About Me

Tollesbury, Essex, United Kingdom
I was born in the Summer of 1969 in Dagenham, just on the border of East London. School was largely unproductive but enjoyable, setting me up for something of a wayward but interesting life! On leaving school I had various jobs including putting up stalls at Romford Market, working in a record shop, putting up ceilings, gardening and road sweeping. After resigning from an insurance company to play in a band, I found myself unemployed for two years. Then finally I got back on my feet and I've been a psychiatric nurse since 1997. I wrote A Cleansing of Souls when I was 22 years old and followed it up with Tollesbury Time Forever almost twenty years later. I started writing The Bird That Nobody Sees in September 2011 and it was released in July 2012. In terms of writing, my heroes are Jack Kerouac and John Steinbeck. I would also include Kris Kristofferson, Bob Dylan and Tom Waits as literary influences. So that's me I guess - scruffy, happy and in love with literary fiction, music and life...

Thursday 20 October 2011

Westlife and the 'Arab Spring'...

It has been a strange year. The so called 'Arab Spring', Bin Laden and now Gaddafi. The Palestinians seem finally to be getting some joy too. Yet I do not feel at peace. Capitalism is at last being questioned in terms of a social construct. I guess that too is a start. We are told here in England that we are all in this together; told by our millionaire Prime Minister and his millionaire cabinet who in turn are booed regularly by fully grown adults who are possibly millionaires too. All in this together. As a psychiatric nurse I am quite certain that some people are more 'in it' than others. As a believer in the ideals of Buddhism I am certain that I will continue to forgive - yet at times forgiving is as difficult a construct for me to ponder as capitalism itself. But I do not feel at peace.

Each of us, no matter what our background, our upbringing, our demeanour or our motivation, require occasionally the sudden outbreak of good news. Now I cannot and will not ever celebrate the death of another human being regardless of the life they have led. To celebrate death is to demean life. And life is truly wonderful. Life is beautiful. Life is above joy.

But Westlife?

Rubbish.

If Boyzone, Take That and the rejuvinated Steps were to follow, this may well one day be called the 'British Autumn' - a decline of terror to rival the 'Arab Spring'.

Now please don't think that I am equating the brainwashing of an entire region, the manipulation of the media and the ruination of young children whose views are tarnished well into adulthood with what has been happening in North Africa and the Middle East.

The demise of Westlife is a start.

Tom Waits has a new album coming out next week.

I am going to see Bob Dylan in Hammersmith on November 21st.

Peace my friends will come...

1 comment:

katsmountfort said...

Don't know what made me happier - the loss of Gadaffi or the loss of Westlife!