i don't care what people say,
from the heights of the empire,
england has currently
hit rock bottom - and don't
even claim to be a parallel of
that, a goody two shoe -
like i was explaining to ritchie
and nichola last night
walking from the off-lice
(started a conversation randomly
with ritchie's prompt 'did they
serve you', 'yeah, they did',
'ha ha, look at them now, running
for the bus', indeed the shop
assistants were closing early
to catch the bus) -
if you incur a damage to the brain
everything you thought essential
about yourself changes, everything,
before the haemorrhage i didn't
smoke cigarettes (now i'm a choo choo
steam-engine), i didn't really drink
(once a week, when partying),
and i certainly didn't write, well,
the odd poem on a rare opportunity,
but certainly nothing personally revealing;
i don't really have a social status that
might me look bad with the things i write,
meaning i don't really have a reputation
and an image to upkeep -
like england these days, i'm in an
uninhibited free-fall, and there's no
parachute i could use...
and the proof? i remember the mythical
england of the 1990s...
bird cages in valentine's park at gants hill,
boats on the ponds you could row,
that one park, now there's hardly anything...
the 1990s will always have a mythical
imprint on my mind, euro 1996 hosted
by england;
now england is a really dreary place...
well, obviously if you live in chelsea west london
you get to do a reality show,
or if you live in richmond you are in
the middle-class stronghold and you have
the kew gardens to sport a little bit of
leisure time...
essex has become a sort of dumping site,
******* almost pretty much everywhere...
i don't know how it is up north,
but i hear it's no good, or perhaps much worse...
london's real estate market is actually
an extortion market... even ritchie and nichola
are forced to live with their parents,
or wait about 8 years for a council house...
and anyone smart enough or brave enough
moves elsewhere... ireland, scotland,
australia, canada... america...
it's like watching a mass migration of birds,
and it's permanent...
me? i came from a defunct steel industry community,
with the fall of communism the city imploded,
mass migration, once a steel industry town,
it's now a town of pensioners...
and like here, where the internet made the high
street a bleak place, there's not a single music
shop in that town, there was once,
i managed to buy lao che's gusła album
(gave it away to my neighbour after he gave me
a pair of headphones when i told him
i had these ****** £1.50 ones - so no dr. dre beats;
i gave it to him because he listened to it
for a bit and liked it, so i put it in a sock
and hanged it over the fence on his washing line,
i was kicking myself in the *** over the generosity,
i really wanted to own that album),
but it's like that.