city.

Istabul's marvellous history

These aren't the places tourists see. Stinking pools of congealed sewage mud that form ripples as aesthetically beautiful as any desert shot. Crumbled buildings hidden under layers of detritus the town has no use for. Piles of fetid fruit mulching the ground in the corner of the fruit farm, and the inevitable frame of flies festering around it.




A google search of Alzira shows the old city walls and the Plaça Major with its coffee-tables-on-concrete kind of trendiness. These walls nod to the city's Moorish history. The coffee tables to its modern Europeanness. But the back streets and industrial areas illuminate its current plight.




Eerily deserted processing factory shells have become a wasteland for drying palm fronds, and yet more litter. The car parks are as empty as a gesture of help from a checkout girl in my hometown. A routine question. Half built housing complexes are riven with weeds and fog trees, which seem to have evolved a strong survival gene, much like the horseradish in England, but tastier.




Nowhere here are the tapas bars and neon signs of Brits abroad resorts.




Yesterday, as I walked to the central park, I was stopped by a young man from Madrid. He explained that there was no work there, so he'd come here to look for work in the country. On a fruit farm, I guess. After a few minutes, we were joined by his slow, drunk seeming friend, clumsily stumbling over to try and stroke my necklace. (If it all goes wrong, we'll meet by the river)...




Sound familiar? Me too. But this isn't a scene from 1930s Dustbowl America, but a growing town only 30 minutes from Valencia in 2012. It's served by a tube for fuck's sake!




As I was out walking in the wrath of the evening sun, I chanced upon an overhanging vine, and scrumped some grapes from a farmer's field. Hearing the siren of hounds as I clip-clopped over their bridge, I fled for my salvation, accidentally smuggling some ants. In my head, I practised the Spanish to negotiate with the farmer, and offer some work in exchange for the fruit. We had become good friends.




Of course, he didn't chase after me for a few over ripe grapes.




It led me to thinking, though, about how many tourists don't see this side of Spain. And the truth of the financial collapse. And as usual, I questioned if really this isn't exactly what we need? Do away with the economy. Start from scratch. And there'll be no more tourists, for people will have to work for their keep. And there'll be no class system, for we'll all work together.




But.




There'll always be scrumping, though. And therein lies the problem. We have evolved in such a way that survival of the fittest has been modified as a capitalist ideal. And there will always be some avaricious bastard who'll scrump your crops and sell 'em off...

I miss you today. It wasn't a conscious decision. I didn't wake up underneath the cool blankets of opportunity, and think "I'd better spare a thought for Billie."

It just happened that way.

I heard the day start before I saw it. Like microwave popcorn, sporadic and untimely, rain spattered on the metal ledge beneath my window and stirred me from staggered sleep.

Sometimes days, weeks even, pass and I'll not think of you at all. And others the rusty nicotine stains gnarling at my fingertips will nag my mind. Or the freckles on the shopkeeper's arm. Or the blaze of deteriorating metal atop her weary head. Or a turbid tea-stain singed into Formica.

In times like this I try and excavate my mind, recall what was there before. It seems like I've hit an obfuscation; an oubliette and there's no other colour but the persistent rust that taints the edges of everything I look at.

My love for words is starting to change tack somewhat, and I've decided to try and make them earn their keep. They course through my veins, wake me at night and demand attention. Some nights, it'll be the call of the thick dictionary that wakes me; beckoning me into its world and distorting diphthongs into, and sometimes out again, of decorum.

I've decided to start a copy-writing business, which is likely to be a long and drawn out procedure. I've sought guidance online. You can get anything there these days (!)

As part of the process, I'm meandering through old posts, and previous publications, and came across a very early researched creative piece I wrote, following a shooting in Iraq. Through it, I found Khalid Jarrar's blog, and began to discuss our similar views on political movements during that time.

I wrote Circles for Khalid a while ago, after we discussed the breakdown of my relationship. We lost touch, since he got married a year or so ago, but I'll always be grateful for his permission to quote him, when I wrote this story:

http://www.falmouth.ac.uk/downloads/courses/with6.pdf