Crosswords Society Analogy Mirror Poem

Life was a tea-break quickie for me until I went to uni, and it began becoming cryptic, using a crosswords analogy. Cryptic crosswords don’t make much sense until you know the rules, and common forms of encrypting them, and I think the same is true for society.

If you have no interest in such things, the good thing about relatively free societies such as dear ol’ Blighty, still at the moment anyway, is that you can get by just doing the tea-break quickie.

Moreover, you can look smarter and quicker doing that, rather than struggling over learning and deciphering the cryptic.

John Lennon’s Working-Class Hero, 1970

As soon as you’re born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you’re clever and they despise a fool
Till you’re so fucking crazy you can’t follow their rules

When they’ve tortured and scared you for twenty odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can’t really function you’re so full of fear

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you’re so clever and classless and free
But you’re still fucking peasants as far as I can see

Read more: John Lennon – Working Class Hero Lyrics | MetroLyrics

John Lennon and Marc Latham (4-6)

For those who’ve grown up in the social media age, Lennon wasn’t criticising the working-class, saying peasants; he thought he could be sarcastic to make a point, even though he was very rich by then.

I was probably reminded of Lennon watching an Imagine two-part documentary about Cuba this week. A lot of what the Habaneros said about socialism is how I feel now, after being a staunch one back in the 1980s. I still think it’s a good ideal, but hasn’t worked that well in practise, with even Russia generally forgetting it now.

A soft form works well in countries like Norway, but they do have North Sea oil money too; but have used it wisely, only spending so much each year, unlike Blighty!

The lyrics to Working-Class Hero seemed still apt for my experiences at university, but they also did in my day-job, when the bullying perpetrators were working-class from all ethnicities.

So, I’m not trying to convince you I’m your working-class hero here. I’d rather be living in a secluded mansion in the Hollywood hills; or somewhere similar in Blighty or Europe, like most of the working-class who’ve made some money.

That’s in contrast to people like Russell Brand and Lily Allen, who do the same, but try to hide it, while trying to claim they’re ethically squeaky clean. You want bollocks go to them!

Blighty Since 1980s

However, if the ‘Editors’ change the rules, withdrawing the tea-break quickie and imposing the cryptic on you, then you can come unstuck, and look stupid; as happened to people like poor Jade Goody, who seemed to me and the Mirror‘s Carole Malone (cited for her writing rather than her looks; a common mistake made in the current social media age) to be sacrificed for Multicultural Fascism under New Labour’s openly stated strategy to ‘change the face of Britain’ after the working-class had rebelled in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Jade and the others did look horrible at times in the Big Brother house, but that was predictable, put into a situation with a person and rules they didn’t understand, and who could be snobby, because that’s the life she led. For Jade and the others it was like being forced to try a cryptic crossword without any knowledge of them!

Society of Crosswords, Clues are Scrambled

no more tea-break
quickies for queue
straightforward view
while having brew
equality delusion
you know
the puzzle
so it’s time
for a new muzzle
multiculturalism

what you write today, tomorrow we’ll make hearsay

elitism
elegant word for meism
enjoying new lease
riding theism
we preach
our superiority
have another theology
new tautology
fork isn’t cutlery
cryptic-cross cultery now

My brilliant books (to me, maybe not everybody!) are available on Amazon etc:

Barbarian-Bohemian ‘Cuban Cultural Change’ (BBC3) Television Documentaries

Hi, it’s Harry Silhouetteof-Wolfhowlingonhill, bringing you a round-up of some interesting recent television. In the same week as Marc Latham’s travel article about Vinales, Cuba was published on Go Nomad, Simon Reeve presented an hour documentary about Cuba on the BBC.

The Greenygrey of Cuba

Reeve’s dazzling documentary touched on similar themes to Marc Latham’s articulate article, showing how the Cuban people are vivacious and vibrant, but becoming increasingly interested in capitalism and making money.

As Tim Dowling‘s Cuba Guardian review pointed out, the political situation in Cuba is becoming increasingly greenygrey:

‘There are two basic stories to tell about Cuba: one is of a socialist paradise with cool cars, lovely, crumbly buildings and a 99.8% literacy rate; the other is about a savagely repressive totalitarian state with a failed economy, beset by corruption, poverty and fear.
Of course neither story is true, at least not on its own. In Cuba (BBC2), presenter Simon Reeve attempted to rationalise these two versions by talking to ordinary Cubans at the forefront of the nation’s first cautious steps towards capitalism, but it wasn’t easy.’

Here is Simon Reeve dressed for his greenygreying mission:

Simon Reeve in Libya travelling around the Tropic of Cancer (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Dark Ages: An Age of Light 

In Dark Ages: An Age of Light Waldemar Januszczak also greenygreyed our perceptions of ‘Dark Ages barbarian’ tribes. His documentary showed how ‘barbarians’ such as Goths, Vandals and Huns were art-lovers that revered nature; and most had been converted to Christianity by the time they invaded Rome in the fifth-century.

Januszczak said the Huns particularly revered wolves and eagles, and drew inspiration from the power and beauty of the animals common in Europe at the time.

Werewolf of Oz: the Published Book Explained

Hi, it’s Greenygrey. We’re delighted to bring you the first instalment of Grey’s edited and published Werewolf of Oz: Fantasy Travel by Google Maps epic comedy-fantasy book. After I (we) made the first fantasy solo expedition of North America by google maps in 2008, Grey made the first fantasy solo (or even semi-solo, as it was only one half of the Greenygrey at the time) expedition of Australia (Oz) between 2010-2012. It was quite some journey.

The Cover Image

They say the cover is one of the most important parts of a book, and so we wanted to produce a bright cover that captured the essence of the story. Marc Latham let us use a photo of his from outside Vinales in north-west Cuba; the sun was setting and a lone local was walking out of town on the long road somewhere. The trees, a house and the road were lit up.

The image therefore combines many of the key elements of the Werewolf of Oz: lone travel, nature, human settlements, the road, mystery, the unknown and sunshine.

The Cover Creation 

Using Photo Impact we chose a turquoise background. Then we added the solo Grey’s image to the road at the bottom of the photo, and our image at the top of the photo, to signify the epic journey Grey would have to take across Oz for us to be reunited; and our two halves to have some laughs.

Then we added the title and author, giving Marc Latham the credit, as he edited it.