Sea And Sand

Sea and Sand

Huddled behind the flapping wind-breaks

On creaking candy-stripe deck-chairs

Naked toes wriggling in the cold damp sand

Watching children play among their castles

The long, chilly day stretches far ahead

From sea-wall to a distant horizon

              

Optimistic hats and sun-tan lotions

Jostling with novels and newspapers

In the beach-bags of bosomy matrons

While damp, gritty bath-towels

Shield the modesty of shivering teen-agers

Changing out of cold wet swim-suits

Seagulls scream in the slate-grey sky

Perhaps portending later rain

Before the distant tide

Slowly comes back in again

Its waves sliding up the chilly beach

Erasing empires built along the shore

And enforcing the reluctant retreat

The last desultory donkey-rides taken

Flags and windmills rescued from the water

Before climbing to the esplanade

And a long promenade along the windy pier

To reach the lonely telescope

Which points towards the blackened sea

Then fish and chips in warm, greasy paper

Or cockles and mussels in plastic cups

The sharp and pungent waft of vinegar

Competing with the fresher smell of ozone

While seeking shelter against the elements

On the seats behind the life-boat station

And later, licking ice-cream and candy-floss

While steadily feeding slot machines

In glittering amusement arcades

Where noisy one-armed bandits

Devour great piles of tanners

Until, bored and poorer

Driven outside again

To stroll, wind-driven

Back along the Front

To buy rock and Kiss-Me-Slowly hats

Reading every comic card

On the twirling wire stands

Before games of football in the park

Krazy Golf, then Pitch and Putt

Before sauntering back slowly

To kill more time, before facing High Tea

And the tyranny of the guest-house landlady

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2020

Pineapple with Rum & Lime Mascarpone

Recipe for: PINEAPPLE with RUM & LIME MASCARPONE

Ingredients:

·        1 pineapple, peeled, cored & cut into 8 long wedges

·        200g mascarpone

·        2 tblsp icing sugar

·        1 lime, zested & juiced + extra for garnish

·        4 gingernut biscuits

·        30g butter

·        2 tblsp honey

·        Pinch cinnamon

·        1 tblsp rum

Method:

1.      Cut the pineapple into 8 wedges & set aside

2.      In a bowl mix the mascarpone, icing sugar, lime zest and lime juice to taste.  Set aside

3.      In another bowl crush the gingernut biscuits

4.      In a frying pan heat the butter over a high heat & cook the pineapple wedges for 6-8 minutes until they are starting to caramelise

5.      Drizzle over the honey & cinnamon

6.      Cook for another minute

7.      Add the rum & simmer for one minute until sauce is syrupy

8.      Place two wedges on each plate

9.      Add large spoonful of mascarpone

10.   Sprinkle with the gingernut crumbs

11.   Garnish with lime zest or wedges

When I WAs Older

When I Was Older

When I was older, things made much more sense

And everything kind of hung together

In a way I no longer understand

Life was serious, dull and boring

In a black and white sort of way

But it got me through the years

To get me where I am today

When I was older, I knew clearly who I was

Where I was going, what I was doing

And who was near and dear to me

I played the role of responsible adult

Father to my children, husband and provider

Worker, money-maker, decision-taker

Lover, and sometime man of leisure

When I was older, I grasped what it all meant

What mattered, and how to get things done

I knew who you were then

Why you left me and where you had gone

I hid my small box of cares and worries

And I kept the lid tightly closed

So that you should never know

But now I’m young again, things have changed around

The smells, the sounds, the sights leap right out

Everything is there in full colour

I find that I have nowhere I need to go

I need not make any great decisions

Except what I should have for my dinner

And what time I’d like to go to bed

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2020

Clown

Clown

Your appearance startles me

As I gaze upon your features

A false face with rictus smile

Wide-eyed, red-nosed grease-paint make-up

The wig, the hat, the jacket

Huge shoes and trousers

Ill-fitting coloured patched-up garb

Exaggerated, extravagant and eccentric

Your gestures make me flinch

Wild anarchic actions

Expansive and grotesque

Flapping, slapstick prat-falls

Tumbling to the crash of cymbals

Comedic foolish fall-guy

Miming pain and sorrow, a parade of emotions

And silent appeals to the comic gods

The crowd’s reaction does not move me

Their laughter growing

Mounting to crescendo

Faces smile-illuminated

Marvelling at the timing

Of the crazy performance within the circus ring

Watching Whiteface and Auguste

Conducting clowning chaos

But your deadpan muzzle leaves me cold

Your sinister expression

Raises phobic fear and terror

My voice sticks in my throat

To me you are no joking jester

Nor clowning priest of mirth

But a chill reminder of a childhood nightmare

A presence from dark anarchic night

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2020

Market Day

Market Day

Across the square, Cross-shadowed

Among redundant white lines

Car-cleared and bollarded

An encampment of trucks and white vans

Stalls under candy-stripe awnings

Channel raindrops into small streams

To drip from corners into baskets and trolleys

Shouting and calling, touting and yelling

Today’s bargains, special offers

Everything fresh from the farm

Cox’s in boxes

Bananas in bunches,

Grapes, tomatoes and pears

Eggs, bacon and ham

Puddings, pies and pasties

Sauces, pickles and jam

Milk, cheeses and honey

Flowers, veggies and fruit

Everything’s there if you’ve got money

Oily, scaly wet fish, fresh from the seas

Sharp-finned, bright-eyed and open-mouthed

All good at this price

Glittering, silver darlings

Fanned out on piles of crushed ice

Men’s outsizes, ladies’ lingerie, hats, bras, knickers and socks

Hoover bags, replacement parts, watches, batteries and clocks

Stall-holders sipping extra-sweet tea

Hugging the mugs for their warmth

Take-away bacon rolls cooling on the side

While change is quickly given

Keeping up incessant banter for the punters

A thriving cash economy

Among the strolling bargain-hunters

Hours later, the camp dismantled, the rubbish, the mess and the muck,

Brushes and brooms in the rain, and work-men with the garbage-truck

The wind whips round the deserted space

Whilst, inside, in the pub and the café

It’s time to watch someone else working

And for some hot food and a drink

A chance at last to get warm

A space to reflect and to think

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2020

Drivel From Devizes - Dateline Sunday 26th January 2020

Drivel From Devizes: Dateline – Sunday 26^th January 2020

Here is our weekly round-up of events from D-Town:

                                              

1.      Health chiefs in D-Town are keeping a watching brief in light of the outbreak in Trowvegas of TWAT (Trowvegas Workers’ Acquired Toxin).  The town has now been placed under lock-down, the movement of tractors restricted to night-time, and ugly people compelled to wear face-masks.  The latter has less to do with disease control, than an excuse to improve the visual look of the town.

2.      And a decision is expected this week on the future of the HS2 (Hard Springs 2) project.  More than £20 has already been spent on fitting the 49 bus-route vehicles with harder springs, but the remaining project is widely expected to take much longer, and to cost much more, than originally budgeted.  Business leaders in Swindon have lobbied D-Town Council to complete the project before their part of the North becomes even further cut off than it is now.  A local councillor was heard to mutter that such an argument was an incentive NOT to complete the project.

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2020

Playing The Game

Playing The Game

We’re all very friendly here, you’ll find, we’d like you to join in with our game.

There’s just a few very simple rules: to misunderstand would be such a shame.

First you must dress in the correct rig: shirt, jumper and flannels all white,

So you can be seen out there on the green - anything else just wouldn’t be right.

It’s quite safe, but you’ll need precautions: helmet, bat, pads and a cricketer’s box,

Cause the bowlers can bowl pretty sharpish, and the ball is as hard as a rock.

Now first you go ”in” and stand at the crease - your main job is not to get “out”,

And if you manage to hit the ball, run to the other end with a heck of a shout.

There’s another chap “in” at the same time, so try not to get in each other’s way,

Keep crossing in the middle as you run, and try to keep batting all day.

It can be fraught if you get caught, and your hands can get pretty sore.

Don’t be lumped with those that get stumped, and don’t be trapped Leg Before.

It can get rich, out there on the pitch - it’s flat, there’s no grass and no clover,

But you needn’t have doubt, you’re not given “out” even when the umpire shouts “over!”

If you’ve been bowled, you’ll surely be told, by a mad bowler who’s pitching short,

By a fat porker sending down a plumb Yorker, or a daisy-cutter that’s caught.

Don’t be yielding to athletic fielding, and remember: Third Man’s theirs, Twelfth Man’s ours,

Better get wise to no-balls and byes, then keep your bat straight for hours and hours.

Ride on your luck and don’t go for a duck, stroke it through the covers with care,

Don’t do a dance when you get your second chance, and on no account go for a pair.

Try to bestride, out on the leg-side; beware Gully, Point and Silly Mid-on,

And if the ball nips through to their Slips, they could enforce the Follow-on.

They’ll be vermillion, back there in the pavilion, if you don’t watch the bowler’s arm laden.

A spinner or seamer, or left-arm dreamer, could easily bowl over a maiden.

You have the right to ask for the light, or get them to shift the Sight-Screen.

You can be curt, or even retire hurt when the pickings have become rather lean.

When at your best, you can take a short rest, by holding up the non-batting end,

And when you cut free, the game stops for tea, and if it rains, the game they’ll suspend.

Your skipper might be a nipper, but he’ll be daring and never be scared.

You might be still out there and swinging, but you might find the total’s “declared”.

Have not a doubt, you’re now clearly “out”, and you’ll find that you have to yield.

It’s now time you tried to bowl out other side, and start your session out in the field.

Sometimes it’s seen, that weather can intervene, so Duckworth-Lewis is brought into play:

It sets up new targets for scoring - how it works, really no-one can say.

But that only catches the very short matches: - it would never do for a Test score.

It’s the only game one plays for up to five days, where the result can still be a draw.

So there you go, there’s little more to know, you’ll pick it up pretty quickish.

It says everything about our nation; it’s the key to being British.

At the end of every inning, if you’re still winning, or if you’ve taken every wicket,

Your own eleven will be in Wisden’s heaven, and you’ll finally understand cricket.

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2020

Double Agent

Double Agent

Do not be fooled by the easy manner

Or his apparently warm, affectionate nature

The well-groomed, tailored coat

Perfect hair and manicured whiskers

Nor his domesticated demeanour

Do not be taken in by his love of warmth

And cosy, comfortable, curled position

Nor his sleepy, silent gaze

As if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth

Always dozing during daylight

And rubbing round the legs at feeding time

Do not believe for one moment that his carefully managed image,

This cool, collected character, is at all what he purports to be

For Sam is a double-agent, licensed to kill

A sleeper, hiding his true identity

Lying low until Agent Moonlight gives the signal

Calls him from retirement to carry out his next assignment

Working under cover of the darkness

For another operation in a foreign field

Passing through the portal, turning his collar to the night

Nose, ears and senses all alert, carefully checking his equipment

Teeth, paws and claws, all razor-sharpened, glinting

Ready for rapid deployment, sleek and silent

He slips away without a backward glance

Leaving his safe house, out on patrol,

Round his marked and guarded territory

Eyes narrowed, focused, single-minded, ruthless

A trained professional, working alone

Driven by feral, instinctive urges

To taste fresh flesh and warm blood

Each evening before the curfew falls

This murderous, vicious assassin

Callous creeping killer in the night

Will make short work of anything that squeaks and scurries

Briefly before it dies, life throttled from its throat

Then brought back, trophy-style

To be chewed upon the killing floor

The fur and bones left undigested

Mission accomplished, victims abandoned

Honour and appetite satisfied

His shady, secret life discarded

He wanders slowly back to base

Reports in for the evening

Meanders to his sleeping quarters

Cleaning his equipment

Before, contented, curling tail beneath

Setting head upon his paws

To take his after-dinner nap

And resume his old identity

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2020

Beetroot & Goat's Cheese Gratin

Recipe for: BEETROOT & GOAT’S CHEESE GRATIN

Ingredients:

·        500g beetroots, scrubbed, topped & tailed

·        100-150g goat’s cheese (or other soft cheese)

·        1 tblsp horseradish sauce

·        150ml cream, crème fraiche or yoghurt

·        3 tblsp fresh breadcrumbs (optional)

·        3 tblsp freshly-grated parmesan

Method:

1.      Preheat oven to 200C (fan 185C)

2.      Boil the beetroots for 10-15 minutes until tender, but still retaining some bite

3.      Drain and plunge into cold water for a few minutes

4.      When cool enough to handle, slip off any remaining beetroot skin and cut into thick slices

5.      Grease a shallow baking dish with a little butter

6.      Slice the goat’s cheese into small slices

7.      Arrange the beetroot & cheese slices in alternating layers in the greased dish

8.      In another small bowl, mix the horseradish with the cream.  Add salt & pepper

9.      Pour over the beetroot & cheese

10.   Put a layer of breadcrumbs (if using) & grated parmesan over the top of the dish

11.   Bake in the oven for about 10-12 minutes until the cheese is melted and the sauce is bubbling

What else you need to know:

1.      Serve with a green salad and some thick wholemeal bread to mop up the juices

2.      Ideal on its own as a snack meal, or makes an impressive side dish with red meats

Carpe Diem

Carpe Diem

Squeeze the fruit, enjoy the juice,

And drink it whilst it’s fresh.

This really is that rainy day

And now, right now, is the very time

To indulge the appetite.

Do not prevaricate or hesitate,

Nor wait for some distant tomorrow.

Seize this memory,

This particular moment on this day,

This exact second when you saw and heard,

Smelt and felt this sensation.

Perhaps it will be there again another time

But you can never know for sure

And it may be lost it forever

If you let it go today.

There is no knowing what span of years is yours,

What may happen in days to come,

How long there might be still to go,

Or how close to the end

Before the force of life fails and fades,

When what holds it all together

One day will simply cease to work,

A heart no longer beating, pumping,

Driving the body to its daily workings,

Nor any longer draw in breath

As it has a million times before.

This precious thread will snap,

For it is thin and may break

At any moment, without warning.

Be careful, it is a fragile thing,

The material crumbling in your hand

Falling like dust between your fingers

Into an empty nothingness.

When the curtain finally falls,

Rehearsal over, there will be no performance.

The scene deserted, the actor gone away,

The costume lying empty

And piled inert upon the floor,

No lights, no dialogue,

No expression of emotion

And an end to thinking, feeling, aching.

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2020

Dealer

Dealer

Movement in the corner of the room

By a silent, shifty individual

A jackal in jacket and jeans

Whose slightest gesture with his eyes

Signals all-clear for the client

Who may casually approach

Stand close by for a few seconds

As fingers delve into pockets

To extract merchandise

In the slim-line paper packet

The swiftest wordless handshake

Between these men who are not friends

And do not know each other

A mere transactional gesture

Enables the exchange

Quickly hand-to-hand

Money moved in seconds

Unseen by the casual observer

The goods gone, the punter moves away

To sample his substance

But the peddler stands his ground

Scouting further business

Looking for passing trade

Cruising for customers

Watching for watchers

Blending with the background

Quiet buying and selling

Subtle supply and demand

Unobtrusive opportunities of the open market

A final chance to turn a profit

Before quietly slipping away

Sliding into dark shadows

As if he had never been here

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2020

Men In Fancy Dress

Men In Fancy Dress

Such clowns and crowd-pleasers

Posing calmly for the cameras

Neither shy nor reticent

To display their daily lives

Each gesture and posture

Behaviour and expression

Perfectly matched

As they sit side by side

And stare into each other’s eyes

Sleeping, eating, playing

In full view, unafraid

These slow, gentle creatures

Endearing and enduring

Such deliberate actions and attitudes

Oblivious to their keepers’ attentions

In these parkland pens

Symbols and souvenirs of their species

Precious panda merchandise

Raising vital funds for breeding research

Daily bamboo diet and long-term preservation

For sale now in the tourist shop

But these cannot be wild creatures

Rescued from their habitat

With heads and hands and feet

Large enough to get into

Their black and white costumes

The right size and shape

For men to live inside

And provide the daily show

For a thousand photographs

The actors, for actors they must be,

Practised in their antics

Always sitting in the right positions

For maximum exposure

This cannot be natural

For them to co-operate so well

The pandas, for pandas they cannot be

Must be but men in fancy dress

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2020

Drivel From Devizes - Dateline Sunday 19th January 2020

Drivel From Devizes: Dateline – Sunday 19^th January 2020

Here is our weekly round-up of events from D-Town:

                                              

1.      The row amongst the family at the Big House on the High Street continues.  The new daughter-in-law, believed to be a non-Wiltshire woman, has flounced out of the family home, dragging her ginger husband with her.  The couple are rumoured to want to live in Trowvegas, and to support themselves from immoral earnings.  However the cost of their daily bus-fares to and from work is thought to be a sticking point in the future financial settlement within the family.

2.      And D-Town’s highly successful rugby club has been told that it will face yet further punishment for financial irregularities.  Having already been docked 35 points and fined £38.26p as a penalty for last season’s transgressions, it now turns out that further offences have been committed.  The Club’s chairman Willy Wonty is alleged to have treated the first team squad to free pie and chips on a weekly basis, thus breaking the league’s strict code on chip remuneration.  The new punishment is thought to include automatic relegation to the Anusol League, boiling in oil, and public disembowelment.  The League warned that this punishment was deemed to be lenient in the circumstances.

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2020

Jam

Jam

A man in a black shirt

Glances across through wet glass

To see what I’m doing

Drumming on the steering wheel

In time to the music

And the beat of the wipers

To the other side, a girl chats on her mobile

Oblivious to the pouring rain

And the two men watching her, envious

Lines of lights ahead and behind

A red sea that does not part

Three lanes aligned, facing forward

Inching along in the queue

Bumper to bumper

Blocked, jammed

Wheels and windows

Boxes of metal, plastic and glass

Each a singular environment

Separate worlds, personal spaces

Lives in a landscape

Of black wet tarmac

The matrix on the gantry

Flashes warning messages

Which say nothing helpful

Reflecting on a thousand shiny surfaces

Cars, coaches and cabs

Trucks and taxis

Caught in the same stasis

All time and space co-ordinates dead

Suspended sat-navs silently waiting

For onward progress to occur

And something meaningful to say

Activities suspended, action on hold

Hurrying home or toiling to the terminal

To catch a flight that will not wait

Marooned, late, tired, frustrated

Despairing in the dark

Looking forward to a future

That has no clear horizon

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2020

Screaming Tree

Screaming Tree

Within this forbidding forest

Among a cathedral of trees

It stands alone and silent

Biding its time, waiting

For them to come and stand before it

In this special place

An altar of sorts

A clearing amongst the greenwood

Huge amongst its brothers

A giant within the greenery

Old, brooding, silent, implacable

Sweet sap oozing deep within

Grounded on the surface of the Earth

Its massive roots like fierce, hard fingers

Grasp deep within the ground

Holding fast to the surface of the planet

Its gnarled and twisted trunk

Spiralling up into the canopy

Reaching through to the sky

A long, ancient finger pointing upward

It hears the howling and the shouting

The agony and the anger

The breast-beating of those who stand before it

Screaming inarticulate noises

Of inexpressible pain and passion

It feels their raw emotion

Absorbing their energy

Soaking up and staring back

Immobile, faceless and unflinching

Its knotted, woody aspect

Reflecting, projecting, transmitting

And conducting sound

Upwards for the heavens to hear

And provide an answer, if they will

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2020

Roasted Pork Belly with Orange & Star Anise

Recipe for: PORK – ROASTED BELLY with ORANGE & STAR ANISE

Ingredients:

·        5 oranges, halved

·        Bunch thyme, leaves picked, roughly chopped

·        Bunch rosemary, roughly chopped

·        Head of garlic, cloves peeled & chopped

·        100ml olive oil

·        2-3kg pork belly joint, rind on

·        Coarse sea salt & black pepper

·        2/3 bottle of white wine

·        For the star anise reduction:

o   500ml orange juice

o   180ml balsamic vinegar

o   160g honey

o   10 star anise

Method:

1.      Heat oven to highest

2.      Arrange orange halves on a baking tray, cut side up

3.      Put herbs, garlic and oil in food processor and blitz roughly

4.      Lay pork on top of oranges, skin side down

5.      Sprinkle with salt and pepper

6.      Using your hands spread the herb mixture evenly all over the upward-facing side of the joint, pressing so it sticks

7.      Turn the joint over so it’s now skin-side up

8.      Wipe skin dry with kitchen towel and sprinkle with sea salt

9.      Roast at full blast for 60 minutes, turning the tray round half way through

10.   Turn heat down to 160C

11.   Pour white wine into base of baking tray

12.   Roast for another 60 minutes

13.   If skin begins to blacken, cover with foil

14.   Turn oven right down to 110C

15.   Roast for another hour, uncovered until skin has crackled & thoroughly dried

16.   Meanwhile prepare the star anise reduction:

a.      Put ingredients in a small pan & stir over medium heat

b.      Simmer for 45-60 minutes until sauce is thick &reduced to one third

c.      Remove from heat & keep warm

17.   Remove meat from the oven and allow to rest before carving into chunks

18.   Dot with oranges & star anise, pouring on a little of the reduction

Only Child

Only Child

What was it about me

That I should be treated this way?

That you should leave me all alone,

Single, singular and lonely?

Was it my monopoly upon your time,

All your sharing, your caring, your affection

For your one and only treasure?

What was it about me

That made you give up after only one?

Was I quite enough for you

So wonderful, so endearing

That I filled all your time

Took all your attention

So there could be no room for any another

And a second could never be as good?

What was it about me

That made you say “never again”?

Was I too much for you

That you could not bear to go through it all twice?

Was I just too much to cope with

My behaviour not good enough

A great disappointment

Or just not what you wanted?

What was it about me

That was the fault in my creation?

Was it the love or the sex when you made me?

You never explained it to me

Why I should remain unaccompanied

No playmates of my own, no brother or sister

But left to wonder

About larger families around me

What was it about me

Or did I do something wrong?

Was I too strange, too weird, too odd

An alien little boy

Too hard for you to cope with

Or was having a child

Just not what you’d expected?

And why did you both go from me

Leaving only questions, never any answers?

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2020