OUR PENNILESS WRITE

As it turns out, trying to access some allotments sites are considerably harder than others. Whether casually passing by or formally contacting the local allotment officer or site secretary, sometimes the answer will just be no.

Why? Well with growing cases of left and damage from allotment sites and community gardens perhaps the thought of an ‘outsider’ coming on site and asking questions is just not a good idea, or perhaps with the shifting focus on allotments as something quite trendy and a ‘middle class ‘ class hobby the thought of an artist coming along for a visit could be mistaken as yet another trendy, for the moment fad of interest. And why should they think anything else.

Well I would hope that any plot owners who have met me to date would realise otherwise, and that in fact the sudden popularity of the allotment is not something I want to jump on the band-wagon with, but more over explore why it is happening and what it means for their role in everyday society.

True motivations aside, some allotmenteers are highly protective of their land. One conversation with a plot owner down in London suggested that the chairman of her site would never allow such a visit from an artist without a prior meeting with the entire allotment committee and adequate notices posted across the site. If these preparations were not made then the select few ‘cantankerous members on site’ would never let the chairman hear the end of it.

I am now extremely determined to visit this site, if only to see my formal notice of arrival pinned across the allotment notice boards – a minor celebratory for an afternoon if nothing else. I am still waiting for the second committee meeting to take place and patiently await its outcome…

The sun comes up on the first day, it’s been a long time coming since I watched it go down last night. It is 6am and I am surrounded by retired Canadian women, forty-two in total I’m told, all on a tour here in Scotland. I have been up all night; dinner, wine, beer and a chocolate ice-cream from a vending machine have all been devoured here in the airport. It’s hot and stagnant, the sky is a blue-grey mist, yellow lights twinkle in the distance. I have lost track of days and time and I haven’t even left yet, but I already feel somewhere else.

To ease the knotted body I find myself inhabiting after awkwardly falling asleep in aeroplane seats for most of the previous day, I decide that an invigorating swim and sauna is what I need. More invigorating than I may have imagined. After finding Yrjönkadun Uimahalli, a historic public baths in Helsinki, I admire its Art Deco interior. A black and white photograph, taken of the pool when it first opened, reveals that it was built in 1928. In the photograph, the pool has no water in it. Instead, a large group of rather distinguished looking gentlemen with dark suits and large beards and moustaches sit in chairs on the tiled bottom.

A blonde attendant in a red boiler suit approaches me and very helpfully shows me to my own little cubicle with a mesh door, not offering much privacy. I have brought my swim shorts, but I needn’t have bothered. I look out to see a rotund bearded man strolling around the pool, not wearing the slightest hint of a bathing costume, and looking very pleased with himself. The pool is occupied by oddly shaped naked Finnish men swimming up and down, all watched over by the same blonde female attendant. After completing a surprisingly pleasant twenty lengths in the pool, I embark upon the sauna, which I find a rather uncomfortable experience, due to not being able to speak a word of Finnish and unable, therefore, to join in the debate which seems to be going on between its sweaty, bare-skinned occupants.

At first I thought my senses had been dulled by lack of sleep, but I have realised that Helsinki really is a pleasantly quiet city. Not quiet in the sense there is hardly anyone here, but literally quiet. People do not shout or talk loudly, even cars make a soothing hum on the city’s cobbled streets. The birdsong can be heard as clear as a crystal bell in the spring sunshine.

Batman wipin’ shite aff his shoe.
Batman staggering after his pal, aw upset, ‘Where ye gawin?’
Wonder Woman crying, alone in a bus stop.

The Muppets n a banana are all Rangers fans.
They know the words to all the songs.
Neil Lennon and a priest are knocked back from a club.
Total outrage.

A lonely pimp chases his hat down Hope St.

Amy Winehouse is upset at her Top Gun boyfriend.
Stage left: Sylvester Cat and Tinkerbell are laughing at them.
Working his arm free of his fair lover,
Sylvester pounces on a young Elmo. Tickling him as per.
Elmo freaks. Obviously not on the clock. And does a bolt.

Easily outpacing the Cat, ‘Macho Man’ Randy Savage cheers ‘EL-MO!’
And slices by with a high five.
The Macho Man then proffers a double thumbs up to Beetlejuice and his lesbian nurse girlfriend.

Batman’s girlfriend is fucking screaming at him.
The Dark Knight is making ‘ugh’ noises and swinging his arms about.
No giein’ a fuck.
The Worlds Greatest Detective bellows to the crowds, ‘EMDY SEEN THE JOKER?’

Luigi and an unidentified blonde man
(Maybe Fred from Scooby Doo.)
Carry a cardboard stall out of Bothwell St labelled TELEFONE.
(No accents, or umlauts. T-E-L-E-F-O-N-E)

They’re struggling to cross the road with it.
Traffic is a mess since Strathclyde Police have detained a colleague
(obviously on foreign exchange, judging by his distinct uniform)
Who was directing traffic outside Central Station.

Two cowboys
Minnie Mouse
A banana
and the Riddler are aw riding in a bus down Maryhill Road.

No Punchline.

Fuck sake.

Here comes some respite.

Homer Simpson being put into the back of an ambulance.

We all know how that’s going to end.

‘Travel’ they say! Still there is too much shit talk. The cause of it all I wonder while rich businessmen conceive impossible and infeasible methods of controlling the whole ordeal. It’s a business plan; you move the whole of gravity a few million feet through space. Political activists rage outside global warming. It has been reasoned that it is perhaps 4 seconds in flux. This is understudied. Everything is the same when the morning water is in the toilet. It still flushes, goes around and all that. Time runs at the same pace although galactic confusion of light, rock and other mysteriously great thing are all gone! But still the sun rises outside the window. Consider that I am hypnotised at this very moment. Consider that the world has fallen off the cosmos, the whole world.

“Sleeping souls of the assembly.” Not that it mattered incredibly. “Visual art, ever conceivable?”

Nothing was learned but sure enough the Mathematicians had saved themselves from death by baffling the lords, ladies and no break to be had. By the time the ‘head man’ called an end to the enquirer he had sat through the longest endeavour into abstraction need known. The mathematicians surrounded by the impossibility of the whole situation in vein scribbled nonsense equations for thirty six hours with the government courageous. Following a very long admin affair everybody is ushered in and the ‘head man’ began;

“Tell me everything, we, need to kill a couple right in the midst of it! ‘It’…whatever that is. Climb a big wall.”

Mathematicians are called to the assembly to consider the size of the fangs on a viper caught earlier, not in person of course. “Wow, they’re huge! Enough venom!”

Humanity ignores reality pretending it is all a show, all ‘unreal’. Hot and spicy wrap. Nobody quite knew what to make of it all and it was certainly something to see yesterday. A little before a gigantic brown bear appeared out the side of a fast-food establishment eating the manager like Ornette Coleman and Frank Zappa. Soon after which it’s branded as the Devil and/or much worse. Well that was all a couple of ‘new-age’ money making ‘healthy inspired-religions’ following the saxophonist until they find out he’s playing versions of paint. The colours manifest the tone how they please and the protestor becomes something of a religious figure. On the balcony he starts up his monstrous amplifier to which his saxophone sounds, modified by 5 spillages of thick gloss.

Sleepless night
After night
Flight and fight

Empty pockets
Empty cupboards
Empty hands
Empty chest

Hole in the ceiling, hole in the wall, hole in me.

The Absurdity Of Life
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The Inherent Emptiness Of The Universe
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The Immutable Law Of Impermanence
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The Inevitability of Death
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