Author: basgallop

apropos of nothing… smelling salts of randomness.. t’other day i was up on the downs at telscombe with sherbailey, was regaling her with the tale of how my arm got smithereened in a bike crash there when she was a baby!
see regurgitated very ancient email below… since then that elbow has been weirdly aching
so i’ve just spent the last half hour ‘curing’ it by making a collage of me in the arms of barry gibb, all tickety boo now!
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Always wear a bike helmet!
having shattered my elbow, I’m more than relieved not to have fractured my skull,
after the crash, the hapless helmet had a huge chunk of plastic gouged off the side and was split, nay sundered in two
yuk
ok so bike helmets make you look a little gormless,
but through the power of self regarding I have always felt myself to resemble a chivalrous Knight,
even more so when one one windy day, astride bike, I retrieved our dustbin lid from down the road.
A beautiful sunny day when I set off on my adventure, the dilligent trundle up Whitehawk hill,
then away across the freedom of the downs,
huge gulps of fresh air, the yawn of view away to Lewes,
Kingston higgledy piggledy sheltered beneath the escarpment.
all was green and vibrant,
‘cepting the fields of rape, a million plants all shouting with one voice
(‘what did they shout?’ why the yell of YELLOW!)
hurtling down the downs, plodding up the ups.
mucho barbed wire fences though, a smidgin steve mcqueen in the great escape
Beckonned by bells, it was back on the road into Rodmell, the old stone church next to Virginnia Woolfs house
parked on a bench, beneath the fuschia blossoms of a cherry tree,
The genteel, the well heeled, the dowdy and the middle aged wandered to church,
cows and gravestones, pastoral vibes
up I jumped, on down the long hill to Telscoombe village,
my head cheerfully singing ‘we’ve got a great big convoy, trucking on through the night’
back on a stoney track, then over the brow of the final hill,
I started to accelerate, my hand got bounced away from the brake,
by the time I got it back in position, I thought if I brake now I’ll fall off, so I thought I’ll try and ride it out,
big mistake, the bike went faster and faster, a pell mell hurtle (when did life become a video game?)
huge stone!!!!
when I came round a sweet old couple were bending over me ‘you alright’, I thought they were my parents!
next a four wheeled drive came swaggering down the hill from the turreted mansion on the hill.
it pulled up, out hopped a rock star type, old, tight leather troosers, a stripey top, long hair, hat and sunglasses
I was too dazed to know who the mystery millionaire was?
but with no great fuss he slung me and my bike into the car and drove me home.
when I got home I just started crying, shock!!! a thoroughly miserable experience
still my fantasists mind will always summon the image of being
wounded and swooned, being carried down the mountainside in the arms of Barry Gibb!

ha! wonderful! middle aged manatee encounters himself for the first time in the realm of virtual reality
pics by marie, from her expresso martini, burrito and science birfday
i think i was supposed to be solving a puzzle? but got distracted by dancing with myself, groovy entranced!
being of a solipsistic disposition, i’ve always enjoyed boogie-ing with my own shadow
the best tho, possibly, was dancing with z in the prague hall of mirrors, after sleeping on the hill, near the pong of Rose gardens, neath the eiffel tower
mirror myriad me, zee …and bruce lee

‘destroy the image and you will break the enemy!’

May: This was my fav moment from yesterday.. well maybe after breaking into my own flat 

Ha! Wave some plastic at the lock and do the tarantella! Easy when you’ve skillz xx

aw gotta love the weeds, stubborn, robust, flambouyant… life as wriggle preposterous and just about everywhere as it gets
as a friend pointed out phone box must make an ideal teensy green house, plus you’d get watered by the occasional drunk
the street furniture of yesteryear… explain to the yoof, phone boxes are from a time when we were mobile … and telephones not
fumble for yet another 2p as the pips go… beep beep beep

mostly sky some sea, mostly sea some sky… seaford head tryptich, late august
Rothko in charcoal? a grey that dwells, both mournful somber and shine singing, myriad, exultant, breathe, world yearns through nuance
grey that hunkers down into green, pushes up to blue, swallow surrenders to black, else dissolves into white… ah i so love the sea
of course photos (and even more so words) flatten rather than plump, ha, cheerful preposterous midst this newsfeed flow

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but what to say here?… beyond the ‘read more’ ellipsis
hmm mbe green too?… at the festie, i went into the woods, out of the bludgeon sun, eau de bins still pong clinging to me… away from the heave of people, nourishing workshops, the good natured yabber of friends
there to stand, looking up at the mingled greens, a leaf canopy of dabbled ash, dappled beech, then to peer out across the pond, white lotus water lillies, subtle hues of water and stillness
a friend comes by, she stops, a few words, a warm tender hug… who could ask for more, here, in eternity, i am nowt but a creature of what?… strewn pond weed and love x

ha, earlier over brekkie, whilst guzzling copious croissants i was thinking, rather obviously, what a powerful human impulse it is to share… d’oh not croissants tho, that would be absurd

but specifically that which we find beautiful!… in the spirit of that, i love some of Rothkos work… usually i connect better with the solid tactile presence, the weight of sculpture… and yeah with Rothko, somedays it’s ‘so what’, more than most artists, the hang is crucial

i was lucky enough when a young, impressionable, even pretentious, student, went to the tate, the only one at the time, in pimlico… wandered into an entire room of his work!

gobsmacked. mauves, purple, magenta… profound, intense, transcendant… sat there. ooh forever in jelly fish quivering reverie

rightey ho reluctantly on with my code… tho suddenly fancy a jaunt across the channel to see monets huge water lily canvases (canvii? blooming latin). any good?

Hayley: Oh so eloquently written. So evocative and emotive. Real words to open the day as I read I look through the open door to the open sea and skyscape beyond. Daily Rothko moodscapes in my sites.I went there too at the Tate all those years ago and lost myself in the huge works that’s enveloped me and yes drew me in totally . Wrapping me in the painted blankets of sensuous and deep colour. I found it hard to leave that space. In my head now after your reminder I have returned there to sit upon that bench in meditative awe. Thank you.

thanks lovely, always powerful to surrender to a feeling, to be engulfed midst the immensity, a crowd, the sea, a painting… ha, dissolved to the merest jot of an iota xx

heres my song for the eclipse
not that we’ll see much of it over here… antidote to any bland moral admonishments
a song so louche, baggy, chock full of desperation, a churning beat beneath the fullest throttle of gospel chorus
just reminds me of what? that there ain’t no easy answers, that life is an electric cable straight, live wire, through our hearts
not much hope of controlling it, somedays enough just to hang on
take huge gulps, uplifted arms and hearts, oh yeah, whatever else world may bring, ‘may the good lord shine a light on you’

Let the season of crumble carnage and mayhem commence!!! Blackberries and scrumped plums…
this one bound for the community garden, but ya gotta sample it to make sure it’s ok first… yeah! X

catherine: mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm look so good!

Super scrumptious… would save ya some but all guzzled! Xx

sun, raindrop, leaf
looking down from the bridge, pondering the placid calm of the River Mole: sludge of green, drear of brown… a congealed euphoria between
most of the sunlight scatters, dancing off the surface… some tho plunges deep, rebounding with a sonorous glow
there to be set on high, mongst mauve opalescence of cloud and this, the dark squid ink of leaves
thinking of donnes ‘sun rising’ the playful lovers ego-centricism, literally, no truck with coopernicus, ha, placing our entwined joy here at the heart… delish, gotta love the summertime!

wanted to get ‘nacreous’ in, pseud, just becoz one of nabokovs fave words… tho apparently mauve was too! here prefer opalescent

ooh … and a beautiful mellifluous reading