365 Ways With Words

Post-Breakfast Kitchen

The grey frozen frostlight gives way to a risen sun's perfect golden amberness that gloriously bathes the casement windows, now running wildly with breath and perspiration-induced condensation, with a glowing warm fullness spread throughout the muggy kitchen. The ringing striplight, still on but no longer necessary, radiates its harsh light unnoticed until the slightly desiccated mistletoe suspended with red ribbon is glimpsed, and then – 'flick!' – it's off and some corners instantly  become a little darker as the door slams.

Beside the steaming, sudful sink is a satisfying pile of plates, bowls, mugs and frying pans and a bristling hedgehog of sparkling cutlery and utensils, the breakfast detritus of a sensually aromatic and thoroughly filling wake-up tea and toast, corn flakes and porridge, eggs, bacon, tomatoes, beans, sausages, black pudding, more toast and one smoked kipper for dad. Apart from the inevitable milk and tea grey smudges, only a ring stain from the brown sauce bottle marks the tablecloth ensuring its necessity replacement before the big lunch.

Despite the telly's excited morning prattle, carelessly left on by the house's youngest, the silence betrays the day's family dog walk. All jaunty boots, scarves and hats, they stride through the shady park's unlit grass still white with the night's frozen dew, long dark ski-like trails betraying their course. A pause is made beside the pond's shimmery surface to see the busy ducks waddle over, here and there breaking through the paper-thin ice. Cold toes hurry their town centre route back past rows of gleaming, tranquil shops – festive lights blinking monotonously from beyond the fake snowed-up window frames (none but the largest, stubborn supermarkets are open). In the still, brilliant blue above the stumpy knuckles of the avenue's pollarded sycamores and green felt-tip beech trunks a cycle of chilly rooks hover and flap, hover and land and beyond a slow-circling buzzard in from the fields casts a hungry eye over them before gliding on. Beyond still, the vapour trails of a mid-morning's New York flight cuts through the stratosphere.

The tap-tap-tap of the ignition commands the boiler to life – a tumble of wasted steam bursts from the little chrome chimney and a new surge of heat floods around the skirting pipes, through the walls and into each of the bland, white radiators; the tucked towel on the bathroom rad sheds the last of the showered moisture, a slow air current ruffles the plastic suspended decoration, a holly berry silently drops to the carpet from the sprig above the big picture frame and the suffering window sill palm dries out a little more. The kitchen's windows unhurriedly clear leaving only the recalcitrant panes corners to resist. Upon the hastily wiped surface beside the old worn toaster rests a large bowl of tropical fruits – cool bananas, a pineapple with browning leaf ends and a large rock-hard mango, all destined to be used in a forthcoming Boxing Day fruit salad. The unlit cooker supports lidded pans of salty water; peeled potatoes, crossed brussels, cauli and carrots combined, and beneath it all the lone light of the oven hints that the locally-reared goose is already half-an-hour into its low heat adventure in advance of dinner time, the wonderful savoury fat dripping steadily into the tray.

Outside, only a blackbird's panicked scream-twitters mar the stillness, the guttering abruptly cracks with sunlit expansion and at the end of the garden a squirrel hops in tail-bound arcs, turning over enough leaves to find anything that moves, later beginning the hated gnawing of the garden's hedged sycamore bark at its thinnest point. The TV, now showing a film, drums out chase music with sporadic excited dialogue: only the approaching yelling footsteps of children brings the house back to normalcy, the first back hanging onto the door handle with reddened hands as plumes of caught hot breaths cloud the side passageway. Within seconds the jangly key is turned and with a shout of 'Boots off!' bodies and cold air enter the stuffy kitchen. The kettle is filled, gloves and dumped coats picked up and pegged, raw cheeks and fingertips begin their thaw and sweaty jumpers be-drape the backs of chairs. A door opens as a toilet flushes, quick footsteps drum up the stairs and the phone rings. The door finally closes and the dog, minus his lead, shakes, sups enough water and, panting lightly, heads for the centre of the kitchen floor to unceremoniously lay his head on the tiles and make sure he gets under everyone's feet.

Alkonosts

Softllly sunnng

Are the worrrds on the silvered tonnngue

Of the serrrpent, of the tempterrr, of the one who decieeeves

Without hindrance to truuuth, without the masquerade of deceptionnn.

 

Against suuuch liquid language intonnned –

Baaathed upon the steady shorrres of perceptionnn –

None have defennnce, or guiiile, or forsssight

And chaaarming wit betrays onllly the listenerrr.

 

Odyssean rowerrrs had waxxx enough –

Blithly passssing by in directed ignoraaance –

Fatal muuusic so beniiign, so disarrrming, so all-consuminnng:

A harrrd task taken in tiiime's treacherousss foment.

 

Take charge, thennn –

La Siguanaba's tressesss turnnn a head

Such as simmmple folk, such as everydaaay men, such as the ssstrong –

And deliver us from temptation.

I Know

I know it's 2 o'clock at night

I know the streets are your domain

I know you also have the right

I know your voice will have free reign

I know your love of Olomouc

I know loyalty – it cannot die

I know you sing beside my house

I know you also live nearby

 

I know that you are justly proud

I know your love of football

I know you like to sing it loud

I know that you care bugger all

I know murder is a mortal sin

I know you often test my nerve

I know if Olomouc will win

I know I'll also sing with verve

 

I know to rhyme there's little purpose

I know that singing is for fun

I know I shouldn't make a big fuss

I know before putting a stop to your fucking song once and for all in pool of angry red blood I should check the safety catch on the machine gun

Strange Fascinator

It is possible everyone has a similar experience with regard to one sound or other; even so I crave indulgence on this strange one.

Across the planet wherever humans are gathered in sufficient number, regardless of race, colour, creed or language, there is a sound symptomatic of that creature's inexorable but un-planned progress: it is simply a little dreary and mundane yet induces much melancholy and even unhappiness.

In times past this sort of sound may have been the dull thud of axe-on-tree, or shimmery hammer blows on a smithy's ringing anvil or even of hammer and saw on 2x4s at construction sites – the cheerful, rhythmic resonance that, along with the unashamed whistler, has come to indicate meaningful industry and more particularly men at work, rare enough now unless one is within earshot of a some sort of building site. It may be possible to hear regular and repetitive mechanisation and the associated shouts and communicative directions if one lives near small-scale production plants or even factories, but more often this is now relegated to hideous and windswept out-of-town complexes and convenient industrial units with their purpose-built access roads. The sounds made here are not really the definition of urbanity.

The sound to which I refer is also probably heard at all hours of the day and night on a daily basis by the most costly urbanite and lowliest slum-dweller. It is not the errant car alarm, that snatcher of a night's peace, nor is it the wailing siren of the emergency services that allows all and sundry to know that Doris has made the tea back at the station and that if they don't get back pronto her cream cakes will have been had by admin. No, the sound that drives me mad is that of the humble, accelerated moped.

To be precise, it is not merely mopeds but also all forms of motorcycle, and even tuk-tuks. More precisely it is their mournful running through small streets that gives that characteristic whir, or the rising angry purr that indicates rapid and unfettered movement through narrow confines. I hear it here in Olomouc, in Hong Kong, in Bangkok, London and a host of towns and villages – it is everywhere because they are everywhere. Untold millions of people have made the decision to buy a cheap form of individualised transport and, the economics of needs and costs of each situation having been weighed, the attraction of two-wheelers, and mopeds in particular, usually come out pretty well: A-to-B without too much fuss, without the problems of car parking and without spending a fortune on purchasing, fuel and running.

The moped sound occurs in exactly the same way – a street/road/lane/alley is empty, or at least passable on two wheels, and the rider takes off, pulling back the throttle. Simple enough and pretty much universal, I have heard it sipping expensive coffees in Parisian cafés of the 1st arrondissement, lying awake in dimly-lit hotel rooms by the Sukhomvit Road, beside market stalls in Hong Kong's Gage Street market, outside dodgy bars in Manila, resounding across the black nighttime hillscape of Kandy, through the unlit back alleys of Marrakech's souk. It is everywhere the same because people everywhere are the same – the only changeable thing is the weather.

As long as you are living in proximity to people who work, and even amongst people who don't, it is certain today this sound will be heard. Only one overriding condition chokes this sound, and that only partly – snow. Only the decidedly desperate are venturesome or desperate enough to face up to a bout with the treacherous and slippery white stuff. I have, however, seen mopeds skilfully ridden through lake-like puddles in tropical rain storms, umbrellas at the tilt, and even carefully and wobblingly managed through dangerous typhoons, but a simple, reasonably heavy snowfall usually forces the moped rider into a pedestrian.

Don't get me wrong, I quite like mopeds and have even ridden (and come off) a few, but the simple truth of the matter is that there is something heart-felt and sad about this sound, something that touches the deep discomfort about the dirty urbanity of humankind. It is compelling yet also disturbing and each time I experience it I am driven into an emotional sinaesthetic stupor.

Dew on the Leaves

Through cold red yew droplet prism, coached into falling, falling not, falling...

In time by fog-iced morning outline, each bough's croaking weight -
Heavy until sun's weak broach whips a chill breeze,
In time down to grit and earth, deep and dark, mustard leaf-tossed upon long, stringy wet grass, wetter still:
Through each drop a light of night's remains.

Stolid outline arbors huddle,
Mist on thin numbed fingertips, the brittle break.
It is the way of all things.

To come are mornings wetter, colder; chill again - greet the boots, the long coat, the scarf and glove-swiped sweated forehead.

Daily sinking summer's memory heart, steel canopy of molten fading finally overcomes - all is bleak.
The dark.

But as glimmer's fail by the yearly moving, the lights flicker on, off, on - towards the cheer fests around this quarter's corner...

– Sometimes –

– the penny doesn't drop – the wheel doesn't turn – the solution doesn't work –

– the heart doesn't mend – the car doesn't start – the feeling doesn't rise –

– the battery doesn't charge – the time doesn't come round – the sentence doesn't make sense –

– the flower doesn't bloom – the paint doesn't dry – the bill doesn't add up –

– the answer doesn't come – the phone doesn't ring – the rain doesn't fall –

– the programme doesn't run – the child doesn't sleep – the party doesn't end –

– the effort doesn't get results – the eye doesn't open – the train doesn't arrive –

– the cough doesn't ease – the taste doesn't leave – the voice doesn't stop –

– the path doesn't lead anywhere – the news doesn't make a difference –

– the drug doesn't have an effect – the victory doesn't matter – the joke doesn't cause a laugh –

– the ear doesn't hear – the glove doesn't fit – the prayer doesn't get answered –

–the vote doesn't get cast – the scale doesn't balance – the prophet doesn't get honour –

 

– but only sometimes –

The Problem With Normal

Too loose – too tight

Too big – too small

Too mainstream – too fringe

Too loud – too muffled

Too hot – too uptight

Too easily pleased – too wretchedly unsatisfied

Too hardcore – too dry

Too domineering – too submissive

Too exciting – too gross

 

– Enough! –

 

There is no satisfaction with the opinions of the normal.

To desire such things is abnormal.

 

Time to be who you are.

Time not to be normal any more.

Sublime Haydn

 

The heart beats consistently, but will skip a beat when beauty is beheld.

Picture St Wenceslas cathedral, splendid in neo-gothic finery: all blue ceilings and stars, painted flowers adorning the walls. Upon the ebony-esque dark pews and hastily assembled folding chairs crowding the central aisle sat the coated audience recently hobbled in from the cold. Facing them are orchestra and choir, black tailed, black jacketed, black polyester topped, their focus upon the imminent creation of the Creation. And staring down upon all assembled is John Sarkander, the piercing gaze from his emotionless, unmoving brown skull  – tortured saint, local boy and golden reliquary inhabitant.

And then the music begins; Haydn's masterpiece, the culmination of fluid thought, of majestically crafted themes within dynamic forms. With The Creation he fully demonstrated his capacity to form in the mind a painted landscape to convey vigorous ideas, but in so doing moved the heart and appealed to the spirit.

The first promising outing in the local Autumn Festival of Sacred Music, the cathedral's echoing shell generously allowed each note of each phrase sufficient reverb to blend and combine. The Czech Philharmonic Choir, South Bohemian Philharmonia under direction of Hungarian István Dénes and accomplished soloists soprano Michaela Šrůmová, tenor Jaroslav Březina and ponytailed Slovakian bass Martin Gurbal melded into the firey sword of Haydn's deft handywork (see Youtube above – very similar, although our performance was arguably better and the libretto was German). For the incidental solo in the last movement the alto crept up on the soloists like she'd missed the bus and the conductor played the recitatives on what looked like a bontempi organ.

It was after hearing some of Handel's works performed forcefully with massed ranks of musicians and choristers that Haydn decided to bring The Creation into being. After two year's gestation, it immediately revealed itself to be an extraordinary piece of music, of the sort that demonstrates what great heights man is capable of attaining. In response to rapturous applause the ageing Haydn with characteristic modesty pointed upwards – "Not from me—everything comes from up there!" In response to our performance, a 10-minute standing ovation, the only reaction possible (without the usual whooping and hollaring that is all-pervasive elsewhere) and a dumbfounded homage not only to performers but also to the composer.

Love is a Dangerous Thing

There is a point at which love becomes lethal.

We all know love makes the world go round. Romantic association has drawn people together since eve popped out of Adam's side: we love being in love. And a different attraction has provided the necessary protection for offspring and family, even pets: we love to care. But there is something toxic lurking beneath the surface: for some, love makes us do the abnormal, the bizarre and the downright cruel.

Any examination of love usually begins with the Ancient Greeks who understood the love thing to comprise four facets:

Agape – the idealised, selfless I love you love

Eros – the desirous, passionate, recognition of beauty in a person love

Philia – the love for family, friends and community

Xenia – unconditional hospitality – very important to the old Greeks.

Whilst there is wisdom in this categorisation, on its own it offers little in terms of practical comprehension into the otherworldly heights of religious devotion or the hideous depths of moral depravity, as clumsy when attempting to describing the Ecstasy of St Teresa as it is repugnant to use as reasonable justification for the crimes of female circumcision, rape, child molestation and honour killings.

What brought this matter to my attention were two things, the BBC article on recent honour killings in India and the 2011 BBC documentary Fast Food Baby.

The first of these recently took place in a village in deepest-darkest Haryana state, as the article describes – less that 100 km from Delhi but hundreds of years apart. It is the age-old honour killing scenario; a boy and girl fall in love but before they can elope are killed by their families. What makes this example particularly gruesome is that the villagers dismembered the body of the boy, Dharmender Barak, before his death. Why?

So we can assume that matters came to a head and it was decided, 'Yes, that's it – we kill them, but let's chop his limbs and head off first'. There was a point where the honourable reputation of a village family become so tarnished by young love (they were both in their 20s) that, a) the death of the child was the only restitution, b) that murder was preferable to shame, and c) that connivance of the village was seen as justification for the act. Haryana state has a long proud history, rich culture, strong enlightened religious traditions and benefits enormously from an education system well above the national average, but all that counted for naught when a family's social standing was threatened. They loved enough to kill. It is very difficult for us in western cultures to understand, let alone accept, this philosophy, in the same way that the traditional cultures in which these crimes take place view western attitudes regarding family and community honour as horrifyingly lax to the point of dishonourable.

In Britain fast food is plentiful. Manufacturers, distributors and consumers of such things abound because everyone likes a quick fix – a snack, something easy. Sometimes a bag of crisps and a mars bar is just the ticket! Problems begin when this food becomes the only type consumed. The brain is altered by such consumption to the point of addiction and finds difficulty in reverting back to 'ordinary' food. Junk food is also an indicator of class, being primarily, but not exclusively, the domain of the lower orders. Enormous quantities of sugar, salt and saturated and homogenized fat is fatally combined with a reduction of nutritional value. None of this is newsworthy, but the effects of this diet on the children, particularly the infants, of the consumers commands attention: chronic tooth decay, diabetes, heart disease and many more preventable illnesses, such as rickets, become prevalent as a result. Why do parents allow this?

Parents generally feed their children the food they enjoy the most. If they are addicted to junk food themselves then it is as sure as sure that their children will also become addicted. When faced with nutritional information some will seek to change their lifestyle, even accepting help, but human nature being what it is others will be stubborn. The children will inevitably resist any changes to this tasty diet. This is not neglect: it can be said that through feeding them junk food the parents are guilty of actually loving their children to death.

Two examples, then, of the ways in which love is lethal – one active, one passive. Such things should generate considerable anger in us. But perhaps instead of waxing wrathful our response should be to love these people enough to want them to change. This is tough, perhaps even tougher than the sort of love demonstrated. Of course, it would be facile to assume that love alone is the problem but it certainly is the only solution.

Market Day

On the cobbled corner of Aksamitova and Kateřinská is the market place, the slow-beating heart of the city of Olomouc. Neither glamorous nor picturesque, and certainly not rich, it is a regular, functional hub that permits the exchange of basic green goods grown by the smiling ruddy-faced, bucolic, pastoral folk from nearby villages for the necessary hard cash from the scheming, cold-hearted urbanites. Ah, if only the farmers wore smocks…

On sunny Saturday and Wednesday mornings the concrete tables are loaded with old wooden boxes of onions, blue plastic crates of potatoes and hurried newspaper placements supporting whatever was available for sale that day. No supermarket would even consider taking this produce, the quantities being so small and quality so variable, but on the principle that someone will want it everything is brought and most is sold. This being a chilly September, the usual large sun umbrellas are absent and almost all are wearing multiple layers and hats to keep out the cool, autumn air.

The honest Haná sons of the soil have always had a reputation as fat, well-fed farmers. Certainly the rich soils of this region have always allowed for a glorious expanses of all manner of crops and a failed harvest would almost certainly be put down to a very stupid or unlucky farmer. So fruitful are these parts that a few of the widespread allotments around the town may have provided such a wonderful abundance as to have entirely supplied the contents of one or two of the market stalls.

Garlic appears to predominate, closely followed by little onions, swedes, carrots and potatoes – the foundations of most local cuisine. Other notables are sweet little gherkins ready for the pickling, green tough-skinned peppers, fat tomatoes on the vine and decorative orangey squashes and stripey pumpkins. What’s missing are the caged chickens, honking geese and splashy barrels of fish, the sort of ‘living’ farm produce that would not have looked out of place in a medieval (or Hong Kong Chinese) market. Perhaps this is just as well.

Our crude un-attuned ears cannot differentiate between Czech accents of Bohemia and Moravia. We could make out the rustic pronunciations by some marketers of familiar numbers and nouns that we already recognise, but accentual differences must run along the lines of similar divisions of English. To Czechs a short sentence would confirm a singy-songy Plzen Bohemian, a slang-ridden Central or Eastern Moravian or even a Polishy Lach speaker (and the subtle differences even within these regions), but we do not and probably will never know which accent goes where: to us confused Anglický (English) we are no doubt as bewildered as a poor Czech taking a trip to Borough Market and trying to understand the difference between a Scouser, Geordie or Glaswegian stallholder! In fact, we have added into the mix our very own dialect – English Bedwetting Czech; wet, sleepy and always in need or bit of tender clearing up.

So our precious coins have been exchanged for bags of full-flavoured fayre: local fragrant apples, a large butternut pumpkin, as many local new potatoes as we could carry and even a large cauliflower fungus which will fall under a mountainous avalanche of local blue Niva cheese sauce before being placed in the oven. This Moravian life is tough and hard – someone’s got to live it.