I know, right - I've never been so prolific. Whatever - here is an introduction to the latest member of my superhero fraternity - Air Freshener, who will soon be the subject of his own poetically epic conflagration of action scenes and 'Nikolai Gogol' levels of satire.

Air Freshener

A crime scene in a dirty alley.
Suddenly smells like Lily of the Valley.

A corpse, four days dead.
A waft of cinnamon and gingerbread.

A motorway pile up,
many injured.
An essence of lavender lingered.

A fart released in a crowded lift.
Hot chocolate and strawberries sniffed.

Whatever dire danger for your nasal passage,
He’s gonna save you from permanent damage.

Coming 2014,
Which smells like lime, and tangerine.



Coming soon:
Boy In Spandex

Hold your breaths. 

Following up on my promise to release a trailer poem for each of my 'main event' Superhero poems, here is the next one. I know there has been a frenzy of anticipation about the release of the trailer for 'Balance Man', even more so than for the new Marvel 'Guardians of The Galaxy' film, and so I am slightly upset that they have tried to cash in on my popularity to generate more buzz for their meagre effort, but there you go.

So without further ado, here is the trailer poem for 'Balance Man':

In a world,
Where crime rules the streets.

There’s only one law
obeyed without furore

Or fuss.

It’s
‘No standing on the top deck of the bus’.

Unless you happen to be:

Balance Man.
He’s not like us.

Coming Fall 2014. 
Or ‘Autumn’, if you live in the UK.  



Next up:
'Boy In Spandex'

Try and contain yourselves.

I have decided to create my own band of magnificent superheroes.

I don’t know if anyone has noticed, but in the last ten years or so there has definitely been an uptick in the number of superhero films being made. Could be just me. 

The most recent one I watched was Man of Steel, which essentially was a load of cobblers about Kryptonian dragons that you can fly and two almost invincible people hitting each other and causing untold millions worth of property damage.  And Kevin Costner, who to be fair I would watch in practically anything.

And so, as per the first line of this post, which I moved up there solely because it’s the one that comes up on Facebook, and which would have fitted much better right here, I have decided to create my very own band of indomitable superheroes.

Unlike The Avengers, the Justice League, the Guardians of the Galaxy, 7 Against Chaos, the Minutemen, Teen Titans, The Boys, etc. - wow there are lot of superhero team-ups out there - my heroes will almost certainly leave the world in the exact same shape, if not worse, than when they found it.

As a team, they are completely inept. Individually they are utterly incapable of operating on an even basic social level.  My superheroes are uniquely British, tackling the sort of urban crime (and in one case, inadvertently causing it) that blights our fair isle every day.

This is ground well covered by Mystery Men, Super, Kick-Ass, Defendor and so on - so what will make my band of indomitables really stand out?

Well, since you ask - I’m going to write them as a series of terrible short poems.

Individually, they are Balance Man, Air Freshener, The Agreer, Drone and Boy in Spandex and will each have their own poem, followed by an ‘Assemblage’ poem. Collectively, they will be called ‘The Throng’.  This will be my Phase 1.

I am going to write a ‘trailer’ poem for each, bigging them up months before I release the final poem to an almost certain critical drubbing and a global box office in excess of USD 500,000,000.

Phase 2 will be almost identical, but with each hero ‘coloned’ with a strange, meaningless subtitle.  ‘Balance Man: Spirit of the Cimarron' or ‘Boy In Spandex: The Cradle of Life’.  You get the idea. Or rather, the rehashed idea.

So over the next week prepare yourselves as I will be releasing the short trailers for the actual poems, due Summer 2014, unless radical rewrites are called for after disastrous test readings.

To whet your appetite, here is the first trailer, for ‘The Agreer’:


Trailer #1 for The Agreer.

In 2014,
He’s finally here.

Believe every rumour
On the blogosphere.

Complain all you like about deviation from the comic mythology
Because you won’t hear 
any argument from…

The Agreer.


Next trailer:
Balance Man.

Bet you can't wait. 

I’m currently listening to the film score to ‘The Hunt From Red October’ by Basil Poledouris. Action movie generic but with a Russian vibe. Liking it. It’s all part of my Tom Clancy mourning process, which clashes with my stubborn refusal to actually read one of his books.  I have also just replayed Rainbow Six Colon Vegas on Xbox, which hasn’t held up that well, frankly.

I also watched ‘Into The Blue’ with Paul Walker and Jessica Alba as part of the same mourning process for Paul Walker, but just ended up staring at Alba’s perfect body the entire time. As did Paul walker, I shouldn’t imagine. I don’t even fancy Jessica Alba, but the body was just hypnotic.

Next up, become a beacon of hope for millions of black South Africans.  It’s one of my trickier challenges for sure, being a middle class white guy from Bromley, but hey. I bet Leonard Nimoy could do it, if he wanted to.

Needless to say, my Pete Seeger playlist is on repeat too – although have you checked out actually how many people have died already in 2014? It’s staggering.  Seriously, go to Wikipedia ‘Deaths in 2014’.  Pages of dead folk who will never see another February, and that’s just the tip of the deathberg – being only people famous enough to actually have a Wikipedia page.

I have gone through all the deaths on January 2nd, my birthday, and have picked one out at random.  Welcome to Nev Pitty-Rose’s blog R. Crosby Kemper, Jr. – ‘American Banker and Philanthropist’.  Well that’s a profession and an attribute that don’t often go hand-in-hand.  Apparently, his father was ‘R. Crosby Kemper Snr.’ Not big on imaginative naming conventions back in the 20s.  Still, better than ‘Kai’. He served in WW2 and was President of United Missouri Bank for over 45 years.  Wow, I struggle to stay in a job for 45 minutes.

OK, so now I have picked out Mr. Kemper, I will make a small donation to the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, ‘in the heart of Kansas City, Missouri’, which he was founder and patron and other important, philanthropical things.

What a nice chap, although indulging one’s hobby in modern art and then opening a museum ‘for the city’ and then charging folk to go and see the art isn’t vastly philanthropic. Perhaps he did other things too, and I certainly don’t want to bad-mouth someone who was probably a top chap, and who died on my birthday.

I feel the same way about Bruce Willis’ band – he’s not a great singer, not even a good one - it’s only a hobby of his, but he charges top dollar to go and see him, and most folk don’t are about the shit faux-blues he sings anyway, they just want to go see ‘Bruce Fuckin’ Willis’, and he knows that, of course he does, but he still charges top dollar anyway.  I think it’s kinda mean. (Although I would definitely sign up to a Bruno Radolini gig, if you catch my drift, which nobody will.)

Same goes for you, Seagal.

I listened to song the other day by Jerry Reed called ‘You Got The Goldmine, I Got the Shaft’.   I am fairly certain this is the best song title of all time. If you disagree, then please do comment, but prepare to be utterly wrong. 

Happy Twenty Fourteen. So what did 2013 have to offer? Career uncertainty for most, a lack of significant lottery wins, David Cameron’s podgy smirk peering out from his strange inflatable face like a waxwork forcefield built to repel human beings at all cost.  And other stuff. Whatevs. 

I recently wrote a Haiku (not strictly adhering to the actual rules of course, but that was way too hard) about the 1980's TV show 'Manimal'.  Here it is:

MANIMAL
Bones shift like tectonic plates
Skin and sinew cleave, burn and shape
Situation appropriate creature forms. Man.


I know, right? Utter shit.  Bu that didn't stop me from writing some more, 'cos I found it amusing to do so, if you must ask why:


AIRWOLF
Body of a Wolf, mind of a Hawk.
Volcano lair.
California sun gleams and flashes, silence.

A-TEAM
Grey, Handsome, Mad and Mohawk.
Vans, plans, planes
The white milk sits, untouched.

KNIGHT RIDER
Hairy chest and stonewashed jeans
Slide onto hot cream leather.
No room in the back.

ONLY FOOLS AND HORSES
Open bars and chandeliers
Loveable rogues and have a few beers
Selling tat, national treasure.

CARRY ON
A wheezing cough, a high pitched giggle, an echo of the past.
Fat ladies indignant, thin ladies cock tease
Gay men attracted, straight men frustrated.


The interweb says that Haiku is for the creation of intimate verse about nature and love, with the verse juxtaposing the truth. So of course, the first thing I wanted to do was write about 1980's television shows - and Only Fools and Horses, which I have always hated, but I wanted something to offset the Americans. 

I was inspired by an excellent poem I heard from a friend of mine recently and fancied a go at it. So I started to write another Haiku about how I hated playing football at school, but it morphed into something longer. Of course, I have utterly disregarded iambic pentameter and rhyme, mainly because I am shit at it. 


So Here you go, my first ever attempt at poetry. Comments in the usual place:


FOOTBALL AND WAR

Last to be picked as usual, standing alone,
Shivering on a freezing football pitch, just skin and bone.

The shirts team have me sold,
Even though they now have ten players and the skins team 12.
How does everyone else seem so comfortable
in the cold?

The ball rolls past me and I ignore it,
Re-tying my shoelace tightly.

I daren’t run for the ball in case I catch it.
I can’t catch it, because people would see me kicking it. 
And I can’t kick it,
Because I can’t remember which way
To play.
I’m totally bricking it.

The whistle blows as the ball rolled 'out', apparently.
I don’t know how they know, the white lines are covered in mud. 
This pitch could go on for miles, never ending, or at least
till Orpington.

I’m only here to make up numbers,
Running aimlessly around
my legs muddy like mint matchmakers
My boots two shapeless clumps of brown.

It’s like Kes, but in Kent, and probably warmer.
And Mr Devonish is much nicer than Brian Glover.

Mr. Devonish runs past, whistle in his mouth,
Changing room chatter, heard over the shower.
About Mr ‘Call me Ian’ Devonish.

David Kurtz told Chris Montford
told Victoria Baxter told Luke Bailey that Mr. Devonish
Likes it up the shitter, ‘like Gary Glitter’.

And Luke Bailey told me, adding that I wanted it up the shitter 
too.
Not really true.
And ironic, as Luke Bailey is now a gay rights activist
On Twitter.

It’s properly dark now, heavy grey clouds
Hanging over the pitch,
And obscuring the moon.
We’ve still got 20 minutes left, as the school insists
On a proper match-length game.

Seriously, why am I the only one who thinks this can’t end too soon?
Why am I the only one who thinks this is lame?

It’s 7-2, and pitch black.
It’s like playing with ghosts.
The floodlights are crap
And everyone is squelching, muddy, loud, not scary.
I think I’m probably the ghost.

Thank the Lord.
I’m not religious, but the final whistle has blown
And I’ll pray to anything to get me off this pitch.

You’ve got to be kidding me, what’s going on?
Extra time?
What the hell have I done to deserve this – WHAT CRIME?
Nice Rhyme.

I’m numb now.
Shirtless and muddy.
Shivering and, metaphorically at least, bloody.

Another three minutes, and then come the showers,
The final insult, of course, before I walk home.

I don’t really think I’ve got a small penis.
But to listen to the excitement
in the steam and the wet after 90 minutes of torment
it would appear that the general opinion is
I do fall short
of a man’s normal endowment.

Rushing ahead though – still on the pitch,
A thirteen year old
Standing in the mud, motionless, hoping nobody notices him
until the actual, final whistle.
One long blow, dipping in the middle.

I'm muddy enough, and it is dark enough, I might just get away with it.
Until the ball rolls past right past me, coming to a muddy stop.
Right there.

Kick it?
Somewhere?

The shouting and thunderous muddy squelching register in my brain.
Coming towards me.
Quick, kick the ball, again.
That’s twice now.

YES!

The final whistle, cheers and congratulations
to the winning team. Not mine.
8-2 the score, not a bad loss, for a change
Could have been worse,
Could have been 9.

Let’s skip the shower recollection,
It’s a variation of unpleasant
And excruciating.

Back in uniform, trudging home.
a smear of leftover mud on one exposed shin.

My mother is in
She spots the mud and sends me off to the shower,

the second one.
In an hour.




And there you go, if you stayed to the end, then bloody hell - well done!

OK, so I haven't been exactly truthful and I now have to apologise to my loyal readers, my family, my friends, to the guy I see very day on the bus to Lewisham, the City AM guy, Keanu Reeves and of course, old Mr Hawthorn from number 48.  Its true, and I have been found out. 

Nobody wants to be hounded by photographers or have paparazzi camped out on their front doorstep and so I wish to come clean and confess to you all now - here - in my own words, before the media make up hurtful, senseless and untrue things about me, and quote me out of context for their own purposes and headlines. 

So, it's the confession post. Favourite things I will never admit to in person, and which if you ask me, having read this blog, what my favourites are, you will get a completely different, much better, cooler answer. But a lie. A damn lie. Because I am a two faced liar.

So I read City AM, but I need to keep the review to myself.  The writing, the striking imagery and flowing, transcendent descriptions of everyday humanity has turned my hate-fuelled liver into more than merely an organ spewing bile, but into something pitch-perfect, humming with life and spreading nothing but rainbows and joy.  I love City AM, and you can’t ever take that away from me.

I went to a ‘not-for-you-proles’ branch of Citibank today to try and coerce some money from one of their machines.  It was unfailingly polite – the machine greeted me with a ‘Good Morning’, and then, when I put my card in ‘How may I help you?’

There’s something about polite machines that make me very nervous. I guess it reminds me of ‘HAL’ from 2001 Colon A Space Odyssey which scared me shitless as a child.  So I blame Stanley Kubrick for this particular phobia. I had a Texas Instruments ‘Speak and Spell’ as a child too but that didn’t scare me at all, because everything that machine said was with an air of digitised superciliousness, a voice that made it perfectly clear ‘I am cleverer than you and I am giving you the answers simply because it suits me to.’  Fine. At least I knew where I stood.

This Citibank cashy though – well, this one could charm you out of your Calvins in ten seconds flat, and then devour you while you slept, sucking first your soul and then your very flesh into its smaller than letterbox sized cheque-depository slot, crunching your bones into its innards and then spewing you out in mirth every time someone hit the ‘GBP 5.00’ button.

I hit the ‘GBP 10.00’ button, more in hope than anticipation, and another message came up ‘Please wait a moment!’ Now on this one, it was the exclamation mark that gave me the shivers. This machine is trying to be light-hearted. Either that, or it had already read my balance and just wanted to let me down slowly.  This message was followed by the cash sliding out of the slot shaped like the mouth of a blank-faced emoticon, and a further message ‘Can I help you with anything else today?’

Of course you can’t. You have given me cash - the sole purpose of your existence - what else could you possibly do for me? This is the ultimate question - what, after you have received the cash you have requested, could a cash machine possibly do for you? Cheque deposit? Don’t be ridiculous, no one uses cheques any more and if you do, then wake up buddy, its 2013.

I took the situation in hand and jabbed the ‘No’ button in irritation, taking the money and then my card, feeling more in control.   ‘See you next time!’  The machine bid me a cheery goodbye. I turned my back on it, ignoring the twinge of guilt that nagged at my conscience, and left to buy a filter coffee and an egg and sundried tomato breakfast baguette from Pret. Nearly a fiver down already. I guess I’ll have to face the politeness machine again tomorrow.

Speaking of machines, here is a list of my Top Eight favourite Nokia Handsets:

8. N-Gage
7.  3210
6.  1100
5. 6210 Navigator
4. N900
3. 8210
2. 9210i Communicator
1.    7110

So this morning something really strange happened to me on my commute to work. It started off normally enough - I sat on a bus for 45 minutes before getting off at the bus station and boarding a Docklands Light Railway train that takes a further 20 minutes. That’s the way it is, and has been for a couple months now, give or take a minute or two.  I have never really known why the Docklands Railway has a ‘Light’ in the title. Is it ‘Light’ because there’s no driver? There is a conductor which really should negate any extra advantage gained by not having a driver, and quite often the conductor has to drive, using a really tiny joystick thing and six buttons, three red and three green, all contained under a beige lid in the front of the first passenger compartment, the front seats that everyone makes for first, presumably because it’s a nice view and Look! No driver! If you have a 2 year old who likes sitting at the front because trains and cars and different transportation is everything his world is really filled with, you’d better be prepared to barge some grown adults out of the way to get that front seat.

Anyway, I was on the interchange between the bus and the Docklands ‘Light’ Railway – a short walk next to the canal in Lewisham. At least I think it’s a canal, it’s hard to tell with all the shopping trolleys and corpses floating in it. During this interchange – a matter of seconds - I was offered a ‘City AM’ paper by a short man wearing a high visibility jacket with ‘City AM’ printed on it. The high visibility jacket was a light blue colour, to match the font colour of the title ‘City AM’, so I am unsure as to its efficacy as ‘high visibility’. 

The man thrust out a ‘City AM’ towards me, and I smiled at him slightly, my smile indicating a tinge of regret and a certain warmth, and I coupled it with a slight shake of my head to communicate to him a gentle but firm negative response to his offer - and he ‘harrumphed’ at me, and threw the paper on the floor, taking up the next one in his pile to proffer to the person behind me. There were no other discarded ‘City AM’ papers next to him, so I can only assume that this annoyance was directed solely at me, and that nobody else had refused his offer.

The ‘DLR’ is absolutely littered with unread copies of ‘City AM’, despite running all the way through the Docklands, London’s Second City, and into the main City itself, presumably London’s First City, although nobody has actually made that clear.  Form this man’s attitude, I can only deduce that everyone who takes that route to the ‘DLR’ (a lot of people) takes one to avoid the discomfort of his rejection before discarding it in favour of everyone’s favourite fictional, simplistic and factually inaccurate rag, the ‘Metro’.

Every single day on this route I have seen an empty handed commuter pick up a discarded paper to read, only to re-discard it because it happens to be ‘City AM’. Even people who look like they work in banks, for whom the paper is presumably intended.

I can only admire the tenacity and attitude of ‘City AM’ distribution executives to find ways to hand out all their papers before the rush hour is out, hundreds of papers that nobody wants, filled with words no-one wants to read.  Seems a waste of effort for everyone involved really…

On my next blog: ‘ Twelfth Post Part 2 - City AM’ – The First Review'.  I will read 'City AM' cover to cover, and let you - all of you, all of my loyal followers, if it worth the paper it is printed on.