Dream on Friday night

One part that was pleasant and private, the other not so. I was a supply teacher in some kind of convent school, Heimdall like monk as a guardian. I met the mother superior, an immensely tall thin woman called 'The Monitor.'. She was dressed in a nun's habit, also covering her face, a blue cloth mask with rough slits in it for eyes and mouth. I took a class and she was there. She took off her habit and mask and spoke to the children. She was blonde and covered with skanky tattoos. I questioned her about them. She smiled and said, 'I fell...' The children cheered at the end of her talk.

I had been given a green blanket, but had no idea what to do with it, so went to find her. She was squatting under a hedge, and bid me come closer, closer, closer. I noticed her dirty vest and pants. When I was very close she said, close to my ear; 'No-one will cut your face like I can, with iron and with steel.'

In terms of my private mythology this makes some sense, and I will try to remember it.

The Old Nick

Some friends invited me on a ghost hunt on Saturday night; not one of those things where a medium takes you around and everybody hears the stories and goes Wooooo. No, it's all a bit more scooby doo and scientific than that; one looks for evidence of paranormal phenomena, and the Old Nick at Gainsborough has quite a reputation.

The theatre was built in the 70s, before that it was a prison, built in the 1880s, with a very high level of deaths among the prisoners. It's pretty, with its railed staircase and pink red walls. The magistrates' court was turned into the auditorium, the cells are below and the wardrobes above, cobwebbed and crumbling, with steps so uncertain that only 2 people can go up at a time. I sat on a chair in one of the walk in rooms, said Hi to anything that might be there, picked up a jacket that was lying crumpled and folded it, placing it on a box on the floor.

We did have all the paraphenalia but we just decided to wander around.The cells were cells...they felt sad of course, but the atmosphere was not heightened by the ghoulish figure hung from the ceiling as a bit of decoration. Dowsing rods crossed, temperature changes occurred but apart from that, it was all very quiet. People felt odd but then we were wandering around an old supposedly very haunted building in the dark. Not to feel odd would have been odd.

We placed a trigger object next to a door where someone thought they had seen a figure watching. It was a small box of sand with stones resting lightly on it. We left it there while examining the rest of the room, and came back to find five little indentations in it, like small fingerprints. A little glass work was attempted. I am not a fan of this, as it's my opinion that any kind of ouija may be a trigger for the subconscious mind, but is no real indicator of external activity. The glass moved a little decisively, a little indecisively. We left it. Returning upstairs towards midnight, we went into the room where I had folded the jacket. Right next to it on the floor was a mask. It hadn't been there before, or I would have trodden on it. My companion noted that the box itself had been straight and now appeared tilted, but I hadn't noted that before so couldn't comment. In the other room, things seemed to have moved, a purple ribbon, a hanger with number 33 written on it; little tiny things you couldn't be sure not to have missed in the first place. The fire extinguisher was pretty definite though: we were discussing what to do next when we turned around to see the hose out of its holster/grip whatever they are called, stuck right out across the doorway. We all stood there wondering if we had gone mad. This wasn't something you could have gone past without it smacking you in the stomach. One of our number had just been taking photos of the area, so we could check. Sure enough it had been perfectly normal just minutes before.

Back downstairs between the auditorium and the dressing rooms, the chief ghost hunter and I stood looking around when suddenly we heard it; very distinctive measured footsteps below, about 6/8 treads. Then it stopped. We looked at each other and shone our torches down the stairs.There was no one there, and only the back door out. At the same time, the two who were now investigating the wardrobes came down to tell us they had just heard three very clear tapping sounds.

Gainsborough being in the middle of god-forsaken land, we had to leave, what with a 2 hour drive back to Stevenage. But I wouldn't mind another look at the Old Nick at some point. It didn't escape us that all the activity seemed to really liven up between 11 and 1. Definitely worth checking out again.

Scotland again

Increasingly I am disturbed by the Yes campaign.

I've listed my emotional leanings in an earlier post; it's easy to see and understand the desire for a Scotland free from the greed and self service of Westminster, but it seems that Westminster is being equated with London and London is being equated with England, in a kind of lumpen broth of things and people it's OK to hate.

When all is said and done, that's a matter of choice. It's the practicality of the thing I don't get. Salmond keeps telling the Yes camp that of course there will be a shared currency, that Scotland will have the pound and the BoE will guarantee it. But why would the BoE guarantee the spending splurge promised by Salmond? This is the man who brought Fred the Shred to the fore, the man who spent £20,000 of taxpayers money in court to prove that he had got legal advice on the standing of Scotland in the EU; the court ruled that he had not got the advice he claimed. I wouldn't trust this man with a fiver, never mind a country's budget. The response to adamant claims that England won't share the pound? Salmond and chums claim that England is bluffing, that of course we will share the pound. But surely we never would unless we could determine and veto the money, and what kind of independence is that? But there just seems to be this blank assurance that England is playing chicken...maybe it is. But it's a dangerous game, and I see no gain to England in it. As important, I see no loss to England in refusing to play. Scotland is the player at risk. I think. But my fiscal knowledge is very slight.

The response has been that if England doesn't share the pound, Scotland will just renege on its part of the UK debt. Despite the hit our GDP would take, the temptation would be to shrug. After all, there are a lot of lenders out there; Scotland can go enjoy the interest rates any bad debtor faces. Of course, the oil might help a great deal, but there is so much finagling about how much oil there actually is and what it's worth, who can judge? Of course someone will buy it and just as well, with the loss of the financial sector, and the need to renegotiate everything from whisky exports to military shipping - both of which gain their major custom south of the border - said oil may well have to cover a lot of expenses. But it is worrying to depend so much on one resource; it makes for a wobbly utopia.

Then there's the EU. Salmond has claimed all sorts of rubbish, from fast-tracking onwards, and I think there is a hope that Europe will welcome them in just to annoy the evil English. Maybe that will happen. If so, Scotland will have to adopt the Euro, for all its sins. But an independent Scotland wants the same get out clauses and exceptions negotiated by the UK. And that might happen too, but there's no guarantee. What there are, are potential vetoes...

Of course, none of it may happen. What do I know? But it has an ominous feeling to me, the sense of a grand kilted party, and then a hangover lasting longer than William Wallace's legend. If the worst should come to pass I have no doubt that Scotland will survive, though it will be hard. But to see the end of the Union? Something in me sorrows, another part of me knows that we'll be OK.

...And again

How strange, that this matters so much to me! Pushing and pulling, reading and thinking... Scottish Labour voters are now voting yes to an independent Scotland,not out of a braveheart fantasy but because they have been ignored, and their needs dismissed. Part of that is the lack of connection between the people of the UK and the political establishment, not just the Tory party, though they are the most visible, they represent the most overtly wealthy and are perceived as the most arrogant. Cameron with his shining face and plum voice, his slight air of upper class twitdom and his Bullingdon boy background...of course they hate him. They would always have hated him, but even more so at a time when the numbers of poor relying on foodbanks has exploded, when rickets and TB have returned to our cities, and reports cite Britain as a country still riddled with class privilege and social injustice. Who wouldn't want to start again, to try to create a fairer society? If it was anyone other than Salmond, I'd want to go myself. In fact, I still want to, despite my instincts re that declaiming weasel. If I feel the pull towards a kinder world, how much more do those who feel so disenfranchised?

At the end of my last post, I said 'we' would be all right. But that depends on who 'we' are. The UK as a social construct will get past a division, however painful, though I think more cities will look for devolved powers, and that may be good. But the poor, and those who strive for equality, those who seek to protect the welfare state and the NHS, those who relied on Labour MPs to get them out from under Tory rule?

Here is the thing about the poor, they can't be ignored forever. The state is not just a business machine, it has a moral duty to protect its members. If sight of that is lost, then prepare to lose much more.