ART OF EUROPE

it's all just telly to me and i happen to think this rioting and looting lark is jolly good telly (ok, not as good as 9/11 or italy beating the germans in 06 but way better than the usual guff they put on) - there's cop cars in flames and buildings on fire (these things, like horseracing for instance) look better on the tv, no? ah but i coo and coo with the shiver and tingle of breaking glass, the smash and tinkle and scrunch, oooh, a 42" plasma, i'm having one of those (oh the joy, the fun of an unbounded adolescence) - they should have riots on the telly every night!

obviously, it could have been better... politicians hanging from lampposts for instance, buckingham palace in gorgeously lambent flame, the houses of parliament ablaze and blitzing the sky with fireworks (mutilated corpses of banksters, lawyers and global warmers drifting eerily out to sea on a blood-reddened thames, the reservoir dogs crew at the gates of downing street, anders behring breivik doing a re-run on the playing fields of eton...)

but here's the rub, the script in my head doesn't make it to screen... why, why, why? i think i blame the higgs field... what else could it be? see (those bozos at cern looking for bosons really haven't got a clue) the higgs field isn't made of bosons at all, that's just stuff, but instead, it's made of scripts... the higgs field is one giant script, the higgs field (hush there) is the universal narrative (i could go on... virtual particles, virtual scripts, narrative gravitons and narrative strings, abracadabra and holy moses and spin on this mister policeman, it's got an integer of six)

there should be a riots-only tv channel, i'd subscribe to that (well, i'd try a free trial) - but alas, and alas again

and this the time then (holding on, holding back) this the ticking heart, humdrum beating (and fade to black)

and bert jansch is still alive! jesus christ, i thought he was old when i was a boy (turns out he's only 68) - i dunno what's going on (is it really 15 years since that summer of wonderwall being on the radio all the time?) - was yesterday yesterday? i digress

it's them anti-particles been bothering me... and those m-branes and how it all goes shebang and it's a loaf of bread suddenly (and where's my parallel universe where i get to fuck japanese birds in short whooshy skirts and my numbers come up on the lottery? hey? mister science man?) - and just aside, where's the free electric future you promised? and never mind the jet-pack

and now he's trying to tell me that everything in the universe, that everything in the known universe and possibly beyond, including me and you, is made out of these sparkly squiggles, squiggles with parkinsons disease (i think i've had enough, i need some medication, i need to lie down) and guess what, he says, when you look really close at these squiggles, they turn into holograms, how cool is that?

time to sleep, goodbye goodbye, then laters, up for a piss, that larkin poem, those pinpoints of stars, faraway, now made out of nothing but squiggles, squiggles with parkinsons disease - it's a fucking miracle alright!

i put the light on, and with shaking hand, pick up a pen... (i must tell the world, i made that up, dunno why)

a knock at the door, the man from upstairs... fuck off you cunt, i've got a bazooka, you're not coming in

a cop in a wet suit on the doorstep... it's really kind of scary (plus, there's probably a swat team in dry clothes on the stairs) - you may well laugh, but let me tell you, i live in terror

and i go, squiggle squiggle in the mirror, squiggle squiggle on the wall, squiggle squiggle to a quantum threshold and squiggle squiggle in my balls (squeak squeak, like the spool in krapp's last tape)

yeah right, whatever (when whoosh of a sudden, and by the spoon-ful, a squiggle of a string of narrative, lights up the sky, like a shooting star!) - out yonder beyond yonder on a mandelbrot set (come men, we must put on our explorer's outfits and venture forth, beyond the thresholds, beyond the singularities, beyond the infinite loops)

the for instance... in a darkened room, a black and white tv set is on, the steptoe and son theme tune is playing, by coalfire light (yeah yeah, i remember) - then down some plughole, or in the plural, plugholes abounding, somewhere, somewheres, no one knows

(this one thing i know, women's tits in satin or silk, that man's hands know heaven)

you say what? i said i can't hear you, then gone, just like that, most peculiar, an echo somewhere maybe, a reverberation of sorts, possibly, but probably, nothing, nothing endures

well there's a happy tale, and so the story goes, squiggle de gee, squiggle de gee (doing that entropy hula) it's what happens every time... i spin to the left and i spin to the right, i spin straight ahead and whirr to absurdity (finnegan farting... quark, stop squark, squiggle, squiggle) - what, there's a law? against spending the day in pyjamas? unless ive got some medical authorization from a medical board? jesus christ, i'm done for! the cop at the door is going to taser me for wearing pyjamas in the afternoon! no doubt the swat team will be through the door next, and seeing me dressed in stetson hat and lady slippers, start beating with their batons

oh well
squiggle squiggle
kisses squiggle

love you say? (ah) i tried to take her jeans off on a hillside one summer, but she wouldn't let me (and there was another, who'd fuck like a rabbit behind the bushes when no one was looking, what a joy!) and that was that

today i am self-astounding, gushing with genius (the nurse had a name for it, but i forget what she said) - i had a spitfire parked on the lawn when i was ten (honest i did) and get this, my father was Douglas Fairbanks Junior! (i am, as a ten year old boy informs me, Awesome!)

now then, miss marple on the telly (as in, how to dress for television, continued) - is it enough to be just 'suited & booted & collared & tied' for miss marple as one email correspondent makes claim? is cavalry twill trousers, brown brogues and a fair isle sleeveless pullover an acceptable ensemble? (i think the fair isle ill advised, and the whole ensemble a little confused) - what then if a man were to lay on a chaise longue, languidly, just so, in a japanese silk gown and sandals? (you fancy that for poirot? really? i prefer to dress, myself, for poirot in a city suit and bowler hat, pretending i'm rene magritte - it works a treat, but i digress)

later... jesus christ, what a mess! (i decided to watch miss marple in underpants and slippers, i was feeling like a rebel) when lo, not five minutes in, there's a morris traveller on the screen, and my tinkle starts to twitch... it twitches and wriggles and wiggles and sweet baby jesus, sweet mother of god, there's a woman in pearls on the telly and it's all too much, my testicles start to explode! metaphorically that is! but the goo in my pants is real! what a mess! i switch the tv off (i'm feeling relieved i wasn't using my hand to assist as that would have been blatant masturbation, and masturbating to miss marple is quite probably a crime)

maybe i need to watch miss marple in a wetsuit? maybe the cop upstairs watches miss marple in his wetsuit?

i change my underpants, i change channels (and is it a spitfire pilot's outfit for foyle's war? with pipe and tattered armchair and a phone to the side in case there's a call and you have to dash for it quick to fend off jerry?) - and what for lewis? what for morse?

it's pissing with rain, it's blowing a gale (i'm outside a london railway station) and the handles of my tesco carrier bag have just bust and i have to grab hold of my hat with the same hand because of the aforementioned gale, and i'm dragging a case on wheels with the other hand, and i'm irate already, i'm knackered already, i've had enough, i'm out of breath... can i can get in this taxi here please? i try the door, it's shut (the driver waves me away, as if to advise, that i should walk another 100 yards or so to the front of the queue of taxis, in the wild wind and the stupid rain, struggling with a broken carrier bag and a clutched hat and a case in tow to boot, whilst out of breath, knackered, and old...

oh fuck off i said (a little loudly, as it happens) - you fuck off, he replied (a little louder than me, as it happens)

for fuck sake i muttered to self, jesus christ (i'd already turned and put my head down, not wanting to catch his eye or anything, i'm not looking for a fight, at my age, and walked, with the gait of a struggling man in diagonal rainfall, haphazardly, on... past other taxis (with their smug-faced, their sour-faced twat-faced drivers in their cosy interiors, in their little sheds of windless rainless shelter) for maybe another 30 or 40 yards or so when a gap appeared in the queue, and thinking someone would take pity, i tried again... and it was the same story again

oh fuck off i said again (a little louder than before possibly) and... you fuck off came back another driver's reply

there were people passing me by on the pavement - so this was it i thought, i was an old man now, out in the wind and the rain, lear-like, alone, battling the universe, circumstance, with his hat to his chest, swearing out loud on a london street, as passers-by, passed and tutted by, almost inaudibly

fuck that, let's away to scene two, quick i say... outside, exterior of a railway station, a sunny day... our hero, male, aged 20ish, emerges from the station and approaches the same taxi as per scene one, takes out a gun, a beretta possibly, and shoots the taxi driver, dead... the scene continues with our hero going along the queue of taxis, killing each one in turn, clinically... music, the missa luba sanctus... and upon killing the last taxi driver, he stops a passing motorbike, steals it, and rides off, without a helmet, a girl hopping on the back

and scene three is unwritten

and i'm sitting with a 10 year old, playing a ps3 - i'm getting killed a lot, i haven't got a clue - what i need is a game called Black Cab Jihad, then i'll figure how these buttons work

and it's quick before you die and it's quick before the end, quick before this thing turns sour, but hour upon hour upon hour... (and he ran to the front, he ran to the back, he ran around the street with strategies of attack)

but just around the final corner, just there, he slipped and fell

i over pronto to shoot him in the head, thinking, that'll teach him - what can you do? what i did was run...

i ran to the bottom of the garden, i had a shed (i had a secret key and a change of clothes, a typewriter and a winning disguise) - and it was forward, ho, and westward, ho... and worstward, ho, let battle commence

scene 3, interior, a tv screen, a video game playing with video game noises and judges in wigs being blown to bits, cops getting it in the balls, teachers getting garrotted... (we pan back to see an old man and a boy, consols at the go, in a happy scene)

scene four and we step out the door, scene five and we're back inside (we're coming alive) scene six and we're back to the tv screen and the screen goes black, then some white words appear on the screen, lingering, here, like this... this is not a pipe - the old man and the boy look at each other

scene seven and it's wuh, we're away to heaven, having a laugh (is laughing allowed in heaven?) - i said to jesus, i said, knock knock... (he just looks at me, i said, fuck this for the good life, i'm off)

scene eight, exterior, countryside, a sunny day in high summer... a teenager, a youth, 16ish, still a boy really, a virgin probably, in a poppyfield... and there's a girl with him (and they're doing all those new love, first love, young love things that young loves do)

i feel embarrassed, i look away