A rebel without a clue.

The stones of the Town Hall groan under the pressure of age. I took the bus. Nothing could stop me disappearing today? As I waited and waited the time questioned my decisions. Some subconscious feed provoking my torturous ego. There I was barely coping and overwhelmed with overt thoughts of my insignificance. All the plans within me coming unravelled as the things I need fight against that I have become. As I look up at the blank faced yawning gape of the bus driver as the routine X98 pulls up to alight the pensioners Wetherby welcomes I am straining to vanish. For a number of years I have been numb to what happens around me. It happens; I hear it, but it leaves me emptied of life’s essential beat. Rat-Tat-Tat. Have I become so distanced from the reality of these conversational needs that the booming voiced chorus delivers in waves of banality. I repeat that I am a ghost. I can't imagine when this happened as I was unaware of my own death. This Thursday I am sat hear...

Do I  live in a shit town? Oh yeah! I live in a shit town Just there hacking with odour And without any ardour Shimmying oozing Wharfe and Wafting poos Into the midnight air Some sparks dying there.

The building of the bypass between 1986 and 1988 signalled the beginning of the end for this middle England, middle English, middle Yorkshire market town. Slowly but surely all the symbols of Wetherby's local mercantile trade were erased until by the end of 2010 Horton and Hollander's, toy shop extraordinaire, vanished on the High Street. All pubs, with the exception of the Crown, have been face lifted out of existence or else banished to be replaced by wine bars, restaurants, toy shops and bedding shops. Every pub, apart from the Crown, has had a few walls removed, appallingly cheaply make overs, façades of MDF and threadbare millenary, gardens covered with vast smoking areas and dens for paving slabs and concrete blocks. All menu's are steam in the bag affairs in kitchen's run by snot dribbling, fag smoking, oil stained 'chef's' for whom food is a four letter word. Just look at the cleanliness of these individuals: would you be willing to eat food prepare...

That person again outside Betfred: this is ubiquity...repeat is this Wetherby's characteristic ubiquity? Bar3 has removed Katy and Thatcher's cider from their pumps so there isn't a single reason to go there any more and I wandered to bus stop to see I have two choices either 30mins or and hour. I decided to kill 30 minutes however I don't know why but I just took a step down in my mind. I stepped into the facsimile that was the New Inn(est. 1900) for a woeful pint of Strongbow, with respect the Carling of the cider world. As this is where I spent most of my teenage times and 20's it nice to look in just for old times sake and maybe one of my old chums would be there to talk to. I concentrated seeing not a real apple anywhere and no one I really knew. People in 2's watching the night descending on benches built for 4 near the bandstand. There is something tangible with the warm weather and the slow turgid ponderousness of the Wharfe as it slowly loses its...

M onkey puzzle trees right, left and left left. A solitary weeping willow too. Arranged around the Eastgate/Quarryhill roundabout, which is now disused where once there were fountains and before that a Fina Garage. I am travelling back towards Wetherby on the 3rd of May and I am telling myself I need to visit Mind, the mental health charity, on Kirkstall Lane, and I must venture there soon. This bus always takes the same forsaken route to get out of Leeds; with its bland 'To Let' bulldozed wastelands, low rise warehousing with its pulled down shutters and a Nissan flagship and another few dozen flurried showrooms which are so out of place in this cheap rent part of Leeds. Where the very nature itself springs from the roofs of too often forgotten Victoriana: Tailors', Machinists' and Pressers' Trade Union on Cross Stamford Street . From behind me on the bus I hear the sound of second hand 'r n b', the dumb and chavie youths music of distinction, but ...

Paul has been telling me I need more plot in my writings. Make something up. I think that to develop a plot requires us to be part of a larger action, be part of a community, be a member of a team, a religion, a political persuasion: have certain actions in reality that we can draw from and then a vivid unrestrained imagination as well? However authors who draw on their imaginations tend to imagine a similar set of worlds and plots: whether they write crime, thrillers, romance, etc and once they start writing in these genres they find it quite impossible to break free from the fetter. And it probably pays well too to change a style? Writers who write Literature may use their life as a vehicle for their voice as they usually have a fairly interesting varied lives or they are crazy enough to imagine wide reaching and complex plots. From my POV I have been gradually receding from public life since 1999(is this acrophobia) and therefore am not in this current that flows through man...

Wetherby is a camp for the dying and the dead. There are old people and dangerously ill people too everywhere on a Thursday. It's that midmorning time of day and a Thursday market day too, but it's another symbol of the death of Wetherby. In the previous allegory metaphor there were just a few atoms left circling dying and now I see the remnants of galaxies. Somewhere someone is being bombed indiscriminately and somewhere 3 media darlings are fanning another media dreadful: Fern! We're bombing the wrong people. Not sure what this means: I've been on the X98 the last couple, three days and it's half empty from Wetherby (where it was full before I moved back to Leeds). I postulate it is a sign of the times: mass unemployment reduces the footfall on public transport: this in turn will reduce the overall income of this public function and the knock on effect will be higher price, followed by still lower footfall. This ain't over yet! Even the red ...

Wetherby is a camp for the dying and the dead. There are old people and dangerously ill people too everywhere on a Thursday. It's that midmorning time of day and a Thursday market day too, but it's another symbol of the death of Wetherby. In the previous allegory metaphor there were just a few atoms left circling dying and now I see the remnants of galaxies. Somewhere someone is being bombed indiscriminately and somewhere 3 media darlings are fanning another media dreadful: Fern! We're bombing the wrong people.

After a fantastic trip to Italy, Slovenia and Croatia, with its accompanying ups and downs, I returned to Wetherby to search for another catering related role. I insinuated myself to Jason and Kate's on Saturday night one week and one day after stepping from the plane at Birmingham International Airport. It always feels nice to be the oulde towne  after long self imposed exile - 5 months. I went out on Friday in the decreasingly unimportant pub-life of Wetherby (The town lost its monthly cattle market long ago and Thursday Market hasn't any greengrocers, but numerous clothing vendors); the night left me still in high spirits. On Saturday night I saw both  Richard and Jason, and went back to Jason and Katherine 's to watch the Rugby, drink wine (a  Cono Sur Pinot Noir  and a  Wolf Blass Yellow Label Shiraz ) and consume cheese (boring Morrison's Gruyere and lovely creamy Saint Agur ) It doesn't surprise me at all that I had another dreadful han...

G ot myself to a Starbuck's in the 'Heart' of Roundhay to send you a missive...I went for a long walk with me new flatmate today and wanted to write a poem on the change that occurs between early joyful snow and brown hell sent, self obsessed slush; writing poems in my head never works out...i need paper!!! lets try it...1.2.3 On Monday gladly the snow fell on our roofs and minds By Tuesday slowed had the traffic to zero or no go Or Tuesday it was so crisp my body rocked off a ledge or 2 Between some words were exchanged without a cuddle ensuing. Thursday we played common cold on a bus frozen glare Friday was a bouncy doggy walking heaven; sticks and eating snow Saturday we must confess zero activity on the park - good fish food. Sunday early jaunt but displaced by crowded, rotten, selfish, heavy handed brown stained virginity. This needs an aside or two... I had the best of times and the worst of times in the snow deep and cold and emoting. Tuesday T...