Evening street scene

It had rained on and off for most of the day and there was a cool nip in the air. As afternoon turned into the shadows of evening, a few late stragglers from work hurriedly made their way home, leaving the wet streets for those brave and hardy enough to venture out for a night on the town.

Lights in the surrounding buildings were flicking on one by one, spilling out into the street like orange and yellow paint from an artist's dripping brush. They spoke of a cosy air of warmth inside, of people settling down for the evening after their day's labours, preparing to drift into a state of contented lethargy prior to sleep.

Night descended and the rain returned. The earlier home-bound workers were now replaced by party-goers, pub punters and the clubbing fraternity. For some the evening was just beginning, for others it was winding down. The rain grew stronger and a fresh wind began to blow through the darkened streets.

The Great British Summer

WELL, folks, here we are again, it's the height of summer and, surprise surprise, the weather here in Britain is SHIT... yet again. Overcast skies, rain, wind, even cold at times. Now and again the sun timidly manages to peek through a break in the cloud cover and send its heart-warming rays and heat down to us just to remind us that, yes, it is actually summer even though it's more like winter! But it's not long before the clouds gang up on it again and literally close ranks against it, forcing it to retreat.

BUT that's British summers for you. It ever was so and i suppose it ever will be. However, we now have a new factor to contend with. Global warming! And it seems that the more global warming we have, the colder it gets here in Blighty. God help us if global warming continues unchecked, because it seems we're set to cool down and eventually freeze up the hotter the world gets! Makes a lot of sense that, doesn't it?

NOW imagine if instead of global warming we had global cooling. On the analogy of global warming causing a countrywide cooling here, the corollary would be that global cooling would trigger a heatwave! Far-fetched? Well, maybe, and maybe not. But one thing's for sure... the worse that global warming gets, the worse our weather gets and specifically the cooler it gets, thus producing, as i have already said, SHIT summers.

THE bottom line is that the british weather never has made any sense and now it is making even less sense than it's made in the last few million years. For those who yearn for the sun, they must do as many thousands of other Brits have done before them... high-tail it to Southern Europe and join all the other ex-pats who already live there and are enjoying life in the sun. Cos, global warming or not, the weather isn't going to get any better here and, by the looks of it, is set to get a lot worse... ohhhh, Perfidious Albion!

Bankers Rule, ok?

BELOW is a picture of some typical bankers. Well, pig bankers at least, but you get the analogy. So what would you do if you got your hands on them? Throttle them? Hang them up by their toes? Lock them up in some deep dark dungeon and throw the key away. Have them flogged in a public square until they repented of their sins and converted to being decent human beings? Sentence them to 20 years' community service? They certainly deserve any one of these punishments. BUT of course in the real world most of them get off scott-free, keep their ill-gotten gains, continue with their opulent lifestyles and the trappings of wealth and hang on for better times round the corner when they can get into some other scam to cream off the wealth of the country and fleece the proverbial man-in-the-street.

BANKERS and financiers at all levels indulged in an orgy of unseemly and reckless profiteering from shady and questionable deals, not just the upper echelons. Lots and lots of them had their snouts in the trough of easy pickings, though now they have run for cover and exhibit wide-eyed innocence for those who are gullible enough to believe in them ever again.

THEIR deep-seated greed and avarice and overweening ambition to enrich themselves beyond all measure have brought the world to its economic knees, causing untold misery and hardship to millions of people all over the planet. And, make no mistake about it, unless the banking ethos were to be radically transformed and the bankers and their like were to be reined in, they would do it all over again, perhaps not in the same way, but certainly in some other equally morally questionable and financially unethical manner. Because the truth of the matter is that they just can't help themselves.

I wonder if there is anything in the fact that 'banker' and 'wanker' are such a perfect rhyme? Could they really be more wanker than banker or does it just seem that way? Or am I just being unkind to them? Perhaps they really have a heart of gold and it was all just a horrible mistake that tooks us all by surprise, including the bankers and all the other money-men. Perhaps they are really misunderstood as a species and deep down inside have a heart of gold just bursting with fellow feeling. Perhaps too they're worth all the billions of pounds we've given them to keep them afloat and in business even though they won't lend us a penny of it now to keep us in business! It's a funny old world, isn't it?

BELOW is another image of a banker, this time in recognisable human form but still up to his old tricks, as he prepares to give us the slip and run off with the takings. We never had that sort of trouble with the old bed mattress, did we? It may not have paid us interest but at least our hard-earned money was sure to be there the next day when we looked under it.

Armageddon

WELL here we are, it’s the year of our Lord 2009 and humanity is under attack on all sides from a host of evils and threats (spoilt for choice in fact), and richly deserves it too. I suppose I should really be writing this piece at the end or beginning of a year but there’s so much that is downright nasty going on at the moment that I could not resist taking stock of the situation now, be it ever so general and simplistic.

SO let's see how we've fared so far: If you've not been blown away by a terrorist bomb, flooded out due to global warming, swindled by dishonest politicians, cleaned out by greedy bankers, laid low by swine flu or whatever other disease may be doing the rounds, you can count yourself lucky. The down side is that terrorism still flourishes, global warming is set to intensify, dishonest politicians are not in short supply, greedy bankers are a way of life in today's capitalist economies, swine flu has not yet run its course and anyway other deadly maladies are queuing up to have a shot at us.

DESPITE all this, I hear you say that the title of this post, 'Armageddon', is perhaps a bit over the top. Well, it might be, but have you given serious thought to the possibility of all-out nuclear war, global flooding due to rising sea levels from the melting of the ice caps, a head-on strike on the Earth from some large cosmic body, and even a series of worldwide biblical plagues that decimate the human race and threaten it with extinction? 'Armageddon' may come from the hand of Man, Nature or God. Or maybe all three are one and the same anyway? But whichever it is, the result would be cataclysmic and long-lasting if not permanent. 

WITH all these calamities potentially in store for us, we might well wish to follow the example of the Epicureans who advocated that "we eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die". Yes, you've recognised it, it's the familiar "carpe diem" ("seize the day") in a different guise, which is currently on everyone's lips, both Latin scholars and the unschooled. Pardon me though, because I thought that was what everyone's doing anyway: grabbing as much of the cake as they can eat and making off with as much of the goodies as they can carry and to hell with everything! Still, it always sounds better in Latin, doesn't it?

BETTER still, let's put all this doomwatch malarkey and eleventh-hour end-of-world talk to one side and get on with the business of buggering up the planet good and proper. Amen to that and pass the tranquillisers!

The light beyond

AS I trudged across country on my way home one cold winter’s afternoon, I became aware of a mysterious light shining through a solitary tree a short distance to my right. It seemed to emanate from an indeterminate point and gradually spread across the snow-covered ground. Little by little it grew in intensity and little by little it grew in extent. It stopped me in my tracks and I turned to look at it full on.

FOR a minute or so it continued getting brighter and wider and fiercer and I did not know what to make of it. Eventually it stopped growing and stopped spreading, and as I looked straight into it, unable to avert my gaze and overwhelmed by its intensity, I had the distinct sense of a presence within its very heart. But i saw no-one and heard nothing apart from what seemed to me to be the sound that an intense light might make were it to make any sound.

AS i gazed into the heart of that all-embracing brightness, i felt as though some being or force was reaching out to me, bathing me in its transcendent light, washing me clean of all the mental grime that clouded my head and i felt strangely cleansed and renewed. It was a feeling such as none other and it was an experience that left its indelible mark on me and instilled me with an awareness that has stayed with me all my life.

AND then the intoxicating light source began to dim and recede and as it made way for the darkness the spell was broken and hence its hold over me. Within seconds the light that had filled and overwhelmed my vision had shrunk into nothingness and the reality of my situation returned to me and my legs recovered their mobility. I hurried on, impatient to return home before the darkness of night had fully descended. I felt cold and a shiver ran up my spine, and I quickened my pace. I had the sensation that something life-changing had happened to me but I did not know what and perhaps I would never know whether the mysterious light had caused a change in me or whether I was to change over the years.

MY house now came into sight and there were welcoming lights emanating from some of the windows. I was glad to be home at last, and relieved, but a nagging uncertainty and curiosity lingered inside me which convinced me that there would be more visions to come and that perhaps there was some special purpose to my life.

THE front door opened and joyful faces welcomed me, the faces of loved ones, and behind them shone a... light, as bright as any I had ever seen, and the light embraced them and held them in its core, appearing to project them forward towards me. The next moment I was in their midst and they encircled me and I felt an intense light descend upon all of us and take us into its heart and we were all safe and happy and united as one. Nothing could harm any of us now.. nothing at all...

Deadly Glow

IN the dark of the night the tall toadstools and wild mushrooms sprouted, thrusting their umbrella heads up through the dank soil of the wood. And night after night they grew and flourished in the rich soil, rearing up in the darkness, clothing themselves with a strange blue halo that warned those who would do them harm to keep well away. The eerie blue tinge positively glowed as they grew bigger and taller and stronger and bolder. The earth around them reflected back their glow and an alien bluish aura built up around them, as if marking out their territory beside the massive trunk of an age-old tree.

HE stood stock still, unable to take his eyes off these strange incandescent growths, as though his feet were rooted to the spot. He had stumbled across this menacing clump of luminescent fungi whilst returning home from a walk across the woods and the sight of them froze him in his tracks, leaving him open-mouthed and awestruck. The plants seemed to pulsate and throb with a blue and white energy that was as intense as it was mysterious. He did not know what to make of it. But one thing he did know was that it would be wise to give them a very wide berth.

AND so as the light began to fade and darkness fall, causing these strange unearthly fungi to glow ever brighter and to pulsate ever stronger, a fear took hold of him, bringing up beads of sweat on his brow and, with what seemed to be an almost superhuman exercise of willpower, he freed his feet from the pull of the earth and immediately broke into a frantic run to put as much distance as he could as quickly as he could between him and this unsettling fungal apparition. As he ran on towards the edge of the wood, without once looking back, he did not see that another crop of these mysterious mushrooms was pushing up through the soil, that the established fungi had grown yet taller, yet brighter, that they now throbbed and hummed with a bluish energy that coursed through their stems and lit up their huge heads.

The Stranger in their midst

A stranger was suddenly seen to walk in their midst, though none had seen him come, and he went among them, stirring their hearts and minds, though speaking not a word, and they shivered at his unholy touch, asking what manner of man he might be and what his purpose.

Sensing some menace, they rose up as a body and moved towards him, arms reaching out, in an attempt to contain him, but he remained out of reach and they could not detain him nor even approach him, for he had many guises and many forms and he passed among them like a sharp sea breeze. 

They thrilled αt his spectral touch and felt a change come upon them which unlocked their soul to the things that were and the things that might be, strange visions of worlds unseen, and they descended upon him once more, wishing to understand what was upon them, but the stranger slipped through their ranks, gliding past them with ease and, though they ran now one way and now another, none saw his going nor the manner of his leaving.

The night was now thick about them and, seeing the futility of further pursuit, they quickly melted into its consuming darkness, each to his own hearth, eager to tell of the stranger who had briefly walked among them that fateful night and had caused them to glimpse images that would come to pass of a world in the making that filled them with awe.

Sleep came to them early that night and, as they surrendered to its soft embrace, they could not know there would be no new awakening for them.