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Issue #105. June 10th - 23rd, 2005 The Quest
A Man In A Suit
Life Is Always
Bloody Hell/ Babies
The Rough Guide to the G8 Summit and
the MakePovertyHistory Campaign
Record review: Amsterdam (The Journey)
Record Review: I am Kloot (I beleive)
Record Review: Undercut (To die for)
Live Review: Dragon or Emperor / Spotlight Kid / Misterlee (Coventry Tin Angel, Saturday
4th June)
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The Quest
‘Here begins the Book of the Holy Grail, Anna drove like a fury, piercing the valley in her zest to be elsewhere. Incomparable anger welled up inside her.. Once onto the motorway, she put her foot down as she hit 100mph. Though not suicidal, it was more out of concern for others on the M5 than fear for her own life which made her slow down. By noon, she was passing the sign, ‘Welcome to the Isle of Avalon’, Glastonbury… She waited for the jolt of alrightness that this mystical place should inspire. She had come here for the gasp of spiritual comfort. Nothing happened. Too far gone, She had crossed the line now, more academic than priestess, a theology born in the mind, not the heart and soul anymore. Parking up at the public carpark beside St John’s, she clambered out of the car. Gone was the barely suppressed excitement, gasping the sacred Glastonbury air and a slow meander down the alley before she settled at the Blue Note for cheesy garlic bread and a cup of tea. Anna sat at the table a latte with cinnamon syrup, pulling out the list of books she hoped to find in this town. This was research. This is what she was good at now, having answered the call by esteemed scholars. The academic as Maiden Warrior lifting such interrogation from the hands of non-believers on behalf of Pagans everywhere. “Excuse me, are you one of those Wiccans?” The girl hovering over her looked about sixteen and more at home in any British High Street than this one. “I saw your pentagram and my friend said…” “Pentacle.” Anna sounded petulant even to herself. “Yes, I am…” Was, the thought pierced. The girl was chattering on and Anna realized that she hadn’t heard a word of it. She was irritated. She stood. “I’m sorry, I have to…” “Sorry.” The girl blushed. She scooped a piece of notepaper from the slabs. “You dropped your list.” “Sorry.. yes, thank you.” Really flustered now. Anna just wanted to get into the shops, find the books, get out of there. The girl had fled, back to her friends, with the hoodies and sequins. When had her generation dropped the baton passed on by the hippies to produce this? Anna caught herself. Took a breath. Consulted her list. Twelve books there on the Holy Grail, most of which would tell her that it was here, in Glastonbury. She dived into Courtyard Books and into the calm oasis of academic thought. Cerridwyn’s Cauldron; the Irish cauldron of life, seized by Bran the Blessed; the bloodline of Christ passed on through Mary Magdelena; the legend of Peredur; the cup used at the Last Supper, or the chalice which collected the blood of Christ on the cross… read them all, find 5000 words to write about it, get the paper in and earn some money. She sat in the George and Pilgrim annoyed. Empty mind, empty mind. She opened a book at random, ‘The Master of the Knights once again calls on him to speak, saying that if he delays longer the opportunity will be forever lost…’ Perlesvaus… ‘To strive with myself have I ridden, and went near myself to slay, Thy valor in good stead had stood us, from myself has thou saved today…’ Feirefez… Anna turned another page and found a photograph of the Tor, that ubiquitous symbol. She should go there, dare the Goddess to explain why she had forsaken her, then go home. Anna drove up to Wellhouse Lane and parked. She dared deity to let traffic wardens give her a ticket. She caught herself wondering if this was wise, to climb a hill alone at dusk; then rebelled against this new staid self. She eased herself out of the car, gathering scratches from the hedgerow, as she pushed her way to the gateway. And there it was. The great and holy Tor, sacred in so many traditions, the focal point of ley-lines, owned by the National Trust. She climbed the steep way up the slopes, pausing for breath at the bench, pressing on. Feeling lighter she pushed on to the top of that strange, little hill before collapsing for breath on the grass at its summit. Anna sat for an hour or so, meditating, her mind clearer, but swimming with a myriad of poisonous thoughts. The sky to the West pierced through it’s own bleeding lance, the dying of the sun. It was magical. Her mobile phone beeped once. She eased it out of her pocket, glad no watching shamans or wind-dancers were there to see the intrusion. Jilly, her friend who had warned her before she even took the degree how hard it would be, texted her now, ‘So, who does it serve?’ Anna didn’t reply. She locked the ‘phone again and dropped it into her pocket. She wanted to watch the sunset. If only Peredur had asked, the Fisher King, ‘What is the meaning of this? Who does it serve?’ Answer the question. It wasn’t any of those things dressed up in legend, it was the tension between transformation between Paganism and Christianity. It was a spiritual concept and… Anna gasped. It was her. Right now, right here, half-Wiccan, half-scholar. Just like Gardner; just like Valiente. Here in Avalon, where even Morgan Le Fey had been tutored in the sciences. For the briefest instant, the two states merged into one. The state between two states… the world between two worlds… the Holy Grail. The witch in her cheered; the academic inside cringed. Anna grabbed the idea, lest her self-destructive mind lose the thought forever. It held. She held. And exhaled. The sun was down by the time she texted Jilly back to tell her, ‘They were right, the Grail is at Glastonbury. I brought it with me.’ Then giggling like the Anna of only six months ago, she danced off the Tor.
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A Man in a Suit 1 The bus was struggling with the lascivious weight of summer sunned bodies, lackadaisical and sun bleached, sitting slumped against windows and boxed friendly by partners' shoulders, and I thought about the man in the suit. The sun was burning my neck through the glass with magnified fireflies eating a resplendent meal of acne'd flesh, and I thought about the man in a suit. I don't know what to say about him, except that he was expected. The oven baked interior was making my coat, old and threadbarren dispel the odour of a musty den hidden behind thick oak doors, locked to everyone but one, who kept it locked when even he was occupied, occupying and cultivating his smell. I see two men in your life, one with a suit. The bus was addled with young teenagers in foreign dress - to me, layered thick with puss, stripped back of the essentials and hoaring in gaudy tones less vicious, a degree, than a parliament of pigeons, so I upped myself and left. It was my stop anyway. My belly growled and I thought of the man in a suit. Earlier, before the books, before the 2p shopping bag full of salmon, cheese and cider, before I felt a microscopic shrinking of my pores, I sat down on one of the white flecked, grey, mock marble stone seating blocks by the pub in the square. My head gave a perfunctory whine as I spied a young boys suicide lips and into view slid my man and his suit. He sidled over as if dangerously off hand, but I had seen him staring from the corner of my right eye, waiting on the periphery to add one and one. Now sitting on the warm marble, wobbling his feet with silver sparkled buckles, intriguing my excess he lets his mouth wander; Are you from around here? Now this is a pleasure. Lacking conversation in this city of ours where a pleasure is sitting and watching the bubbles blow. Bubbles from a boy called Dunno. Couldn't your mum think of a better name for you? Dunno. I can't take the comfortable silence I'm amongst with a man in a suit, grey and blue from head to shoe, striped in the middle and fat around the edge with an Irish accent from around here, the same here as me which is not here but anywhere but. I roll a cigarette and leave the scene. Excuse me, can I have a light? I hope yer not trying to chat me up, young lady! Another charming man of the same age. Brown cigar held aloft to donkey fuck my dry end into a blaze of poison that will take the comfortable edge away. I sit down again and endure the meeting. Its nice to talk to you anyway, he ventures. What are you doing? Nothing really just wandering around and listening to what s going on, and you? The same. It was like looking into my own eyes thirty years from now. (Putting tea tree oil on an open wound makes it sting but is this any reason not to?) Are you with anyone, you know a boyfriend or married? At this his voice becomes muffled. Is he embarrassed asking, if so why ask? Does he think I might be interested in him, a fifty odd year old Irish man pretending to be Scottish born and bred? Does he want to pay me for sex? I live with my boyfriend. Ah I suppose times have changed. You don't believe in it. No, I think you should be married. Why? How do you know he won't go and cheat on you. You don't have to be married for that to be eliminated. A piece of paper is not going to keep someone from sleeping around if they want to. It's not just a piece of paper. Anyway, he says after a squint of reflection at the opaque void of cloud heading into the sun, you look like a decent sort of girl.(!?) 2 Later on, after the itchiness attached itself forthwith to every part of my being, when blue veins presented themselves unattached, as if dressed up to the nine for a coming out ball, I had a thought about my man and his suit. What if he wasn't the man in a suit?
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Life is Always Life does not start to happen when you get home from work
I have a window in the roof of my bedroom and at night I look up and see the stars stretching out endlessly. Millions and millions of stars, each one millions and millions of miles away. The longer I look the smaller I feel until I am dizzy with the enormity it all. I try to imagine all the people the stars can see at that very moment, and I start to think about all the other worlds that they may be visible from. And I start wonder about life. I start to wonder about my life. Over the years I have bided my time watching the clock and wistfully waited for a better job, or a new love, or a new adventure. I've sat watching seconds turn to days and the days turn to years. And thousand stars have collided and scattered light across the sky. And over the years I've come to realise that life is not something that you need to wait for. It is not even something you can try to wait for. Life is the bit between a breath and a heartbeat. It is the memory of a kiss or a flower squashed into a pavement. It is just something that happens, and keeps on happening. And I've come to realise that life does not start to happen when you get home from work Or when you have finished the washing up, or tidied the house. Life does not start to happen then.
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The Rough Guide to the G8 Summit and the MakePovertyHistory Campaign What is the G8 Summit? It is the annual meeting of the Heads of State or Government of the G8 countries. The G8 countries are France, the UK, Italy, the US, Germany, Japan, Canada and Russia. They have no headquarters, permanent staff or budgets and each year the presidency of the G8 is passed between the member nations. This year is the UK’s turn, and G8 Summit will be held in the Gleneagle Hotel in Edinburgh. The G8 (then the G6, Canada and Russia joined later) was founded in France in 1975. Before that, in 1973 the US set up the Library Group. This was an informal meeting of financial officials from Europe, Japan and the US, set up to discuss global issues such as the oil crisis and the global economic recession of the early 1970s. Even now, with the eyes of the world on it and the media frenzy surrounding it, the Group try to keep some of the informality of the “fire-side chat” of the early Library Group meetings. The second day of the Summit involves retreats so that the members can talk to each other, free from officials and the media. The members can agree on goals and objectives, but compliance with these is voluntary. The G8’s power lies in the economic clout and political influence of its members. Previous G8 Summits have dealt with debt, terrorism, nuclear clean-up and a number of global health issues such as combating HIV-AIDS, polio and SARS. This year, Tony Blair has chosen to focus on Africa and climate change. MakePovertyHistory Campaign The Make Poverty History Campaign, which includes charities and organisations from around the world, has organised a number of events to coincide with the G8 Summit in Edinburgh. Their aim is to draw the attention of the leaders of the wealthiest countries in the world to the ever growing gap between the richest and poorest people of the world, and that people want them to close that gap. In 2000, the 191 UN member states agreed to meet the 8 UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) by 2015. The first of these is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. Progress to meet these goals has been slow, and the MakePovertyHistory Campaign wants governments to get serious and do something to eradicate poverty now. They have three demands – trade justice, drop the debt and more and better aid. They want the World Trade Orgainisation (WTO), the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to rewrite the rules of trade in favour of the poorer countries to help them develop their industries. So far, only 10% of debt owed by low-income countries has been cancelled. MakePovertyHistory campaign is called on governments to cancel all debt owed by these countries to allow them to spend that money on other things, such as immunisation for children, clean water and education. The United Kingdom cancelled 100% of the debt owed to it by the poorest countries in the world, with tremendous results. The MDG target for aid is 0.7% by the year 2015. The MakePovertyHistory Campaign thinks this should be reached sooner, in order to save more lives now. This is echoed in the American ONE campaign. Their aim is to get an extra 1% of the federal US allocated towards providing basic needs for the poorest people in the world. How are they going to do it There are a number of events organised by the MakePovertyHistory Campaign and others associated with them, including the global Live 8 concerts on July 1st – the day before the G8 Summits. The aim of these events is to raise awareness for the campaign. In Edinburagh on July 2nd, there will a rally in the morning and a number of workshops and talks through-out the day. There will also be a giant march in the afternoon, which will encircle Edinburgh with a human white band, and it is hoped, send a message to the G8 countries that they cannot ignore. Will it work? The last time the G8 Summit was held in the UK 70,000 people took to the streets of Birmingham for a peaceful protest against poor country debt. As a result, the UK cancelled 100% of the debt owed to it by some of the poorest countries. Who knows what could happen this time. Join the campaign There is lots of information about the events on July 2nd of the MakePovertyHistory website and the Jubilee website. Jubilee are also looking for people to help with banners, placards and costumes. This creative session will take place at the Jubilee Debt Campaign office from 4pm to 8pm on 16 June. Everything you need - including food and drink - will be provided. Email them if you would like to take part. Add your signature to the ONE declaration. Whiteband.org have links to events all over the world. Visit the G8 website.
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