Rainy Days and Tuesdays in Toy Town
“Walkin’ around. Some kind of lonely clown”
#BreakingNews Man who survived an assassination attempt on his life on live TV is going to lose a popularity contest to a drunken old soak who can barely pass for a human being. More as we get it.
Now over to Gerald the Polar Bear for the weather.
Gerald?
OK it doesn’t make a lick of sense but “Gerald the Polar Bear” is a character (if I may grandly title a creation so absurd as a “character”) that I play around with from time to time on Twitter, and I guess in my own small way I keep another polar bear alive. Long Live Gerald the Polar Bear! Anyway, where were we? Oh yes, the weather.
Well it’s raining again and has done so, on and off, since Saturday afternoon here in the beating heart of central England and if the weather reports are to be believed, either those of a human being or a kindly old polar bear who loves having his nose tickled and his ears played with, it’s going to absolutely hammer it down every fifteen minutes or so and soon we’ll all be in need of an Ark, a friend called Noah and some mighty fucking big prayers to the man upstairs. The weather map of the UK currently looks like a surreal leopard print of repeated heavy and thundery showers to be followed, by decree of the weather Gods presumably, an “Arctic Blast” so called by the people in the weather department or via the gentle groans of an elderly white bear who, like Keith Richards, is going to live forever.
Where were we? Would you like a piece of birthday cake?
Did you watch the debate? Can I give you my seasoned political analysis on the first half? I simply had to turn off mid-way through as I thought my eyeballs were going to melt into the insides of my ears and my beloved boys in Dodger blue were playing against those rascal Cubs from Chicago and long before the Dodgers blew a beautiful lead in a half inning of Kubrickian horror whereby I’d started bouncing a tennis ball off the walls of the house again, Donald Trump stated immigrants were eating cats and dogs and what I’m convinced is a phantasm creation of The Matrix and an artificially intelligent Kamala Harris beat him like a gong and led him by the lead to showcase what a bitterly angry old man he is.
Second half analysis to follow once my eyes stop bleeding.
The carnival of the bizarre never leaves town anymore. We’ve had our (s)election recently here in the UK and the psychological operation of depression, desolation and desperation is going very well thank you very much. It’s all the other team’s fault. We have to clear up the mess of the previous administration. There’s a “black hole” in the budget. There’s always a black holed sun in the budget. We don’t want to make your lives miserable. But we have “tough decisions to make”. For the greater good. In the long run. Jam tomorrow. We’ll just sell some weapons of mass human destruction to despotic lunatics around the world in the meantime.
It’s good for the GDP.
Christ. What a tangent that was! So where were we? Oh yes, the weather. So it was that I was having a play fight with Gerald the Polar Bear in the back garden in between showers and as I brushed his fur back to a glorious sheen after the rain he whispered a buzz phrase I’m sure he’s stolen from his colleagues on the television and that there was a “window of opportunity” between 5pm last evening and 12 noon today when it wouldn’t be raining, and so naturally I returned once more to my own Eden on Earth where swans are named Fred and Mary and a “Grand Old Lady” rules supreme in a toy town and land that time has (almost) forgotten. The six bells of St Luke’s Church greeted my arrival. Seven announced my departure an hour later and deliberately so as I noticed the illuminated hands of the church clock edging nearer the hour, inching towards those beautiful hourly bells once more. In a land that time has (almost) forgotten but age will never wither her.
I smoked a final cigarette resting on a centuries old wall overlooking the oldest iron bridge in the known world as those sweet bells tolled for all to hear but that was later, an hour later in fact and in a land that time has largely and thankfully (and respectfully) forgotten, and a toy town on the banks of the River Severn that was empty save a few tourists, a couple of locals drinking in the hotel and shop workers hurrying and scurrying to leave a place, an aura and an atmosphere that steadfastly refuses to ever let me go, leave, or ever let me forget.
There was only one swan when normally there are two (or is it four?) and presumably the other swan (or is it three?) are on the run from the authorities for the killing of another swan in a rumour I’m determined to run with until justice is seen to be done. It’s the only way. I love those swans (well, two of them anyway) but a murder has taken place and I have a reasonable grasp on where the body may have been buried.
I’ll report back once I have the evidence.
I took a mountain of pictures as always and so many have not made the cut here: the flowers and roses in the public park or the football matches in progress on the field set aside on a Sunday for baseball. But this was a Tuesday let alone a Sunday or Monday, and after a rainy day in Toy Town. A “perfect timing” moment greeted my return along the riverbank as a rowing boat carved its way through the water, sending ripples up and down the river. I fought the temptation to enjoy a box of piping hot chips from the town’s chip shop and instead just admired the old place, still a little damp and dark from the day’s rain but now splintered in shards of brilliant late evening sunshine. I turned, as I always do, in the middle of the bridge to bid toy town farewell and take a long, last look at her. The bells had just struck seven. I took a final image of another sunset and marvelled at my own private Eden.
And I thanked my spiritual home for looking after me again.
Thanks for reading. Ironbridge features in so much of my writing and will do so again in my forthcoming book “HELP! My name is Gerald the Polar Bear and I’m being held captive and against my will by a crazy person in a Radiohead t-shirt”. While you wait, here’s another I lovingly prepared earlier this year:
"Tales I Tell Myself" - link to Amazon
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.