GANTOB blog

98a. I AM KURIOUS, GRAPEFRUIT (by STUART HUGGETT)

Dec 30th, 2023

This is Stuart’s third blog in this process of #Demokratisation for December 2023. Read his previous posts about The Foundation Doktor (and indeed The Doctor) and the connection between The Benefaktor and his granddaughter.

Today he is focusing on Little Grapefruit and family, and a kurious twist in The JAMs history (awakening unpleasant memories of that period when I thought that I had killed The Benefaktor). Note too the unexpected Edinburgh connection.

I’m glad that The Benefaktor recovered from his tumble – I still have unfinished business with “Douglas” (as he might or might not be called) and his apparent interference in my father-in-law Curt Finks’ life and legacy for a period spanning 50+ years. I just need a bit of time to piece together the evidence that I have collected over the past few months. It’s all packed up in a box in the boot of our car, outside the Newtonmore hotel where we’re staying before making the final stage of our journey to our new home. Winter tyres already fitted.

Over to you Stuart, with grateful appreciation of the distractions you have provided in this blog. We will hear more about the adventures of Little Grapefruit in post 98b, from another regular GANTOBer. Then we really need to get on the road.

Watch Stuart narrate the piece

Little Grapefruit has been touring the continent for weeks but she still keeps in touch with news from back home in Greater Bowlingham. She has particularly enjoyed seeing her travel diaries uploaded onto GANTOB’s blog, recognising many of the places in the old photographs selected to accompany her adventures.

All she has to do is roll herself into an internet café and nestle quietly near a router to tune her mind into the pathways of the World Wide Web. This should not come as a huge surprise to human beings. We accept that birds, bats, dogs and cats all perceive the world differently to us, picking up on audio frequencies and elements of the light spectrum inaccessible to humankind, and Little Grapefruit is the same.

By the time she reaches the next town, it is late and the only internet café has closed for the night. Anxious to catch up on family news and feeling the need for warmth, she rolls along suburban streets until she finds a quiet house with an open catflap and hops inside. Locating the household’s hub in the corner of the dining room, she settles down and starts surfing.

Emails checked and socials perused, she clicks onto GANTOB’s blog and is amused to find it is referencing The Fall again. Little Grapefruit knows all about the group as she takes particular pride in artists that acknowledge her citric cousins. Lemon Kittens, Lime Cordiale and Tangerine NiteMare are all favourites, as is The Fall’s 1988 album and ballet ‘I Am Kurious, Oranj’.

Little Grapefruit begins composing a blog for GANTOB, all about how, that same year, The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu decided to actually become The Fall, attempting to rename themselves The Forever Ancients Liberation Loophole, and how Mark E Smith was having none of it.

American guitarist Brix Smith, of rock group The Fall, poses on a giant hamburger from the set of the ballet ‘I Am Kurious Oranj’, performed by Michael Clark and Company, with music by The Fall at the King’s Theatre, Edinburgh, 20th August 1988. (Photo by Kevin Cummins/Getty Images)

She writes about the idea rebounding on Drummond and Cauty when the bootlegging jokers who ran Swansea’s Fierce Recordings turned themselves into a fake Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu in return, releasing a fraudulent JAMs 12” and advertising a New York showcase with The Pooh Sticks together.

A few paragraphs in, though, Little Grapefruit thinks better of it. There just isn’t enough fruit in the story to hold her interest, let alone that of her friends and family back home in Bowlingham, she reasons.

She deletes her email. The KLF Re-enactment Society can deal with that one, she’s sure.

STUART HUGGETT

30 December 2023

Cover image is from a scan of the Pooh Sticks/ fake JAMs gig poster
97. THE MUSEUM OF THE KLF (by ARIADNE)

Dec 29th, 2023

Today I’m packing up, again. Leaving the motorway hotel in central Scotland to move into… well, I don’t want to give too much away. I’m looking forward to a change. You’ll need to keep reading.

I have been distracting myself by re-reading part 1 of the blog (posts 1-33). If this is going to work as a book I realise that I will need to substitute some of the “audience participation” sections with more narrative elements. I have plenty more to tell you, largely from my research into The Benefaktor and friends. Again, I don’t want to say too much…

Except to say that some of the revelations focus on Vienna. Which leads nicely on to Ariadne’s second post for this blog (make sure you read her first post too). We’re back with our most popular character, Little Grapefruit, rolling around the city.

Art work by Ariadne.

Thanks Ariadne!

That night as Little Grapefruit fell asleep under the Spraybanane she dreamt of Vienna but it wasn’t the city that she had spent the day rolling around. It contained elements of Helsinki, Bratislava and other cities that she had yet to visit.

There was a lot to explore in this dream Vienna. After rolling down one particularly steep staircase Little Grapefruit found herself rolling from cobblestones onto sand. She was standing on a beach somewhere back in Finland. Above her the Aurora Borealis glowed a beautiful array of various shades of grapefruit.

She took a roll along the sand enjoying the exfoliating effect it was having on her rind. A path appeared before her and at the end of this path stood a low rectangular building. It looked very dark and like no one had stepped inside for many years.

Little Grapefruit was unperturbed and bounced inside. She found herself rolling down a long corridor, the light was low but she could make out the words SHAG SHAG SHAG painted in large black letters on the walls. She rolled into a large room. The Top of The Pops theme tune circa 1987 played in the background.

Credit: Ariadne

In the middle of the room sat a completely white 1968 Ford Galaxy. Surrounding the car were large display cases. 23 to be exact. One contained two tuxedos, one white, one black, with two matching Flying V guitars. In another stood mannequins in long white robes with horns sticking out from underneath the hoods. And in one almost hidden, shoved in the back near the exit there sat with nothing else inside it, one lone, singular brick.

Little Grapefruit made her way around the room looking at everything in these dusty glass cases, large fluffy deer stalkers sitting next to mirrored shades, the charred remains of a wicker man, fake moustaches, one pencil thin, the other heavy and bushy.

There was a lot to take in, but she had done so much rolling and she needed a sleep, she jumped into the deerstalker, snuggling into its softness and thought about her travels. How for such a small fruit she had seen so much of the continent, all on her own. She felt very proud of herself but slightly melancholy as well. As her tiny eyelids closed all she could think was that sometimes life is a very lonely adventure.

ARIADNE

29 December 2023

Any ideas about the location of The Museum? Please post below. I wondered about The Secession Building – that would look “grape” with a grapefruit on top.

Source: Wikipedia
96. PROF GRAYLING MUIR – part 5

Dec 28th, 2023

Curt Finks has finally arrived at the hide, with his friend Bronwyn and visiting academic Prof Grayling Muir. Finks is still reeling from the interview with the Fringe of the Fringe journalist. The concluding part of the reconstructed tales of Finks and friends from the late 80s and early 90s.

Part 1| Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Eventually Curt Finks calmed down. Bronwyn had learnt to shut out her friend’s witterings when he was having such a rant. However, Grayling Muir sat listening with studied attentiveness as the Reverend’s story unfolded – a joker distributing a different programme in his name for each of his Edinburgh Fringe performances. Who could possibly have set up such an elaborate scheme, with such convoluted rules? In contrast, Finks’ performance had not changed since his 1972 debut.

Thankfully, conversation moved on. Grayling was detailing his research so far. The Brent Geese had arrived on their scheduled day, flashing their green, yellow and pink tags as a challenge for the local bird watchers to document and track their route, mourn the missing, and tag the newest additions to their flock. But a few geese in one corner of their patch had, for a second year, started to show a stumbling state of stupor.

Recounting the natural history of this strange condition, Grayling painted a gloomy picture. Some of the birds had been found circling incessantly. Others slept through the day as if scared of the sun, surfacing only at night to start their shuffle all over again. Yet more showed even more worrying signs, a distant look in their eye before disappearing, their tags found discarded in a trough that cattle and sheep shared in an adjacent field.

According to Professor Muir there had been reports of similar episodes in letters responding to his various publications on this phenomenon. Similar behaviour had been observed in Canada and Siberia. After recruiting volunteers from an advert in the same journal, Muir carefully tabulated the details of the plants growing where the geese had been found. On one occasion he noted the little yellow flowers found in a puddle of vomit close to an affected goose

Intensive statistical analysis, using mainframe computers in the veterinary department of his Canadian university threw up an unexpected pattern. A strong correlation between number of Brent Geese affected and proximity to patches of ragworts. Finks and Bronwyn Gosling knew this part of the story: the eradication of the culprit flora.

Now that the area was clear of the cause of their illness, the Brent Geese numbers had boomed, without a return to their toxin-induced catatonia. “And that”, said Grayling, flourishing his most recently published paper, “ends my Muir Trance Series”. A coot in the distance peeped out a rhythmic call.

Reconstructed by GANTOB and Ali from discussions with Bronwyn Gosling and details from Curt Finks diaries, 1988-1992
95. MISSIVE FROM THE BARN (by SKELLBERT’S PICKLES)

Dec 27th, 2023

Skellbert’s Pickles had to be ejekted from his home to submit this post. Otherwise, this would have been his household’s 4^th submission, which is against the rules of #Demokratisation. He writes:

“I fully expekt kreative tryranny to overrule this submission, partikularly as my missive today, is a reaktion to a dark day, which has resulted in Skellbert becoming rather pickled and ranty. I do not wish to spoil the vibe of your GANTOB projekt, but I was pleased with this piece of writing which flew into my laptop, I would like to think, faster than Kerouac’s soft, strong and very long bit of typewriter paper. I’ll not be at all miffed if this doesn’t make the cut, but would be glad of your reading it.”

Thanks for your dedication Skellbert’s Pickles. Over to you…

Pickling has been going on here since 1680, but the current corrugated pickling house was erected in the 1960s, whilst Elvis was wriggling his deeply corrupting pelvis.

I must admit to a kollection of liberated K2 tat in said barn, but now that I am resident in this tin tabernacle of Mu, it serves as a constant reminder that I am not dead yet.

We are considering a future Furthur re-enaktment of Chill Out with live sheep and pure Llandewi-Brefi elektrik kool-aid punch. Local legend has it that there might be psykhedelik treasure buried in the swamp behind my pickling shed. There’s lots of smiles to the mile out here.

The swallows and the geese have been ruling our skies, ‘til a dirty piece of military hardware came over low this morning, a dark omen for sure, as they were followed by those cuntry folk, who so objected to our occasional forays into their environs to dance. They came through with bloodlust, a depleted gene pool, and malevolence.

We had to get out. It was just too much. Our neighbours way out west are far less disturbed than those denizens of Ballardian Ingerland, entranced by the city in the South East, that even Gimpo’s Spin has failed to knock off kilter, or perhaps more to the point, put on an even keel. Koming of age in the stockbroker belt, was freaked out early on by Threads and later tripping at the Deptford Free Festival with the evil pyramid atop 1 Canary Wharf projecting its bad juju on the happy crowd. Then more evil geometries were raised to their Abrahamic heaven, culminating in the Shard that must burn. Down with that sort of thing. Missiformation had a good go at toppling their markers on the perimeter of the square mile one night, but that was all a blur even in the moment, ended with her licking a Victoria line tube outta Brixton like a cane toad (this explains much).

To paraphrase the infamous words of Spiral Tribe (your investments may go up or down…) recently cited during the Krossing “make some fucking noise there’s a genocide going on”.

Anyway, I’m still out here freezing my numb nuts off with my sacred jars of Immanentized Eschatons.

I now find myself 23 words short. I’ll apologize for spoiling the party with a bit of political reality, but 2023 WTF is going on?

SKELLBERT’S PICKLES

27 December 2023
94. LUPINE (transcribed by BRECHTIAN)

Dec 26th, 2023
This kontribution arrived on 18 December, with an elaborate excuse. This included the words:

‘I was not planning on sending in a contribution owing to several factors.
- I have not read 2023: A trilogy by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, aside from a brief glimpse of a few pages in the Manchester City Centre branch of Fopp.
- I have already submitted a number of words to Bill Drummond’s forthcoming memoir A Life Model, and that putting more words in to a linked project could be seen as being “greedy” in some way.
- While I had been reading the blog, and following along, I had not done any of the audience participation elements.
So, I was to just leave it be, and read (and listen).
But The Wolves In My Head had other plans (as usual). They defeated my procrastination attempts fairly easily, and (got me to) write what is attached. For my chapter in A Life Model, they have a mere cameo. This time, they wanted star billing. But when looking through the list of characters, one jumped out as a good opportunity to try to work something out.
All credits/kredits goes to “The Wolves”. I just typed it up.
They also insist that they are not related to the internet meme of “There are two wolves inside you…”, nor do they appear on the cover of “Chill Out”, the compilation on Sabotage Recordings. If that’s not in the KLFRS arkives, I’ll pop a message over to them about it.'(*)

PS One last thing I forgot to mention was the final nudge to submit something was seeing the cover for the Christmas RadioTimes [which featured a picture of Mog].

Over to you wolves and Brechtian…

They must be wrapping up by now. Points kept being raised, discussed, emphasised. Even though no longer weighed down, the outdoors still made for a tiring place to hear this.

“..and, I think that covers it all.” the wolf on the left said. “Anything to add?” he asked the wolf on the right.

Please say no, please say no…

“Well, I don’t think so.”

A pause. I knew they were waiting for me to make some statement about it all, but I was going to enjoy this silence for a moment.

“OK, I heard what you were both saying, and I can agree with a lot, no the majority, no most.”

“Mmmm?” prompted the one on the right.

“But I still don’t understand why ask someone like myself”.

“Well…it’s. OK, it’s your experience as a former human. I don’t want to offend, but that puts you in a unique position among the people we have met over the years.”

I shifted pose slightly. I glanced over at the back of a carpark nearby a soon to be demolished cinema. Close to civilization, but away from cameras or passers-by. Just what should I be offended over…

“You are the first to be able to offer us a different perspective of it all. If we asked someone who was still alive, our response would be clouded by the fact that we might see you as a threat, or visa versa. Whereas now….”

“OK, I see. I can’t kill you, and you can’t eat me.”

“Exactly. Possibly getting kulled or predated can cloud anyone’s thought process, no matter what tea and biscuits you hand out at the start.”

The wind picked up a notch, blowing an empty can along the carpark. I gathered some thoughts on the matter, dropped half and started my response.

“True balance between the two could have only happened if both had been able to communicate equally from the beginning. That alone, though would not have solved the conflict, just would have made finding a joint purpose more probable. So, ‘least worst’ option is what there is now. You have a possible contribution to the process, but absolutely no obligation to do so for the very reason you’ve just given for asking my opinion.”

“Huh. Well, thanks very much Curt”

“I’ll be on my way”.

CREDIT: THE WOLVES, transcribed by Brechtian

26 December 2023

(*) I will ask Brechtian for further details about The Chill Out compilation on Sabotage Recordings on your behalf and update in due course.
93. A GANTOBVERSE CHRISTMAS

Dec 25th, 2023

Today’s blog is provided by The Observer. It gifts a copy of the second book to a couple of loyal GANTOBers who haven’t been able to provide a blog. And it also provides access to a “hidden” GANTOB pamphlet.

Merry Christmas to one and all.

X-ray eyes scanned over parcels. Silence sat uneasily in houses across cities and countryside, punctuated by the rustling of paper and the occasional skretch of sellotape for late wrappers. The Foundation Doktor headed back to her hospital akommodation after a night shift. She percussed and palpated the packages from her immediate family. She unwrapped a long chunky box that contained a kardiology stethoskope – perfekt for detekting those klicking and leaking heart valves in her next set of exams. She would be visiting The Benefaktor’s townhouse in the late afternoon, but snatched some cereal and headed to bed for a few hours.

Meanwhile, Little Grapefruit was rolling around the bowl, looking for the presents hidden in the limited nooks and krannies in the perfekt kurves of her home. She was looking forward to seeing her cousins – The Limes – for the family lunch. She’d speak to her Welsh cousins on Zoom later on, after watching the Dr Who Christmas special. Big Grapefruit had talked about a Lost Doktor too, but Little Grapefruit was too excited to stop and listen, zooming around faster than a CERN experiment – a multicoloured stripe discernible only if you blinked fast enough.

Nothing kryptic here – if you’d like to read Little Grapefruit’s Christmas (GANTOB pamphlet X30), simply click the image. GAP (X15) is hidden in a previous post.

Across in Stirling, GANTOB and Ali were making their way to student akommodation to visit their son, who preferred the kampus to their motorway hotel. There was nobody else in the flat, so there was plenty of space for their goose, cheese and brandy sauce. A cloved onion was rolling awkwardly in milk in one of three pans on the go. Roast goose was Ali’s choice – a Finks tradition. It seemed in rather poor taste to GANTOB, after their feathered adventures this year.

Santa Klaus was on GANTOB’s laptop in the hotel. She (Santa) was adding names to GANTOB’s list of recipients of the second book. A_____ was having a frantic month. And C_____ had been laid low with a winter bug. No opportunity to komplete a blog – barely time to swing a sprout, as they say in Santa’s village in Finland. Both added to the list. GANTOB wouldn’t mind.

And The Benefaktor was sitting in a leather chair at the front of his house, thinking about something The Photographer, the clype, had mentioned in his Christmas email. But it was Christmas, so he would let it pass, and had a second of his wife’s exceptionally good mince pies.

THE OBSERVER

25 December 2023
92. WAITING (by GRAHAM)

Dec 24th, 2023

It’s not Christmas Day yet. It’s still Advent. So it’s appropriate that we’ve had to wait for this blog. Graham has filed his copy after being out and about for hours in Edinburgh. He’s not very popular at home.

Over to you Graham…

Christmas Eve afternoon I head into Edinburgh city centre, ostensibly to pick up some stocking fillers, vegetarian stuffing, plumper sprouts. Everybody is back home, and we have been cooking and wrapping all day.

I pass a guitarist called Inkfields: “To play with fire doesn’t make you an arsonist”, he sings, looking right at me. An image of The Shard flashes in front of me.

There’s a huge crush at the East End. Along Princes Street, outside Waterstone’s there’s a trio playing jazz Christmas carols. A few people throw coins in the double bass case. I think back to a Duke Ellington quote I heard recently: “There is nothing to keeping a band together. You simply have to have a gimmick”. This ensemble’s gimmick appears to be wearing colourful paper hats.

I’m wondering about a meeting point arranged in The JAMs’ 2023: A trilogy: Shepherdess Café, London, 17:47, Christmas Eve 2023.

Detail from The JAMs’ book 2023: A trilogy

17:20 I pop into Black Sheep Coffee, opposite Edinburgh Castle. Having read the GANTOB blog, I think this is the best GANTOBverse surrogate for Shepherdess Café. I look around the ground floor, then the top. No likely candidates. But how can we know what GANTOB, The Benefaktor and The Foundation Doktor look like? There are certainly no grapefruit rolling around.

17:40. Still no sign. I order, avoiding matcha green, as per GANTOB’s advice. I’m going to sit beside the front door and watch people coming and going. The buskers walk past, laughing. After remembering a later meeting in the book I’m there until closing time. Waiting. Nothing.

Detail from The JAMs’ book 2023: A trilogy

I don’t know what I expected. I think of all the time I’ve spent digging, following up false leads, refreshing eBay and Facebook, watching for the KLF, and now GANTOB.

My feet get tangled up in a piece of garbage. I shake it off, thinking it’s a food wrapper. However, inspecting it more closely with the torch on my phone, I realise it’s a green Christmas hat, but made out of standard paper rather than the crepe version from a cracker. And it has words and a familiar grapefruit design. It’s been cut in half – in a zigzig, and then stapled together. It’s GANTOB’s “Paint Them Black” pamphlet, from November 2023. I wonder briefly if it’s the same hat the double bass player was wearing. And then I nip into a Tesco Express and pick up sprouts and a discounted Christmas pudding.

Graham

24 December 2023
91. THE FINAL CHRISTMAS #1 HIT (by MASE)

Dec 23rd, 2023

Note that image is by Matt Porter.

In another universe Wham! is Number One with “Last Christmas”. But events are rather different in this reality, kommunikated by Mase in this ongoing series of #Demokratisation.

We are fully booked for blogs for the rest of 2023, but if you would like a copy of the forthcoming book and your entry fits into the narrative laid down so far, then we will just need to double up. Numbering conventions will be out of the window, but isn’t that just typikal of all things K. Get submitting. Details on how to apply at the end of the blog.

But for today, it’s over to you Mase…

Christmas Eve, 2023 – lightly snowing. The Justified Ancients of Mumu – Rockman Rock, Kingboy D, and The Benefactor – in their secret underground lair, deep beneath London. Their latest project – the Christmas #1 song Everybody’s Talkin’ At Me by Harry Nilsson (featuring Ricardo Da Force) premix by Tony ‘FU**’ Thorpe.

Huddled around the control board, sipping cocoa, checking the charts. More than just a song – their chance to make history one more time.

A knock at the door… “Who could that be?” asked Rockman from his mixerboard. “I hope it’s not the tax man.” replied Kingboy.

“I’ll get it,” said the Benefaktor.

It was none other than Santa Claus himself! “Ho ho ho!” boomed Santa. “The JAMs’ Christmas #1 hit? I’m impressed! I’ve heard rumors of a special remix by Tony Thorpe?”

Soon Santa was dancing to the catchy beat. “Fantastic! My new favorite Christmas song. How did you do it?”

Kingboy D grinned mischievously. “To win the Kareovision Kristmas Song Kontest, we needed something special to stand out from all the other generic holiday songs. We took a classic like Everybody’s Talkin’ At Me, slapped on a funky beat, and extra flavor with Ricardo’s vocals. Then we had Tony remix it for us.”

Santa chuckled. “How to have a #1 the easy way?”

Rockman chimed in, “It’ll show everyone we’re not just a bunch of crazy old men in silly costumes.”

Santa nodded. “I’m rooting for you! And remember – the true spirit of Christmas is about spreading joy.”

As they worked tirelessly through the night, they felt a renewed sense of purpose – they weren’t just trying to win a contest, they were spreading cheer to the entire world.

The results finally came in Christmas morning – they had indeed won the Kristmas Kontest – thanks to Santa’s personal endorsement!

Celebrating aboard their giant solid-gold submarine, a surprise visit from Tony Thorpe himself. “I heard y’all were using my premix”, he said winking, “So I thought I’d return the favor and create a special dubstep postmix!”

The Benefaktor listened in amazement as the heavy bass and pulsing synths transformed their song into a whole new beast that’ll rock the world for centuries to come. “Wow!” exclaimed Kingboy, “We couldn’t have done it without you, Tony!”

The JAMs raised their glasses in a toast to the power of music to bring people together. Merry Christmas from Trancentral!

Mase

23 December 2023

Image is by Matt Porter, shared on Instagram yesterday.

If you have 400 words to submit, please get in touch. Ignore the deadlines, but please remember to provide an excuse for being late. If your blog is used in December 2023 you will receive a copy of the forthcoming book: GANTOB’s 2023: A trilogy, including your contribution. Good luck!
90. WHAT TIME IS HOPE? (by JR)

Dec 22nd, 2023

It’s Christmas all the way on the blog for the next few days, with a large serving of kranberry sauce. JR puts us in the mood with this philosophical and time travelling piece, decorated by art from his mantelpiece.

Over to you JR.

It’s coming on Christmas, they’re cutting down trees, they’re putting up reindeer and singing songs of joy and peace. I invite GANTOB and her friends over for festive sherry and mince pies.

After a couple of schooners I ask The Benefaktor why there are so many songs about Love and so few about Hope? “All you need is love! Ba dada da da” he replies. But Little Grapefruit disagrees. “We all know that’s not true” she says, citing a mix of Maslow and Kant “We need food, shelter, something to do and something to hope for too”.

We wrack our brains for a song of hope. GANTOB reminds us of Frank Sinatra’s High Hopes with his ant and his rubber tree plant. But then Frankie went to Hollywood and Holly and the boys sang of the power of Love as a force from above and we’re back with Love again.

The Foundation Doktor has heard about my Time Teleskope and suggests we should see if it can find an answer. I set it up, hand out some extra eyepieces and twist the fokus… Immediately we sense cold. We feel a crowd around us. Everyone is wrapped up against the freezing night. It’s December 15^th, 1969. We’re in Times Square. Everyone is looking up. We follow the kollektive gaze. A huge billboard proclaims “WAR IS OVER if you want it”. “There!” exclaims The Benefaktor: “Happy Christmas War is Over” may not have Hope in the title, but it’s a song of Hope”.

But it hasn’t quite worked out, has it? The kicker is the “if you want it”. A call to Kollektive Aktion that never quite gained enough traktion. “Maybe that’s because”, muses GANTOB, “while Yoko dreamed Vladimir Putin received his copy of the book, with the exhortation to make war? The book has been more successful”.

We need another schooner while we consider this. The oloroso is soon empty. The Benefaktor takes the last pie.

I give the fokus another twist and we hear waves crashing, the sound of creaking wood. The smell of an ocean. We’re on a longboat. A red dog is barkin’. Two men are talking about spray paint. A girl holds a red balloon. A loudhailer is roaring “Ukraine! Russia! Israel! Palestine! Ethiopia! Sudan! Yemen! Myanmar! Afghanistan! …” the litany of nations goes on for some time.

Things are fuzzy, it must be the sherry.

The speaker builds to a deafening climax. The final cry: “AMERICA! WHAT TIME IS HOPE?”.

A Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Let’s Hope it’s a good one, without any fear.

JR

22 December 2023
89. PROF GRAYLING MUIR – part 4

Dec 21st, 2023

Part 4 of a weekly series. We’re back in the East Anglian village where Bronwyn Gosling, and Curt and Norah Finks lived in the 1980s and 1990s. Series concludes on 28 December.

Part 1| Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 5.

3PM. The bus deposited The Photographer and a few other SLRed twitchers in the East Anglian village. He made his way to the Finks’ cottage, thinking back to their first encounter, when he had found Curt kneeling against a drystone dyke in the Yorkshire Dales.

Approaching the cottage, The Photographer struggled with the Finks’ broken front gate, and edged his way along the slippery mossy path, aware of his precious cargo of camera and lenses.

Moments later he was being shown into the spare room by Norah Finks, and plied with a cup of Darjeeling and a thickly buttered scone. Curt was out, birdwatching.

Easing his way past the gate again, he walked the route that Norah had mapped out, camera safely stowed in the cottage, no use at this time of day. He carried a couple of packs of newly developed photos in his bag in case he had an idle moment. Rounding the corner he saw Finks and another man walking towards him. The taller of the two flashed a smile, waved enthusiastically, and The Photographer found himself arm in arm, marching towards the Red Lion pub.

The three men put in their orders at the bar. The conversation flowed easily, and the orders were repeated twice more.

Evening fell. Finks was snoring in the leather seat by the pub’s fire. Prof Grayling Muir was asking The Photographer about his friend’s Edinburgh Fringe activities. The Canadian academic updated him on the interview that had upset Finks so much, with the mystery of the printed programmes. The Photographer’s ears pricked up.

Other brands are available

Reaching for his bag he pulled out the packs of photos. Dimly lit, they were almost all of Curt Finks’ Edinburgh shows that summer, taken over a three-day trip.

Neither man was interested in the tourist photos. Muir had the first look, flicking past those of the performer, lingering instead on the photos of the crowd.

After finishing his drink, The Photographer had a look himself. He turned back to a photo of a tall, thin man who was placing a piece of paper on one of the chairs. Though slightly blurred, it was clear that neighbouring chairs had already been leafleted.

Leafing through the rest, he was in no doubt. He knew that face, right back to school days. But what was he up to? He popped the envelopes back into his pocket and said no more.

GANTOB, reconstructed from discussions with The Photographer, prompted by seeing mention of him in Curt Finks’ diaries 1988, 1989 and 1990.

21 December 2023

If you have 400 words to submit, please get in touch. Ignore the deadlines, but please remember to provide an excuse for being late. If your blog is used in December 2023 you will receive a copy of the forthcoming book: GANTOB’s 2023: A trilogy, including your contribution. Good luck!