March 11, 2024

Rosemary Lane






We know nothing about the woman pictured (and in the first frame of the film) except that she was Maz's great grandmother and that she was in service. But it's a very eloquent picture. All the other pictures of people in service - England's largest occupation even at the height of the industrial revolution (higher even than the vast numbers employed in agriculture) - are from the website www.thisvictorianlife.com. The sailor is from bbprivateer.ca . The boy and the girl are childhood pictures of Peacock's Tale the duo you hear playing and singing.

Like many folksongs, this one sounds like multiple stories being told at once, not all of which add up. Such is folk music, the collective tale of ordinary folk. It's even possible to hear a happy ending and no doubt there were some for people like the women pictured but many of course ended like the last word of the song in 'misery'. It doesn't have a miserable feeling though, because it's such a lovely tune. And perhaps because of "I wish that short night had had been seven long years". The song has also had an after-life in folk clubs and bars as a bawdy singalong - there was always that "Maggie Mae" innuendo element to Beatles songs like "A Hard Day's Night" and "I'll Get You (In The End)". But that would sacrifice the human comedy and tragedy. The strongest strain in this folk tale is surely the human sympathy, the social comment and the yearning for a better life. 


March 08, 2024

Lancelot and the Grail Maiden (the remake)



A most enjoyable collaboration with Bhas Allan who created the visuals for our atmospheric ballad. Lancelot and th Grail Maiden is about how the desperately grail-seeking but never quite finding Lancelot was seduced by the Grail Maiden (aided by the magic of Morgan le Fay who made her look like Guinevere) and thereby bore his son Galahad, who would replace his father as Arthur's Best Knight, find the Grail and thereby fructify the Wasteland. And that, Ron, is the paradox of our entire post-lapsarian exisence.


‘Come hither, Captain,’ the Grail Maiden sighs,
‘Thither away with me
To the rich wooded valley and holy well
My Waste Land dies to be.

‘Look! into the burning wilderness sun
Above the shadeless tree,
The high hawk of summer, hovering still,
The shadow of what will be:

‘The Shadowless One who waits above
To be born to you and me,
A Knight of Truth out of traitor arms
And infidelity.

‘Galahad the Pure, God-armed and winged
To bless our impurity
Unbearably born to steal your quest
And all of your shining glory.

‘Come hither, Captain,’ the Grail Maiden sighs,
And turns him a face so free:
His forbidden love, the queen of his dreams,
The end of all Chivalry.’

A faithless false knight in a failing light 
Fallen under a spell to see/ be
A Knight of Truth out of traitor arms
And infidelity.

Says he, ‘My heart is set on the grail
And wholly raised above!’
Says she, ‘It’s broken, and half is set
On your true adulterous love.’

‘I am her champion, she is my king’s,
I am their faithful knight!’
‘The Grail can’t be had for half a heart,
You can have that queen tonight.

‘Whisper my name, any name you like,
Any lover you want me to be,
A night of Truth in my traitor arms
And in fidelity.’

‘Come hither, Captain,’ the Grail Maiden sighs,
‘Thither away with me
To the rich wooded valley and holy well
My Waste Land dies to be.

 

 

She look'd so lovely, as she sway'd 
           The rein with dainty finger-tips, 
A man had given all other bliss, 
And all his worldly worth for this, 
To waste his whole heart in one kiss 
           Upon her perfect lips

February 27, 2024

Blackwaterside


One evening fair to take the air Down by Blackwater side It was gazing all, all around me Towards the Irish lad I spied
All through the first part of that night Well, we lie in sport and play
Then this young man, he arose and gathered his clothes He said, "Fare thee well today"

Well, that's not the promise that you gave to me When first you lay on my bed You could make me believe with your lying tongue That the sun rose in the west
Then go home, go home to your father's garden You go home and weep your fill And you think of your own misfortune That you brought with your wanton will
For there's not a girl in this whole world wide As easily led as me Sure, it's fishes will fly and the seas run dry Tis then I'll marry thee.

Trad/arr Peacock's Tale. The tune is Irish as is the young man. The images are of the River Blackwater in Essex, the probable scene of the story and the words are an old English folk lyric telling the same old folk tale of a young woman beguiled, though we adjust it slightly so that she sees through him before the end. We got it in one take and in one lump (apart from the brief hand drum on the instrumental) as I'm playing a foot drum with each foot under my bass while Maz is doing her usual multi task thing. Nice and simple.

February 05, 2024

The Parting Glass






Quite pleased with this.



The last song we did at Burns Night 2024. (That's our Chaucerian host John McRuddy in the picture). The song is often sung at the end of a gathering of friends and it is reportedly the most popular parting song sung in Scotland before Robert Burns wrote "Auld Lang Syne." Its popularity in Ireland has deeply influenced its sound and led to it being claimed as an Irish folk song. It was definitely not written by Joseph Haydn, as once claimed.

lyrics

Of all the money that e'er I had
I have spent it in good company
Oh and all the harm I've ever done
Alas, it was to none but me
And all I've done for want of wit
To memory now I can't recall
So fill to me the parting glass
Good night and joy be to you all
So fill to me the parting glass
And drink a health whate'er befalls
Then gently rise and softly call
Good night and joy be to you all
Of all the comrades that e'er I had
They're sorry for my going away
And all the sweethearts that e'er I had
They would wish me one more day to stay
But since it fell into my lot
That I should rise and you should not
I'll gently rise and softly call
Good night and joy be to you all
So fill to me the parting glass
And drink a health whate'er befalls
Then gently rise and softly call
Good night and joy be to you all
But since it fell into my lot
That I should rise and you should not
I'll gently rise and softly call
Good night and joy be to you all
So fill to me the parting glass
And drink a health whate'er befalls
Then gently rise and softly call
Good night and joy be to you all
Good night and joy be to you all

credits

released January 30, 2024
Songwriters: Trad / David Anthony Downes

Maz - lead vocal, acoustic guitar

Gaz - bass, glass, foot drum, hi hat, shaker

February 01, 2024

Fatea showcase Spring 2024


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    Fatea Showcase Sessions Spring 2024:Skin
    Fatea is proud to announce the new Fatea Showcase Session Spring 2024:Skin is ready to download
    Once again we've looked at the fantastic releases that have come through the Fatea office and put together an eclectic mix of some of the best rising names across the acoustic spectrum for your enjoyment.

    Featuring 16 incredible artist we think you'll be amazed and captivated by the strength of the songs that will be available for you to download on the Fatea Showcase Session Spring 2024:Skin compilation. www.fatea-showcase-sessions.co.uk

    01. Filkin’s Drift - The Girl I Left Behind Me
    02. Hevelwood - The Banks Of The Dee
    03. Siobhan McCrudden - Iron Goddess
    04. Harry Bird - Cerberus
    05. Elena Duff - The Forest Song
    06. Holly & The Reivers - The Three Danish Galleys
    07. Piskey Led - Ashton Famine
    08. Annown - Like The Roses
    09. Lauren South - Tiny Boat
    10. Wychbury - Geordie
    11. Foxbridge - Sirens Used To Sing
    12. Ellie Walker - My Heart Beats On
    13. Luke Giles - Boating Up Sandy/Nancy Blevins
    14. Veronica Drozdowski - Out
    15. Peacock’s Tale - Lancelot And The Grail Maiden
    16. Holly Carter - Stella

    "Skin" is the 64th download in the Fatea Showcase Sessions series and will be available from February 1st until April 30th 2024. This is the 17th series of releases

    The download comes to you at no charge. Support the artists involved by listening to the download and then more of their songs, buying their albums, going to their gigs, writing about them on Facebook, publicising them on Instagram etc.

    The 2024 Fatea Showcase Session Front Covers are artworked by Jon Loomes
    #download #music #fatea #free #singersongwriter#americana #folk #instrumentals #enjoy

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      Share like a good 'un let's get these artists heard

    January 31, 2024

    Woke King Arthur








    The title track from our forthcoming Arthur project "Wake King Arthur" and one that contrives to wake him up from his long sleep and come and save us from the appalling mess we are in at the moment. When a British government proudly adopts a motto like "Stop The Boats" as its shining motto and ideal you know we have fallen a long way from the Lost Land of chivalry and mercy, of might defending justice, which thrilled and inspired me as a boy. Wake me, wake me He come out on top, he beat Hordes of heathen, he pluck Swords of lightning from the BC AD 6 and 6/9teenth Century Justice might and mercy king of all chivalry. Wake me, wake me He Arth and Ursus, he yoke Rome and Logres, he ride Wings and horses, he steal Grails from Annwn as a Norman knight a bird of prey an earthed angel tree, Celtic god a Dark Age white horse galloping free. Woke King Arthur In the 20th Century. Wake me, wake me He ever present, he a Church-hilled dragon, he the King of Europe, never Heard of England, he a Druid henge a hollow hill a forest a sea British May King ever changing eternity. Woke King Arthur In the 20th Century. (spoken) You who think you defend This lost land of Logres From drowning migrants For your offshore profits You're not Arthur's Britons Follow your money GO! He fights invaders who claim Lost Land acres from the Drowning migrants, for their Offshore profits, he’s the Lose yourself to save yourself they don’t want to see Release the Pax Britannia brand of Arthur-ity. Woke King Arthur In the Twenty first Century.

    January 30, 2024

    International Burns Night, January 25 2024



    Six old friends/ 3 old married couples/ in kilts and tartan celebrate friendship and the immortal memory of Robbie Burns with banter, banquet, bonhomie, a fist-load of poems and songs in a warm and winter-banishing Norfolk interior. The poems - and what poems they are, brimming over like a good ale and whisky with life, love, joy, sorrow, music and laughter- include Address to the Haggis, The Selkirk Grace, To A Mouse, Ae Fond Kiss, A Man's a Man For A' That, My Soldier Laddie, The Henpecked Housewife, The Wife's Lament, "recently discovered" 'Burns' first drafts (satires on Burns targets in our own day including an Elegy for The Year 2023 based on his Elegy For The Year before the French Revolution, 1788) and the songs - ostensibly led by Peacock's Tale folk indie duo!- include Auld Lang Syne (which Burns wrote) The Parting Glass and Will Ye Go Lassie Go which he probably sang. Robbie, you have given us many a glorious evening - none more so than this one - God bless you for it and (as you may have noticed we say in the film a bit) lang may yer lum reek!

    January 25, 2024

    Evoking Spring From The Clued Ouija Board. No? Yes!


    Colonel Mustard, in the Dining Room with smoking Revolver, 

    Asks where any secret passage to Happiness is.

    "There's no Way Out," sighs Eve Lady Peacock, "no 4-cornered flights

    From this Clued-Ouija Board, just the Night Train to Dis.”

     

    DIS APPEARS! The plot convenes. Its Argus vision pans. “We indict!

    In every room. With every weapon...  The Snow Queen of Has-beens,

    The Black and Cock Robin, breakfast cereal murderin’ … MRS WHITE!" …..                           

    "I ’AD TO BLEACH THE ’OUSE OF ALL THE BLACKS, BROWNS AND GREENS!”

     

    “You’re not Lady Peacock!” Mustard tears off her mask, 

    “What have done with my Lady P?” “I AM her and shall forever be

    Eng-land as it is in Heritage! Your Lady Daily Male, your buried Hastings,

    Your Mustard-servin’ Cod-Psycho Private I, survivin’! Your ‘Me.’ Marry Me!”

     

    Mrs White is marched away and Winter goes with her.

    Spring is back on the menu, multi-coloured and diverse.

    Dis approves as Jack Green is betrothed to Miss Scarlet;

    Dis agrees as Poirot blossoms and a primrose Jane demurs.

     

    Dis untangles the Brown Lady, reveals Parvati-Proserpina

    In a Wife-of-Turnip-Townshend ghost-disguise!           

    Dr Black blows his trumpet, England's foundations rock,

    Green Eyes dances Blue Eyes into the sunrise.

     

    January 19, 2024

    Dodgy Bob



    Robert Walpole (1676-1745) the Whig MP for Castle Rising (1701-02) and King's Lynn (1702-12 and 1713-42) was the first and still longest serving Prime Minister of Great Britain: 21 continuous years, 1721-1742. He also built and stocked with treasures one of the most palatial houses in England, that architectural wonder amid the fields and lanes of West Norfolk: Houghton Hall.

    With his Norfolk neighbour brother in law, the Lord Lieutenant of the county Viscount 'Turnip' Townshend until 1730, and thereafter alone, he ran the growing colonial and trading powerhouse of Whig England as it began to dominate the globe. Like Townshend he refused to moderate his strong Norfolk accent. Unlike Townshend, he was an eloquent and charismatic speaker. And unlike most PMs he presided over a growing economy and a 20 year peace. He developed the 'cabinet' system of government, used his study at Houghton as his office and (it is said) always opened his letters from his estate gamekeeper before those pertaining to the affairs of the nation. 

    Doomed to permanent Opposition, the Tory wits - Fielding, Swift, Johnson, Pope to name but four of the most fearsome satirists to ever sharpen a pen - hated and despised him. You can find belittling and demonised versions of him in Lilliput and at least one of the other lands Gulliver travels and biting laughter at his expense in the satires and commentaries of all four geniuses. But, warts and all, he was an epic man in every way: magnitude and length of office, ambition, personality, grandeur (Houghton Hall is his fitting monument) corruption, power politics, man/ King management, the dramatic sustained rise, the sudden fall ( "Who Killed Cock Robin?" became a popular song at the time) and - increasing as the years went by - his own physique. He was so enormous in physical size by his death that they were unable to force his three hundredweight bulk into the stone coffin in his family tomb at Houghton and he reportedly burst before they finally managed to do so.

    An (extra large) folk ballad is a perfect fit for such a mortal. If some of his faults are unattractive, many of them are entertaining - a 'dodgy' Norfolk builder brilliantly running an Empire. He has flawed greatness and grandeur but it is comic rather than tragic. He is more Adam than Satan. And, like all hopeful mortals, in the end he comes a cropper. We love the Egyptian* figures Warwick brings to our "Pharaoh of the Flaw" and the Flanders and Swann* which move this folk ballad away from the understated and dignified sinking of a Sir Patrick Spens towards the comic trapdoor exit of a Falstaff. We hope you enjoy him as much as we do. 











    Maz singing the chorus in a field near Houghton Hall.


    lyrics

    The Ballad of Sir Robert Walpole (Bob of Lynn)

    Knight of the slightly drooping Garter,
    King of Bankrupt Hall,
    Lord of the Backstairs Tower Tryst,
    Stout Adam of the Fall.

    Richeldis, Julian, Sawtrey, Nelson,
    Boleyn and Boudicca tall,
    Margery, Fanny, Turnip, Kett,
    Old Tom Paine and all-

    Norfolk and good our heroes stand
    With something pure about ’em
    But none more Norfolk nor more good
    Than Dodgy Bob of Houghton.

    Sir Robert Walpole, King of Sink,
    The Pharaoh of the Flaw,
    The not so bumpkin Norfolk dumplin’
    Loophole in the Law.

    The first Prime Minister and still
    Unequalled in that office;
    The backwoods front-man, laughing loud,
    The Prince of Peace – and Profits.

    The Age he named is hero-free,
    No children need to know.
    They keep it off the syllabus,
    No killers boldly go. 

    No Bonnie Charlie anthems, saints,
    No bagpipe calls to arms;
    Just German Georges 1 and 2,
    Enlightenment and farms.

    The beau, the rake, the dandy, fop, 
    The mistress-paying knights,
    The hypocrite with itchy palm:
    ‘All thesemen have their price.’

    Sir Robert Walpole, Count of Cash,
    The Pharaoh of the Flaw,
    The not so bumpkin country speakin’ 
    Loophole in the Law.

    His Babel built ‘too far from London’ [12]
    Under a Norfolk bushel
    The Neptune and Britannia Rampant
    Counting House as Castle.

    His bust and Caesar hairdo placed
    A British cut above
    The classic Mantle he assumed
    Of Wisdom, Justice, Love.

    Removed the timber duty while
    He ordered his supplies,
    Avoided Finished Buildings tax
    With one unfinished frieze.

    Sir Robert Walpole, Earl of Ease, 
    The Pharaoh of the Flaw,
    The ruddy cunnin’ Norfolk rulin’
    Loophole in the Law.

    Our burly boisterous backhand Bob
    Was bawdy in his cups
    Had heart-to-hearts with kings and queens
    Yet kept the common touch.

    And when the South Sea Bubble burst
    And drowned both Whig and Tory,
    He saved the country with a speech
    And rode the tide to glory 

    Avoided War for eighteen years
    Of Profit weighed with cost,
    ‘They ring the bells, they’ll wring their hands,’
    He said when Peace was lost.

    Sir Robert Loophole, Laughin’ Bob,
    The Prophet of the Flaw,
    Three hundredweight of Killed Cock Robin
    Loophole in the Law.

    credits

    released January 18, 2024
    Warwick Jones composed the tune and plays it.

    Gaz sings lead vocal, pitches in on the final chorus, plucks a minimalist bass line, hits a snare and bashes a hi hat. 

    Maz sings harmony vocal.

    Warwick Jones writes:

    "This, like most of the tunes that I composed for the “Doin different” ballads, had the guitar tuned to DADGAD as opposed to the conventional EADGBE.
    Bob Walpole was originally done without the capo and started in a sort of D minor key for the intro which then changes into a D major key for the verse.
    Using the capo on the second fret for the version on the video, this equates to E minor turning into E major (Cole Porter eat your heart out….).
    The “E minor” is not a conventional western scale but is more of an oriental version.
    A classically trained musician would probably be able to tell me exactly what I was doing, but I just played what felt good.
    The two different “modes” for verse and chorus just seemed to naturally fit the narrative."

    January 02, 2024

    Who Killed Cock Robin? A Norfolk Noir. All 9 episodes. Farewell Performa...


    THE TEXT

     (“Who Killed Cock Robin?”)





    Act 1.



    I.  The End of the Line

    Squire Peacock lounges over the white marble floor,
    No rope round his neck; no knife in his back,
    No candlestick pestling his little grey cells,
    Just the world in a virus, a corona attack.

    All the wanna-nobs flocked to Cock Hall( ) last night
    Snob-noshing beneath feudal chandeliers,
    Watching Cavalier points under courtesies, 
    Filles fiancéd, fillies fielded, fences, finance, feudings, fears.

    Now, as still as his statues, their host lies dead,
    His white palace frozen and under a cloud
    His Olympian, cut-diamond, snow queen is caught:
    Clytemnestra clutching a red-handed shroud.

    DI Ken Hill, DS Len Wade, in Conservatory with masks,
    Bag up the hanky, "If you’re on there, we’ll find ya!”
    "But one dropped it in Argos – no, Iceland - with one’s lover.” “He
    Was picked up last night, with your diamonds, in China!"

    Lady Peacock protests, to Chief Constable Melton, 
    "Why would I murder the Last of the Peacocks?
    He's the father of half of my children," (she snorts) “my 
    Cock, lock and stock; (sniffs) my chocs, rocks, and frocks."

    Mrs White, the Housekeeper, pure as driven snow
    Blockading the Mistress from 'these lowlifes', steps up:
    "Ditch the Peacock au vin, box the Snobside of Brexit 
    And keep all these doors to the Outside shut."

    Old Iceni crime scenes and Welsh caravans
    hurtling East on Celtic routes to Little England in the Styx 
    through a privatised transport of isolated bacterial cultures going West
    (carrying the murder hanky) not to mention Postmodern Post-man 
    Pat’s bright red van, its owner arrested 
    by a masked Private Plod for ‘letterboxing’ 658 properties
    and 2 metres up Snow White’s elephant SUV rear 
    stockpiled with shopping while the NHS serves on empty
    and her souvenir edition of the Daily Authoritarian Past Tense Straight Linear Cause-Effect Oxygen-Supply-Demand Semi-Detached Bourgeois Realist Plot In-My-Beginning Is-My-Middle-England-Ever-After Revenge Narrative  
    heavy with the story of Mrs White’s extinction- 
    replacement by Dr Orchid, Dr Black's secret daughter,
    behind a self-serving fox in a diva’s dj  
    jeering in from the hard right down the middle of the road
    to upstage White’s extinction rebellion 
    biting the empty hands that don’t clap it
    snarling who’d sniff THAT orchid? (“I thank you!”)
    and barking about National Health Servants who “need to be applauded to do their jobs”


    Block the Boudicca Trail up the B666. "This
    Ain't the road to ‘Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch’ *
    This is the road to Dis."

    The Brown Lady appears with a headless Dr Black,
    Are you seeing ghosts, milady, or old sins coming back?
    Snow White takes them out in a panic attack:
    "Not part of the cult-cha; not part of the pack!" 






    * “The church of St Mary in a hollow of white hazel, near to the rapid whirlpool and to St Tisilio church, near to a red cave” (A vital clue revealing the entire narrative of the murder and the identity of the murderer in an ancient encryption. Not lost on Chris Rea).





    II. Cock Hall

    When Dr Blake was murdered, I knew I’d be next,
    “There IS a society.” Black wrote it. I ran it. My Eden
    Was his word plot until Eve let the Colonel in. Mustard’s
    Speechless-rage counter-plotters killed Blak to kill the vision;

    Killed me for my kenning Hall: its Saxon foundation;
    Its Civil War change of hands; its New Age victory diggers
    For Boudicca’s grave Gone West, her wild la mére chariot reined
    Like a drop into timeless Ocean, clocked in Roman figures;

    My built-on-Boudicca’s grave (hence the diggers can’t find it)
    Roman-floored; Saxon-earthed; Viking-treasured; Norman-castled;
    Priory-rubbled; black corpse cellared, mad wife atticed; 
    Heritage theme-parked, ancestral seat of Little England;

    Its Camelot-Spooked Room 101 A, filled with death kites from China;
    Its Dorothy Walpole Townshend Whig Brown Lady’s
    Dis-Embody of a sunset on a huge pink map
    Dis-Honouring its debts in the East and West Indies;

    Its levelling reputation as the nest of a Robin Hood 
    Gone Green on growth, employment, health, social justice
    And of a Walpole, lending world colossus perspective
    To Mustard’s private-I-sations; his pigmy Empires in the Styxes.

    ‘Super’ Market-Law of Bourgeois Realist Plod slams my casket; 
    ‘CRACKS’ the case. Deaf to my howlings from beyond the grave,
    Blind to Ken Hill’s hidden depths of Celtic gold
    And looking in all the wrong places for a motive.

    Arthurian Ladywell flood-rocks out in the Styx 
    and crossroad crews of freezing immigrant field-slaves
    feeding credit crunch into inflated bankers
    behind Mrs White, private mask off 
    blowing away the cobwebs
    20 virus-people-carrier miles from lockdown
    along Mustard’s Golden Guinea Sands into the public’s face 
    behind Joyce, Dr Black’s typist, singing 
    “a Blake more born in Barbary” by William Bloke
    at the wheel of her green man van (an Odyssey 2019)
    behind the Clued Ouija Board late for a meeting
    securing a pale horse crime scene that’s already bolted
    past a testing kit convoy that isn’t there
    and a video surveillance police unit chasing
    a missed apocalypse call around the bend
    into the long right arm of the law
    waving its amputated left
    STOP! YOU ARE SURROUNDED 
    BY ONE-
    ARMED POLICE!

    Block the Boudicca trail up the B666.
    This ain’t the road to the Holy Grail.
    This is the road to Dis.

    The Brown Lady appears with a headless Dr Black,
             "You built this pile on African slaves, give it back."
    Snow White takes them out in panic attack.
    Not part of the culture, not part of the pack.



          




    III. Ken Loses The Plot

    "Boss, we need this result, all the Lounge Billiard Ballrooms;
    All the hounds on The Eastern Daily Mail;
    All the Skulthorpes and Death-Creakes of self-isolation
    Will cue our coronas to Cock, if we fail.”

    "Have a night off in Lynn  with the Neighbourhood Watch,
    Catch the best show in town on their CCTV
    Watch the Linnets. Relax. The CC's brought in two of his own,
    Old Agatha Christ-Eyes from AC/OCD..."

    "We’re the Freud Squad, n’est ce pas?" bows ol' Ercule to Jane.
    She drops a purled stitch and smooths her church lace,
    Jumpy as a polter in Guist,"Oh indeed!" going pink,
    "Cock Hall, like Hell Hall, is a very lonely place."

    "And a Chaos of flowerbeds, imbecile that I am,
    My ideas as deranged as PC Plot’s rouge-stained collar."
    "There’s a fire in my brain and an ache in my heart,” 
    Coughs Jane, "of what does that remind me, I wonder?" 

    His grey cells detain her woodland-nymph foot
    In a slender Paris shoe that mounts a soft stair
    Of Victorian passion through seven dropped veils,
    L'amour a la mode… Achoo!... avant la Grand Guerre....

    An Herculean stud exploding from tight city trews
    Hits smartly the small of Miss Marple's back,
     “J’ai désole! C’est le crime de passion, ca!" But she’s hooked. 
     “Two Eyes,” hers answer, “to follow the murderer’s tack.”

    Old Roman Remains and self-Brexit car jams
    jarring up a beach road
     through Little England in the Styx 
    jerkily mis-directed around the ruins of ‘Jerusalem’
    Dr Blake’s visionary folly, originally a chapel;
    since the Death of the Author, a shrine,
    and, after serial deconstruction, 
    a pocket-sized postmodern pastiche of Styles holiday home
    for Mrs Wight’s beach whale SUV
    parked outside her fridge and TV
    to save her the trouble
    of having to waddle
    and closing the public highway to the sea
    by California-dried matinee private idol CIA heart-throbs 
    Frank and Mark Adams filming
    Thought for the Day with Private Fraser
    (“WE’RE ALL DUMED!)
    Midwinter Murders 
    and an episode of Top Cat 
    where he gets the world back
    ‘for not liking me’
    with the President of the United States
    Block the Boudicca Trail up the B666. "This
    Ain't the road to La Dolce Vita in Paradiso Elysium.
    This is the road to Dis."

    The Brown Lady appears with a headless Dr Blake,
    Tarot card Britains facing forward and back.
    Snow White takes them out in a panic attack:
    "Not part of the cult-cha; not part of the pack!" 



    IV.  The Seat of Power

    In a waking dream of un-buried murder,
    Christie’s Argus ‘Eyes’ descend to the gun room below,
    "Under all the tall storeys and ivory towers, 
    At the base of the noble mind, here, we know.
     
    The viral Prof Plum has Scarlet’s software on his hard-drive!
    "In your what-happens-next, whodunit waits upon 'I would'
    Your class is the village's vampire, my child,
    The dead past sucking its rosy future's blood.

    "Now your father lies dead in a corona of thorns,
    Evil future injected in God’s old lead money veins,
    Play their Roman church candle shtick Fall Guy- and boom!
    Nothing on earth to lose but your chains."
      
    "All those grey, blue-rinsed, white lies they told me, Aunt Jane!
    For that ethical farmer, so reverend Green
    Just to ravish Dad’s blood-watered crops, not me!
    Plumski's deep-frozen spirit was never so mean."

    "But his youth’s fever dream in an old man’s fevered crown,
     “Through your guilt”, Poirot cries, “is controlling your brain!"
    "Life is Evil Made Do ('Made Old, You Old Maid!' sobs the Prof) 
    Or Made Good. Be the star of her fallen morning!" pleads Jane.

    Prof remembers that spring atop the winter palace, 
    The warm youth he was… she has now. And then
    To save her young heart, he blows out his brains. Poirot ducks.
    Marple sighs, "An heroic, unhappy, almost English (dead) end!  "

    Old Saxon boneyards and island-nation-sand-rammed 
    white builders' man-vans behind a fallen apple tree
    not to mention Postmodern Post-man Pat in a moonstone-bright 
    Ghost Office delivery juggernaut for Mrs self-island Wight -
    in her self-unconscious authoritarian past tense
    daily dis mall newspaper that hates Britain showhome 
    straight linear cause-effect oxygen-supply-demand 
    semi-detached bourgeois realist plot in-my-beginning 
    is-my-Middle-England-ever-after revenge narrative 
    planetary-extinction-with-farm-views cul de sac -
    of Argos ventilators; Amazon vaccines;
    morgue suites from Iceland; gowns and masks from China; 
    and a private hospice the size of a small town 
    from Dis Mall Bathware, Kitchen & Hall 
    behind a rather remote-looking doctor 
    to whom she just gave her symptoms
    being tracked 20 gridlocked miles out of Lee Harvey Oswald Drive, 
    Washport, by THE CYBERTROLL SHOUTING “WHODUNIT!”
    HE CARRIED HERE IT IN HIS TARDIS! HE’S A NASTY MAN!
    (“we all dunit! says Ken Hill. Non, Noes Poirot
    “we are all the murderer and all the victim, oui, 
    but the self-isolation in the public spirit, 
    and the self-isolation of the self-interest, 
    are not at all the same
    there is one here who murders society itself,
    who is not at all le good bourgeois 
    he appears on the surface;
    in his Chelski-blue shirts and his boots of Bahrain
    and his Mend & Make Do & Die PPE Kits 
    of Little England in the Styx.
    he is the one to blame; as the coroner will explain; 
    HE is the Cain;” “or SHE,” coughs Jane)…
    Block the Boudicca Trail up the B666. "This
    Ain't the road to Midsomer Maidens In The Woods Next The Tavern.
    This is the road to Dis"


    The Brown Lady appears with a headless Dr Blake.
    She’s running late with all the traffic; she’s speaking through the flak,
    "Krishna's Eyes in your Peacock tale: give them back!"
    Snow White takes them out in a panic attack:
    "Not part of the cult-cha; not part of the pack!"



    Act 2.
    I.  Colonel Mustard's Counterplot 

    After life's chokes and splutters, the Squire sleeps well,
    (Mustard's unconscious death-wish to be Squire can't stop him)
    But the Christie slams shut and England’s unsolved,  
    Not coughing in its sleep, more asleep in its coffin.

    Dick Sparrow, a Super Head in the Clouds of (un)Doing,
    Out of office (all) hours, baton-slick, born to run,
    Guards the van of a new charge, retraining the House guides
    In HERITAGE HOMICIDE HOLIDAY FUN!

    "It's political correctness gone m-mad!" trumps the Colonel 
    As his bust of Dr Black is burned. "That pike-lip: it's
    An original colonial design!" "Norman, you're political in
    Correctness gone mad," says Miss Scarlet, "you’re Auschwitz.

    "Your ‘omniscient’ Nazi counterplot with private alib-Eye
    Would 'remove' PC Plot (and lady suspects from his scene
    To your kitchen/bedroom ) wipe your hand from the Blade , unbreakably 
    Frame: Black for Dad, Brown for Plum, and petrol-tank Jack Green!”

    The Colonel’s private Market Force glides over from Burnham 
    In a fleet of Chelsea tractors, each the size of his mother’s hearse
    (As Eve falls) private wealth-cushioned against the potholes
    To the Common, where a cold cougher pinches his private purse.

    “When my Vikings scythed Blake’s head off at your Norfolk Noir launch
    Of his PRIVATE I'S-ATION AND THE MURDER MOST FOUL
    OF ONE NATION BRITAIN , I ‘solved’ the Death of that Author
    But his ghost possesses Cock Hall, damn his black bestseller soul!”

    Old Viking murders and self-escape yachts
    through titanic migrant waters 
    spilling Undead Rule Britannia landslides 
    of beached red herring 
    yanked out of the frying pan of Europe
    into a twin tower safety burger to take out 
    live far eastern markets 
    and kit-supplied far eastern science
    from these global-virus-conquered, 
    Nelson Victory lanes
    by double cross-eyed 2020 vision 
    under-cover commie chefs Frank n Mark Adams
     (“Government contracted on a private number.”
     “You’re a marked man, Frank”; 
    “You’re a franked man, Mark”)
    behind the Black Shuck Headline Hell Hound 
    of The Baskerville Telegraph 
    chasing a wild goose: 
    a big game bargain-hunter in a mask
    shooting 30 miles up to a Lidl in another town 
    in a top-of-the-range rover (clapping the NHS out of one window; 
    taxing its leave-to-remain out the other;
    driven by no kind of need except ‘GREED IS GOOD’
    keeping the wheels of capitalism and coronavirus turning;
    chuntering “there IS no society
    it’s up to the individual not the State how we risk our bodies
    and those of our neighbours and colleagues…
    until we need the NHS, the BBC, the RAF
    to save our little I-land of alien nation)
    Block the Boudicca Trail up the B666. "This
    Ain't the road to Valhalla in the Havens on the Haystacks next the Sea. 
    This is the road to Dis."

    The Brown Lady appears with a headless Dr Black,
    Ghosts of an Empire Colonel Mustard wants back;
    Snow Wolf takes them out in a panic attack:
    "Not part of the cult-cha; not part of the pack!"
    II. Captain Hastings’ Elimination 

    I’m snowed in at The King’s Head by holiday Homers 
    Who park three 4 by 4s EACH in lanes built for the horse!
    And a Berlin Wall roadworks winter-timed by the council 
    To suit this Public House not the PUBLIC of course.

    It can’t be Scarlet, though she Nayed the squire her father
    And his bridal nomination, she loved them both (sur)really; 
    Her flirtation with the Prof was just a lovely filly’s folly
    With an NHS-under-bed Red, a free and PPEasy.

    “Nor Royalist Lady Peacock, though she ‘Dissed’ the squire her husband’s
    Agreeing their daughter’s union with Radical Green Jack
    Well, we know who wore the jodhpurs in the Peacock marriage.
    No need to kill a spouse she could whip to Dis - and back;

    “Nor the Colonel with his Nasser-splintered one-eye Eden glass
    And private fly that saw him die for Eve’s attention since Eton,
    Private selfies on the Oedipus  trail, rewarded then, as now,
    With Abel’s Caining and that private after-healthcare with matron.

    (“Not on our NHS that hawks, with bright crack-papering bills,
    ALL FOR SOME; SOMME FOR ALL; NO FUTURE; NO VACCINE; NO ANTIBIOTICS
    But why we need an implant and a whitening root canal
    And ALL the latest BARGAINS in surgical cosmetics!!!)

    “Nor Black & Brown, whose Looks could, couldn’t Murder in a Library 
    From which they’ve been expired. Nor Jack the Public Green  
    In a Scarlet Study: he gave me his Old School word. And so
    Beyond our DI Ken, a Last Trump over Poirot… it can only… have been:
    M-m-m-AAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH -”
      

    Old Civil War siege-works and laughing Cavalier
    one eyed lockdown-breaking 
    Good King Charles Interpretation of History pub-tours 
    sponsored by Specsavers (should have gone to Oedipus) 
    2020 vision private double-cross four-eyed by Kentucky-fried,
    California-dried CIA agents Frank n Mark Adams 
    (“Government contracted on a private number” 
    “You’re a marked man, Frank”; 
    “You’re a franked man, Mark”)
    staking out a lost Castle of Perseverance
    in an angel-wing mirror
    cracked from side to side
    between the Word on the street 
    and a Marlow hip-pocket vision of the bay 
    It’s a paradise… lost:
    fig leaves and Freudian slips 
    on the new line between the public
    and the private
                  I
    still working the First Murder case 
    from dawn to dewy Eve like
    FOREVER because WE dunnit, Mark.
    (you mean like Oedipus, Frank?
    Oedipus is all right if you like modern. 
    I mean like CAIN, Mark)
    gridlocked 
    behind a coffin cul de sac
    parallel nosy parker
    in a white elephant SUV
    with out of real estate plates
    Block the Boudicca trail up the B666.
    This ain’t the road to a New Model Millennium of the Saints.
    This is the Road to Dis.

    The Brown Lady appears with a headless Dr. Black
    And an All-in-all Saints commonwealth, plain English Jill and Jack.
    Snow White takes them out in a proud boy panic attack.
    Not part of the cult-cha, not part of the pack.

    III.  PC Plot’s Arrest

    "THERE'S BEEN ANOTHER MURDER!" over-acts the Superhead
    In the dug up Saxon boneyard, then sees the grave’s for real:
    Captain Hastings in the trench, a Norman arrow through his 'I'
    Ghost-written there by Mustard as 'The Squire' who cuts this deal:

    “I’m your born-to-be-General and life’s dealt m-me a loaded hand.
    You can put your m-mortgage, children’s centre, white & blue shirt on me.
    You can bank on another M-Mayfair house, another Grenfell hotel,
    A neo-liberal M-murder case unleashing m-my Land of the Free

    To trump as one (Mrs White too loud) “Build a Great Wall around China.
    Send all the corona-sick yellowbellies; owlish Gretas; fires, bugs, rains; 
    Locusts, floods, foreign bodies, nasty reporters; hurricanes (you want 
    Fries with that vaccine?) back where the virus  came…
     
    “Mustard’s Holiday Hearths (with Chef ‘Gammon’ White) the new Kings
    Of Cock Hall, will keep all our outlets open; all our inlets closed.
    Together, we can carpet bomb the pinko out of this commie corona 
    With our hyper-ventil, market-leadin’, privateer overdose.

    “Comme les généraux de mon pauvre capitaine Hastings à la Somme,
    Your Private I’s too narrow, a troll’s blind glare at the Sun,”
    Cries Green Eyes, glowing. “Game’s Up, ‘General’! Come into Mummy
    For Supper,” pleads Jane. “NO! Let’s get this M-murder done!”

    STOP THE TEXT!

    “We harrest this minimalist counter-plot against Who Killed Cock Robin
    For asset-strip/un-solv/ing the Excalibur Brand of Britain,”
    Truncheons (W)PC Plot, “No account for the Cat what killed ’im
    Could be so far behind the lines, so blithely underwritten…-” 

    First World War Aerodrome man-shells Somme-being Back from the Front to be blown up the ammo-box stairway of their Safe Bilayati Homes 
    behind a ten-seater-one-man bandwagon right up its own ass 
    underwritten off through an ambulance
    accelerated to a standstill by a Stop Cat
    wall-eyed and simpsons-complexioned in the headlights
    undertaking the middle of the road to conduct
    Scheidt’s Symphony N. 2 in D Trump Major
    with a riot gun and a bottle of thick bleach
    and a big white Lie to cancel every reckoning
    round the bend 
    of toilet creek
     down the
     free
    way 
    to hell 
    mouth 
    first
    “i will make you 
    phishers of men
    - that’s phishers with a PH
     world-sellers
     - and PH WITHOUT the science -
    if you follow
     ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME
    to the End 
    of the World”
    (NO thank you, says Frank.
    No. Thank YOU, says Mark)
    Block the Boudicca trail up the B666.
    This ain’t the road to the New Jerusalem Without the Walls of Gaza.
    This is the Road to Dis.

    The Brown Lady appears with a headless Dr. Black
    And the ghost of the brave new world of the young, which no wall can attack.
    Snow White takes them out in a panic attack.
    Not part of the cult-cha, not part of the pack.



    IV. The Reveal

    Colonel Mustard, in the Dining Room with smoking Revolver, 
    Asks where any secret passage to Happiness is.
    "There's no Way Out," sighs Eve Lady Peacock, "no 4-cornered flights
    From this Clued-Ouija Board, just the Night Train to Dis.”

    DIS APPEARS! The plot convenes. The Freud Squad Argus-pans. “We indict!
    In every room. With every weapon...  The Snow Queen of Has-beens,
    The Black and Cock Robin, breakfast cereal murderin’ … MRS WHITE!" …..                           
    "I ’AD TO BLEACH THE ’OUSE OF ALL THE BLACKS, BROWNS AND GREENS!”

    “You’re not Lady Peacock!” Mustard tears off her mask, 
    “What have done with my Lady P?” “I AM her and shall forever be
    Eng-land as it is in Heritage! Your Lady Daily Male, your buried Hastings,
    Your Mustard-servin’ Cod-Psycho Private I, survivin’! Your ‘Me.’ Marry Me!”

    Mrs White is marched away and Winter goes with her.
    Spring is back on the menu, multi-coloured and diverse.
    Dis approves as Jack Green is betrothed to Miss Scarlet;
    Dis agrees as Poirot blossoms and a primrose Jane demurs.

    Dis untangles the Brown Lady, reveals Parvati-Proserpina
    In a Wife-of-Turnip-Townshend ghost-disguise!           
    Dr Black blows his trumpet, England's foundations rock,
    Green Eyes dances Blue Eyes into the sunrise.

    V Finale: The (Happy, Everliving) End

    raised stone age axings, raised bronze age barrow murders; 
    raised iron age death-works 
    and plastic age illiterate-banner-capitals 
    get-my-own-back-private-enterprise- 
    against-the-world plague wagons
    (that’s my name on there)
    behind a nose-trussed eve peacock in a broken ambulance
    accelerated to a standstill
    refusing colonel mustard’s death-bed proposal
    of “a public stage for our private parts”;
    overtaken by a hearse full of plum burnt red herring
    undertaken by a hell’s angel 
    bat-released from lockdown
    cresting the hill on one wheel above happy valley 
    blowing the last trump 
    THE HUMAN RACE IS OVER
    AMERICA FINISHED FIRST
    behind chlorinated cia agent frank and mark adam,
    ‘to be frank, mark, with a marked frank, and a franked mark,
    we’re plucked’; 
    ‘to be mark, frank, with a marked frank, and a franked mark,
    we’re -; 

    behind dick sparrow spotted on a mobile
    serially murdering squire peacock’s reputation
    in the daily mall,
    cancelling culture from the curriculum
    (delete who killed cock robin; 
    insert advert studies for colonel mustard’s businesses;
    delete break the class ceiling;
    insert tom jone’s fielding, pupil self-assesed good writting
    and speeling; how animals runed poor mr jone’s fram;
    delete literature;
    insert the ‘striving for comp
    etence’ market brand academy 
    ‘now the third best sponsored numbschool in dis on sea south!’
    spinning sunset west down a progress-listing poster)
    while serially overtaking himself overtaking
    the long slow coach to diss
    down a diversion marked ‘this ain’t the road to helhoughton
    this is the road to FLOOD
    into an oncoming agriculatural juggernaut…

    leave the boudicca trail down the b666
    to bronzed, new-aged, post-modern diggers jack green and miss scarlet
    at the altar in the greenwood with the bluebells. this
    ain't the road to hiraeth, that long-longing-logres-home-grief to be elsewhere. this 
    is the road to bliss.

    “it’s going to be all right!” ejaculates dis
    as scenes from the passion in an easterly procession
    line the walsingham way 
    and heavens above
    turn st mary's snowdrops through an orientation 
    to daffodils of fire
    in the grail woods around all in all saints
    through death, jane remembers, 
    with poppies, 
                 to love.

    dis ceases; frees parvati and the head of dr. black
    as little england’s shell starts to crack.
    its self- i-solation, its dracula virus-attack,
    re-i -dentified with the all in all, re-i-dentified with the anti-drac
    who gives the lifeblood back…. 

                LOVE

    rolls the die; his dying role; his ace, king, queen and jack; 
    ALL part of the culture, ALL-IN-ALL of the pack. 




    Appendix: The songs.

    Who Killed Cock Robin? (traditional nursery rhyme)


    "Who killed Cock Robin?" "I," said the Sparrow,
    "With my bow and arrow, I killed Cock Robin."
    "Who saw him die?" "I," said the Fly,
    "With my little eye, I saw him die."
    "Who caught his blood?" "I," said the Fish,
    "With my little dish, I caught his blood."
    "Who'll make the shroud?" "I," said the Beetle,
    "With my thread and needle, I'll make the shroud."
    "Who'll dig his grave?" "I," said the Owl,
    "With my pick and shovel, I'll dig his grave."
    "Who'll be the parson?" "I," said the Rook,
    "With my little book, I'll be the parson."
    "Who'll be the clerk?" "I," said the Lark,
    "If it's not in the dark, I'll be the clerk."
    "Who'll carry the link?" "I," said the Linnet,
    "I'll fetch it in a minute, I'll carry the link."
    "Who'll be chief mourner?" "I," said the Dove,
    "I mourn for my love, I'll be chief mourner."
    "Who'll carry the coffin?" "I," said the Kite,
    "If it's not through the night, I'll carry the coffin."
    "Who'll bear the pall? "We," said the Wren,
    "Both the cock and the hen, we'll bear the pall."
    "Who'll sing a psalm?" "I," said the Thrush,
    "As she sat on a bush, I'll sing a psalm."
    "Who'll toll the bell?" "I," said the bull,
    "Because I can pull, I'll toll the bell."
    All the birds of the air fell a-sighing and a-sobbing,
    When they heard of the death of poor Cock Robin.

    Lockdown (© Gareth Calway 2020)

    Don’t go to work
    Don’t go to school
    Stay in your homes
    Keep the 2 metre rule.

    From the council estates
    To the posh ones with parks
    From high fashion high finance
    To its slave kids in the dark

    From the poles to the equator
    Supermoon into eclipse
    From the fjords to the deserts
    Temperate zones to the tropics…

    Can’t breathe…

    Come and heal us with your caring
    Then go back where you came
    You’re not from round here
    We don’t know your name.

    From the centre of the cosmos
    To Little England in the Styx
    From the heart of Little England
    To each human breath’s limits.

    The world has come
    To Little England in the Styx
    Little England is the world
    We’re all together in this

    Except we have no test kits
    We shut down too late
    We didn’t quarantine
    We didn’t track and trace.

    We didn’t take the test
    Now we’re top fo Death’s calss,
    Lord Hee Haw dressed as Churchill
    We are such a silly ass.

    Blitzing Brits for Blighty
    As the Beast in the East
    Spits his cold War into Salisbury
    The we go off piste.

    Covid’s knee in the throat
    Of your healer and your bro;
    In this world war for survival
    Every ally is your is foe.

    Can’t breathe…

    Except we have no test kits
    We shut down too late
    We didn’t quarantine
    We didn’t track and trace.

    We didn’t take the test
    Now we’re top of Death’s class
    Lord Hee Haw dressed as Churchill
    We are such a silly ass.