3219 - Through the media darkly

Very tired, often am in midsummer
When those light mornings get inside my mind
Spent what seemed like hours listening to the
Night-time radio, hearing horror of blind
Hate and sexism in Middle East land
I think that made it hard for me to drop
Off for a while, so hard to understand
But how much do we really know from top
To bottom, is it all bad or to stop
Believing what you hear and see, media
Bias towards the west we understand
Can prevent the whole truth being served up
Life is chaos, it's very rarely fair
All we can do is work hard til the end

3199 - New war

Oh my goodness, life is well, just a ride
And each day is precious, like to think I
See it as pleasure, not a chore, not snide
To other people, not two-faced, but try
To give and receive pleasure, that's the high
Point and message, nothing else is as good
Don't need a religion to justify
My intention of global brotherhood
In fact, religion divides, tribal blood
Is shed endlessly as they always did
The difference in recent decades was why
The west thought it ruled the roost, but it should
No longer think that, can no more decide
Alone thanks to its cheap technology

3183 - Munching in Munchen (at last)

A hot day, did not need to take my coat
Got the U-bahn to the Olympic zone
Really liked the stadium and how it's set
In a park with great views of tower and town
If you climb the hill built on things knocked down
And turned to rubble by British bombing
In the war, then they let grass grow upon
It all, and hey - some nice hills! Tasting
Currywurst for the first time. Interesting
But too much tomato. Then, welcome seat
On the tube to Allianz Arena, home
To Bayern Munich football team. Going
Back to the centre. New museum's got
Lots of info on Nazi Munich. Boom!

Tue 5 May

3104 - Copin' with Copenhagen

Yesterday I watched three films, tired me out
Today I read a hundred pages of
This huge hardback Pearl bought me that's about
Shootings in Jamaica. Editor, bruv -
You asleep on de job, seen? Not 'One Love'
In this book, more like multiple gangsta
Lots of motorway crashes lately. Tough
Times. Not only here, but even over
In old Copenhagen, there's a terror
Attack on a cafe - free speech, don't shout
Quite so loudly, tone it down, but be tough
On terrorists and murderers that scare
The innocent. Jo worries war's afoot
I tell her it's nothing, as time may prove...

3099 - Bore poetry

Fun night in Chorlton at Lloyds Bar upstairs
I read some bits and pieces that were fun
That's not the only reason fun was there
Others also read fun pieces as one
Though one guy who reckoned himself read war
Poems, yes, First World War ones. That's all done
By now, or else it should be, I feel sure
Wilfred Owen blah, who cares, it's not your
Movie anymore, let's move on. War scares
Polite people in church halls, but it's done
Out of necessity, often, else or
Shitter things still would happen. Be aware
That life can be shit, not just good, a poor
State of United Nations. Aggression.

3079 - The so-called so-called

I haven't written much so far about
The 'so-called Islamic' threat to our lives
I must admit there's danger all about
From Muslims as from ebola and hives
And suddenly getting a bunch of fives
Or is there? No, probably not. But they sneered
At Churchill as he warned, like nagging wives
They said, 'Let's be nice' and the noise of jeers
Was deafening, until the Panzers steered
Across the border into Poland. Flout
The lessons of history, stay not alive!
Or stay not free! These worries now appear
I think things may eventually work out
But to be destructive, so many strive!

2941 - Deathmocracy

The NATO summit at Cardiff today
Has been discussing Ukraine and Isis
Seems wars will never end after all, they
Just keep on keepin' on, and some say this
Is deliberate. Some people make profits
And they are powerful, they pay you well
If you serve them, not on the front line, that's
Paid poorly, but at the political
Level, where negotiations can entail
Whether 'we' should invade, bomb, or just pay
Others to fight, gather intelligence
And shoot each other, 'we' divide and rule
In the name of democracy, hurray
And religion of course, of course, of course

2915 - It's a Sunni day

And now on to today, what happened next?
How about a quick news round-up, you say?
The main story - the US bombs Iraq's
Invading Islamic State force as they
Drive out ethnic minorities, the way
Almost clear for mass ethnic cleansing and
Unopposed Sunni Islam holding sway
As if there's that much difference from that and
Shia Islam, or Christian groups. The sand
Does not distinguish their feet. Gaza's fixed
Grimly for more Israeli rockets. Stay
Cool, Manchester's protesters. Make your stand
Peacefully about this far-off conflict
Finally, UK football's back today...

2910 - Got to get away

Oops I forgot it again, so sorry
Now I've got to remember yesterday
Oh yeah, that's right, I went to see Josie
It was warm, mainly sunny. Made our way
To Manchester, not sure what game to play
Saw demonstrators and heard speakers crowd
Into Piccadilly Gardens to flay
Verbally Israel's rockets raining loud
And fiery upon Gaza, like some God
From the Old Testament. Jo, uneasy
Asks if we can get far from there, away
From what she felt might turn violent. We should
Not have done, but we went to Mac's, cheaply
Eating and drinking, not to worry, eh?

About Sun 3 August

2852 - Peril on TV

It's the 70th anniversary
Of D-Day, and the hymns are being sung
While veterans all now aged around 90
Stand in the Arromanches afternoon sun
That last hymn was 'for those in peril on
The sea' - a hymn we often sang at school
Little knowing this was advance training
For a time when (maybe they thought) our rule
Would be under threat in war, and we'd all
Yet again have to board the warships, be
In 'peril' ourselves, dying protecting
Someone else's property, made to kill
Or be killed. I hope the schools of today
Don't still sing that psycho-warmongering

2512 - Love to you

It's my birthday - hurray! It's fun getting
Old, well better than the alternative!
It's weird being alive in '14, seeming
To belong to the First World War, to live
In someone else's era, to survive
So long through the decades when my era
Was the 70s / early 80s, with
Glam. prog, new wave, reggae etc
We've come such a long way, we've come so far
Yet although it might seem self-deceiving
There's still so much to come, so much to give
Here's to all those lovely folk that's out there
Here's to lots of fun, lots of travelling
Lots of laughter, and of course, lots more love!

2511 - Good and bad

Life sometimes sadly gets turned into war
The aggressor in those cases must be
Opposed for the sake of right, not might, or
It's a jungle, a battlefield, bloody
Malicious and unthinking. That's not me
And is not what I grew up to accept
Nonetheless, if some selfish somebody
Insists in immorality, it rests
On me and all of us to do our best
In harsh circumstances that we abhor
To try to rectify that malady
In this, I'm being true to souls at rest
Now but who suffered at the hands of poor
Decisions in the past, so frequently

2455 - Brain Dallas Surgery

It's 50 years since JFK was shot
A programme's on at 9 with George Clooney
(No doubt, a fan who liked old Jack a lot)
Lee Harvey Oswald was a red loony
So they say, with a Russian wife in the
Old Cold War, for God's sake, with a good aim
Hit JFK once, but not lethally
But who was it that shot him in the brain?
One theory is a Secret Service man
In the car behind ballsed-up big time, popped
A dum-dum bullet accidentally
Into the president's head. In no time
The Secret Service covered up the lot
Beginning with the vital autopsy

2377 - Guns n poses

I'm pleased we're not rushing off to Syria
Or maybe we're already there - who knows?
Whoever we are - that would not be our
Collective will, that would probably be those
Friends of the army or navy, those foes
Of peace, friends of warfare technology
We didn't put Assad there, I suppose
But did we support his dad, covertly?
We claim to represent democracy
Yet in those cold war days a dictator
Was often an ally. It seems we chose
Not democrats but any military
Regime that wasn't anti-west and a
Source of 'stability' at least for us

2317 - Waterloo - then and now

Winding down after press-ups and guitar
TV prog on the Regency period
A time of interest to me, that's for sure
With fat Prince George, Beau Brummel, all the blood
Of Waterloo, and Boney's now captured
Paraded on a ship just off Devon
The art of Turner develops; abroad
Go the Brits on their tours, there's Lord Byron
Then I watched Max Keiser - China / Japan
Conflict looms, saith the prophet, yes, there's war
On the way, US troops to be stationed
In Africa to fight the Chinese Hun
Til then, currency wars pitch the dollar
Against the renminbi, two paper swords

2310 - Life and death science

Welcome to 2013, we're all teens
Again, like we were in the First World War
Learning the harsh truths again, although seen
Through gas clouds darkly. Pax Nucleana
Has saved our souls lately. Are we before
A new technology replacing bombs
With something else that kills, but saves the floor
And buildings for our vanquishers? What comes
From hoarded wealth, if not emptying homes
Of poor opponents worldwide? The earth teems
And cash can't be spread that thin. Jehovah
Sent witnesses to warn there wasn't room
For more mortal life, but confess your sins
New births will stop, and we'll live forever

2266 - Rocket to Zion

This latest violence down in Palestine
Is repetitive as history can be
It's not the first and won't be the last time
Israel and Palestinians disagree
And that would be true with two states, surely
Because 80 per cent of Muslim land
Was stolen by the Jews, but it was we
In the West who supported what they planned
Backing the Zionists at world war's end
Displaced to refugee camps, a lifetime
Of humiliation, well how would we
Feel if we were those poor Palestinians
Does Israel have a future, is it kind
Or is their land a penitentiary?

2215 - Hitch up your pants

I watched four films on the TV today
It was the Hitchcock season on Film Four
The first two weren't Hitch films, but somehow they
Evoked him. Bill Murray, comic actor
Starred in The Man Who Knew Too Little, poor
Relation of The Man Who Knew Too Much
Then, surprisingly, just after lunch (for
Which I had soup), an arty film 'bout Hitch
Called Double Take that touched on him and touched
On the Cold War era, Sputnik, the Bay
Of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, saw
Those scary events that nearly dispatched
Me while still in the womb. The Lifeboat, a
Wartime film, then Topaz (Russia / Cuba)

2196 - Do mention the war

Read more Vanity Fair, then headed out
To Water Street Car Park and my hired car
It wasn't the usual Duke Street grey Fiat
It was a nice white five-door Toyota
The acceleration could be better
Anyway, we headed for the Wirral
A small northwest England peninsula
My mum lives there, Josie's grandma - we all
Went for lunch (Grandma paid!), got very full
Then to the beach at West Kirby. Despite
The grey clouds it was fun. Tried to fly our
Butterfly kite in the sea breeze. We called
On Grandma again, had tea, talked about
The war for Jo's school project - home once more

2146 - Black and white riot

It's the last quiet weekend day for a while
Or possibly even ever, who knows?
I've been listening to Mahler. Next week I'll
Listen to Symphony no 9, grows
On you, but Symphony no 3 does
Not, so far. Also reading lots, a book
About the 60s / early 70s
'There's A Riot Going On!' - further look
At that turbulent time. Memories seem stuck
In that era sometimes, when juveniles
Were the all-powerful Boomers. Fashions froze
After then, that time's heroes had their luck
While later generations just seem pale
But tough times are back. Before great art - wars...