HAPPY BIRTHDAY GEORGIE

You will be thinking I bet, that I am forgetting it is your birthday, but I am not.

Confusion is arising because you tell me once that you are born on last day of August, and you are thinking that August is having only thirty days, but it has thirty one and so birthday card arrives one day late, not that I am sending birthday card but sending this post instead with is more personal perhaps.

Anyways what do birthdays matter. You will always be fifteen in the head. This is what you tell me, so that is good.

Tell me about your doings.

What celebrations for the birthday have you been having?

Oh, and I have present for you which you will get when least expecting!

Write quickly back to me.

Your Anna

Always judge a book by its cover

************************************************8
7.50am

And rain bounces, a foot into the air, off parked cars. Exaggeration? Well, where would we be without a bit of exaggeration?

Looks like it's rained all night, judging by the lake in the garden, with  two swans floating happily. (How do you know if a swan is happy? A swan's expression doesn't really change much).

They say this is the wettest summer since time began. Can you imagine a time when there was no time? I can't. Einstein said Time is the fourth dimension. Who am I to argue.

Old Quartzy on the wall chimes Eight, and it's raining even harder. I look out the window and see animals hurrying by - two by two. Strange. I wonder where they're going?

I can't stop thinking about Time. And really I have so many things to do. That's why I'm up early. 

Time's pressing. That's a funny expression. Sounds like it's pressing down on your head - squashing you. Perhaps Time - like gravity - is a force that holds us in place on the planet. Stops us flying off into Space - which is another dimension.

What if you could stop Time? Like pressing 'pause' on a video machine. Or, even better, run it backwards. Wouldn't that be fun? Especially if you could edit out the bits you didn't like!

I can hear the rain now, drumming on the double-glazing.

Can you really run out of Time? Or out of Space for that matter? How can you run out of a dimension?

They say that Hallucogenic drugs distort your experience of time and space. But is it really a distortion? Is what we consider 'normal' actually a distortion of reality? Distorted by the limitations of our five senses? Perhaps these drugs really do open the 'Doors of Perception' - letting us experience more of what is really there.

I'm going to get my cornflakes now.

Oh, one more thing:


I am not sure Dave's flat is a good idea. For our meeting, I mean. Don't ask me why - it's just a feeling I have. I think it may be to do with the idea of sleeping in the same bed. I mean the bed that you two share. Almost a marital bed!

And... sorry I haven't replied before now but I've had a lot on my plate - figuratively speaking. (I have not had a lot on my dinner plate, ...I am eating frugally at the moment.)

Just one more thing: My feet are beginning to itch. I feel the need to roam. I shall advise you of my travel itinerary as soon as it is finalised.

Please do not keep me waiting as long as I have kept you waiting.

George

Wherefore are you Georgie

Why do you not respond to my last writing?

Do you not wish to conjoin with me in the flat of Dave?
(Dave is dismayed at results of A levels - I do not understand his concern. If less students then smaller classes. Is this not the case?)

But that is of bye the bye for the moment.

I am anticipating to be hearing from you soon or else I shall inform police of missing person (this is joke - well I hope it is joke).

So get one's arse in gear and be tapping the keys to message me.

Anna

Flak - I look up in dictionary (which you kindly purchase for me many years ago) and it tell me means anti-aircraft fire. And that it is abbreviation of German word Fliegerabwerkanone. Well, since it unlikely you been flying over Germany and thus attracting the anti-aircraft fire, I look further and see it can also mean strong criticism.

So I am sorry you have been attracting strong criticism. From who  might this have been coming- this strong criticism - and what might be its content?

But we can open the stable door on that one when next we meet, which should be soon. As I will be telling you.

The reason I am delaying in responding to you is that Dave's computer has been dysfunctional. He takes it to people he calls techies at university and they fix it. But when he bring back he look at me with funny look. And he say - techies tell me there was nasty virus on laptop.

I say to him - Well, have you been typing with the toes? This is meant as joke but he does not laugh.

He says - Have you perhaps been viewing the pornographic websites what are infecting computer insides?

I say - I have not done such thing. I am hurt you should be asking.

He say - Sorry, but what with you having been in the trade and that...

I reply, full of indignity - Listen buster, I seen (and done) all them things for real, being in the flesh so speaking. For me to be watching videos is to be like eating sweets with wrappers on.

Well, he apologise,  and so I tell him about all the misfortunes what are being thrust upon you in recent times.

 And he say - Listen, I got idea. Why not you invite George around here, then desire could be satiated

But I tell him - How dare you. My Georgie is moral man and would not take part in threesome.

Now is his time to look hurt - Oh no, he say, no way am I suggesting threesome. Thing is, I am taking some students on field trip and will be away for a week, during which time you may avail yourselves of my flat.

Now is not that good news, Georgie? Because I am sure a visit here will improve spirits. For have I not told you often times that what you need is the love of a good woman, or me!

Anyways, there is more to say but I wish to get this posted as quickly as may be possible in case you go looking for cardigan with pockets. ( But if you do, I think blue would suit you! - little joke... take not notice).

Now write back quickly then I know you forgive Anna.

Love from a good woman (Me)

These are troubled times

*******************************************

You haven't replied to my last communication, Anna.

Of course I don't expect you to reply immediately, every time I write - that would be unreasonable, unrealistic. It's just that these are troubled times and the flak is flying.

I am reading 'The Unfortunates' by B. S. Johnson. It's his famous 'Book in a Box'. The chapters are all loose and you can read them in any order - except the FIRST and LAST which are so titled and should be read as such.

It is a grim book but I love the writing style.

I find that, at the moment, I only get relief, respite from the vagaries of fate and the buffets of life when I write. Surely that's not right?

An anonymous comment advised me not to look in the mirror but to look up at the sky.

I did, and a seagull 'pooped' in my eye.

Waiting for your words

George

I'm not the man I was

*******************************************


Did you know, Anna, that every cell in your body has died and been replaced many times? Amazing, isn’t it? So I’ve got nothing I started out with. No original equipment - just replacement parts.

But what about my memories? How come I still have those? Some of my memories are from when I was five. Surely there is some kind of core; the inner Me. But is there? And if there is – what exactly is it?

I’ve had 2 unopened e mails in my in-box for weeks. They’re from her. I don’t want to open them because I don’t want to know what she has to say. And yet I can’t bring myself to delete them. Instead, yesterday I created a new folder: ‘Unopened’ – and moved them into it.  (I thought of calling it ‘twat’ but that seemed rather vulgar.)

So, Anna, I am – once again – shelving things. I’m good at that. In fact, if Shelving were an event in the Olympic Games I would certainly be in Team GB.
I would also be up among the favourites for the 100 metre Dawdle - but that’s another story.

Yesterday I had a cheese-and-ham “toastie” in a café. It was one of those in a sealed packet. You select it and hand it to the girl behind the counter and she heats it up. How do they slice ham so thin? The company that makes the sandwiches (they are all bought in) must have a special machine - probably computerised. The ham had no taste in it… neither did the rest of the sandwich, come to think of it.

Not like in my youth: when I was a lad there was an old-fashioned grocers in the village. In summer they always had the door open and I used to look in on my way to school. There was fresh sawdust on the floor,  and a big ginger-tom, sitting on the bacon counter. The ham you got there… you could sole your shoes with it.

As an “only child”, I was often lonely. I’ve heard it said that the “only child” will very often have an imaginary friend. I didn’t have an imaginary friend. I think I was afraid to in case he went away – or died. I’ve always been afraid of losing people. The psychologists say that if you are afraid of losing people you avoid getting close to anyone. Strangely, I have not found this to be true in my case. What do you think, Anna?

As I was walking across the car park, a lady, sitting in her car with the window open, called to me: some remark about the weather. But when I stopped to exchange pleasantries she gave me the story of her life, in fifteen minutes. She was lovely, though. Said she was fifty-five but looked twenty years younger. Slim, blonde, green eyes – she seemed as if she needed someone to talk to. Well don’t we all, at some time or other. And often those closest to us are the ones we find it most difficult to talk to. So maybe she needed a stranger – and I came along at the right time. I liked her. I shall probably never see her again – but I wish her all the best.

I hear what you say about homo sapiens evolving self- consciousness and I think Dave is probably right - despite the smelly feet. (Actually I have some excellent purple ointment which, although not primarily intended for use on the lower extremities would, I am sure, help in this matter).

I applaud your robust attitude toward the selfish-gene, and your positive outlook on life generally. That is what I find so attractive about you: your optimism and zest for life – plus, of course, your body. You must look after it – under or over the sheets.

Things have taken a turn for the worse chez moi, Anna. I won’t bore you with the details – they bore me.
I am in a fix, and no mistake. Sill it’s probably not yet time to go out and buy a cardigan, with pockets.


Yours

  George.

Oh Georgie, Georgie...

But what are we to be doing with you? I am asking myself. Such is your downward spirit at this moment.

It is so easy for me, being of the high spirited disposition to be saying snap it out of whatever it is you are in. But I know this not to be so easy as it is just saying so. I partly know such by talking to Dave who has what is called the 'Bi polar' disease which means he swing rapidly from up to down in mood, often no warning is coming.

When he is in down mood he wishes to do nothing except sleep, often going to bed for this purpose. Yesterday in afternoon was such an occasion and he asked me to accompany him because he also become very anxious and in need of warmth and reassurance, which I give him.

I also tell Dave about your concern for the natural selection and how we come to have self-consciousness and why. Dave tells me that the homo sapiens did not get this condition all of a sudden in one go. Like suddenly jump up one day and say - Bloody Hell - We're all going to die.

No, because evolution work very slowly and Dave think that the self-consciousness evolve slowly over long period of time. And he also think it because of brain getting more and more sophisticate and learning how to plan ahead for future. Which is not like just - Oh shit, what we gonna have for tea? I shall have to go out with my club and bash some grizzly bear on head and take back to cave.

No, it means being able to think about Sunday dinner and then for next month, like stocking up larder. In this way homo sapien brain  get bigger and bigger and be able to think further and further into future, so as to prepare for time of no rain or being snowed up and stuff like that. Or maybe thinking, if we can kill a woolly mammoth and pack him in ice he will see us through Christmas and well into New Year.


Of course- Dave says - they will have noticed that some of their family and friends have suddenly stop running around and breathing, but this does not mean you think this will happen to you. Like a dog does not think - oh the humans next door have bunged old Charlie into hole in garden. That means us dogs are mortal.
No, he just think -  I'll jump over fence and see if they give me any of Charlie's biscuits what he won't be needing now.

Eventually - after long time this is - some very smart gene types is beginning to understand as how homo sapien is mortal. And these smart types say - Best if we invent religion because when masses get wise they will panic and demand to know what happen when they pop off. So we can promise masses they will go live in other place which is heaven (so long as they behaves themselves) otherwise it is fiery furnace. In this way masses don't go run amok and bugger it up for everyone.

So this is how - maybe over thousands and thousands of years - we evolve self-consciousness.

That was Dave talking.

Now this is Anna talking.

But so what, Georgie? So we know we are mortal. Is this not a good thing? For now we can get on with it... or get it on (little joke) and eat, drink and be mirthful (as old English saying) or 'fill yer boots' which is other saying.

You say we are like puppet who can look up, see strings and can do nothing. But I say - Oh yes we bloody can! We can cut strings and learn to dance to our own tune! 

In this way we give selfish gene good kick up arse.

(Do not pedantically advise me this is a mixing of metaphors because this I know - and am not giving a shit!)  

But anyways I will give you good practical example of way to live when we conjoin for the next time. Oh yes - you lucky boy.

Dave's feet smell. He say he have athlete's foot which one does not need to be sportsperson to have such horrible disease. Anyways, I tell him he must visit physician pronto or he is back on sofa. Luckily he does not have this smelliness anywhere else on body (I have good sniff).

So do not worry - I make sure he does not infect Anna with his mouldy toes. I would not wish to visit upon my Georgie this disgusting fungus - nor upon oneself of course.

NO, your Anna shall be pure as the Scandinavian snow when we slide swiftly under the sheets (but not so cold... ha ha).

I interrupt my writing to watch Olympic Games where today Great Britain gain SIX Gold Medals (I personally witness THREE in this evening, which is the girl, Jessica Ennis who is what they call Heptathlon, and the man called Gregory with his long jumping, also fantastic runner who I think is call Farah. This make one proud to be British - which I am not, but never mind one could be if one was to marry a certain Englishman! Are you getting my drift, Georgie?

Bye for now

Your little Swedish boomerang.

A sobering thought?

Do you know what I am, Anna? An elaborate machine for passing on the genes that made it. Just the same as any animal or plant, I am a survival machine for genes. I got that from the book "The Magic of Reality" by Richard Dawkins. Of course I knew this but he puts it so clearly, succinctly that I thought it worth quoting here.

A sobering thought: My only purpose in this world is to propagate the species. Everything else is window-dressing.


And what makes it worse is that my particular species, homo sapiens, is the only one (apparently) stuck with the added indignity of knowing this is the case! One wonders why natural selection came up with self-consciousness.


It’s like a puppet being able to look up and see who’s pulling the strings and yet be powerless to do anything about it. Maybe that’s why some folk commit suicide: the ultimate action of taking control.


I saw the film, The Hours, for the second time yesterday. Virginia Woolf:


“My own brain is to me the most unaccountable of machinery—always buzzing, humming, soaring roaring diving, and then buried in mud. And why? What’s this passion for?”


 ...filled the pockets of her cardigan with stones and walked into a river. My cardigan hasn't got any pockets - can you imagine that! And it's Marks and Spencer. What is happening to the world, Anna?


As my grandma might have said: It’s a bugger.


 I look out the window and it’s pissing down. In July! And chilly, to boot.  And I have just been informed that the dining room window is permitting the ingress of water – because the guttering is blocked. This looks like a job for Superman .


Why do you not see as much chrome about these days? On cars, I mean, and motor-bikes. Except Harley-Davidsons - and my bike, which is a Honda and over thirty years old. I am allowed to keep it here in Mistress Bulstrode’s cavernous garage I tell her she could supplement the household income by renting it to illegal immigrants (the garage not the bike)  but she ignores me.


Bench seats. They’ve disappeared too. All part of our obsession with Health and Safety, I suppose. I once had a Ford Consul 375 with bench seats. It was brilliant. It sort of rolled along. And I could imagine I was in America – where they are not so much afflicted by such Health and Safey issues.  And they love chrome! And that’s what I like about America: the glitzy, unashamed brashness, the cheerful vulgarity; the  refusal to be constrained by the limitations of "good taste". Wonderful.


And what will happen when our nanny-state gains complete control of our Health and our Safety? When no one smokes, does drugs or abuses alcohol? When everyone eats sensibly and exercises regularly, and no one is obese? When everyone practices safe sex, and there's no Jeremy Kyle? When crime and deprivation have finally been eliminated and everyone obeys the speed limit? When playground swings and rounabouts are perfectly safe and children don't climb trees and jump acrosss streams?


Will we all live happily ever after? I don't think so.


Don't think that I am advocating "anti- social behaviour" or poisoning yourself with toxic chemicals or even sexual irresponsibily. Or putting children at risk. I'm not. It's just that if you make life "risk free" then you take away that very Life you are trying to protect.


Incidentally, regarding children, I heard a woman on the radio say: children thrive on a bit of healthy neglect.And I thought: You sure spat a bootful there, sister.


Talking of sisters - good to hear Wilma is gainfully employed. When I was little I wanted to run away to join a circus. Do you think there's still time?


I don't mind if you are...  getting it on with Dave. (I believe that is the cool expression. It used to be...having it off. Funny how two apparently contradictory statements can have the same meaning.)


Everyone is entitled to be happy - or as happy as they can be. I truly believe that. And if a little dalliance with Dave makes you happy... go for it, girl.

Unfortunately, for myself, I don't think a little dalliance would make me happy. Except with your goodself, I hasten to add. 

But I know you will always come back to me - my little Swedish boomerang!

Anyway, I am counting my loose change to see if I have enough money to buy myself a pair of trousers. That is an indication of the depths to which I have sunk.

But I'll dance again.

Yours as ever

George

Do not fear
For I am here


Little couplet (like Shakespeare writes) to start off on positive footnote.

Regard to my sister - whose name it is Wilma - she does not have hock injury because hock is something found on animal and my sister is not animal (though I sometimes call her old cow but this only because she is elder one of  us).

She does not compete in weightlifting games any further. Wilma is kicked out of amateurs because she is dopey. Which mean taking the unprescriptive medicines or uncontrollable certain substances which are drugs, and include the steroid which make her look like man. (well, more like man than she already does - I tell her: Why you shave head and yet keep hair under arms? - this do you no favours). But she is of the short temper and powerful with it, so I shut up.


(I do not mention unladylike habit of spitting on hands before grasping weight bar.)


 Anyways she has now joined circus (travelling) and has name in big letters on poster which say WORLD'S STRONGEST LADY. Which she is not - but who is to know this.)


But I am digressing from main point. Which is you must cheer up Georgie. Remember howsoever bad things are they could get worse. And you must also keep on with the writings. One day your talents will be recognised and I will sit proudly by your side as you sign copies of your book in famous book shop -Waterstones. 


But also remember that - as I am before telling you - sometimes one has to aim a bit lower if he is going to hit anything at all. And so why not write the porn novel? I could be technical adviser on such a project.


Yes, I did sit of sofa with Dave and watch opening ceremony of Games which was excellent, because I did not think Brits could organize drunken night in brewery. (I clean that one up... ha ha). But they obviously can. And what a game bird is your Queen and no mistaking. Of course she do not really leap from helicopter instead arrive at back door in big car, but who is complaining about that? Not I.


 Swedish athletes will win most gold medals but will be humble about it.


Do not be thinking yet about epitaph. We have much to do, yourself and me! (notice exclamation mark).


Looking at the television I see the Warner Hotels are offering special discounts for mature couples (well at least one of us is mature) so be getting finger out and organising.


Your (getting more restless) Anna

Where are you?

***************************************************

Where are you, Anna, in my hour of need?

I bet you were on the sofa with Clive last night, watching the opening ceremony of the Games.

I watched it. I thought it was spectacular. Yes, I know... the expense and all that stuff. And I was a bit cynical at first when I thought of how the money could have been spent: the homeless, the poor, the disadvantaged, the sick. And perhaps you could say it was a junket for the rich, the privileged, the powerful, but at the same time you had to admire the planning, the effort, the creativity the sheer exuberance of mind and spirit that had come together to produce last night's performance.


I am not, as you know, a particularly sporting type, and perhaps there could be some other way of demonstrating all that's best in human endeavour and achievement. But we've got the Games. So let's enjoy them.

(By the way... when your lot marched past I kept a look our for that sister of yours - whatsername - the weightlifter. Couldn't see her, though. Did she recover from that hock injury?)

My mouth is better - although you haven't asked - but I have been down and in need of support - I will not burden you with the details - but where is that support...?

I do my best, and yet am misunderstood by those around me. Perhaps that is the lot of the artist and visionary.

Still, I soldier on, uncomplaining.

Nevertheless it would be nice to know that someone cared.

George