I want a true history of my city

10 Murray: to be crucified at the alter of good taste, April 2010.

A large - if not the central - part of the reason that I would not like 10 Murray to go is explained by the following poem. I want a true history of my city, not an airbrushed, tourist-friendly, blandishments dominant theme park of convicts, sandstone and trees.

PLEA FOR A HISTORY OF WORKING-CLASS LEEDS, by Barry Tebb

I want a true history of my city

FUCK THE DE LACY FAMILY AND DOUBLE

FUCK JOHN OF GAUNT ESPECIALLY

And all his descendants

With their particular vilenesses -

I met one in the sixties

Who had all the coldness of Himmler

So svelte and adored by the cognoscenti.

I want a history responsive

To the needs of the working-class

One that will minute the back-to-backs

Spread over the city like a seamless robe

SO FUCK CUTHBERT BRODERICK’S TOWN HALL

BRIDEWELL AND MAGISTRACY.

I want a history of the culture

Of the working class and not

Hoggart’s slimy gone-up-in-the-world

Jabber for the curious bourgeoisie

He was especially maladroit

On working-class sexuality

A voyeur picking humorous moments

To show the ignorance of the class

He sprang from. “Anything was an occasion” -

Or did he mean ‘excuse’? - “for intercourse,

Even a visit to the chip-shop”.

O for the gentleness

And the quiet intimacy

And joyful spontaneity

Of working-class sexuality

Reading Shelley’s ‘Defence of Poetry’

Sitting on a bus by a girl who, smiling, said,

“I told Jack if he was finished with me

He wasn’t having any but he pulled me

Into the bushes laughing all the way

So what could I say?”

I want a history of the warmth

Of working-class mothers

Explaining the mysteries of periods.

To their adolescent daughters and the

Revelations of working-class brides.

I want a history of family outings

To Temple Newsam where I saw an ass

Eating straw from the steel manger

Of Christ.

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral

Zeal, n. A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced. A passion that goeth before a sprawl.

Here I have tried my hand at the homemade sepia-toned photo. I wasn’t happy with the way that the sun had washed out some of the colours in the original, so had a bit of a fiddle because I like the look on Henry’s face, and didn’t want to pass on posting it. I have a tip for those of you burdened with the great, unceasing weight of parenthood. I have a new recipe, in the vein of the quick microwaved chocolate cake . Get this, microwaved potato chips . I gave them a run on Sunday, Henry liked the so much I did it again last night. Tonight, I shall be experimenting with sweet potato. I think that the ground is open for me to exploit opportunities in the swede, turnip, carrot and maybe even explore in the area of pumpkins. Radical, I know. I’m a boundary-pusher by nature. It's pretty simple, take the potato. Slice it thinly (it doesn't have to be too thin, but thin enough). Lay the slices on the microwave plate, whack a bit of salt over the top and nuke the buggers for five minut

This will hurt me...

Search This Blog