A touch of the Van Gough's...

Today I offer you a picture of a sunflower. The one and only sunflower that came to fruition in my garden this year despite me planting a packet of seeds which, I am reliably informed, contained 25 seeds on average.

I sometimes wonder what it is that makes the difference between a strong plant and a weaker one, particularly when both have been grown in much the same conditions. Could it be that one plant was positioned within range of just a fraction more sunshine, or grew in that inch or two of soil made fertile by a rich vein of something or other? Might it be that one of the plants was attractive to slugs whilst, for some reason best known to the slugs, they abhorred the other? Was one seed bursting with life and ambition whilst the other was too fainthearted and awkward to push it’s way towards the sun?

It seems to me that flowers are like people. Some thrive and get on, become famous, rich, happy and successful as they push their way towards the sun. Others, sometimes from the same family, wilt and fade without really blooming.

It’s hard to know what makes the difference, it’s just another of life’s mysteries I guess.

Anyway, I’m glad this one made it. It’s beautiful.

Positively negative...

Regardless of how it might appear, these days I tend to be a positive type of person. Things around me have changed and, although it’s scary at times, I quite like being independent – not that I have any choice. It gives me a freedom to pick and choose, and most of the time I choose only to do things I feel optimistic about - thus reducing the risk of not succeeding.

Now, don’t misunderstand. I’m no blind fool thinking that ‘anything’ can be achieved if only you try and want it hard enough. I’ve met plenty of those guys and they really are full of shit – worse still they usually know it. They are pretending that things will go well when they absolutely know that they aren’t going to. Sometimes I used to wonder what it was that drove them – arrogance, stupidity, fear, a need to be loved?

These are the same guys that take good things and break them; the mealy-mouthers who (despite history proving otherwise) think that they will make it work because, this time around, it’s them making it happen and not those incompetents that went before.

I call them the Emperor’s New Clothes people, and of course I’m one of the incompetents.

Oh well, I guess that I must come across as a pessimist to them at times. But the way I see it there’s quite a lot of innocence-lost in pessimism and I’ve always enjoyed naivety and cultivated it where I can. Not in fools though; I can’t suffer fools I’m afraid.

I think of myself as a realistic optimist, always cautiously positive. If you listen hard to what I’m saying you’ll hear that I’m full of silver linings, taking lemons and making lemonade in a glass that’s half-full and not half-empty. You’ll find that I agree that “positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will”; and that “few things in the world are more powerful than a positive push”.  

Yes, “positive anything is better than negative nothing”. But let’s be clear… I’m no happy-clappy, slack-mouthed, ra-ra fool, going down the road to nowhere to somewhere that’s really bad. I keep a can-do attitude only when I believe it can be done, not when it can’t and I say so.

I try to tell it like it is, not like I’d like it to be.

Here’s the truth: some things simply aren’t going to work no matter how positive you are about it, some things are simply not going to happen or shine no matter how much you polish that turd.

We seem to live in a world where YOU MUST BE POSITIVE AT ALL TIMES ABOUT EVERYTHING or take the consequences. I’ve seen plenty of yay-saying, hand-shaking, empty-headed, can-do idiots over the years, far too many to mention by name (SC), and most of them were well-thought-of idiots who won awards for doing things that didn’t work but were hyped as if they did.

I’ve never been the sort of chap who worked just enough to keep that job, saying, “I’ll do more when they pay me more.” I’ve always worked really hard; did more than what I got paid to do – and over the years it’s paid off. Along the way though, maybe because I spoke up and didn’t simply smile, I picked up a reputation for being negative.

At the end of the day, it’s really easy to trot out those wonderfully written quotes, to appear to live them and in doing so stop being objective and realistic. Remember, if the Emperor isn’t wearing any clothes then he really is naked – no matter how much you claim to love his new suit.

Pimping the snails…

Yes, those snails again. This time though - as an experiment - I decided to embellish them a little using a permanent maker pen so that they could be easily recognised if they slimed their way back into my garden. They didn’t seem to mind being made-over into small works-of-doodle-art and I did keep them monochromic so that they didn’t draw the attention of the birds. Actually I had no choice as I could only find a black Staedler and I was in a bit of a rush, so bird risk consideration wasn’t really a factor. Besides, bird hazard is all part of the rich tapestry that is the life of a snail; that and getting pimped by a middle-aged loony doodler of course.

Now, it isn’t easy drawing on a snail. Firstly, the shell is pretty shiny and the pen tends to slip. Secondly, there isn’t much of an ‘image area’ (as we call it in the trade) so all I managed on this first attempt was some dots, squiggles and lines. Thirdly, snail shells must be treated with some natural form of anti-vandalism paint as even my permanent, waterproof, Lumocolour F struggled to make a mark. Lastly, they keep sliming up - which is a bit euch! Well, it’s what snails do isn’t it.

Anyway, I’ve been keeping my eye out for them (well not literally obviously) but so far I haven’t seen any sign. Perhaps they are moving too fast for me or maybe my pimping isn’t obvious enough to be seen in the undergrowth. Hmmm…I might take a shot at making some more colourful ones to make them more easily visible - bird risk or not.

Yes, I know… I really do know.

Frank's funeral...

Yesterday I went to Scarborough for the day, not for a donkey ride or fish and chips (although both make an appearance), instead I made the pilgrimage to attend an old friend’s funeral. My first time back in Scarborough since my final day in my old job; it all seems so long ago now. In many ways it was a trip back in time, a trip back to a different version of me; one that’s not around any more.

I don’t hate funerals like so many people seem to. They’re just a necessary part of having been alive, an inevitable end; maybe that’s why they call it a passing. I don’t like them though, and whenever I can I try hard to avoid them. I have a long list of excuses to get me out of attending – ‘I’m in an important meeting’, ‘I’m out of the country’, ‘I’m on a training course’. These days though, none of them really apply, and in Frank’s case I wouldn’t want them to anyway.

I shared a car with two old colleagues, both friends, and as we drove along the M60 I wondered who we were these days – were we Athos, Porthos, and Aramis… or Moe, Larry and Curly… how about Huey, Dewey and Louis? Maybe not; in our dark suits and ties were more like Pavarotti, Domingo and Carreras. Well, I’m almost the size of Pavarotti although I guess I’m more stooge than musketeer these days. Anyway, with the weather and all, maybe we were better off being ducks than tenors.

Scarborough in the drizzle, and as we drove past the buildings where we used to work it wasn’t quite the same. One was empty; the other owned by strangers despite the logo. At a glance, and as we drove past, it seemed that nothing had changed - at a glance, and as we drove past, it seemed that everything had changed. I almost expected to park up, step out of the car, and walk into yet another meeting (three page presentation and all) - only there aren’t any meetings for me any more.

Short of time, we drove through the town and up the hill to Scarborough Crematorium and a thousand memories. So many faces that I’d spent half a life time getting to know; glimpsing them across a black suited room with sombre nods here, a hand gesture there. So much in common with these people, so much less in common these days. No projects, no pipeline, no pagination coats, no white knock out, no Eric, no Clipper, no Freehand 5.5… just a smiling Frank watching us all from his easel; Frank, the reason that we were all there together again.

Death’s a great leveller. All rank and position wiped away, just a group of people gathered on a wet Friday afternoon to say goodbye to a friend.

Back at the cricket club how easily I slipped into the old skin, and for a moment I was almost that other version of me for an hour or two. So this was where Frank came on a Sunday afternoon for a pint. My Sunday afternoon memories of Frank were of the Valley Forge Hilton bar, drinking beer and exchanging tall tales.

We exchanged Frank tales as we drank this beer, no tall ones, there wasn’t any need. Tales about Frank were tall enough without embellishment: “Frank broke the mould”, “Frank loved black shirts so much that he bought three”, “Frank loved to sing.”, “Frank liked a pint”, “Frank loved his family”, “Frank was always talking about ‘our lass”, “Frank loved his cricket”.

Tall tales in the truest  of ways... I didn’t know about the cricket. 

Frank, what a beautiful muddle you were.

An escargatoire of snails...

It rained in the night, not a torrential rain but that steady fine wetness that you sometimes get on warm early autumn evenings. When I got up this morning I noticed that, out in the backyard, the snails had come out to play… a lot of snails. Picking up an empty flower pot I started to collect them – first one, then two, then three, sometimes two or three together, once six in the same planter. They were everywhere; up in the ivy, down in the geraniums, crawling all over the nasturtiums - the rain and warmth had brought out a veritable escargatoire of snails.

Within about half an hour I must have picked up a hundred or so and that didn’t include the ones that I unavoidably stepped on as I gathered my collection of terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs.

Now, I quite like snails. As a boy I used to collect them and keep them in a jar, but these days I see them more as a nuisance than anything else; they eat the plants and leave slimy trails everywhere. But looking at them this morning in bulk, I noticed once again just how beautiful in shape and colour they are. If it wasn’t for those slimy trails and their plant munching tendency I think that they’d make great house pets; they aren’t noisy, can’t run away, will happily eat vegetable leftovers and are calming to watch. Yes, I quite fancy a house snail or two.

My intention had been to put some slug pellets in with the snails, cover it with a slate, and leave them to slowly expire, but as I watched them casually climbing all over themselves I realised that I couldn’t do it. They were too beautiful to mass murder. Instead I took my flower pot down the road and released my snail circus into the grounds of the local Presbyterian Church. Oh, I know that they’ll be back but I can always collect them and move them on again.

My tattoo...

My head is full of slow boats to china, inscrutable mandarins, biplanes landing at night in the fog just missing the tops of the swaying palm trees  – it’s like an old black and white movie playing in my mind, a world of far flung smoky fan-cooled bars, long midnight trains, beautiful gals and rum drinking sailors ashore for a darned good time. Lighthouses, mermaids, swallows, Chinese junks, monkeys, the Sargasso Sea, octopuses, oriental dragons, desert islands, anchors away - well, a boy can dream can’t he?

I hadn’t heard of Sailor Jerry until a customer of mine brought in four of his tattoos and asked me to paint them on four spirits tumblers. Well, one thing led to another and, with the sniff of a blog post in the air, I researched his work and was immediately smitten. I don’t have a tat, but if I do stop ever umming and arring I’d probably pick a Sailor Jerry. Which one, I’m not sure, maybe an ‘Aloha Monkey’ or a ‘Sailor Beware’ - something striking, there’s plenty to choose from.

Norman ‘Sailor Jerry’ Collins, to give him his full name, revolutionised tattooing and became the first western tattooist to be recognised as an artistic genius. At the tender age of 19, Sailor Jerry enlisted in the US Navy and travelled the world. It was during these salty voyages that he began to notice the art and imagery of Southeast Asia, using it as inspiration for his spicy tattoos. Blending the rough and ready swagger of the American sailor with the mysticism of the Far East he invented a new form of tattoo - a jokey, slightly risqué blend of eroticism and humour with just a touch of death.

He was born on January 14, 1911 in Reno but grew up in Northern California. As a child he ran away from home, hopping freight trains across the country and learned tattooing from a man named ‘Big Mike’ in Alaska. Originally he used the hand-pricking method, later in the ‘20s he teamed up with Tatts Thomas from Chicago who taught him how to use a tattoo machine, practicing on drunks dragged in off skid row.

Sailor Jerry’s first studio was in Honolulu’s Chinatown and his work was so widely copied that he had to print “The Original Sailor Jerry” on his business cards. “There’s a guy up in Canada that goes by the same name, but don’t be fooled – although he’s good in his own right, he ain’t the original Sailor Jerry.” He remained a sailor his entire life and, even during his career as a tattoo artist, he worked as the licensed skipper of a large three-masted schooner. Along with arranging sailing tours of the Hawaiian Islands he played saxophone in his own dance band and hosted his own show on US radio station KTRG.

Simple lines, strong colours, dramatic shading; there’s something of Max Fleischer and Harmon-Ising’s cartoons about his work – Betty Boop and Popeye meet Zen with a good dose of burlesque thrown in for good measure. He was prolific and his tattoos – more illustration than design – remain some of the best (many - including me - would say the best) of the tattooist’s art. From his 20s to his late 50s he stopped tattooing due to a disagreement with the IRS and unbelievably Sailor Jerry only tattooed for about 12 years. He died in 1973 aged 62 and has a 92% rum named after him.

Guys and dames, I give you Sailor Jerry - he must have been one hell of a guy. Cheers!

Norristown PA, a scary tale...

How well I remember Norristown from my time in America. Norristown was just along the way from King of Prussia and the first time I drove through it I was frightened by its stillness and the emptiness of the place. I don’t just mean the lack of people; it was empty like a cupboard drawer that contains nothing but dust and maybe, just maybe, one large spider hiding right at the back.  

Norristown seemed to me to be just a little to the left of the twilight zone, the kind of place that Stephen King might write about. Empty rocking chairs on empty porches on empty streets, screened doors that looked as if something not quite human might slip through them out onto the street and disappear down the storm drain, and dirty windows with dirty curtains hiding even dirtier secrets.

In short, Norristown struck me as not quite wholesome and I was always happier once I’d passed through it.

Of course, the impressions of a stranger in a strange place are often wrong. But read the article below, it’s a report about a Norristown woman who was hospitalised after being badly mauled by a rabid skunk. Not only did the skunk calmly walk over to the woman - no doubt tipping his hat before beginning to devour her - but it seems that his friend the fox was involved and created a diversion. The Norristown police, whose best advice seems to be don’t trust the birds and squirrels, seem wholly disinterested in the attack (scared maybe) and the town skunk expert talks about a condition that is quite like rabies but isn’t…just what is it then? Then there’s that mysterious bite form. Do Norristown folk suffer so many bites that the town needs a form to record them? 

All very unsettling, disconcerting even.

If I were Stephen King I might think that something was out of sync in Norristown. If I were he I might think that some dark force was at large, a force that could make Norristown an even more unpleasant place to live…

Article from the Norristown Patch - 

"An elderly woman was taken to the hospital Sept. 19 after being bitten several times by a skunk that is suspected of having rabies, say authorities.

Soon after Norristown police heard a dispatch call about a fox on 1600 the block of New Hope Street in Norristown in the late afternoon of Sept. 19, they heard a more serious call—this one about an animal biting someone on the same block, say police.

Norristown police arrived at New Hope Street and spoke with a woman who had called in a complaint, according to a police report. The woman told police that she had seen a skunk in her yard earlier but was more worried about a fox that she said she had seen near her patio, say police. The woman was told that if she stops feeding the birds and squirrels, then the fox should stop coming around, according to the report. 

During that time, the county dispatch reported that a 90-year-old woman who had been in the same block of New Hope Street had been taken to a hospital by Plymouth EMS after she received several skunk bites, say police. 

Norristown police spoke with the woman’s son, who said that his mother had been in her yard when a skunk walked over to her, and attacked her, according to the report. The skunk had bitten one of the woman’s hands to the point that one of the woman’s fingertips had almost been bitten off, say police. The skunk also bit the toes and heels of the woman’s right foot, say police.

The hospital staff filled out a bite form that was to be given to the Montgomery County Health Department, according to the report.

The story reached Chris Heil, a Pennsylvania Game Commission wildlife conservation officer in the county.

“Every year we have numerous animal-human conflicts,” said Heil to Patch.com. “Sometimes these animals do have rabies, and sometimes they have conditions that are like rabies.” 

Heil cautions people to stay away from wildlife.”

Yes, stay away from the wildlife in Norristown, don’t feed the birds and if you see a fox smoking a pipe on a porch swing don’t approach him… run like hell!