Mythogeography: A Guide to Walking Sideways

The Mythograpedes

Strolling in the cracks of the pavement
Honouring the city’s weeds
Or walking on unlit shores
The mythograpedes

moving unseen,
eyes like split fruit
every year at the height of summer
The Crab Man walks on blistered feet

GPS, a rightly-worshipped Orrery
a Guide, sort of, in the sightless search
of Neanderthals chanting
the Order’s boundary beat.

Derbyshire wallabies are nigh extinct
Victims of Tourism’s blobby ways
While Surrey overflows with Parakeets,
No pool safe from the crocodiles.

Not angels but angles
Not plans as such
but uplanned plans and planned unplans
Not Utopias but ‘Anywheres’ to cherish

The heart leaps to A. Salmon
And the halting arrest of myth’s progress
Absurdly faint? Faintly absurd
Hardly seen or heard

Central committees
Shun the traps of fame
But request me to state
in a near-real-world way
and in their words

“You are free to share …any part of this work provided that:
1/ you always attribute the work as follows [but avoiding suggesting any influence from the copyright owners]: from Mythogeography, Triarchy Press 2010

2/You make no derivative works – you may not alter, transform, or build upon this work [without following certain conditions].”

The first condition seems ethically and legally acceptable. The second has, rather like the book itself, a curiously other-worldly feel to it.

Noli me tangere. Now I must go
to catch the mythogeographic Gruffalo

Climate Denial. The Mermaid’s Cheeks are Damp with Tears

Albert has found out something important about the Copenhagen conference. Snails can communicate with statues. And he has learned something from The Little Mermaid. There have been very sinister and covert activities in advance of the climate change summit in Denmark.

The plot goes deep. I admit I am not a brave person. I am prepared to say only this. What causes news to become public? Because it has been found out by honest citizen journalists? Not so. When evil schemes are afoot, news is released at the moment when it has maximum propaganda value. The skilled eye can detect the covert activities.

Fact. The internet leaks. Fifth level columnists have infiltrated the ranks of government departments identifying technical experts they can ‘turn’ through blackmail and bribery. Fact. A Political Leader prepares to address his followers. But his speech is overshadowed by the cunning timing of an announcement of defection of a powerful ally. Fact. As governments accept evidence of man-made global warning and prepare to discuss it at Copenhagen., e-mails are leaked that were known about much earlier, and which put the scientists in a bad light, weakening the credibility of their work, and that of others whose results they support.

Fact. (And this is one I am most careful to avoid mention of my sources). A person with connections to the highest families in the land has entered the fray. This is a person is able to gain access to any paper in the world. He chooses to write a letter in a newspaper read by other influential figures. In it he argues that the deceit of the scientists means that the climate debate must be re-opened. I dare not name names, not even in tags, but I hope that there are people out there who are braver than I, and who have not been turned. You must check what I am saying. You will find that I am right. And when you do, you will find compelling evidence that the conspiracy was also directly involved in the collapse of one of the great financial institutions which helped produce the financial crisis. It is no wonder that the Little Mermaid’s cheeks are damp with her tears.

THIS IS NOT RIGHT

This is not right
Nothing computes
Skin stretched lampshade tight

Where waves once lapped
At Heaven’s gate
Waves lap no more

This is not right
No balm for dried lips
At a silenced spring

Sharing our fears
A mermaid’s cheeks
Are wet with tears

From the darkling night
No hope then?
That can’t be right

A wave begins
Far from the shore
And bringing Dolphins

Albert’s Christmas Cracker

Something bright caught my eye in the garden early this morning. A Christmas Cracker no bigger than your little finger. There it was, underneath the Holly bush.

So, no ordinary Christmas Cracker. When I got closer I could see who had left it. Albert. He had also left a e-trail on the path, which said Hpy Xms. He must have been in a special hurry. Maybe he was delivering presents on a Christmas crawl.

When I got even closer I saw that Albert had found an empty sweet wrapper, crinkly red and shiny gold. And in it was a riddle, The sort you get in a real Christmas Cracker. Only it wasn’t. I couldn’t see what it meant at all.

Q: What do you call the Queen Bee?
A: Marmalade

Why can’t Albert ask proper riddles? And is it more than just a weird joke. I don’t think I remember Albert telling a joke before. Perhaps he hasn’t understood that a riddle is supposed to give you an Aha! moment when you see the answer.

Like: Why is Ulrika so creative? Answer: because she is always having Ulreka moments.

So come on. Can anyone answer Albert’s riddle?

O.K. A very small Xmas prize for anyone who sends best answer before Albert gets back in touch.

Twitterature. The World’s Greatest Books Retold Through Twitter: Book Review

Twitterature:The World’s Greatest Books Retold Through Twitter. Alexander Aciman & Emmett Rensin, Penguin, 2009

When a Penguin endorses a book it’s got to be sooo cooollll !!!!

These dudes, teenies, Bros, college kids got a great idea

Turn great books into tweets. Turn tweets into a book. Simples.

To high acclaim by giants of uncool like Wall Street News.

Some books survive the tweatment better than others. Moby Dick is cool. Check it out. They avoid the obvious pun. Thanks for that, guys

Other tweets are NSC. You would know what NSC means if twas in the v handy glossary. Only it isn’t. I just made it up it. It means Not So Cool.

@TudorTweet Is it true that Penguins all fall over when a helicopter goes past, thus thwarting efforts to get good Flickr?

Thinking: these Emos have been touched by the Columbian marching powder. ARE THEY FOR REAL [SHOUT]?

Thinking: can I guess which stuff they got from one of these v useful synopses freely available anywhere still where Mr Murdoch lets you surf?

Thinking: Great idea. Great glossary. Worth buying for glossary but see below

There is this artist. He just won the Turner prize for painting stuff so fragile that he melts it down after a first showing. What’s the word on the tip of my …

… Ephemeral?

THE QUATRAINS OF NOSTRADAMUS

How could I have failed to see the signs?
As old as Nostradamus
As old as Revelations.
The great seer wrote:

One who the infernal gods of Hannibal
Will cause to be reborn, terror of mankind
Never more horror nor worse of days
In the past than will come to the Romans through Babel.

It will be far more complex than I thought.
Will a snail prevail?
A timorous creature
An ant, a bee, even a Queen Bee?