[Image by artist and photographer Nick Dormand]

Poem here.

Letter of Application

Your ad says ‘Be an early applicant’
and I’d like to say I trust this doesn’t relate
to the clients

just to let you know I have a sense of humour.
As I read more, I can see the need
for poetry,

words to sooth the bereaved – balm for them
and dynamism for the company,
as you say.

Or is this not what being a
‘dynamic team’ means, blogging keenly
in our social media presence,

marketing our coping-with-grief-strategies?
There is the new brand to promote
in a ‘compassionate tone of voice’,

and I have some experience there,
in the grief department, though I don’t imagine
that’s the naming on my potential door.

Yes, I have potential – an ‘excellent work ethic’
and ‘well over the 2+ years’ experience in a
full time content related role’ to name two –

if that means losing people I know and love.
And did you see I put the apostrophe after
years’ when you hadn’t – accuracy as much as

compassion to keep the written communication
skills alive, so to speak. Here’s a link
to a poem I wrote about death not so long ago.

Someone has to do it, I know, so excuse the
apparent sarcasm, but today has been tough,
dealing with similar even if on the

fringes, and reminding of the times right in there.
That’s it, and I look forward to hearing from you.
And yes, I can use Twitter,

but not for this one.

It is both sad and infuriating to read how the SATs season is rolling inexorably round yet again, this annual external testing regime to appease governments by supplying statistics that, by and large, and without doubt in English, have little to do with teaching and learning.

Sadder still to remember I wrote the following as a parent and English teacher in the latter part of the 90s [published in 1998] and this testing still exists and its meaninglessness prevails,

[Image by artist and photographer Nick Dormand]

[Originally posted December 2011]

I’ve been listening to the Time Machine, A Vertigo Retrospective compilation of artists from this superb label with a great prog, jazz-fusion, folk and rock roster, for example, Colosseum, Juicy Lucy, Clear Blue Sky, Manfred Mann, Black Sabbath, Cressida, Affinity, Bob Downes, May Blitz, Nucleus, Gentle Giant, Jade Warrior, Platto, Tudor Lodge, Warhorse, Uriah Heep, Gravy Train and The Sensational Alex Harvey Band.

As ever I was musically prompted and again to consider an album for my Top Fifty, this time Affinity’s single eponymous release of 1970. It features the outstanding vocals of Linda Hoyle and the soulful pounding organ of Lynton Naiff. Whilst receiving positive critical reviews, Affinity doesn’t appear to have been that widely popular a band and album at the time, certainly in comparison with other Vertigo acts, and this may be because of the number of covers on the album and the fact that the group only released the one disc, splitting up in January 1971. There has been a more recent resurgence in interest with new compilations of earlier material as band Baskervilles, instrumental numbers, live performances and alternative versions.

As with so many of my choices for this category, the music matters, but it is also about the time I was listening and the influence it had then and the memories that remain and are triggered when listening now. There’s a storming version of All Along The Watchtower, influenced by Hendrix rather than Dylan, and the organ playing is a powerhouse structure upon which Mike Jopp lays some classic wah-wah guitar, in many ways formulaic of the jazzrock sound of the time, and especially the English leanings of bands like If, Ten Wheel Drive and similar. I love it. Other key tracks are the similarly loud and driving I Am And So Are You, Mr Joy and the brilliant witches’ recipe lyrics and cauldron-boiled organ and guitar of Three Sisters. There is a sweet version too of John Sebastian’s Cocoanut Grove [spelling on album].

Linda Hoyle went on to record an excellent, but again single album Pieces of Me. Naiff went on to play with Toe Fat, but I’m not sure about the others. The original Affinity album is worth quite a bit of money and I treasure mine.

Last night’s ‘new’ series of Have I Got News for You was truly awful, hosted by the parody of Jeremy Paxman that is Jeremy Paxman these days [see here too] and the in-grey-decline that is the bitterly unfunny Ian Hislop and the only occasionally make-you-smile Paul Merton, but not when pulling his trademark ‘I am incredulous’ face. One other guest, the lively Josh Widdicombe, needs to watch this episode again and start thinking now about how he avoids becoming a has-been like at least two of the already mentioned three.

The fourth guest was Steph McGovern who held her head buoyant just above the general parapet of poo, at one point rightly calling Paxman a patronising git, a tag he later threw back at her, proving only how it had clearly got under his pompous skin when initially applied and what a pathetic hurt child he can be.

I know this programme is shite and yes I could have avoided watching it to have this confirmed. In my defense, I did first watch my recording of the excellent The City and The City, and after this with half an hour until bedtime I thought I would dip into the recording of Hasbeen I Got News… because I had that time to kill. What does strike me on reflection is how HIGNFY could be like a television programme that is still clever and good but exists only in one of the parallel worlds of The City… [a premise I am, like many, still trying to understand fully] yet it can’t be seen by those not privy to that other existence.

Or it could just be crap there too.

I am fifty-four miles from Plymouth –
A/38 then A/380 –
and yes that’s thirty more than on the I-94
but words are as the crow glides,
less in output than the $2-$3 for gas
as predicted
online.

My Mississippi was always a spelling of vowels
unlike those who live there along its side,
winter’s snow of 6-9 inches another set of numbers
not shared – today’s Siberian Arctic draft
less threatening than a
Thunder Bay
attack,

or is it up from Omaha where I was born
when it would be $30-$60 for fuel
unless driven on its drift?
Here in Ottery, Coleridge’s secret ministry of
cold is perhaps one thing the same as St Paul’s,
like Fitzgerald writing about winter there
in his dreams.

How we both have carnivals – ours to presage
barrels and their bright flames, the name of
Guy Fawkes historically ablaze, like the
light and flight of Moon Glow, King Boreas and
Vulcan Victory, how we both parade by
nomenclature and
mythology.

‘The coldest metropolitan area in continental USA’
compared with our winter average of 8 °C [though,
apparently, we have Thunder Days, not
recorded]. We’ve no designated winter wardrobe:
no snowboots, ear warmers, mitten keepers for the
children. Marijuana is also illegal here, whatever
the weather.

I’d buy a block of ice from the Palace
but would it travel? Imagine your winter flown to
our St Mary, vanishing as a form but still
shaped in memory; imagine fellow travellers
telling their tales of the ice was here, the ice was
there, the ice was all around until it
disappeared.

We turn a corner together and see it is beautiful,
despite the labyrinth of miles and time. We have had
snow this year, though not here, and as the sun
meandered across the clear blue sky today it was hot.
Saints endure in all winters: we share and
are tzadik, wali, rishi, guru
and arthat.

[Image by artist and photographer Nick Dormand]