Ed eccomi qua, di nuovo a passeggiare da solo per le solite vie de la capitale di Cuba...

Anche di notte, nelle male illuminate strade de L'Avana, mi riesco ad orientare bene, anche senza mappa, anche se sono solo un turista di passaggio.

Me ne sto tornando verso l'albergo che si trova nel centro de la città vecchia, camminando lentamente, solo nella notte. Solo.

Sì, sono solo perché ho litigato anche questa sera con la mia fidanzata cubana, e m'ha lasciato solo anche questa notte...

A L'Avana fa caldo anche di notte, con l'aria sempre piena d'umidità. Cammino lentamente, senza fretta, senza pensare a niente di particolare, con le mani nelle tasche dei miei pantaloni bianchi. Anche per questa sera penso di aver già bevuto abbastanza; però cosa ci posso fare se a Cuba fanno un rum così buono?

Ma ecco che comincia a piovere, prima lentamente, poi l'intensità della pioggia aumenta, e il mio albergo è ancora lontano da raggiungere a piedi sotto la pioggia.

Così entro in questo locale qui vicino, che già lo conosco perché ci sono già stato altre volte. Ormai la ora è tarda, e sia per le strade che nel locale non c'è quasi nessuno.

Entro. Seduto alla barra c'è un signore di spalle, con i capelli bianchi e camicia di colore avorio. Si leva un fumo di sigaro che lo avvolge, e poi viene disperso dalle pale del ventilatore.

Il registratore suona una melanconica canzone campesina, di origini rurali, dal ritmo lento.

Un cameriere è indaffarato dietro al bancone, mentre l'altro è appoggiato alla fine del bancone, fumando una sigaretta, e parla con il cuoco che sta in cucina. Entrambi i camerieri sono di colore, ed indossano una divisa da barista, con il cravattino porpora.

Mi avvicino e mi siedo su una sedia alla barra, lontano dall'altro avventore. Arriva il cameriere indaffarato. "Un mojito, per favore". Il cameriere procede alla preparazione del cocktail.

Il bar è molto bello, tutto rivestito di legno antico, imbrunito dal tempo e dal fumo di tabacco. Di fronte a me, alle spalle del barista, c'è uno specchio, antico almeno come il locale, e uno stupendo bancone frigorifero rivestito di legno, che avrà almeno cinquant'anni, che porta una grande scritta "General Electric", dal quale il barista tira fuori i rametti di menta per il cocktail.

Me lo serve, gli do i due dollari. Bevo un po' e me ne sto fermo, assorto nel mio sonno.

"Ehilà socio!", mi dice il signore corpulento, "Avvicinati!".

Cosa vorrà questo uomo? Mi avvicino, e mi siedo al seggiolino vicino. Lui è ricurvo sul banco del bar, appoggiato sui gomiti, io seduto con la schiena dritta, al bordo del seggiolino, coi piedi per terra.

"Un mojito per il mio amico, e un rum per me, per favore!" Ci ordina ancora da bere, anche se non ho ancora terminato il mio primo Mojito.

"Non c'è molta gente questa sera, vero?" No, mi sembra non ci sia proprio nessuno, penso, ma non dico una parola.

L'uomo guarda il suo sigaro, lo spegne nel portacenere e se lo rimette in bocca. "Allora socio, cosa ci fai qui a quest'ora?". "Sa, stavo tornando quando è cominciato a piovere."

"Uno studente solo per L'Avana di notte, quando piove...?", dice.

"No, non sono uno studente. Solo un turista."

"Ah, sei solo un turista?". Gira il sigaro spento e puzzolente, e le pale girano anch'esse. I camerieri assonnati sono all'altro lato del bancone.

"Allora esci di notte per diverti, per ballare, per guarachar?".

"Si, anche per uscire la sera..." dico piano.

"Per uscire con le vampire?", domanda.

"Le vampire?", ripeto guardandolo con un'espressione sorpresa ed interrogativa.

Lui scoppia a ridere. Ride per un po', poi beve e mi guarda.

"Non ti annoierai mica qui a L'Avana, no?"

"Beh, veramente negli ultimi giorni mi sono annoiato abbastanza, passando interi pomeriggi seduto nelle panchine dei parchi della città, guardando la gente che passava."

"Mavalà! Sei a L'Avana". Com'è che ti annoi?

"Cos'è quella faccia annoiata che hai adesso?"

"Beh, più che annoiato sono incazzato! Sai, sono già troppe sere che succede sempre la stessa cosa, che la mia ragazza mi lascia solo. Solo per tutta la notte, solo il pomeriggio. E allora, in questi giorni mi annoio..."

"Annoiarsi a L'Avana... Mi sembra tanto strano..."

"Inoltre anche questa sera ho litigato con la mia fidanzata cubana. E per questo sono incazzato."

"E tu vieni a L'Avana per annoiarti?" "Sì, come andare a Pamplona per dormire...", rispondo immediatamente.

"Ah Pamplona! Come mi sono sempre divertito a Pamplona!", dice lui con voce soddisfatta da piacevoli ricordi.

"Beh, anch'io mi sono divertito molto a Pamplona, così come mi diverto anche qui a L'Avana. Sai, sono andato a Pamplona per la Festa di San Fermín, dopo aver letto il tuo romanzo."

"Sì quel romanzo mi è riuscito molto bene, sono contento di quel romanzo...".

Silenzio, solo la musica lontana riempie la sala.

"Che cazzè? Com'è che litighi così tanto con la tua ragazza?"

"Te l'ho già detto, mi lascia sempre solo. Stiamo insieme, per esempio camminiamo per la strada, all'improvviso, dice, ok, prendo un taxi, ci vediamo domani sera... Domani sera? E io cosa faccio, stasera, domani mattina e domani pomeriggio?".

Silenzio. "Niente, non mi risponde, prende il taxi e sparisce. E io vado lentamente fino al parco più vicino a sedere nelle panchine, oppure entro a la Bodeguita, se non c'è molta gente, a bere Mojitos."

"E perché non ti cerchi un'altra fidanzata? L'Avana è piena di belle morene!"

"Ehi socio!", gli rispondo, "io non vengo a L'Avana per cercare vampire."

Lui si rimette a ridere. "Sei proprio incazzato.", ride.

Mi guarda, poi ridendo dice, "E non bevi neanche?", perché nel mio bicchiere c'è ancora Mojito.

Poi, vedendo la mia espressione contrariata mi dice: "Io penso che tu non abbia capito niente. Se la tua mora ti lascia sempre solo, o non gliene frega niente di te, o che la colpa è la tua."

Poi, continuando, " Dalle tutto te stesso, falla sentire la cosa più importante del momento. La unica che esiste al mondo, ponila al centro del tuo universo, adesso c'è solo lei, tu vivi solo per lei, tutto il resto non centra, tutto il resto non esiste. Solo tu, lei e la musica!"

"Ricordati che se è contenta, ride. Dalle una opportunità, e vedrai che ti piacerà molto di più. Ascolta bene".

"Devi innamorarla nuovamente, dalle quello che cerca, soltanto un poco di amore,

che sei il suo papi lindo, che muore per te, mami.

Allora sì, vedrai che non ti lascia più solo, anzi piuttosto che lasciarti solo un momento, si lascerebbe morire."

"Non sembra difficile", penso ad alta voce. "Non è facile!", dice Ernest.

"Per te è più facile. La tua vita, le tue avventure, hai avuto tre o quattro mogli. Con la tua vita avventurosa, sempre in giro, conosci molta gente, vedi delle belle, giovani ed intelligenti donne, cominci a raccontarle delle tue avventure, allora le innamori.... Per me è tutto più difficile..."

"Cosa stai dicendo? Vorrei sapere se solo lo pensi veramente quello che stai dicendo, o parli così perché pensi che la gente la pensi così?

"Chissà perché la penso così?", penso fra me e me.

"Ma per te è più facile, tutto è più facile, con le donne, col lavoro. Ad esempio se ne hai voglia ti metti al tuo scrittoio a scrivere un romanzo, un racconto, un articolo per un giornale di merda.

Se ne hai voglia. E se non ne hai voglia, o sei stanco, o pensi a sta vita di merda, scendi dalla tua barca, te ne vai a la Bodeguita, a berti cinquanta Mojitos, poi strisci a casa, oppure ti fai buttare nella spazzatura dal tuo amico barista, e poi domani ricominci da capo.

Invece a me tutte le mattine c'è la sveglia che mi aspetta, e ci gode ad interrompermi il sonno, a farmi finire bruscamente i sogni. E poi i tuoi colleghi, i superiori hanno delle aspettative..."

"Sei un cazzone!", m'interrompe bruscamente.

"Le aspettative!", mi ride in faccia. Si riaccende il puro, chiedendo fuoco al barista, che si avvicina lentamente. Acceso il sigaro mi dice, "E poi, scrivi anche tu?".

"Io scrivo?" Stavolta mi metto a ridere io. "Io scrivo delle merdate!", finisco il Mojito.

"Io scrivo... No sei tu che scrivevi. E scrivevi davvero della roba buona, e non sono io a dirlo."

Lui mi ascolta ma non mi guarda.

"E hai vinto pure il premio Nobel per la letteratura... Io scrivo... Io cago sopra un foglio, altro che scrivo!"

"Eppure i tuoi racconti piacciono...", dice sempre senza guardarmi, concentrato sul fondo del bicchiere che gli sta di fronte.

"Sì, ad alcuni i miei racconti piacciono, però credo che mai, e poi mai, né oggi, né domani, né tanto meno tra cent'anni i miei racconti verranno studiati né a scuola, né all'Università."

"Ma se questo ti può far sentire meglio, neanche i romanzi, né i best sellers di scrittori che vendono centomila volumi nella prima settimana d'uscita del libro verranno mai studiati a scuola."

"E quindi?", gli chiedo spiegazioni.

"Lascio a te le conclusioni.", mi dice.

Siamo tutti degli scrittori di merda?

"Comunque fai bene a continuare a scrivere.", mi esorta nello continuare nella mia attività di scrittore dilettante, anzi, non mi sento nemmeno di definirmi scrittore, colui che mette tante parole una dietro l'altra.

"Continuare a scrivere merda, raccontare merda, per scordarmi di quanta merda c'è in giro, che mi circonda, e mi soffoca, in sta vita di merda!".

Silenzio. Il ventilatore silenzioso continua il suo lavoro. Anche il temporale continua il suo lavoro, lento ma costante.

"Hemingway, posso chiederti una cosa?" Lui non dice niente.

"Uno come te; Perché ti sei sparato un colpo in testa?"

"Forse perché la merda non ce l'hai solo te, forse la merda è dappertutto. Allora a volte la merda ti sommerge, e ti sembra non trovare soluzione. O trovi una soluzione di merda, come spaccarsi la testa con un colpo di fucile."

Un colpo di fucile...

"E poi era già giunto il momento!", finisce deciso.

Già, il momento. Chissà quando giunge? Chissà quando uno capisce che arriva? Sarà giusto deciderlo da soli come ha fatto Ernest, o è meglio aspettare, aspettare la Signora Morte, la Sorella Morte, che venga sola a portarti nell'oblio, nei regno dei morti, descritto e decantato da scrittori che si studiano a scuola.

<Ragazzi, oggi giorno cominciamo a studiare la "merdazine", dice la professoressa a scuola. Ragazzi, la merdazine è uno dei pilastri fondamentali della cultura italiana, un'opera scritta per tanti anni, di seguito, che parla e racconta della vita e dei costumi di fine secolo, e che ci accompagna nei primi anni del ventunesimo secolo. La merda al centro della vita. Di sta vita di merda!>

"Signore!", una voce interrompe improvvisamente i miei pensieri.

"Signore, mi scusi!", guardo in direzione della voce.

È uno dei camerieri che mi chiama compañero, mi dice che già è tradi, si scusa per il disturbo, però come posso vedere non c'è già più nessuno, è già molto tardi, che devono pulire il locale e chiudere.

Oh, certo, avete ragione. È tardi, devo tornare.

Mi giro per salutare Ernest.

Non c'è più.

Neanche il suo bicchiere.

Solo cenere di un sigaro habano nel portacenere, e un mozzicone pestato nel pavimento.

Saluto i camerieri li ringrazio. Esco che piove ancora, forte come prima.

Mi restringo nelle spalle, e mi avvio con passo lesto verso l'albergo, pensando alle parole, ai discorsi pronunciati e sentiti. Ricordi confusi dai Mojitos.

Ma che giorno è oggi?

Il 2 novembre, el Día de Difuntos.

Dopodomani parte il mio aereo che mi riporta alla mia vita, tanto lontano da L'Avana.

All Souls. What does that mean?

The son of Britain is something so miserable and abject you'd wish it away. Everywhere, about the manifestation of human beings you'd rather'd never existed.

You mind your business on high on a plinth some fucker on a horse, is assumed to have done great service to this cesspit simply for having exibited. He's anything which molves thiering and murdering will have you remembered. The average citizen, jogging along, minding their own business? They vanish.

Their monument? The fact they never existed. One dreads to think of a great number of souls. It would be so crowded. Death must be final only don't tell the Pope. One of the most stupid, imbecilic in creation.

"Yer gonna gi' dahnan' smash your ferrid on the farmac?"

"E's a mad fucker ain 'e?"

"E marchabah wiv vhat croizer, smashin 'i."

"Yankin 'i an' Gand knows wha'."

So many of course check out early. Can't stand the peace. Who can blame them?

"I think you'll find this All Souls business rasthy overrated. Once you chuck it you're gone. That's it. End of story. Sorry. It's how I feel."

There are people who will tend a grave. Put flowers on it. Fucking waste of money I say. Might as well give it to some bastard who can use it. Let's be honest. There are so many people you're glad to get away from. Death is a release for them and you also. Like the time Pete the Punk's wife had left him and taken the kid with her. 4 am. He's downstairs and I'm upstairs. Just as its getting light I happen to give a loud fart which sets him off laughing. He was pissing himself.

Now. I was doing him a service. There you have it.

To my way of thinking some tourist with a lighted cigarette might as well torch St. Peter's. It's so half-arsed. Raised in honour of someone it's impossible to envisage. Some fucker marching around with a key as big as himself. Ask you? Why don't they put the Pope in an old people's home? That's where he belongs. He'd be grateful.

Tell you what? All Souls reminds me of All Soles. Feet mashing it. Corn. Bunions. That's the passage of people passing through life.

"Goodbye mother. You've had your day. Too fuckin' true. What a wreck en a woman despite the make-up."

And there she goes. Trudging off the big one. The final one. Where there's no coming back. No second acts. Peace at last. You think of the damage a lot of people did in life. Damage to the environment. Nature. Death is the place for them. Too right. Hope there're well nailed down. (A colloquial British expression referring to the coffin seal.) Fuckin' hell. I'd put for a few extra ones in.

"Undertaker! Give me the hammer!"

"Crash! Crash! Crash!"

"That's more like it comfortable in there? Hope you like it. It's where you're going to be spending an awful lot of time, I'm afraid."

It's so satisfying. This type of work. Up in the north we're more phlegmatic. We have a dry sense of humour. We leave all this All Souls business to the capering Irish who want their own country anyway and who can blame them? You get off Catholics here. People like the Duchess of Kent and John Selwyn Gummer the former Environment Minister who've trudged over to the Catholic Carey made a rapprochement with the Catholic Church. The feeling is.

"Who gives a shit?"

That's how bad it is and that's the regard these people are held in. Your average punter thinks all religion is mumbo jumbo. Gobble degook. The old Catholics. The Catholic elite belong to a brain dead old order. We might as well be talking about teradactyl. The way I describe this country. We could be living in the fifteenth century. It's such a stange mindset the Catholic one.

Priest.

"Mrs Mallory, Oi give your husband 4 fucks an' an arsehole on his dyin' bed an vhat comes her £ 22.45 pence if your please. Tis all good value. You wouldn't get it anywhere else. Why in the Anglican church they couldn't give a shit what he does the're so anxions tershore on with the burial they are."

This people are vultures but like the prophet says doesn't the public like to be gripped by the balls? Ha, ha, ha! That's funny!

"Hey! You! Priest! Give me kick in jacksic. I like"

Spoken with a cheerful expression. There's people I hope I never see again and that's how they feed about me. Perhaps the day should be reinvented so people check the state of thei footwear and undertake necessary repairs.

Whenever I see the Catholics going to mass I always think how shit stupid they look.

Astigmatized by their view on life. They don't represent the independence of your burn it, tear it down liberation type of person. The sort who'll kick an old woman out of the way, set fire to an expensive residence out of sheer resentment. The take a pot shot at the Pope loner anxious to ever the score. These people should be encouraged. In Britain All Souls is not a native concept. People say they believe in life after death much as they believe in the conservative Party, the Queen, Manchester United Football Club. They can't conceive of an existence free from persecution so they can only envisage a future which is a mirror image of the present. Nobody here preserve an idea of what progress has meant and the individual politicians who gave it to them so have no thing to measure when in recent politics those things were taken away. The man in the street sees progress in terms of his well-being, the goods he has, what he aspires to. Any idea of an inner life is looking. Of the percentage of those eligible to vote we always have a minority government. Socialism is completely dead.

I don't think now there is anyone left sufficiently fair-minded to make a stand. I can't think of people more irreligious. Sanctimonious more like it. In this society the winner takes all, self-provision the byword. If you fall behind what is there? There are souls and they are the sad souls. Those who don't fit in. People the achievers laugh about because they don't have gear the majority coverts. The old consensual politics is a screwed-up ball of waste. Life is run by and for professional people. If someone was religious in the genuine respect, one would admire them for it. Our Prime Minister goes to church while he's cut the extra benefit previously available to single mothers. The cut they opposed in opposition. Single women with children are coerced by the Benefits Agency to go out to work with offers of child care empowering them, making them independent. Freeing them from life and the domestic doldrums living off the state. Acting as a drag on Britannia's prosperity. What's more women love it. They're quening up to hit the supermarkets, the offices, the cleaning jobs which will give them financial muscle, allow them to hold their head high proud to be self-providers, women with a pair of knickers to their name can march with the Elizabeth Murdochs, the Cherrie Blairs.

It was the last governament wich destroyed the social fabric of this country. Any cohesion it had. It destroyed the coal industry, created havoc with the public sector. Its economic policy created recession which fed into national output creating unemployment and a generation which would know no prospect of work, a viable existence. Tatcher created the culture of a generation which existed outside all the previous mores. Souls only entitled to social security at a lower rate whose world is the blight and absence of prosperity of Britain's housing estates, out of town dormitories where the peor and the dispossessed are well out of sight from the hares who can drive by ignoring it. Tatcher created the culture of state sell-offs, privatisation of the utilities, overseas investment, freedom from regulation eighties which was a disaster for the old working class whose life was dished. If there are any souls out there that's who they belong to. Sometimes you think this country's benighted. Shit people from the underclass toiling all the hours God sends for no hope wages in the face of total indifference from the good old British public demanding excellence from a worked-out policy of providing the bare minimum with as few resources as possible. The market will provide, was Tatcher's credo and as Labour was unelectable the only way to go was to steal the same message and drive it home some more. The new Labour people are those who have made if good themselves in the Tatcher mould anyway. They don't give a toss for the old ideas.

By last year all Labour wanted was power. Power as an end in itself. Promise people nothing. Once elected give them more of the same. Today there is no party which represents the poor, believes in the redistribution of wealth, common ownership. There is no strategic planning. As much as the Conservatives Labour believes in free-for-all. Minimum regulation. Low levels of taxation. The role of government kept in check.

"People helping themselves."

Is the new buzz word. Paying your own way. Labour seeks to eradicate the dependency Tatcher created and then rounded on, kicking from under her subjects whatever dignity might have survived. All Souls might be a day you think of the British public floundering around in the mudbath of the political shibboleths its shit political betters have created for it. So much of the work being done in this country is by people claming a right to be here. People who want something better for their children and hope they won't have to do the same. Whitey won't accept the conditions. For those who elect to do it, it's a foot on ladder. The beginning of a better way of life in a multiracial Britain. Needless to say it is with great patience and forbearance they do this work. All Souls and the dead of night when everyone else has gone home who even when they finish have got to clean up before they can get home. The white population takes all this for granted. It was born for something better.

"Have a good fucking time cos I'm dead on me feet. Bushed."

That was the look in the woman's eyes. It is the Day of All Souls. The soul released from prison living on the street. Similar psychiatric patients. Children who have been abused and victimised at home. Often you feel London has slipped back into the middle ages. In the Strand people are sleeping and begging. You see, I was going to write an old woman, I'm not sure she's old. She pulls her coat up and pushed her trousers down to piss in a court talking the while to herself. A Soul. The people in the streets are younger than would appear owing to negtert, sunburn. It's that terrible human tragedy. People with no way bank. Thirty miles away it's a different tenor. Here smugness reigns.

The.

"I'm alright Jack"

School parades up and down the Street airing its views. Souls. While the taxi driver works all hours they steep fuelled by the sense of their own worth. The cosy little word they inhabit. Last winter there was a terrible cold snap. As I made my way to the main line station a boy and girl sat outside under sleeping bags in sub zero temperatures, the boy looking at the lighted station, the girl whimpering and I was returning to this paradise. This land of plenty. The world Tatcher begot because continuity of employment isn't important. If you thrown millions of people on the scrapheap it wasn't going to have any effect on their families, on the social fabric of this country. Every night wrapped in a blanket, a boy sits by the cash machine in Dean Street. He something this nation should be proud of. A Soul. A statistic. Just a number. I think.

"What if I had children. Souls. What if one's own children were living on the streets of the Capita?"

Tatcher couldn't see the point of the welfare state.

"Nannying."

She called it. So she cropped it back as much as she could. As much as her own constituency of conservative votes would let her. A lot of people who vote conservative, the old, rely on social security to top up their pensions. The rely on the national health service. It was a cynical exercise. It's there and it fails in the need to help society's vulnerable. Mankind pushes on relentlessly. Now there is no record memory of what went before. The state is wiped clean. It's hard to say now it there are people, as there where, who knew their lived would never alter, that they'd always be the same and had no aspirations. Didn't wish to be different. Today all the talk is of money. Money. Money.

You wonder what it replaces in people lives. The money, possession. What does it make up for? That there's no family any more to care for people? Where far more isolated. That terrible isolation where people never talk to each other because they no longer wish to pass the time of day. All the hours are accounted for now. Got to push on. Even with a foot in the grave. Our ideas are received, via television. We don't need to think. Man comes with a fall set of presumptions. Believes what he's told. Whatever happened to independence of thought? Pub bares? People who made it up on hoof? The balm, for those who get it, is prosperity. The people who are kept out? They have their lives to reach. The government isn't going to lift a finger.

However the Souls don't take it lying down. The man who gets back to his car and finds the quarter light's been smashed. What does Blair expect? I've watched people stealing in the local supermarket. The Souls who's a chronic alcoholic and steals from pathetic need. Old men who couldn't care anyway. One by one they kick it. In the evening things don't seem so bad. You can breathe a bit. The worst excesses of the day are past. The women at the supermarket checkout are mothers, the taxi driver plies his trade, in the pubs trade flourishes. As usual children will be begging. Whores whoring it, gamblers gaming, lushes getting drunk. There's nothing particularly outrageous going round. Nothing which grips the nation because this isn't a reforming government. It's a stay the same government which is what people want. They want more goods, services, foreign holidays. The life. A private education for their children unless they can't afford one in which case the state will have to do. They don't want better public transport because they'd never use it. They drive everywhere. As the populace isn't interested in local government the usual dead heads are permitted to do their worse. Few bother to vote.

Care in the community means a handful of disadvantaged souls who used to reside in psychiatric hospital are looked after in a house by local women and social services. The town's on a limb as the Borough which makes decisions is Labour whilst the Town Council, a mainly advisory body which raises only a small rate, is solidly Tory. Think of the gall and the bitterness this raises. There isn't a single Labour member. The conservatives uphold the true faith and when they sit as Borough Councillors Labour have increased local taxation. Truly they are benighted. The mayor sat as a liberal but switched to the Tories in her husband's business interests. This is where the local Chamber of Commerce, Round Table, Rotary Club, Conservative Club, Lions, Golf Club, Masonic lodge, Police Federation, Conservative member of the County Council all chuck their all into the pot to see what they get out of it. You imagine you can hear yourself think but the machinations of these money grubbers are all pervasive. Now is the time they cut their deals. This is the payback for all those boring committee meetings. Listening to that end less tripe. The A41. Second the creation of the motorway and the new parochialism has been put to reset. The new parochialism is a living one fashioned out of old habit. The names of the mayoral board meaningless to the waves of occupation which lay siege to the place and have no memory of the stalwarts. All Souls. Erased after a couple of decades. You're laughing but there men have no living memory. Their deeds, their importance forgotten. As that of their confreres when thirty years ago they were giants. Their wives were in awe of them. That we fail to appreciate their qualities. Men who knew their own worth. That men of quality perish while modern trash lives. So with their fawners and flatteners. Those in with a chance.

Why is not nostalgic? Sentimental for what has gone by? There was no charity in that order. They represented what was to come. When Tatcher did her worst they would have exulted. It's what they wanted all along. Theirs was the deepest suspicion of progress. A mistrust of the incomes who spoiled their paradise and didn't play by the rules. Who were the harbingers of the change sweeping through society in the fifties which was going to upset their little preconceived notions. Here you could fight back the trade of everything. Till 1974 when the old Urban District Council ceased and Tring was absorbed into Dacorum. That was the final chop. It was open warfare. People from outside were going to make the running. People with no appreciation of what their way of life, their simple notions stood for. The twentieth century held at bay had arrived three quarters of the way though. Take pity on this souls. Their vicious form of simplicity which cut into what ever it perceived was contrary to the law laid down in their pernicious minds. There aren't many of the left. Death is dealing the final cut after all the damage they've done. No wonder the children have got to get away. It's not place anyone would wish to remain in. Anyone with a life to lead. The sheer in extra weighs you down. Effectively a lot of the time you are absent.

"What is Major?"

"Effectively. Sir. We're cut off. Surrounded by the enemy. Communications have been lost."

"So."

"It's not looking good."

"What I feared has happened."

"Despite everything the men are cheerful. They know we havn't a hope."

"They'll be shit happy where we're headed. Most of 'em ev never a home life to speak at. The regiment means more to them."

"Never met a rougher bunch of bastards."

"I shall lead the charge. We'll be going in stark naked hammering out Stairway to Heaven on whatever happens to be available. Am I. understood."

"Correctly. Sir."

You can't take it. What it comes down to is it's either there or it isn't. You look into eyes where you imagine there's never been anybody at home where existence is delay of the final chop, more brute than with any feeling for what a human being is capable of. The brainwashing starts without education system preparing the young for a life as consumers of the insanity perpetrated in the name of a free market economy. Mind control must exist from day one in order to subvert human potential equation to the treadmill and suppression of all human feeling necessary to be an effective player under the need as earning potential equation. The net curtain mentality where homus britannicus lives out his life with all instinct and emotion hidden behind a veil with an eye to the main chance test, should he expose himself, he will spoil any chance of promotion, access to the honeypot. The thing most women want. Loads her money. Spend your life in the company of an arsehole but reckon up what you've got in terms of cookers, blankets, household goods. Produce offspring singing the same tune you're not going to be embarrassed of and spend your life in nullity, obscurity, the vacancy of a cash register attitude.

The life fed like a profit and loss account which you guard rest anybody grab it. From the lowest to the highest crank out a view of the human condition base purely on material concern which is where all religion comes in. To keep people cowed and genuflecting before their masters lest they get ideas beyond their station. Lest there be another 1848 and underdogs try to wrest from their betters the goods that's going.

10 September 1998

Juanita Claudia Gerrero Cervantes, Distrito Federal, México.

Clemente Padin, Montevideo, Uruguay.

Mirco Fabbri, Bologna, Italia.

Jessica Fini, Sasso Marconi, Italia.

Marie Hamard, Latouville, Lentillac, France.

Simone Rondelet, New York, United States of America.

Simon Warren, Herts, United Kingdom.

Stefano Pasquini, London, United Kingdom.

Kenia Lugo Vega, La Habana, Cuba.

Claudio Pasquini, Casalecchio di Reno, Italia.

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