Jenny Taylor

You don’t know where I’m going
You don’t know where I’ve been
You don’t know what I’m laughing about
You don’t know what I mean.

Tie me up, tie me up, tie me up, tie me down.

Dance, dither, turn, tumble,
Melt and merge, something precious,
In the mix, how we revolve,
Return , converge.

I don’t know where your going
I can’t tell what you’ve seen
I’m just glad you can laugh at it all
Don’t have to know what it means.

Tie me up, tie me up, tie me up, tie me down.

It's my thing

Family business. Barclay’s billions will result in bumper bonuses for all.

Listerine Smart Rinse cleans where brushes miss.

There’s no better way to start your adventure than with the multi award winning Singapore Airlines.

T Mobile are challenging the established rules.

Now we need you to go to 4 Music.com

Cover your nakedness and worship our Lord.

“To failure dear brother!”

Post Production Supervisor.

She’s got all that except she has a cheating husband.

The cost of living is going up fast.

The reason they think you are crazy is because you are collecting little shirt buttons.

The official has lost his job but must now face court action.

A well know local businessman and boxing promoter.

Selfridges say they’ve sold out.

Unfortunately you’ve got to have Posh’s cash to get Posh’s look.

They are real women. You can tell.

Why don’t you just say sorry?

Today Donald Trump has submitted his master plan to Aberdeen Council, including details of their houses.

There have been a few interesting editions to it….wonderful steam collection.

It got nasty and they was singing bad songs. It riles you up.

Is that what you really want, me and you cooped up in that rabbit hutch?

The nice thing about autumn is people.

He’s seen attitudes change since then, but it’s not his fault.

People were moved by the story of the boat people but now we’ve lost sight.

Asylum has become a dirty word.

It’s only a fifteen minute hop to Guernsey.

Up to £6000 contribution towards 3 Series models, at Eastern BMW.

Everyday in the Scottish Daily Mail.

A group of assassins carrying fake British ID are at the centre of an international investigation.

Where the tin was removed. Saved by a whisker.

Television evidence is not the answer to referees problems.

She’ll wear black and stand alone on stage.

I picked up a pillow and smothered him until he was dead.

Just like most British people do.

I thought, “how am I going to get myself on there? I’m a jewellery expert with a bit of a difference.”

Do us a favour and put some vodka in that orange.

We are very close to that stage and it’s all very exciting.

Cheryl can’t sing to save her life but she is brave to perform.

He’s become a massive hit on the internet.

Shovel, drift, shovel, drift back over. Can I get a one-way ticket to New Orleans?

A weather warning is in force across the Grampians and Highlands of Scotland.

The chairs were a bit rickety and now it’s raining over Coventry Cathedral.

It’s always been known as granny’s sewing table. There was chemistry between us. Never.

Staff at the bank’s investment arm will get an average of £191000 each.

Checking into assorted hotels.

Where did these come from? They belonged to my mother. They are just charming.

Mitamultiair. Get to the next level. Alfa Romeo.

Paratroopers with pink machine guns and camouflage. It’s my thing.

Surreal Handbag

I'm lost and unaware
your handbag
where is it
and what does it look like?
black grey or brown
crammed and stretched
with what at the bottom
only one person knows
worries and accounts
for many things in
various amounts.

your handbag

Degrees of success

The less you say the more likely you are to be heard.

Interesting

Things that are interesting:

1) Interesting things.
2) Things that stimulate the latent interest nerves.
3) Things you can look at or into.
4) Things you can listen to or sounds you can create.
5) Puzzling things*.
6) New things that perhaps you’ve not noticed before.**
7) Surprising things***
8) People can at times be interesting and so demand a degree of observation.
9) Stories - in whatever form of media they are told.
10) Interest (general).

* Puzzling things are characterised by their normally very puzzling nature.
** Can also be puzzling.
*** Not dissimilar to puzzling things.

Almost Karma

I do what I do but then I did something.
Something else.
Something unheard, unseen.
Something you don't know.
Uncertainty.
Ties me to the universe, so I think.
But I always was, something.
Never everything, never nothing.
The things. The thing.
Ties me to the universe, almost.
Almost Karma.

In the bathroom

In the bathroom keep scissors handy, you never know when you may need them.

Scotland, a land with so much where so little is done.

The media: At odds with itself and it's supporters.

Documentaries: Factual films without conclusions.

In the kitchen keep towels handy, preferably near your hands.

Cat food does not easily go down sink drains.

Sky 1 is a TV channel completely lacking in personality.

Cold sunglasses refresh the face like a lick from a passing sheep.

Scrabble: A game where familiar letters are made into unfamiliar words.

In the bathroom there is no music other than the rhythmic drip of the cold tap.

In Praise

In Praise of Coca-Cola and all it's extraordinary properties: It holds our fragile world together, it scares the pants from the deadly spectre of the hangover, it makes a nice fssssssss noise, it features in glossy commercials, it has latent power, it is stronger than many Third World governments, it tastes quite nice, it is a lot better than Pepsi and I can tell.

Best of all it works like the warm demist setting on your windscreen and clears the fuzz, smog and cobwebs from inside your brain.

It's alright

It’s alright Grandma...

...I had a grandmother who knew the names of all the Christian Apostles and could recognise their images on apostle spoons, a well know series of tea spoons popular in Victorian Britain and later on in the East Neuk of Fife when the caught up. Apostle spoon recognition, what a gift and a useful and marketable skill. Would Muslim4UK, the well know text message based religious organisation approve of them? Probably not, they don’t seem to approve of anything apart from their own ridiculous world view. Must be tough and a tad stressful having to be right about everything all the time. Probably why they’re in a permanently bad mood with us all.

“Those that defend what they cannot see with the killer’s pride, security, it blows their minds most bitterly to think that death’s own honesty won’t fall upon them naturally , life sometimes must get lonely.”

Perhaps a better and more acceptable spoon would be “Karma Spoons”, they could only be used if you’d cleaned and cared for your last spoon. Failure to look after them could mean food poisoning , black fingernails, loss of inner peace and achieving an inferior standard of reincarnation next time over.

“And if I though dreams could be seen, they’d probably put my head in a guillotine.”

Events at a funeral I recently attended made me wonder about organising or if you like facilitating at a public debate between the good people of Muslim4UK, the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes, some Glasgow Rangers FC supporters and a group of tall blonde Nihilist from Berlin.. The topic would be “What aspects of human behaviour mark a true and loyal supporter of the British Crown and Constitution”, then the debate would run via text message only. I presume all of these groups have opposable thumbs.

“Advertising signs that con you into thinking you’re the one ,that can do what’s never been done, that can win what’s never been won. Meanwhile life outside goes on, all around you”.

Antediluvian of course means before the flood or more correctly “before the deluge” The period of time (1656 years) between creation and the flood. Unfortunately it was (apart from the sun, moon earth, animals, plants and mankind being created) a period of great wickedness and boredom. Imagine that a mere 1600 years into creation everything got so screwed up so quickly that such drastic action was required. Bugger. So the predominately wicked Antediluvian period came to a rapid and watery end when God sent the flood and so wiped out everybody apart from Noah, his immediate extended family, a few animals that had conveniently paired themselves off and naturally representatives from Muslin4UK who were accommodated in a separate boat. They did have a few problems getting a good phone signal however and argued amongst themselves a good deal of the time. Meanwhile the rain stopped, a dove found a branch and the rest is history according to our version of history that is.

Footnote: During the Antediluvian period 500 million humans were born and then mostly drowned or ran away to the south pole and froze. Their remains were pummelled into the soil by natural forces and subsequently turned into coal, diamonds, penguins and diesel. Overall then we’ve benefited from this whole event apart from the loss of the unicorns who died because they missed their time slot on the ark. They were listening to a Val Doonican song at the time via headphones.

“A question in your nerves is lit yet you know there is no answer fit to satisfy and show you not to quit, to keep it in your mind and not forget that it is not he or she or them or it that you belong to. Although the masters make the rules, for the wise men and the fools, I got nothing Ma, to live up to.”

Comments in italics by Mr Zimmerman of course.

Oracle

The collected wisdom of Fairy Tale Management: part wop wop of an occasional series on good advice, suggestions and hints and tips for you from the deep pool of the Fairy Tale Oracle. Terms and conditions apply and there are other blog type things available but I've no idea where.

Always err on the side of gravity.
You can lead a horse to water but not a mouse.
Cooking can be complicated but with no guaranteed result.
Attention spans are shorter than the speaker might think.
A telephone call is a small voice far away.
You can live quite well without music.
Your odd socks will go unobserved.
Though urine is sterile beware of the strawberry jam.
The climate is whatever you get.
Those who drop litter are idiots.
You will be surprised by the output from the seeds you plant.
Families will argue more than friends.
The bottom of the freezer drawers are a mystery.
Clean what you can, no one will notice the rest.
A man without a tie has as much clout as a man with one.
Most people have already seen the thing you consider brand new.
Everybody gets stuck behind a tractor, there is no need to share the tale.
Standing still in the shower does not get your body wet all over.
Think whenever you can.
There is always a news headline but the weight of the stories change.
The days of pubs are numbered - sadly.
You cannot keep snowflakes alive.
There is care and there is extreme care but who knows the difference?
Your community is where you are, whether you like it or not.
It can get colder.
You may not be going anywhere.

White Rose

Every honest one of us
Remains ashamed these days
Never in my name we say
For all our children’s shame.

We will not be quiet
Who says yes means no?
We are your bad conscience
Sent to hold this white rose.

One day the veil falls away
While crimes stretch out to tell
Guilt can’t just evaporate
Your heads will fall as well.

Your heads will fall as well.

Here we all are

Lady Ronaele

No excessive use observed
But my dreaming leaks persist
The old age and the mystery
The punishing mental history
Inflated pictures and the dubious taste
Of my lost pleasures and their worn down waste.

Some dreadful social gaff
Unspeakable but such a laugh
The cure may be a tepid bath
Or an operation’s aftermath.

I’m stoical and belligerent
A new man, once intelligent
A customer and a complainer
Card carrying atheist and true believer.

So we rejoice in a machine gun membrane
A quality of life unpicked and scattered
To keep your chin up in dignity
With the hope that nothing mattered.

And no one noticed…
…then in walked Roderick Usher with the Lady Eleanor.

Based on the base of a true story by the Brothers Grimm.

This is not Facebook

Gentle Giant

Simon Dupree and his big sound,
Came to my town,
Came to my town,
And left as Gentle Giant.

Sooner or later

Every so often a bird falls from the sky. Lone members of the great armies of birds, squadrons of feathered warriors, falling from the sky, in a slow, skinny , silent rain. We never see them fall, we never hear them land. All that remains is the decayed evidence of their soaring lives found in fields, hedgerows, wasteland, in tree branches, in the great stone plains and at the bottom of the rivers, seas and oceans.

There lives are unrecorded, their history unwritten and their magnificent and terrible journeys are forgotten and blown away. Their routes and plans, what they have seen, what they have done and the families they raised and lost make up millions of untold stories that stretch back to their dinosaur descendants.

We look up occasionally, we crane our necks to watch the weather, mask our eyes from the sun, rage at winter moons or puzzle at the cloud shapes. Outside of our narrow view they soar and dart like our own stray thoughts, never quite at rest, never quite getting anywhere. Staking a strange curved claim or forming a zig-zag geometry across the blue and then back to earth. Tiny souls searching, feeding and posting messages on wires, towers and steeples, tree branches and windowsills till the call comes to them, to fall back to earth.

Sooner or later we all fall back to earth.

Magnus Robot Fighter

When I was a child
I wanted to be many things
At times they conflicted
As if I could care
So it came to me
Unexpectedly
That Magnus Robot Fighter
Was who I'd like to be.

The result of some comic bought
Without much plan or thought
The steel hands of Magnus
Chops robots down like trees
In North Am 4000 AD
The diversion lasted
Till we got a colour TV.

Personal Space

A virtual female defines her personal space - as one might expect.

In the universe territory is important and it's useful that you learn, at an early how to define and control it particularly without having to urinate. It's quite simple really, just extend your elbows sideways till they form a 45 degree angle. The space that you now occupy in the X and Y axis, horizontally and vertically is all yours. It is in the true sense all that you will ever own but by the universal laws of time and personal space it is yours and no-one else's. Enjoy.

The male version, simple, similar and to the point.

Grand Hotel

In The Grand Hotel
Grand people dwell
Or so one assumes
By the size of the rooms.

But when the glory fades
And the thin paint peels
The grand walk away
With a click of the heels

So I drink a toast
To those Grand Hotels
Ne'er do wells
That scans with nothing
And their numbered days
And their numbered doors
And celebrity lives
All gone in an eye sparkle.

Greenland

fly if you want me to
fly if you want me to
fly if you want me to

going to greenland via the moon
going to greenland via the moon

fly if you want me to
fly if you want me to
fly if you want me to...

Fly, if you want me also.

Lottery

Lottery

Friday: Jackie ran her finger across the pink ticket and read the numbers slowly, mouthing each one as if reciting some whispered poem or incantation. “ 03 10 14 23 40 47.” They were as wild carded and random as they could be, drawn from a lucky dip setting in a branch of ASDA she’d never visited, bought on an impulse and quickly folded and hidden away in her purse like the golden key to a lost treasure. Trembling she had paid for it with the only pound coin in the purse and all through the transaction she had made deep and uncomfortable eye contact with the young man operating the till and the ticket machine. The she had spun quickly on her office heels and walked smartly out of the door and into the car park and across to her car. Once the door had slammed she pulled the ticket out and read the numbers and repeated them, over and over again. Inside her head, aloud, aloud in singsong, aloud in whisper, aloud in a deep made up voice, in accents and with pauses and in staccato rhythms that just came to her. The numbers were alive with a new identity she had breathed into them. After fifteen minutes she put the ticket away, started the engine and drove away, still recounting those six squiggly and fateful digits.

Once Jackie was safely home and the door locked she undressed and quite naked she took the ticket, rolled it up and tied it with a purple cord like a tiny scroll. Then she laid it on a bed of fresh oak and myrtle leaves and scattered the contents of a small brown bag over it. A fine dust of herb like powder covered the leaves and the ticket and she walked around it seven times. Then she placed a wicker pentagram measuring about two feet across over the pile of leaves. She walked around it a further seven times, clockwise and then anti clockwise. Then she stood quite still staring down at the ticket a repeated the numbers, “ 03 10 14 23 40 47, 03 10 14 23 40 47, 03 10 14 23 40 47.” Many times, I don’t know how many times, certainly until it was dark.

Saturday: Jackie woke up on the floor, she was wrapped in a blanket, a stale smell of incense hung in the air, Jackie coughed and rubbed her eyes. The room still revolved around the sacred pile in the centre, the ticket, the leaves, the willow pentagram and the herbs. She stood still wrapped in the blanket and walked over to the window and tugged at the handle. It was stiff and she wrestled with it, it came unstuck suddenly, the window popped and a stiff breeze flooded the room. The wind seemed to spiral up and around the room as if searching, it whisked the curtains, rustled the flowers on the mantelpiece and then saw the pile on the floor. It spat on the leaves and scattered them all over and then picked up the ticket, blew it across the room and into Jackie’s’ outstretched hand. Jackie looked at the ticket, smiled, pushed the window shut and sat down in the corner flicking the ticket between her index and middle fingers. She closed her eyes and whispered, “ 03 10 14 23 40 47.”

In the distance the church bells chimed twelve noon. Jackie opened her eyes and laid the ticket back into the centre of the pentagram and began again the ritual of pacing around and repeating the numbers.
At two o’clock the phone rang, without breaking stride she swooped on the handset, picked it up and spoke, “Yeah? Yeah! Yeah! Ok, see you at seven”.

Jackie stared at the blade of the dagger. Its polished surface reflected the room interior. She laid the blade flat onto the palm of her open hand, her left hand and squeezed it. She gave a slight tremble and bit the corner of her lip. She squeezed the blade more and trembled more then threw it down. It felt like she’d walked through a mirror or a pane of glass or a wall of ice. She pulled the blanket and walked into the kitchen, boiled the kettle and made a cup of coffee, the knife was too much, much too much.

From the kitchen drawer she drew a sheet of paper, the guide and instructions she’d been working from. The preparation, the steps, the moves, the ingredients, the spells and the commitment, she read the whole thing again. The knife. She clutched a pill bottle and shook out and small handful, pondered and threw them into the bin. Then back into the room with the ticket and the knife. This time she didn’t hesitate, she pushed the blade hard into her pink and stretched palm until a red flow appeared, she muffled the scream somewhere back in her throat and fell to her knees, the knife dropped and she spun her arm throwing the bright red onto the scattered leaves, the willow and in a fine spray the ticket. She grasped her hand again and rushed into the kitchen once more, wrapped it in a towel and lit a cigarette with the other. She sat on a stool and vacantly looked out of the window, the towel pressed hard to stem the flow.

An hour later the bleeding had stopped and she returned to the ticket. It was still rolled up and now flecked with red speckles on the outside. She picked it up with her right hand and began the circling and the chanting again, “ 03 10 14 23 40 47,” a sing song tune seemed to accompany her numbers recital. It was nearly four in the afternoon but she had decided to consciously lose track of time, if she could.

There was a thud at the front door, she jumped in surprise and clutched the blanket. She was still naked underneath and sweaty and dizzy with number dance. She was also suddenly aware of a heavy tiredness that was falling all around her. She unlocked the door and saw Buzz standing there. Buzz was dressed head to foot in washed out black jeans and a t-shirt, a heavy silver bracelet was round his right wrist and a chain around his neck. He wore motorcycle boots but didn’t appear to have arrived on one. They exchanged few words, he tried to kiss her but she pushed him back, the pushing continued as they walked (her backwards, him forwards) into the lounge. They stopped and she showed him the ticket. The lounge was sparsely furnished, a couch, a TV, a coffee table and few baskets in the corner. Jackie was suddenly aware of the leaves and the blood stains splashed and scattered across the carpet. Buzz noticed them also, shook his head and smiled “You’re a good girl, let’s see your hand”.

The blood had dried but had been diluted with sweat, the thick red line of the diagonal cut remained and Jackie’s fingers curled in towards it protecting it and pointing like a road sign. She was in pain. Buzz pushed her again and in a quick and mechanical move she grabbed the back of his head with her right hand and planked a deep kiss square on his lips. They coupled and toppled onto the couch, Buzz pulled himself out of his clothes, Jackie’s blanket dropped and they rutted together in the cushions and then across the floor. Time swam for both of them, the ticket had passed from hand to hand to floor, the chanting had long ceased to be replaced by grunts and sighs.

Buzz stood up, pulled on his trousers and hiked the t-shirt back over his head. Jackie was rolled up in the blanket asleep. It was grey dark and cold. Buzz moved through to the kitchen and emerged carry two lit candles, he placed them on the floor by the pentagram, he returned to the kitchen with another two and formed a cross around the shape, he picked up the rolled ticket that had been discarded earlier and returned it to the middle of the remains of the leaves and herbs. The flickering lights awoke Jackie, she sat up on the couch and moved her knees under her chin still in the blanket. Buzz was in the kitchen, glasses clinked and he returned with wine for each of them. Hardly a word had been spoken for some time but after a mouthful of wine Buzz seemed eager to talk and began musing about the lottery ticket, the spell, the candles and how “everything was about to change”. Jackie, slowly coming back to life assured Buzz that she had done everything according to the instructions. “The spell is set, the time is right, everything is coming together for us.” Buzz gently stroked her injured hand, held her fingers and kissed her fingertips and nodded. It was seven thirty, they stared down into the candlelight and onto the tiny numbered paper.

There are many things in life that you can control, there are many more that you cannot. The tension between these two positions, those points and circumstances, has baffled and infuriated the greatest minds, the commonest man and noblest of kings. Seizing the initiative and making a change, willing your position on, against the odds and against the forces of nature, time and the will of whatever god you can name are constant markers in our lifelong struggle, and the struggle to control goes on, by any an every means possible and imaginable.

280 miles north of Jackie and Buzz’s couch, in Berwick upon Tweed, Jackie and her husband Bob were sitting on the couch finishing a Chinese carry out and watching the credits roll on the X-Factor. Bob flicked the remote and called up teletext screen 555. In the back pocket of his jeans was a ticket with three lines on it, he checked the results and swore under his breath, he turned to Jackie, “nothing for me this week darlin‘, you get a ticket?” Jackie reached for her handbag and pulled a ticket from her purse, she read the numbers aloud and watched as Bob’s face lit up in a huge and uncharacteristic smile. “My God! 31, 1, 4, 23, 40, 47...we’ve won!”

Buzz looked at the ticket, “a bloody tenner, all that for a bloody tenner!”