BURA’S BLURB (FEB 2010)
HELLO AMIGOES!!!
AND A BELATED HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Wow, talk about trying to let go the sticky tentacles of Tiscali: my previous broadband provider: I wrote to them, phoned them and phoned them and phoned them, again and again and again, STILL they kept on sending me bills. A word of warning: DO NOT GIVE YOUR CREDIT CARD DETAILS let your bank handle it (Direct Debit) otherwise they’ll keep on milking it.   Don’t misunderstand me, I’ve no truck with the Indian nation whose operators are all Indian, but when you can’t understand the accent (more times than not) and then realise that you have just got through all the way to bloody INDIA! Goodness gracious me! And so much scarlet tape to cut through into the bargain, well. And then there’s Kent Social Services. I’ve been a virtual prisoner in my own home since I moved back to ol’ Hernia bay. You see, in Wales they put up steps to my front door and a banister in just a few weeks, but in Kent…I’m still waiting after two months and me being a professional Raspberry Ripple (Cripple!) an all. Anyway, the deed is done and dusted. I’m here and I’m still waiting! (I think I’ve turned into a Grumpy Old Git!)

WHAT MOVES ME?

What moves me? I was listening to WOMAN’S HOUR (BBC RADIO.4.) and there was a segment of Scottish fiddle music and song, then an ancient Arabic stringed (didn’t catch the name of it) instrument and finally an Arabic song. The music blended, complimented and bounced off each other and brought me to a point of tears! (Soft sod, I hear you cry!)
         The song: IF YOU GO AWAY (lyrics by Rod McKuen music by the French singer/song-writer: Jacque Brell) gets me every time whether it’s sung by Shirley Bassey (my favourite), Dusty Springfield, Frank Sinatra,  Jacque Brell, Rod McKuen, Barbara Streisand …ANYONE! That sublime blend of music AND lyrics! (Soft sod!)        

        Classical music affects me the same way, especially Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis by R. Vaughn Williams. Or Albinoni’s Adagio for organ and strings! Or Rodriguez: the Miles Davis version ofConcierto De Aranjuez. The list is endless.

 
        Children trying to explain things quite seriously with an earnestness that makes me weep. (Extremely soft sod!)
         Elderly couples holding hands.
         Some obscure TV commercials so obscure that I forget them, but they still bring on a tear.
         One poem by Christy Brown called ‘Sunday Visit’ (loads of other poems by this talented poet of course), but this one stands – in my view - head and shoulders above; A Cat Named Sloopy by Rod McKuen; and one poem of mine that I cannot for the life of me read through without a lump the size of a golf-ball forming titled: ‘Jew’. Oh there are others that I can just about handle without chocking, but ‘Jew’ I haven’t yet mastered!

        Faces in a crowd that for some reason make me well-up and I would embrace them if I could, thousands of faces on the street, in buses, that I would never see again! How bizarre is that? A face that I remember was on a ferry slicing its way through to Holland. A guy came into the lounge; he was olive-skinned with dark, slightly long, curly, shining hair. He had an extraordinary broad face with large, very dark, sad eyes. He came in, looked about him as if looking for somebody in particular and then went out. I never saw him again. Yet I still remember him to this day. This was 40-odd years ago. My heart went with him and my tears. I wonder why? (Humm: soft sod!)

        A simple worn, cloth-covered coat-hanger that belonged to my mother! Not a picture of her beloved face, but a simple cloth-covered coat-hanger. How weird is that?

        The Oak on the Plain an illustrated book. I wrote the original in long hand and you can still see the tear-stains on the MS. It was based on: ‘The Man Who Planted Trees’ by Jean Giono and ‘The Tree’ byGrey Owl, real name: Archibald Belaney. MY story was completely different but I was inspired to write it on the strength of the above named books!

Oh and odours, they conjure up so many powerful memories, but it’s not the odours in themselves that evoke such responses but the memories carried in them…or on them…or with them, even!
        The smell of Old Spice never fails to install the memory of a nurse - I was only 15 and she just 17 – (my first mature love) who used it as a perfume! When lights were out on our ward she used to creep in, and we’d spend half an hour snogging! (Lucky sod!)
         It was even better when I was eventually removed from that blasted plaster-bed!
       
       
        THE POEM:

ADIOS AMIGOES!

LUV N’ LITE N’ LARFTER
         
Paul Bura.

BURA’S BLURB December 09

MERRY THINGY, AMIGOES!!!

By now I should be ensconced in my bungalow at 93, Albany Drive, Herne Bay in Kent. Albany Drive was where all of us kids were brought up: Josie, Melly, Kevin and me! And where my mumma spent her happiest of days. At 6 years old when we moved from Albany Drive and all the furniture was piled into the van, I sat on the front step and refused to leave! “You can all go without me,” I cried, “but I’m staying!” Talk about famous last words!

I WANT TO BE AN ACTOR, SIR!
“Roberts! What, pray, do you want to do when you leave this excellent educational emporium?” Mr Hancock (“mathematics are BE-AU-TI-FUL!” he was apt to say to all and sundry, he even muttered it when he nodded off!) was our head teacher at Greenhill Secondary Modern and was likely to take you off guard with his musings!
        “Umm, I want to be a technical drawer, sir!”
        “In what field, Roberts?”
        “Umm…..”
        “Come on, come on, boy, in what field?”
        “Don’t know, sir!”
        “Onion?”
        “Sir?”
        “Same question, boy!”
        “A ladies hairdresser, sir!”
Mr Hancock winced. “Have you thought it through, Onion?”
“I’ve already started on a Saturday, sir!” said Bob Onion proudly. “Yeees, so I’ve heard, boy, so I’ve heard!”
        “Jones? Same question, boy!”
        “I want to be a plumber, sir”
        “Are you sure, Jones?”
        “Yes sir.”
Finally he came to me:
        Bura, what do you want to be?”
        “I want to be an actor, sir!”
        The whole classroom fell silent! What was this crippled boy think he was playing at? The whole classroom resounded with this silent cry!
        Mr Hancock paused, a very long pause… “Hummmm, yes, well…” Then he continued on:
        “Brown? Same question, boy!”

        Even when I was in hospital (having left the Secondary Modern School in Herne Bay: I won the talent competition playing harmonica with Roger Hext and played a limping Sea Captain in ‘The rainbow’s End’ which the school had put on) lying flat on a Plaster-of-Paris bed - having had a spinal fusion - I asked my parents for my grease-paint box.
        I made my face up like a clown…until sister saw me (well you could hardly MISS me: a row of beds and me made-up like a clown!). She marched straight over and confiscated the lot. “You’ll be getting (she was Irish) dis stuff all over de sheets,” she cried!  

        Years later I proved them all wrong. I had a talent for voices and I wrote a small 5-minute animated pilot film (with my brother-in-law – he of the busking experience – on bass clarinet) called Professor Who-Dunnit with me doing the voice of the professor and the Genie (don’t ask!), a German professor. My cousin George (it was his idea and his characters) DuBoush did the animation. George and I happened to be showing the film at my uncle Bob’s studio where the producer of LARRY THE LAMB, (Hedrick Baker of Toy Town fame)was making an animated series of Larry the Lamb for Thames TV. Hedrick hated the five minute pilot but loved my rendering of the little German professor. One thing led to another and before I knew it I was auditioning for the part. I had to do about four voices in all but the main voice was that of Dennis the Dachshund who had a Germanic voice. I got the audition and went on to do three series of LARRY THE LAMB!
         I was now in demand for TV and Radio commercials, a radio actor and a performing poet!
        So, in the end, I became an actor after all…using my voice and not my body - which was just as well!

*******

UN'T NOW ZA POEMS!

MAY YOU HAVE
LUV N’ LITE N’ LARFTER
AND A MERRY CHRISTMAS, AMIGOES!

Paul

BURA’S BLURB November 09

HELLO AMIGOES!

Everybody has those characters whom they model themselves on (Don’t they?), even if it’s only an actor or film-star, or even a teacher whose influence guides them, even unconsciously, for the rest of their lives. This was such a person:

JAY DEVEREAUX

He was swath and casual. He wore pale-green elephant cords, dark roll neck sweaters and neat, little fitted jackets and suede shoes. He was dark-haired and reminded me of Gene Pitney (the singer:’24 Hours to Tulsa’ etc). He came down from London and was a mechanic in the Arcade that I worked in as a cashier. He smoked Gold Blend king-size cigarettes with such finesse and style I almost took up smoking! Jay was the coolest dude that I had ever met!
         Girls swarmed around him like flies on a discarded bag of chips! Gradually I found myself buying (I couldn’t find green elephant corduroy trousers) a pair of cords (brown) and wearing the roll-neck sweaters and little casual jackets thinking to attract the same flies that swarmed around him.
         His name was Jay Devereaux and he was my (consciously or unconsciously, I didn’t really know) role model!
         He used to clear the pennies, which accumulated around the shoots of the penny slot machines (he having the keys to the machines – he was a mechanic after all!). You could see the weight of their bulge in the pockets of the light canvas jackets that we all had to wear! He persuaded me to cash-in his ill gotten gains, out of sight from the boss! He was such a charmer that I did exactly what he said.
        From this cash he bought an old 1946 Austen 10 for £35 quid. He enticed many a willing girl into that old banger.
        He and I went out once after work (we packed-up around 10pm). I had a sister who was going out with a musician who had a gig in Margate and we were invited.
         Before that, however, we went to Fenners restaurant where we ordered mushroom soup and a mixed grill (I ate meat in those days). A strange persona came and settled over Jay in that restaurant. He started ordering the waiters around!
        When our mushroom soup came the chef had put a thinly-cut, delicate profusion of mushrooms on top of the soup. I was about to say that the chef had gone to a lot of trouble to make the soup as an attractive a dish as he could when Jay clicked his fingers at the waiter and ordered him to “Take it away!”. I had no say in the matter. “If I had ordered mushrooms on top of the soup I would have ordered them,” he said loudly, “Now take it away and bring us (he even said us!) just plain mushroom soup!”
         He complained about the toughness of the steak (it wasn’t tough), the eggs (they were fine), and the wine: EVERYTHING! This was a side of him that I hadn’t seen!
         Then it clicked! I was only 17 and he was about 22 and he was – in my view – just showing off! That HAD to be it! He wanted me to feel that ‘he was in charge’ and this was the way to ‘have a good time’. Never mind that I was quietly embarrassed by the whole episode, in fact I was squirming!
        When we arrived at the Jazz venue which my sister Josie had invited us he was the old Jay again: charm and genuine warmth personified.
       All of my family were smitten, especially my younger sister. He became one of the family; Jay not having a family of his own…at least to my knowledge!
        The season came to an end; he still came down for the odd weekend though.
         Then, quite suddenly, without a word to anyone, he immigrated to Australia!
        We still kept in touch. That is for a year or so.
        Then about 8 years ago I got an Air Mail letter from a J. DEVEREAUX. Excitedly I ripped open the letter. It was from his daughter ‘Jacqueline Devereaux’ (I didn’t even know that he was married!) to tell me that her father had died in a tragic car accident on his way to work!
         She had been going through his things and came across a book of my poems and so she had written to me asking me about her father and what he was like back then? She had sent me a photograph of Jay who now sported a full beard and glasses [see poem below] and was distinctly scruffy (not the suave dude of old) and to Jacqueline he had always dressed this way! He worked in coloured glass now, a creative process where he made brightly coloured swirling, decorative, windows!
        She told me that now and again he suffered from depression and that his marriage was rocky. She had a brother too whose name I forget!
        I still wear corduroy trousers (don’t know why!) but smocks now instead of roll-neck sweaters! Every time I see an old Austen 10 I think of Jay Devereaux*… and all those girls! I didn’t tell his daughter about the girls. Perhaps she’s reading this now? Oh well, no harm done eh, Jacqueline?
         [Email me soon, Jacqueline! Its years since I heard from you!]

NOTE: I remember it was the summer when I devoured anything I could get my hands on by Lobsang Rampa: THE THIRD EYE, DOCTOR FROM LHASA, THE CAVE OF THE ANCIANTS etc.

INTERESTING STORY

    An interesting story: Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees is a friend of my brother Kevin's, in fact when they go away Kev and Maureen usually act as caretakers to his country 'pile'. Kevin used to cut Robin's hair...and still does. Anyway, when Kev did the Trafalgar Square (4th plinth) gig Robin tried to get in and COULDN'T! Usually Robin can get in ANYWHERE he bloody well likes because he's a Bee Gee, but on the entrance were a Russian and some other nationality bloke who didn't know who Robin was from Adam. Kev and Maureen were staying at Robin's London gaff (which he had offered them) and didn't expect Robin to turn up. Anyway, after the set Robin said to Kevin: "Immaculate timing, man, immaculate. You owned that plinth!" Kev was flabbergasted and said: "Coming from you that's a real honour, up until now I was very careful not even to whistle around you let alone sing!"

JUST ONE POEM!

ADIOS AMIGOES!

LUV N‘ LITE N‘ LARFTER!

Paul Bura.

BURA’S BLURB OCTOBER 09

HELLO AMIGOES!

AMBULANCE MEN
Ambulance men (or ‘Medics’) are a breed apart: jovial, strong, friendly and compassionate. I should know, I have been using them on and off for over 50 years: from when I first caught polio to my now condition of post polio syndrome. I don’t know the process of how and why they choose them; probably intimate questioning of a personal kind. All I know is that they are as I’ve described them above: always cheerful, helpful and appear to love their job (though their pay could do with an airing). Nothing is too much of a hassle, nothing is too much trouble. Always friendly banter and – it appears – they wouldn’t let anything happen to you if their life depended on it!
        My old friend Peter McKay was an ambulance driver (same training except you had to pass your advanced driving test). Peter was the personification of all that I’ve described above – except he couldn’t stand the sight of blood! I really couldn’t imagine Peter picking up severed limbs: fingers, hands etc. from a road accident! (Or road-kill, come to that!)
         However, part of his training was to spill a small phial-full of imitation blood onto a sheet. You’d have thought it was a full pint – or an ‘arm-full’ as Tony Hancock in The Blood Donor said. He soon got used to it! Mind you, he nearly fainted at first with the shock of all that fake blood.
        All went well during their training except for an incident with laughing gas, otherwise known as nitrous oxide! He and a mate of his had to attend a training lecture whilst under the influence of this gas and try as they could they couldn’t help pissing themselves with laughter. As you know laughter is infectious and before you knew it the whole hall was rocking with laughter. The lecturer caught on right away and ordered the two of them out of the lecturer hall. A bollocking followed!
        From then on nobody could pick me up if I fell over like Peter McKay. He was trained for the job. However – as with quite a few ambulance men (AND nurses) – his back went. Where did his back go? I hear you say…
        During my period in Anglesey, North Wales, (I’ve just sold my bungalow and hope to be moving to Herne Bay in Kent) I had to call upon the services of these guys in blue.
         “There’s a brand new Hoist in the other room!” I said. “Don’t know how to work ‘em!” said this ambulance man who was built like a brick out-house.
         With the minimum of effort he picked me up to a standing position even though he was now breaking the new code of practice that he and the nursing profession should now abide by: they had to use a hoist of some kind!
        Checking to see if I was okay – even offering to make me a cup of tea – and after filling in some forms he was gone!
       
        This is my opportunity – after all these years – to say in print: Thanks guys! Thank you very much for all the quiet humour and sometimes loud gags; your strength, skill, and kindness…but most of all: your compassion!

*******

THE OXO CUBE
(UFO sighting on Anglesey)

On the 20 June, on the Isle of Anglesey 2009, Mrs Scott, her daughter and a neighbour all witnessed, in broad daylight, a stationary light whose brilliance nearly matched that of the sun and was the size of a car! It was right above their heads and remained there for about 10 minutes.
           Every time they tried to photograph it with their mobile phones they failed. Either they couldn’t get their phones to focus – an unusual event in itself! - Or there was just a blank screen! (Typical phenomena where UFOs are concerned of all electrical gadgetry: they all tend to fail!)
          The huge light then turned into a ‘dark cube’ which suddenly moved off quite fast toward Bangor, North Wales!

*******

HERE COME DE POETRY!

ADIOS AMIGOES!

LUV N’ LITE N’ LARFTER

Paul Bura

Previous Archives

THE FLUTE PLAYER
(True Account)

The noose lay around the prisoners' neck,
Mind racing ahead of the crime on his shoulders,
Of the crazed young drug-head - and musician - that he was;
Soon it would be over, this physical flame fluffed out!

His religion taught
Of hell's torment for all eternity:

But he also knew of: "the prisoners' last request!"

In that moment of clarity he called for his flute!

The hangman's eyes widened,
The prisoners request was respected.

This magical friend in time of great need
Whose music would accompany him, sustain him
Even unto hell itself.

He was calm now as he bent his head
Putting the flute to his lips;
He drew in his breath,

Paused

Then gently blew such beauty out onto the calm, clear air,
And into the ethers; it soared above and around the ears
Of all that heard, prisoners and prison warders alike,
Beauty of such clarity, such sweetness that it scattered all before it:

Above his head and out of the little room
Where he stood on the scaffold
The noose still around his neck
As he dipped his head forward
To play his flute!

It melted the hearts of the parents
Whose son this drug crazed flute player had killed!

And when the music was at an end,
When the silence roared,
Then the tears came.
They - the parents - had a change of heart
And pardoned him, this young flute player,
As was their right in that far eastern country of Iran,
As was their right to do so!

FROM THE PENDRAGON