La Economía Español

Graphite, pencil and water-colour

"Spain is heading for a general bailout. It may not happen immediately, but that is what the figures suggest - that sometime in the autumn, maybe sooner, the country will need a full-blown rescue...During the rest of the year Spain must raise 26bn euros in long-term debt. With the regions pleading for help it may need significantly more, but Spain is effectively shut out of the markets. The borrowing costs for 10-year bonds at 7.2% are clearly not sustainable" - Gavin Hewitt, BBC European Editor, Spain's euro woes: Crisis deepens

The Western World

'Este es el mundo, amigo, agonía, agonía.'1 

I see them: drains clogged with livers,

seeping thinned-blood, sweating cold sand,

and hear words slur from misty-eyed girls,

folded on streets and trembling with

some befriended stranger beside, 

stroking their bleach-blonde hair: 
where's the woman with doves in her breasts?
where's the old man with his beard full of frost?


Whilst they rest later in swirling beds,
after stumbled fumbling, sawdust sex, 
a thousand ants swarm over dawn, 
stifling its light to form men's shadows
that darkens great cities behind them - 
cities without a mouthful of flowers: 
where's the woman with doves in her breasts?
where's the old man with his beard full of frost?  


1. Federico García Lorca, Oda a Walt Whitman, Poeta en Nueva York

A Letter From the Department of Health

Receiving a letter from the Department of Health would normally send a paralysing wave of panic through most health-obsessed hypochondriacs such as myself. On this occasion, however, as I mentioned in 'A Letter From No. 10 Downing Street', I was in fact expecting a reply from Health Secretary Andrew Lansley or (more likely) from one of his advisors regarding my article on students' binge-drinking: 'Why Do Students Love Booze'. I was encouraged to discover that the matter, as you can discover yourself from reading the letter above, is ostensibly an issue with which the central and local governments are attempting to address. I will continue to keep a watchful eye, though, over both governments' actions over the matter of alcohol abuse; I still suspect it is far more severe than anyone in either our local or central governments would ever have envisaged.    

(liberté)

“man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself”  

jean paul-sartre

smeared with blood from our palms and feet,

our tears of glass fall and glimmer

on a mess of broken mirrors

in endless cells of hollow stone.

with only the walls before us,

we forget laughter stuffed with straw,

the cold of envy’s leering look,

and the awkward smiles of match-sticks.

yet still we piece each fragment back

and stitch expressions onto faces,

whilst our fragile hearts wince and moan

amidst the snickering of chains.

in hollow cells of endless stone

we clothe ourselves with their shadows:

for we are broken yet still we build;

for we are re-built yet still broken.

By Ben Stupples

 A Letter From No. 10 Downing Street 

I sent my article on the subject of student drinking ('Why Do Students Love Booze?') to the Prime Minister in a spontaneous moment of activism sometime towards the end of May. Over a month later, having totally forgotten about posting the article addressed to 'The Right Honourable Mr. D. Cameron MP' (his name barely fitted on the envelope), I received this response from Downing Street's 'Communications Officer'. Unsurprisingly, the reply did not go into much (if any at all) detail about the aforementioned article, but I look forward to hearing from the 'Department for Business, Innovation and Skills' sometime soon. My caring crusade, then, against students' binge-drinking continues... 

Are Football Thugs Extinct?

“Serious sport,” as George Orwell states in The Sporting Spirit (1945) “…is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all the rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence.” Though this essay of Orwell’s was first published in the denouement of the Second World War, his cynical outlook on competitive sport and its environment, particularly amidst steadfast football fans, may still be regarded today to be a valid observation. As Orwell mentions: “the significant thing is not the behaviour of the players but the attitude of the spectators.”  

Football hooliganism emerged as a serious societal issue in recent English history during the 1970’s and 1980’s. Fans regularly fought before, during and after fixtures, equipped with any possible afflictive instrument in order to quash and conquer opposing fans: bottles, knives, iron bars, razors – even concrete slabs. Bitter, though relatively harmless, rivalries that have always existed between football clubs (and always will do) subsequently erupted throughout this period, resulting in English hooligans becoming increasingly dangerous and disruptive to football. On May 29^th 1985 in the European Cup final between Juventus and Liverpool, for example, 39 Juventus fans were crushed to death – an event that led to the banishment of all English clubs from all European competitions until 1990 (with Liverpool being banned for an additional year).

Organised, fight-thirsty and mettlesome ‘firms’ of English football clubs such as Manchester United’s ‘Red Army’ or Tottenham Hotspur’s ‘Yid Army’ (notice their violence-evoking titles) were the advocates of football hooliganism and its destructive culture. For some, indeed, the throng of violence on match-days became a drug: “I go to a match for one reason only – the aggro,” as ‘Frank’ – a 26 year-old lorry driver and self-confessed football hooligan from the ‘Red Army’ – declared when he was interviewed in 1974. “It’s an obsession,” he explained, “I can’t give it up. I get so much pleasure when I’m having aggro that I nearly wet my pants.”

With their compulsive appetite for violence, hard-core hooligans such as ‘Frank’ can be considered by all those not involved in their unusual communities to be fanatics – the origin, incidentally, and ironically, of the term ‘fan’. Due to the extensive police effort over the past twenty years to prevent football hooliganism, though, firms of clubs and their troublesome individuals are not so wide-spread today as they were three or four decades ago. Some, however, still exist, and they still feed off that uncontrollable urge for violence: “it’s just like being a crack-head or an alcoholic,” as ‘John’ – a current member of Coventry City’s firm (‘The Legion’) – states; “you’re addicted to it”.  

One senior official at one of London’s most prominent football clubs supported the existence of football hooliganism in modern society, too, when he told The Observer in 2010: “If anyone thinks it has gone away they are naïve. The Internet provides an easy way to arrange meetings. This is gang violence that attaches itself to sport. It is naïve to think that football still doesn’t provide an opportunity for a ruck – it does.” 

London, indeed, has witnessed over the past decade two serious incidents of football hooliganism between rival clubs: after Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur drew 3 – 3 in the quarter-finals of the F.A. Cup on 11^th March 2007, a “running battle” (Metro) broke out between the clubs’ fans; at least ten people were stabbed. And before the second round Carling Cup tie between West Ham United and Millwall on August 25^th 2009, a man was stabbed as West Ham United’s ‘Inter City Firm’ and Millwall’s ‘Bushwackers’ renewed perhaps the most bruise-covered, blood-splattered firm rivalry in English football. 

English football clubs, then, still provide a stage for hooliganism. Abroad, however, since England were threatened with expulsion from Euro 2000 due to the trouble caused by the country’s hooligans during the tournament (which prompted the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to apologise publicly for their behaviour), English fans have improved their reputation considerably. As Ollie Holt, the Chief Sports Writer for the Daily Mirror, remarked on Twitter, for instance, during Euro 2012: “England supporters have been [sic.] credit to country at this tournament. Scenes at Euro 2000 feel a world away now.”

In the first place, though, why are so many men (often between the ages of twenty to thirty) so beguiled by football hooliganism?

Anthony King, Professor of Sociology at University of Exeter, offers one possible explanation, identifying football’s male-dominated environment as an opportunity to form and define one’s sense of masculinity: “Through the support of a football team,” he argues, “the male fan affirms his status as a man (in the eyes of his peers and himself) and also articulates the nature of that manhood.”

On the matter of why football hooligans readily turn to violence, moreover, sociologists Eric Dunning, Patrick Murphy and John Williams recognise mob-mentality to be a significant factor: “at a football match…(hooligans) are able to act in ways that are frowned upon by officialdom and much of respectable society,” they argue. “The game, too, can generate high levels of excitement and the focus of this excitement is a contest…between the male representatives of both communities.”

All the offensive chants fired towards opposing fans, and all the violent fights are thus attempts to subjugate the other side in mock-battle – an argument supported via the fact that football firms “march” to matches. These hooligans – as Dunning, Murphy and Williams suggest – are usually men that are (or have been) “discriminated against” in work and school environments; they often lack a sense of identity and, therefore, though they probably would not admit it themselves, confidence in terms of their social standing in wider society, too.

Among football hooliganism’s inner circles, however, these men can climb up from the bottom of a hierarchal structure to be revered by the fellow members of their community. With the use of violence as the primary means of achieving this status, though, the rise up the ranks in a hooligan firm is ultimately a destructive process – a notion exemplified by Jason Marriner, a former ringleader of the ‘Chelsea Headhunters', who is currently serving a two-year prison sentence for playing a “pivotal role” (The Sun) in the violence following Chelsea’s game against Cardiff City in the 5^th round of the F.A. Cup in February 2010.*

In comparing today’s levels of football hooliganism to the hysteria that spread throughout English football in the 1970’s and 1980’s, it may seem relatively non-existent. It is, however, still an active force in football; an issue that still needs to be dealt with. Indeed, as one football hooligan recently remarked: “there’s always a group of twenty, thirty or forty young lads coming through who are keen enough to start up the new section of a legion.” Even over the last few weeks, football hooliganism has purloined the headlines: after England’s 0 – 1 defeat to Italy in the quarter-finals of Euro 2012 on 24^th June, “disorder broke out” (BBC News) as one-hundred and fifty English fans attacked those of Italy. 

Sadly, then, the fight to quell football hooliganism is still far from over. However, now that its causes are mostly understood within academic institutions and football authorities, can a sustainable means be fashioned to combat its destructive consequences once and for all? If it can, perhaps George Orwell’s bleak observation of sports fans’ behaviour may not remain to be so pertinent to football in the future.  

*In 2000, too, Marriner was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment after being found guilty of “conspiring to commit violent disorder at a match between Chelsea and Leicester City.” (The Telegraph)

 Published in The Prisma

Bibliography 

Walker, Tim. Donal MacIntyre is ready to give a football thug a hearing. N.p.: The Telegraph, 2012. Web. 1 June 2012. .

BBC News. Euro 2012: Bedford disorder after England lose to Italy. N.p.: BBC News, 2012. Web. 27 June 2012. .

Coslett, Paul. Heysel Disaster. London: BBC News, 2006. N. pag. Web. 20 June 2012. .

Bridge, Rowan. Increase in young football hooligans, say police. London: BBC News, 2010. Web. 20 June 2012. .

Dunning, Eric, Patrick Murphy, and John Williams. Spectator Violence at Football Matches: Towards a Sociological Explanation. 2nd ed. Vol. 37. N.p.: The British Journal of Sociology, 1986. JSTOR. Web. 20 June 2012.

Sullivan, Mike, and Alex Peake. The end of a reign of terror. N.p.: The Sun, 2011. Web. 1 June 2012. .

Jackson, Jamie. The hooligan problem and football violence that just won't go away. N.p.: The Observer, 2010. Web. 20 June 2012. .

King, Anthony. The Postmodernity of Football Hooliganism. 4th ed. Vol. 48. N.p.: The British Journal of Sociology, 1997. Web. 20 June 2012.

Orwell, George. The Sporting Spirit. London: Tribune, 1945. Web. 19 June 2012.

Metro. 10 stabbed as Chelsea and Spurs fans clash. London: Metro.co.uk, 2007. Web. 20 June 2012. .

A Lamentation of the Lost Working Class

Graphite & pencil; inspired by Owen Jones's 'Chavs: the Demonization of the Working Class'.

“Taken together, New Labour policies have helped to build a series of overlapping chav caricatures: the feckless, the non-aspirational, the scrounger, the dysfunctional and the disorderly. To hear this sort of rhetoric from Labour, rather than the Tories, has confirmed the stereotypes and prejudices many middle-class people have about working-class communities and individuals. But it can be far subtler than outright attacks. Many of New Labour's underlying philosophies were steeped in middle-class triumphalism. They were based on the assumption that the tattered remnants of the working-class were are on the wrong side of history - and must be made to join 'Middle England' like the rest of us” - Owen Jones. 

Drawing (again) in the Style of Alberto Giacometti

'Chavs: the Demonization of the Working Class'

I wholeheartedly recommend everyone to read this book; it addresses perhaps one of the most polemical and prevalent issues in our contemporary society: the middle-class's change in attitude towards the working class. Since 'chav' first entered into our vocabulary (officially) with its inclusion in the 2005 Collins Dictionary - 'a young working-class person who dresses in casual sport clothing' - its meaning has developed significantly and become increasingly pejorative. 'Above all,' as Jones states, 'the term chav now encompasses any negative traits associated with working-class people - violence, laziness, teenage pregnancies, racism, drunkenness, and the rest.' 


A BBC T.V. documentary ('British Style Genius') stated in 2008 that chav culture is 'an evolution of previous working-class youth subcultures associated with particular commercial clothing styles, such as mods, skinheads and casuals.' Jones, however, argues that political, not social, issues relating mostly to Margaret Thatcher's dogged destruction of the trade unions during her tenure as Prime Minister is the most significant factor in the emergence of chav culture: "Margaret Thatcher's assumption to power...marked the beginning of an all-out assault on the pillars of working-class Britain," Jones states. "Its institutions like trade unions and council housing were dismantled; its industries, from manufacturing to mining, were trashed...and its values, like solidarity and collective aspiration, were swept away in favour of rugged individualism.'


The term 'chav', then, may derive from the wreckage of working-class communities in the latter stages of the previous century. Having been described as 'the salt of the earth' throughout the years preceding Thatcher's incumbency, the working-class seems to have been elbowed aside by the Conservative Party; its members accordingly changed from being an integral part of society to becoming its outsiders. Being working-class thus became something almost to be ashamed of, which allowed the middle-classes to sneer or laugh at them and enforce a social divide. As Jones states about the middle-class's often snobbish attitude towards the lower-class: 'if you convince yourself that the less fortunate are smelly, thick, racist and rude by nature, then it is only right they should remain at the bottom.'


In terms of a concept, the 'chav' quite possibly embodies the most crucial political issues that affected the lower-classes over the last forty years. Nowadays, the snobbery and ridicule surrounding the representation (or, depending on your point of view, misrepresentation) of the working-class has arguably reached farcical levels - remember Matt Lucas's portrayal of Vicky Pollard in 'Little Britain'? This book is truly remarkable through the way in which it explains each cause in the downfall (or, as Jones says, 'the demonization') of the working-class. Regardless of whether I agree with his views or not, I have attempted to summarise briefly the crux of Jones's argument to give you an idea of what to expect in 'Chavs'. If you don't read it, trust me, you're missing out. 

Jones, Owen. Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class. London: Verso, 2011. Print.

Drawing in the Style of Alberto Giacometti

Why do Students love Booze?

Wine, vodka, gin, beer, whisky, champagne, port, rum, absinthe, cider, ale – the catalogue of alcoholic drinks stocked on shelves across the country is almost as innumerable as the health issues ensuing from excessive use of them: cancer of the mouth, neck and throat; high-blood pressure, an irregular heart beat and cirrhosis of the liver, to name the most severe.

You may have thought, then, that at our hallowed universities (where the most intelligent young minds of our society can be found) students would make a deliberate effort to avoid exposing themselves to alcohol - a substance that David Nutt, a former Government drugs adviser, identifies as "the most dangerous drug in the UK."

You would, however, be totally wrong.

Whilst to some extent there has always been a drinking culture in our universities, mostly due to the social freedom most wide-eyed students discover once they have waved their parents goodbye, the emergence and dangerous development of what Dr. David Nylund describes as the

‘new lad’ (a misogynistic and amoral hedonist, seemingly) since the mid-1990s has slowly strengthened the grip that alcohol has on university students.

Nowadays, for instance, as one female second year English Literature and Spanish student at a Russell Group university says, "alcohol is seamlessly ingrained into the majority of most students' lifestyles, and the laddish camaraderie that exists among male students certainly encourages this culture. Drinking alcohol is now not only a means of enjoying yourself among friends, but also a way of proving your worth to your peers in student sports clubs and societies."

Dr. Nylund, interestingly, suggests this ‘new lad’ culture was an initial response to the “humiliation and indignity” caused by the ‘girl power!’ movement during the 1990s - remember the Spice Girls? Men, he explains, felt “battered by feminism” throughout this period, resulting in the subjugation of the stereotypically domineering male ego and its subsequent fashioning into a passive image.

   

Men, thereafter, needed to react to second-wave feminism; they needed to find a new identity. However, rather than reinventing the lad as a respectful and righteous man, the ‘new lad’, the male response to the ‘girl power!’ movement, can only be regarded as an exacerbation of the insensitive, binge drinking and aggressive old one. “Lads took up an anti-intellectual position,” Dr. Nylund says, “scorning sensitivity and caring in favour of drinking, violence and a pre-feminist racist attitude to women.”

Consequently, it is unsurprising that this period saw the inception and subsequent popularity boom in 'Lads' Mags' such as Maxim (1995), FHM (rebranded in 1994) and Loaded (1994); whilst films that promoted male hegemony such as 'Snatch' (2000) and 'Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels' (1998) also proved to be tremendously successful. 'Snatch', according to Guy Ritchie, the film's Director, earned over a 400% profit from its $3,000,000 budget as it grossed £12,137,698 in the UK alone, for instance.

The new lad may have managed, therefore, to liberate men throughout the last decade of the 20th century from the grasps of ‘girl power!’ Since then, however, today's young adults, the generation who grew up amidst the confusion of the gender conflict, have now also become advocates of its culture; they have suppressed any potential feminist movement since the millennium – a notion that is perhaps most patent in the laddish lifestyle of the university student.

     

Throwing up one's alcohol-saturated stomach contents outside clubs (an indication of Dr. Nylund's alcohol-loving 'new lad') is not only accepted but also, shockingly, the norm, for instance. If you're at a 'pre-lash' (a quasi-house party where students drink, often heavily, to avoid spending money later on in clubs), it is also common practice to spew in someone's bin, sink or, if the queue for the bathroom's too long, on their carpet. From my own experience as student over the past two years, usage of the toilet is an ostensible luxury.

The disturbing connotations of flagellation evoked by the verb 'to lash' in the term 'pre-lash' should not be ignored, too. Many, I'm sure, will argue that its meaning should not be taken seriously, that it is tongue-in-cheek. However, whilst the term may well have been so when it was first coined, it simply is not now due to the amount students drink before going out. "At a pre-lash," according to one male French and Spanish student, for example, "it is not unusual to drink a bottle of wine over an hour" - an amount of alcohol equivalent to three times the legal drink driving limit.

Students, then, are foolishly and dangerously abusing their own bodies, which may have serious consequences to their physical health in the future. “This kind of activity contributes to the fact that we now see people presenting with alcohol-related liver cirrhosis at a much younger age,” as Dr. Varuna Aluvihare, liver specialist at King's College Hospital, says, for instance. "Any day of the week I might now expect to see 20-to-30 year old patients with livers working at only 5% or 10% of their normal function and needing a transplant, while 15 to 20 years ago we rarely saw this in people under 50" (Gardner).  

    

Some students, staggeringly, have in fact started drinking before even going out to a pre-lash. "Almost regularly", as one female Biochemistry student from a leading UK university says, for instance, "I watch and time my male house mates 'strawpedo' (downing a drink as quickly as possible via use of a bendy straw) their bottles of wine, often in less than ten seconds, before the pre-lash." She then goes on to state: "I wouldn't have believed anyone before I came (to university) that I would accept this behaviour as normal. However, maybe we have all just learned to accept it as day-to-day normality."               

An alcohol-fuelled lad culture has become indoctrinated, therefore, into student society. It is emerging as a prevalent problem in universities and investigations into its negative effects suggest it is a matter that must be resolved soon. Recent studies by Cardiff University's Gabrielle Ivinson and Open University's Patricia Murphy, for example, both identify lad culture as a source of behavioural confusion, whilst Adrienne Katz has even linked it to depression and suicide.                     

Perhaps the most shocking aspect of the contemporary lad culture, though, is how female students have also become affected by it. 'Drunkorexia' (a term to describe the female students' habit of not eating in order to prevent putting on weight from drinking alcohol) has become such a widespread issue that it is now also subject to scientific research. Dr. Victoria Osbourne, for instance, the leading scientist in the study of ‘drunkorexics’, states: "depriving the brain of adequate nutrition and consuming large amount of alcohol (the drunkorexic’s lifestyle)…can cause short and long term problems including concentrating, studying and making decisions."  

Judging from what I have written in this article, to clarify my own opinion on this matter, it may seem that I am in favour of abstinence from alcohol; however I am not at all. I regularly enjoy a drink or two (sometimes, perhaps, even more) in pubs and clubs with my friends both at home and at university. It has not been a narcissistic or pretentious wish for pedantry that has made me write this article, but a serious and justifiable concern for my fellow students: the infrastructure of our country's future academic and political system.

Each student in each university should remember that they all have the ultimate control over themselves and, therefore, their decisions. Peer pressure, which is undoubtedly an influential factor in student society's drinking culture, may at times appear to be overwhelmingly powerful but it can be thwarted easily by one simple yet often forgotten word: no. Tragically, however, if laddish students continue with their reckless rate of alcohol consumption their livers, simply put, may not last for long.       


Published in The Prisma

Bibliography

Nylund, Dr. David. Beer, Babes, and Balls: Masculinity and Sports Talk Radio. New York:  State University of New York Press, Oct. 2007. Print.

BBC NEWS. Health: Lad Culture Blamed for Suicides. London: BBC, 1999. N.pag. Web. 1 June 2012. .

The British Psychological Society. Lad Culture and Boys' Confusion about             Behaviour". Leicester, England: The British Psychological Society, 2001. N. pag. Web. 1 June 2012.

Gardner, Jasmine. My Life as a Drunkorexic. London: London Evening             Standard, 2011. N. pag. Web. 1 June 2012. .

IMDb. 'Snatch' - Box Office. N.p.: IMDb, n.d. Web. 1 June 2012.           .

Storytelling: a forgotten art?

The oral tradition of storytelling is one of the most ancient forms of art in contemporary society. Both fable and myth are ingrained deeply into our cultures and they have become a crucial element of characterising our respective national identities. Without the chivalric folklore surrounding King Arthur and Saint George and the Dragon, for instance, the foundations of England’s sense of patriotism would be totally destroyed.  

But storytelling, in spite of its primordial roots, is one of the least celebrated art forms nowadays. Walk into any entertainment retail chain such as HMV or WHSmith and you will not discover DVDs of performances by Ben Haggarty and Sally Pomme Clayton – two of the UK’s leading storytellers. Instead the shelves bulge with music CDs, video-games or films and the same question still remains as a result: why is the art form of storytelling now so unheard of?  

Many of us can identify with the exhilarated sensation we feel when we see our friends or family take pleasure from listening to one of our stories. Perhaps we can then relate to storytelling’s key concept of engaging an audience – a notion that has invigorated Chris Wise (a leading figure in the Storytelling in Hope club based in Eltham, London) to continue storytelling since he first fell in love with the art form fifteen years ago. ‘Finding a really good story,’ he says, ‘one that you really enjoy telling and then sharing is just a lovely experience.’

Storytelling, then, initially appears very similar to how we might spread the latest office gossip on our lunch-breaks. But how the art form of storytelling differs to that which can be found in most informal social situations is that storytellers, though they wish to captivate their audience, never wish to be the main focus of attention. ‘When someone says they could see what you were describing,’ Chris tells me, ‘you know that you have disappeared for a moment and that is exactly what you want to do.’

The story therefore seems to take precedence over the performer in storytelling, which draws an interesting comparison to stage or film where the attention given to the actors is often equal to that of the story. Moreover, unlike in stage or film where elaborate staging or computer-generated imagery (CGI) can contribute towards a story’s meaning, the storyteller must create both their characters and their surroundings with just voice and imagination. ‘Storytelling, then,’ as Chris says, ‘can sometimes be a tough task!’

However, the dearth of 21^st century technology-based techniques is not a weakness of storytelling but arguably one of its strengths. Because it lacks props, special effects and other cast members the audience fix their attention on the performer. Many people unite together to make one story in theatre and film, whilst one person becomes everything in storytelling. As a result, the storyteller has more of an opportunity to develop a link with the audience, which is what Chris accredits to ‘the best storytelling performances because you become one with the audience. It almost feels like a symbiotic relationship.’   

This capacity to unite groups of people via the imagination’s stimulus is an undoubted rarity in our society that is often affected by social, political or religious divides. The Storytelling in Hope club epitomised a beneficial means of utilising storytelling’s potential to unite groups of people as they brought together storytellers from different ethnicities and celebrated Diwali, the Hindu festival of light, with a retelling of sections of the Ramayana – one of the great epic tales from India and Nepal.

Storytelling can be therefore not only a source of entertainment but also a means of enhancing our awareness of other cultures, which could benefit our increasingly multicultural society in the future. But, in all honesty, the chances of the government employing the likes of Chris, who is aiming to become a professional storyteller later on this year, to tell stories from different cultures so that barriers in the local community may be broken down are sadly unlikely.  

Regardless of that notion, however, there still is a case for storytelling to be nurtured, advertised and enjoyed more in our society. It has been ignored for too long; it needs to be heard more and you could be one of its voices. Storytelling clubs exist across the country and a simple Google search will inform you of the one nearest to you. Over the summer months, you could also attend or participate in weekend-long events such as Festival at the Edge that Chris describes as ‘cracking entertainment’ – why, in all sincerity, not give it a try?  

Published in The Prisma

Snow,

winking with frost,

has smothered all.

Winter’s sharp fingers

pierce my flesh 

and my mouth is a broken,

rusted gate.

I feel the soft warmth of fire

you lie beside,

and see you cradling your

kicking stomach.

But glass wind surrounds me,

breath bleeds from my lungs.

Each wet

step sinks

beneath

the bone-white

surface

and cold draws me

nearer,

whispering sleep in my ear.

Then a faint thud thud

          numbs the silence,

     though.

           It grows

                  thud thud

                it grows.

                       A blinkered shire horse

                                                                    emerges,

                      trudging alone,

                                                    slowly.

                                                                   Its leather harness

      sags behind,

                                   scraping the floor as it

                                                                                clears a path.

     Its mane twitches

                                           like long grass,

 its muscles,

                                   like pistons,

                                                                         judder as I reach out,

  and,

                     as I follow behind,

                                                                  the wind still rages

         and the cold still

                                             pinches

                                                                but something

                 swells

                                       like a womb inside. 


Published in The Æolian Revue

He walks along the street alone in the cool evening air and the comb nestled in his jacket’s right breast pocket snags beneath the crook of his arm, pressing against his chest. He lets out a gasp that hisses through his clenched jaw but the low rumbles of conversation flooding the street from opened bar doors muffle its sound along with the keys and ring that jangle in his pocket. Twenty-something year old men in creased suits lean awkwardly against the walls outside as they try to entertain half-interested twenty-something year old women. The smoke from their cigarettes disappear like their breath into the fading light and someone, a colleague probably, calls out to him, their words slurred from watered-down beer, but he just keeps on walking.  

            Those cancerous clouds of grey smoke bloomed from the mouths of smokers too when he first met her in that seedy, sticky-floored bar. He clutched at a half-finished pint with one hand and gripped onto the bar with the other but his head still managed to sway slightly as if his neck were elastic. He saw her coming. He knew what she wanted. The dimmed lights hid the first few strands of grey that crept along her temple but her eyes still glimmered. She slowly made her way towards him. He could feel and hear her quick, eager breaths and how he wished he had seen her slip the ring into her purse before she whispered in his ear.

            The small wad of twenty-pound notes in his wallet makes it bulge slightly and he runs his thumb over the top edges of each note, counting them out again in a faint whisper whilst the heavy scent of his after-shave flares the nostrils of passers by. Normally he finds solace in these half-empty streets. The rambling bars are behind him now. The chilled wind usually pinches his skin and makes him shiver, makes him remember how it feels to be alive. But tonight his whole body, apart from his chest, feels numb. He stares into the empty square of opaque plastic in his wallet. Most people keep passport-sized photos of their children in the same space and he sees how the gap-filled grins illuminate their parents’ eyes with joy.  

            He told his colleagues how they were saving together for a holiday and then a car. The lies wrapped around his heart and squeezed it like a stress ball. Nights became sleepless as he stared at her desert-like womb and dark clouds of insomnia crept slowly into his mind. Sometimes, after bad mornings, he sipped stale whisky from lunch until lights out and shirt un-tucked, breath stinking, he stumbled and staggered home. She would always be waiting on the bottom stair, her jaw always taut, waiting to pick another problem, waiting to start another fight.   

            On the street a swarm of tourists surround him as he waits for the lights to change. They point animatedly at a map that one of them holds out and another repeatedly circles the picture of one of the city’s famous landmarks. He points them in the same direction from where they came from – the opposite direction of where they want to go. The glaring flares of headlamps blur past him as he rocks his weight on the edge of the low curb and fierce pockets of wind burst into his face with every passing car. He can’t believe that he may have once considered taking one more step just because of her.

            He won’t go back to collect his suitcase. She would push him down the stairs again. His clothes are probably still strewn like confetti across the downstairs floor and she may well be still raging through the empty house like tree-toppling winds whilst half-expecting him to return with his chin fixed to his chest and a bunch of sorry-looking flowers in one hand. But he’s never going back to her. He’s had more than enough. The thought of her almost makes him wince and feel the cold jolt of adrenaline as it darts through his veins.    

            There’s a lull in the storm of traffic and he strolls across, the ring and keys jangle louder in his pocket. He opens the glass door of the restaurant and lets the gentleman take his jacket, making sure as he does so that the gentleman doesn’t brush against his bruised and aching ribs. His eyes dance in their sockets as they search around the restaurant until they find your hand that waves like a flag in the air. His heart swells and starts thudding loudly against his chest as he makes his way over to where you sit at the table. He pulls back the chair, sits down and tangles his fingers with yours before they clasp tightly together.            

             I’ve got some news for you, he says with a squeeze of your hand.

            Me too, you reply and glance down towards your swelling womb.