HALLOWE'EN PAST

Today is Hallowe’en, the ancient European festival of Samhain, “summer’s end”, which was the most magically potent time of year, and even, it has been suggested, New Year. This was the night when the autumn fires would burn to provide, according to the Celtic Spirit website, “an island of light within the oncoming tide of winter darkness, keeping away cold, discomfort, and evil spirits long before electricity illumined our nights”. People would take a part of the fire to re-light their own hearths; in some parts of Scotland this custom apparently continued up till the First World War, the time when so many folk traditions were extinguished.

These popular so-called “Celtic” sources (though this is something of a misnomer) often tell us that at Samhain the “veil between the worlds” was at its thinnest; I have always liked this image as it makes me think of a cacophonous crowd of mischievous sprites and daemons pushing this nebulous membrane so that the tiniest rent could quickly become a rift that would send them tumbling through into our suburban streets. Of course, in the old tradition, the veil was one between the living and the dead. It was above all a festival of the ancestors, and hence its modern incarnation as a night teeming with ghostly nasties. Finally, Samhain also marked the end of the harvest; all the remaining crops in the fields were thenceforth subject to the malign influence of faeries and, being thus accursed, must not be gathered.

In my own little Scottish village, we had traditions of our own. I used to go “guising” as a child, which was a real thrill, given that I did not normally go out at night for any reason. Dressed up fairly carelessly, usually as Tom Baker-era Doctor Who, although I may have had one or two other guises, I ventured forth clutching my nightlight-in-a-jar lantern, which inevitably went out with the first serious gust of wind. (I never actually had a turnip lantern until a friend of mine made one when I was in my thirties.) I remember other costumes being really inventive – in particular, my best friend Alan’s parents would go to great efforts, and one year he was “Mr Music”, clad head to toe in a paper suit and hat patterned with real musical scores. We all had a little routine to do to earn nuts, sweets and coins from the neighbours: this would consist of a song, a poem, jokes, etc. We went to some lengths to learn these by heart. One of my neighbours, an elderly woman with no children, was exceptionally generous. She always stockpiled a mound of goodies, including homemade toffee, and as her reputation spread, children came from far and wide to knock on her door. Eventually, she’d run out of stuff and have no option but to put the lights out and sit in silence to end the siege.

This all sounds so quaint now, like something from between the wars, even though it was in the 1970s! There was no “trick-or-treat”-ing then; this was a later American import. Above all, we all felt safe to roam the streets unaccompanied, which was the real treat. It’s not just ancient customs that have been consigned to the grave.

LAST NIGHT AT TUZRAKTAR

It was cold, much colder than we had expected it to be when we arrived at Tuzraktar to see if the rumours were true that it was going to be burned down by the mafia. An abandoned commercial building inhabited by various artists and performers, it’d been our regular Sunday night hang-out ever since we heard about the leftfield films (Derek Jarman, David Cronenberg) they were showing. You didn't just get the films (watched from old armchairs and sofas), but peanuts and Coke too. All for free.

The metal mesh gates are flanked by two giant boilers, each bearing a paraffin torch. These are typical of the post-industrial medieval atmosphere which pervades the central open space. Eerie, hastily executed images in white decorate the concrete walls: grinning monkeys, clowns, a woman on her hands and knees, a series of stencilled goats. Random household objects dangle from the unglazed windows. At the far left, there’s a small tree growing out from the outside of the third floor.

Tonight parts of the walls are red-lit, and there are paper and cloth festival lanterns hanging in a row between the buildings. They are lurid: faces, flowers, storybook animals and abstract shapes. Behind the bar are some fluorescent cartoon aliens and mushrooms on an overhead canvas. And in the centre, three barrels of fire with people clustered round feeding them broken bits of furniture. Every so often, the embers take on a life of their own, splutter and tumble out, making us all jump back in alarm and delight. There's the acrid, always autumnal, smell of woodsmoke. A girl is roasting lard and onions on skewers over the fire to make bread and dripping. All of this is bathed by cut-out snowflake and flower images cast in magenta and orange by a revolving disco light.

Down in the cellar, a local band is rehearsing some kind of French cabaret songs: the four singers, swinging their arms in sync, carry it off well even though they outnumber the audience. Upstairs, if you can brave the night air through the gaping window-spaces, you can see a collection of unusual paintings. The images are modern: vibrantly experimental, yet not abstract in any sense. The artists’ sincerity is clear in every work.

I hope this place reopens in the Spring. This kind of unmediated freedom of expression can only exist in the gap between post-industrial abandonment and near-inevitable enguzzlement by property developers. Let’s hope we beat them to it again.

SCRAMBLED - song lyrics

I'm losing the thread of thoughts in my head
Caught sight of oblivion - my old languages are dead
And I won't wait my turn while this city is burning
Caught sight of oblivion in the crap I'm supposed to learn.
The future is here but we're not in control
Better hold on to your soul.

I'm coming unstuck, I can't reconstruct
A thousand scrambled channels - my old languages are fucked
And that's just the start. What's happened to my heart?
A thousand scrambled channels and the feeling just won't start.
The future is here but we're not in control
Better hold on to your soul.

My brain is so tired, the neurons still firing
A thousand scrambled channels - my old language is retired
The network's still up but the files are corrupt
A thousand scrambled channels then the audience erupts
The future is here but we're not in control
Better hold tight on to your soul.

TOO MUCH PROPERTY IS THEFT

Private landlords are getting fat from the misery of others who can't afford to buy a home, while draining away the little money their tenants have worked for. I suggest the law in the EU be changed to restrict each household to one mortgage. It is quite enough. (The definition of "household" would have to be carefully worked out to prevent fat cats buying property in other people's names.) Households with excessive properties would be required to put these on the market by the end of the financial year, and eventually this would be extended to include any household with more than one. I think this would bring about a generaly beneficial readjustment in the property market.

WHILE ROME BURNS

OK, it's another testosterone-fuelled rant into the depths of virtual space.

It's the hottest October 27th on record in the UK, and, conveniently for the Six o'clock News, it's the same day Prince Charles is telling us to move global warming up the political agenda. At least someone in public life is aware enough of the issues, and able, because of not being beholden to any electorate, to speak out. It might even be a reason to hold on to the royals?

But what really matters as our civilisation teeters on the brink of collapse?

And now here's Gary with the sport. Who'll be the new (insert football team) manager/ centre-forward?
Now you can hear the new release from (insert talentless babe or heart-on-sleeve whining falsetto)
10 hot tips on how to improve your sex life
The Top Ten (insert - usually - inane junk) Ever Made
Vote for the top Dad - Ozzy Osbourne or Homer Simpson
Why x has split up with y
The Nikkei. The Hang Seng. The Dow Jones. The Footsie.
Is it better to have a big tum or a big bum?
Which overprivileged unthinking careerist nincompoop will lead the Tory Party??? Ha ha ha ha.
Neo-medieval feuds over different conceptions of a FICTIONAL Middle-Eastern God
and, can you believe it, the other day someone invested $150,000 in a virtual space station that's part of some online game!

(At least the naked power interests fighting the "war on terror" are doing something relevant in their attempt to do down the other part of humanity and gain strategic control of the reserves of the power source we seem to be addicted to.)

It could almost be funny and if I'd drunk a couple of pints, it probably would be. This is one of the reasons to drink, after all.


We tuck into junk food and are spammed by people's junk thoughts. All day long. Anything of any worth at all, like Prince Charles's comments, will be derided or, at best, ignored. Welcome to the end of the world. And heralded neither by a bang nor a whimper, but a fizz. It's the cacophony of a million distractions and digital cables carrying nasty, corporate-funded trivia to infect us all. The sound of the approaching hurricane is nearly drowned by it. (See below)

BRING ON THE STORM - song lyrics.


Just my luck - caught out in the storm
Blow through me now, blow my house down.
Take my stuff, sweep it up
Into the winds and all the wildness.
Take my day, mess it up
Stop the play, close the circus;
I want to feel what it's like
Without a shield and in the open night

Bring it on, the noise and the light
Bring it on, the wind and the wildness
Bring it on, the noise and the light
Here's my life:
Blow it to pieces.

Take our town, break it down
I don't care now - don't really live there.
All the long muffled days
The land is cracked and ripe for rain.
Take the lights, switch them off
Close the bars, and the arcades;
Close the school, stop the clocks,
No more guile in the time we've still got.

Bring it on, the noise and the light
Bring it on, the wind and the wildness
Bring it on, the noise and the light
Here's my life:
Blow it to pieces.

BAND OF GYPSIES

Giero, just off Liszt Ferenc Ter, is one of Budapest’s many cellar bars. It’s cramped and with a constant pall of smoke and you can’t hear anything except the music. On Friday, just as on every night, its barrel-shaped structure reverberated with the soaring and frenzied sound of the Roma (gypsy) house band, and we were seeing them for the first time.

There were five or six musicians of varying ages and we were told that they play in shifting combinations; it seems as if anyone from their number can just turn up and join in. So in this way it’s like a traditional Irish session, but the similarity ends there. For in this band were not one but three players of such virtuosity that it set them apart from any run of the mill folkies, and they might easily have been performing in far less humble surroundings.

Leading the band tonight was a guest fiddler, a stocky bespectacled gent in his fifties. He was a consummate showman and reminded me of a figure from Death in Venice (or Mario’s magician?) in the way that he peered over his glasses at each guest, cajoling them, drawing them out of themselves, and not letting go until he got complete involvement: smiles, nods, or raucous singing along. He strutted up and down between the tables, exuding a simmering sensuality, completely at odds with his age, but which he was obviously unwilling to contain. His scratchy notes sprang out, endlessly playful and unpredictable, teasing the main melody, keeping you hooked.

No doubt slightly annoyed to be under this man’s shadow was the usual lead fiddler, a wiry Casanova with sculpted cheekbones like someone from a 1940’s film. This man intently serenaded the women with poignant and lyrical phrases, all the time fixing them with a gaze that could have scorched their skins, as their men shifted uneasily in their chairs. With his instrument thrust under his chin, he adopted a variety of theatrical poses as part of his game. Every now and then he would stop and give a little bow.

Presiding over all this was the Buddha-like cimbalom player enthroned behind his instrument. (This looks something like a small wooden grand piano, and has several different sets of strings, which are hit with beaters.) His presence conferred an air of benevolence to the whole ensemble. He threw a series of amiable glances around the room, quite clearly delighted with his apparently haphazard genius. Moving his arms back and forwards piston-like, he beat out rhythmic patterns with superhuman speed and precision. The slightly out-of-tune cimbalom responded with streams of soft, slightly muffled notes like a silent movie score, or an old music box.

The searingly intense melodies themselves, built from exotic scales, rebounded from the walls and enveloped everyone. They spoke eloquently of another century and a different way of life which these people still live.