I remember her well in the Chelsea hotel

Jane.

It's a simple name, a monosyllable. Sometimes it's combined with the words calamity and plain.

The Jane that I knew and loved was a calamity but she was most emphatically not plain.

She was a Welsh girl from Newport, Gwent. A slim pert breasted brunette with a French bob whose fingers entwined, melded, and melted into mine the first time we held hands.

When she told me was leaving me she still stayed the night. She really, really shouldn't have done that. When she left the next morning I inhaled her scent from my towels and cried hard bitter tears.

I hated her for years.

I don't hate her now. Being older (although certainly none the wiser) I now recognise that she was a profoundly damaged personality before we met.

I think everyone finds a great love in their life. When you find that it's not the longevity of the relationship that's important, it's the intensity. That girl gave me more in the space of eighteen months than any daft male has a right to expect in a lifetime.

We shared baths full of bubbles and threw rubber ducks at each other. I shaved her legs once and nicked her shin with the razor. A small shimmering globule of blood appeared. She looked down and I looked down. We looked up into each others eyes and laughed.

If someone gives you the sensuality, tactileness, and profound love that girl bestowed on me you should be profoundly grateful.

My dear, dear lost girl. My true peer and contemporary whose dreams and memories I curate.

I try not to think of her that often.

The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion

There's no getting away from the fact that I'm Scots-Irish. Despite this I've always been slightly discombobulated by my education amongst the sons and daughters of the impoverished Anglo-Irish aristocracy. This has left me with a West Briton cricket, rugby, and Trinity College Dublin aspect to my character that is about much practical use as a chocolate teapot.

The Scots-Irish really are the ultimate white tribe. They left Scotland because they were Presbyterian conventers who were prevented from excercising their rights of free assembly by the Anglican establishment. They moved to Ulster only to find that the damn Anglos were there as well. Naturally, they upped sticks and moved to Kentucky, Virginia, and the Ohio river valley. They made up a quarter of the population of the nascent United States in 1776. George Washington rightly commented that if it hadn't been for their proficiency with long rifles he would have been up shit creek without a paddle.

If anyone wants to understand the contemporary American mentality they can forget about the Pilgrim fathers, Boston Brahmins, and frat boys parking their cars in the Harvard Yard. They are the Scots-Irish. They like going to church, drinkin' 'n' fightin', and oiling their guns. Bill Clinton, Miss Dolly Parton, Jerry Lee Lewis, Billy Graham. Take your pick, it's obvious where their mentalities originate.

You have to give them their dues. They are without doubt the most generous and hospitable people ever to have looked up at the moon and said 'eh?'. Having said that, I wouldn't cross them if I were you. They are potentially lethal.

A Martian Writes a Postcard Home

I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that I will never understand women. As age and decrepitude exerts it ineluctable grip I am increasingly of the opinion that it is better to sit in a corner humming to oneself than attempt to have a conversation with one of these strangely alluring creatures.

I've pondered the question of what motivates them for years. I think it's something in their gait. It's not so much that they wobble but that they walk with the unerring accuracy and intent of an exocet missile.

Here we males are quietly minding or going about our own business when we find ourselves zapped. Admittedly we end up in bed with them, which is a reasonably favourable outcome. Unfortunately, within a period of between twelve and eighteen months they walk off in the opposite direction even when we haven't said or done anything.

I spend my life in a haze of dust and small pebbles.

Eleanor Rigby

'Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where her wedding has been, lives in a dream'.

When I was twelve a student teacher handed out a page of text to my class and instructed us to open our ears. She then pressed play on a cassette recorder. The world changed.

We don't listen to the Beatles much these days. We dont need to. They're us.

Apologies for the blogging hiatus. Life happened when I was making other plans.

Carry on.