Home House

I spent last night getting drunk with artistic types.

I should probably clarify that this isn't usually the type of thing I do on a Monday night; it's not usually the type of thing I do any night. Well getting drunk is a not irregular occurrence and many of my friends could be described as fairly artistic but the arty-ness of the attendees of Home House's Poetry Salon was of a level that myself and some friends in a quiet Buckinghamshire pub could never hope to attain.

I'm not exactly sure why the four of us - dressed as a geography teacher (myself), an estate agent (Mylz), that kid who always gets bullied in school (George), and Marilyn Monroe (Alexis, the only one who seemed to treat the night with the gravitas that it evidently merited) - were invited to share the space with fashion designers, visual artists and a man who collected cravats. Nevertheless they were wonderfully hospitable, served excellent wine and soon we were on a balcony discussing Reiki and star signs as though spiritualism wasn't completely fucking retarded.

I soon started structuring my drinking around cliches:
"I think science is really only one way of looking at the world" I took a sip
"I have my own version of faith taken from all over the world" I took a sip
"Feng shui's been around for thousands of years, it can't be all nonsense" I took a sip
"You always know when you have a spiritual connection with people, it's like souls" I took a sip
"I think in eastern countries they have a much more holistic world view." I finished my glass and returned to the bar for another.

Outside of the musings on the theme of 'reality is subjective' the conversation had a rather flamboyant feel. All greetings were enthusiastic, all compliments effusive, and all criticisms had multiple layers of meaning. The dialogue could have been scripted by Hollinghurst.

After one of the world's most famous hat designers, a man who was only a Sea of Fog away from being the subject of a Friedrich painting, had paid complement to our host in the form of a poem he had written called 'Don't Bet Your Money on a Disco Bunny' (one in which Simon, the host and enthusiastic cravat collector, was killed by a falling mirror ball - this poem incidentally was one of the few of the night that at least had the decency to rhyme), it was our turn to recite.

My poem was rather warmly received so I'm including it here for posterity.

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I Hate Students

You boast of your post-sexuality,

Your craven carnality, your gender duality,

Your great versatility, your great self-discovery,

Your “creative facility”, your spiritual alacrity.

You recollect some great voyage when you were guided by fate,

You were leading the world to a far greater state;

Fought for Palestinians in Pakistan, sued for peace in Uganda

Although, from your continued existence, I gather

You did both while straight.

You bear the great burden of being born middle class,

With your moral duplicity and internalised fallacies

You don’t sense any antipathy for your cross-cultural farce.

How does one travel the world with one’s head up one’s arse?

Strictly out of interest, please sate my curiosity

What exactly the fuck is pan-sexuality?

What makes you not bi, straight or gay?

Do you fuck furniture or beasts of the forest?

Yes you worked as a florist and once wore a dress

Neither’s courageous, neither outrageous

The former’s a job and the latter is clothing

Though I can’t help but noting that you carried it quite well

You’ll be a gorgeous young woman when your breasts finally swell.

You talked about Tennyson, opined on Dickinson

While, as is my habit, I gave your bookshelf a scan

And you read aloud Tony Harrison as we sat in your garrison

Two hundred students and twats to a man

Occidental Philology sits with Oriental Philosophy

Not one title under a century old

The dust, while aesthetically pleasing, is very revealing

Cracked spines of red leather and I’m wondering whether

You’ve read between a single fold.

No, to your credit (with my complete condescension)

You’ve read Siddhattha and Veda without comprehension.

You hold some ludicrous notion of a great Eastern School

Get thee to an ashram; you know nothing at all!

But you know what I hate, what I really despise?

Your universal empathy and all that belies

You’ve done persecution, poverty, faced eviction and starved

You’re a public schoolboy, that gap year must have been hard.

You’ve been terribly oppressed you complain without fail,

Oh how awful it is to be white, straight and male.

      

Letter From Belgium - Dated 20th September

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Dear Emily,

The country of Belgium is having an election. On the 22^nd the people will decide between the men from the Blue Party, whose leader believes in employment and speaking French, and the men from the Red Party whose leader believes in work and speaking Flemish. While to a non-resident the question might seem immaterial, after all Belgium has managed to function perfectly well for about a year without a government, the citizenry seem very excited about the upcoming election and who can begrudge the excitement of citizens.

            Posters are plastered up everywhere - outside houses, shops, and restaurants. Billboards, Red and Blue, clad the taller of the buildings and from them bear down the faces of the potential potentiates of the plurality of provinces. Wealthier neighbourhoods support Blue, poorer neighbourhoods support Red; the colour coordination seems reassuringly like our own.

            For those disturbed by any perceived similarity between the parties I was delighted to discover a third way. The Pink Party. While I have no idea what they believe in, I know that they have a van, are running a candidate in our province, and are not supported by those who support the Red or Blue Parties.

            There are also advertisements for a charity that supports the blind in all of the metro stations of Brussels. Done in the style of one of the party posters they bemoan politics based on linguistic differences and suggest standardising on braille instead.

            Communication has been a theme of this holiday. I am writing to you from my bedroom in a Cistercian monastery where silence is the lingua franca. The silence has a lushness to it, it is enveloping, one could quite easily become lost in the silence – two hundred monks already have, sunk into it, it is a most majestic absence

            But it is not true silence. Listen closely to the silence and a hundred thousand things are clearly audible. In the silence one’s hearing sharpens immensely. I can tell that there is a woman walking in a passage below me at the other end of the guesthouse, I can tell that she’s short and thin, that she’s in good health, that she’s walking towards me. The man in the room across from me is writing something in biro. Three of the swallows that nest under the eaves of the smaller chapel are in flight, the light breeze is rustling the leaves of the three hundred year oak in the ruins of the old abbey.

            My own nib sounds like a rodent tentatively appraising food. And when I stop writing and concentrate inwards I can hear noises that are deafening. I can hear blood as it’s pumped around my head, I can hear my eardrums themselves each time they vibrate in an attempt to capture a noise. I am no longer using my ears to hear, I am using touch, sensation, contraction and loosening of muscles, I can hear my body and it’s sublime.

            Only in the mornings do we talk, and in the mornings meaning is lost in the noise. Belgium has three languages. Us forty guests have maybe ten, and the sale a manger, a great stone hall whose windows display fantastic beasts and scenes of the resurrection, echoes in Italian and German, Dutch and Afrikaans, Spanish and Portuguese, English and French and Flemish. We search together for common tongues, French is the most widely spoken and so the most often heard. Yet the French spoken here is different entirely: It is more accent tolerant than that of France, words are substituted for other Belgian languages – ‘fromage’ becomes ‘kaas’ for instance – and word order is often German or English. It no doubt appals the French guests and also the monks who deliver all their prayers in French, but for me whose French is – as you well know – lousy it’s a much easier language. It’s a relief also for Joe whose French is worse even then mine, we used sit across from each other in GCSE French back in school all those years ago. This easier more liberal French is naturally of no use to the Americans who don’t speak anything other than their bastardised English.

            We’ve adopted two American kids at the monastery, eighteen year olds, who despite some impressively dogmatic belief in scripture (but very little textual understanding or background knowledge of it) seem to be finding the whole ‘being in Europe’ thing rather difficult. One’s called Felix who’s here because he’s “struggling with his attraction to men” (this is almost the very first thing he told me!) and the other’s Alex who’s there to support him and find God or some such thing. They don’t drink, smoke, or have impure thoughts (except Felix who’s fighting them valiantly), they’re quite dull really but they’re sort of sweet in their own way.

            We don’t get any news here, there’s no radio or television naturally but also no newspapers, and so I have no idea what’s happened in the world in the last few days. It has the curious effect of making time not seem to pass. I may miss the results of the Belgian election, although I’m sure if they manage to form an elected government while I’m here that the moratorium on outside knowledge will be temporarily lifted; us Catholics are very keen on miracles. Keep me abreast of anything interesting in world and UK affairs.     

Anyway I’m conscious that this letter’s becoming a tad long so I’ll sign off here and wish you the best of luck with your own holiday. Oh and thanks for the birthday text, a monk brought me beer and biscuits yesterday as well.

            Love, Daniel

Kitchen in Hailsham House