kultur for sale

Since The Matapan - our local pub - was taken over by Keith & Di & re- named BECON TREE (about the same time Pavel was born) we've been made welcome with the pram. The Sunday before May Day Bank Holiday is always the poltergeist doppelganger of the morrow, we wheel into the bar & are greeted by a man we've not seen before collecting glasses. He cuts the shape of the tattooed offender & is nice to us. It turns out that Keith's had a heartattack & is resting upstairs, so this guy - a local drinker called Mick - has stepped in to help out. That's a lovely accent he says to Sarah & asks is it Welsh? But Sarah has been talking of Ireland all morn ing, her lilly-green dress an outcrop of the thought process. Mick guides us to a table with a chessboard top. Then comes the tester : he points to Pavel & asks : what's is name then? He puts his palm to his ear for us to repeat, Sarah says : rhymes with travel. Fuckin 'ell he says, warm & in...

On budget day the red box is held aloft, Darling's shock white hair a cut fox spilling itself to crimson. A 4% increase on the price of wine & beer puts no stop on a binge, the well-off drink in the belief that they help the poor through tax. Someone said it was a budget of Old Mother Hubbard - she's wearing aphetamine gladrags & still wants to eradicate child poverty. Pint glasses are clinked around the crib to make a special moment of joyous spontaneity that may be remembered tomorrow - as John James put it: "If there is memory in working class life it is because things are always being taken away"