Is fiction more powerful than fact?

Blurred Lines

I watched two films in quick succession, a Hollywood blockbuster followed a few days later by a low budget, low key and hand held camera documentary. After the viewings I experienced a wormy unease and it took a few days before the cause of my ambivalence surfaced, surprisingly as a question.

What is fiction and what is fact?

The Fiction: One Battle After Another (Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson). Mesmerising, furious, intentionally paced to flood cortisol and adrenaline into the system, taut, searing, intelligent. The atmosphere in the venue after the film was electric, stunned, a collective pause and intake of breath prior to the usual bubbling of conversations – what had we been hit with?

The Fact: 20 Days In Mariupol (Directed, filmed and narrated by Mstyslav Chernov, an Associated Press journalist), shot (literally and metaphorically) in the besieged city at the beginning of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Mesmerising, taut, intelligent, adrenalin and cortisol flooding, tense. The atmosphere in the venue after the film was electric, stunned, a collective pause and intake of breath prior to an unusual wracked collective reverence – what had we been hit with?

What is fiction and what is fact?

The fiction? One Battle after another.

I sat in my second favourite seat and was transported into chaos: the eye of the camera oscillated between the intimate and claustrophobic, then hauled you out to a panoramic landscapes or the spectacular explosions. City scapes hosted chases, abandoned buildings, human suffering and solidarity, malevolent males, tortured powerful women, belligerent teenagers, bravery, courage, nihilism and hope. Flawed and brutal, yet the graphic violence was not synthetic or trivial and the characters were psychologically coherent. The demand on the audience was to bear witness to the viscerally believable worlds of the terminally corrupt, abuse of power and the degradation of humanity. Set in sterile corridors, sinister bunkers, unexpected safe houses, juxtaposed by by shameful Government overcrowded human warehouses. Oscars collected? Yes. Best Picture? Yes.

The fact? 20 days in Mariupol.

I sat in my best seat and watched a tank swivel it’s eye towards the hospital, pause, before lazily returning it’s belligerent gaze to the adjacent residential housing and released destruction. The eye of the camera peered into the intimate claustrophobic images of people cowered in blasted door ways, the distorted faces and then steered you through the city scape that hosted mangled iron once a playground, buildings that abandoned modesty and revealed their interiority to the street, unforgiving dust, the acrid stench. We then invited to dance a sidestep through brick and bones. Haggard souls with hearts in tact wore municipal uniforms as they scoured the city to dignify the corpses. No extras on this film set able to get up and claim their free meal. The “unhaven” hospital decorated corridors with the wounded, dying and the dead, nooks and crannies stretched to capacity. Hospital staff demanded that the world bore witness, ran gruesome tours of the hospital’s swollen morgues. Medics with clinical passion “factualised” the Russian “fictionation” of the graphic gory sordid reality of war. Extraordinary courage, intense emotions, nihilism, believers in the cause and converts to Russian line, dignity, despair, and hope. Names of the people interviewed were requested, multiple truths recorded, stretched and broken, accounts of solidarity and fragmentation. Oscars collected? No. Best Documentary? No.

I remember when the fiction/fact dichotomy was not so fraught, and, even if naive, a belief that there were some facts or perspectives that the majority agreed upon as true or legitimate. Yet the Russian spokespeople claimed that the news coverage in Ukraine was pure fiction. A staged elaborate hoax, populated with actors and special effects; basically a propaganda film with malevolent intent towards the target Russia.

Has the evolution of cinematography, special effects unwittingly raised the bar so high that what shocks and what looks real is more powerful than images of real suffering? Consequently reality appears faded, lacking in energy and definition, not as noteworthy or shocking. News coverage of real events and atrocities has natural constraints, legal requirements to verify and fact check, not to cause harm with graphic images. So view the reporting and recording of obliterated cities, regions, with actors on the ground. Arguably more important, we bear witness to another heave of traumas that issue out of these once whole lands. The caveat being reality does not end after a compulsive three hour screening, the consequences are infinite, there is no comfort break and we are free to leave.

What is fiction and what is fact?

It seems that previous demarcations between what constitutes Right-wing, Left-wing or Centrist beliefs has ruptured. The continuous repetition of stock phrases as “insurmountable deep divisions” is now the cant that feeds “fearhype”. The blurred lines that create a sense that every happening from celebrity gossip to war is “unprecedented”, “appalling” “never seen before” “unforgivable”, relentlessly repeated by and for a voracious 24/7 news cycle and endless virtual noisy mouths. With the demise of nuance and the grading of events with due attention to the actual severity of the occurrence, meaning becomes meaningless.

Now, in the collective “unconsensus” even thinking, seeing some thing with our own eye, or your experience of self and the world is viewed suspiciously unreliable increasingly publicly undermined. The benign elephant in the room replaced by a biodiverse compost heap breeding conspiracy theories. On an industrial scale we are harangued from all sides, overwhelmed by the clutter of utter certainty of their opponents ignorance and lies and their (self) righteousness. Do we forget that a strong opinion is a belief and might not bear a one to one correspondence to reality?

What is fiction and what is fact?

We are encouraged to view insult, strife, and conflict as a form of entertainment, fictions made real by repetition. I am sure that the majority of journalists, commentators and public figures are not all devilish demigods, intentionally and strategically creating unreality. Or is this preferable? For example an adherence to the principles of Machiavelli’s 1520 treatise The Art of War, a 1520 the ultimate self-help book for despots. Or Orwell’s 1984 novel a blueprint for the “strong man” leader. Perhaps it is better if there are deliberate strategies knowingly propagated; there is space in this scenario to “catch them out” with robust investigative journalism or brave campaigners taking on big institutions companies, and Governments. Think the Hillsborough families historic marathon to justice in the UK or the mighty here on substack. Inspirational people.

Another alternative dystopia is of the cannosiation of those who hold bizarre beliefs with a total disregard of facts, science and a contempt for all that is deemed “other”, and awarded the role of the standard bearers for morality. The modern Inquisition. False equivalence safe guarded by the media’s click chase compulsion and the needs of commercial business plans. When human rights are abused by secular ideology or literal religiosity, the normisaliation of unfair laws and persecution. Discrimination as a dream come true and not a nightmare.

Sadly, no side has the monopoly over madness. “Fake news” is a lazy rebuttal, like “woke”, merely denotes a curated construction that if a person or group are different, they are the problem. The population of straw men overtaking humanity. The “left” can be self righteous with those who can afford to have “principles” choosing disenfranchisement and disengagement. For me it is a luxury of privilege to refuses to tackle discrimination, a leave me alone mentality, or hides behind the banner freedom of speech? Is that an overstretch on my part? Yet it whiffs of the concept of Negative Liberty articulated by the British Philosopher Isaiah Berlin. In contrast the alternative Positive Liberty, which emphasises equality of opportunity and access to employment, goods and services, protection, housing and healthcare.

Purism manifested as the opinion that any lack of adherence to one world view founded on the usual fallible consortium of beliefs is unacceptable. With over 8 billion people in the world difference is the de facto norm. Offence is not sufficient to curtail robust discussion or demand that life, your life, is a perpetual “all you can eat buffet”. It is more of a challenge to cultivate the maturity to listen to opinions that are radically different, and deeply challenging. We can all be paralysed by an agoraphobic fear of vacating our comfort zone.

Can you? By Lucy Morley Williams

What is fiction and what is fact?

Let’s fan the flames of our natural curiosity, champion self-respect and dig into our own psyches. Stop making sense. Live with uncertainty. I, you, us are very good at rights and entitlements, but less enamoured with responsibility. Blame and demanding surrender easier than the onerous task of struggling with what we must give, change or compromise for the greater good.

When you have defeated the enemy, cancelled all opposition, silenced dissenters, shamed and blamed and reign supreme, then what? Entropy, stagnation, corruption, inevitable catalyst, chaos and change. This is the natural cycle, it is nature, it is inevitable, and more powerful than the “Instagramification” of our fragile vanities.

What is fiction and what is fact?

Thinking for yourself is the greatest gift to give and receive so why not stop making sense?

Until next time

(With more made up words)

Lucy

I am putty in my own hands, I shape and mold myself as I will.

I am genesis. I reclaim creation. Life and death inseperable.

I birth myself by Lucy Morley Williams

The Goddess Nuwa in Chinese mythology harvested mud and earth from the Yellow River to craft humans.

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Shamed by Lucy Morley Williams

Queer by Frank Bidart

Lie to yourself about this and you will

forever lie about everything

Everybody already knows everything

so you can

lie to them. That’s what they want.

But lie to yourself, what you will

lose, is yourself. Then you

Turn into them.

In Eygtian mythology the God Khnum employed the potter’s wheel to bring humans to life with clay sourced from the banks of the Nile.

I am therefore I am by Lucy Morley Williams

Search for My Tongue by Sujata Bhatt

I ask you, what would you do

If you had two tongues in your mouth

and lost the first one, the mother tongue

and could not really know the other

the foreign one,

And if you lived in a place you had to

speak a foreign tongue

your mother tongue would rot,

rot and die in your mouth

until you had to spit it out

In the African countries of Nigeria, Benin and Togo within the Yoruba community’s cosmology, creator god Obatula made the first people from clay.

Hand Tied by Lucy Morley Williams

Song of Myself by Walt Whitman

I celebrate myself, I sing myself

And what I assume you shall assume

for every atom belonging to me as

good as belongs to you

In Abrahmic traditions God created humans with clay, described in both in the Quaran and the bible. In Judasim, Adamah (Adam) means ground or red clay.

Can I come in? By Lucy Morley Williams

A Woman Speaks by Audre Lorde

I have been a woman

for a long time

beware my smile

I am trecherous with old magic

and the noon’s new fury

with all your wide futures

promised

I am woman

and not white

The Hopi Native American tribe had Spider Woman to produce humans from clay and her own saliva, she sang songs to impart life based on the Sun God Tawa’s design.

Tunnel Vision by Lucy Morley Williams

There is a a spiralling narrative of the heroic return; on death when body decays it is embraced by the earth, and life springs from the same source. Clay remains an abundant material, easy to manipulate and comes in a variety of forms such as porecalin, fire clay, terracotta, air dry clay. Some delicate, some ancient, sturdy, coarse and those that are versatile.

Wide eyed self by Lucy Morley Williams

Until next time

Lucy

August 1971 on the banks of the river Nene in East Anglia UK, myself, elder sister, younger brother, Mum and Dad. A weekend excursion not far from the RAF base where we lived. As my Dad was an Officer but not a pilot we moved as a self-contained unit and not with the Squadron. I loved the nomadic life, the thrill of scrambling through a new house and the tantalising promise that I would make friends this time. The picnic? Likely suspects are cheese and Branston sandwiches, juice, and fruit. Certainly no fancy-pants biscuits, sweets or crisps. I was nourished by home-cooked food yet longed for 1970’s convenience fare of Angel Delight and Frozen Findus crispy pancakes.

That day I walked my three and a half years old self into the river until I was submerged, only the crown of my curly mop visible. As Dad was cradling his son, Mum dived in and extricated me from the water. Blurry vision is all that remains of before and after the event, save the memory of being squelchy wet and standing by the boot of the Morris Minor, our family car. Mum was always the driver and we headed back to the Base, the picnic aborted and apparently had restorative baths.

What I do remember in startling technicolour is my surreal fantastical experience of being under water, which I have not shared until now.

As context consider this Collins Dictionary entry Phantasmagoria:

1. a shifting medley of real or imagined figures, as in a dream

2. films a sequence of pictures made to vary in size rapidly while remaining in focus

3. rare a shifting scene composed of different elements [C19: probably from the French phantasmagory production of phantasms, from PHANTASM + -agorie, perhaps from the Greek ageiein to gather together].

These descriptions reflect my “memory” and with hindsight one and three the closest. I can also envisage that the scene I conjured that day would fit category two as a sequence in an abstract art house film or a series of experimental avant-garde photographs by Lee Miller.

Contrary to stated facts, in my kinaesthetic memory I floated face down. I witnessed on the horizon an ocean liner that moved across my line of vision, right to left. It was in its entirety both above and below the water line. It was like a Titanicesque apparition that existed on different levels simultaneously. The waterbed was a golden sheen of white sand, with scattered pearlescent shells, while whispers of melodious plant fronds were dancing. At that age I did not question my utter sense of affinity and I was yet to develop the cognitive faculties to rationalise this alternative reality. It is unlikely I inhabited this world for long, but my sense of time was disrupted; as an adult I describe it as being suspended in time. Equally the waterbed I saw was not compatible with the actual ecology of this river.

This peculiar experience was my first remembrance of finding refuge in my interiority. As a child I was gloriously aided and abetted by the books of Roald Dahl and ancient black and white films, the staple of Sunday afternoon television. In my room I created musical extravaganzas with my soft toy collection. Later on I roped in my younger cousin to these shenanigans, the stories improvised, never written, but taped on my cassette player. I was smitten by the children’s programme Mr Ben, with its animation that now looks so simple and wonderfully naive. In each episode Mr Ben entered a Tailor shop changing room and transformed into another character based on the clothing laid out by the proprietor. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mr+ben+cartoon.

A week after the “drowning” incident I sneezed a stone out of my left nostril. Mum thought it lodged there when I was underwater. Probably not, more likely one of my hidden experiments. But this little stone became a treasured talisman, which I loved to hold and manipulate. As a child I used Rosary Beads for self soothing, far from their intended purpose and now I curate a private collection of tumble stones.

These stones are my version of Hansel and Gretel’s trail into the forest or even Ariadne’s red thread into the Labyrinth, so I can find my way back to the here and now. I elevated these forays into the world within sans peril to explore and integrate the secret self, both monstrous and sublime.

I love the alchemy of tumble stones and beach pebbles that transform into luminescent wonders when wet, just like child Lucy in the River Nene. As I grew up the external world was confusing and alienating. I felt discordant, aping normal as a shapeshifter, and often experienced an infinite well of profound sadness, usually when I was praised for all that I did for others, or if I amused myself and made no demands. It was well into late adulthood that I began to unravel what this meant, in spite of having a PhD in developmental psychology. That tiny stone ejected from my nose and my current collection represent the existence of “magic”, a precious otherworldly and whole self. I am my own talisman.

The folklore of the Changeling fascinated, and a younger Lucy imagined an earnest and conscious connection to these paranormal beings to reflect and process my idiosyncrasies. These myths refer to fairies who place their offspring (the Changeling) into a human household and kidnap the human child with blondness a premium factor in European culture. Co-incidently I yearned for tumbling tresses of gold unlike my unruly dark curls the texture of the fur of a Terrier dog and equally water resistant. The swap is sometimes benign, to provide the fairy child access to milk and nurturing, or a lascivious lust for platinum. The outsourced fairy child is plagued by notable design “faults” internal and external. These legends and myths are found across cultures, the type of the creature varied, yet united in essence of a magical being.

Diversity and difference is so ubiquitous it is mainstream. My extras are not who I am, rather one of the many aspects of an ever evolving self and constant work in progress. Whatever belief systems you kindle we are all fleeting dust motes in our physical presence in the world. The vehicle of the body, the fallible home of mind and emotions, the I -ness, me- ness are a mishmash of fluid states, sometimes horrid, sometimes glorious, average and challenging.

I have a splash of ambivalence about special interest groups, silos, labels and fixed identities, with a mild to pungent flavour of Others versus Us. Yet I applaud the promotion of multiple and unique perspectives as the norm in the swirling mass that constitutes humanity. Forums, spaces and magazines that do champion unheard voices are a critical resource, empowering and spicy. Space to exhibit our creativity, to take up space. It is important to me that all of us are at home in the mainstream, proud in the spotlight, not confined or defined. We can have our special places too where we just know, words do not need to be grappled with, we just can be. Have your cake and eat it with gusto.

Why not?

Until next time

Lucy

Medusa’s stony silence continued as she was spirited away from the Supreme Court shielded by her protection team. The world is reeling after a secret recording was played in the steamy and sticky Courtroom One, every nook, crevice and cranny hotly contested and filled by the obsessive and interested parties of the case. A cold blooded conspiracy was revealed enacted by the very men who brought charges of slander, libel and blackmail against Medusa.

Her lawyer Stheno Olympus issued a terse statement outside the forboding court building, surrounded by a noisy melee of reporters, photographers, camera crews, and the ever faithful and colourful contingent of Medusa supporters.

“My client remains in danger of retaliation, her enemies are ruthless as demonstrated by the alleged murder of one of their own. This secret recording shatters the myth that my client is a monster”.

So far there is no comment from the Defence Team immediately retained by the alleged key conspirators. Both are held in custody at Central, the high security station that holds and processes the most serious of villains. The feared defence lawyer Mr de Hades has been retained by both men. But the “no prisoners taken” advocate remains silent as the grave. Bail will be hotly contested as the Prosecution will portray the wealthy and connected men as serious flight risks

Even now there are serious doubts in the Prosecutors Office and Police Service that the men will even get to court let alone be held to account. Our source, a key player in the Justice system, is chillingly pessimistic.

“This is a complex and difficult task. Those involved have immense resources with tentacles of power that reach far and wide. We do not know who else is involved and what they might do to protect their reputations and positions. There are numerous stalling tactics that might derail the case or leave it an open sore for years. These men will use any means possible without shame or hesitation”

We can reveal that Soteria Protection, the famous and respected agency dedicated to the protection of women, celebrity or in the public eye, is now involved in the case. The company has a fund to enable their services to be offered for free to women, like Medusa, who find themselves as victims of injustice and publicly shamed. Ms Themis, the CEO, issued a statement.

“I cannot comment on the details as my client and her family are in, and may always be, under threat”

Here at the Pheme Times we have compiled a comprehensive guide with expert analysis, exclusive interviews, and unprecedented access to insider sources. We start with a complete time line of events, the key players and possible unknown forces. (pages 2-3)

Our Head of News and Current affairs, the award winning journalist Eurayle Hermes, leads our investigative team to ensure you are clued in on the machinations and intrigues of this extraordinary case.

Eurayle explains:

“Multiple questions are unanswered; who is the mystery person who recorded the incriminating video? How did it get into the hands of the Defence Team and why at such a late stage when Medusa’s conviction seemed preordained? (pages 4-5)

“Was it an inside job perpetrated by someone who moves in the same exalted circles with intimate and trusted access to the accused? Who might benefit from the charged men’s downfall? Are there more conspiracies to be discovered? A pannel of experts analyse the possibilities and, due to safety concerns, trusted sources remain anonymous. We clinically fact check and verify everything we report.” (pages 6-8)

Why did such men target Medusa, portraying her as a vindictive monster, whilst knowing she is their victim, raped, exiled and subjected to multiple attempts of murder, persecuted and threatened? No rest for the innocent (page 9)

Will it ever be safe for Medusa to be seen in public? She was living a secluded life in a rural setting until she was named and shamed. Unwillingly thrust into the public eye to face a pernicious lawsuit. (page 10)

National and international interest is intense, but please do not forget Medusa’s twin boys, Chrysaar and Pegasus. The innocent babes she loves and cherishes in spite of their inception. Expert psychologists give their assessment of this traumatised family and what the future might hold. (page 11)

Right now an unprecedented spotlight is focused on the old and new establishment. The individuals and their clandestine networks, godlike in their omnipresent and omnipotent involvement in politics, business, retail, property and leisure. (pages 12-13)

Do we actually know who is in charge nationally and globally? We investigate all the trends and evidence to discover if these potentially sinister cabals are replacing elected Governments, immune to the Law and morality unlike us mere mortals. (pages 14-15)

Join the debate with your comments and theories at www.phemetimesreaders.com. Start your journey with us into the murky world of hidden power.

Until next time

Lucy

Monday

I sit down at my desk and fire up my laptop.

I sit down at my desk fire up my laptop, fizzing intention.

I sit down at my desk and I declare out loud my duty to write, demanding self belief.

I start to write with trepidation but it is all I can do to just sit still and breathe. I catch sight of myself in the mirror, shoulders hunched with my face a hard mask. On paper this seems simple, yet I am overwhelmed by self doubt that flounders in a most undignified manner. I curse the self indulgence of my ego with its *high faluting* aspiration to be a whirlwind of originality.

And I write

Tuesday

I sit down at my desk and fire up my laptop.

I sit down at my desk fire up my laptop, fizzing intention.

I sit down at my desk and I declare out loud my pledge to write, as self belief waxes and wanes.

I start to write with trepidation but I remember to sit still and breathe. I catch sight of myself in the mirror, posied shoulders with my face a focused expression. On paper this seems simple yet I am immersed in self doubt that flounders in a most undignified manner. I note the self indulgence of my ego with its high faluting aspiration to be a whirlwind of orginality.

And I write

Wednesday

I sit down at my desk and fire up my laptop.

I sit down at my desk fire up my laptop, fizzing intention.

I sit down at my desk and I declare out loud my committent to write, whatever the internal weather.

I start to write with trepidation but I purpose my breath and remain still. I catch sight of myself in the mirror, loose shoulders with my face a state of grace. On paper this seems simple and I smile at my self self doubt that flounders in a most undignified manner. I release the self indulgence of my ego with its high faluting aspiration to be a whirlwind of orginality.

And I Write

Thursday

I sit down at my desk and fire up my laptop.

I sit down at my desk fire up my laptop, fizzing intention.

I sit down at my desk, I declare outloud with passion my compulsion to write.

I start to write with witch’s intuition, vulnerable and raw but I am fully present, here and now. I catch sight of myself in the mirror and I marvel at my flow and the miracle of the craft. On paper this seems simple, it is not, and I accept that my self doubt flounders in the most undignified manner. I harness the self indulgence of my ego and its high faluting aspiration be a whirlwind of orginality as my truthful desire to learn, evolve, create and share

And I write

Friday

I sit down at my desk and fire up my laptop.

I sit down at my desk fire up my laptop, fizzing intention.

I sit down at my desk and I declare out loud my joy fuelled love of writing.

I start to write with an epiphany - I am a magician. I conjure up perplexing perspectives, the outsider insight, the backend, the wrinkles, the skewed, the surprises, the absurdities, the puncture, the hidden, the humour. I birth that which never existed before, nothingness made manifest. It is magic, this sleight of hand. I am enraptured by the what and why and how and who and when. This enigma I will shield from an intrusive intellect. Until I edit, craft, nurture, wrestle and finally set free with a packed lunch for the journey.

And I write

Saturday

I sit down at my desk and fire up my laptop.

I sit down at my desk fire up my laptop, fizzing intention.

I sit down at my desk and I declare out loud I am a writer and visual story teller.

And I write

Sunday

And I write.

*high faluting* I thought it was a legitimate expression, yet after an extensive search of my robust dictionary, thesarus, and The Google (boycotting the AI suggestion), it remained stubbornly absent. Too late, it is now unequivocally “A Thing”, magically pulled out of my favourite Harris Tweed Baker’s boy hat. Far more practical than a rabbit you will agree, albeit not so easily stroked.

Thank you for reading

Until the next time - Lucy

I launch into an exercise on how to write flash Non-Fiction. The instruction is to select three Items on my desk with minimal thought, describe each succinctly, and, whilst writing, allow significance, meaning and connection to spontaneously emerge.

The author exquisitely describes items crafted by his now two adult sons; a pen holder that did not quite live up to its job title and a coaster inscribed with “papa”, an affection never used by his son for a Father’s Day gift. The third item was red sand – in a vial – or just a container? I think the sand came from a region in Spain where his favourite author lived and died. The desk of a proper and successful writer. With three distinct items chosen, explored and illuminated.

I am choke on comparison. There is nothing personal, nothing of sentimental value, nothing from my son, nothing vaguely like a talisman. My desk is a mess; my ADHD, unlike me it’s host, will not be thwarted.

Wait. What if my entire desk is a physical expression of me in the world? This unbidden awareness materialises on the page as I am writing in real time.

My Item One is my desk. A training ground for poltergeists practising teleportation with flotsam and jetsam covering the entire surface and shelves. Look an empty perfume bottle, lip salve, unintelligible notes, spec cleaners, glue, hand cream, foot cream, my dicta-phone, plasters, a duck shaped pencil sharpener, tape, sunglasses, a remote control. The USB sticks - I have no idea what is on them as my labelling system fizzled out, best intentions always RIP. Until the next time. Dry blue tack balls, chin hair removal device, leaflets, business cards, tissues, used or not hard to tell, desk tidies, or “messies” or “messies” as they do not live up to their reputation. Numerous barcodes square shaped things that you can scan. Losing things is my forte, latterly found by chance in random places. A makeup sponge and fancy cream in a stylised tube, from a wheeze to “sculpt my face”. That lasted a day max, unfortunately after I bought the products; and my face remains as nature intended, a chipmunk or a turtle, depending on the light and angle. My desk in a funny old way a metaphor of my life, challenging, erratic, uncertain, bonkers and a living oxymoron. This is fun.

Item Two: my laptop. It is a portal to humanity. It’s significance escalating as my body is increasingly vexatious. Movement, action, often compulsive, is deeply engrained in my DNA. But I have Hyper-mobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, and every system of my body a target with chronic pain riding shotgun. As I age it becomes worse, and the menopause irritates ADHD. After a second cancer this time in my womb, I am banned from HRT, and hormones did alleviate ADHD. My world has shrunk, I depend on a mobility scooter, it is too dangerous and painful to walk outside even with crutches, and with toes and feet fracturing for no known medical reason. Multiple griefs to digest what was and what is now and forever that what was and is that I resist, deny, then accept. I am landlocked.

I am a siren. I am an archaeologist, digging for what lies beneath, with paradoxical intent bubbling within me and on the page. My grandiose fantasy? I am a profound catalyst. Or realistically, a quirky read, an amusement, an affirmation, a challenge, and my visual stories are curiously unexpected. My dream is that these offerings might be a spark that sets off a chain reaction within the reader, not tethered to my musings. The ultimate hope is that my pieces have multiple personalities depending on the reader at that moment in time and in their life. How many times have words and images filled me with awe, rage, affirmation, heart break, inspiration, and all the myriad ways of being human illuminated by fiction, non-fiction, all craft and art.

Item Three is an action. I look up my top desk shelf, and my there is my shrine. My writing ritual is to light a candle and incense stick before I start. There used to be Buddha statue, which I broke. Do you know the edict “if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him”? See I can follow instructions! albeit accidentally.

I am a writer and visual story teller and the candle and incense act according to their nature too. They burn unapologetically, ephemeral yet tangible. Smoke and light, shadows and sunshine, show and tell or ambiguous even ambivalent. Like us writers, the creators, the candle and incense live as their nature allows, expressing their essence, transitory, unique and real. It is a compulsion, it is an addiction that can never be satiated.

This free flow writing transcends the curated “me”. Yes, I will edit, and edit again, dyslexia demands, and it might never be published in Vanity Fair. I am present tense, it flows through me as me to you. We are equal when we come to the page, practising alchemy, the magic craft. Voice, style, interests, topics and definitely technique and quality evolves, we can only get better. Self doubt will try and ambush us, yet this means we care, we are passionate. Writing is in you and no-one can ever see the world like you. You are a canvas ask yourself what colours, subjects, forms are you drawn? Your thoughts, words, your actions are your tools and materials.

But first………..

I am buzzing curiosity, what are your three items?

“You start out with one thing, end

up with another, and

nothing’s like it used to be, not even the future”

(Rita Dove, Poet).

Until the next time

Lucy

The Art Paper reported on the 11^th June 2026 that the famous 1959 picture “The Castle in the Pyrenees” by Margritte is undergoing restorative surgery after it was damaged by a child brandishing a pine cone whilst in the Israel Museum.

I suspect this puckish act might have tickled the artist. My imagination went off tangent as this was the day that David Hockney died.

The witty, self-effacing, understated art fascinates and beguiles the mind and heart; I can can contemplate an image and find myself merging with the world of this ingenious artist. I am always excited each time, my heart laughs.

I am reminded of photography when I see his paintings, whether the photograph is blended and deliberately distorted or funny kooky angles shifts creates a different perspective and meaning, yet is still an unadulterated picture, a reflection of a physical “reality”.

I see shades of this perspective in my photography prior to seeing his original “familiar”. Brash loud caveat – under no illusion that I am greater than a beginners mind.

My homage here is titled “Self Portrait” and has a particular significance; when I first saw the result I experienced a giggle niggle that maybe, just maybe, I had something here worth sharing and developing.

Google Images and whether you “like” the imagery or not – you will be amused by the act of looking up and seeing your immediate environment with a Magritte eye and humour.

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Welcome to the dark side, I have a seat reserved for you, without algorithmic comfort or the comforting virtual hand of AI upon your shoulder.

The cliché is our subject; not obviously dark I grant you, yet scratch the surface and beneath the superficial pleasantness and apparent concern for your welfare you will find a sinister subtext. If history is written by the victor, have you considered who penned the cliché?

I have sourced two particular culprits that demonstrate this appearance reality distinction, the duplicity. Both creatures present themselves as benign pipe smoking types, dispensing wisdom with a warm, if slightly paternalistic tone. When in the presence of the benign Uncle type cliché they will distract you by rootering in tweed jacket pockets for liquorice pieces of dubious provenance which they insist you consume.

Remain seated and do not applaud for….

The best things in life are free.

Good things come to those who wait.

They are at the epicentre of subjugation and the perpetuation of structurally embedded and societal discrimination.

You can’t be serious?

Oh, I am. Truly.

Welcome to the dark side, my friend.

The case for the prosecution.

The best things in life are not, and never have been, free.

There are practical, primordial and existential needs such as food, safe shelter, health care. The action orientated such as freedom of movement, expression, body autonomy. The abstract such as a sense of belonging, community, connection. Payment can be the exchange of goods and services, rather than money. All the “free things” are in and of themselves not bad. Yet even love does not conquer all if you are starving, abused, persecuted or indeed dead.

This appearance reality duplicity dovetails into exhibit number two.

Good things come to those who wait masquerades as a fact, yet is purely chance; if by the desired outcome happens it is presented as empirical evidence of the truth of the cliché. Your archetypal straw man. This idea is the apposite of delayed gratification, which is based on strategic thinking, discernment and an internal locus of control, the accountable self.

It is doctrine of submission and passivity; where desire, ambition, seeking understanding, creativity, being in service and/or personal success are eerily akin to a moral deficit.

It matters not if the cliché is steeped in religiosity or of a secular bent, it is still fundamentally magical thinking. Besides which, everything you really need is free and if you are a good little pleb, then you will rewarded handsomely. Avariciousness and desire are not acceptable and you will find yourself sitting on the infinite naughty chair.

The vote, civil liberties, bodily autonomy, individual freedoms, rights are not gifts the powerful may or may not dispense, to be handed out to good girls and boys.

These powerful societal changes were dependent on courageous souls who did not and will not allow injustice, violence and repression to go unchallenged. Think of the thousands who have been imprisoned, tortured, persecuted, ridiculed, past and present? I imagine it is not so relaxing when you are one of those being subjected to kidnap, torture, bombs, starvation, rape, psychological terror and imprisonment. Or just “disappeared”. Sadly one discriminated group can display this practice to another discriminated group.

Why? For the haves to decide when another group of humans can enjoy the same rights as they assume and have all they need to live well?

Houston, we have a problem.

An unsettling tangent emerged from my musings, that of our unwitting embodiment of the appearance reality distinction. If enough of us fall into this trap, and I fear we do, it is a stealth carbon monoxide poisoning of our hearts and minds that creates a fractious, mean-spirited and self-absorbed and serving way of being whether medieval feudal Lord or a member of the serfdom.

What do I mean?

As an example; say a smile represents the cliché the appearance, easily identified as such. Yet we all know that smiles can be nervous, anxious, sinister, condescending, shy, gentle, compassionate, joy shining through the eyes or perched on a vacant face.

The fist raised is the cliché, the appearance, yet it can be threatening aggressive, or humorous and part of a shared joke. Standing in close proximity to another, the cliché the appearance, might be an intimate connection, protective, or a violation of personal space, sexual or threatening. The actual behaviour, what we might agree upon, is not the reality. As humans we mostly recognise this, some with entitlement or power can subvert this deny, gaslit, suggest oversensitivity. The oft repeated refrain of being misinterpreted, that it is all lies and any mea culpa is saddled by measly mouthed complaint towards those who call out this behaviour.

“In the public interest” can be corrupted by prurient minds, journalists, politicians and self styled saviours of our moral, economic and social welfare. The appearance – the cliché is noble, yet the reality? Shouting abuse, hounding people, stalking are instigated to cause a reaction, a contorted face, distress, retaliation. Family members, colleagues and children are not spared. The reaction is used as evidence of culpability, of the guilt, laced with judgement and shaming, rather than a natural reaction to the stalking and harassment.

Are we feeding the machine too, our intrusive entitlement, salaciously indulging in gossip as we tut tut, doom scroll, comment, deride, abuse. Because we are concerned citizens, engaged in the world around us, hapless and oh so naughty, just like everyone else?

Are people in the public eye our personal property, who we can access and demand to know everything. When the politicians, the journalists the influencers, normal members of the public demand to know things instantly, even if this is not possible? Nuance, discernment, privacy binned and the fact that no guarantees of safety, growth and success as this is not how the world operates. Failure to comply are interpreted with either snide passive aggressive suggestions that something is deeply suspicious. Or just repeat, repeat, and repeat whatever accusation and/or with no proof or facts until the appearance is all that matters. Reality a mere fond memory stridency ascends.

Certainty is overrated and a willingness to be curious, embrace the unknown, to actually listen rather than wait until you can pontificate again. Indeed, wait, our own truths are far more interesting and valid, anything else is all fake.

No-one has to join the noisy scrabbling cohort of instant gratification crack news addicts, feeding the monster yet decrying the fact it is growing. Why reject thinking for yourself? Do you need staff or tech to do that for you?

How often do you find pleasure in critiquing people behind their backs, the thrill of being self righteous, innocent, pure of heart? Very often the traits we deplore most are indications of our own hidden blocks. The don’t tell anyone but……

This is a choice; humanity is packed with potential, we are gloriously contradictory, varied, creative living beings, with a real role to play in all our wellbeing, whatever the scale. Neither overwhelmed or in denial, them and us and rigidly binary. Yes, it is more scary, but feelings of nervousness are like feelings of anticipation.

If you never experience turbulence, how do you know you are flying?

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Thinking for Yourself is your light in the hall – welcoming you back to yourself no matter what the weather is like, inside and out.

It is your home where you can surprise yourself with what is possible, not just navel-gazing, but being all that you can, however that looks and feels for you. It is about belonging, whether you have a history of being “other” or just a curious open-minded soul.

We know life has so much to offer and the resources of our beautiful planet are not infinite.

You will be seen and heard, or if you prefer, consider the ideas from the essays, photographs and your fellow travellers, and reflect in your own time. New vistas and tangents might be sparked, or it might be more of a self- affirmation, and very likely both.

A place where there is respect, passion, joyfulness and importantly a commitment to do no harm to others here and in the world.

Your aspirations are whatever you want them to be, there is nothing too small or too big. Being yourself in the world takes courage, and this is your oasis where you can be fed, rested and appreciated.

Thinking for Yourself is a flash nonfiction/fiction written & visual essay hub for open minds and hearts.

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Warning: I have found poetry, poetry has NOT found me.

I am ketchup hear me roar

I am ketchup hear me roar

Buy me in your convenience store

I was born ready - mean and green

Out of sight unknown, unseen

Reaching for the scarlet bright

My culinary destiny in sight

Pulversied, squished and strained

Hell knows nowt of a tomato’s pain

Sacrificed to end up on your platter

Destined to make you much fatter

As an adjunct to fish and chips

With mushy peas, with no pips

I am ketchup

Hear me roar

Boom Boom! – thank you for being a lovely audience

Thinking for Yourself is a flash nonfiction/fiction written and visual essay hub for open minds and hearts.

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“The morning time is the best time. My pleasant disposition prefers the world with nobody in it.”

Georgia O’ Keeffe

A peculiar relief befell during lockdown that of not being exposed to society. Scouting the streets masked, it was relief to be disjointed, othered and coupled with sense of liberation.

I note my photographs are devoid of humanity and I am drawn instinctively to capture shadows, reflections, hidden places, bins, debris, decompsoing creatures, behind the facade, what lies beneath, portals, signs, architectural clean lines, odd angles.

I am fascinated by the traces we leave; these exhortations, meassges, coded, indirect and multiple even in this small cathedral city where I reside. Having conversations with disembodied voices, covert and indirect.

The image I selected disturbs me deeply, the fact of the image of a face has been ripped or worn. I am ambivalent about being seen, and publishing here is an act of both ambivalence and faith, i am thrilled and equally terrified.

Unknown, uncertain yet compeIling.

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