A Glimpse of Huddersfield

‘Exterminate all rational thought. That is the conclusion I have come to.’
-Bill Lee (Peter Weller), Naked Lunch

Oh God, here we go again. I’m not doing myself any favours, but fuck it. This shit has to be documented.

Only the nicest of taxi drivers allows you to hoover up coke in his van while he canes it through twenty miles of rural Britain. Destination: Huddersfield, population 146, 234. Mission: to get absolutely twisted for Hicks’ birthday.

Hudson held open the tiny bag with a forefinger and thumb and scooped up a bump of powder with the nail file of a Swiss Army Knife. A pothole in the road sent the coke back into the bag.

'Oh... Cobra! Nearly lost it then, pal!'

Hudson uses this taxi service so much he knows all the drivers by codename.

'That driving's venomous, Cobra,' Hicks shouted. 'Venomous!'

Hudson scooped a lump of coke onto the metal again. I closed one nostril, sucking the powder straight into my head as it mixed with the early naughties dance music and mucus.

The minor paranoia of drug ingestion was magnified last night- I’ve been having slight headaches since I blacked out practicing ‘triangle chokes’ at the gym a few nights ago. The triangle is not even a choke- it’s a sleeper, meaning it cuts off blood to the brain.

My training partner wasn’t quite putting it on right. The setup was good- he was on his back; I was kneeling between his legs. One leg was over my shoulder, the other under my armpit. He hooked one ankle behind his opposite knee, completing the triangle shape, and then pushed my arm out straight across my neck. This cuts off the blood to the head, finishing the submission. My arm was still in front of my chin though, stopping the submission from coming on. The guy is a big lad, so he was squeezing pretty hard because I wasn’t tapping to it. Then when he moved his hips slightly to the side and my arm slipped down onto my neck it came on with a vengeance. My head felt like it was going to explode. My vision turned to static. I had electricity pylons buzzing loud in my ears. Later, my training partner told me I looked at him ‘like I was really scared of him.’

He let go fast and I stood up. My knees gave way and I staggered to the side, slumping on the edge of the boxing ring. The noise- loud and unnerving- started to fade and colour started to pour back into the world again.

‘Oh,’ I mumbled, mostly to myself, ‘I didn’t like that.’

My trainer said it happens every now and then and that it’s nothing to worry about. I hope he’s right...

We were wired in Huddersfield, surrounded by students. It was apparent quickly that the men outnumber the women- there was so much sausage in the first few bars that I started to think I was walking around a German market. I was caning Jack Daniels and talking to these two guys from our group.

‘Well, if you’ve already got Chlamydia and you go and get AIDS as well, you really are fucked,’ said one.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘That would only, uh...’ I stared at the floor, trying to keep shit together and praying I don’t pass out or anything dumb. ‘...Exaberbate the situation.'

They laughed.

‘I’ve gotta write this shit down,’ I said. None of us noticed I'd mispronounced Exacerbate. Particularly not me.

Later on, as more chunks of coke found their way down my throat, I for some reason described the feeling as being ‘like a lump of jizz on a leather handbag.’ I’m not too sure what I was thinking, in retrospect.

Twisted Scene in Lime Bar

‘Every dog has his day- but the nights are reserved for cats.’
-Anon

2007. Just off Manchester’s King St, surrounded by uber-expensive clothes shops that a lessening number of people can afford, sits Lime Bar- a trendy, urbanite watering hole for yuppie bankers and whoever else finds themselves straying from the beaten tracks of Deansgate or Peter St.

It was the first time I’d seen Tom since he left to start his Naval career in Plymouth. He’d been texting me with details of his training- a camping expedition in Wales, a promotion within the first couple of weeks and a jump out of a Sea King helicopter for a rescue drill. I was tempted to apply myself.

After intense training, Tom told me, he was given some basic survival equipment and dumped somewhere in the 368 square miles of Dartmoor- the most barren part of Devon. He put his training to the test, gathering whatever he could find and assembling a bivouac.

Night fell. It was freezing under the expanse of stars, the makeshift wood shelter proving a stark contrast to the concrete Naval barracks. Despite the celestial glow, the land of Dartmoor was an impalpable expanse. Below the horizon line, there was nothing but black. He was truly alone.

Or at least it seemed.

A mere 50 metres away, two white dots, glowing in the blackness, traversed the land with a slight bounce, a rhythm. Something was looking Tom right in the eye.

Dartmoor is famous for its big cat sightings. In the late 90s the papers were awash with stories of livestock having their throats ripped out, blood-curdling roars being heard in the night, and oversized paw prints being found in muddy land.

‘The BBCS report reveals that 2,123 sightings of big cats were reported between April 2004 and July 2005.’- British Big Cats Society (britishbigcats.org)

Legendarydartmoor.co.uk also sheds light:

'I have seen ponies and sheep with their throats torn out down by Dendles Wood... It is thought that the introduction of the 1976 Dangerous Animals Act was a contributing factor in the appearance of the big cats. The act required any owner of such an animal to obtain a license from the local authorities and ensure it was kept in secure conditions. Some owners did not or could not obtain the licenses and so simply released the animals in the wild. It is not known whether any of them actually bred or how many survived in their new environments but sightings regularly occur.'


Tom is not the kind of guy to get scared. I’ve never seen him that way. But when he described being in such close proximity to a lethal animal, he admitted to me- ‘I shit it, mate.’

The cat didn’t stop. It just disappeared into the dark as quickly as it had emerged.

I don’t blame Tom for freezing in fear at the sight of one of Britain's most lethal animals, roaming the same wildernass as him unrestrained. Even I needed a piss after a story like that.

The urinals of the bar, on the lower ground floor, are true to theme- Lime coloured, backlit and glowing. Water cascades down them like some kind of neo-waterfall themed convenience, a testament to adept modern hygiene.

The stairwell leading to this was in a similar state of cleanliness when I descended it. But on emerging from the gents I found that someone had violently vomited all over the corridor walls and floor, as if they’d performed some kind of bizarre pirouette puke. At the top of the stairs I found the culprit looking pale and sheepish.

His throat was still intact.

I was Sir Jimmy Saville's Archivist

Now then, now then. It is summer 2006. I’ve managed to land one of the few jobs there are in the city at Baker Tilly, a Manchester accountancy firm.

The office lights are scorching my head- the rolling filing cabinets, containing thousands of documents, are on a raised area making the ceiling closer. The supposed simplicity of a filing job seems beyond my capability as various sheets don’t seem to have homes, but there are a few factors lightening my day.

Firstly, my manager is fit: long, dark hair, possibly younger than me in her early twenties, slim, a bastion of the pencil skirt and with a posh South-England accent to boot. Unfortunately she has a Deborah-Meaden-style coldness in her persona. Small-talk is out of the question- more so since she bollocked me for turning up half an hour late on two consecutive days.

Awkward.

The second day-brightening factor: the filing I am doing is for childhood dream-maker and Britain’s most respected chav, Sir Jimmy Savile.

Unfortunately, these are not the archived letters sent in to the hit show, Jim’ll Fix It. The correspondence relates to the slightly-less-interesting charity work with Mandeville Stoke Hospital, but it's a much more worthy cause than the former.

‘Dear Sir Jimmy,’ the letter starts out, before the detailed analysis of figures. He’ll understand it all, alright. The MENSA member Savile has an alleged IQ of 150, or so I’ve heard.

I note down the address for his Leeds home, just in case the show is revived. What would I ask for? I wonder. ‘A decent woman’ springs to mind.

I clip the sheet into the file.

Or a decent job.

Publication: Flatworld

Here’s my poem, Flatworld, published in Aphelion magazine. Enjoy.

http://www.aphelion-webzine.com/poetry/2010/02/Flatworld.html

The Nature of the Beast

Well, it's another day in Britain, and yet another child has been mauled to death by a dangerous dog.

Four-year-old Jean-Paul Massey, from Liverpool, was killed by a pit-bull terrier at his grandmother's home. As the family mourns, pit-bull owners and breeders around the world prepare their defences in supporting the keeping of these supposedly-domesticated animals as pets.

Here's the simple issue we are faced with: nature did not make pit bulls. These dogs were bred, by humans, for violence nearly 200 years ago and the genetic make-up of the dog dictates that they will always be dangerous.

'According to one RSPCA inspector, quoted in The Independent (21 May 1991, page 3), "They're bred to kill. No other dog is like them". ' (biblicalcreation.org.uk)
And we wonder why these dogs turn on our children and kill them.

Even the United Kennel Club (ukcdogs.com), stout supporter of all dogs and largest all-breed performance-dog registry in the world, tells us the breeds were bred as 'catch-dogs' in the 19th Century to hunt boar and to keep livestock under control. The Kennel Club states they combine 'the gameness of the terrier with the strength and athleticism of the bulldog. The result was a dog that embodied all of the virtues attributed to great warriors: strength... indomitable courage.'

Do warriors sound like friendly household pets?

Jean-Paul Massey's parents don't think so. In fact, I think the owners of the pit bull showed a distinct lack of courage by feeling the need to keep a violent dog as a pet.

Owning a dangerous dog and being surprised when it mauls a child is similar to using the butt of a Beretta as a hammer, then feeling unfairly treated when a round unloads and blows off your hip-bone. Perhaps now we'll take responsibility for our actions, before it happens again.

I'll never forget time when a violent, crazed dog squeezed under the school gate and chased the pupils around the playground, jaws snapping. I was 10. We scattered, screaming. I was one of the first to dive into the classroom and slam my back against the door. I watched from the window as the sternest teacher in the school marched out into the yard with a rolled-up newspaper, taking the dog's attention off the pupils. In retrospect, that's one of the bravest things I've ever seen a man do.

Later that week a dog handler from the RSPCA visited the school. I learned a valuable lesson about interacting with dangerous dogs: Don't interact.

The Dog Handler's Advice:
Don't make eye contact. Locking eyes is an invitation to fight.
Don't smile. Smiling bears teeth. Another invitation.
Don't run. Dogs can run faster.
Do stand still, like you're a tree. Sure, the dog might pee on you. But dog pee washes off. Dog teeth-marks don't.

This was in the early nineties- a time when dog attacks were frequently making the papers. The 1991 Dangerous Dogs Act- outlawing the breeding, sale, exchange or ownership of the pit bull and all cross-breeds related to it, had recently been implemented.

Jean-Paul Massey's death clearly indicates that, once again, the British government have done little but deliver more bureaucracy and big talk. Both Labour and the Conservatives failed to protect the country's inhabitants by allowing dog owners to hide the genetic history of the dog, thereby squeezing out through loopholes in the law.

I would have thought it was a pretty simple process- If a dog shows any indication of being bred from banned breeds, it should only be kept and controlled by recognised institutions- the police, the RSPCA, the military, or a respected scientific research organisation. In short, only organisations that are trained to handle these dogs professionally should be allowed to keep them- and even then, only with good reason. If they don't need them, the dog should be destroyed.

That's the nature of the beast.

Meeting James Ellroy

‘As long as it gets me print, I’ll continue to perform in an exuberant manner.’
-James Ellroy

‘AMERICA!’ He screams into the microphone.

Behind the microphone stand James Ellroy begins to recite a segment of his long-awaited latest novel, Blood’s a Rover. The stage lights of Manchester’s Dancehouse Theatre, the latest venue in his UK tour, douse him in a macabre red light. This is probably at his request, the colour tone enhancing the noir feel evident in his work. This production design is brought to you by Waterstones, who’s events are described as ‘superb’ by The Independent.

In the scene Mr Ellroy is reading, two kids are staking out a woman’s house with the intention of breaking in and stealing her underwear. No Ellroy novel would be complete without a dab of depravity.

Throughout the reading, Ellroy, 61, dressed low-key in a brown-green jumper and chinos, stands with his feet unusually far apart. And doesn’t just read the text- he acts it out; he lives it. If his writing describes that a character ‘yawned’, he’ll stretch the word as he reads it and he’ll lean back, injecting his work with vivid onomatopoeia. He goes on to snore into the mic and grab his crotch, as if the characters he imagined have invaded the body of their creator.

It is evident that ‘”The Reverand” James Ellroy', as he acceptably calls himself, has the same searing enthusiasm for reading as he does writing. In fact, after an introduction compiling memorized quotes from other writers including WH Auden, who he describes as ‘A British poofter’, he declares in no uncertain terms: ‘I live for words.’

It is presumably Ellroy’s intention, by way of this book tour, to make us read a HELL of a lot of them. Blood’s a Rover is the third in his ‘Underworld USA’ trilogy, and he advises us that unless you have read American Tabloid and The Cold Six Thousand- each 600 pages a piece- we won’t fully appreciate the final instalment. Regardless, he holds up Blood’s a Rover like a preist holds up a bible and barks, ‘Buy this fucking book. It’ll bite your boogaloo.’
It’s going to be an expensive night for me.

After reading a segment of his work, he welcomes our ‘most invasive questions’. Through audience interrogation we learn that he was influenced heavily by Don DeLillo’s Libra (A book I plan to read), but most of his inspiration can be put down to ‘shit-kicking by women’ – possibly why most of his male characters are, as he puts it, ‘boozed-up dope fiends.’ It’s therefore believable when he says he financed his divorces with ghost-written film scripts. We learn of his major influences, who he cites as ‘Gay Edgar Hoover’, ‘Howard Dracula Hudson’ and ‘Tricky Dick Nixon.’ His anger at the history of American politics- certainly the periods he has lived through- oozes out of him evidently, although he never accuses anyone directly. In fact, he makes it clear that he ‘would never criticise or rag on (his) own country on foreign soil.’ His affinity for his own country is apparently so strong that he claims the only travel he will do is for book tours. Ellroy has a lot of passion for his home town of LA, but still describes it as the kind of place where ‘you come on vacation and go home on probation’.

He goes on to describe someone he knew as an ‘underworking cashew-dicked cocksucker’. My lack of shorthand skills prevents me from jotting the name of the recipient of that epithet. I will remember, though, Ellroy wiggling his smallest finger and a bout of laughter from the audience.

A young man in the audience asks how he felt about the movies that had been made from his books. Mr. Ellroy responds by saying he is more than aware that his books are ‘politically incorrect and unfilmable,’ but he admits that, in Curtis Hanson’s adaptation of L.A. Confidential (1997), he felt leads Kim Basinger and Russell Crowe ‘lacked chemistry’. Overall he was ‘nothin’ but grateful’ for everything that Hollywood had done for him, including opening him up to an immense new audience. It's understandable- I wouldn't have heard of him without the film.

I ask him if he had any advice for budding writers. Mr. Ellroy’s response: ‘Don’t write what you know. Write what you always wanted to read, but nobody wrote.’ Valid, trend-bucking and vaguely familiar. Maybe he was already asked somewhere. Maybe many writers say this. (But as it happens, I’m writing something that fits Mr. Ellroy’s bill: stay tuned for Once Upon a Time in Manchester, coming to a cinema near you when I get my Goddamn act together...)

Mr Ellroy rounds off with one more memorized quote: the last stanza of Dylan Thomas’ ‘In My Craft or Sullen Art’.

‘Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.’

He thanks us and walks off stage.

In the foyer I manage to buy Blood’s a Rover and American Tabloid, but they are out of The Cold Six Thousand. That will have to be an Amazon job.

In the signing queue I contemplate whether it would be just too cheeky to leave my blog card with him. I’m the fan of his work. Would I be out of order asking him to read my work?

At the front of the queue I decide to play it safe. He signs Blood’s a Rover, with a dedication, and he agrees to a photo. I give my camera to the man from Waterstones and as he presses the shutter, Mr. Ellroy growls like a dog.

Bush

Bush came to power illegally
And started a war that’s quite evil; he
Couldn’t get out
Of Iraq but did shout,
‘I hope men and fish exist peacefully!’