A True Friend

I am not lonely living here in Thailand.In fact I have already found a really true friend.

He is rather shy,so he doesn’t like to be around much during the day,but as soon as it gets dark,which is about sixish he visits me.

I call him Alexander.

He doesn’t dare to come into my apartment,but enjoys being on the balcony,and I let him stay there, because at the moment he doesn’t seem to have any other friends.

Alexander is a 5cm long black beetle.

My first thought was to get out the spray that gets rid of things that creep,and fly around in the night. i did aim it around the edges of the balcony,and thought that would deter Alexander,but it didn’t.

Now,if I am home I rather look forward to his visits.

He reminds of a poem by A.A Milne,that I read as a child,and later read to my children.

We all loved it,and that is why I keep Alexander.

” I found a little beetle,so that beetle was his name.

And i called him Alexander,and he answered to the same.

I put him in a matchbox,and kept him all the day,

And Nanny let my beetle out,

yes Nanny let my beetle out,and beetle ran away.

She said she didn’t mean it,and I never said she did,

She said she wanted matches,and just took off the lid.

She said she was sorry,but it’s difficult to catch,

An excited sort of beetle you’ve mistaken for a match…………………

From the poem “Forgiven” by A.A Milne

Kris

I lost my heart again last night.

He stood,just a few feet in front of me,dressed in black,plucked his guitar and said, rather than sang in a voice that left no woman doubting that this was a real man;

“Take the ribbon from your hair”

Kris Kristofferson,the All American Rebel,sang at the Zürich Summer Festival,”Live at Sunset” last night and I was lucky enough to be able to sit in the middle of the front row.

It was as though he was singing just for me.

He was 72 last month,and he is still looking for freedom.

After “Me and Bobby Mc Gee” the world knew who he was,and he is still there.

Many have coveted his songs,but the chords, and the stanza are so well knitted that the songs are more difficult to interpret than they seem.

Maybe his voice hasn’t got the fullness that it used to have,and his guitar playing didn’t stick to the rules,but then one of the fingers of his right hand was bleeding enough for us to see just after the interval.

He passed off the weaknesses ,with his old charm and humour.Even stated ,when he repeatedly had to pick up a handkerchief, that he thought we were paying a lot of money “To watch an old fart blow his nose”

 

But he can still write songs,maybe I should say he can still write poems for the simple man, poetry that gets his message across. He should be able to,he won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University and studied Literature at Merton College. During his time with the US Airforce they wanted him to teach the subject at West Point Military Academy.But Kris is the pacifist son of a General and it was 1965.

And yesterday evening, so many years after Janis Joplin sang “Me and Bobby McGee” his followers in Zürich still love him.

He says he wants to compose and sing until they shovel dirt on his coffin.

He also knows what words he wants chiseled on his grave stone,- from colleague Leonard Cohen,

” Like a bird on a wire,

 like a drunk in a midnight choir,

 I have tried in my way to be free”

My Life With The Sea

” Break,break,break,
On thy cold grey stones.
Oh Sea! And I would that
my tongue could utter the thoughts that arise in me”

Alfred,Lord Tennyson. 1809-1892.

I suppose it is because I was born under Pisces that I have an affinity with the sea. I do in fact compare my life to it.
The ups and downs of it are really like waves of unfathomable depth,they bring and they take away.They can sparkle and they can spit,and they throw you up on lifes hard shore.

There are seas and there are oceans,mine is definetely the Atlantic.No smooth millpond for me.
Aegaeus and Aeolus have paid their respects,and Poseidon looked on.
But he sent me Aphrodite,and beautiful Halcyon days,and for those I must be thankful,when the south westerlys rage.

Picture thanks to Andrew Miller,Artist,Devon,UK

Hera

Hera is calling, and we will return,

Bound with her twine, long faded by Aegean light.

Where blue meets blue she stands and beckons us home.

Two kindred souls,

Mortals yearning for her ethereal world.

Not daunted by passing time

In foreign lands both grey and cold .

The echo of her laughter is heard by fools.

Bob Dylan the Artist

As regular readers of my blog know I struggle with my watercolour painting. I now have a new inspiration.

My Idol of the sixties. The bad boy, the music maker, the singer, the poet, that particular spirit of those years also paints in watercolour!

The German press agency report that the art collection of the city of Chemnitz, (once DDR) are showing 140 water colour and gouache paintings from the musician in their latest exhibition.

When asked why Bob Dylan chose Chemnitz for his premier,they said, “Nobody had asked him before”

I’m off to get a ticket.

Poetry

I love Poetry,but I can’t write it.

I might possibly be able to turn out some third rate crime or love story but lines like;

“The sedge has withered from the lake,

and no birds sing.”

Impossible.

I ask myself why I find prose so much easier?

The answer is, maybe one has to be a melancholy sort of person to write something moving,and I am not one of these.
It would be an explanation as to why Ireland has brought forth so many great writers.

Or maybe one has to be nursing a broken heart.

The Sarie Marais and Apartheid

My Sarie Marais is so far from my heart, and I’m longing to see her again.
She lived on a farm on Mooi’s River bank, before I left on this campaign

Oh,bring me back to the old Transvaal

That’s where I want to be,

Way yonder ‘mongst the meelies (Corn),by that great thorny tree,

Sarie is waiting for me.

Cricket wasn’t the same without the South Africans, Rugby wasn’t either.

I painted a plate in a competition at school and even won. It showed the Cape Fruit which we couldn’t buy in England any more.

Later in London I often heard homesick South Africans singing the haunting song- Sarie Marais and the seed was planted.

South Africa, one of the most beautiful and richest countries in the world was bleeding.

The Black South Africans suffered terribly under the Apartheid regime, and some white people who had lived there even longer than the blacks were ashamed to tell others abroad where they came from.

There were many whites who without fear fought against it, there were a lot of white people who supported black families.But they didn’t shout loud enough, and we didn’t hear too much about that.

But we heard about Nelson Mandela at last, and the others who didn’t live to see the day.
People who suffered particularly under the regime have been, and will be in the future compensated. (can something like that be compensated?)

People and Firms responsible for upholding the Apartheid in South Africa will be brought to justice, so says the United States Court of Apeal
As I read today they will support this.

Somehow I find the anouncement terribly funny. When will America’s black people be compensated?

As a post script I must say that the words and lyrics of the Sarie Marais were taken from an old US Civil War folk song called Elli Rhee, and the Transvaal was then Tennessee.

Swiss Army Officers’ Pen Knives

 

To all and sundry near and far

F. Christmas in particular.

“I want some crackers and I want some candy,

I think a box of chocolates would come in handy.

I dont mind oranges,

I do like nuts,

And I should like a pocket knife that really cuts.

 

 

 

from” King John’s Christmas.

A.A.Milne

King John of course had never heard of Swiss Army Knives or he might have been more explicit

I have, and apart from the obligation as a Swiss Citizen to own one ( I mean an original one ) I know too that they are the best.  That’s why I certainly will be taking one along on my trip.

But there is a snag attached to them,and that is they have got something against women.

Sometimes we might like to have longer nails as men and sometimes even paint them.

But you have to chose between opening your knife and keeping your finger nails intact.

 

O.K. So not all women are Swiss Army Officers,but sometimes we would like to use one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Guards

They’re changing guards at Buckingham Palace,

Christopher Robin went down with Alice,

Alice is marrying one of the guards;

“A soldier’s life is terribly hard”

Says Alice.

A.A.Milne

Since this was read to me as a child I was always in awe of the Guards.Foot Guards or Horse Guards they were all the same to me.

In their brass buttoned scarlet uniforms, tin soldiers come to life.

When I’m in London I always seem to catch the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace,and the words of A.A Milne’s Poem come to my mind,as does the music of “The British Grenadiers”

I haven’t seen many military parades in recent years,except what the news brings us of those in China or Russia,so it was a surprise when I saw a film of the official birthday celebrations for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth with the guards parade.

It was enough to make all those old drill Sergeants turn in their graves. What happened to the straight lines? Have I missed something,or aren’t they doing that any more on the barrack squares or is it just” Britannia rules the waves” again.

O.K I know there is more to soldiering than square bashing, and to all the members of the five guard regiments who are currently risking there lives unnecessarily in foreign fields,respect. But I remember hearing veterans of WWII saying “discipline saved lives”

Do we need it as little as we need the Guards these days?

Backpacking in Asia

Would you all say I was a little mad that after my ‘coming of age’ on the 19th 0f March-(and its not my 21 st Birhday,but the day on which I never have to work again) I might consider packing a rucksack and getting myself on a flight to somewhere in Asia.

Yes, I do mean backpacking.To those far away places with far away names.

For those who might now be saying,’just do it’ I must admit I have during my married life been a 5*person and roughing it would be a little unusual.

My budget would of course under the circumstances be restricted,so only if absolutely necessary could I pull out a credit card that even in an unwashed and unkempt condition would give me entrance into one of the aforesaid abodes.

The second handicap-and for me probably the greatest, is that I have a hysterical attitude towards anything that creeps or crawls, especially in showers or bedrooms,and to get around this problem have always had a man within shouting distance.

But still the urge to tramp through Asia is very big.

I was a hanger on 68er and while my colleagues were sitting it out,or running away to Goa I was following the rules. Now I feel it’s time to break some of them and do mad things. Do these things have an age limit?
I’ll keep you all posted.And if there is some old 68er out there who would like to come along.I’d have nothing against it provided he could remove unwanted guests.

”Clay lies still,but bloods a rover;

Breath’s a ware that will not keep.

Up, lad: when the journey’s over

There’ll be time enough to sleep.”

A.E Housman 1859-1936

A Shropshire Lad 1896