God's Bet

Cynthia was showering, when she struck her ankle bone against a tiled corner.
“Jes-SUSS Christ almighty! That hurts” she yelped.
Up in heaven, God mused.
“She’s the one,” he decided. “She doesn’t believe, so no-one will realise I am behind this. She can save the world.”
In doing so, she would have to eradicate religion, he thought, so there will be no cause for further dissension.
“But sir,” queried an underling. “Isn’t that what You were trying to achieve? Isn’t this Your plan? Should they not be made aware of this eventually?”
“I’m trying a new ploy. You see, if their lives are good, and they choose voluntarily to become good people, then they will be eligible for my heavenly rewards.”
“But what if they persist in badness? What then? Won’t He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named get them?”
“I will lose a few, it’s true. Some souls will not be saved. It will take humans a long time to see the rewards of a good life on earth. Many may pass below where HWM-NBN will rejoice. His armies will grow stronger and more confident.”
“Then this will not work,” the underling shrieked. “We may be invaded, overtaken, destroyed by the multitude of demons!”
“And you do not think I am more than a match for him and his kind? Remind me, why are you here, if your faith is this flimsy?”
The underling shuddered, peering up like a troubled homunculus. He was unsure which of the answers which sprang to mind would gain him more milk and honey.
“I think it’s a great plan,” he ventured. “Let’s see what happens.”

She loved singing in the shower. Under the tumbling spray she closed her eyes and concentrated on the sound echoing from the tiled walls.
“I-i-i-i know a place that’s safe and warm from the crowds – into your arms o-wo-oh into your arms I will GO-O-O.”
Suddenly she had one of those warm and personal moments when you feel at one with the world. She felt hugely powerful, omnipotent almost, as if she could solve any problem if she put her mind to it.
“I should install a web cam in here and broadcast to the nation,” she announced to the pot-plants and lounging cat. “I’ll say I am the woman they need – to solve the planet’s problems. If they would all renounce God and all that nonsense, I could show them how to have perfect happiness in the here-and-now.”
While she towelled herself dry, the thought lingered. Over coffee and a jammy croissant, she allowed herself the indulgence of imagining what might be. Before she could change her mind, she rang the computer engineer at MBiT Computers and asked if he would pop in and install a webcam. There was a small matter of the nudity involved, but it might work in her favour that folks would think they’d catch a glimpse of bare behind. It would be the ‘tease factor’ to hook ‘em in, and then they’d listen to what she had to say, and maybe soon fans would set up a website, there would be an open-air concert where bands and artistes would support her views, a small clique of followers might establish a school to study her comments, and books would come out yearly dedicated to the cause.

After her first live webcam, where she had to get to grips with the logistics of voice projection, avoiding ‘shower curtain crackle’ and atmospheric distortion from the bathroom environment, whilst simultaneously concentrating her views into catchy sound bites; she found she improved with each performance. It was sometimes a struggle keeping goose-pimpled flesh to the minimum - hits for the blog on Google dropped if the web filtering detected high ratios of pink skin and labelled her as Porn. The reality TV show broadcast from her front lawn was an initial shock, as was the honorary doctorate from the University of Colorado, presented by George Clooney, live by satellite from his villa on Lake Como. But as the weeks lengthened into months, she settled into a kind of routine. Up at 6am for a real shower, with the heater on and no make-up, then her breakfast radio slot broadcast from the kitchen, with authentic crunching and slurping. Her first webcam was around 11am, generally something ground-breaking – Women CAN read Maps was a good one, and the infamous Make Cake Not War, which had increased her following in the Middle East, United Korea, patisserie-orientated France and Japan particularly. Then afterwards she’d fit in some shopping – maybe opening a new QuickieMart if it meant she got an hour’s uninterrupted browse down the aisles, and she could plan the week’s meals – she was often cooking for dinner parties now at the weekend, for 12 or 13 friends. Afternoons were generally spent in preparation for the evening’s peak viewing webcam, having her hair crimped and skin airbrushed with fake tan, reading her notes and humming a lot. The humming helped to keep her ‘centred’. She’d tried a mantra but that smacked of religion which was a slippery downhill slope. After the performance, she relaxed with friends, ate good food, watered the garden, took select phone-calls and trawled the internet to catch up with the worldwide reaction.

When the summer peak hit, she found herself craving some privacy and time to think. She’d covered all the basics now – schools were content to preach her first ten podcasts as the New Commandments, followed by age-appropriate interpretations of the Saturday Night Specials in which she’d first dispensed with the Big Faker. They’d moved on to Cyn and Forgiveness (the one that became a car bumper sticker) and Singular Cake – A Way to Enlightenment (the World Health Organisation’s first recommended DVD; sales of which finally eradicated World Hunger.) Now she really needed to recharge her batteries before the Autumn Season Network programming meeting.

Atop a deserted mountain in Cantabria, she had her second Golden Glow moment. The air rushing up from the cooling valley below was heady with thyme, pine and rosemary. Not a human sound disturbed the silence, only the cawing of Bonelli Eagles now nesting on the southern face, and the muted bellows of herds of goats. It was a sensation like that of a spiritual revelation, but the thought that permeated her whole being was barely containable in words. It was more of an aroma of life. Something that hinted at a global cup of nectar for all humankind. She pondered the moment, all the while scratching at midge bites on her neck. To be honest, she’d had quite enough of this fame malarkey. Did the world really need her as spokesperson? Wasn’t that half the problem with the God business? Maybe this golden moment had to be experienced like a personal affirmation, and all the folk on the planet would feel it themselves once they were at one with the created environment? If so, she could drop out of the picture quite happily now. Her work was done.

On high, God examined her thoughts, and tskked.
“Think she’s gonna blow it,” he murmured. Several underlings looked up from their hair plaiting and ambrosia stirring. One ventured closer to His Right Hand and tugged His gown.
“Maybe you should intervene? Do a shiny light doo-dah, and give her some guidance?” He smiled a winning smile.
“This is all her doing. I cannot intervene now. If this works I will not have to intervene again. There will be harmony on the planet of humankind, such as never has been witnessed before. And only you and I will know I am responsible. The idea of God will vanish and I will have created the perfect world – self-sufficient souls that ascend voluntarily to heaven. Ahhh. I may even take a holiday to experience this beautiful dew-spangled world. But she must not give in to that most human of failings – the spoilt voice of free will. ”
The ascended soul nodded knowingly. “There’ve been no rumblings from below for sometime. Perhaps this plan is working and HWM-NBN has no army left with which to taunt us.”

At this judicious point, God spun round to glimpse a naked hairy demon extending his reach into heaven.
“Foul creature! What messenger is this!”
“Not so much an ‘email of evil’ – more of a one-line text, really. Master wishes to shake your hand. The souls of foulness passing his way have increased both in quantity and quality. He anticipates a showdown in the near future, when he has catalogued and welcomed the plethora of newcomers. Adios, O Whitewasher-of-Wills, O Pious Prig of Pompous…YELP.”

God brushed the remains of the creature from his foot. His face registered no displeasure; more a thoughtful rising of eyebrows, as if a solution had presented itself from an unexpected source. Nearby, the crowd of onlookers were dismissed, with an imperceptible flutter of his fingers.

Perhaps the problem was simply that she needed a holiday romance. She’d been single for too long, and had started to view life like a SIM game – wind up the characters and watch what happened. The people hanging on her every word never contradicted her, nor offered contrary thoughts nor demurred. That was surely not good for a person. Not that great guys simply dropped from the skies when you wished for them…
Having said that, the guy opposite her, picking tapas from his teeth, was what you would consider handsome. Table manners aside and assuming he had no idea who she was, perhaps she could strike up a conversation.
“Is the tapas generally good here?” she tried; gesturing to his empty plate.
“Not much of a line, but it will do,” he replied, dragging his chair over to her table, and seating himself disturbingly close for a first encounter. “The name’s Jeff. Jeff, er.. Conway. Yours?”

He was an artist, and a technophobe. With no computer, and often no electrical connection in his studio, he simply painted, ate, read and occasionally sang in the shower. She felt they had an aural connection, then. Cyn began to explain her disturbing rise to fame, which he dismissed with an imperceptible flutter of his fingers, and they found other topics more fruitful to discuss – sunsets, wine, food eaten with gusto, trails worth hiking. Her holiday became a longer sabbatical in which she found time to unwind, and get back to something like her normal self. He was an amiable guy to be around, uninterested in worldly glory but fascinated with the minutiae of life on earth. She put it down to his profession that he enjoyed studying the patterns of ostrich ferns in the forest, or the colours reflected in the early morning dew.

One morning, dismissing the insistent chirrup of her mobile phone, she stood on the wooden porch of his studio watching as he made clay models of a man and a woman entwined. He couldn’t have been happier if he was God himself creating the first couple. All it needed was to keep the Devil preoccupied with some interminable task, and the world would have reached some ultimate harmony.
Perhaps, she mused, the world needed a quantity of badness in it. While the Devil was busy with those irredeemable souls, the rest of us could enjoy smelling the roses. Switching off the mobile, she took a deep lungful of mountain air, and sighed contentedly.

The Politics of Posting

How much can you say on a personal blog, without leaving yourself open to unwarranted intrusion?

I've taken all the kids pictures from my Facebook site, and asked that the yearly school calendar not include their names, but does that protect them?

If I blog about issues and a potential employer/headhunter reads it, does it sway their opinion unjustly since it is really private (but foolishly in the public domain)?

There are so many social networking sites now, from those masquerading as Jobs Boards like LinkedIn to the niche-specific ones like Matador (Travel) or Last.fm (Music) plus the area-specific sites like YoPoCo or CostaBlancaConnect - and our lives are on display here like never before.

Where is it leading? Personal advertising boards outside our houses? We already have ad's on our cars, our T-shirts, our mobile phones and laptops and bombarding us from every website and publication. What's next? Personalized signs on gravestones with ad space to rent?

I fancy a rotating sign on mine that can be logged into as my descendants wish, to read my words of wisdom, left to flicker for posterity. And he would like fairy lights on his so that a visit to the grave site need not be gloom and doom for the kids after he's gone.

What do YOU want?

Uhhh?

Aren't kids pics the bizness?

High Speed

I don't have time to browse the internet, eat cake, put the washing out, put the washing in, shake it all about...since I am simultaneously writing Chapter 51 of the novel, re-writing the synopsis of the filmscript, sketching blog ideas for other peoples forum blogs, re-jigging articles for travel sites, and waiting on some other work to be emailed to me. I'm like a high-speed vehicle, skimming over the keyboard in gleaming chrome and metallic paint (fingernails).

But if it doesn't come in soon its gonna drop off my to-do-list as I've just discovered that the girls are off school this Thurs and Fri.

Hmm, this means I'd better break out the Barbies. Time for a terrace-top fashion contest, methinks. check back later for pics.

Forest Love - ooo get down to the forest today....

Links

orange gas bottles
coin-sized interior pain
pawprints on window
soaring strings
condensation under toast
small print
a noise like whispered moving feet
the corner of the wrapping paper caught in a drawer
someone elses letter
escapee washing
determination
longevity
doubt

No time to blog

The book is gathering pace. Coupla articles to write this week. No time to blog really but thoughts spring up involuntarily. Horrified to hear about developments in the UK - anti-teen 'mosquitos'in city centres, fines for non-school attendance or holidays taken out of term time, fines for incorrect placing or mixing of rubbish, schools promoting Nintendo's Brain Gym, anti-psychotic medication being given to children under 6, entrenched racism, the cost of freedom of speech being riots over China / the Olympic torch ... since I left the UK seven years ago, London in particular seems to be swerving down ever more dangerous spirals of panic.

My main beef with this is that the more we regulate, the less people take personal responsibility. The more rigid and didactic our governing bodies become, the less we interact personally or engage with their message. It becomes simply a format for resentment, breeds anti-social behaviour, turns people away from collaboration and consent.

The process of education for instance. Did you know that you are legally obliged to educate your child, but no law says this must be at a school? Increasingly education has become the responsibility of teachers and governing bodies, and parents are left out of the loop, when in fact their involvement is what makes the difference between a child who goes on to succeed (in relationships, in jobs, in personal development...)

We are failing our kids, neighbours, family and friends when we shut our doors to one another for fear of making a mistake, (cultural or otherwise) or to avoid being ridiculed by our teenagers, punished by our local governors, or fined for inappropriate behaviour by the State.

Oooo, and it's only Monday morning...

What do you wanna be?

I was at a party once, when I was asked what I would prefer to be, if I had the choice – rich, famous or beautiful. It is not such a daft question as it sounds. I often used to interview pampered rock stars, and their answers to this question were quite revealing, as it became clear that they lived a rarefied existence where such navel-gazing was commonplace. However, everyone present would feel able to venture an opinion, and clear differences emerged.
By far the biggest majority of people say Rich. In our material times, having enough in the bank to pay for daily needs, doesn’t amount to a feeling of satisfaction. We either want the outward signs and trappings of success; like fast cars, and homes in exotic locations, or we want enough to fulfill a personal dream that seems elusive without cash; whether that means owning a football club or a Fabergé egg. Some people see wealth as a way out of their otherwise dull existence, and imagine they would attract a better mate, or discover that it opens doors that previously seemed barred, although many say that being rich would simply take away the worry of providing for family.
After rich, people are divided more equally between famous and beautiful. Here the debate becomes heated, as arguments arise as to which of the three answers is ‘correct’. Some lateral thinkers amongst you will have worked out that all three are interlinked; after all, with riches you can pay for plastic surgery and may become infamous. With great beauty, may come media celebrity and wealth. Fame often comes with a pricetag, and can pay for the appearance of beauty. At this point it becomes obvious that no one answer is right, all are sides of the same coin.
The most memorable answer came from a bass player in a little known ‘indie’ band called Bark Psychosis. “Beautiful¬- like having a beautiful soul, yeah?” Faces changed as if to say “Wish I’d though of saying that!” Those who boldly stated Rich, then often wanted to justify why they wanted money, and give it a more altruistic sheen, like giving money to charity to redistribute world wealth, or pay for Grandma’s eye operation.
It seems that what we wish for is really linked to what we fear most. Our most potent dreams are to compensate for our human flaws. I wanted fame. Perhaps to avoid being that nondescript kid at school who was neither clever nor funny nor popular enough. And my adult fears are no longer about money or my looks. I have given up worrying about both; probably since I have been homeless and penniless at least once, and with a partner, three kids and a new crop of grey hairs I no longer worry about being left alone. (Some days, I positively crave being a solitary gin-sozzled old crone, with the freedom to act crazy in the supermarket queue.)
Of course, if my fame were linked to a world-class achievement like discovering a cure for cancer based on eating sugared almonds in bulk, I could justify craving notoriety. But, hey ho. I’ll settle for publishing the first Booker prize winning comedy sci-fi novel, I guess.

Age appropriate

Sometimes you have a birthday and feel that the age doesn’t suit you. Personally, I was okay up to about 40, but every digit after that seemed worrisome. I began to think those things your mother used to say – Can I still wear this? Is the bar brightly lit? Do you say ‘groovy’ anymore?

And ageing is clearly sexist. Women can’t do ‘rugged’. Less men feel compelled to base their job prospects on their looks, and subsequently get into plastic surgery as a form of career maintenance. The cliché of the boss running off with the young secretary clearly isn’t about her dictation skills.

The downhill slide is more noticeable if you had a perky frontage previously. I was astounded to discover recently that scientists believe breasts were impermanent pre-Pleistocene times; they inflated and deflated like summer lilo’s. In fact, men would have actually found them a turn-off since they signalled a woman was already impregnated. And, once they had served their purpose for baby’s nutrition, they would have dwindled away.

Imagine the horror! Not only crows feet (read: laughter lines) and chin hairs (read: erm, chin hairs) but disappearing boobs to signal that the prime of your life is over. So, maybe we should be grateful for evolution – for turning breasts into our life-long pals. After all, there isn’t much that a push-up bra and a pair of high heels can’t solve.

Ageing must work from top to bottom for a reason. Babies grow proportionately from their head downwards i.e. first the brain and nervous system develop, then the limbs elongate and strengthen, until the child can sit, then stand, then walk. Similarly, we age that way – face and hair show the first signs of deterioration, but we are left with lovely knees. Who among us hasn’t had that awful shock when admiring a shapely pair of legs only to be startled when an ancient toothless crone’s face is attached? No? Just me then.

Perhaps there is a clue in the way our relationships need to develop. As babies, our wide-eyed innocence is designed to appeal to the parents nurturing instinct, and ensure that we are looked after to grow into adulthood. As we age, find a life partner, and produce a family, there comes a time when attracting a mate is no longer useful. Our looks decline so that we can concentrate on more cerebral tasks without distraction. Luckily, our eyesight often fails too, so we have no idea how rough we look.

I have decided that if this is the game plan, there must be a way to see the positive in it.

As Jenny Joseph said:
“When I am old, I will wear purple,
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me....
...And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.”

Hoorah! Roll on my disreputable years to come.

When there isn’t time

You marshall thoughts like dominos, careful
to avoid one last tap. The page erupts in its blaring white
signal of the endless now. Knowing that

you should really set out to collect them from the school gates
or there will be tears. Put down the cup, the mouse, the pen
and drag on the non-slip boots, all too mundane for poetry

but woven into your day since the redundancy tossed
you back into the maelstrom of your four-square life.
It bites, that ankle-nip you tense for but can’t avoid.

How can there not be time, as if poems grow
like nine-month conceptions, after the futon excitement,
after the furore becomes the roar of daily traffic. Bald

bellies over combats disturb you in the plaza
the careless presence of a child only a skin’s wall away
from harm. There is no time, this time, to tell them.

Conjunctions over coffee, but I am removed from the room
floating with the smoke skeins, mere inches above
each separate insistent forehead. The world turns

on a pin; a dream of longing packed into a sci-fi movie
in that square inch in my periphery, above the coffee-cup rattle
and her face where time has passed while no-one noticed.

To make a difference. To be remembered. To be eternal
in the blush of youth, an echoing chain gang of family passes
through generations in the shape of a tea-stained birthmark.

The baby hiccoughs. She leans its head on her arm
like there is all the time in the world to worry about him,
but not now, when her own pulse races, and skips.

I take their bags. Coats. There will be time to write
after they have learned trigonometry, epidermal layers,
and the intricacies of conveying their hearts desires

to me, as though I could fulfill them. If only. The cats
yawn, removing themselves from their feline Ouroboros
to make space at the PC. I must read more Vonnegut.

Screwed Up

There is plenty wrong with the world. We don’t seem to be making inroads in fixing many of the problems, but we are fantastic at creating more.

I love films, stories, depiction of lives around the globe different to our own – ‘shapes of otherness’. But I am feeling despondent at how many of the brightest Hollywood actors die in their twenties. Drugs, pills, alcohol, guns, knives, cars. Heath Ledger, Brad Renfro, Kurt Cobain, River Phoenix, James Dean. Young white males taking on the psychosis of our age.

I worked with ‘at risk’ teens in London for a while. The same issues are there, just a bit less money to go around. Disconnected families, alcoholic parents, unemployed, glue-sniffing, self-harming kids. They can all watch TV and see this brighter world out there, where people have cars and homes and holidays, and they don’t get why they can’t have it. Don’t they deserve it? If they were prettier, thinner, cleverer, sneakier, maybe they could get out of the ghetto-ised suburbs, leapfrog their way to the States, or get a record deal, or a rich boyfriend.

And if they got there? To this dreamland of riches and fun and fame? How screwed up could they get there?

There’s no fun in studying every night, getting exams, going to uni’ while working in bars, studying more, applying for jobs, putting up with cheap clothes, a car loan, a student loan, a mortgage, studying more, getting a promotion, working late, putting work before family, squashing dreams, being practical. Is there?

I think I should set up a rehab unit in Spain, on our remote plot of land that’s truly miles from anywhere. A place to learn physical work, study the stars at night, read in the shade of the carob tree, forget TV and DVD and PSP. Actually it wouldn’t even be rehab – I don’t want to tell other people how to kick their habit or sort out their relationships. But when I was a teen and stuck inside my own head I had different options...

I spent a week at my nan’s once. Left London, got on a train with my cat in a travelbasket, turned up on her doorstep and was welcomed. She didn’t ask why. She said ‘Do you want fish and chips tonight? Would you be a love and walk down the hill to get it for us? Take the dog with you.’

I slept on a horrible Z-bed, in a room with paisley wallpaper and flowered curtains. I walked around the hills and didn’t meet another soul. I listened to my Walkman under a big oak tree. I wrote some stuff – all angst-ridden nonsense, but it removed it from my train of thought and cleared my head. After a while I went back to my bedsit in London, and cleaned the kitchen. Even though it wasn’t my turn.