Friend, Do You Fly?

Friend, do you fly,
Do you soar
Above me?
Do you call
With the birds
In the morning?
Where are you going?
Where have you been?

More nimble
In death than in life
You have grown wings
And you are finally flying.

Male Contraceptive Pill

Correction: there is currently no such thing as 'the male contraceptive pill'. Well, there is but it is not yet in circulation. I wonder why that is.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/mens_health/body_sexpill.shtml

Blue-fingered, deriving warmth from a candle flame. More 'pathological nostalgia' from Snobs Reunited. And I had the audacity to challenge someone's worldview so therefore I am a condescending busybody' and Doug has been labelled an 'unlucky 88 year old' by a teenage BNP member with an omniscience complex.

Winter Trees

Gold Fingers

For three days and three nights
I did not sleep
And I saw with such clarity
It dazzled me
And you brought me
Chicken soup to soothe my fever
And you lay your head
Upon my chest

Your gold hair spreads out
Like a fan
You lay your cool hand
Upon my brow
And you cover me
With a cloud
Of fine linen
And, finally, we sleep

I Said it Couldn't Get Any Colder...

but it has. The heating is on full, yet I am still sitting at my desk shivering. I had a social engagement with Lisa but she telephoned and cancelled because of the weather. And Snobs Reunited is as infuriating as ever. And now for the good news - I managed to have a halfway civilised conversation with Charlie Wolf of Talksport. He let me have my say rather than launching into a monologue. I splashed out on two new long velvet skirts today - very elegant - photos to come. And anxiety is eating away at me from the inside. Apologies for my incoherent, fragmentary tone.

I have shortlisted universities offering the course I want to do. I have a place at UEA but I am considering other options - UCL, Birkbeck, Birmingham. We shall see. I am in no hurry. Thirty ain't what it used to be, right? Sex and the City was evidence of that. I shall elaborate further tomorrow.

And finally...
R.I.P. George Best. I offer my condolences to his friends and family, for what it's worth.

Contrast

Nunnery

I follow you, firmly placing
My bare feet into your
Vacated footprints. A remnant of you
The only indication

That you were ever here
I am enclosed in this nunnery
I leap up, fall back, behind
The barbed wire in my mind

And the Matriarch, the Mother Superior
She embodies perfection, impervious to nature
We are both blanched, silent, staring upwards
At the sky – Our pallid Nirvana

Zyprexa

Zyprexa is driving me crazy. It seems to be creating more problems than it is designed to solve. If you prefer to spend your entire life in a soporific daze then this is the medication for you - but I bet this is not what they say on their publicity materials. My fear of gaining a phenomenal amount of weight hasn't come to fruition. I gained a little, but that was mostly water retention. I have been eating sensibly - no chocolates or crisps, and lots of veggies and water. It seems to be working although I still haven't weighed myself yet. The thought of those numbers on the scale terrifies me. My doctor says I am within the healthy weight range for my height and that's all I want to know. On Wednesday I avoided eating all day but I'll try not to make this a habit because it only leads to a series of phenomenal binges. And so the cycle continues. I have eaten more bread than I should have today and a salad but I can deal with that.

Event of the week - Hurrah, at last a government prepared to treat its citizens like sensible grown-ups, rather that sulky recalcitrant children who need to be kept in line - yes, I am talking about the 24-hour drinking laws. Now we are in line with the rest of the universe. I have to confess though that I wasn't out celebrating last night. I was tucked away snugly indoors. I can't work out why the Tories are so vehemently against it as they explored the possibility of extending drinking hours when they were in power. How quickly we forget. Perhaps it's something in the water.

Momentous event of the Week: Reading poetry in a bleak chapel.

Current project: Article on bullying - in school and in work.

And, of course, Christmas shopping.

Bats in the Belfry

Yuletide

Yuletide, and for an instant, I reside with you
A barren decade has passed and you mock me
With your fecundity. And I am frozen, frigid

And summertimes and rich, red wines
Have never seemed so far away, so distant
So unreachable and I don my disguise

I conceal my face, my eyes from you
And I weep soundlessly behind my mask
Ivory, elegant but built on swampland

I make myself one-dimensional
Sealed off from the world, living with darkness
I subsist on it. There will be no uproar here

It stifles the windstorm within
Concealment, not enlightenment is our aim
And simplicity is my game.

So Many Things...

So many things to do but such little time to do them in. Especially when you are burdened by the soporific effects of Zyprexa.

Currently reading: The Storm by Daniel Defoe and The Case of Mary Bell by Gitta Sereny.

Currently eating: Granary bread and M&S Wild Rocket, watercress and spinach salad with lashings of black pepper.

I have gained an awful lot of weight as a result of Zyprexa so I am avoiding calorie-rich food. I eye with envy the very thin, almost emaciated, girls who waltz down the street - taunting me. And then there is the voice in my head like a stuck record: 'You can never go back'.

And I hardly dare move around my flat for fear of undoing all the good work my mother has done.

Ladybird, Ladybird

Siblings

Years ago we siblings squabbled
We bit, we scratched, we snarled
Now we have been elevated to adulthood
All hostilities have seemingly ceased
But it is still there – that resentment
Beneath the surface, barely discernible
Grooved, fissures, opening, sizzling
A volcano preparing to erupt

And we are startled by the strength
Of feeling in this room. A dull boom
Echoes up through the earth
And past blunders besiege us
For we remember every little thing
We cannot forget. We each
Compete to be more virtuous
In the eyes of a mother

Who can never be satisfied
All our yellow-green yesterdays
All our verdant summers
Our crisp autumns and wondrous
Winters, our celestial springs
Surge forth into this room
And when we fight we wound
And when we wound we draw blood.

Mother Was Here

Mother was here over the weekend. We quarreled once or twice. We always do. It was mostly my fault. I am such a bad daughter. Such a disappointment. She came to help me tidy her flat - a spring-clean in the depths of winter. She ended up doing most of the house work herself. So I am now in possession of a bright, shiny new flat.

It is so cold here. My heart feels like a block of ice in my chest and my blood is freezing in my veins.

Debate of the week: should we arm the police in the light of the recent murders of two probationary police officers in Bradford?

Bella Page 2

Bella Flash Page 2
Originally uploaded by rielouise.

Not for the Godless

Every year it arrives
This stained hardwood hamper
This time of year

Is not for the Godless
Each year a member of my dynasty dies
My children do not recreate themselves

And I am wistful, waiting,
For babies, blundering, malleable
Quivering by snatching sterling

And I will feel virtuous once again
As babies babble and I whisper magical,
Wonderful words. I am someone

To recall in slumber
In conversation. Her home was a planet
Of cheerfulness, of fairytales

They will say
Of wholesome banquets
Of miniature battlements

And stories that spring
From my boundless imagination
I illuminate their path

But my colossal children
Stand tall as poppies and independent
Heedless, needless of me

Why Do I Do this to Myself

Once again Charlie Wolf has managed to profoundly irritate me. He seems to believe (and I may have misinterpreted him) that schools that offer their pupils the option of breakfast are part of a plot by the state to take over the role of parent. He went further and called it Communism. Whatever! He also accused the French of being 'yellow' because of their failure to deal successfully with the riots that have spread like an epidemic through their major cities. He made some smug remark about the Nazi Occupation of World War II. He should read a book I have just finished called Sisters of the Resistance which chronicles the tenacity and courage of female members of the French resistance (some of whom were sent to Ravensbruck, some of whom were shot). He attributes the current civil unrest to the 'failure of the French social model'. He has a very short memory. The U.S. has had its share of civil unrest. To what does he attribute the L.A. riots? A failure of 'the American social model'. I doubt it. America is a Utopia. Which is why Mr. Wolf is living in the U.K.

There is an exquisite vegetarian restaurant called The Rainbow Café in Cambridge, opposite Kings College Chapel. Lisa and I ate there last night. I had Latvian Potato Bake and Lisa had Spinach Lasagne. We had apricot crumble for dessert - an unnecessary indulgence. I can only described it as heavenly. We competed the meal with a bottle of organic Italian white wine.

I seek pleasure in simple things.

Yellow Flowers

Yellow Flowers
Originally uploaded by Bratcat1000.

Magical Thinking

Decades of magical thinking
Have brought me to this
Stepping out of life
Into the pictures
Hanging on the walls
Of the doctor’s waiting room

Imitation
Self-flagellation
Raised in a bad town
North of the border
My malnourished mind

It shrieks
It shrieks
It shrieks

It cannot be felt
It cannot be tasted
It hovers over me
Misshapen, mean spirited,
It annihilates my soul
Commandos hands all over me
They slowly lift their guns

But in those hills
Within those landscape
There is a peaceful writer’s day
Sun shines
Its rays fall
I imbibe hot, sugary tea
And seek refuge in
A valley to the West
In which I avoid
The massacre of my heart.

A Depressing Entry

The narrative of my life has been disrupted more times than I care to remember. When I was seventeen I was headed for R.A.D.A. I was participating in youth theatre. I played the eponymous protagonist in Antigone and Ophelia in Hamlet but those two characters were close to own personality. I was not a good all-round actress because I could not transcend myself. Now I am all over the place: I am a freelance writer, proofreader and careers advisor. How much futher from my original ambitions can I get? What does one do if one's life does not proceed according to plan? At the moment I can only think in fragments and all around me everything is crumbling - father is dying, L has some kind of lung disease and may have to take steroids and girls on an internet forum I frequent are starving themselves. I keep telling them that what they do to their bodies now determines their future state of health. Osteoporosis is not pretty.

People don't see you for what you could have been, they see you for what you are.

Macy's

Image3macys
Originally uploaded by briekitty.

The Descent of Dusk

Distant cries as dusk descends
And we gather to worship the immensity
Of the round, yellow moon

Like a medium that guides us
Conception and connection preoccupy us
The lineage of the Moon Goddess

Is exalted, rescuing us
From the bland sterility of the bright day
For we are nocturnal

Weakened by whiteness
We gloated as the sun dissolved
Surrendering to the dark

We delight in the essence of twilight
An escape from the flowing, shrieking river
Of torment that is the blue day

And the lion-hearted moon
Grows ever larger as the night marches on
And we dance and dance

We are slender stripes glistening,
Listening, trembling sheets of metal
The stars are miracles

That arouse the visionary
In each of us and dreams and ideas burst forth
Like some explosive charge

The Courage to Say 'No'

There is a debate raging in the UK media about whether or not girls who are under the age of consent should seek parental consent before undergoing an abortion. A mother is asserting that they should. I have some sympathy with this view on medical grounds alone. Abortion is a fairly complex medical procedure that can have long term emotional and physical consequences. But, then I am prepared to concede that my view is affected by the fact that I was brought up as a Catholic and I suffered some sexual abuse in early childhood. I prefer to regard sex as more than the mere fulfilment of a physical need. It is a kind of union of souls. The loss of one’s virginity should be an experience to treasure yet I know many women who lost their virginity as a result of a careless drunken encounter or worse, they have been emotionally blackmailed into relinquishing it by boyfriends who say: ‘If you loved me you would…’

Self loathing and a lack of confidence lead some women to succumb to all kinds of emotional blackmail. I have the confidence to tell them to take a long walk off a short pier but many women don’t Many men expect sex within a few weeks of the initiation of a relationship but it is the women who are required to take responsibility for their rampaging fertility, it is the women who are required to take responsibility for the contraception. There are both oral and slow release contraception via slow release injection available for men but they do not avail themselves of it. Why? Because of the long-term health consequences. So why aren’t people concerned about the long term consequences the pill presents for women? Shortly after the pseudo-messiah attacked me I went out for a drink with my rescuer who has four children by two different women. He held his fertility aloft like some kind of medal of honour. Sex without love is for many a depressing and empty experience. It’s about time some women grew a spine and learnt to say ‘No’ more often.

Freckled Face

Emergence

Encased in fluid, curled,
Suspended in a colourless place
Where crystal clashes. I emerge
Into the milk white light

Of the hospital ward
And your gut deflates
They call me an angel
But the stars are indifferent

But you bend to my will
I call and you come, gathering
Me up, pressing me to you
A tiny tyrant

All powerful. I govern your life
With the shrillest of screams
I invade your nightmares
And interrupt your dreams.

Brief Encounter

I had a not so pleasant brief encounter with the pseudo-messiah. I was at the bottom of the stairwell outside my flat when he stepped out of his front door. His head was bowed but I could still see his malevolent eyes. His hands were stuffed deep into the pockets of his hooded top. It appals me that he still has the power to unnerve me. We did not speak. The result, I’m afraid, was a rather large B/P session. I intend to eat healthily from now on. The Zyprexa has caused quite a lot of weight gain and I am finding this heavy cow-like state unbearable. The temptation, of course, is to stop eating altogether or to subsist only on diet coke, water and low fat wafers but , in the long term, this is not only unhealthy but it may lead to yet more B.P. sessions.

The Pseudo-Messiah ruined what was a reasonably productive day. (Or rather, I let him ruin it.) I have started Christmas shopping. I bought two Piggy banks from M&S food hall although, admittedly, one of them was for me. He is now installed snugly on the top of my TV. Expect a photograph of my new toy soon. When my mother rang over the weekend she said that she missed buying toys for my brother and I. (Although I usually get teddy bears etc). Shopping is such fun. I think I may have a genetic pre-disposition to Shopaholism. I also splashed out on the new Kate Bush C.D.: ‘Aerial’.. I simply could not resist it. I have waited for twelve years. I have to say I’m not overwhelmed by its sheer brilliance thus far but then an album of the calibre of ‘Hounds of Love’ is a hard act to follow.

Expect a detailed review very soon.

Doug

Endless Summers

Immersing myself in cool, clear
Turquoise water beneath slivers of sunlight
Until I am imprisoned in your acrylic painting
Beneath layers and layers of cobalt
My mind – scrubbed clean – pristine

Puritanical. An nun-like disposition
That kind of bright light
That is impossible to paint
All pageantry, all colour disappears
My room becomes a bare cell

In which I decay. That white wall
A void, like the sky in those landscapes
You create. Blank and impassive
Seemingly infinite. Devoid of clouds, a sun
So merciless I wonder what we have become

Trapped within the endless summers
Depicted on your canvas – parched now
No buds shoot up through the earth
The sun is bright, lurid, blinding
And I find no shelter beneath your bare trees

Theodore Dalrymple

Yes, I do recognise the irony in my 'whining' about WhineSport.

Isn't it odd that some people cling to their 'ideology' like an old battered teddy bear. Well, some time soon you're going to have to let it go. Leave it on the train, sell it on eBay. Occasionally, people are indistinguishable from their ideology. They absorb it unquestioningly.

Which brings me to Theodore Dalrymple - a pseudo criminologist, convinced of the supremacy of his own worldview. His missives are littered with contempt for modern life and, in turn, a wish to return to an earlier, more peaceful time in which the sun always shone and the clouds are fluffy white in a flawless blue sky. (Can't you just feel the bile rising in your throat!) He is rather caught up in this trend for pathological nostalgia. He writes primarily for right of centre publications, such as The Spectator. Dalrymple, it appears, was a very busy boy in his time. Not only was he a consultant psychiatrist, he was also a prison doctor. Additionally, this saintly specimen also used to visit people in their homes. Now, where I live consultant psychiatrists do not visit people in their homes. They usually sent their minions out - other members of the 'psychiatric team' - for example: social worker and community psychiatric nurses. Dalrymple sounds like a remarkable man. Too remarkable. In my humble opinion My own consultant barely has time to breathe, let alone double up as a prison doctor. Dalrymple, however, managed to do all this with comparative ease. There is an overpowering stench emanating form his little vignettes and this makes me doubt their veracity. This is a pity because occasionally, just occasionally, he is spot on. (I'm sure you're familiar with the expression: 'Even a stopped watch is always right twice a day!')

On top of all his other activities he also regularly treated people on a London council estate. He calls it a 'slum', presumably for the benefit of his American readers. As a child I lived on council estate while my parents saved for a deposit on a mortgage. Now, as far as I can recall (and I am cursed with an exceptional memory) it could hardly be classed as a 'slum'.

Dalrymple recently retired from his many medical co-existing careers recently. Do a Google search and you'll find that a pronounced thread of class prejudice runs through his writings. In his 'Farewell Column' , entitled 'The Frivolity of Evil' he writes: 'I chose disagreeable neighbourhoods in which to practice because, medically speaking, their dilemmas, if cruder (What is 'refined' mental illness?) , seemed to me to be more compelling, (No, sweetheart, they gave you an opportunity to bolster your innate sense of moral superiority), nearer to the fundamental of human existence'. But then he proceeds to write, 'No doubt I thought my services would be more valuable there (Oh, isn't that just so sweet. He ventures into the 'slums', even though it is beyond his remit, to help the poor and needy and then he goes on to denigrate them in his columns. A male Mother Theresa in the heart of England. How touching!)

It is for this reason that 'like the prisoners he treats' he is making his escape. He fails to mention the fact that he chose to put himself in that position. Choice, and the failure of his patients to govern their own lives successfully is another theme in his columns. He states: 'I feel I have paid my debt to society. Certainly, the work has taken its toll on me, and it is time to do something else. Someone else will do battle with the metasizing social pathology of Great Britain while I lead a life aesthetically more pleasing.' Have you ever seen such a swollen ego? I hope he finds a place in the world large enough to accommodate it. Shouldn't he have extricated himself from his profession when he began to feel a profound contempt for his patients because resentment (on either side) is hardly conducive to good patient-doctor relations.

He goes on to discuss the expanding 'criminal class' that exists within the UK: 'Youth today is feckless, violent, uneducated.' He is referring, no doubt, to criminals in 'the slums'. White-collar crimes escape his radar. He fails to take into account the fact that the current administration have widened the net to encompass many behaviours that were not, in the past, considered 'crimes'. 'The historical data can certainly support my impressions. Disraeli's infamous phrase: 'Lies, damned lies and statistics.' I am sure Dalrymple is aware that crimes that go unreported they are not included in the statistics. This doesn't mean these crimes didn't occur. Rape, is an example that springs to mind. I'll throw in a little anecdote of my own, courtesy of Doug. In the mid-fifties, Doug, who became a paramedic after the war once ventured deep into the Fens (and they really were isolated then) to fetch an unmarried girl of sixteen who was in labour. She was tiny and childlike, in spite of her protruding stomach. Doug put a protective arm around her as he led her to the ambulance. She gave birth in the ambulance. The delivery was simple. This was surprising, given the circumstances in which her new-born baby was conceived. She had been attacked and raped by four men. She did not report it because she couldn't identify them and she was afraid she would not be believed or even taken seriously, which was quite a common reaction to allegations of rape in those days. She named her baby after Doug. Sometimes, it is necessary to go beyond the 'statistics'.

Dalrymple goes on to discuss the so-called 'epidemic' of depression. He uses a case-study to illustrate his point: a twenty-one-year old woman: a mother of two whom Dalrymple describes as 'unhappy' rather than depressed. Again, he expresses profound contempt for this young woman. This is where he is 'spot on': 'My patient was not just a victim of her own mother. She had knowingly borne children to men of whom no good to be expected. She knew perfectly well the meaning and consequences of her actions(...) She is aware that it is both foolish and wicked to have children without consideration, even for a second whether the men have any qualities that might make them good fathers'. I myself was a product of such a union but my parents got married and are still unhappily co-existing. But 'mindless procreation' has been going on for centuries - between married and unmarried couples. That's why the human race is still here. It is not, as Dalrymple asserts, an exclusively modern phenomenon.

Dalrymple, I will grudgingly admit, is a rather good writer. He has a novelist's cool, clear eye and an acerbic tone. But we know very little about the man himself. When will he turn this critical inner-eye upon himself? For he too seems to have made quite a few poor choices.

Memories

An attack. Gentle at first
Heart-shaped memories
Hammer their way home
Animated and ashen faced
I sit with you on the boulevard
Sheltered from the March rain
By the striped awning
Viewing the world through
A sheet of clear cellophane
You and our history are the only
Two things that are keeping me
From falling, falling, falling
Over the edge. Pictures
– distorted and confused
Float through my head. Dead
Hands lie. Voices cry

Carried by the wind. And my only refuge
Is you and our shared history
And trepidation turns my mind
Into a battlefield, from which bloodied
And broken soldiers flee
From you and from me
I still look like the girl you knew
In my short skirt and my opaque tights
Still pure, still untouchable
My face, a blank unreadable page

But this is an illusion you have created
I played no part in the myths that envelop me

WhineSport

I spent Sunday night listening to 'the peanut-crunching crowd' chattering away on TalkSport or rather, WhineSport. What a bunch of complete and utter half-wits. As was their presenter: Charlie Wolf - expounding upon his view of the world's political climate or 'the whole political mess' as he calls it. He is anti-left (constantly quoting Melanie Phillips) - that end of the political spectrum are responsible, according to this sage, for all the ills that beset the world - anti-Muslim; and this from a man who perpetually denigrates one of our greatest institutions: the N.H.S. and insists that Americans are genetically superior to the rest of the world - yes, he actually said that. My message to him is: 'Look in the mirror, sweetheart!' And, naturally, according to this charming gentleman, Tony Blair is evil incarnate: the cult of the personality raises its hideous head. He doesn't seem to realise that we do not have a presidential system in this country, we have a Cabinet government who sit down and discuss planned legislation. I wonder if the nauseating sycophants who phone into Mr. Wolf's show deserve a democracy. ('The worst system of government apart from all the others' - Churchill, I think.) Do they need someone to seize the rudder?

Oh yes, I am most definitely a WhineSport Addict. I love to laugh at the sycophantic listeners who ring in and their first sentence is usually: 'Hello, Charlie! I agree with everything you say!'

Naturally, he laps it up but if I were the presenter (God forbid!) I would puke all over my microphone and reply: 'Well, I think you're a big, fat marshmallow. Do you agree with that?'

Sketch

24 October 2005 (2)a
Originally uploaded by Bratcat1000.

Deep Cuts

These deep cuts empower me. They make me feel real
They make me feel alive. My skin is a canvas
On which I draw, on which I map out
The course I will take and these scars
On my arms, on my legs scream out my history
To the wind and the water flowed into the bath
Boiling, scalding, my skin while my mother
Answered the telephone, whispering into the receiver
Talking to her lover in their own secret language
One that excludes me but my howls of pain
Drew her back to me. And now I construct
Stories in my head, tales in which she is the enemy
And my fury reasserts itself. And every rime I cut
I remember that brief time in which she cared for me

Pale peach skin wrapped in bandages
Her hennaed hair and her fluttering hands
Shrouded in perfume, face contorted with guilt
And I loved it – the effect my injuries had on her
And for I moment it was as though I had not
Spoilt her life. And she stopped seeing me
As a burden. She, who was once a delectable
Débutante, whirling across the dance floor, a column
Of pale blue silk floating through the air, admired
By academics, suited, booted, and she married one
Of those pink-cheeked innocents, a mere boy really
But he took the lead and she marched after him
Up the aisle, rendering all that learning,
All that knowledge obsolete

And her mind, for want of stimulation,
Crumbled in on itself like stale wedding cake
Burdened by those books hidden in cellars
Containing all those facts, all that knowledge,
She gleaned in college. And she hugged delicious
Memories to her chest, burdened by child after child
Spending the prime of her life, polishing
Another family’s silver, cherishing another family’s heritage
And she inwardly raged and she turned back the pages
Of her history and she opened those closets to see
Her old college ball gowns, damp and eaten away
By moths, those old photographs in albums, torn and ragged
And fat clung to her bones and she hovered on the jagged
Edge of madness. And they dragged her away

On that day on which the thread
Finally snapped. And I never saw her again
And this pain I inflict upon myself
Is my only connection to her.

Bonfire Night

I 'celebrated' bonfire night for the first time in several years. I know I'm a pyromaniac but it's better than sitting in all night. I went with Lisa and male friend:P. We went to an organised display. The fireworks were beautiful: gold and silver droplets hanging in the air. We then went back to P's flat and consumed a bottle of wine. I envied the flat's neatness and its minimalist style. I long to live in any place except my own. In the midst of anyone's creation except my own. In fact I'd like to be anyone except myself.

Feeding Goldfish

Feeding Goldfish
Originally uploaded by Bratcat1000.

The Eiderdown

In bed
The eiderdown
Spread out before me
A sea of orchids
Floating on deep blue
Cotton. My dreamscape
Pirate ships approach the shore
They are guided here
By my eye
And now they will drown
In the depths of my eye
A neat little victory.

Reply

A meteor shower could be seen from the North West yesterday as I played R.E.M's 'It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I feel fine)'. I told my cat but she just looked back at me with her big eyes, unaware of the implications of what I was saying.

'This is the way the world ends. Not wth a bang but a whimper'

Emily Dickinson

I have 'thrown down the gauntlet' to Royal and Sun Alliance. I received a reply to this e-mail today:

To Whomever it May Concern

(This is the third copy of this e-mail)

I am writing to complain about the recent unprofessional treatment meted out to me by representatives of your company. On March 26 this year there was a fire in the apartment above me. There is, as yet, no clue to the cause of this fire although my neighbour Mr. N. Clarke and I voiced our suspicions to the representative you sent round a few days later. When the organisation subcontracted came to take the belongings I had to be fixed he asked me if I had been burgled and treated me in a most impertinent manner. I received no further correspondence from you until early October when I rang Ms Zara Ashraf in order to inform myself of the status of my claim. To my surprise I received a letter which contained the following

There is a principle underlying all insurance contracts - it is the continuing duty of 'utmost good faith'*. This required honesty and openness on the part of both policy and policyholder. It is clear that you have not complied with this principle in the manner in which you have submitted that claim to us**

Our underwriters take a very serious view of such matters and, so as a result, they are not prepared to continue providing cover. Your policy is, therefore, void from the date of your claim, 26 March 2005***. This means that cover was not operative at the time of your loss and we are unable to consider your claim.

*I have exhibited nothing but good faith throughout, ensuring I had a witness at every turn and simply following instructions issued to me by them. (the underwriters).

**What \'manner\'? I did as the city council suggested.

***The 26th March was the night of the fire - a mistake with the date there methinks.

I would like a fuller explanation as to the reason for this treatment, given that I followed the instructions of your insurance representative to the letter, assisted by a very good friend, a war veteran, of exemplary character who is prepared to act as my witness should legal action need to be taken on either side of this dispute.\r\n

Incidentally, this letter was dated 5/8/05 but I did not receive it until 8/19/05
In addition to this you have retained all of the items you took from me
1. My laptop
2. My lamp
3. My Mini Disk Player\r\n
4. My HP Printer.

I also demand that you either prove beyond reasonable doubt that some kind of misdemeanour has been committed by me or repair my goods and reinstate my policy. Failure to comply with this could lead to referral to the Ombudsman and even to the courts.

yours faithfully,
Marie Louise Noonan

Older Woman

own
Originally uploaded by Bratcat1000.

The Gathering

The neighbourhood nonentities gather
To attack, their faces distorted,
Contorted. Muffled explosions
Their words clatter

Through these sedate suburbs
And they reach me, lying,
Ashen, in my bed, dying of T.B.
They create carnage

And their venom pulsates
And penetrates the thick dusk
The heavy curtains
And my own narcissism.

Change of Season

The changing of the seasons has upset my internal bodyclock. I am feverish, shaking. There is an earth quake within me. I am finding it difficult to type. This is an annual thing for me in spite of the fact that I love this season - Autumn - with its array of multicoloured leaves crunching beneath my feet. But, as the trees are stripped of their leaves, I am stripped of my certainty. I have had to minimise my social activities - one with D and one with Lisa. And this fear grips me like the beak of some savage bird of prey.

Iris

Iris
Originally uploaded by Bratcat1000.

I Cannot Remember...

I cannot remember the day
I was enticed into witchery
A perfect fit, they said
When I tried on my costume
All white, of course

We four sat snugly
In the low seats of the mini
'We are white witches,'
We whisper softly

And the stench
Of smoke and body odour
And I am crushed
Between sweat-soaked bodies
It is almost Autumn
But the night remains bright

Perfect, the dance floor clears
And the band plays on
And then there are those voices
Who whisper venom into your ear

I turn the music up
And the night turns into day
And I flee from this city.

Midnight

It's midnight now and I am still not able to sleep. What is going wrong? Why is my body not cooperating with the psychotropic medication I am pumping into it? It's something to do with Guy Fawkes Night. I get like this every year. I am like Freddi - Doug's little West Highland terrier, mentioned several time in this blog - she shudders every time a firework goes off. This is a terrible time of year for animals. Please, people, keep your pets indoors. This is a time of year when you realise just how vicious other members of your species can be.

And it's a terrifying realisation. At least it is for me.

I became all hysterical and upset yesterday because I thought I had lost yet another set of keys. Doug came over and found not only my new keys but my old set as well. I discussed the possibility of moving back home or even into sheltered housing. Am I prepared to sacrifice independence for security?

Doug was saying that the fireworks manufactured today are akin to small explosives. He (half jokingly) suggested that they were more effective than the Sten gun he was issued with which he was fighting in Sicily. It's insanity - these things should not be available to the general public. I have no objection to official, organised displays. Suffice to say this is not a holiday I am particularly fond of. I am counting the minutes until it is over (although it seems to get longer every year.)