BURA'S BLOGGERY ARCHIVE

BURA’S BLURB (MARCH 2010)

HELLO AMIGOES!!

Just thought you’d like to know that the council guys have now put my metal banisters up against the stairs ‘that Peter built’ (a neighbour that just HAPPENS to be good with his hands and an all round nice geezer – not forgetting his wife Pat!). And a very good job he’s made of them too! So, apart from the odd grab-handle here and there at last I should be able to get out!

MERELY A DREAM

This world is merely a dream, a lesser reality, but is a reality non-the-less. But compared with 4 Dimensional Reality it would appear to be, at the very least, without substance.
        What we need to know and recognise is the surety of this 4 Dimensional reality amongst the - seemingly - wrecked beauty of this earth, this 3 Dimensional Reality.
        4D is interwoven between the earth’s 3D aspects through the medium of - say – poetry, music and the arts in general.
         When a poem, for instance, moves that aspect in you to such an extent that you have trouble explaining it (let alone understanding it), apart from the absolute beauty of this aspect, then THAT is the strand or fabric of the Interwoven Cloth that wraps itself around the earth.
         This earth is made up of 3rd and 4th Dimensional strands of energy, a complex mesh of which these strands run parallel, side by side.
        When a painting stands out from all the rest, and yet you cannot explain its beauty because it is beyond form and understanding, then THAT is 4D reality!
        I remember the Coldrum Stones in Kent. Directly I was amongst them I entered a different dimension. Oh yes, they were the same stones, the same view from the stones overlooking a vast valley, but inexplicably different! There was a subtle change in my perception, a kind of mystical experience. And I wasn’t alone in this; I went with three other people. They too felt it: an underlying energy, an exhilarating lightness of foot, intoxication if you like, and yet they were in and of this earth which had somehow subtly changed!
        When a piece of music is heard for the first time and catches you unawares, your whole being rises to meet it. You become immersed in its magic and you want to know, MUST know, who composed it because you want to hear it again and again so that you can experience that ‘out of this worldness’ again and again!
        Jazz and rock can exhilarate you but on a different level, more raw somehow but hugely enjoyable non-the-less.
       
        This energy goes beyond all the religions that make up this beautiful and tragic world, but at the same time the masters and mystics that brought this religion to our understanding all started from this same point of reference, this same awareness! Only their message changed in trying to explain it, but their message was in essence the same: LOVE!
       I have expressed many times when I was a mere 7-year-old, two or three weeks before I caught polio, when I was riding my bike down the side of an old country pub (where my grandfather – Snowy - used to down 12 pints of mild and bitter and still manage to ride his bike home!). I thrust my bike upon a bank of grass and was immersed in an ‘avenue of sound’ as the birds sang their little hearts out. I was too young to appreciate what was happening to me but I remember it as if it were yesterday:  love for everything, embracing everything!
       My first taste of 4 dimensional reality!   

AND NOW A SHORT (ISH) POEM:

UNTIL NEXT TIME, AMIGOES!
LUV N’ LITE N’ LARFTER
PAUL BURA

*****

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

BURA’S BLURB

HELLO AMIGOES!

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE!!!!!
My brother Kevin will be in Trafalgar Square at 10pm on September 12th (live!) on the 4TH plinth singing his little heart out. It’s organised by ANTONY GORMLEY (creator of ‘The Angel of the North’ and other sculptures). He won a lottery where each artist has an hour on the plinth doing whatever they bloody well like picked up on every PC on the planet!!! He will be dressed as a Pearly King and – amongst others – will sing his song about LONDON. When the producers heard about this they asked him whether he would arrive 2 hours earlier as they want him for a foto shoot! The sky’s the limit, little bruv! (Go, Kev, go!)

       Google: ANTONY GORMLEY/4TH plinth

BARIUM MEAL

For those of you that are a little squeamish or consider this material more lavatorial than you can bear, perhaps you shouldn’t read this piece!

        I went to my doctor in Lancing, Sussex, and told him that I had occasional constipation (strange isn’t it that TV ads for constipation and urinal problems tend to be aimed at ‘women!’ rather then men, even mentioning the vigina. Why IS that I wonder?). After prodding and poking at my stomach he thought that he detected a small obstruction and right away wrote to my local hospital in Worthing for an X-ray!
        Which left me worrying as to what it might be? I put this little niggle to the back of my mind, which was difficult because the C-word kept rearing its head!
        Three weeks later the hospital sent me some Barium Meal (which, as it so happened, was invented by my friend Lesley’s father. Who is Lesley? She is not part of this story so I’m not going to tell you; so there!), which I had to take prior to starving myself for a day and night.
        Now Barium Meal is a substance that comes in powder form and which you add to water. Come the morning after a night dreaming of eggs, chips and beans and mounds of buttered toast, I added the water and immediately the substance became warm (I believe it’s the chromium in it?).
        I was warned before hand that I had to be near a toilet and not to GO OUT at any time!  Now pretty well ALL laxatives ordered through the doctor come with this warning, but this warning came in large red letters. “Ah’oop,” I thought, “this stuff means business!” 
        Within 15 minutes I was in the toilet and taking down my trousers at the speed of light, which for a polio person aint easy! Human volcanic magma burst from my being like there was no tomorrow…and indeed it seemed that there WAS no tomorrow!
         Five minutes seemed like five hours. In the basin below me was a veritable storm of activity. The wind and noise was terrible – and that was only the weather! It was a continuous barrage, the absolute reverse of a storm in a teacup!!!
         Then all on a sudden it stopped as suddenly as it had begun. I was exhausted. I waited: then cleaned myself up, pulled up my trousers and…you’re ahead of me! Yes, another five minutes of thunderous reports!
        This time I felt the ‘all clear’ was genuine…and it was.

        My appointment at the hospital was 2.30. I was ushered into a large changing unit (which had a toilet incidentally, now WHY did it have a toilet?), where I disrobed, including my spinal jacket, and put on this special gown that did up at the back (a nurse helped me into this).
         They were ready for me, so a couple of rather attractive nurses helped me (I can walk without the spinal jacket but they didn’t know that - as I said they were rather attractive!) into a room that had a special ‘up and down’ bed, a large type of tank with tubes, and a screen.
         The doctor greeted me (he seemed friendly enough) and then indicated that special ‘up and down’ bed by patting it.
        “Hello, Mr Bura,” he said cheerily, “and how are you today?” I shot a nervous smile at him. “Ah, no need for nerves, Mr Bura”.      “Yeh, they all say that,” I thought.
        “Nurse will now administer a tube up your rectum, alright?”       “No, it bloody well wasn’t alright!” I thought-screamed!       “This is merely a special liquid which we will pour into you. You can see it going in on this screen here!” He indicated the screen. (Any minute now and he will say: “Ve haf vays of making you talking!”).
        The nurse inserted the probe. I winced. “This will be a little uncomfortable,” she said, “but when we pour in the liquid don’t worry if your stomach starts to swell, alright!” (Huh?) I grunted and nodded that I understood.
        Yes, it was uncomfortable but not painful!
        “Righto,” said the doctor, “perhaps you’d like to look at the screen. The liquid (which was white in colour) has a dye that shows up on the screen; see?”
         He pointed at an image of my bowl and stomach on the screen. “You see it’s gradually creeping up the small intestine and…”       He paused for a nano second.
         “What’s up, doc?” I said, sliding into my best Bugs Bunny impression!
         “No…umm…no-o-o-o…just a little more nurse!” I was being blown up like a balloon with this liquid.
         “Ah,” said the doc, “That’s better! You’ll be pleased to know, Paul, (He’d dropped the ‘Mr Bura’ tag) that you’re all clear,” said the doctor, triumphantly.
        “You mean that’s it?”
        “Yup, that’s it! All done!
        “Thanks doc, thank you very much...oh, by the way?”
         “Yes, Paul” he said, looking up from the screen. “Does Barium Meal ALWAYS work? I mean does it melt down even the hardest faecal matter?”
        “Never known it fail yet, Paul, never known it fail yet. Anything else you want to know?”
        “No, that’s about it, doctor, that’s about it!”
        With that he just smiled!

        Now very carefully the nurse extracted the tube from my bum
 and instructed me to ‘keep your cheeks together and be careful how I walk!’ (For obvious reasons) whilst she and the another nurse helped me off the ‘up and down’ gantry and into the changing room.
 
        NOW it all became clear! The reason why - in this huge dressing room - there was a TOILET! The nurses led me over to it!

        Directly my posterior hit the porcelain comfort zone of the toilet a huge outpouring of the white stuff together with what amounted to a huge, strangled fart rattled the windowpanes.
        The nurses didn’t even blink! Without skipping a beat one of them said that I would be welcome back anytime. When I enquired as to why? She said: “Well some people make such a fuss, whilst you were an absolute pleasure,” she said, “an absolute pleasure!”
        “I don’t mean to make a habit of this, nurse!” I replied.
        I sat on the loo for a further five minutes (I wasn’t taking any chances), got dressed and went home!
        My mother greeted me at the door. “How did you get on, dear?” she said.
         “All clear, mother,” I said, “In fact it was a gas, an absolute blast!”

*******

ONE POEM:

ADIOS AMIGOES,
UNTIL NEXT MONTH!

Paul Bura.

September 2009

BURA’S BLURB

HELLOW AMIGOES!!!

VANITY PRESS AS APPOSED TO SELF-PUBLICATION. NO CONTEST!

Vanity Press usually offer cash prizes for competition poems. Vanity Press’s are in it for the dosh, playing on your ability (or inability) to publish your own work. Of course they claim they are NOT a vanity press; however if you were to send a poem (or poems) you will receive in the post a ‘proof’ of a chosen poem which will go into an anthology together with praise for your effort! Yes an ANTHOLOGY! At last, you cry, I will have my poem or poems in print! Oh joy!  
          Then cometh the catch. They (of course) will charge you anything up to £17.50 for two copies. Then before the publication date they offer a handsome 45% discount (in the hope that you will order at least a dozen copies…OR MORE!). Of course BEFORE the publication date there is a FULL refund if you are not satisfied. It’s £13.70 for ONE copy and £17.70 for two. No matter which way you look at it they are VANITY PRESS!!!!
          However, to be fair you can have the anthology (CONTAINING YOUR POEM) on a 14 day free trial, with no obligation to buy…apart from vanity blackmail!
          Where have I heard this sales pitch before? Usually in the newspapers, where cash prizes are dolled-out for your poems; no matter how good (or bad) your poetry is, they will, on the whole, accept them!
           UNITED PRESS LTD, are offering the same deal ON LINE!!! As are many companies! Don’t fall for it! NEVER pay to get your work in print!!!!

SELF-PUBLICATION

          Now SELF-PUBLICATION is a different kettle of eels all together. T.S. Elliot, Virginia Woolf, Walt Whitman, Rudyard Kipling D.H. Lawrence, Lord Byron, and many others, all published their own stuff, so you are in very good company, especially if you read your own work at poetry venues and can then sell your wares. AND you make a darn sight more money.

          I used to publish my own stuff (still do) at 500 copies a throw. And if you are into computers it’s a piece of piss. Mind you, choose your firm of printers wisely and always add an ISBN number (£50 squids for ten ISBN numbers. Email me and I’ll provide the address for the ISBN numbers). All booksellers require an International Standard Book Number. An ISBN number provides them with an address and other details. Some printers provide these but don’t rely on it!

OH, NOW THE POEMS:

ADIOS AMIGOES
TILL NEXT MONTH!!!

August 2009

BURA’S BLURB

HELLO AMIGOES!

Consistent Revelation and Changing Awareness of the Infinite.
          As far as man can discern (so far) the central ‘building blocks of creation’ are the same throughout the universe (s) as is the furthest star, which can collapse at any time and is reborn into ‘something else’.
          This is the Infinite ‘doing its thing!’ and this is the essence of reincarnation.

REINCARNATION
(A personal view)

Apart from what I experienced in A QUESTION OF TIME (above this piece) reincarnation to me is a reality. I mean nothing else seems to make any sense, and we have all probably had hundreds if not thousands of lives – even other parallel universes – all of which make up our present characters, abilities, gifts, faults, and so on.
        But what we are NOW is what really matters and we can blame NO-ONE but ourselves.
        As we progress then we can have a say in what life is best suited for us and our progress by the union with the Higher Self, the real you.

        The Roman Emperor Constantine lorded over the Council of Constantinople in 553 and was considered to be the prime culprit for striking out of the bible every reference to reincarnation because his third wife - considered a prostitute by many - was mortally afraid of karma because of her evil ways (cause and effect, thus: life after life), though she was not in fact a Christian!
         However they overlooked more than just a few. One example sticks heavily in my memory banks (apart from: ‘As you sow so shall you reap’: Life after life?):
        Remember when the disciples said to Jesus that Elias would come first (to herald Jesus’ coming)? Jesus replied that he had already come and that the disciples understood that he was referring to his (2nd) cousin (Mary’s cousin Elizabeth was John’s mother) John the Baptist! John the Baptist WAS Elias! (Matthew 17.10)
        And Jesus asked his disciples: “Who do the crowd say that I am?” And the crowd was rumoured to answer: “Elias, Jeremias, or one of the prophets!” (Matthew-16: 2-3)
         Therefore – in my view – it was obvious that it was taken for granted that reincarnation was well established amongst the Jews! This new teacher (Jesus) could well have been Moses or Elijah or any of the mystics of the Jewish faith!
        When his followers asked of a certain blind man whether he or his parents had sinned (an obvious referral to reincarnation) he answered to the affect that in this case neither was true. He did not say that hereditary was the cause either (well he wouldn’t would he: his disciples wouldn’t have known what he was talking about!) nor did he say that reincarnation was the culprit (the life prior to this one) par se. I mean a man could not have sinned [sinned: a biblical term for erring, not mine] before being born unless he had sinned in a previous [physical] life, now could he? (John-9: 2-3)
        Karma throws up many clues in its wake!
       Who knows whether genetics/hereditary was responsible in itself for the playing out of this particular karmic dance?
       
        I was regressed a few years ago and apart from a successful life as a soldier/warrior on semi-retirement I taught some gentleman of royal blood and bearing the art of swordplay and the art of the longbow in the middle of a forest somewhere. However, these ‘gentleman’ shot a deer whilst drunk and made a right mess of it. I had to (humanely) finish the poor beast off, whilst my anger was kept under control, and the royals looked on inebriated and laughing. After all, they were royalty and under my tutelage. There was nothing I could do!
        But I also regressed (again) to that life as a priest that I acted out (video above) and was able to put in another missing piece: I escaped from that prison with the aid of a soldier who was secretly on the side of the pope.
         The splitting of the churches were frightful times, frightful times indeed!

(Yawn!) AND NOW THE POEMS!

ADIOS MY AMIGOES

Paul Bura

July 2009

BURA’S BLOGGERY

HELLO AMIGOES!

THE COMMON COLD RESEARCH CENTRE
Being a ‘voice over’ artist or ‘radio actor’, as is common in most of the arts, you are more out of work than in! So I decided – having just read an article on the subject – to enrol as a volunteer for The Common Cold Research Unit at Salisbury. After all I could take my typewriter and get a bit of work done and get paid for it (£12 squids a week). Also get my petrol (or train fare) paid for, get fed, bedded and boarded to boot!
        We were a strange motley, spotty crew (mainly spotty as they were mostly students), and there were also some GIRLS!
        We all trundled in and were given the low down: the rules and regulations of the set-up:

        I was billeted with a guy just out the army (or just about to join, I don’t remember which) who brought with him a pal. I didn’t exactly see eye to eye with the army bloke who insisted on calling me a Kentish ‘*+£&’ (the second word rhymes with hunt) and taking the Mickey out of my (seemingly to him) posh accent. I studied this bloke over a period of days.
        Then I wrote a small play incorporating ‘us three’. I made sure that my character on the page was called ‘Kentish …’ and that the two other guys were called by their real names. By the time we had read through this nonsense play the army bloke was very subdued to say the least… he even had difficulty calling me a ‘Kentish …’. I can’t remember a single word of what I wrote but it did the trick. He treated me with a little bit of respect! And by the time we had the ‘end of term party’ where ALL the units got together (I can’t remember whether the Common Cold Unit paid for the wine or we did) we were - more or less – friends.

        My 2nd trip to the Centre I took with me some friends. Denny was an ex-Pirate DJ (Stage name: Alex Dee) on the Forts that had been constructed to protect our shores from the Nazi hoards just off of Herne Bay and Whitstable where Screaming Lord Such made his name as a Disc Jockey. In those days he was a rock and roll singer but soon became a Pirate DJ, the rest is political history!
        Denny was a babe magnet. He used to swan around Hernia Bay in an old hearse using his followers as chauffeurs and you could guarantee that in the back of this hearse were at least two gorgeous women!
        Meanwhile, back at the Common Cold Research Centre, Denny had brought with him a portable record player and he and I set up the phone to these two attractive ladies and we took it in turns to play records and DJ between records over the phone. Well it was something to do until the end of term party!
        Anyway, I ended up spending the night with one of those ladies (the other one didn’t want to know) and that bastard Denny and his mate Chris climbed into the roof and did his best to spy on us. Not only that but they also piled furniture up against the door so that we couldn’t get out! Thankfully they didn’t succeed, well perhaps they did have a peep but I’ll never know!  All I know is that from then on we didn’t speak. Jealousy reared its head and for once the great lover and babe-magnet had his nose put out of joint!
        Thankfully after a while we made up!

        I visited the Common Cold Unit for a 3rd time. The 3rd time my best pal Peter McKay came along and he met his future wife there! I met a girl there also, a nurse called Hilary.
        Funny isn’t it, but the girl I spent the night with on the 2nd occasion was also called Hilary and she was also a nurse as was Peter’s first wife! Both the 1st Hilary and the 2nd I saw again out of the confines of The Common Cold Research Unit. The 2nd Hilary immigrated to Australia! Was it something I said?
        On the 3rd occasion I ended up with a ‘cold to end all colds,’ I was three weeks shaking it off, never have I had a cold like it before or since.
        The funny thing about it was that I haven’t suffered from a cold – except for the odd snuffle – since, and that was 30 odd years ago!

And so the poem,
only one this time!

ADIOS MY AMIGOES!

Paul Bura

June 2009

BURA’S BLOGGERY

HELLO AMIGOES!

FOUR DIMENSIONAL REALITY
THREE DIMENSIONAL HABITS!

I’m talking about a 4 Dimensional reality experienced during this 3 Dimensional reality (Earth life). The 3D reality or experience is not necessarily a religious experience nor a mystical one, come to that, unless you are that way inclined!
        It can be an unconscious search (OR a conscious one!) for truth. Already we are delving into the realms of religion or mysticism. But it could very well be that you are in fact – by nature – a sincere believer in that powerful concept of TRUTH, truth as you yourself conceive it to be!

             (I personally have always concluded that TRUTH can be tough but never changes, it is only our conception of truth that changes. It is also my opinion, and ONLY my opinion – for what it’s worth – that LOVE [like truth] – the creative principle – is ever evolving. Love just cannot stand still: it is a DOING word even if it is only the embracing adjective.)

So therefore you have a different take on religion or mysticism. Personally I believe there is a large dividing wall between religion and the mystics of this world.
         (Religion is a belief system where mysticism just IS! Many of you will suppose that you can’t have one without the other!)
        Consider the old man (or young man, come to that) that never left his village, never went to church, yet in the fields and forests and woodlands would find more wisdom and enlightenment and Oneness than you and I could discover in all of the world! Yet the furthest he would travel to the so-called civilised world would be the next town 10 miles away!

        But supposing – as long as you believe that life is a continuum, that is – just supposing that you leave this earth in the condition known as death, whether by natural causes: to die in your sleep (my personal favourite), or by drowning, electrocution, or by (God forbid) an act of violence, on or off the field of battle. Whatever the cause, you will find yourself in what can only be described as a 4 dimensional reality.
        Now this 4 dimensional reality, just like being born into a 3 dimensional reality, takes some time to adjust, but THIS time, instead of being born a baby in the 3D reality, you find yourself a fully grown adult!
        Now what do you do? You find that a great many of your relatives (mother, father etc.) are there to greet you – unless you were such a bastard to them in general that there is NO ONE, no-one but your Higher Self to greet you.
        “Higher Self, what the hell is that?” you scream.
         The Higher Self is the real you, the creative spark that brought you into being in the first place: the perfect mirror reflection of your true self.
         This Higher Self, this ‘witness of all you have said and done since time was created and before’ shows you all that you have said and done on this your LAST earth life! The Higher Self can manifest as a blinding light or a little old man with a beard (or a little old woman without a beard!), whatever it deems will not scare the living daylights out of you!
        Death after all is a glorious release, a sense of freedom like no other, the joy of joys. Unless you’ve been programmed SO severely by some sect or religion that you have to go through the motions of what that sect or religion dictates…but it is NOT real!
        Some of you will be very pleased at what you’ve achieved in your life just past, considering what you ‘set out’ to do, and a lot of you are down right ashamed at what you have done.
        But this Higher Self, does not judge you!
There is no PETER AT THE GATE, no heaven or hell, no wrathful God to judge you: YOU JUDGE YOURSELF. Of course – as already stated here – if you are into religion (especially Catholicism that programs you with the ‘guilt trip’, and I don’t mean just Catholicism) that takes some time for you to throw off!
        Free Will – to a certain extent – exists in the 4D reality just as the law of like attracting like; all depends on your state of consciousness and awareness, or progress if you like. Just as your 3D reality (earth life) was governed by your spirituality (Like attracting like again) so then is the 4D reality just in its vastness (not in the sense of size you understand).
         So then this law of Cause and Effect, for those of you who are in an enlightened state, does not exist! However for most of you (I include myself in this category) religion or self awareness will give you peace and solace just as it did in 3D reality…or not as your individual case may be.
        However, you tend to bring your 3D habits IN TO your new 4D reality. Just as you started earth life by kicking and screaming at your mother’s breast!
        It takes time to get used to it. At first you have a good rest. By rest I mean real rest: a condition known as ecstasy, the peace that passes all understanding. Because you’ve earned it; at least 99% of you have!
        Then you start by partying with all your relatives and friends – if you are INTO partying, that is. But if its harps and bells and angels on clouds that you are into then harps and bells and angels you will get (it’s all up to how you are programmed!). If you do then you’ll soon tire of it! Boredom is just as real in the 4D universes as it used to be in the 3D. You are a human being, and by nature you are an inquisitive animal and craving for inquiry does not end!
        Oh and time just doesn’t exist. If you insist on still wearing a watch you will find that you can squeeze five days into five minutes or five minutes into five days and end up throwing the damn thing away!
        Food and drink? You won’t starve, that’s for sure. However you will find that you just don’t need it, but that takes time also. Another 3 Dimensional habit! (Oops, I just told you: time does not exist, does it?) Now personally I would find that going without food very hard because I adore food, the preparation and cooking of it.
        Even FREEDOM takes time (Oops!) to get used to, it being a whole new concept, a whole new ball-game! Freedom to travel with the speed of thought and freedom as a state of being!
        But when all is said and done:

*Death is the homing motion of the soul
But not a passport to enlightenment.

*The 4th Dimension. You can become enlightened here on earth with one foot in the physical (3D) and one foot (mind and spirit) in the etheric (4D).

POETRY

ADIOS, ADIOS AMIGOES!
SEE YOU NEXT MONTH!

MAY 2009

BURA’S BLOGGERY

HELLO AMIGOES!

ONCE UPON A TIME

When I was sixteen I put all thoughts of becoming an actor aside because the government in its infinite wisdom had decided that I was to be sent to a Training Centre in Wadham in Croyden to become a hairdresser (If I couldn’t become an actor I was going to be a barber. Christ knows why). I was to stay at a YMCA in London and catch the bus each day to the Rehabilitation Centre.
        For the first time in my little life I was ‘let loose’. But it was hard work walking to and fro from the bus-stop. I knew that if I tripped up and fell I was going to have to ask a complete stranger to get me up! However, after breakfast at the WMCA and the 2-3 hundred yard stroll to the bus-stop every day, I just put the thoughts of falling right out of my mind.
         I remember distinctly, just on a corner before the bus-stop, were large globs of greenish phlegm. Every morning they were there. They appeared like mushrooms, the spores of which were deep in the throat of a bloke I did not know: well at least I assumed it was a bloke! If I slipped and fell in that phlegm infested piece of London I was in deep doo-doo! (More than a little, I fancy) I carefully navigated my way through and round each sticky blob every morning! I named this corner: Gob Corner.
        I queued up for the red double-decker bus to Wadham and when an impatient lady behind me asked me to ‘hurry up, for Christ’s sake!’ as I was so slow and had to haul myself up by the grab-rails and that central pole that all the double-deckers had, I didn’t say anything but when she could see that I was a raspberry ripple (Cripple) she spluttered out: “I-I’m so sorry, I…” She then blushed and disappeared into the milling throng. I had no need of a retort, my condition shouted for me and I suddenly felt quite sorry for her, especially when the man with her apologised on her behalf mumbling that she had had a bad morning - or something!
        My attempt at hairdressing failed as I couldn’t do the standing and my weak right arm was not cut-out for a cut-throat razor.
         I was then sent for scientific glass-blowing as that was a sitting down job. I failed at that too because every time I held a glass tube over the Bunsen-burner my right arm let me down again and I ended up with bent glass!However, I felt quite at home in the machine-shop sitting on a stool in front of a lathe. In fact the ‘governor’ or the inspector of the machine-shop was impressed enough to hand me the blue-print of a nut and bolt and told me to “Make that, my lad!”
        I duly made it and the governor was well pleased.
           BUT I STILL ONLY QUALIFIED FOR OFFICE WORK! Me? In an office? I don’t think so!
        However my daily walks to and from the YMCA was just the exercise I needed for my little legs and besides there was a little theatre just next to the hostel and I saw my very first play: Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller with Renee Asherson. I really fancied her having seen her many times on the tele even though she was twice my age (and more). I saw her without makeup carrying a bunch of scripts into that little theatre. My little heart skipped a beat or two!  I came out of this little theatre-in-the-round even more determined than ever to get some sort of work in the theatre business!
        On my last night at the YMCA two student Irish men that I had befriended took me on a pub-crawl. Now I didn’t even drink (don’t like the taste but the effect is alright!) let alone be led on a pub-crawl, but those silver-tongued young Irish men talked me round. I got pissed on two halves of light and bitter which I took two hours to finish, whilst those Irish lads – in the same two hours – sank 5-6 pints of Guinness…each! We weaved out of the last pub (my balance being crap at the best of times) and we bought two whole roasted chickens (I was not a veggie in those days). I got a fit of the giggles whilst going up in the lift at the YMCA and a lot of SHHHHing went on as I insisted on pressing the buttons at each floor, and whilst the doors were open kept shouting out: “WAKEY! WAKEY! I’M VERY, VERY PISSED! W-WE AND MY F-FRIENDS HERE (I slurred) THOUGHT YOU MIGHT JUST LIKE TO KNOW THAT!” Followed by a chorus of Shhhing! 
        I had to get a train home from Victoria Station the following day and I went all the way across London to get it. My confidence was growing all the time. Victoria Station was a frightening place. The memory of it I drew out of me in the poem The Drunk on the Train [below] many years later, but I can’t remember whether it was this trip home from Victoria Station to Herne Bay or the previous one.
        This time I caught an earlier train and my dad wasn’t there to meet me at Herne Bay station. So I walked home! I just knew that I could do it!
        I walked down Station Road and cut across the park and into Beach Street. Now the back-way into my parent’s restaurant was right at the end of Beach Street. I crossed over the High Street with the Gas Showroom on the corner. At a guess the whole walk was about a mile and a half. I kept stopping for the proverbial ‘rest’ but the excitement of walking all the way from the station kept me going. ‘The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner’ was not even written yet.
        But I wasn’t lonely and I sure as hell couldn’t run. It turned into ‘The Exhilaration of the Long Distance (to me it WAS a long distance) Hobbler’ and when I hauled myself up the steps and knocked on the back door of the restaurant: my parents stood there, their mouths open in amazement and pride! That was all the reward I needed!

HERE COMES THE POEM:

ADIOS AMIGOES

Paul Bura, April 2009

*****

BURA’S BLOGGERY

HELLOW THERE, MY AMIGOS!

Every now and then I meet a fellow polio person along the road. The person in question now is one George Hutchingson!
I first met George – when I say MET what I really meant to say was I phoned him! It was to do with his Lift-Off products. I read somewhere that he made them and with the simple application of compressed air he was able to expand his air-bags and raise a fully grown man with the simplicity of blowing up a balloon. He was able to sit-up in bed, raise his legs up and down etc. He had one fitted as a simple cushion in his wheelchair so as to raise himself up into a standing position!

Now THIS is what I wanted. I can still walk but need to use a wheelchair now and again for restaurants, cinemas etc. I can drive a car but I need someone to help me out of the car (now that post polio syndrome has had its way with me – and continues to do so) and into the wheelchair BUT I also need help in getting out of the bloody wheelchair-thing in the first place! So George suggested his blow-up cushion. All I needed then was to plug-in to the cigarette lighter on the dashboard to activate the small 12 volt air-compressor. And hey-presto I was slowly raised to the heavens to a standing position to enable me to climb into the car!
“I haven’t got a new one,” said George, “But I can let you have the prototype for a small sum?” “That’ll do for me, George” I cried, “That’ll do for me!”
And I am still using it to this day four years later. Not only that but I broke my arm a couple of years ago (as I said in the ‘Piece for George’) and had to spend the next 6 weeks in plaster in Hospital and the only way I could get the height to get off of my chair (they insist that you sit beside the bed for a couple of hours: circulation, bed-sores and all that) was to bring in my raising cushion and fit it up to a 250 volt air-compressor! It was bloody noisy but it did the business as I hobbled around the ward, nurses in tow!
Now George has had a long standing (or in George’s case: sitting) battle with the National Health to allow his lift-off products to be used, but to no avail! He even wrote to the BBC’s You and Yours program on radio.4.
George Hutchingson died last month aged 86 after a cold got to his chest causing complications to his heart and lungs, the slight stroke and two falls was about as much as he could take. Sarah his daughter wrote to me to ask if I would contribute a piece to be read out at his funeral, a piece to show the remarkable courage of this man. I was delighted to do so:

PIECE FOR GEORGE

"I didn't know George well but what I did know of him filled me with admiration and respect. Like me George suffered the after effects of polio called post polio syndrome but he went on inventing things up until a few years ago. He made me a Lift-off pillow which I am still using to this day. In fact when I broke my elbow in a fall I used it in Hospital to enable me to stand up, much to the amazement (and amusement) of the nursing staff. It was noisy but it did the job perfectly. George - to me - was just a voice on the end of a phone. But he was much more than that: he was a voice crying in the wilderness trying to fight the 'red tape' that the National Health - in its short-sightedness - prevented him from marketing his products. But he was a fighter and would NOT give up!
Here's to you, George my friend, you paved the way with your courage, with your fighting spirit and with your love of life itself! Here's to you, my friend, here's to you!"
PAUL BURA.

Which reminds me of another polio person: She was very beautiful (as were all of her sisters) and she wrote to me having read my poems. I didn’t know she had polio at the time, all I knew was that she had won the Brighton Drama Competition, so I was immediately impressed! We swapped photographs and letters and I found myself off to Seaford in Sussex. She may have remarked briefly that she had had polio but I didn’t know to what extent it affected her and didn’t care!
The fact that she wore straight callipers on both legs right up to her thighs, didn’t actually register. Well it did but her beauty and intelligence outweighed that now, very small, observation.
We both appeared together in Martin George’s THE LAST TRIAL OF MRS M just off of London’s West End. Half the cast were raspberry ripples (cripples) and the rest were jobbing professional actors. The idea was to fool the public into believing that we were ‘normal’. And we did fool them. Then we let the press know that we were HALF disabled actors and half normal, jobbing actors!
Her name was Janie Melherbe-Jenson and she was the most vanity-stricken person I have ever met. She would go nowhere unless she put her ‘face on’. Not that she had to. She was beautiful and she knew it. It didn’t occur to her that she was disabled as it didn’t occur to George Hutchingson that HE was disabled - or myself come to that! Even when post polio syndrome crept up on us, you do what you have to do: adapt! That word ‘courage’ that folk tend to label us with doesn’t come into it. You just adapt, you HAVE to. My friend Anne Mount (polio person) wouldn’t dare let you use the word ‘courage’. Ann had her babies; wore high-heels, and brought up her family and was (is) the life and soul of the party. But PPS gradually shadowed her life, though you wouldn’t think so with her electric scooter, scattering people as she makes a swath through life!
Or Eileen Bailey who also had her babies, looked after her husband, Tom, (who died last year) and family, and is STILL driving. She too is labouring under the PPS curse! But utter the word COURAGE or BRAVE to either of the above – though kindly meant - and we will shy away! After all: it is what it is and we have to get on with it/life!
However, even I used the C-word to describe my friend George! But George was an exception!
It’s like that old adage: (‘greatness’ being swapped for ‘courage’)
“‘Courage’ (or bravery) you may be born with; some people acquire ‘courage’ along the way; then again ‘courage’ can be thrust upon you.”
I like to think that it is the latter with us raspberry ripples, and anyway I quite like the word: THRUST!

NOTE: Post Polio Syndrome is like having polio all over again. Or to put it another way: it’s like putting 5000 volts through a 500 volt circuit, eventually something MUST blow! Not ALL polio victims suffer from PPS. Ian Dury, the singer/song-writer (who I wrote about in my bloggery) to my knowledge never suffered from it!

AND NOW A POEM:
Taken from the hardback:
“The Space Between the Syllables”
(No longer in print!)

ADIOS AMIGOES

Luv n’ Lite n’ Larfter!

March 2009

BURA’S BLOGGERY

HELLOW AMIGOS,
HOW YER DOING?

They say it’s the coldest winter in 31 years and I just have to believe it. Christ knows – and if anyone knows he does! – what the Winter electricity bill is going to be. My bungalow is still on the market and I think it will remain there for sometime to come – mind you miracles DO happen. But then there’s not a bungalow for sale – so far – in Sturry! A double miracle is called for. Somehow I think it will all work out. My glass is half-full and will remain that way!

THE MANNA BANGER

When Peter McKay and I opened our Whole and Health Food Store (called MANNA) I was always messing about with recipes in the back kitchen. What does a vegetarian or vegan (I’m a non-meat eater but eat a little fish: a fishatarian?) crave more than anything else? Bacon AND sausages! When I gave up meat it was for moral reasons and not because I disliked meat…I LOVED it, and even now, 36 years on, the smell of bacon makes my mouth gush and slaver!
          Now I knew of the existence of synthetic sausage skins. Now all I had to do was work on a recipe for the non-meat filling. I started with onions, a special blend of herbs, rusk, yeast extract (Marmite) and for protein soya mince and ground up sunflower seeds, water and sunflower oil plus seasoning!
          I messed around with these ingredients until I thought I had it just right. Meanwhile Peter bought a sausage making machine – up till then we were messing around with a domestic machine! At first we just sold them in the shop and they were so popular that we made more and more. We called them: THE MANNA BANGER!
Meanwhile we graduated to making the bangers down in the cellar (where we bagged up all the lentils, beans etc.) mixing the ingredients in huge plastic bins!
          A gentleman came in to the shop. I asked him what he wanted and he replied that he didn’t want anything! Then he lifted onto the counter a small suitcase, he opened this small suitcase and proceeded to tell me, whilst taking a white overall and white trilby out of the small suitcase, that he was from Canterbury City Council’s Health Department and he was going to have a look round. Immediately I called up Peter who was labouring away in the bowels of Manna mixing up huge quantities of Manna Banger mix!
Peter must have noticed in my voice a note of desperation for he took the stairs three at a time! Now a sausage had escaped from the batch and Peter had trodden on it and in his haste was stuck to his foot as he presented himself to Mr Health Man. Mr Health Man hadn’t noticed this but I had and Pete had!
          Mr Health Man wandered around the shop, meanwhile Peter was frantically trying to shake off the offending sausage. Every now and then Mr Health Man gave us a certain look and all we could do was give a weak smile in return. Then Mr Health Man wandered into the kitchen in the back! We followed like guilty children, guilty of what we didn’t know but when the Health Dept lands a visit on you, you immediately (for some reason guilt being lodged in the guilt department of your mind!) become as little children caught in the very act of scrumping (stealing apples)!
          He pointed out some facts about wanting a 2nd sink, one for the washing of hands and one for domestic reasons (cooking etc). It was at this point that he spotted the stairs to the cellar. “What’s down there?” he said.
 “Oh, that’s where we bag-up. You know: lentils and beans…and pasta.” (Peter swallowed hard, sweat was already beading on his forehead) “And where we make the vegetarian sausages!”
Mr Health Man had a look of disbelief on his face. “Vegetarian what?”
 “Er, vegetarian sausages,” said Peter again, “we make vegetarian sausages and we call them the Manna Banger and…”  “I don’t care what you call them,” said Mr Health Man, descending the stairs, “but this I must see!”
          After inspecting our equipment and ingredients and satisfying himself that all was clean he made – after considerable thought – this short statement:
“There appears to be nothing illegal about the making of vegetarian sausages as there is no animal meat involved so I can take this matter no further, but there appears to be – apart from the 2nd sink upstairs – rather a shortage of working surfaces. I will return in a month and expect to see the 2nd sink and the extra surfaces in place!”
With that he ascended the stairs, put away his white trilby and overalls back into his small suitcase and bade us a fond farewell!
          After all this work Holland and Barratt, the famous chain of health food stores (after sending them a sample), decided to put in an order for a quarter of a ton! This was an impossibility for us to complete, unless we worked all day and night for a bloody week! Therefore a manufacturer was employed to do the job. The recipe was handed over and we waited. The factory did a lot of frying and we did a lot of sampling.
          Then the factory dropped the bombshell: the artificial sausage skins that we were lead to believe contained no animal by-products what-so-ever did in fact contain animal.
 Sadly, when we tried to make a skinless sausage the factory told us that they were not ‘tooled up’ for skinless sausages!
          We could have, I suppose, changed to a different manufacturer but our hearts were just not in it now (unintentional pun). But to this day – and you can get vegetarian sausages in any supermarket these days – they STILL can’t make a completely animal-free sausage skin! After all, a banger is not a banger unless it has a skin, now is it? I mean that’s where they got their name in the first place!  

*******

HERE ARE THE POEMS:

THAT’S IT AMIGOES!
UNTIL NEWT MONTH!

LUV ‘ LITE ‘ LARFTER.

PAUL BURA

February 2009

*****

BURA’S BLOGGERY

HAPPY NEW YEAR, AMIGOS!!!!

Oliver Postgate died this month (December: the time of my writing this piece). Oliver Postgate, creator/writer/animator of such children’s classics as BAGPUSS and THE CLANGERS and many others! He not only wrote them but narrated them as well!
        Why am I writing this piece as I didn’t exactly know him, but my uncle Bob did, my uncle Bob of Bura and Hardwick: animators of equal classics as CAMBERWICK GREEN and TRUMPTON!
I was 12ish, maybe 13, and my uncle Bob was waiting for the arrival of the then little known animator Oliver Postgate. We waited in the front of my father’s fish restaurant. Every stranger that walked past was a candidate for Oliver Postgate because we didn’t know what he looked like.
        Suddenly a 1936 Austin.7. parked outside and a dishevelled looking character: crumpled suit, crooked tie, the very opposite to my uncle Bob and John Hardwick who were very sharp dressers indeed, eased himself out of his little Austin!
        I began to laugh. “SHHHHH” shhhhed my uncle Bob, “It could well be him…and it was! I made myself scarce as Mr Postgate and my uncles Bob and John were about to talk business!
        Many years later, when I had started to make a small name as a writer, the phone rang. It was Mr Postgate. “Paul Bura?” said Oliver, “Yes,” I said, “who is this?” “It’s Oliver Postgate. I have a gentleman here called Pierre Pickton the famous clown – he has an exploding car in his act. Now Paul, he wants me to write a script for him and I just haven’t got the time, so I thought of you! Are you interested?” “Ahaaaummm,” I swallowed, “I think I can squeeze him in. Send him along!” The phone was handed to Mr Pickton for directions! Oliver Postgate only lived just outside Whitstable and I was a mere 6 miles away in Herne Bay.
        A Rolls Royce Silver Cloud slowly pulled up outside our then council house and a suitably suited and booted, good looking man got out! I welcomed him into the front room, made him tea, and he started to talk about his little project.
 He wanted a five minute pilot script about his character Pierre the Clown. He wanted his character to be animated, just like BAGPUSS, and I was to write it as an animated clown! I can’t remember much about it except that he mentioned something about a ‘bread and butterfly’ which had slices of bread for wings! The scene started with Pierre the Clown driving his exploding car along a country lane when this ‘bread and butterfly’…well you get the picture!
When Mr Pickton had gone, sliding up the road in his silent Roller, I immediately set to work. Within a couple of days I had completed the script and sent if off to him with my fee!
I waited and I waited. After a couple of months I sent him a further account. A further two months went by. I sent him a further bill. Eventually I had to get a dept collector on to this rich (well seemingly), elegant Pierre the Clown in his Rolls Royce for a mere twelve quid (this was 40 years ago). He eventually paid up, less the dept collector’s fee!

A lesson to be learned: never laugh at ragged men in 1936 Austen.7s and don’t trust suited and booted men in a Rolls Royce!  
Oh, by the way: Oliver Postgate was known in his local as -‘Ollie Gatepost!’

*******

Now for the poems:

A HAPPY AND FOREFILLING
NEW YEAR, AMIGOES!!!!

Paul Bura
Luv n’ Lite n’ Larfter

BURA’S BLOGGERY

MERRY THINGY, AMIGOES!!!

BELATED CHRISTMAS BLOGGERY
As with those wise men all those years ago all things tend to come in threes!

1. MY COMPUTER CRASHED
2. MY ELECRIC SCOOTER WAS VANDALISED
3. MY CAR WAS SENT AWAY TO HAVE THE STEERING LIGHTENED, LIGHTENED AS IN: EASIER TO HANDLE!

I’ll make a start on the ‘lightening of my car’s steering’. I was finding it harder and harder (with the persistent weakening of my arms) to turn the wheels of my car whilst stationary, or whilst manoeuvring slowly. So I arranged to have Jim Doran (Hand controls) to do the job. Firstly I had a local garage send away the ‘steering rack’ under Jim Doran’s supervision. This they did. However TOM Doran (son of Jim) sent it back because that particular model had changed and I was to now send the ‘steering column’. Now the steering rack would have cost me £280 and the steering column – which involved electronics - was £660 squids! So they sent the rack back and asked for the steering column to be sent! Now according to Brookside Garage they had to use special tools and as my car was a Toyota Yaris (yawn) they told me that they couldn’t do it! Tom Doran (son of Jim) said that he had done in the region of 250 cars and no special tools were necessary all it needed was 7 bolts to be able to take the steering column off! (Further yawns) So anyway, my Toyota was due for its MOT so I told the Toyota Garage (this Toyota garage was an hour’s drive away for all those thinking: ‘why didn’t he use them in the first place!’) that when they had completed the MOT they were to take out the steering column and send it to Jim Doran, which they promised to do (ENORMOUS yawn). I phoned up a week later (thought I’d give them a few days) to see how things were progressing. They said that they had just sent the steering column off! So phoned Tom (son of Jim) to see if it had arrived! “No, Paul, not a sausage!” I phoned Tom (son of Jim) three days later and they STILL hadn’t sent it! Now patience is my second name so I waited! A week later Tom (son of Jim) phoned me to say that it had arrived and that he was working on it and it should be back with them ready to fit in two days. And true to his word Tom (son of Jim) sent it back within two days! They fitted it…but PROBLEMS! The steering was light when you turned left and heavy (normal) when you turned right! They phoned Tom (son of Jim) and Tom (son of Jim) arranged for the whole car to be picked up and brought back to Coventry! “I’ve got to see it,” said Tom (son of Jim) and see where they have gone wrong. The short of it was that within two days it was back in Wales and it was perfect!

Meanwhile, whilst the car was away my scooter (which I do my shopping in: Post Office, chemist, stuff like that) was vandalised. The buggers had tried to wrench the batteries out and when they couldn’t get at these sprayed it with graffiti and stole my battery charger (it was on charge). Fortunately it was insured as my last electric scooter was stolen, lock stock and barrel! I had to have this one (the graffiti one) chained to the wall! The little buggers!

Then my computer crashed! The hard-drive had gone. I called in ‘the bloke’ (all blond and high-lighted and smelling of aftershave, expensive aftershave!) who took it away and fitted a new one (or got it repaired???) after I had made out a cheque for £105 squids. A week later he was back. He tried to program my XP Home edition but it wouldn’t have none of it, so he took it away again! A week past and NOTHING! So I sent him a text. He replied almost immediately but as I hadn’t put my name to the text replied: ‘Who is this, I haven’t got your mobile number programmed into my phone?’ So I replied with the speed of light: Paul Bura! He did not reply. So I sent a text the next day: NOTHING! Then I tried to phone him: NOTHING! A few days later I got a phone call from a PC firm to say that my computer’s motherboard was not talking to my hard-drive but they had fixed it and that ‘the bloke’ was going to deliver it tomorrow (Friday)! I waited for ‘the bloke’ to arrive. NOTHING! So I waited until Saturday and phoned up the PC Firm. They didn’t know what I was talking about as the guy I had originally spoken to was not there! Then I get a call saying that ‘the bloke’ was going to bring it on Monday! When he arrived I told him what had transpired and a look of complete astonishment broke across his face and he denied completely that he had said that he would deliver it on Friday. “And the phone calls and text?”  I said. He looked blank. I didn’t pressure him. I just couldn’t be bothered! However, my emails still don’t work…bugger! I await a further bill from him!

I have put my bungalow in Anglesey (North Wales) on the market as we – that is my two sisters, Josie and Melly plus Melly’s husband Frank – and I are moving back to Kent to a little village not far from Canterbury called Sturry. My sister Mel and Frank sold their B&B (The Firs) before the credit crash so I have – I presume – a long time to wait for a sale…unless I get lucky. I had already written my December Bloggery before the above computer crash! (Bugger! Bugger! Bugger!) But that crash cannot compare (in my personal, selfish, view) with what I have lost on my heart-broken hard-drive. But you never know, I might be able to retrieve it! Miracles can and DO happen!  

Now the poems:

MERRY CHRISTMAS, AMIGOS!!

Paul Bura
DEC 2008

BURA’S BLOGGERY

HELLO AMIGOS!

A piece of philosophical stuff to start off with and then more information about Pop Pressley (THE LITTLE RESTAURANT ON THE PROM: E Book), more intriguing data about that mighty little giant of a man!

SNATCHING A FOUR DIMENSIONAL THOUGHT
Snatching a 4 Dimensional thought and superimposing it onto a 3 Dimensional reality; firstly one has to experience a 4 Dimensional thought in order to attain this! But what IS 4 Dimensional thought?
        4D thought, or experience, is when one experiences a kind of movement or a shift or a letting go in ones awareness; for example: when one experiences events that you (seemingly) have no control over, events of ‘seeming’ importance. Like missing a vital meeting where one is expected to be the main speaker. When, for reasons unknown, the car breaks down on the journey!
         But instead of getting into a panic a strange kind of calm enfolds you. You calmly and gently, without so much as a hesitation, call the AA from the little call box that you just happen to be conveniently parked right outside on the motorway, then sit back, read the newspaper, listen to music or drink the flask of tea that you had prepared, and observe what a beautiful and delightful day it is, even if it is raining. There is no rational explanation only a feeling of ‘going with the flow’ no matter how fast or slow.
        You wait in an atmosphere of complete and peaceful abandonment to your senses and wait for the AA man to arrive.  You greet the AA man with a smile, engage him in light conversation about this and that - realise that you and he have much in common for instance - then he tows you to a garage and then takes you home.
        Meanwhile that imperative ‘meeting’ is taking place and is addressed by a fellow speaker who just happens to be in the audience.
        So, you start out on a 3 Dimensional journey and end up enjoying a 4 Dimensional experience!
        Ever done that? The more you ‘let go’ to the unavoidable in your life the more you appreciate that resistance is pain and to go with the flow makes a great deal of sense!
        Which is not to say that I always follow the rules, I don’t. But I’m getting there! What are these rules, I hear you clamber? 1) Well for a start cultivate patience. 2) Always listen to the other person (my own personal downfall) even if they happen to be exceedingly boring, everybody has their own story to tell. 3) Always make time for people then you are well on the way to love or 4 Dimensional thought. Everything else will take care of itself! You don’t believe me? Try it. Not just once, try and integrate it into your life.

*******

 

Ninety (Pop) Pressley

I had many ‘uncles’. As my parents had taught us that when they made a friend we were to call them ‘uncle’. One such was Uncle Ken Standen, publican of THE NEW DOLPHIN (now called The Scruffy Duck) and his wife `Auntie` Gladys. Uncle Ken was so smitten with me that I overheard him say that he would buy me a brand new fishing rod: I followed him to the tackle shop, always keeping a discreet distance. I saw him purchase the rod. I followed him home, hiding behind the pieces of canvas that separated each shop. I wonder whether he `knew` I was there? I guessed that he did, but he pretended otherwise.
There was Uncle Jess who fished for a living, then would scrub his boat clean of accumulated fish goo then he too would take out the day trippers: ''Anymore for the Skylark,'' he would cry, ‘can't wait to fill up!’ There was Uncle Ernie from the Bingo, opposite the Clock Tower, whose slow cry of: ''FFFIIFFTOO YULLOW'', as he handed out the balls for the punters to throw into the hopper of numbered squares, surrounded by flimsy junk and Kewpie dolls.
There were many ‘uncles’. But there was one uncle that stood apart from the rest: uncle Pop 'Ninety' Pressley. Although only a little over five foot tall, he was a giant in my eyes, with his Wellington boots reaching over his knees, his navy blue pullover and his flat cap, his rosy face and that lazy Kentish accent. This man could eat live lugworm! This man would keep a wriggling mouse in his pocket!
This man would take me out in his fishing boat (Seagull the 2nd) on clear, blue days, the seagulls wheeling over-head for their expectant feed of bits of bait and small fish that were thrown back. The sea, glass-like and clear, shot through with rainbows that came from Seagull the 2nd's engine: a pollutant that, in my boyhood mind was a piece of glory. Seagull the 2nd's smell of petrol and paraffin was, to me, an odour that would stay with me forever, conjuring up the past into the present.
Although he was a rogue, my parents trusted this little man to bring me back safely. I was a slave to the sea in those far off days. Uncle Pop Pressley was its slave also; hauling in the sea's potted bounty, the long lines of rope, corked at intervals, that he would gaff (hook). Hand over hand, he hauled and pulled. And, like Andy Capp, I never saw him without his hat. Never! Not until the day the stroke laid him low and his butter-fat wife led me into the bedroom where he lay. He tried to speak but all that came out was a whispered mouthing, like the fish he caught for so many years. To me he was indestructible and in my adult life was to feature in so many poems and articles.
He lay there so old, so thin, and hatless. I didn’t know what to say. His wife interpreted for him: ‘'He wants to know how you’re doing at school?’' ‘'Okay’', I whispered, '‘okay, Pop’'. I rarely called him uncle. To everyone he was known as `Pop`. Only in front of my parents would I call him uncle. He died soon after. Who was going to look after his pots and his nets now? Who would look after the little hut that we, and only we, Pop and I, knew where the key was hidden? The key to the little hut, a hut filled with the treasures of the sea: old lobster-pots; fishing tackle; reels of cat-gut that I would have killed for; old oars; outboard motors; and the smell, oh, the smell: a mixture of tar and the sea, a smell as intoxicating as any drug.
The passing of Pop Pressley; his dying!? I guessed. No one needed to tell me. He just wasn't there any more. I couldn’t really remember how it affected me. But I just kind of accepted it. His boat was sold. That was a kind of death, too. The Viking Chiefs burned their boats. Well, they might just as well have burned Pop`s boat, too. It didn`t interest me any more. It was like Pop, an object that I would write about, perhaps romanticize about. Something I put to the back of my mind, the mind that told of the golden days when Pop and I would phut! phut! phut! out and away to live the life of a fisherman, if only for a while, if only for one fleeting day. Until I grew up and put my mind to other things. Only Pop lived the life of a fisherman because he was one. I was only pretending.
        Many years later I was to find out much more of my childhood hero, much more:
Pop Pressley turned out to be a REAL hero. During the 2nd World War Pop used to go out during air raids and, single handed, pluck young airmen from the sea, English AND German alike. His knowledge of the currents off Herne Bay was second to none. Once a young German airman was shot down in the sea and threatened Pop with a pistol. Pop knocked him out cold. And still he hauled the airman into his boat and brought him ashore. The reason he was called by the nickname 'Ninety' was because his brother-in-law, Jess Mount, always said that he moaned like an old man of ninety. The name stuck, and he was called Ninety till the day he died in 1957.
        But there was even more to tell of this enigmatic fisherman:
Tim Owen emailed me to say: that he owned a boat called the Dandy C, he wrote:

Hi Paul,
I hope you don't mind the unsolicited email, but I have a boat called the Dandy C. Which, I believe might have been used in WW2 by 'Ninety' Pressley. It was attached to Reculver, or Herne Bay, although built at Whitstable in 1938. It's a teak motor sailor and used to have a machine gun on the front and was used as an air sea rescue boat and for a bit of mine spotting. Do you know if Ninety captained it? I was in the museum at Herne Bay yesterday and was shown a picture of him. At least I was told that it was him!
Cheers,
Tim Owen

DEAR TIM:
I have no idea whether Ninety (Pop) Pressley captained the Dandy C, Tim. But the boat that he owned when I was a lad was called: SEAGULL.II. And it was clinker built, had no cabin on it! A picture of Ninety is in my on-line book: THE LITTLE RESTAURANT ON THE PROM under the title/chapter: UNCLES. Sadly he was not my real uncle but I wish with all my heart that he had been! Of course whether he used to pick up the odd German in THE SEAGULL is another matter.
SINCERELY.  
Paul.

Tim has given me information that I was not aware of from the BBC. Uncle Ken – who bought me my first fishing rod – was indeed the landlord of The New Dolphin  and it was here that like ‘drowned rats’ the rescued airman – German AND English – were brought and sorted. Read on:

“I recall local boatman Ninety Pressley and his involvement in the rescue and recovery of ditched airmen in the estuary. These rescues were affected by Ninety and the crew of his high speed motor boat, Dandy. He went from the Neptune jetty to all points between Herne Bay and the Channel forts located on the Shivering Sands, Red Sands and the Knock John Tower, off Margate. German and British survivors were recovered & returned to the jetty, where on arrival and usually wrapped in blankets, they were immediately treated for exposure and wounds dressed; then marched over to the New Dolphin public house. There, military or civilian police would ensure the disposal of Germans to a POW holding wing, or in the case of the British lads, to the nearest air station, usually Manston. Our boys were sometimes back in the air within the hour, full of sustenance supplied by the good offices of Mr Ken Standing (Standen?), who I believe was the licensee.” (He sure was, Tim)

It’s quite possible that Ninety would also go out in Seagull II - as well as crewing the Dandy C - and pick up airman! It wouldn’t surprise me, wouldn’t surprise me at all! You learn more every day, especially about that brave little fisherman called Ninety (Pop) Pressley. I was only a boy of six-years-old but he was my hero and I loved him!

*******
AND NOW A POEM IN THE FORM OF A HAIKU:

ADIOS AMIGOES
UNTIL NEXT MONTH!

PAUL

NOVEMBER 2008

BURA’S BLOGGERY

HELLO AMIGOES!!!

The tale of the beautiful African lady from The Gambia finishing off with Writers’ Block Blues: I should have listened to the wise ones amongst you with regard to my ‘writers’ block! I just heard Andrew Motion (poet laureate) talking about ‘writers’ block’. One of the reasons could be that his father died recently as my mother did. But although the muse is not shouting at him or whispering gently in his ear he has to write ‘something’, even though that something is not particularly good, at least by HIS standards! I discovered this for myself and derived great comfort from his words!

THE BEAUTIFUL AFRICAN GIRL

My mate John Webster and I arrived in The Gambia. When we finally exited from the plane it was like being hosed down with a wet blow-lamp. A coach was waiting to drive us to our hotel (The Gambia Beach Hotel) where we settled in to our room. The first thing we did was switch on the air conditioning as our pores were instantly awash with sweat!
        Roy Hudd and his girlfriend entered the restaurant. The last time I had seen Roy was queuing up at the BBC canteen where we exchanged pleasantries and laughed a lot. He was doing The News Hudd Lines(famous for over 18 years!) and I was doing my first children’s series for the beeb: Sounds, Words and Music (“Never heard of it!” I hear you scream. Well you wouldn’t have. It was for CHILDREN, for goodness sake, Radio.4, and it was a job. You don’t turn down work what ever it is. And anyway, I had a ball with the co-presenter [Jill Shilling] and the musicians!)
        I called Roy over (I had a bloody cheek in those days) and reminded him where we had first met! The look of resignation that one of his fans was calling out to him – after all he was on holiday – and the wane smile of ‘Here we go again’ was replaced by a genuine smile of relief. Mind you, just a few words exchanged queuing up at the beeb canteen was by no means a smile of recognition. However, we cracked a few gags about him coming to the Gambia bird watching and him being weighed down by a giant pair of binoculars around his neck and his hat covered in bird-shit! (A closet twitcher? No, it was just something that another friend of his was into.)
         We spent an evening together with his attractive lady Sarah. It was then that I asked him about Peter Sellers doing the BBC TV program THE GOOD OLD DAYS and using the material of one of Peter Sellers comedy heroes, Dan Leno. All I could remember of it was: the ‘Magnet Isles’, and the routine was a Dan Leno send-up – or impression? – which Sellers did brilliantly - where all the nuts and bolts of the boat were magnetically sucked out by the force of the Magnet Isles and it was as surreal and hilarious as THE GOON SHOW ever was!
        “No, it wasn’t called The Magnet Isles,” said Roy, “it was called: Pearl Fishing.”
         I had forgotten that Roy was a real expert on Music Hall. 
        “And I’ll send you a copy, mate!”
        “A copy…of the script?”
        “Yes, before you go back I’ll take your address and send it to    you!”
        And true to his word he did! What a gentleman!

        Every week in the grounds of the Gambia Beach Hotel there was a market where we could buy souvenirs: African nick-knacks and such-like. But I was struck dumb by the magnificent beauty of a young African woman!
        I asked her if I could take her picture (I was a photographic geek in those days). Her mother, who was selling her wares from a stall, interrupted: “Not only can you take her picture but I can arrange for you to sleep with her!”
        I was dumbfounded! For once in my life I was completely speechless. “Umm, n-no, a-all I want is to t-take her picture,” I blurted, “because she is SO beautiful!” “The offer still stands,” said the mother, without a flicker, shrugging her shoulders!
        I took her picture, the picture of a proud but contemptuous, non-smiling, beautiful young African woman…but I hadn’t loaded my camera! For once in my life I HAD FAILED TO PUT A FILM IN THE CAMERA! I could have sworn that I had!
        Voodoo was rife in the Gambia. Perhaps my refusal – my refusal to sleep with this gorgeous girl (Oh, don’t misunderstand me: I wanted to alright!) had something to do with it, but then I would, wouldn’t I?
        My mate, John Webster, was equally puzzled. “Are you mad? Have you gone completely balmy, mate? She’s gorgeous!”
        “Maybe,” I said, “but you should have looked through my view-finder at the look of complete and utter contempt that she obviously had for me (probably for ALL white men. Her mother was quite probably her pimp!). I could see it in her eyes! Even you would have changed your mind! Even YOU! Now if I had met her at the hotel’s club and she was introduced to me and we got on well, now that would have been a completely different story! (Or would it?)

         WRITERS’ BLUES

Lately I’ve been suffering from writer’ block, actually more like writers’-block-of-reinforced-concrete-inside-a-shell-of-lead!(Writers’ constipation?) Bring back the time when I could roll out the odd piece of (crap) writing – crap/constipation? Geddit? - making whatever subject I chose interesting, or, occasionally, even good!
        But no matter how I try lately I just seem turn out drivel (“But you always turn out drivel,” I hear you scream!). Yes, but there’s drivel and drivel.   There was a time when I could chatter and clatter away on the ol’ PC as happy as Larry (who is this Larry person and what right has HE to be so bloody happy?) and clack out a novel or short story or article. But the curtains have come down, darkness descends and I fight my way through cloudy, thick, sticky treacle, waiting for something to happen, something worthwhile, some words strung together with a modicum of creativity.
        Yes, perhaps the odd poem will surface but it’s not good poetry! It’s as if the horse of the muse has bolted leaving me with nought but a mouthful of straw!
        You see, I’m not used to it. Even if I write shit at least I’m happy in my own shit. But now it’s a real effort - Effort/Constipation? Geddit? (Never mind!)
         I used to really enjoy coming down to the office, enjoy the ticking clock for I knew that if I forgot its ticking, took no notice of it, then I was happy drowning in my own words, getting lost in the glorious world of lexicography.

        “But ALL writers – at some time or other - suffer from this complaint from time eternal?”

 Yes, but not ME. Do you know how long it has taken me to write thus far? No, you don’t want to know! My will is gone and everybody fires at Will. Poor sod!
        Well, I’ve got THAT off my chest at least…

        And it’s STILL crap! However, maybe I spot a speck of light on the horizon?

 Naw, it’s a mirage!

(Sings) Woke up this morning
           Woke up yesterday too!

           Woke up this morning
           Woke up yesterday too…

           If I wake up toomooorow
           Lord, I’m gonna be blue!

       
D’you know, I feel distinctly better now. Probably because on old French girlfriend has emailed me and life has taken on a new glow. I don’t care if she’s married now and has a hoard of kids (two sons, actually). She’ll be fifty now, but the fact that she’s got in touch fills me with hope and happiness! Here’s a poem that I wrote for her in 1983 (poem taken from: IN THE END, a collection of poems in hardback on menu bar!)

ADIOS AMIGOS

Paul

October 2008

*****

BURA’S BLOGGERY!

HULLO AMIGOS!!!

     IAN DURY

          Song writer, singer and actor
Ian Dury and I went to the same school for the disabled, Chailey Heritage in Sussex. Not at the same time though, he was there a couple of years before me. What we had in common was the fact that we were BOTH 7-years-old and both on holiday with our grandparents when the dreaded polio virus struck us down! I became a voice-over artist and performing poet and Ian Dury became famous during the punk era with his band Kilburn and the Highroads and eventually becoming: Ian Dury and the Blockheads whacking out such classics as ‘Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll’ ‘What a Waste” and ‘Hit Me With your Rhythm Stick’. Before that he went to art school and eventually taught art in Canterbury, Kent (my old stomping ground).

        A phone call from the producer of Ian’s forthcoming documentary (his first): “Hullo, Paul Bura?” “Yes,” I said. “Its concerning your poem CHAILEY HERITAGE, “Yes,” I said again. “Well during a scene at his home Ian Dury pulled out your book The Coming of the Giants and proceeded to read the poem in response to a question we put to him.” “What question?” I asked. “What was it like at Chailey Heritage? and Ian – as I said – pulled out your book and said: “This is what it was like, this geezer tells it the way it was!” and then began reading your poem. And I was wondering, A) Could we have your permission to broadcast it, and B) would you like to come to the World Premier of the screening?” I said yes to both questions!
 
        My then girlfriend and I turned up in London’s tin-pan-alley: all music publishers and studios. We entered a deserted foyer and could just make out the strains of music and the clatter and clink of glasses from down a flight of stairs. Fortunately there was a lift and we were just about to enter it when we heard somebody else enter the foyer. I turned round and there was Ian Dury with his lady. This is the conversation that ensued:

ME:   Oh, hello Ian. Um, I’m Paul Bura the bloke who wrote the poem CHAILEY HERITAGE (nervously extending my hand).
IAN:  (taking my hand in an off-handed sort of way) Oh yeh, pleased to meet yeh!
ME:   (smiling good naturedly) You’re not the bastard that used to beat me up, are you? (still smiling)
IAN:  (You could have cut the air with a knife!) No, I’m f…ing well not!
(SILENCE)
ME:   Look, I was only kidding. I mean you were not even there when I attended, I…

        By now he had entered the lift with his bird and so we had no option but to go down with him and join the party. It was the longest lift-ride I ever had. He didn’t utter one word and we could all see that I had inadvertently upset him. He and I both limped out of the lift. He couldn’t get away from me quick enough and quickly made his way over to the producer, grabbed a pint of beer and a cigarette and glowered every now and then at me. Suddenly he said: “I’ll phone yer!” And limped off!
        We were all ushered in for the screening. And it was a damn good documentary, which included my poem (now re-published in ‘The Drunk on the Train and other poems’ on menu-bar) and Ian’s comments!
        When the lights went up who was sitting next to me but Ian’s mother. She was delighted with my poem and the book in general and said so. By now Ian had joined his mother but still ignored me! His mother was obviously an educated woman – she I believe went to university – and had married a London bus-driver which is where Ian had got his cockney London accent. I took her address after promising to send her my latest book: The Space Between the Syllables, which of course I did.
        Then we said our goodbyes – even though we were all invited out by the production team to have a Chinese meal. However I had had enough and thought it better that we leave!
        But from then on every time I recited the poem: Chailey Heritage I just HAD to tell the audience that story…which always gets a big laugh!

        Ian Dury died on March 27th 2000 from liver cancer (my brother’s birthday). Meanwhile I was invited to BBC Radio 4’s YOU AND YOURS program to say a word or two about Ian Dury’s life and work.
       
        Just before the BBC gig – the night before actually - Ian paid me a visit. I was as surprised as I could be! But I saw him! He was accompanied by someone else, who I didn’t know. The first thing Ian said was: “Blimey, this is SO bleedin’ weird!”

       But then he said that he had a message for his wife Sophie (I think that was her name. Obviously he knew that I would be going to the studio the next day) and his two children. “Tell them I love ‘em and not to worry about me. I’m alright, I’m really okay!” Then he was gone!
        I arrived at the BBC Bangor studio, North Wales, for the hook-up to YOU AND YOURS. I said that his music was truly unique and he would be sorely missed. Which was true, I was speaking from the heart!
        When the recording was through I thought I should mention Ian’s message, but then changed my mind half way through telling the interviewer, just in case she thought I was going balmy. However she urged me to continue. She seemed to take it very well. I said that I would appreciate it if she would pass the message on to Sophie. Of course whether she did or not I will never know. I like to think that she did and that it gave his wife a modicum of solace!  

*******

MONTEGO BAY

Rest awhile, take it easy, and don’t go blindly into something without thinking (Huh?). I’m considering going to Jamaica’s Montego Bay. I haven’t flown for five years. This was before the world became aware of our carbon footprints! Maybe my excuse is that this is probably my last sojourn abroad, not because of any sense of guilt – though I have thought of it and guilt does come into the equation – but because of my body…and my bank balance! You see, I have to take two nephews now, two minders if you like (it was cheaper when I went to the states because I only had to pay for ONE nephew as my body was stronger then) and it’s rather expensive taking TWO nephews.
        But why rest awhile? Why take it easy? Why think about it? Because my arms are getting ever weaker (all together now: AHHHH!) and because I can no longer stand and use those bloody aircraft toilets because my balance is SO crap these days (always was, actually).  Soooo, I’m thinking about using those sticky adhesive-type durex things that you put on your willy: this attaches to a tube that in turn goes down to a bag which is strapped to your thigh. At the moment I’m giving it a trial-run by wearing the super sticky durex thingy and putting it through its paces: walking, sitting down, standing up, cooking, sitting down again, having a wee (out of the tube that connects to the sticky durex type thing, I’ve discarded the use of the bag for the time being) then going down to my writing-room, watching TV, and stuff like that, and eventually going to bed. Hopefully it will remain firmly attached to my thingy!
        Us raspberry ripples have to think ahead, whilst remaining living in the NOW. NOW is creating a future-NOW but not living in it, yet keeping in mind that anything can happen in the NOW of things! Confused? I know I am!
        Anyway, I’ve tried one of those durex things and it works, now I’m trying a different type. So far so good!

        Back to this carbon footprint. It’s amazing how guilt can be created: ones attitude to smoking, for instance. When I was young my dad used to smoke all the time and I didn’t think anything of it (Well you wouldn’t, would you?). Now-a-days if one lights up (I don’t smoke) you immediately sense the smokers’ guilt as if he or she had committed a heinous crime! Guilt is created! (ask any Catholic)
        For my self, I HAVE to keep ‘ever switched on’ the red lights that operate my TV, Video, DVD etc. because I have so much trouble in switching them off and on again, it’s dangerous. Not because of a fire, or electricity bills or the planet, but because I could FALL OVER with the effort of switching the damn things off…and ON again! I just pick up my remote and switch the TV or DVD or wot-not on or off, as the case may be. Yet my sense of GUILT knows no bounds…unless you are sensible about it! The same goes for not eating meat (which I don’t but I DO eat the occasional piece of fish). I don’t get all upset if my friends choose to eat meat, in fact most of my friends DO eat meat, and if I DID get all upset I wouldn’t have any friends, now would I? Play the game (if you must) by example, not by nagging!
        Guilt should be contained. Guilt should be in balance (as all things should). But that’s not the way of things, is it? Guilt is an attitude of mind!
        Just do your best for the planet; just do your upper most BEST to give this planet the best ride she’s ever had. And play the game: just DO pick up your litter; DO sort out your rubbish; DO not use your car when you can walk (I’m excluded from that!); DO save water; DO grow veggies; Do lag your loft; DO pick up your doggies poo; Do use those energy saving bulbs; I could go on but I wont…and like that!
        Now back to my proposed flight by expelling hundreds of tons of carbon dioxide into the air. Well, I figure that five years from one flight to the next is okay and if I go ANOTHER five years perhaps by then we will have developed yet another form of propulsion, or a fuel that is eco-friendly! If not? Well I’ll have to think again.

        You know, I really should get out more!

 *******

AND NOW FOLKS THE POEM
THAT IMPRESSED IAN DURY:

ADIOS AMIGOS!!!
Luv n’ Lite n’ Larfter
Paul Bura

September 2008

BURA’S BLOGGERY

HELLO AMIGOES!

PERCY EDWARDS
(1908-1996)

During my time as a ‘voice-over’ artist or ‘voice-actor’ I had the pleasure of working with a few great people in the world of ‘voice-over’, starting off with Peter Hawkins: the original voice of the Darleks of DR WHO fame and THE FLOWER POT MEN who taught me how to make the microphone my friend, how to let the microphone work for me and not the other way round, how to use the ‘close mic’ technique by lowering my voice, getting real close to the mic and sounding like the whole studio was listening to me and only me! (Documentary style)
          But the one person that impressed me the most was PERCY EDWARDS. Now Percy could imitate over 600 bird-calls and as a qualified ornithologist knew what he was talking (or whistling)  about. Apart from the usually piss-takes – that he was used to by now – like: “Percy, I thought you flown east for the winter!” or “I thought you’d grown feral and joined a pack of wolves in wildest Canada!” For not only could he imitate birds with startling accuracy but he could also imitate animals: from dogs to lions to camels. I was more interested in his lion-call! “Go on Percy, just for me, do your lion impressions, please, please, please!” I pleaded. “Oh alright he said with that quiet Suffolk burr of his. He clicked open a small attaché case and wrapped in a piece of cloth was a glass oil-lamp chimney. He picked it up carefully and before I knew it he was roaring like a lion into it, the glass chimney acting as a small but perfect-for-the-job amplifier for his perfect lion’s roar, and when the studio went to work on it, all they had to do was amplify it some more. Job done! Disney used him time and again for his animals and bird sounds. He even played the whales in the film “ORCA”.
          But – and this really blew my mind – he could produce a tiny human voice out of his stomach! Never mind about not moving his lips like a ventriloquist and his vent-doll he actually produced a voice out of his stomach! We had to bend down to listen to him!
          He started his bird-calling and animal-impressions act playing the halls when BBC radio picked him up and he was booked for RAY’S A LAUGH (with Ted Ray the comic) and could be heard in the early 50’s playing the dog in Dick Barton Special Agent! The rest is history!
          He was a gentle, quiet sort of guy but was always up for a laugh!
          Anyway, I was booked to provide various voices for a children’s educational series and in this particular episode I and a female actor played the part of the ‘mice’ and Percy – all on his own – was a pack of dogs! The studio was in uproar.
           There was this quiet little man who was suddenly transformed into a little ball of fury playing a baying pack of hounds in one corner and me and this actress playing little mice in the other! That such ferocious sounds, such animalist anger, could come out of just ONE man was nigh on a miracle. But that’s what Percy Edwards was: a miracle, a miracle of sound, not only sound but accurate to the nth degree, sound!

*******

MAP DOWSING IN ONE EASY LESSON

Malcolm Ing said: “We’re all living in a hologram!” “Do what? I cried. This was years ago, perhaps 30 years or so. It’s only now that I understand what he was on about. Well I think I do!
          An eco-system within an eco-system, whether it be as large as a galaxy, then shrinking down in size to a planetary system, or just a plant, insect or an animal system. We all share this – or have this – in common. They sort of intertwine; there is a kind of sameness, a oneness about it all, all joined by living energy lines of force, sort of fibre optics if you will (well at least that’s the way I understand it).
          So what has this to do with a Hologram?
          I’ll try and explain:

If for instance you were to draw a square on a piece of paper and that piece of paper has, say, FARMER JONES FIELD written on the top (as you DO NOT wish to tramp Farmer Jones Field in the pouring rain with mud up to your thighs, do you?) as you can map-dowse just as well in the dry with a roaring fire as you can tramping that muddy field with dowsing rods akimbo. Yes? Right!
         To continue: on the table with the fire roaring (in the fire place!), all you need is a pointer and a pendulum (a knitting needle will do for a pointer and if you haven’t got a lady in your life – or you ARE a lady who doesn’t go in for knitting – then anything with a point will do. Oh and for a pendulum you can use a metal nut on a piece of cotton). After establishing what way your pendulum swings for ‘yes’ (the opposite is obviously ‘no’), then you square off the ‘paper’ field into, say, 12 smaller squares. You then settle down and with your pointer and start at square number 1 and see what your pendulum tells you (yes or no). For arguments sake, say you have a negative response (no) to all but 11 squares and the 12th square you have a positive response (yes). Now square off the 12th square into 4 separate smaller squares and start the process all over, pointing with your pointy thing at the first small square and by the process of elimination you arrive at the point where your ‘roman artefact’ (for argument’s sake) is buried! And when the weather is dry and the mud no longer reaches up to your thighs – you dig the bugger up!
        Now for those (like me) who are rather slow (I’ve been doing this stuff for years until Post Polio Syndrome caught up with me) you will need to re-read this section!

        When a holographic plate has a laser-beam shot threw it and shows a 3D image (of that roman artefact), and when the plate is broken in two it STILL has that image, and broken in two AGAIN it still retains that image!  Much like Mr Jones' field when squared off, only one square has the image (roman artefact), but broken into four, although the power is still in all four, only ONE is the correct one.

        You can draw Mr Jones' field anywhere on earth: in an airplane, a submarine, on a toilet, in the middle of the Sahara, in a restaurant, or out in space, or on another planet come to that, as long as you write: Mr Jones' Field from the planet Earth the result will be the same! And ‘no’ I haven’t tried most of the above but I just KNOW, alright?
PS. But I HAVE tried bringing a known STANDING STONE into my front room – in my creative mind/imagination – and dowsing it (the energy lines going to and from it). And guess what? IT REALLY WORKS!

          This is as near to quantum physics – or living in a hologram as a practical experiment - as I can go, or as much as my mind can take: large (seemingly) is small, infinitely tiny, (the crucial word here is Infinite) and vice-versa. They are the same! They are oneness! And everyONE has to be somewhere, don’t they?

 *******

AND NOW A SMALL POEM:

THAT’S IT FOR THIS MONTH, AMIGOS!

ADIOS.

Paul Bura

AUGUST 2008

HELLO AMIGOS!!!

CATCHING THE BIRDS IN A BROWN PAPER BAG!!!
In-between radio and TV voice-overs my partner (Peter McKay) and I opened a whole food store called MANNA in Herne Bay in Kent (my sister Josie and I opened a similar shop in Lancing in Sussex, also called MANNA, seven years later). 
        Apart from having a few disastrous love affairs during our days at Manna Whole and Health Food Store, there were in fact quite a few successful – though short – devious little dalliances on the shop floor. Umm, that is not exactly the ‘shop floor’, as was, but the ‘shop floor’, as is, or to put it another way…I’m digging a bloody great hole for myself, aren’t I?
        To put it in a nutshell, an awful lot of flirting went on with the younger element of female-hood, but at the same time I had to be certain that that flirtation was reciprocated, that they fancied me as well as I fancied them. So after a while, when I was fairly sure, and the girl(s) of my dreams was nearing the end of the queue for our particular wares (Mung beans, Aduki beans, organic wholegrain bread etc.) I hurriedly scribbled on a brown paper bag:
 
        “Would you care to come out to dinner with me? Please tick the appropriate box. (Box One) YES! (Box two) NO! (Box three) GET STUFFED!!!
   
        Then I would slide the inscribed brown paper bag over the counter (after the purchase of course, I wasn’t THAT daft!) together with a pen, whilst I dealt with the remaining customers.
        Fortunately not one said ‘no’ and some are friends to this very day! (Now married of course)  I often wondered whether it was my rather novel way of chatting-up a lady – after all shoving a brown paper bag over the counter was hardly the height of romantic endeavour – or the shear cheek of it!  Either way, IT WORKED!
         And I had a ball!

PS. Whilst at Manna I developed the only vegetarian sausage on the market in those days. Holland and Barrat were interested (they were the big-cheese of Health Food shops even in those far off days). Sadly, the skins that I thought were totally animal-free contained an element of animal and our manufacturer (up until that time Peter McKay, my partner, was ensconced in making the sausages in the cellar below the shop and when the Health Inspector arrived one day, unannounced, he had to go away again as he couldn’t quite find a slot for our ‘meatless’ sausages, as far as he was concerned ‘they didn’t exist!’) was not able to produce a skinless sausage at that time! Our sausage empire crashed with a very dull thud!! The sausages were called: THE MANNA BANGER! Ah well, it just wasn’t to be.

*******

BALANCE
One of the topics that Joeb (no, not the biblical Job, this Joeb was a Burmese Buddhist priest and my spiritual mentor) returns to again and again is his referral to most human beings as being ‘Earth Addicts’.

         “You are all addicted to something or other. It might be food, pain, sex, drink, drugs, even love. Of course I do not mean unconditional love, but love that destroys, love that smothers, love that obsesses and possesses. There is nothing at all the matter with food, sex and drink, taken in moderation. But what we seek here is ‘balance’. The whole world is out of balance. The earth energy grid is out of balance, the world between spirit and matter is out of balance. The Ying and the Yang is out of balance.”
        “Whatever you undertake, undertake it with love and moderation mixed together with a modicum of humour, but above all balance in all things. It’s is not too late to rectify the problems with our planet. Seek love and balance (and humour) in all things…there IS an answer, just seek it!”

*******

CHILD’S FOOTPRINTS
Many years ago I was called out with my friend Andy Thomas to a village in East Sussex called Fletching. Also with us was the excellent dowser David Russell. The house belonged to a friend of Andy and, as he was a musician as well as a lecturer on crop circles, they often attended his gigs. They got talking and it transpired that their house was ‘haunted’: the TV was being switched on and off, doors were locking and unlocking, clothes were torn and a ‘presence’ was felt. The final straw came when what appeared to be a child’s footprint appeared, deeply embossed in their rather thick carpet. Nothing would erase it!
        I agreed to do what I could, but stated that there was no guarantee of success!
        We arrived and I settled myself down in an armchair and listened to what the friends of Andy had to say. Then I ‘opened up’ and allowed this presence to come closer. The presence (male) said that he and his small son had died in a fire in this house and could I help them? I said that they should look around them until they saw a white door, or at least what appeared to be a point, or beam, of light. The man began to weep. As he left, he thanked me. He could obviously see the point of light. (Why you may well ask is not the death process automatic, as in 99.9% of people? I can only answer that when people die in exceptional circumstances or when folk insist on holding on to 3 Dimensional Earth conditions, there is little that they can do. There are probably frightened of this point of light, or the white door, as well they might be; it is the great unknown, after all. They probably see it and ignore it until instructed otherwise).
        After I did what I did, the footprint in the carpet gradually started to fade and they had no more trouble!
        The proof came years later when Andy met up with his friends again. Not only had the child’s footprint completely gone, but having spoken to locals in the years since, they had discovered that their house was on the site of an old abattoir (always a disrupter of psychic energies, for very obvious reasons) and that before that a man and his little son had indeed died in a fire in a house which had stood previously on the same site…about 150 years ago.
         I now had proof that what the ‘man’ had told me was absolutely true, proof recorded in the village records!

PS: Time as we understand it does not exist in the 4th Dimension where this man and his little son were trapped, trapped in the in-between world of spiritual reality. As far as they were concerned they had only been ‘trapped’ for a year or so!

And now…

ADIOS AMIGOES…until next month!

BURA’S BLOGGERY

HELLO AMIGOS!

This first piece is from my ‘book on line’ THE LITTLE RESTAURANT ON THE PROM. Why? Because I find it so amusing that my grandfather – who had been in both World Wars in the Royal Navy – didn’t realize through the haze of alcohol – (he was pissed out of his mind) that what I was about to do was HIGHLY DANGEROUS and is just one example of my adventures BEFORE I caught polio!
            My second piece is related to THE HEALER ON THE BRIDGE (See articles on my website) and what happened next!

MY GRANDFATHER AND THE BOMB
Croyse had been trying unsuccessfully to retrieve it with a stick. I watched him try and try again. It was bright yellow and had fins. No, not a fish but it was to cause quite a stink, though. Croyse gave up on it. He walked dejectedly up the beach and out of sight. Now it was my turn, my chance to have a go at trying to possess this interesting looking object. At 6-years-old I was nobody's fool and wearing my wellies was able to get that much closer to it than Croyse. I attached a piece of wire that I had found round one of the fins.
At last I had it. I dragged it clear of the water and was just about to lift it up when my grandfather, taking a stroll along the beach was pissed out of his mind - after a session in the pub - wobbled down the beach to see what I had got. "I'll give you a hand, son, " he slurred. Now my grandfather had been in BOTH world wars, and you may have thought that it might just have occurred to him that, what resembled a bomb, would have sent various alarm bells ringing.  Not today it didn’t!
"Don't worry Granddad, I can manage." I said cheerfully, and with that that I heaved the bomb up in both arms and carried it up the beach. Granddad, slightly unsteadily, followed after me.
Now I had to negotiate some very steep steps and CLANG! I rested the bomb on one step whilst I got up to another. Then CLANG! I rested the bomb on the other step. There were three steps in all. I made my way the short distance to my father's restaurant with my grandfather in tow. As I walked into the restaurant I couldn't understand why people were hurling themselves at the doors and disappearing rather rapidly. I walked into the kitchen.
The look of horror on my parents face when I presented my trophy: "Now… er, put it down gently, son," said my father, "NO! not near the gas stoves!" He gave out a sort of strangled cry and had trouble breathing. "Put it down GENTLY on the table AWAY from the ovens!" he urged gently but firmly. At this point I didn't know what all the fuss was about. I soon did, though.
"There, that's it. Gently does it, old son!"   
I put my bomb carefully on the table indicated whilst all hell broke loose. The police were called and the bomb squad! A kindly policeman spoke to me about the dangers of 'finding things lying on the beach' and I, in future, was to 'leave them alone'. The bomb turned out to be a 2nd-world-war 'flare'. If it had gone off in that small space…well it doesn't bear thinking about.
My grandfather?
Grandmother saw to him!

*******

THE HEALER ON THE BRIDGE (CONTINUED)

The name of the Healer on the bridge is Cydwr (pronounced Ca-door with a slight roll of the tongue on the last syllable) and he is a Druid of a rotund and bearded appearance, but his robe is a rather dirty gray not white and he wears his hood down (well when I see him he does). As I’ve said in my previous article he is the Guardian of Cemaes Bay, where I live. Guardians usually look after the energy-lines or ‘lines of force’ (Leys or dragon lines) of which there are many types: over-grounds, under-grounds, lines that carry information, which I call Courier lines. etc.
        Every place or section (usually triangular in shape) of this earth has a Guardian – sometimes elemental sometimes human – even the parts covered in water or ocean. And I make it my business, especially when entering wooded or river areas, to greet the Guardian of the place.
        As said in my previous article I sent out my greeting silently and almost immediately came back the reply “And greetings to you too, I haven’t been acknowledged in two maybe three hundred years!!”
        Where I got the name Cydwr from I haven’t a clue for I don’t speak Welsh but I just knew that that was what he was called!  

        One day, about two years ago, I was meditating near where the little river that runs through Cemaes and out into the sea, where it runs under the conduit that supports the main road. (This area also marks the spot of a crossroads made up of a small bridge, the other side of which is a track up to the main road)
        Suddenly I was swept up (my spirit body) and carried at great speed down the course of the river through the bridge and out to sea. From this vantage point I could see the little harbour that forms Cemaes, the cliffs to my left and the little houses to my right. This, I was being told, marked the boundary line of which Cydwr held sway, this was his little kingdom, this was his piece of earth where he was asked by the Council of Guardians to protect. Then, just as suddenly, I was travelling back at high speed and came-too in my electric scooter!
        I couldn’t believe it! Cydwr had taken me on a guided tour of his realm and immediately left me in a state of wonder and shock! “Bloody hell,” I thought, “What a treat, what an experience!”

          A couple of months later whilst Cydwr was in my company I said to him: “If I channel you, mind to mind, body to body, would you like to ride ‘Old Sparky’ (the name I call my scooter)?” A thrill of excitement transmitted by Cydwr coursed through my body. This I took to be a “Yes!”
        Gently he came through and just as gently he took the controls. I just knew that he was having the time of his life!
         Very slowly he took the path to the little bridge that spanned the small river (the Wygyr, pronounced: Wigeer) and turned to the left and up over the bridge. When he got to the crossroads – where I had meditated – he left me just as instantly and suddenly as when he had taken me on that fantastic journey of his domain!
         It would appear that this 3 dimensional world, which was just a sensation to him, still thrilled him, although it was a rather clumsy mode of transportation, he had enjoyed himself! And that made him (and me) very happy!

        I was in hospital for a check-up and found myself next to a retired teacher of the Welsh language. Somehow I found my intuition reaching out to this slender little Welshman, that I could trust him, that he would not think me potty, this Elvin Thomas, and so I found myself telling him about the Guardian, about how I had called to him and he had answered, and about his name. At this he was a little puzzled: “Cydwr, you say?” said Elvin, “I’ve not heard that name before. I mean it’s a name alright but it doesn’t make sense.” “Well, that’s what I received,” I said, at once crest-fallen, maybe believing that I had made a mistake in trusting him. “Look, leave it with me,” he said, “I’ll think on it!”
        A few hours later a beaming Elvin Thomas came to my bed and said in his quiet way: “I know where we’ve been going wrong, Paul” he said, “The emphasis should be on the first syllable: CYdwr (phonetically: CA-door), that makes all the difference in the world!”
         “How so?” I said.
         “Cydwr means GUARDIAN, don’t you see, man, he was telling you WHAT HIS FUNCTION WAS! Now do you understand?”
          I shook Elvin Thomas vigorously by the hand.
        “All these years,” I said, “I had been pronouncing his name with the emphasis on the second syllable and not the first and all the time he was trying to tell me what he DID, not his name!”
         “Bloody hell,” I said, under my breath, “Bloody HELL!”  

*******
AND NOW FOR THE POEMS!

ADIOS AMIGOS
UNTIL NEXT MONTH!

June 2008

The following happened to my old friend Malcolm Ing (an artist) when he was sitting in a Developing Circle many years ago and is my all-time favourite psychic tale, not because it is SO bizarre - AND witnessed by at least four people -  but because IT IS TRUE:

THE MAN WHO DISAPPEARED

The idea of bodily ‘ascension’, that is, the physical body actually disappearing was, for a time, a great topic of so-called ‘New Age’ thought. To many people the idea is too outrageous and preposterous that they dismiss it out of hand. Here then, I come to my good friend and fellow psychic, Malcolm Ing. The following story is perfectly true and happened about 35 years ago in the Medway town of Chatham in Kent. Malcolm, four other men and three women had been having regular weekly meetings for meditation and healing. On this occasion, on a warm June evening, there were no women for one reason or another (no female energy?). This left just five men (male energy), including Malcolm. The invocation was given and the five men had just settled down to meditate, when one of the chairs was very firmly pulled back by an unseen force. It was obvious to all present that the gentleman occupying that seat was not meant to join in the circle; instead he sat in the corner of the room (It turned out that he was a kind of witness to all that went on that evening). They settled down again.
        From Malcolm’s point of view this is what happened: He suddenly had the terrible urge to stand up, so he asked the man to his right if he thought it would be okay. The man said: “Stand up!” Malcolm was now standing right in the middle of the small circle. Malcolm then said that he had the terrible urge to spin. Again he was urged to do so. Malcolm found himself rising and turning and at the same time heard a great roar, like a jet plane going overhead. The next thing he knew, he was lying on the floor!
         Now, from the point of view of the other sitters, THIS is what happened: Malcolm and his opposite number, the man facing him, had both begun to gently pulse in unison. Malcolm stood up. He then rose very slightly off of the floor and began to spin. From his mouth came a mighty roar….and then he completely and utterly vanished! At that point, the man sitting opposite Malcolm stood up and pointed to a spot on the floor – blue static electricity rose from the spot indicated and curled up and around this man’s arm. At that precise moment Malcolm re-appeared lying on the floor!
        I assure you that this is perfectly true.
        Now the idea of bodily ascension takes on a greater reality, doesn’t it?
        The tail-end to this story ends in 1987 during the World Harmonic Conversion. We were all sitting on top of the Coldrum Stones in Kent (a place that I said at the time that I wished with all my heart that it could have been my back garden!). It consisted of a very small formation (circle) of sarson stones one side of which was a huge chair-like construction facing an open field in a shallow valley. The peace of this place was almost palpable, you could almost touch it, and the energy - especially after we had spent a whole day surrounded by it - was like a natural tranquilizer: we all fell asleep on the car journey back home – except me, of course, who was driving! However, back to the story:
        We were all meditating in our own idiosyncratic ways, tuning in to All-That-Is [or trying to] aware that thousands upon thousands of folk all over the Earth were doing the same: in front rooms, churches, sacred places, where ever there was a peace that was magical and mystical and holy!
        Anyway, we were all sitting there when suddenly I was aware that Malcolm had got up and strode quietly off.
        After the global ‘Tune-In’ I opened my eyes to see Malcolm leaning on one of the stones his eyes shining. He came over to us and said simply:
        “I know where I went during my spin-out! I was taken to a place where I was shown hieroglyphics hewn in stone and which I completely understood; at least I COULD understand them but the memory has now gone from me!”
          He was shown these hieroglyphics by a Being in a (yeees, I know: the ‘flowing robe’ syndrome AGAIN) flowing robe!” He took three minutes to tell us, on that peaceful plain of stones, yet he was only gone for five seconds!  Time and space becoming meaningless in that particular dimension!
          And another great and wonderful thing occurred on that auspicious day in 1987.
          The Earth Energy system changed from a 7-line system (chakric system) to an 8-line system of which we are ALL hooked into by our own chakric systems…and today it has risen to a 15-line system, 13 of which are active, at least the last time that I checked (by dowsing) they were.
             We, whether we like it or not, are all vibrating at a faster rate! Why? It’s all part of the Earth Changes – the weather and general planetary changes being just the tip of the iceberg! Oh and another thought has just occurred: did the presence of the 8-line system stimulate Malcolm’s recovered memory? Perhaps we shall never know, but it wouldn’t surprise me, wouldn’t surprise me at all!  

*******

DAY IN THE LIFE OF ME

I usually wake about 7ish, the dreams still pulling on me, repeating their song. For instance, I was playing piano at some sort of party and felt pleased that I was getting applause (I used to play a little but with Post Polio Syndrome dragging at my fingers I can no longer do so - my guitar playing days also are far behind me. Hey, I’m not looking for sympathy. That’s just the way it is!). Then some singer joined in and she was good! But she was drowned out by some rappers giving it some, so she and I stopped! Such a shame.
            Anyway, now fully awake I then take my tablets and usually have an electric shave in bed as I can’t shave sitting up (arms again). Then usually strapping my mobile phone around my neck I get up and make my way to the toilet. Blast! I’d forgotten to strap my mobile around my neck! Never mind, I’m not likely to fall over now. Wrong!
            I found myself sprawled on the floor my weak leg trapped under me and me yelling:
            “NO! NO! NO! NO!” and “F**^”*+-~****!”
             It was a mixture of pain and anger, anger at my stupidity for forgetting my mobile (cell-phone to you Yanks out there). The pain I was used to – actually you don’t ever get used to it but you kind of accept it. Now I had to drag myself to the home-phone (land-line) which takes me about ten minutes, hence the expletives. I remembered the last time that I got all the way to the door of the lounge and forgot to take my ‘grabber’ to open the door with, so I was not going to make THAT mistake again. So with my grabber in my teeth I inched my way to the lounge door and with the grabber I pulled the handle down and opened the door, dragged myself over to the home-phone, deliberately knocked it off the table by pulling on the cable and dialled my sister.
             However, Frank, my brother-in-law, answered the phone, I explained the situation and then he in turn phoned my nephew Quen. I settled down to wait!
            Of course I’ve done this little bit of business twice before and broke my ankle, my foot having lodged between armchair and table-leg. I screamed at the top of my voice but my mother being a little deaf failed to hear me! So – wearing my phone this time – I dialled for my nephew. 10 minutes later Quenton rang the front door bell AND knocked – remembering that grandma was a little hard of hearing! My mother opened the door and was surprised when Quen – gently pushing past her – explaining to her as he went that I had fallen over!
        “Well I didn’t hear anything, dear” she said, and immediately felt SO bad that she hadn’t heard me call her, then I felt bad because of her failing to hear me…and so on. I was six weeks in hospital that time! What an idiot.
            The second time I tripped and in the process of trying to prevent myself from falling, smashed my elbow on a mobile gas-fire. My other nephew Joel (a musician who play’s drums) and his mate Phil came to the rescue this time – mother having phoned on this occasion. They found me sprawled in a corner. They got me up but my arm was making a crunching, grinding sort of sound and hung limply by my side. Joel put his ear near to my arm and said: “Yea, I think it’s broken, Paul!”
             Another six weeks in hospital!
            However THIS time was just another run-of-the-mill fall!
            Later on in the evening I put oven chips, veggie sausages and onions on a tray in the oven. 45 minutes later I fried some eggs - my mouth already slavering at the prospect of what was to come - and put them on a plate. I opened the oven door and with one hand balancing me, and, with the other hand, carefully took out the tray containing chips, sausages and onions with a cloth and placed it – the other hand still balancing me – on the table. With the same hand I gently closed the oven door (still with me?) and without looking lent on the table - a reflex action as my balance is so crap…but I also lent on the tray containing chips, sausages and onions and in the blink of an eye flipped the tray and its contents all over the floor!
            “AHHHHHHHH!” I screamed. “F***++!!!^^**!” (a similar expletive to the above expletive), I raved.  And then a profound peace and calm descended upon me. I instantly accepted the situation!
            With my trusty grabber I proceeded to pick up every chip, every sausage and every piece of onion, putting them all onto my plate of eggs.
            Did I eat them? Well it was a VERY clean floor….

POEMS:

Until next time, amigos!
LUV N’ LITE N’ LARFTER

Paul Bura
May 2008.

THE BURA BLOGGERY

HELLO AMIGOES!

The following is a Foreword that I wrote for George E Moss’s book: SOLUMET. However there are two pieces: the other is THE GREAT FORGETTING. I hope you can make sense of them both and I urge you to email me on ANYTHING that I have written in my monthly bloggery so far.

FOREWARD
To the book on the teachings of
“ SOLUMET”
(2006)

From the Foreword by PAUL BURA on the book SOLUMET by George E Moss.

*******

THE GREAT FORGETTING
(2007 by Paul Bura)

We all suffer from it, and it’s quite a common complaint - though not ‘common’ in the strictest sense of the word. What am I talking about? Spiritual Amnesia is what I’m talking about,‘TheGreatForgetting’.

“Forgetting what? Forgetting where? Forgetting whom?” I hear you question! Why, WHAT we are, WHERE we are going, and to WHOM we are going toward?

Let me put it in poetic sense (or nonsense depending on your point of reference): we are tiny beads of perspiration on the brow of the Infinite created from the Big Bang (s???)! But only to appear again in the primeval soup of so-called reality, about to embark on a journey, a journey so fantastic and so immense that this laptop, or a million laptops, could not cope. For life is eternal, forever, in ALL places: free to be IN form, or OUT of form, yet never bound by form. THIS then is the ultimate in Freedom! (Freedom being the main word in this piece)

However, there is one rule and one rule only:
 THAT YOU DO NO HARM TO ANYONE OR ANY THING, ESPECIALLY SENTIENT BEINGS. THIS IS THE RULE OF LOVE.

Any misdemeanour that you do will not only harm that sentient being, but also yourself and the Infinite that sent you. Why? Because you are an aspect of the Infinite that sent you and this would be termed self harm, for we are all prospective Gods in the making! Of course when I say SENT it seems as if you have no choice in the matter. This is when this element of forgetting kicks in! There is always choice. The Infinite IS the ‘choice’, nothing happens against your will. There IS nothing else but Infinity and Freedom (that word again) and Love and the most magnificent adventure ever devised! And this adventure will teach you that where there is love there is compassion and forgiveness and freedom, even the power of forgiving yourself, for it is inevitable that you will make mistakes - errors - along the way. These elements are all contained in the word LOVE.
                                                           
The universe is alive. Every rock every drop of rain rings and sings with life, there is no beginning and no end to it.  AND ALL OF THIS WE TEND TO FORGET?

 Whenever fear embraces us we go into ‘forget-mode’, we forget that love, not fear is forever. Not tomorrow, not yesterday, but NOW, in this very moment. ‘All There Is’ is contained in this moment, this precious little - or vast - moment and if you understand just a quarter of what I’ve written then you’ll KNOW that!
Of course you will know that, for you are a droplet of the God that created you! A God in miniature: Quantum Mechanics. One day you will realise this…and believe me I’m only just beginning to get my head around all of this and I’ve only had a mere glimpse, merely scratched the surface of this thing called God!

Fear is an emotion, Love (or the Infinite, or Freedom, or God) just IS!

AND NOW AMIGOS THE POEM (YAWN) that you’ve all been waiting for with baited breath:

(From the poetry collection BACK TO BACK on menu bar)

ADIOS AMIGOS
UNTIL NEXT TIME

Paul Bura
April 2008.

*****

BURA’S MARCH BLOGGERY

HELLO AMIGOES!

The following took place fairly recently but the ‘Peter Cushing’ saga took place nearly twelve years ago but I thought it worth repeating just to ram home the thought  that life or so-called
death is indeed a continuum!

NEVER STRIKE A HAPPY MEDIUM IN FULL FLOW
As most of you will know my mumma passed to the 4th dimension (passed over) on the 4th November 2007. It’s difficult to put into words the gap she has left in all our lives. But I shall not repeat the eulogy, though perhaps I should have added (in the eulogy) that in her days off work she could be found either building a green house or re-pointing the chimney…just for relaxation you understand!! That said I would like to report that when she passed it was the night after that I had a dream: she (my mumma) was pulling my bedclothes off of me and showing herself in her mid-30’s, vibrant and young with rosy cheeks and oh so, so happy! The odd thing was that she was surrounded by children, climbing trees, dancing, playing hop-scotch and all the things that children do. I was describing my dream to my sister when it struck me like a thunderbolt…the children were US! She was at her happiest when we were children and that is why she gave a clarion call of complete and utter joy!
            Later on she ‘appeared in the kitchen’. Just prior to that Melly – one of my sisters – wanted to know how she was now and what it was like during the so-called dying process? She said:

             “Tell Melly: the light took me, and I lay in this light for I don’t know how long but I was completely at peace and overwhelmingly happy. Then, another light joined my light and I realised that it was my parents (my grandparents) and I was SO happy to see them, SO very happy!”

            This was not the first time that folk have appeared to me. The last time was quite recent. A friend of mine (she used to be our manager during the Health Food Shop days) contacted me from ‘the other side’ so to speak. She had died of breast cancer and wanted me to tell her husband and children that she was okay:

            “There was no pain to speak of but I was not prepared to go and leave you all. But I’ve learnt here that that’s the way of things. Death (so called) is so easy, John, I was riding the light but for how long I don’t know: it could have been a hundred years for all I knew or it could have been minutes. I miss you all so much but I will still be there with you for a while. I’ll tell you what though: I wasn’t prepared to use the services of Paul. That came as quite a shock. But he is a friend I can trust, and you must trust him too! This is NOT goodbye only a fond farewell…for a while. Trust me! I can’t describe the indescribable but it’s not all harps and angels just …well, indescribable! When your turn comes I can only say: ‘It’s a breeze!’”

            A dear friend of mine passed over. Now he was an ‘old soul’. He was well into the mystical way being somewhat of a mystic himself. He was a 2nd world war pilot flying spitfires and still – at aged 85 – was flying one of those micro-light aircraft and still driving an ancient sports car. He was well into dowsing (one of the best dowsers that I knew) and was an archaeologist. He’d just come back from a flying trip, landed safely but tripped rather badly breaking a couple of ribs (he didn’t crash as some are saying), but true to form he drove the 50 miles to his home (his home in Ashurst, Sussex, next to what was regarded as his church) but couldn’t get out of the car until a neighbour found him. His name was David Russell and he accompanied us on many a psychic quest. He used to attend once a week meetings that I held for Earth Healing and Psychic Development in Sussex and he used to sit in exactly the same settee every time. Now I have to say that I have that exact ‘same’ settee in my office and it was from here that he dictated a letter to his family:

            “I want you to know Paul that I am quite well and to tell my family (including my wife) that I was not happy to go…at first, but then I ‘knew’ without question that this was my time. I could have recovered from my wounds, broken limbs etc. but then I just ‘let it all happen’!
            I was very moved to see you all in Church (I came to regard it as MY Church, I think for obvious reasons) and to see all those that I loved, especially my wife and children together again. Let there be no ill-feeling!
            It was very odd to see the whole Church packed and to suddenly realise that they had all come to ‘see me off’. And such kind words, I really don’t deserve them, but you [by you I think he meant ALL of those that spoke] said them and I’m very grateful, so that is that!
            I think that is all I have to say, Paul, except to say that many of my old comrades were there to welcome me over and I’m truly having a grand time of it! Bless you all. My affairs will take care of themselves. That’s all. Thank you Paul for listening and typing all of this down! It feels strange to say goodbye for this is not goodbye…but it is for now!”

Finally – and this also concerned David Russell – I was given a carved walking stick to sychromatise (a method of receiving clairvoyance by touch). I watched as the mists on the screen of my mind cleared and I saw and felt that this belonged to a man of the theatre, a man of stage and screen.               Suddenly, without warning PETER CUSHING (star of the Hammer Horror films usually taking the part of Doctor Frankenstein) stood in front of me and he asked to be remembered to MICHAEL BENTINE (author of THE DOOR MARKED SUMMER and DOORS OF THE MIND, who David Russell knew) and to give a message to David to say that “Everything that he said about Life after Death was true” and also to say that ROY CASTLE was here with him – another actor, dancer, comedian and musician who had died of cancer a few months before - this comedian was trying to get a message through to his wife (who Michael Bentine also knew!) to say that “Everything was okay and that: the jazz over here is fantastic!”  (Roy was a jazz fanatic and played jazz trumpet)
            I phoned David Russell and asked him to tell Michael Bentine (who also passed a few years back) about the message from Peter Cushing and also to pass the message from Roy Castle on to his wife Fiona. David phoned him and Michael said: “I only met Peter Cushing once and all we spoke about was LIFE AFTER DEATH!”  
            I was watching an old ‘Doctor Who’ movie the next day and guess who played the film version of The Doctor? Peter Cushing! And guess who played his assistant? You guessed it: Roy Castle! A real cosco, eh? (Cosmic coincidence)

          These are just a few of the communications that I’ve received through the years.

            So it gives us (my family and I) great comfort to know that our darling mumma is well and happy and just a frequency away!

NOW FOR THE POEMS,

ADIOS AMIGOS
UNTIL NEXT TIME

Paul Bura
March 2008

THE BURA BLOGGERY

HELLO AMIGOES!

If you find the following piece offensive in any way – in the light of my usual pieces – or a betrayal, then all I can say is you do not in my view possess a sense of humour. The following ‘happened’ and as a writer I feel it my duty to tell it the way it was…with a minuscule or smidgen of embellishment, and if you do not find it in any way amusing, then tough!                                 

A BORDERLINE CASE FOR SURGERY
(A letter to my friend Julian Young in Paris)

DEAR JEWELS:
    Well, I've had the tube inserted up my ‘todger’ [my specialist’s terminology, not mine!] and another up my rectum all for the sake of the X-Ray art of picture taking. Of course they weren't aware of my physical difficulties (no change there!) and the specialist had obviously not mentioned it in his notes (no change there!) as when I was 35-years-old and my arms had become weak because of Post Polio Syndrome (You know that now but I didn't know that then!) and a doddery old Herr doctor looked up at me from my notes, his small, steel spectacles glinting in the sunlight streaming in through the window - the notes went back from my early days of polio - and said:

                                                                                                                                                DOC: "Zo, your RIGHT arm is za strong arm unt your left is za veak        arm, Mr Bura?"                                                                                                                            

ME:     "Eh no, it's the other way round, actually," I said.                                     

DOC:   "Now look here, Mr Bura, it's down here in za black and vite!"                  

ME:     "I don't care whether it's down there in purple with yellow spots," I  said, “They have got it wrong. I do know my own body, you know…intimately!" (Somebody had blundered: no change there then!)

    Anyway, cutting to the chase: meanwhile in the X-ray department they had brought in reinforcements, an extra two nurses! "This is gonna be fun," I quipped. "What we would like you to do, Mr Bura, if you can, is to pee into this bucket”!  (What they call flow control), “what would you like US to do?" "Eh, well," I said, "if you would stand me up and support me I'll have a go at peeing into the bucket!" (Incidentally, I had to go to the hospital with a full bladder and I was busting to go!) I lent on the X-ray table for support whilst Quenton (my nephew) held me from behind.        They waited. I waited. They waited a little longer. "Eh, would you like us to go away?" said a nurse ruefully, "Um, yes," I said politely, prodding my bladder region, "I think that would be best." After all four pairs of eyes staring at you is bound to put a chap off, isn't it?
     
            After I had peed in the bucket they all trooped back in.

            Then it was a case of ‘The lifting of Bura’ up onto the X-ray table.   I asked Quen if he could help, as he's used to me by now. Quen went behind the table and asked whether he could stand on it as the table was rather wide. "NO!" came the strangled cry of the radiologist [or whatever he’s called]. The female doctor waded in. "I've not got a bad back as so many of you have so would you like me to help?" "All for one and one for all, Doc'," I said (No, I didn't actually say that but words to that affect).
            With that they ALL hauled me up and onto the table. "You're lighter than we thought," said a nurse poised to shove a tube up my penis and another up my posterior, "I'm permanently on a diet," I stated firmly. Then they lay me down and got hold of my todger [Did I mention that my Urologist called it that?].

            I’ve never, ever, got used to all this: the cold sensation as the local aesthetic is being applied up my penis followed by the tube and the slight pain as it circumnavigates my slightly swollen prostate!

            Now we were set. "Is there a small camera up my bum?" I asked. "No,” said the nurse, “Well it bloody well feels like it”, I said. “No we are just pumping in air to measure the pressure which shows up on a gauge," they said. "Can you measure this?" I said, and broke wind. [No I didn't actually, but I dearly wanted to].

    They started to fill my bladder up with some kind of dye, a painless sensation but I started to want to pee again awfully badly (naturally). They took a few pictures of them all smiling into the camera with the tube up and under… then they took a few X-Rays! And then - and this was the part that really worried me - they started to tip the table to the vertical, the weight gradually coming stronger on my feet and legs. "SSTOPP!" I cried, “I want to move my feet forward!" I was starting to panic now. They started to lower me back again. "No, no need for that I...I, yes that's better (I moved my feet forward a little thus adjusting my balance), that's it, you can start again now," I said politely but firmly. I asked whether I could lean on the machine (a lean machine!) in front of me and they said: yes. They took a few more X-Rays and then they asked me to pee the dye out in the bucket!                                                                      
            They waited. I waited.                                                                                             
            "Shall we bugger off again?" they said, apologising for the awful pun.                "Yes, that would be nice," I said. They buggered off and I peed. And then they all came back in again.

They turned the table to the horizontal, took the tubes out, got me down and into the wheelchair and I was told to report back when I was dressed.

    The result? I'm a BORDERLINE CASE FOR SURGERY, it's up to my urologist as to whether he wealds the knife or not. He STILL considers that I’m too young!    “Um, one question, Mr Haiku (the name of my urology specialist; well it sounds like Haiku, anyway) “Yes, Paul.” “If I DO have the operation…um, would I still be able to…er…can I still…well, you know…?”
            “Have sex?” said Mr Haiku, obviously having answered that particular question a thousand times.                                                                                       “Um, well yes.”
            “The success rate is 90%!” said Mr Haiku, smiling!

            Needless to say Jules, mon ami, I still haven’t had it done!   
           
THE THREE L's
le Paul      
PS. This was four years ago!

ONLY ONE POEM THIS TIME, AMIGOES!

UNTIL NEXT MONTH, MY AMIGOES!

Paul

Febuary 2008

BURA’S BLOGGERY

HAPPY NEW YEAR AMIGOS!

VICTOR CARASOV
By Paul Bura

It was 1973, and my good friend Peter McKay and his then wife Linda were managing a pub in the Dover area in the county of Kent. I was invited over for the afternoon and was sitting in a sort of garden recess when I spotted him. I say spotted him it was more to the point that I HEARD him before I actually saw him. He had a kind of staccato voice with the edges rounded off, a machine-gun sort of delivery, and he SHOUTED when he got excited, which was more often than not.
           He was wearing a bright pink track-suit and looked, facially, like a bank manager with bright, sparkling, energetic, and above all, intelligent eyes. He was, if I were to guess, in his late 50’s and his new wife (whose name I’m ashamed to say I’ve forgotten) appeared to be in her late 40’s. I was correct with her age, but way off mark regarding his! He was over 70.
            Peter introduced me to him. It was like being verbally plugged-in to Battersea Power Station. Such was the energy of this man’s personality that I was taken completely off-guard. He drowned me. Not in some vicious way, but in a kindly, open way.
            This was Victor Carasov. A small-time hotel thief who had spent over 50 years of his life in jail, 50 years of brutality and deprivation; 50 years of being considered mad at one time and just plain eccentric the other; 50 years of institutionalised banality; a few months on the outside and then IN again.
            From a converted war-ship where he was sent for stealing a bicycle aged 11 to get away from a stepmother who smothered him in religion and God, to jail after jail after jail.
            Do you pity him or despise him? Victor takes no pity. Despise him? You can’t despise a man like Victor Carasov: impossible, absolutely impossible.
            Peter asked him if he could buy a copy of his just published book: Two Gentleman to See You, Sir (the story of a villain). Peter gave him the money for the book as he had asked for the cash in advance. Victor disappeared for three hours. Everyone thought the worse. They all thought that he’d gone off with the money - even me! But he had a new wife and he was on his honeymoon. Surely not!
            He came back in the early evening with the book duly signed: To Peter and Linda. With the money I shall buy some food! VICTOR CARASOV.

            Towards the end he went slightly off the rails. His wife had left him and he was doing a short spell inside. He’d robbed a small hotel. Old habits die hard, yet he had set up a police program where he gave lectures to young prisoners about the perils of crime. No one could tell it ‘the way it was’ better than Victor Carasov.
            I wrote to him in prison and he wrote back. He was very depressed. When he came out, he was in his mid 70’s, and after years of rejecting the God within he embraced Catholicism.

            One day he came to see me at my home in Herne bay, and I learned a little more about him. For instance, he played clarinet. I too played clarinet! And we talked about religion, or rather HE talked religion.
            But he was lonely too, very lonely. He didn’t admit to it, but I knew. Laughing and shouting in my front room was too much for my mother, just TOO MUCH, and she escaped to the kitchen.
            When at last I said goodnight, after driving him to the station, I didn’t think that I would hear from him again. I was wrong. He rang me and wanted to come over. I shielded the mouthpiece of the phone and said quietly: “It’s Victor, he wants to come over!” One look from my mother and that was it, finito! I tried to explain to him about the problem, making up any excuse that I could. It was with a heavy heart that I put the phone down. I felt so guilty. If I’d have been on my own he would have been very welcome, but…
           
            About a year later, I received a letter from two ladies who owned a café. Victor used to come in for his meals. I guess he must have told them about me or how could they have known where to write? I visited the café and the ladies told me what they knew. They said Victor was ill. Then I got a letter from a priest saying that Victor had died and would I like to write something for him in the church magazine?

            When Victor was buried, it was on a Good Friday. The clouds gathered in the afternoon and there was thunder, lightening and rain. At 3 0’clock precisely the sun came out, a shaft of light lit up the church and hit Victor’s coffin, which shone brilliantly: The thief on the cross was accepted into paradise by his Lord!

            I can’t exactly remember what I wrote in the parish magazine, but it ended with: “Death where is thy sting, grave where is Victor?” Arrogantly, I knew the answer to that particular question.

Excerpt from “STEPPING TO THE DRUMMER” available here or by choosing "books" on the MENU BAR.

These two poems were from my
collection of poems BRAND NEW!
Just press BOOKS on menu bar!

HAPPY NEW YEAR, AMIGOS!!!

LUV N’ LITE N’ LARFTER!

Paul Bura
January 2008

BURA’S CHRISTMAS BLOGGERY

AMIGOES

CHRISTMAS AND THE WEIGHT
    OF THE WORLD  

Listen, less we miss the echo in the dark, the dank echo of a month or so ago when the world was chaotic and had charisma and character and was Christmas! When the weight of the world lay at the end of our beds; appeared, when our gentle snoring had at last brought our genie of a father unsteadily up the stairs to listen to us breathe, and safe in the knowledge of our sleeping gently lay his burdens down, fearing to wake us as he lurched and swayed from room to room, his clanking, clinking clutch of stockings reeking of tangerines and tin and the lick of pink sugar-mice. A whiff of a cigar lay dangling on his lips leaving its stain of a smell to mingle with the odour of sherry and pine needles.
            On waking with excitement at about 6 0’clock, the weight of our world at our feet, we’d rummage around nibbling on the mice and smelling the fruit and tooting on our tin, we would meet on the landing and creep down the stairs and into the lounge and make for the forbidden tree of Good and Evil that dripped its silver and winked its lights over forbidden treasure wrapped in colours that were ripe for the peeling. Oh what soft or hard fruit lay within? Then shoving and shushing and giggling we’d stuff ourselves with chocolate not noticing the pad of parental feet on the soft carpet on the curve of the stairs ordering us up to bed again where we contained our overflowing joy.
            Breakfast at last, of Grapefruit, eggs and bacon and buttered toast, our minds already on the prospect of presents: “Thank-you-God-for-a-good-meal-and-please-mummy-can-I-get-down?” We sang this mantra at breakneck speed already half way off of our chairs where we paused, waiting for the ‘yes’ and when it came we scrambled out in the garden to try out the latest toy or test our newly acquired skills at target practice, lost in a world of wonder and ice-coated trees.
            We didn’t want it to end.
            The carols we sang heralded the coming of Christmas and called to us in every shop and alleyway, every corner of every street. We could almost taste the mince pies and Christmas pudding.
The smell of darkness, the smell that always came before Christmas when the evenings drew in sharp as a tack and the still of the evening was pierced with the robin’s tic tic tic warning-call that filled the semi-darkness and the throaty, fruitier sound of the blackbird, the smell of the damp earth with the leaves rotting down in time for winter.
           That was glory for us, real and ‘coming’glory.
           The smell of darkness was Christmas, and as long as I live will ever be!

*******

On the 4th of November my mother died. I wrote this eulogy for the priest to read – a fellow poet – who did a fair job of it, I, you understand, could not go through with it. But I managed to read the poem THE RED KITE without breaking down but when I said to my mother’s wicker-work coffin: “Freedom at last, Mumma, Freedom at last!” it came out as a gasping croak and I crumpled into a blubbering heap! But my brother Kevin took the reins and sang a song for his mother accompanied on his fine acoustic guitar.

EULOGY

PAULINE MELINDA BURA was the hardest working, kindest and most generous lady that you could ever wish to meet. She was the rock on which the Bura Family rested (When they got older they could always tap her for a couple of quid!)

Mind you, she was also shrewd. Up until she died she didn’t owe a penny. She taught all of her children to be shrewd, or careful, if you like.

            She came from a very poor family; her father was in the navy.  And he and her mother were very strict (see LITTLE RESTAURANT ON THE PROM on menu bar). She trained to be a dancer but it was her father who was the ‘pushy’ one – usually it was the ‘pushy mother’! But it was HE that found her first dancing teacher and when she was 15 went on to the professional stage working with such luminaries as Jack Buchannan, and George Formby.
            Her husband was a professional wrestler (what a combination, eh?) and they moved to Herne Bay in Kent to open up their first fish restaurant: THE OYSTER BAR and was the biggest fish restaurant on the South East coast and the first restaurant to serve crinkly chips.
            When she had her children she carried on working like a Trojan. She supported ALL of them: Kevin, Melvina, Josephine, Paul, in their chosen professions!

            She divorced in 1960 but went on working as a waitress and finally as a cook just to help pay the bills as their father had gone bankrupt leaving her to pick up the pieces!
            She also took a job in a pie factory and finally as a ‘carer’ in an old folks home.
            When Paul and a partner (Peter McKay) opened a Whole Food Store she used to bake wholemeal loaves and carried them in an old trolley - still warm - three miles to the shop, she also baked veggie pasties and pies.
            There was just no stopping this unstoppable little woman who was just over 5 foot tall – if the truth were known she was slightly UNDER five foot tall…but don’t tell her I said that!
            She was a human dynamo…AND became a vegetarian at aged 50.
            When most of the family moved to Sussex where Josie and her brother Paul opened another whole food shop, she STILL baked the bread!
            When she was 70 she went into a deep depression and sulked for 3 weeks, you see she just didn’t LIKE being 70!

            She could be difficult and down-right flighty, but that was her nature. But she was the most loving and irrepressible person you could wish to meet.
            “The hills of Wales,” she said, “get under my feet and there are no decent supermarkets, only those that you have to drive for blooming miles to get too!”

            In the last few years she got weaker physically but her spirit was as indomitable as ever.

She and Paul lived together all their lives and will miss her terribly, as they ALL will. When Paul got polio at aged 7 she always swore that she would always be therefor him…well, she very nearly made it too!  

Here’s to you PAULINE MELINDA BURA , may the journey be comfortable and the hills never get under your feet! And remember this always, we all love you and cherish you!
            May the Infinites’ wings carry and protect you and set you down where ever you want to be!

SEE YOU NEXT YEAR, AMIGOS,
MAY THE INFINITE SMILE ON US ALL
AND GIVE US PEACE!

LUV N’ LITE N’ LARFTER
PAUL BURA
Christmas 2007

BURA’S BLOGGERY

AMIGOS!

BUSKING

My then brother-in-law Barry Cole (Jazz musician supreme) and I made our dubious way to London. We had it in mind to do a days busking in old London Town, me on banjo (4 chords only) and Barry on his old trusty tenor sax.
            We filled up with petrol (costing about £1. 80 in those far off days) and set off at about 9-30ish in the morning stuffing my wheelchair in the boot of Barry’s Renault.
            We arrived in London just after 11am just opposite a tube station in the centre of London (can’t remember what tube station off hand). Barry got my wheelchair out and I got in it, he handed me my banjo got his tenor sax out and we set off, me carrying the banjo case and the tenor case on my wheelchair. We found a place (still opposite the tube station) and set up. We started off with me belting out “Whiskey Headed Women” and Barry backing me up. When it came to the ‘middle eight’ Barry was away with the fairies jazzing his little socks off (hell could he play!). We continued like this: “The St Louie Blues” and “Stuttering Sam” (which I wrote) and some other blues standards; my repertoire was rather limited, thank God Barry was there to extend the ‘middle eights’ to ‘middle 32s’ somewhat otherwise we would have been through our set in 20 minutes! Suddenly it began to rain 10p pieces. Two young girls were hanging out of a window directly above us throwing money and then started to clap enthusiastically along with the music.
            A guy with a rather wry smile passed us carrying a guitar case he disappeared down the entrance of the tube!
            In all we made about £1 60 and as we were getting cold Barry suggested that we pack it in. However, before we drove off Barry decided to go into the tube station to see what the guy with the guitar was doing.
            Barry came back and he said: “Stone me, dad, we should have followed that guy with the guitar, he’s making a bloody fortune down there. No wonder he was smiling, AND it’s warm!”

            We blew the £1.60 on a curry…yes, in those days you could get a curry for two for about £1.60!
            We were home by 4pm! 
         

JOURNEY FROM ALPHA TO OMEGA…AND BACK

It is said that when a great soul passes into so-called death that they become absorbed into All That Is. Souls such as the Buddha, Ghandi, Jesus, Krishna but also aspiring souls, such as Treya Wilber, whose story is so beautifully (and movingly) told in Ken Wilber’s great book “GRACE AND GRIT”.

            I wrote a poem years ago, a line of which reads “When I no longer have a name then I too would merge with the Eternal”. This is what I believe but in truth when I have come close to God, to Oneness, and merely touched the Eternals face I have suffered horribly for my pains: after the ecstasy then follows the agony. Yet I still hunger for that moment of bliss. I say hunger; it’s a gentle hunger now, more a sense of: when it happens it happens. The impatience has fallen from me. Yes, let me get a little bit more spiritual awareness under my soul’s belt; then we’ll see.

            Now my questions are these: when we merge with All That Is and finally let go of this 3 dimensional world and all that’s in it do we really lose our identity? Can we still be found in the stillness on a lake; the wind; the rain; the trees and all that grows in silence; the soul of the planet etc? Or can we re-emerge as a single entity again, coming and going as we please in service? And what of the Great White Brotherhood: are these mere aspects of the real masters, each one representing a part of the whole? Or am I missing the point somehow?

            I suspect that they are still keeping a toe dipped in the ocean of All That Is.They come again to help man/womankind, help in their spiritual struggles, help to become what they are themselves: THE ETERNAL PRESENCE, help us not to trip over, but - if we do - help us to our feet again and lead the way out of this spiritual maze, having trod the agony and the joy themselves, having to come to that searing conclusion that it was all worth while.  

            Having said that, it’s still a wonderful journey that we’re on, because a journey - or adventure - is what it is: an incredible yet painful adventure back to OURSELVES, back to the God that spawned us in the first place!

            We all stand up and fall over again and it’s these wonderful beings from whom we seek instruction and wisdom, these great beings that will gently - though not always gentle - haul us to our feet and point us in the right direction, beings that are always there for us.

            It doesn’t matter a hoot what religion you are, it doesn’t matter if you adjure to no religion at all as long as you serve each other with love, compassion and kindness these are all the tools that you need – though the first and the greatest of these is LOVE! Whether you serve the nature God Pan, or the Sun God Ra, they are all aspects of the One.

            But how do we know what path to take? How do we know what teacher to follow? In my experience, if you truly want it, they make an appearance at the right time and in the right place. A poem could point the way, but it doesn’t mean that THAT poet is your teacher. A phrase or comment in a magazine or newspaper will set your spirit on fire, but that doesn’t mean you should take notice of the whole article; something that someone says or does; the sound of a piece of music; a particular smell that evokes a memory of something or someone that you’ve forgotten. It really doesn’t matter. They are all signposts. And then AND THEN your teacher, as if by magic, will appear!

            Teachers come in many guises: the man or woman next door; a particular author; a composer; a person who, up to that particular time, you had taken no notice of because you deemed him or her not worth listening to, but now you realise they have something to say that is of great value to you simply by something that they said and how they said it. That’s important: how they said it. Or a face in a crowd that fills you to the very brim with compassion and love…but you don’t know why; by listening for the very first time to an aunt or uncle, or your own mother, yes, your own MOTHER or FATHER, those people that are -seemingly - so un-cool. It can take a long time to listen to your folks, to wake up to the fact that even THEY are capable of wisdom and insight!

            But in choosing the Teacher, well, that’s up to you. When you’ve followed all those little resonating signposts (and they will still continue to wave at you) they will all merge into a kind of whole, but if you choose to continue listening to God - or whatever you deem to call this great universal power - through the medium of great poets, musicians, aunts, uncles, etc. you will have, of course, already have cracked it! You have ALREADY chosen! You are recognising TRUTH, and truth is the Eternal One: the God of Love and Compassion, THE GREATEST TEACHER OF THEM ALL!
            Good luck on your journey of adventure, on your chosen path, no matter how cracked and crazy the paving!

NOTE: First published in NEW VISION and contained in the book: THE STRANGER ON THE THRESHOLD (Bosgo Press £6.99) on the menu bar!   

And now Amigos a bit of verse:

ADIOS AMIGOS, SEE YOU NEXT MONTH!
LUV N’ LITE N’ LARFTER.
Paul Bura
November 2007

BURA'S BLOGGERY

AMIGOS!

THE LLANGEFNI HENGE 'ACTIVATED
(Llangefni, Angelsey 9/9/06 3:45pm)

It had been some 10 years since Joy Byner, Leslie and I had worked together creating and releasing light. Also the bonus of working with Terry Monnery, not only did he balance out the male/female and work harmoniously with the girls checking to see whether I had map dowsed (a very rough drawing of the circle) and see if I was correct in my findings of energy, but he also had the job of pushing Bura through thick grass toward the circle in the wheelchair, toward the centre of the henge which had been constructed years before in 1957 for the Eisteddfod in Wales, a druidic ceremony. This stone circle was a comparative youngster in the stone henge stakes!

(The Eisteddfod is a cultural event held in the Welsh language which involves singing - well naturally singing, this country is, after all, dubbed the Land of Song! - recitations, dance, music and poetry. Now, however, all countries, cultures and traditions are welcome!)

Joy, Leslie and Terry visited each stone in turn (of which there were 12) calling out whether the stone was active or not - my map dowsing was, to say the least, rusty. But I was 85 to 90% accurate! (Surprise, Surprise!) I had done a check the day before and counted the stones from the road. However, I couldn't see that the small pointer stone that sat east of the stone circle was in fact 'indented' by about half the distance to the centre ceremony stone and was lined up with the ceremony stone and a larger stone on the perimeter, which sat perfectly (as far as I could make out, confirmed by my pendulum) to the west. We hadn't time to check it out but it would seem that the sun 'rose' over the small pointer or marker stone in the east and 'set' behind the larger stone to the west!

When we were all settled around the ceremony stone I asked if I should begin? All heads nodded. That said I suggested they all stand where they found themselves naturally to be: which was roughly the four cardinal points a fact that I hadn't realised until I had came to write this piece. With the gentle angelic force coursing through me they (the force) made passes with my arms and hands and I found myself smiling. I hadn't done this work since The Bosham Stone [See article on menu bar] and it was ALWAYS so gentle.

My psychic vision is always drawn toward certain spirals of energy where stands, usually stooped over, my 'version' of the Earth Goddess. She is beautiful (of course) and classically dressed in Greek gossamer-type material, high breasted and bare-footed, but stooped. My job is to stand her up again.

For something as awesome as unplugging a blockage that had been in place for thousands of years so as the Earth Goddess could stand up again and give out this pure, radiant energy and knowledge, you'd have thought it would be more violent somehow, more of a struggle, considering this knowledge had been plugged, or sealed, so that the negative forces could not get hold of it!

Well perhaps that was then, THIS was now! I don't pretend to know 'how or why'; just that what we were doing - and Fountain was continuing to do - was important: pouring light and love back into the planetary system where it belonged and encouraging and helping back-up the changes. It is, after all, up to mankind to make the first move!

Leslie's vision (or version) of the Goddess was of a very young woman Her body curled round in the foetal position. Then, during my angelic passes, She began to unfurl and slowly stand up: a very beautiful, naked, young woman (I sometimes wish that I saw Her that way!) with Her arms raised. She was free, free at last!

I uttered words of encouragement in the form of a short prayer, followed by Leslie, then followed in turn by Terry, and finally Joy. "So Be It and So It Is!"

(After that I was pushed toward the little 'marker stone'. Either that stone was trembling or I was: it was like being in front of a small fire only I couldn't feel heat. Terry was with me and felt the same. The girls were checking out each stone, some male and some female, and every one was alive! The next day I dowsed the drawing of the henge and found a connecting Courier Line that ran almost North/South, but curiously NOT through the centre 'ceremony stone'. But then I've learned in this work that nothing is what it ought to be!

JOB DONE!

PS. I had seen the Stooping Goddess for the last nine years and hadn't got anybody to help me with Her plight. The Fountaineers came to the rescue and it was perfect, a perfect Cosco! (cosmic coincidence!).

And now a poem or two: I went gliding for the first time. This was the result!

ADIOS AMIGOS

LUV N’ LITE N’ LARFTER

Paul Bura
October 2007

MY AMIGOES

INFINITE HUMOUR

Spike Milligan 1918-2002

(For Spike Milligan)
On February 27th 2002 one of my heroes died. Sir Spike Milligan: humorist, satirist, poet, novelist, humanitarian, vegetarian, and creator of the infamous GOON SHOW.
He went from this place of war, fear, anger and mistrust.

Spike wasn’t a perfect man by any means but as a clown supreme he was a genius in the art of creating laughter, even though he suffered horribly with manic depression brought on by severe shellshock during the 2nd World War where he served as a gunner. Only in later years did he discover the antidepressant Lithium.
He said, characteristically: “When I die I want carved on my headstone: “I told you I was ill!”  This was carried out – after a two year period - but in Gallic! (His father was Irish)
This piece is not exactly about Spike but rather the Infinites relationship with humour.

Michael Bentine, author of “The Long Banana Skin” and “A Door Marked Summer” - a book of very high spiritual value - (in my opinion) and “The Doors of the Mind” was a close friend of Spike Milligan (Michael was a fellow founder of ‘The Goon Show”, along with Harry Secombe and Peter Sellers, of which Spike was the writer and creator) and more than implied that “laughter, not bread, was the staff of life!” In fact it has been proved that laughter can HEAL: when a patient in hospital (or anywhere come to that) is exposed to laughter, whether it be on television, radio or film, whatever, they heal more readily and quickly. Also when spirit healers are allowed into hospitals after an operation - with the patient’s permission of course - the results are very similar and very impressive.
When I start a poetry reading I always begin with what I call the icebreakers, poems that are guaranteed to make folk howl with laughter (well not always, but 95% of the time) thus paving the way for more philosophical and thought provoking stuff.
EXAMPLES:

THE HIGHWAYMAN
The Highwayman came riding
Over the misty moor,
     He’d had his oats
     In John O’Groats
And was riding back for more!

APPLE PIE MADNESS
        (True account)
Such an apple pie I never saw
   Baked to perfection
Apples piled high with sugar cos
   Of soft browned fruit infection.

When seated in their place of office
   Robed in pastry so fine
Placed in the oven, not the hottest,
   I awaited this creation of mine.

Carefully timed, not a second more,
I gently opened the oven door
Such a masterpiece I never saw
Here was a baker who knew the score…
Till I dropped the bastard all over the floor!

 I’ve been performing this stuff for 30 years or more, so I should know.

Roy Castle: musician, tap dancer, comedian and actor - now, like Spike, in the other world - told this story: He was working at a club, or some other venue, and he had to catch a late train home. He’d just sat down when a man, obviously the worse for drink after some sort of celebration and carrying a briefcase plus an umbrella, entered the carriage. He was rather dishevelled and he had drink stains down the front of his crumpled, though well cut (and believe me he was well cut) suit. He put the umbrella and briefcase in the overhead baggage hold, sat down and promptly fell asleep. He’d been asleep for about 15 minutes when the train came to a sudden halt for no known reason (as they do). With that he woke up, took his umbrella and briefcase out of the ‘overhead’ opened the door and stepped out! Well, being British, nobody said anything. Then a hand appeared with an umbrella in it, and then another hand appeared and he hauled himself and the briefcase back into the carriage. He slurred: “You must think I’m an awful fool,” and promptly opened the OTHER door and stepped out! (Pause for laughter?)

Can’t you see the absurdity of it all? Life is a game and we are merely the players taking on different roles in order to learn but also ENJOY ourselves. The spiritual life is the same. Sometimes we tend to take it all too seriously. Life is an abstract joy as well as a game, a sometimes painful game. It all depends on the way that you play the game.

Spike Milligan suffered too for his humour, after a serious breakdown he decided that the Elfin Oak in Kensington Gardens needed a restoration and overhaul. All those little pixies and gnomes needed repainting and a bit of tree surgery. So, as therapy, after this severe trauma, he set to work.

After a while of course he was recognised, so he put up screens. “He’s just been let out of a loony bin, he’s raving mad,” he heard someone say. This depressed Spike even more but he was determined to finish the task he had set himself…because it was for CHILDREN, and he loved children. Even his own children he used to leave tiny notes under various stones in his garden and tell them that it was from the fairies, he used to write them at night on tiny bits of paper in minuscule writing and put them in equally tiny envelopes. When all his children were asleep, he’d creep into the garden and deposit them.

He loved children and he loved making people laugh, even though at times it was an awful strain. I remember him telling a story about his little girl, Laura, who was playing in the back garden with some other kids. Spike had decided to use their garden toilet. Suddenly there was a knock at the toilet door. “Who is it?” said Spike. “It’s somebody else,” came the reply. Spike convulsed with laughter at the memory: “Only children could say that,” he said.

Spike wrote professionally for children, too. Julian Young, a journalist friend of mine, told me: “I had one of his books called ‘A BIT OF A BOOK OR A BOOK OF BITS’. The book actually did fall into bits as I thumbed it so often. The poems were so unlike anything that I had read at school.”

I miss him terribly, but although he was not a spiritual man in the conventional sense, in a way he was. He left to us a legacy of laughter that is as precious as any holy text - that reminds me: “Where is his missing Q SERIES?” This question is aimed at the BBC - and now he’s going to make even the angels laugh…don’t tell him I told you though.

The Infinite gave to us this unique ability to laugh at ourselves. Laughter is the balm of the Gods; if laughter is not present I, for one, don’t want anything to do with it.

Doctor Krishnan (A Hindu) said: “Open your mouth and say OMMMM.”
(Well, it makes me laugh, anyway.)

(In case you don’t understand the gag - I feel sure that you do – OMMMM is a spiritual mantra.)

ONLY ONE POEM THIS TIME, AMIGOES!

GRANDFATHER A wind-whipped, barrel-bellied Sand-blasted batsman Wielding a toy willow For his grandchild, Child of his first born On the sand In Cemaes Bay. Raising his arms In a mock-sock victory. For the arrow-ball Founds its mark And all that was left In the 3 pocked stump hole Was the tide Creating Another Canvas For Another Game Of Cricket!

 

LUV N’ LITE N’ LARFTER
Paul Bura - September 2007

PS. “Infinite Humour” is a chapter taken from by book THE STRANGER ON THE THRESHOLD. See BOOKS on menu bar!

HELLO AMIGOES!

Humour pays a large part in my life and I sometimes mix it with the spiritual. I’ve always said that if humour AND love is present then so am I. In my book(s) you can’t have one without the other!

I contributed to John Peel's "HOME TRUTHS" on BBC Radio4 and the following are the ones that he broadcast!

* * * *

DEAR JOHN PEEL:

Years ago we (that is Peter McKay and I) saw the legendary JIMMY WHEELER: the fiddle-playing comedian, at the same venue where he was topping the bill: THE KINGS HALL, Herne Bay! Bit of a come down as he used to have his own show on TV.

We were surprised and a little puzzled when he came on at the end of the 1st half when he should have closed the 2nd half, as he was the star of the show and the ‘Top Turn’.

When the 1st half was over Peter McKay and I went into the bar for light refreshment and lubrication. We were great Wheeler fans because of his superb ‘timing’. And there he was, standing at the bar, our hero!

Peter plucked up enough courage, fortified by a pint or two, to ask Jimmy why he had gone on at the 1st half of the show and not the 2nd half. Jimmy, with pint in hand, looked surprised. “You want to know WHY? You want to know WHY?” he bellowed, “I’ll tell you why, my ol’ son. Because if I’d ‘ave gone on at the end of the 2nd ‘alf I’d have been SO pissed I’d ‘ave fallen over! Apart from that I can’t play me bloody fiddle when I’m bleedin’ drunk! Aye, aye, son, that’s yer lot!”* And with that he turned around and ordered another pint with a whiskey chaser.

SINCERELY
PAUL BURA

[This was broadcast in 2005 for BBC HOME TRUTHS]



*Jimmy Wheeler's catch phrase!


20/11/2004

DEAR HOME TRUTHS:

The subject of ‘farting’ on last week’s Home Truths always reminds me of that piece of ‘60’s philosophy called the Desiderata (Which, incidentally was NOT found in a monastery in Baltimore in 1845 but was written by the poet Max Ereman in 1926). We always hang this piece of enlightening prose in the toilet for purposes of meditation and contemplation when the strains of the day get too much!

However, my cousin was staying with us one weekend and she emerged from said toilet shrieking with laughter. When she had calmed down we asked her what had made her laugh so uproariously. “Well,” she said, trying to hold herself together, “I was reading the Desiderata in your toilet and it said: ‘Go placidly amidst the noise and haste’, whereupon I let out an ENORMOUS fart! It then said: ‘And remember what peace there is in silence’ and there followed a gentle, but lady-like, PLOP!”

Well you can guess: every time I read the Desiderata after that, I just have to smile. Well you would, wouldn’t you!

PAUL BURA

* * * *

John Peel died three years ago and will be sadly missed but this last piece really tickled his fancy, in fact so much so that he not only broadcast it on HOME TRUTHS but featured it in his PICK OF THE WEEK!!!
Read on:


DEAR JOHN PEEL:

I used to have a holiday job! I was a C.C.C: a Convenience Coin Collector. I used to empty the doors of the cubicles of their hard earned cash, pour the contents into a cloth bag, take it back to the Council Offices and count it.

Now the LADIES toilets are usually ‘manned’ by a woman but on this occasion the lady attendant was nowhere to be seen. I had a job to do so I started to empty the first door; by the time I got to the last door I noticed that the ‘engaged’ sign was up. I didn’t take any notice and started with my noisy bunch of keys on the door. Now I was only emptying the door of the money, I couldn’t get in even if I’d wanted to, but the lady INSIDE didn’t know that and gave out a muffled scream! Quick as a flash, and in my deepest cockney voice, I said:

“Don’t worry lady, it’s only yer money I’m after!” and scarpered as fast as my legs would allow!

PAUL BURA

ADIOS AMIGOES but not before a poem or two:

ETERNAL ONE

7/12/2006

One glimpse
Saturates
The whole of
Your life

You become
Sunburned as
On the
Inside

Bronzed
In the
Eternal
Sun of freedom

Dreaming
The dream
Of
Reality

That goes
Further
Even than love
Itself

For love too
Evolves
In an endless
Stream

The Endless
Dream
Is all/That it is

And dream
Is the stuff
To wakeup
From.


MEN OF THE CLOTH



The tailoring man
Can never say
That religion tends
To get in the way
For the soul that speaks
With a mighty note
Will still be heard
In an overcoat!



QUANTUM MECHANICS

Quantum Mechanics
Is the spirit
Stripped down
To its working parts

And still trying
To touch
The face
Of God:

The mystery
Of all mysteries
The balance
Within the balance

The cogs
Still turning
In the beauty
Of the planets

But reduced
And refined
Like the purest
Of gold...

And there
You have it,
The embrace
Of the spirit

The kiss
Of the soul
Radiating out like
A small child!


ADIOS AMIGOES
LUV N' LITE N' LARFTER!
PAUL - July 2007

-----

HELLO AMIGOES!

 

A few years ago now I bought an old Standard 8 motor car. Mechanically it was okay but the body work needed a bit of attention to say the least! So I decided to 'hand paint' it.

I got to work with a fine brush and the best of paint and soon had it spick and span and gleaming like a brand new two pence piece.

I decided to christen it by taking my then girlfriend for a spin. Then, as a further treat, a Chinese meal and the cinema! (I really knew how to treat a girl in those days!)

I parked the car outside the cinema and we were just getting out, reeking of Chinese food, when a policeman approached:
POLICEMAN: (In a very policemanly voice) This your car, sir?
MYSELF: (Breathing on the paintwork and giving it a quick buff) Why yes, constable! (I said with a certain amount of pride)
POLICEMAN: Are you parking it here, sir?
MYSELF: Why yes, constable, if that's alright?
POLICEMAN: Oh yes sir. ..(He paused) it's just that for a moment I thought you were DUMPING it!

ANOTHER CAR TYPE STORY

About 30 years ago my local in Herne Bay, Kent, used to be THE GEORGE HOTEL. It came to our attention, my drinking partner, Peter McKay and my self (I only drank bitter lemons), that a certain Mr Noon was to be the new owner.

The new owner was a dapper-smart man with a little grey moustache together with his rather chubby, but pretty, wife. They had a son and daughter. The daughter's name I forget but the son's name was Peter. On occasion this 'Peter' used to serve behind the bar.and he was the absolute spitting image of Peter Noon of HERMANN AND THE HERMITS, though he claimed to be his twin brother! My mate Pete and I knew better!

Of course it turned out that in fact it was THE Peter Noon. We became good friends, and we three started to go out together, had Chinese meals together (yes, we were rather fond of Chinese food) and of course a lot of nudging went on as we ate: "It's him, isn't it, its Hermann of the Hermits?" and a scrum of giggling women would tempt the others into approaching our table leaving their men-folk glowering, "Go on, I dare you to go over and speak to him." Peter would smile that boyish smile of his and dutifully sign menus and paper serviettes.

However, Peter the Hermit soon got bored and hit on a jolly jape; a grand wheeze; a cunning plan. As he owned a vintage Rolls Royce he would dress as a chauffer together with peaked hat and all the livery, with me and Pete McKay in the back we would go into a pub and leave Peter to mind the Rolls outside. Then, after about ten minutes, he would stand in the doorway and cough discreetly into his large leather glove; we'd wave him over to have a shandie.or something. Within no time there would be some joker the worse for drink who would inevitably say: "D'you know, mate, you're the bleedin' image of that singer bloke off the tele; wot's 'is name now? That's it: Hermann and the Cavemen." "Don't you mean HERMANN AND THE HERMITS, sir?" replied our chauffeur, in haughty tone. "Yeh, that's the one! You look just like 'im!"

"Well, I think it's a real insult, me being compared to a mere pop singer!" Peter, putting his drink down firmly on the bar would turn to us both, and, so everyone could hear, would say: "I'll be waiting for you in the car, gentleman!" And left, doffing his hat and bowing, having never been so insulted in all of his life!

THE FINAL CAR STORY

I've told you about a couple of car incidents. Well at the risk of becoming boring (I just don't care!) this one happened on the A28 in Kent. I'd just returned from recording a commercial for dog biscuits in London (Voice-over) and was doing about 75-80 MPH in my bile-green mini when I spotted a car coming up really fast in my mirror. Now was I imagining this or was it a 'Del Boy and Rodney' Reliant Robin van? By the time I was making up my mind it roared past me doing 110-120 miles per hour! "Bloody hell," I thought, "Bloody hell," I said out loud. Immediately I put my foot down and tried to keep pace with it! But it pulled over in front of me and was slowing down and signalling to turn left. And it WAS! It was a Reliant Robin van, only THIS one was blue!

A few weeks later I was reading the Kentish Gazette (well somebody's got to!) and there it was again! The owner had only put a V8 engine in it with stabilizers and wide wheels hadn't he? 'No wonder,' I smiled to myself, 'no bloody wonder!' And resisted the urge to call myself a 'dipstick'!

AND NOW, AS IS CUSTOMERY, AMIGOS THE POEMS:

AND LOVE SAID Material things, no matter how Beautiful and desirable, must not Gain power over you, for in the End you have to leave this planet, And them. Just be a witness to them, Think of them as energies, Frequencies, memories, and then Let them go, for in the end the Whole universe is yours for the asking. Freedom is worth the time it Takes to attain and you have Forever to do it in, the concept of Time However, is just a tool. Use it wisely. THE DREAM NET If I could spin a web Across my sleeping bed To capture all the dreams I tend to forget on waking Would it make me a happier man? Or would those captured dreams So terrify me that I would develop A craving for insomnia?

ADIOS AMIGOES, FOR ANOTHER MONTH OR SO!
LUV N' LITE N' LARFTER!
PAUL - May 2007

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HI, AMIGOES!

I used to be able to talk the legs off a snake. Small talk I could offer, if called for, and deliver, as easily as falling off a skyscraper. I was literally bursting with thoughts! Conversation used to stimulate and swamp what is passed for my brain, neurons firing and lighting up like a Christmas tree.

I could also be very quiet, I liked my own company. I could spend days alone with and within myself, just writing poetry or prose, meditating on this and that, enjoying cooking for myself and actually looking forward to the next day when I could create a new menu for myself, create a soup or a meal .or just plain doing nothing at all, staring into space, dreaming!

I never considered this a waste of time, quite the contrary, it was a creative process!

But since the brain tumour was removed (attached to the left frontal lobe and the size of an orange.from what I can gather they usually are, more often than not!) ten years ago, small talk I can no longer do nor cope with. Thoughts no longer come easily; I can no longer join in a conversation wholeheartedly.

Oh, don't misunderstand me, I can TALK, but my mind-cells don't light up like they used to. By the time I've absorbed what a person is saying I can no longer respond as fast as I used to, therefore 'the moment has passed' when I could get in a lightening repost or response.

Oh I can read my work (poetry reading gigs) just as before, thank God! But to do a talk or lecture off the top of my head, even with notes, well FORGET it!

I would go from one subject to the next and expect my audience to keep up with me. To see a load of people with their mouths open, glazed and glassy eyed, with confused expressions on their faces is to: "want the earth to lick its lips and swallow me whole!"

Even if I am taken 'off guard' for a moment, and somebody says something that demands an immediate response I usually answer yes when I mean no, or vice versa, or call them by the wrong name even if KNOW their name intimately.like my sisters' name, I mean how embarrassing is that?

I even have to write down key words when I make a phone call so that the person on the other end of the line can understand what the hell I'm talking about, especially if I'm ordering something! I very often start in the middle, muddle my way through to the end and FORGET the beginning, unless I have the presence of mind to remember, which, thank God I usually do.just in the nick of time.or when there's a confused silence on the other end of the phone.

Now if I'm talking to an old friend on the old 'telling bone' they can jump in and tell me: "I don't know what on earth you're talking about, Bura!" Thing is - at least nine times out of ten - I've forgotten to explain to them the key facts about the conversation in hand and I expect THEM to answer or indeed understand where I'm coming from!

But not ALWAYS, some days are better than others!

It's a real bugger. But I will continue to take the tablets!

Anyway, the above is probably just as confusing as the other crap that I write, month after month.

But, Amigoes, there is always a poem to rescue me; mind you this also is a moan:

THE POST POLIO THING I created a poem the other day Of all the special things I had to say, My arms were the subject as I recall: What if I had no bloody arms at all? It's getting that way: my arms are weaker This post polio thing prevents this speaker From scribbling down the magical verse That forms my trade; is that being perverse? My brain is too fast for my wretched hands Leaving it a mass of confusing strands. The day will dawn when my brain will explode Leaving bits of poems all over the road!

I got to thinking that perhaps the robin saga was telling me something; after all, robins are a symbol of Peace just like the dove of old, aren't they? Robins always seem to appear around Christmas time and yet they are an all-year-round bird but only really prominent around Yuletide. At the moment we have TWO robins that visit us in our home, I thought that ONE was a minor miracle but TWO! Two robins fight like billy-oh; it's in their nature to protect their territory, just like man. sadly.

1ST MAN: Why then can't we have peace
2ND MAN: Because war is in our nature, dummy!
1ST MAN: Who are you calling a dummy?
2ND MAN: See? An innocent word like dummy and you get all upset!
1ST MAN: Put year fists up, you.you.you. dummy!
2ND MAN: Calm down! Calm down! Now that's really my point isn't it, we are all globally just too touchy; the least thing sets us off?


Love is the essence of ALL TRUE religions [I have no religion just in case you were wondering], and all true religions are founded on this love principle, right? It's only we Homo sapiens and our Homo sapient nature that cocks it up. Mahatma Ghandi was a Hindu yet even he recognised the golden thread of love that runs through all - or most - religions, recognised that we are all equal! He abhorred the high and low class system that runs like the river Ganges through his country of India. Even when he was fatally shot he forgave his assassin immediately after he received the bullet that ended his earthly sojourn!

Now that is REAL, unconditional Love at its purest. Yet still that high and low class system exists, even though the Mahatma died for it!

It's all madness isn't it? If we all forgave one another that would be an end to it, wouldn't it, wouldn't it? - given time that is. After all (Yep, I'm one of those who believe in eternity, believe in 'forever-time', that nothing ever dies just changes form and frequency!) even though we've got forever to do it in. why not start right now!?

And now for some more poems :

LOVE'S PURSUIT I will pursue you till the end of time And beyond, you will never shake me off. I will be the shadow at highest noon That you never see the witness of all you say and do Until one day you embrace me as your own.

Paul Bura
February 2007