still not sure how I dealt with all of that. I'd found something that made me powerful, and something that no power could overcome. I think I began to split in two, inside. I began to think about what was and wasn't acceptable about me, and who I could safely share it with. Yes, dear reader, I became an editor.
This is what I found when I was Googling for references to "The Great Wen". (I know, my dears, teh interwebs is a random place, and I should not be let near it.)
The mad lady scientists at the Institute for Figuring have crocheted this beautiful hyperbolic coral reef. Crochet advances our understanding of mathematics, and the nature of space. And it's pretty.
Weary Willie and Tired Tim were cartoon characters in a comic that had ceased to exist long before I was born (the picture above shows them recruiting unemployed soldiers to go and fight in the Boer War) but my Nana always used to mention them whenever children looked tired.
I was working in The Great Wen last week, and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience (which included a couple of new business opportunities, and drinks by the river with one of the women I love) but once I came home I felt seriously tired.
That's how it usually is when I go to London. I enjoy the buzz, and then I crash and burn. I'm wise enough now, to know its coming, and to accept it. I've been going to bed early, and setting the alarm clock a half-an-hour later. Three days seems to have got me right.
And now I find myself thinking about sleep, and tiredness, and taking good care of myself (which I do, some of the time, because if I don't, nobody else will.) I always wanted to stay up late when I was a child, and I never felt good about being tired. But it's a message from my body... and my body is my soul, and I need to learn to listen to it.
The days are gone when I really needed this advice, and they won't me coming back. But it's a good, gritty song for an autumn Sunday afternoon.
I'm as blue I'm as blue as the ocean is true It's just reflections of the sky I'm as cold I'm as cold as the stories you told But never sick enough to die
Note to self: don't change for anyone Note to self: don't die Note to self: don't change for anyone Don't change... just lie
I'm as sick I'm as crass as the things in your past, You wished that you could let them go Caged birds Caged animals starving for class In your house when you're alone
Note to self: don't change for anyone Note to self: don't die Note to self: don't change for anyone Don't change... just lie
Who do you call when you're alone Nobody, baby Who do you want to be, Figure out and just let me know
