Well the erbacce-prize for poetry is closed for now but we are considering making it an annual... here are a few stats which may be of interest:

1) We had over twelve hundred entries.
2) Around a hundred were binned immediately as they came with no snail-mail address
3) We had entries from all over the world; USA, UK, Canada, Australia, Eastern and Western Europe, Ireland etc
4) Four judges have shortlisted 36 to date
5) Of these 35 19 are Male and 16 are Female
6) 11 of these are non-white
7) The four judges have each read about 6000 poems
8) As far as we know we are the ONLY entirely FREE competition in the world
9) On 30th June the Judges will debate the remaining poems and select a winner and two runners up
10) The judges are completely knackered!

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What else have I been up to? Well I bought a brand knew Nikon D300 and a motor drive plus a couple of lenses. You can see some of the photos I've taken on my fotolog pages; click here.

My course at Liverpool College has finished and what a treat it was to attend there; unlike Liverpool JMU the staff at the College exuded empathy and tried their best to get everyone through the course. Also I have been awarded £850.00 'damages' against Liverpool JMU because of the way the uncaring and unprofessional staff treated my complaint against them. But I don't want that money; I want these staff sacked. Watch this space!

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Not been writing much of late as the erbacce-prize and College work have been occupying most of my time... also I have been enjoying the open spaces now the sun is here; last night for example I slept out on the Dunes and on the edge of the forests around Formby and watched the stars. That was beautiful but even here in the middle of June it got quite cold towards morning... But there were a few shooting stars and a bunny came and started eating just six or seven feet from me as the sun came up :-)

Speaking of 'shooting' there was an 'incident' across the road just the day before yesterday (some photos on my fotolog) The police kept us all indoors from around Noon until the evening which meant I couldn't get my car out to go to work... however they eventually let me go out over the back wall and I got a taxi... must remember to send the cost of the fare to the Chief Constable :-) What happened was that there was a disagreement between a neighbour and some youth; the youth came back with a gun... apparently though no one was seriously hurt.

Right; I'm having today off; heading for the beach. Life is good but I'm realising more every day that it's also brief... must make the most of it... 'at my back I always hear/ Times winged chariot scurrying near/ And all beyond us lie/ Deserts of vast eternity...' Who said that? Marvel? He was right anyway....

I was watching telly with a friend last night when this friend said; 'Oh there's footy on! Liverpool are playing!' I went cold and suggested we go out for a walk; which we did. A comment was made as we walked; 'Don't you like sport then?' This set me thinking...

The answer is simple; yes I love sport. But for me sport has to have an element of challenge in it, an element of danger and some display of courage. I love boxing, F1 and NH Racing but totally loathe football. Footballers get (over)paid for poncing around like spoiled prima donnas for a few hours a week, between times they shag grannies (a la Rooney) or get into brawls with poor people (a la Gerrard) --- both of these comments should be prefixed with 'allegedly' of course as these professional preeners have a vanity beyond belief and would love nothing more than to get you into Court, it adds spice to their otherwise boring lives and gets their photos on the pages of the vanity-press ;-) Few of these footballers have ever done a days work in their pampered lives and few of them display any courage whatsoever. They do however spend a fortune on getting their hair-styles just so and/or having their legs and chests waxed... all football teams in the UK have a 'mascot' which is usually a small-boy whom they dress up in shorts and fondle a lot ...and after the players score a goal they all hug and kiss each other with passion prior to leaping naked into a hot tub together. Almost every close-up of them on the telly shows them spitting continuously and unfortunately the kids who emulate them emulate this disgustingly filthy habit too. I have a theory that men who watch football on the telly are latent GAYS who'd prefer to watch every match, on their own, in the dark, with a box of cleenex handy... but lets not go there.

Boxers on the other hand take their lives into their hands every time they step into a ring; think of round 14 in the third Frazier V Ali fight; Ali later commented that it was 'the closest thing to death I ever experienced' and if you watch it then you know exactly what he is talking about. It takes raw courage to step into a ring with someone whom you know has the capability of killing or maiming you; a courage the nancy-boy footballers have no notion of. Boxers are supremely fit, supremely courageous and are true athletes; that's why I admire them, why I love to watch them...

F1 drivers know that when they are taking a corner at 260 miles an hour they are within a split second of death or of being crippled for life. Count the deaths. Check the likes of Lauder who survived but are terribly maimed. Weigh these courageous human-beings against any poncy, preening footballer and see how far short the latter fall. These F1 drivers are the epitome of courage; that's why I admire them, why I love to watch them...

NH Jockies. These guys are just THE toughest human-beings on the planet. Recently I seen Tony McCoy fall from his horse and hit the hard ground face-first at close to 40 miles an hour; he broke his jaw and impacted all his lower teeth into his upper jaw. What did he do? Did he roll over and whimper 'foul' like our pathetic footballers do? No; he rode twenty minutes later in the next race and fell again! More recently; Ruby Walsh took an horrific fall; broke ribs, bust his spleen, was told he may not ride again... less than two months later he rode Kauto Star to win the Gold Cup and shrugged off his injuries as 'part of the game'. Such courage. Such sheer professionalism. A whimpy football 'star' would roll over and weep if some other player ruffles his expensively permed hair.

Different classes of human-beings.

So in short; yes I love sport, I like (as stated) F1, Boxing and NH Racing and I also admire rugby players... the latter because they appear to be real sports-persons. Go to a rugby match and you don't have to segregate the fans as they admire the 'game', rugby-spectators will applaud a good try by the opposition and don't need to be herded into segregated 'pens' like soccer-fans... and there lies another reason I don't like football; the fans. They are mainly drunken animals who love to hate the opposition; no wonder the BNP and NF have such a firm base amongst the football fraternity. I don't attend football matches but when I pass grounds on match days I notice the BNP and NF newspaper sellers doing a roaring trade. I do attend rugby matches and you never see these scum there; they wouldn't survive two minutes.

So that's it; maybe I actually love every sport with the exception of football. That's because football players are spoiled nancies and football fans are mainly territorial thugs. Besides that football is more of a 'game' than a 'sport', think on the difference; games are played by children, sports by adult men and women... I guess in the end, that's the real difference...

Tra la la la la la... la la la... tis the season to be jolly... and so Jews are doing what they do best; causing murder and mayhem in Palestine. The illegal state of Zion, the only religious state in the world granted to the chosen people by GOD no less (Figure that for an insane ego!!!) has launched all out war on defenceless people already reduced to a weakened state by being starved and sanctioned for years under the 'excuse' that these deprived people are lobbing rockets at Jews. Well they aren't lobbing rockets at Jews per se; what they are doing is lobbing rockets into their own back yard where illegal Jewish land-thieves just happen to be squatting... there's a solution to this which is transparently simple; Jews; get the F*** out of their back yard and stop thieving land under the belief that some diabolical God on Heaven has granted it to you by Religious decree.

I read in one newspaper this morning that the Zionists are 'acting like nazis'. Precisely; they whinge about how badly they were treated by Nazis (and they were; I make no bones about that... alongside Gypsies, Trade Unionists, the severely disabled, Communists, the mentally ill, Russians and Socialists) but then adopt exactly the same stance as Nazis as they raise their jackboots over the heads of women and children before crushing them into callous oblivion. Despite the fact that the whole world comdemns their actions the Jews remain eyeless in Gaza and continue their pogram aimed at exterminating the Palestinian people.

Some will be annoyed that I use the term 'Jews'. I make no apology for that. It is the Jews who claim to be the 'Chosen People' and I am always both bemused and horrified by this claim; I mean what exactly is the difference between the 'Chosen People' and the 'Master Race'? ...and consider this; if God prefers the Jews above all others, if he is a racist as they claim, then what chance have the rest of us got? A God who actively favours one race above all others is a God I'd spit on and stand up to; thank F*** the Palestinians have the guts to do that! Power to them!

To lesser things; Christmas is gone. Good thing too. I had a very happy time thank you and spent it with people whom I love. I'm proud of the fact that none of us listened to the Queens' Speech or 'Carols from Kings College', that none of us said hypocritical 'grace' in thanks for our food, that none of us pretended it was all 'just for the kids', that no one wore a silly hat or told a silly joke, that we did go for a long walk before dinner and that collectively we shared the chores as opposed to the males sitting swigging ale while the women laboured in the kitchen... I look forward now to New Year then a return to sanity; my resolution will be that next year I wont even record Christmas on my calendar; maybe I'll go live on a small uninhabited Island for the whole week :-) ...sounds fun as I love my own company.

Nonetheless I wish you all a Happy 2009... it wont be for two thirds of our brothers and sisters in this Vale of Tears...

Well it's been ages since I blogged... that might be because I'm not writing creatively currently; too busy with our small publishing house erbacce-press. This is a huge success and we've published over 50 books including several perfect-bound; we're working it as a cooperative so all the profits are going back into helping new writers by either subsidising them or publishing them for free. Oh and we are running an AMAZING and FREE poetry competition with a prize worth well over a thousand quid... check it out...

I'm back studying too; enjoying it, doing a Diploma in Counselling... expensive though and so I've had to register with the Nursing Bank at Aintree Hospital to earn some shekels. Oh for the good old days when Harold Wilson's Government actually paid people to go to University; but then that was a semi-socialist government not a New Tory (sorry; 'New Labour') government. Brown has taken over where Bliar left off and is currently enjoying his latest sadistic wheeze of whipping disabled working-class people while dishing out our taxes to Rich Bankers so they can pay themselves massive bonuses. It's interesting isn't it? A so-called Labour Government gives Billions of our taxes to rich banks so that these same rich banks can loan us the money back and charge us interest on it??? Can you figure out why we tolerate it? Cos I can't. In effect we tax-payers are giving money to fabulously wealthy banks so that they can charge us for borrowing it back. Weird...

Meanwhile Tony Bliar has turned Catholic (You remember Bliar? The nasty, hypocritical, right-wing, reactionary, bible-thumping war-monger who infiltrated the Labour Party in exactly the same way that Militant did while berating Militant as 'infiltrators')... he's turned Roman Catholic in the hope that he can find some forgiveness for the blood of Iraqi children which stains his hands and probably keeps him awake at night... but maybe not... It's a good deal eh? Slaughter children, destroy the world's finest art-treasures, rape a country, steal its oil... then turn Catholic and confess your sin to a priest and ALL is forgiven... can you imagine the sewer-pit of his mind? It must stink like rancid dog-shite...

Coming up to Christmas and the shops are packed every day with people buying junk as though it was the end of the world. We're in a recession you know, so naturally we buy everything we can grab in the way of consumables. My Christmas will be (happily) much like the last half dozen; I'll cook myself something delicious... might share it with some lucky lady... and I'll drink a very fine bottle of either Chablis or Burgundy depending on what I choose to eat for dinner. Boxing day I'll go for as long a walk as the weather will permit and wonder at the luck that has caused me to be part of this beautiful accident that is planet Earth... and I'll think of absent friends both alive and deceased.Life is good. I feel good. Oh and my mortgage has been paid so I'm rich(er) ha ha ha...

Bye bye readers; if you are as happy as I am you are lucky people indeed. Happy Christmas :-)

Tibetan Riots

On this day the Dalai Lama squats on his lard arse in exile while his ‘peaceful’ followers, so-called Priests in saffron robes, burn, loot and attack in the most vile and racist manner, anyone unfortunate enough to not be Tibetan…

It is always useful in these circumstances, when rioters invade the streets and anger erupts, to examine Cui Bono which as you all know is a legal-Latin-term roughly translated as ‘for whose benefit?’ On the eve of the Chinese Olympic year, when the eyes of the world are upon it, who does it benefit to have these young men (and they ARE men; exclusively) riot on the streets of a Chinese province?

Well lard arse, in his exile Palace, believes he is the ‘natural’ ruler of Tibet, his desire to establish a Buddhist State where these same young men can continue to live a life of total idleness neither toiling nor contributing as they wonder through the streets begging for food; apparently it is demeaning to actually work and so they live exclusively by begging… stick a can of Tennant’s Super in their hand and they wouldn’t be out of place in any major City in the UK, but with one important difference, when their days begging is behind them they all can trundle ‘home’ to their Palaces to sleep easy on soft warm beds.

Tibet has always been a part of China, as far back as 1240 Tibet submitted to Mongol leader Godan Khan after the Mongols conquered North China… but hell, I don’t give a toss about that and nor would many right-thinking people, the more salient facts are that following the 1949-51 ‘invasion’ by China Tibet has been transformed from a feudal, religiously-controlled and bigoted serfdom into a modern country with vast rail-systems and roads and real jobs for the Tibetan people. The Chinese, for some reason I cannot fathom, still allow these idle young men in saffron robes to wander through the streets begging aggressively and contributing nothing to the economy but at least they have pointed the finger at them and labelled them for what they are; ‘idle scroungers’, and the ordinary Tibetan people are beginning to see them as they really are… this of course could be one of the reasons why these alleged peaceful disciples of the Buddha are now assaulting people and burning and looting OR, it could be that like the unthinking and unfeeling automatons they are they merely follow the orders of the Dalai Lard Arse who is eager to exploit the fact that the world is watching and looking for any excuse to undermine the last bastion of Communism.

Cui Bono. Keep that in mind when the news media talk of a ‘clamp down’ by the Chinese. Cui Bono. Keep that in mind when the ‘idle scroungers’ assault people on the streets because they are a different race. Cui Bono. Keep that in mind when the Dalai Lard Arse, in his sumptuous Palace of exile, tells you that ‘the people are rising’. Cui Bono. Keep that in mind when you watch the news-reels and see the violence perpetuated by these allegedly peaceful followers of Buddha.

And before I go; I have been on demonstrations where the UK police have attacked protesters, indeed I have felt the weight of a police baton at Saltley Gates, Imperial Typewriters, during the miner’s strikes and even as far back as Grosvenor Square; this entry in my blog does not support police-violence of any kind. All I ask that you do is actually watch the scenes, the ugly racist scenes, perpetuated on the streets of Tibetan Cities and towns by violent young males in saffron robes, and ask yourself; Cui Bono…

2008 and no NY resolutions except one; never to make any NY resolutions ever again. Which is hardly original I know.

So what’s been happening since I last ranted? Simple answer is; ‘Lots’! Especially with regard to publishing. I’ve signed a contract for a new book I wrote which is a factual account of BP disorder and is called …portrait of the artist as (slightly) insane and is written in a mixture of poetry and prose.

THEN I got an offer to publish Glimpses of Notes (again) BUT unfortunately the same old bogie rose up; can’t do it in colour: too complex and too expensive. I’ve re-set it in B/W but am still not sure so to date have not signed the contract.

THEN, just, this year, I got an offer to publish/produce/check-out a play I wrote a long time ago which has a working title of Bleedin’ Alchies… contract for that went in post just today.

SO 2008 could be MY TIME!

About TIME too.

erbacce-press is now firmly established and we’ve produce nine books; I’ve designed the covers for six of them and edited and type-set all of them. Busy, busy, busy…

Work is going well; am now working as a psychotherapist about 18 hours a week and enjoying every minute even the ‘bad’ times when the going gets tough. This job has taught me one thing I only previously knew as a half-truth; I’m pretty tough.

Off to London in a couple of weeks to see La Traviata at the Covent Garden Opera House and to take in the Boat Show with a view to possibly buying a small yacht; 30/35 footer, just big enough to take me round the world…

Who’d have thought it eh?

Life is GOOD!

CHARITY begins with Capitalism!

The other day a respected friend of mine asked me why I didn’t give money to ‘charity’; the question arose because currently I have more than enough money to meet my needs and actually didn’t know what to do with it. You see I have ‘enough’, I am not in any way wealthy, but at the end of each month I certainly have a few pounds left in my pockets; this friend of mine asked almost casually why I didn’t give it to ‘charity’.

This is by way of my answer to her: I have always known, deep inside, that all registered ‘charities’ are simply necessary parts of the Capitalist system; they don’t seek to do things for other people, mainly they seek to do things for themselves. Let me show you how this applies to any given registered-charity, lets examine that ancient institution; Oxfam.

Oxfam seeks, in a nutshell, to end world poverty and as I write it has hundreds of different projects ongoing; HIV strategy, the East Africa Appeal, the Tsunami fund, International Youth Project,… etc etc Each of these projects is overseen by one or more extremely highly paid ‘Directors of Projects’ and every time there is a disaster then another opportunity for a fat-cat salary emerges. (and these ARE fat-cat salaries; I’m talking here about hundreds of thousands of pounds with large expense allowances, free top-of-the-range cars and index-linked pensions) Oxfam itself is a massive business with incredible wealth; just look at the thousands of Oxfam shops throughout the country; the freehold on these shops alone, often on prime locations, is surely worth hundreds of millions… and each country that they work in has its own head-office employing typists, promotional executives, managers, cleaners and even in some countries; door-men.

What would happen to the thousands upon thousands of well paid executives, management and junior employers of Oxfam if they ever actually succeeded in their declared goal of ending world poverty? They’d be standing in mile-long queues waiting to collect their dole or they’d be relying on charity themselves. So the last thing they want to do is end world poverty it would be like turkeys voting for Christmas. The truth is that for every pound you hand to Oxfam or indeed any registered-charity you are making a generous contribution either to some ordinary typist’s salary or to some fat-cat’s food or petrol expenses or to their lucrative retirement pensions.

Oxfam also, like all the major registered-charities, invests heavily in pension funds and capital-growth. Admittedly they try to invest in allegedly ‘politically correct’ areas but nevertheless their investment swells their own massive coffers and the oligarch that it actually is grows proportionately to the success of capitalism. How much would you estimate Oxfam is actually worth? Ten Million? A billion? Certainly not less…

When you see their adverts on television urging you to ‘give generously’ do you realise that these prime-time adverts cost £160,000.00 a minute. Read that carefully; £160,000.00 per minute. And who pays for that advertising? Well sadly it is the people who send their pounds and fivers who pay for the adverts. I have no idea what proportion of the massive wealth of Oxfam actually goes to provide hand-outs to people in need but what I do know is that your pound or your fiver or even your hundred pound donation will pay for just a thousandth of a second of an advert or for dinner-expenses for some ‘Director of Project’ driving a top-range car that you’ll also be paying for.

Don’t get me wrong; I have nothing against helping people out and I am sure that the people left homeless after the Tsunami or the children starving after the most recent famines are grateful indeed when a £200,000.00 Mercedes truck arrives with warm-clothing, tents or rice… and if I see someone in need you bet I help them; help them in ways I wont even list here… but I will never send a penny to any registered-charity. I’d send the money instead to some political party that actually has a REAL desire to end world poverty; by destroying the capitalist system. Because that’s the only way you’ll ever end poverty; by destroying the corrupt system which allows two-thirds of the world’s population to remain illiterate or hungry. How about adopting this as a simple slogan:

Fuck the Charities: Smash the System!

Sounds about right to me…