BLOG 249 - CAUGHT!

“Women who love men behind bars find their routine tends to revolve around that visit, making parenting, work, and even day to day life more difficult than it would be under normal circumstances.” Rachel Pickett  Author :Men behind Bars

Where I live in South East London/North Kent there is a maximum security prison.

It has been home to some people who should have never been incarcerated (leading it to be called the British Version of Guantanamo Bay). It had been in much trouble for the extremely high amount of force used to control inmates. It has a prison within the prison (for young offenders). It has been home to Ronnie Biggs, Jonathan King and whole host of sociopaths whose names I would choke rather than repeat. But best of all it was home to Lord Archer of Weston Super mare when he perverted the course of justice to his own ends.

Whether you are evil or bad or misguided or just in the wrong place at the wrong time… everyone is in prison for the same crime… being caught.

I have no interest in the incarcerated per se really.  However living within proximity to a prison does sometime challenge the way you look at things.

One would not think of love when one thinks of a maximum security prison, but should you use public transportation in the area you get to witness something that makes you ask yourself the question…. Could I love someone enough?

Every week, three normal every day buses the 244, 380 and 672 drop women with eyes cast firmly at the ground at the prisons perimeter.

UK prisons allow just two 60 minute visits per month. These women (and if you live in the area you kind of get to recognise faces) negotiate the usual annoyances of the British public transport system, struggling with pushchairs, fatigued and sometimes disagreeable children, desperate lack of seats and oyster card machines that double bleep and empty your balance for no apparent reason.

Why? To see some bloke who managed to get himself caught.

For these women it is an undeserved sentence. Simply by caring for someone, a son, a husband, a lover, a baby-father… they too are sentenced to make this trip every fortnight for years…. Sometimes decades.

I find myself inspired by these women.

I know they are regarded as an underclass. As the appendages to scum. And maybe that is true.

But they love. I cannot help but be inspired by the depths of their love.

I am not sure if I could love someone enough to put myself through such degradation.

I see the looks they get.

It’s a regular ordinary bus – the British taxation system does not allow for a special charter. These prison visitors (majority of whom seem to be women and children) board the same bus that I get when coming back from the hospital.

I am amazed… you get to recognise the same faces. You get to recognise the same squaring of the shoulders and defiance should anyone catch their eye. You get to know it’ll be the same ritual of  brushing hair and dabbing of perfume before the same disembarkation point. You get to watch for the same failure of bravado as they step of the bus and feel the gaze of the curious upon them.

But they do their sentence.

Overtime, you get to notice that the baby is now walking or the little boy now sports the shadow of beard to come, or the teenage girl is now a woman in her own right.

You get to notice the time going by. You get to feel that your emotions are rather dwarfed by the loyalty and commitment it must take to serve a sentence alongside your man. I know … I really just know I’d walk. You would not see me fortnight after fortnight, month after month, year after year, decade after decade, on the prison bus.

How do they do it? Is it really caring for someone that makes them put themselves through it?

It just makes me wonder that’s all… what on earth must be like to be caught in a love like that?

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BLOG 248 - I DON'T LIKE

A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song. ~Chinese Proverb

Just engaged an old habit – just to pass the time.  Ahhhh... best start at the begining with this one.

Yesterday I had the joy of chatting with fellow pen smiths Bondi and Mitchell about the joys of Karaoke. I happened to mention my one and only attempt at this activity…which ended in total unmitigated disaster. Which was hardly surprising as I cannot hold a tune! Bondi and Mitchell were keen to know the song that I mauled. (I think the duo were secretly hoping for a reprise of the fateful performance. – pah! Such hopes were crushed on the altar of “I think not”.) However I regailed the story of how LeAnn Rimes 2001 classic 'But I do love you' was moollered by my catawallering.

I do so wish I could sing.

The singing gene is sooo in the family (I have a popstar cousin no less!). But in our family this talent apparently skips generations. Same cousin’s dad sings like a warthog taking a bath. In my nuclear family that pattern is in reverse… my mother has the voice of an angel (I assume angels can sing?), she’s performed at The Royal Albert Hall. Whereas I upset the neighbourhood cats when I try. To rub salt n the wound my young niece sings like the young Charlotte Church.

It’s tres annoying.

However… I am not one to be put off getting involved with the wonders of music beacuse of a trite lack of talent and a generational curse. True, I cannot song write, I cannot sing, and I cannot play an instrument. But I don’t let such trivia put me off.

If you recall I began this blog with the fact that I have revisited a childhood pastime.

When I was a kid I used to amuse myself by rewriting the pop songs of the day - so they would be all about me. I’m sure other kids must have done the same but I’ve never found anyone who would admit to doing anything so dorky! (Damn my friends for being so cool from an early age).

Of course some songs lend themselves to this better than others. I doubt if I could make this week’s chart topper into a little ditty that would reveal much about me or my state of mind. This would be mainly because the lyrics seem to be focused on staying up all night to get lucky. Which I have to admit is a worthwhile pursuit if you have an itch to scratch and hells bells it is a catchy tune… but it does not QUITE lend itself to the exercise. You need something with what they used to call in the old days a melody.

I strongly recommend it…. Go on… find an old song…. And rewrite it….

And so… as clearly I will never be able to put my spin on performing Ms Rimes 2001 classic… I thought I’d put my spin on the lyrics in a way that I am better qualified to.

So here we are… Can’t sing a note… but somehow… I’ve made it  ALL ABOUT ME… (sorry LeAnn I love your version just fine… I just can’t sing a note of it)… I give you the song I would have wrote if I had talent:

I don’t like to sleep ear-ly at night

I don’t like to -be told I’m wrong when I’m right

I don’t like to economise on shoes

But I do love you

But I do love you

I don’t like to- let fools have their say

I don’t like when things aren’t going my way

I don’t like to be the last with the news

But I do love you

But I do love you

Love everything about the way that you love me

The way you look when I am being really quite dorky

And I love the way you look at me in the morning when you wake

[Heavens sake!]

I don’t like to have a background noise

I don’t like to always tip bell boys

I don’t like to -wait for holidays

But I do love you

But I do love you

Love the way you lie in bed upon your side

The way you get intense when you decide you will confide

And I love the way you take control when no one think you can or will

[still a thrill!]

I don’t like when people say “early doors”

I don’t like to leave undone half my chores

I don’t like to be at work and be bored

But I do love you

But I do love you

But I do love you

But I do love you

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BLOG 247- Bank Holiday obsession

“Earlier on today, apparently, a woman rang the BBC and said she heard there was a hurricane on the way... well, if you're watching, don't worry, there isn't!” Michael Fish.

 [That evening, the worst storm to hit South East England since 1703 caused record damage and killed 18 people.]

Ah sweet Bank Holiday Season.

Of all the traditions associated with the United Kingdom and it’s commonwealth this is pretty close to the top of the list of things we all hold dearest.

Back in 1871 the banks decided they would have enshrined in law four days off, because… after all they had the money and why bloody not… so The Bank Holidays Act of 1871 was passed. Actually before this we all routinely had 33 saint days and religious festivals off work… but these were getting chipped away so a banker called Sir John Lubbock said enuf! And held onto four and got a bit of legal back up… before all holidays disappeared forever!

These days we (in England and Wales) get 8,  Scotland get 9, and Northern Ireland gets 10. Although there is no automatic right to these days as days off work – banks are always shut and the vast majority of the working populace are shackle free or are tempted to stay at work for extra pay. Those unlucky enough to work for meany organisations that do not recognise bank holidays get nowt so have to go to work anyway –but that’s not the point. Once we enter a bank holiday run up one thing will absolutely always happen regardless of your employers view on the status of bank holidays:

We will all leap upon the subject of weather with gusto.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… the Brits live in permanent fear of one thing… embarrassment.  Having studied our cousins over the pond over the last couple of centuries we have learned that the only way to achieve a life without embarrassment is to conduct conversations that are safe and impersonal.

Conversely the Brit’s live in permanent fear of being judged unfriendly by total strangers (nothing matters more to a Brit than the opinion of someone that they don’t know). But what a dilemma: how the hell can you be friendly to a total an utter stranger AND be safe and impersonal?  Dilemma solved: Tell me one thing safer and more impersonal than the weather?!

And so it comes to pass that on the run up to a bank holiday in Blighty , I can assure you WILL find a stranger smiling at you while shrugging towards the sky and uttering the words “huh? Do you think it’ll last over the bank holiday?”

By this morning (May Day Bank Holiday), I calculated I have been asked for a prediction of the activities of the sun, the clouds and other factors a total of 32 times by complete and utter strangers, 13 times by acquaintances and 12 times by friends and family.

Yup I, author of a novel, editor of a pan-european magazine, blogger and general wordsmith have spoken exclusively about the weather in a total of FIFTY SEVEN conversations in less than a week.

So to make sure that I have not wasted my life, I thought I should at least publish my findings from these interactions.

Regular JaxWorld Blog readers know the drill by now…. Here comes: THE LIST

1.            Men are wildly optimistic about the weather. 

Everyone knows that this little island has about 150+ days of rain… however men think not. There is no scientific reason why men will believe that sunshine will happen however at the first sign of a conversation about the  met office a man will mention the Hurricane of 1987 as evidence weather predictions cannot be trusted. Thus your average Brit male will not even own an umbrella, and will always put on three quarter length trousers and sandals at the first sign of the clouds shifting enough for a patch of blue.

2.          Women check the weather on every medium known to man

Everyone knows that the met office stuff things up. It is sensible to cross reference their predictions with other sources.  Unfortunately a lot of women read the Daily Mail and Daily Express who are continually wrong on all weather predictions [We did not freeze and 60,00 did not die]. Maybe this is why women are more likely to carry an umbrella despite wearing strappy dresses and open toed sandals in spring.

3. As a Nation we do all seem to know the statements and questions

 "Lovely day today - do you think it'll last till Monday?" "Breezy ain't it - do you think it'll turn on us?" "Oooh there is a chill in the air - hope that 's not a sign, what do you think?"  "Best not be tipping it down on Monday we're having a BBQ!" "Blowing a gale last week but they do say it'll be hot for the bank holiday" "Do you think it'll last?" "Any idea what the weather will be like for Monday?" Without fail the same questions and statements come from different sources... is someone handing out a script?

4. The weather is routinely given human attributes

Despite being home to some of the best scientific minds on the blue planet... everyone talks about the weather as if it is a sulky toddler about to have a tantrum.  " Ahhh... it's trying it's best but I don't think it'll hold out till tea time" "Shoosh! Don't mention the sun, it's been so good up to now, best not draw attention to it" [What is that?!!! The weather doesn't decide what to do...it just DOES!]

5. No one does a brave face like the Brits

We are woefully under prepared for any climatic change (which seems daft in the light of how much of the nations time is taken up with discussing weather). The only thing guaranteed about Bank holiday weather is that it'll be either too hot, too cold, too wet or too dry. But we will always find an upbeat (though strangely garden based reason) to grin an bear it. Too hot and our tomatoes will be happy. Too wet and the garden will be ecstatic. Too cold and we can always tidy the shed instead. The only exception is too dry. First sign of a hosepipe ban and your normally law abiding Brit will begin covert operations. (Yep... 2am and the whole nation are watering lawns whilst wearing dressing gowns and slippers).

Thing is we Brits love our bank holidays. The fact they usually fall on a Monday and lengthen our weekends delights us. On some level we are aware that other countries do get more state holiday than us... but we kind of shrug that off with the indifference we usually have for anything that is not of this island or its commonwealth. It's not that we are unaware, its just that we genuinely don't care. We have more important things to think about...like what is likely to happen in the sky above our dominion.

As it turned out today - May Day Bank Holiday was a gloriously sunny day. Brits basked in what turned out to be the hottest day of 2013 so far prompting thousands to flock to the coast, many more to attend festivals  and even more to fire up the barbie. One extra day on the weekend and we become much more social... and outdoorsy! It's a pity we don't have more days like that. Though to be fair, we do get given extra ones if the Queen or her brood do something huge (have an anniversary or get married). 

But take its from JaxWorld... we're unlikely to get any more  bank holidays because despite the fact employers have no legal obligation to give us the day off... most do. And this means each one of those lovely bolt-on to the weekend days costs us as a nation about £2.3bn in lost productivity  - and believe it or not....that's not including how much time we waste on the lead up to each of them yapping about the weather!

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