Save Your Love, My Darling, Save Your Love

One of you has blabbed.

One of you couldn’t keep your mouth shut about the good thing we had going.

The meals out. The flirty texts. The lingerie and the peanut butter. The hot nights rucking up the bedsheets in cheap hotels as we lost ourselves in wild abandon.

One of you has run to the press and sung like a canary.

And I mean to find out who (Rol, I may yet forgive you if you come clean right away).

I’ve been approached by a journalist. A freelance journalist no less. And yes, I had to control my knee-jerk sneer at the word “freelance” because I interpreted it as “I Want To Be A”. Apologies to all you freelancers out there. I am a man in the grip of cynicism.

This journo wants to do an interview with me. A telephone interview no less. She wants to start a new blog (blog? Oh. That kind of freelance journalist? One of us, basically). A blog about love, relationships and dating but more particularly centred around the issues of long distance relationships.

And she wants to interview me because (and I quote): “as you are quite the expert, gaining your insight would be fantastic”.

Eh?

Quite the expert? Me? The only long distance relationships I have (if you discount my parents who live in Sheffield while I live in Leamington) are with you guys.

And although I love some of you dearly (most of you cheaply) I’m not sure that I can say we’ve ever dated. Let alone spooned or exchanged bodily unctions.

I know some of you have fantasized about it. I know some of you have begged (please keep those emails a-coming – they give me a good laugh when I’m down).

But I think I’d know if, you know, you and I had got serious.

Now, I’m not saying I don’t care about you guys. I’m not using and abusing. I’m not going to kick you into touch once the shine has worn off. We’re going steady. But you do know it’s purely platonic, right?

I’ve got a wife and family and a major phone tapping scandal to think about here.

So, what I’d like to know is: which one of you has been telling porkies? Which one of you has been telling lies? And are there going to be any faked photographs in the tabloids?

This is a polite request to withdraw your allegations.

Because they’re really not going to help BSkyB’s plans for world domination one single iota.

Just think about it and do the right thing, kay?

P.S. Car park as usual tonight. I’ll flash my headlamps twice. ;-)

The Sheffield Samaritans

Let’s start with the facts:

My parents and youngest sister live in Sheffield.

By Monday morning the Midlands – where I live – was all but thawed of ice and snow, only a few discoloured remnants of obscene snowmen remained.

Sheffield however, like much of the North, was still flinching under a heavy gauntlet of snow. Not great travelling conditions by anybody’s standards.

On her way to work my sister slipped over on some ice in the middle of the main road and came crashing down heavily onto her back and hip.

And then lay there, gasping for breath, in dreadful pain, unable to move while the person walking directly behind her carried on walking as if nothing untoward had happened at all.

No offer of assistance, no polite enquiry as to her well-being, not even a jokey “ooh send us a postcard next time love.”

Just a kiss-my-arse cold shoulder and gone.

Thankfully a passer-by on the other side of the road crossed over and helped my sister up and walked her part of the way to work. She was very upset, very shaken and very much in pain.

5 days later she’s still in a lot of pain but is mostly hurt and confused as to why a fellow human being could just step over her and leave her – sprawled and helpless – in the middle of the High Street.

As indeed am I. Though I’m less hurt and confused about it as bloody furious.

How could anybody be this callous and uncaring? What does it cost to give someone a small helping hand – even a stranger?

I suppose I ought to be grateful that this person didn’t stick the boot in while she lay there and help himself to her purse and jewellery. Or just whip out his mobile phone and film her plight so he could shove it onto YouTube later and so boost his online kudos.

I know the chances of Mr Charming reading this are so slim as to be incalculable but if ever “what goes around comes around” needed to be a prayer and a curse it is today in my heart.

Back at yer, Mister. With nobs on.

A Poetic Interlude

It’s been a long while since I’ve posted any poetry on this blog but blog buddy Janete has reminded me that actually, getting poetry “out there” into the big wide world is a good thing and to be encouraged.

So, to change the pace somewhat, here is a small offering from my extensive back catalogue of angst and metaphor.


Sheffield, December 2003

In hoar wind trees lag dirty:
white filings pinch northward as iron
but grow grey and blunt
in the furnace slump of the factories.

The air sounds detonated –
the lung aftershock pressing down, pursed
and cursive, a spent
cartridge. The streets are baptized in it and

limed with the sign of the cross.
Trams belch black looking shoppers like grapeshot
but none hit their mark.
Fag ends blow red grit across department store windows,

the displays lost behind
a welding shower of tracer bullets.
The pavements bolt beneath
the rapid cannon fire of pork shops and pound shops

and job shops.

Christmas growls and sprints once from the rubble
to be dourly gunned down by the masses.