Lost in a Wide Open Field
John Kerridge
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Summer Holidaze
May 14, 2019 By John Kerridge in Man In Labour, Therapeutic mutterings, Thoughts Tags: Brexit, EU, HELP!, Thoughts, UK, UK politics	Leave a comment
Stanely stands upright at the edge of the curb with his wife Doris besides him. A driverless bus hurtles down the hill, inches from where he and his beloved stand. Passengers arguing and fighting, fellow onlookers from the village look on angst.
Sitting immediately behind the vacant driver's seat fingers in ears sits Theresa oblivious to the chaos around her. Jeremy sits immediately opposite hands over eyes, peeping through a narrow gap of his fingers to the vacant driver's chair muttering a mantra of solidarity and hope to himself. Behind them, stands Nigel pointing his long, twisted accusing finger at the last passengers to get on the bus, "sabotage" he shouts.
A small group of irate passengers spit obscenities at the rest of the passengers and occasionally at each other. As the bus jumps headlong over traffic calming bumps Ariaf loses grip of this Mcdonald's vanilla shake, which doses Tommy who burst into tears and places his pet snail Bernard back in its dark cardboard box. "How am I going to explain this to mum?" He sobs as he looks down on his new and ruined school uniform, but he already knows who to blame.
Vince jumps up and down seeking attention, after being sent to the back of the bus for helping David, the driver, escape through the emergency exit. Meanwhile, a small group of ideological puritans from left and right of the "spectrum" exchange admiration for the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.
Caroline sits patiently by herself, knitting a jumper, waiting. On seeing the large brick wall coming at them with growing speed Chuka, Anna and Heidi form a circle with a handful of other devotees to sing hymns from the old book.
Meanwhile, Nicola demands a show of hands for those interested in joining her on the roof. Ariene screams "no surrender" at the wall.
The vast majority of the nation sits at home listening to BBC Radio 1 playing Cliff Richards singing summer holiday on an endless loop. Young people look at each other in despair.
Stanley turns to Doris with loving eyes, "ah Doris, Brexit, means Brexit." Doris takes a lick of her ice cream, turns to the button on the pelican crossing, the rapid beeping, cars come to a halt and hands in hand they stroll aimlessly across the road to the bus station.
End Games
January 20, 2019 By John Kerridge in Therapeutic mutterings, Thoughts Tags: debate, Social media, Therapeutic mutterings, Thoughts	Leave a comment
Realisation can be slow and often it comes surprisingly wrapped neatly, with a bow, in a large package of commonsense. Mine was delivered towards the end of 2018 when I took the conscious decision to disengage from groups on social media platforms, namely on, Facebook, initially set up by people to encourage 'free-speech' dialogue between those with differing views and opinions. This weekend I re-engaged.
The calmness, which I had got to know over the past few months had vanished into the mist. Within hours I had been caught up in "arguments" of intolerable attitudes. One such platform on Facebook was nothing more than an echo chamber of sad, angry, dull and yes mostly white men hurling abuse at one another through manufactured meme's. Those photos, generally of a famous person with imposed comments to ridicule. It was nothing more than finding yourself in the middle of a room with children throwing custard pies at one another. I guess this is what has become of the UK.
We no longer talk and more importantly listen to one another. We seem to shout, ridicule or seek to physically harm each another. A nation divided, at each other's throats, a union on the brink of falling apart. An identity being fought over by extremes while the majority have turned their backs ashamed and embarrassed as the rest of the world looks on bewildered. On Saturday, I disengaged completely from these platforms of 'free-speech' and said hello to a complete stranger when out walking with my dog.
Thackray's Oddity
September 10, 2017 By John Kerridge in The Sound of Music, Therapeutic mutterings, Thoughts Tags: Childhood memories, Jake Thackray, music, Thoughts	1 Comment
In a decade peppered with cultural and economic change, the 1970s certainly churned out a vast array of musical genres. While TV sitcoms reflected the mundane of life there was also documentaries that sought out injustice and the mysteries of the world, (John Pillinger, The World in Action, Whicker's World). In this national psyche emerged the oddity of Jake Thackray's Yorkshire baritones penetrating the fray of well tuned southern accents, which still dominated broadcasting. My first memory of Thackray was as a young child during a magazine TV programme called That's Life, a machine gun etiquette of consumer protection, light entertainment, performing dogs, funny shaped vegetables sitting alongside hard-hitting investigations into wrong doing. Thackray was brought up in a working-class family and enjoyed the pleasures of pale ale, rugby and pipe-smoking. After moving to Lille in France, where he taught English, Thackray became an unlikely disciple of French artists like Georges Brassen and Jacques Brel.
A poet songwriter and solitary singer Thackray's songs were pitted with humour, satire, and social observations of everyday life. A person who shied away from the limelight, referring to himself in the 1970s, "I turned into a performing dick" after his popularity propelled him to regular TV appearances Thackery withdrew to smaller venues and pubs where he felt a connection with his audience. Aspects of this work have dated, but his importance is often overlooked, and while some lyrics may not find favour, it can be sluggish to cast off artistically given his observations are so humorously ludicrous, and light years away from them misogynism we witness in today's music scene. It would be like trying to sensor Tom and Jerry cartoons for modern video game violence.
In his later years, Thackray was beset by health and financial problems: he had become an alcoholic and was declared bankrupt in 2000. He died of heart failure 24th December 2002. To a young child, he was an oddity. He stood out because there was no reference point to place him but he remains to this day one of those artists who is captured in glimpsed childhood memories of my parents chuckling along to the double meaning of this lyrics.
On days like these
June 8, 2017 By John Kerridge in Man In Labour, Therapeutic mutterings Tags: mutterings, Politicial, politics, Thoughts, UK Election	Leave a comment
5 am, and God only knows why I'm laid here flicking through social media updates, snapshots of opinions, life, and wisdom projected through an assortment of embarrassing photographs of politicians, historical figures, celebrities, cats, dogs or cartoon characters. You think you know somebody until that awkward post pops up, a regurgitation from a reactionary nutter who has managed to hijack sweet moderation by sensationalising, simplifying complex tragedies and to invade the common sense I associated with the person in question. It's nothing more than fast food convenience politics, shipped in and shipped out messages tailored to primal emotions. Before digestion of one message concerning welfare scroungers…..bing….another appears about jolly foreigners, the terrorist next door; stop our culture from being diluted. How did that person, I thought I knew, end up re-posting this nonsense?
In truth, I guess there is no simple answer, disempowerment, laziness to think, willingness to participate, misguided. I'm not sure; maybe these rent-a-slogans are desperate measures to scramble together a meaning, a notion of pride, loyalty or even identity in a world where borders are falling in a virtual world to access cheap food and goods, but increasingly pursued in a physical sense. Seeking protection like a boxer caught against the ropes, awaiting the knockout punch. The best, I feel, you can do on Election Day is remember your roots, the struggles of your parents to give you a better life. That one day you will be that older person reliant on care and support and if your family fail to step up, who will? It's also about your integrity, values, and intelligence. A whole host of pound shop economists will tell you there is no alternative because, well you've guessed it, ultimately the prospect of change may disturb their status, wealth or power. Protection of the status quo is their priority, albeit they will tolerate a few crumbs to offset and polish over the harder edges. No matter how we may seek it, there is never any easy way to deal with complex problems. Compassion may not seem in fashion, but without it, we turn inwards, into a spiral of darkness, blaming those less fortunate.
Whatever the outcome of the Election in the UK I take heart that more young people seem to be increasingly engaged, given I trust their judgment far more than my generation and it genuinely feels that a generational change is starting to take place. In the meantime, my only hope is that my generation does not cause irrevocable damage to our eco-system and social welfare infrastructure. My history, values, and integrity lead to the Labour Party, but I cannot help but reflect that on days like these we are all seeking strong and stable leadership, which is for the many, not the few and to change Britains future for the good.
Sell Yourself
November 24, 2016 By John Kerridge in Therapeutic mutterings, Thoughts Tags: sell yourself, Thoughts	Leave a comment
Each year, Ofcom the UK's telecom watchdog publish a report on the state of the international communications market. The report includes data from countries including the US, UK, France, Germany, and Japan. In the latest edition, it says that 39% of Americans agree or strongly agree with the statement "I am happy to provide personal information online to companies as long as I get what I want" the highest of the nine countries sampled. While 70% of respondents either agreed or were indifferent to the commercial use of their personal information in return for free services.
The Handsel Sisters
Jonny Greenwood - Glastonbury 2014
Quantic All Stars with Alice Russell, West Holts Stage, Glastonbury Festival 2016
Sniffing and Spoofing
Circus, written by Tom Waits and narrated by Ken Nordine
Amavel Vitorino
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Blue Mist and the Tree
One of those pictures you come across begging for a caption, but I'll just leave it here and go for a walk.
A Little Less Ordinary
Beautifully Odd
Home Made Noise