Halley's Comet

Part 2 in our ongoing sequence "6 Degrees of Separation; 7 Degrees of Love" (preceded by "A Love That Involves Evolution")

The Swimming Song The US election take

The Swimming Song

This summer I went swimming 
This summer I might have drowned 
But I held my breath and I kicked my feet 
And I moved my arms around
I moved my arms around

This summer I swam in the ocean
And I swam in a swimming pool
Salt my wounds, chlorine my eyes
I'm a self-destructive fool
I'm a self-destructive fool

This summer I did the backstroke 
And you know that that's not all 
I did the breast stroke and the butterfly 
And the old Australian crawl
The old Australian crawl

This summer I swam in a public place 
And a reservoir, to boot
At the latter I was informal
At the former I wore my suit
I wore my swimming suit, yeah

This summer I did swan dives 
And jackknifes for you all 
And once when you weren't looking 
I did a cannonball
I did a cannonball

This summer I went swimming 
This summer I might have drowned 
But I held my breath and I kicked my feet 
And I moved my arms around
I moved my arms around

Fight fight fight (response to an article in the Guardian)

The ‘uncanny image’ (Johnathan Jones, G2, Arts) of Donald Trump as some sort of risen Christ/anti-Democrat Iwo Jima /right wing “No Parasan’ will of course be received by all too large a section of the Religious Right as testament that their angel has been spared by God to ‘fight fight fight.’ Spared from an assassination attempt by a confused 20 year old conservative registered Republican; fight not just the ‘witch hunt’ against Trump’s denial of a democratic change of power in 2020 and the attempted quasi putsch of January 6 but now it seems ‘fight’ “to bring the whole country, even the whole world, together;”  however little of the whole country and whole world’s diversity is ‘visible on the Republicans’ twin white male Trump/Vance ticket. But whatever terms you use, God (Providence? Fate? Accident? History?) has indeed spared Trump as ‘He’ didn’t spare Jo Cox, JFK, Martin Luther King and others whose message seem a lot closer to the “love thy neighbour as thyself” of the actual  – God-unspared - Messiah than Trump’s fake news ‘Risen Christ.’ ‘God’ also spared Hitler (and all his subsequent evil) twice, the first when an English soldier in the First World had him in his sights, the second in 1944 by Germans tired of his relentless fight to ‘bring the whole world together’ under a jackboot.  Farage, the mock-heroic British Trump with his milk shake stigmata, will doubtless drool over his death-defying hero’s brilliant manipulation of media and want to bring it home to the UK, but whatever apocalyptic destiny there may be for an America where a ‘Biblical’ King appoints the Judges who then exonerate him from all charges, it doesn’t make that mean-spirited abusive bully a risen Christ. 

Euros2024: The House Where I Saw England Win The World Cup On TV

I return to the Rodden Estate in my home town of Frome in July 2024 to secure a victory for England against Spain in the European Nations Final. Until Wednesday's semi final (10 July) I hadn't watched England play on TV in Frome since July 1966 (in the days when everyone played in black and white) and this was clearly the missing final link in lifting the 58 years of hurt from off the Three Lions' collective back. But just to make sure, I popped back next day (or was the day after?) to the old house and the green green grass of home (that's my box bedroom window at the end of house shot and the living room below where we watched the game. I put a 'Swinging London' Union Jack up outside at the end of the game. It will be a Three Lions bag or two from Frome Marks and Spencers if we do it today.) Then I popped up to Badger's Hill where I used to get my leather ball dubbined and watch Tony and Kim Book (the former later a top flight winner with Manchester City, the latter later a goalkeeper for Bournemouth) contest the old Western league while listening to the Light programme's commentary of a First Division second half game. Ah, 1966 and all that - under a recently elected Labour Government. Why has it all taken so long to come again? And in one way a little further. A first final on foreign soil... But it is here. If we've won and you're in the mood for happy endings after a lot of unhappy false beginnings, you can read all the 58 years of context here in a small collection of sonnets here https://calwaygareth.blogspot.com/p/the-beautiful-game.html but these will read a lot better of there's a victory sonnet at the start. If we lose, you can just stare at the wall and wonder how long you've got left for the next chance like me. With the glorious exceptions of the women's team two years ago, the England Rugby team in 2003 and the cricket triumphs, I hope you don't have to wait as long as I have. Fingers, legs and stars crossed.

Bring Me To Fring All Saints - the remake

A new recording and a new film for the anniversary of its subject, Flight Sergeant Pilot Lancelot Percival Williamson, 1920-1945, late of this parish who died on July 13 1945 after five years service in the RAF on two major fronts of the Second World War, aged 25. He joined the RAF in 1939, aged 19. He was agonisingly close to surviving the entire war when, by a cruel irony, he died in a plane crash on a solo training flight in Derbyshire just after his last home leave in Norfolk. 'Percy' hailed from Eaton Farm Sedgeford, went to school in Fring, sang in Heacham church choir and (a week before his death) played cricket for Sedgeford and is buried next to his older brother at Fring All Saints, North West Norfolk.. We performed this homage as part of the Remembrance service at Fring All Saints in November 2023 since when the gravestone has happily been cleaned and made much more legible, hence the new film. Our thanks to the person who carried that out as well as to Tim Snelling Sedgeford village historian whose excellent research gave us many of the images and press cuttings you see here and in the new abridged companion spoken word version (link to follow) The tune is a traditional folk song about a good young man cut down in his prime. The aircraft you hear at the end of this film was flying over as we finished recording so we left the mikes open. (A similar happy accident occurs in the new spoken word version). I landed a crocked plane, when still just a fitter, 5 years derring-done, never shot down in flames, In a cloud of unknowing, I flew for the sunrise And came down to Earth but lived up to my names. Six knights of Logres to carry my coffin, Six Logres ladies to walk by my side, Through hellfire and slaughter to a wheatfield of poppies And a home hedge on Friday the 13th of July.

Beat the drum slowly and play the pipes only, Play up the dead march as we go along And bring me to Fring All Saints and lay me down easy, I lived in the free air that breathes through this song. Instrumental break Repeat first verse.