No 7: Finding Broken China

 

The pieces are too small

To form a whole, yet

They must. Their patterns apparently

Different on each uncovered piece.

Strewn underground, painfully sweet

Again

And again turning over the

Earth as we search for

Fragmented clues. Some kind

Of riddle. What strange urn

Will emerge from these shards?

Stratford on Avon 16 September, 2006.

No 6: Sampling Time and Place

Originally posted in about 2005
 

Old photographs often have an inherent yearning about them. There are photos in our lives that we invest with meaning. Those old snaps you find when clearing out a drawer after someone has died, or that faded photo found in a pile of old letters. There, pickled on the paper, a moment.

Photos that I recently found in a drawer:

That moment when Rod checks his watch in the doorway of his back garden as the century changes. The day we had a picnic in the fens - it was my 30th birthday.

The blink of an eye; the moment has gone.

But the latent image is left behind to emerge in the developer, to be collected with anticipation, to be stuck in a frame, shoved under the bed, or packed in an envelope and sent to a friend or relative.

Nottingham 1981; I’m in the Basford Flats, I’m a student. And I’m a mere 25 years old. I am watching a film; a prison drama in which the inevitability everyone’s death is apparent. (I can‘t remember the film, and the flats have been knocked down now in favour of low rise high density housing) As I lounged in student-bliss surrounded by friends, girlfriend at my side, I was suddenly acutely infected by an intense morbidity which did not go away. My friends at the time teased me about it and when I became morose. “He’s got the morbids” they would say.

In a way they never went away. Ever since I have been anxious about the inevitable death of each and everyone of us. Throughout early marriage and the arrival of children, and my first proper jobs this feeling was more of a background noise which could occasionally be heard in the dark lonely hours when I would wake and stare into the abyss.

Gloucester Hospital 4th March 2004 . My father James Richard Knott Fayle dies. At the time I’m standing in the shop of Leeds Armoury. I am looking at a book about the Battle of Bosworth when my mobile rings. It’s my brother with the bad news. The feeling comes flooding back. The cobwebs of death smother me again.

I mourned the death of my father quite privately, and got on with work and life. However inside I not only mourned the loss of my father; but I mourn(ed) my for my own inevitable death, and the inevitable death of everyone I love, and indeed every person who is alive.

As part of a kind of rebirth (mid-life crisis if you like) I singed up on an MA, and as result I wanted to do develop some new media art work.

We all understand that in order to live you have to die, and that in living one has a limited period of time and certain space. In a physical sense that is all we are.

There a many beliefs that would say that there is more to us than our physical being. Let me lay my cards on the table:- I do not know where I stand. I can’t see how we can be more than physical, but on the other hand I can’t see how we can be only physical.

What is a photograph?
What is a photograph for?

What is the purpose of all those photos stuck away in a drawers, and sandwiched away in wedding albums, and uploaded to the internet to be “shared” with strangers as well as friends?
Memory. A physical portrayal of a person, a place, an event.

The average modern photograph records a very short moment of time; 1/125th of a second perhaps. It takes this small sample of time and records the way the light was reflected deflected towards the camera for that short duration of time. Thus when we look at a photograph we see that scene or that person preserved in this short sample of time.

Pinhole cameras such as the ones I have been making require long exposures, 1 minute, 2 minutes, 40 minutes, even several hours. In these photographs the time frame is different. It’s no longer the blink of an eye. It’s a percievable period of time, long enough for us to think, act, fall in love, make a phone call, eat a meal, or die.

I think there are certain photos in everyone’s life that are important or memorable for some reason. In my life for example there's picture of me in a duffle coat, when my mother took me to London for first time (by steam train). It was trapped under glass on my Mum's dressing table. That picture I took of my Dad in nineteen sixty something as he came into the yard from the farm - it was my first camera - A Kodak 127 “brownie”. The picture of Clare and I outside a building in Hong Kong just after we got secretly married, we got a passer bye to take the pic.

It is not the photograph’s function to record an exact reference to time (e.g. 13:14 GMT), but when you look at photos we inevitably try and remember exactly when, and where. How do we start to get a grip on these moments that make up a life? Obviously we can record the time and the place.

Now: 21st February 2005, 16:14 GMT. But how precise can you be? I notice that for myself there is an average time, The clock in the kitchen is faster than the watch I wear, which is different from the time display on my phone. I work to some meantime of my own.

But if you were going to be precise about it what is the exact time now, and now, and now, and is it possible to record an exact moment in time and space?

It’s 1961 I think: I am 5 years old. I am wearing my best clothes, and I’m standing in a family group in front of our house. My grandfather looks down into his strange camera, the black bellows extending a black shiny eye towards us and Click!. I remember the actual moment. And somewhere in my Mother’s stuff there is now a fading photo of the gathering after my brother’s christening.

I can’t pin down the exact moment of time, not even the date, but I have tried to work out the exact place. I think I know where we standing. I think I can recall the position fairly exactly. I’ve looked it up and I think it was at grid reference SO 766 023. Not absolutely precise - but certainly picky.

For those of us with a nerdy side I should say that I did some research and found that there is indeed a national co-ordinate system. The responsible body is the Ordinance Survey. There are three possible systems to locate a place. ETRS89, OAGB36, and ODN - Ordinance Datum Newlyn. I could feed the nerd in me by buying a GPS system and going to the very place and logging the position. Ooh. I can feel the anorak enclosing me already.

I also started to look into the definition of death. If I was going to worry about death, perhaps I should try and find out exactly what death is. Surely we all know what death is. Everything has shut down, there’s nothing happening in the body, the brain has stopped functioning.

The definition of death has been the subject of considerable debate it turns out. In Kuwait in 1985 the Islamic Organisation for Medical Science met and discussed the issue. Every country has had to decide on the legal definition of death.

The most commonly used definition of death, as far as I can see, seems to be the cessation of all vital processes and in particular death of the entire brain, including the stem. I also found that there are many tests to check that death has occurred, including the bizarre test of putting cold water into the ears whilst looking at the eyes to see if there is any reaction.

So I had looked a little into positioning in space, and I had looked at the definition of death, and I had thought about time and how we can fix ourselves in a time and place.
I decided to trace the 0 Meridian around the globe. I was interested to see where it came into Britain. Where did it go after that? I got an atlas out and followed it:

THE NORTH POLE
Withern Sea (Kingston Upon Hull)
Louth (east of Sheffield)
Near Royston (Cambridgeshire / Bedfordshire border)
GREENWICH
East Grinstead
Into France
San Pierre sur Dives
A mountain summit near Couroges
Near Le Mans
Lezat (near Poittiers)
Grignals
Gavarnie
French border - into Spain
Caspe
Castellea De La Plana Almeressa
Into Algeria
Mostaganem
Into Mali
Gao
Into Ghana
Wolehe
Tema
Then no more land until
Georg Forster island (Germany)
THE SOUTH POLE

I also traced the same line up the other side of the world back to the North Pole. I wondered about having people arranged along this line (Exactly) on the line and arranging a long exposure photograph of each person to be exposed at for the same minute of time. This idea was clearly beyond my immediate means so I tried to think of something more achievable within my means.
I decided to get a video camera and a pinhole camera pointing at the same scene, and to record the exact same minute of time on both.

My first attempt took place one lunch hour, when I borrowed a video camera, packed a pinhole camera into my bag and nipped round the corner.

The scene I chose was of a place in Nottingham where many streets join. The traffic and pedestrians are controlled by traffic lights. My thought being that there would waves of movement. In my rush I found that I hadn’t packed the microphone. I set up the video camera, the pinhole resting on the ground directly below the lens of the video camera.

I set the video camera going and then pulled out the detachable shutter to expose the first of two pinhole photographs. As soon as had done this I flashed the shutter briefly in front of the video camera so that I would know when the minute had started, similarly at the end of the minute.
As a technical note I was interested to see that when I compared the two images, and put the video image on top of the pinhole to see that the video image had a much smaller field of view than the pinhole. I knew it was a wide angle but I had not appreciated how wide. I think the angle for the particular camera I used is around 110 degrees.

I repeated the process with a second minute of time and a second pinhole photo. Well you have to give yourself a choice.

I stuck the two images together, and put on a caption detailing the time and place. I slowed down the video so there three time frames running.
1) The 1 minute exposure of the pinhole
2) The original 1 minute of video footage
3) The new duration of about three minutes.

I enjoyed the result which showed people moving slow-motion across the cross roads (a kind of symbol of life), when they get to the edge of the video frame they disappear. But in your mind they carry on walking. It is as if they have moved into another dimension, or indeed died. It’s a minute from their lives.

No 5: The Mouse, The Girls and The Grim Reaper

Originally posted Summer 2004

This is a true account of certain events in Stratford on Avon -Summer 2004. I wrote it a while ago.

Names have been changed - except that of Gordon Vallins whom I urge you to find out about.

The weirdness that has haunted me this weekend has roots that can be traced back several weeks to a moment when I looked from the kitchen window and saw the cats toying with a little mouse. You may say that I should not have interfered with the natural order of things, but the I was compelled to shoo off the cats and rescue the mouse.

Close inspection revealed that the mouse had had its tail mutilated - skinned and broken and it was obviously in a state of abject terror. Not least because it was now in the hands of a giant. I put it in a Perspex animal cage that we had, and left it water, and a little food and shredded up paper to hide in. It did quite well and over the next few days started to recover it's vigour and could be seen scurrying and twitching quite happily.

There was a portentous moment, which I should have taken more notice of, when Tamsin found one of the cats (Venus) sleeping on top of the Perspex box apparently oblivious of the mouse and vice versa.

In the dark and lonely hours of that night I lay awake contemplating the confusing and terrifying images that I had just been dreaming when I thought I heard a burglar down stairs. So I tiptoed down stairs to find the cats intently focused on the sofa. When I shooed the cats away and lifted the sofa up there was the mouse which scurried away into the shadowy recesses of the room. The Perspex tray had been pushed of its shelf and the cats stared at me with searchlight eyes that pitied my lily-livered view of life and death.

Time passed and the weekend arrived when I was to meet up with a few people (I think of them as rather sexy girls but actually they are middle-aged women) that I went to college with in 1976 / 7 in Stratford on Avon. I donned my leathers, packed my bag and and strapped it to the back of bike. I headed south to the tourist ridden town.

The weekend started with a good dose of life and death as I went to the theatre with a woman called Tamsin to see Hamlet. As students all those years ago I had been rather surprised when The Tamsin that I now sat next to in middle age had flung herself and an offer of lust and love at me. Being at the time somewhat shy and confused I ran a mile. I had not realised that she had any interest in me until that moment. Now many years later she had recently apologised for this moment and I had assured that I was confused and flattered, at the time hence my rejection.
So here we sat all these years later contemplating Hamlet and his father's ghost.

The next morning I awoke in my chintzy and frankly tasteless little B&B and having showered opened my bag to get out clean clothes. But upon opening the bag I was horrified to find that all my clothes were crawling with maggots. Who had packed this bag? I had! I had certainly not packed maggots - so where had they come from for God's sake?

Having travelled by bike I had equipped myself with various bin-liners to deal with down pours etc. So Item by Item a shook the maggots off my clothes into a bin liner. My face distorted in disgust. Eventually I had decontaminated all the clothes. I reached into the bag for the last item which was a pair of martial arts gym shoes which I hardly ever wear and found inside one of them the body of the mouse that I had so lovingly rescued crawling with maggots.

I put the bag and the shoes in the bin-liner slipped from the B&B down the road; if you had been walking the Alcester road that Saturday morning you would have noticed a middle aged man with a black bag which he was furtively stuffing into a street litter bin. His face in a grimace of distaste.

Later that morning, I got on my bike and with determination I tracked down a certain Jenson Bleer (with whom thirty something years ago I had been at school) who lives in Stratford and whom I had not seen for probably 10 years or more. Having got some vague directions from a mutual acquaintance I found his house easily as outside was parked a Russian Motorbike and Sidecar. As I scanned the house I could see the familiar twitching and bobbing silhouette of my old school friend Jenson (My dad always called him Jenson Blur because of his constant movement).

"Roger old bean- do come in! how lovely to see you - My dear fellow!" he said as opened the door. "Come in! Come in! meet the wife."

I was ushered through into the front room where a plump woman of around 60 was sitting drinking strong beer. She had a very red face and no teeth.

"Will you be putting your teeth in today dear?" said Jenson twitching with attentive affection.

"Mnnoo - wen ah go down fhops" she said

Jenson explained that they didn't normally drink this early but that he had been working until two in the morning and woken at five and that Tilly - his wife- was also very busy and this was a narrow window of opportunity in which they could share each other's company.

I asked what his job was

"R&D engineering that kind of thing"

He answered quickly and explained an employment history that ran through aircraft engine manufacture and marine accident investigation. Then bizarrely took a turn into his present occupation which he informed me was currently as director of a double glazing company- he was making loads of money and was even as we spoke on priority-one stand-by in case of emergency.
He also informed me that his house could be powered by a generator which he had in a shed at the bottom of the garden, and that in power cuts his was the only house with working lights and TV. Tilly said she wanted some money to go down the shops and buy knickers with. Jenson did a lot of mental maths about money and gave her a £20 note.
Next I was invited to see an electric bicycle that he was testing for R&D purposes.

"No one" he told me "Has ridden one of these things in all weathers day in day out for years on end" I had a go on it and up and down the road watched by Jenson, Tilly, and the neighbours who thought it was the most interesting things they had ever seen.

After a series of complex explanations about the workings of the Russian motorbike (which had now become the focus of his torrential stream of words) we put it on the centre stand and started the engine - which did sound really throaty. But it was time for me to move on for my lunchtime date with the girls.

"The Dirty Duck" is a famous pub in Stratford near the theatre and it's always full of actors and students - and it was here that I sat with three rather sexy middle aged women - where we had sat so many years before. No longer torn apart by adolescent self doubt I relaxed into the company of these people who were living artefacts from a nearly forgotten past in which at the time I had felt so lonely and excluded. And yet here I was sharing beer and ploughman's and flirtatious conversation. Fantastic.

I noticed two women looking through the window apparently at me and consulting each other. I presumed they were not looking at me but at the architecture. But I was wrong they really were looking at me, because now they had entered the pub and somewhat shyly approached us. Not just us but me.

"It's my Hen Weekend" the pretty one explained and I have to photographed with a Shakespeare look alike - would you mind . . .?"

As you can imagine I was delighted. So I went outside where there was a large gathering of women who photographed me with my arm around the bride to be. The "girls" took photographs of the photographs being taken.

I walked the girls back to their B&B and said I was going to buy jeans which rather excited them and they said they would like to help me. But the thought of being advised and inspected, even by three middle-aged beauties, was too much for me so I slid out of the offer and went solo into town to buy jeans and have sauna and swim.

Later that evening we all arrived at the Ripple restaurant and Night-club where we met Gordon (Gordon Vallins - inventor of drama A level) He was our vigorous and enthusiastic teacher and course leader all those years ago and now he stood before at the age of 70. I could not help doing a sum which confirmed my suspicion that we were now older than he was when he was teaching us. He was still bright eyed and vigorous and his mind was very sharp and quick.

I also found another sum running in my head, a sum that is a constant background since my Dad died in which I subtract various numbers from 78. In subtracting my own age the answer is 31. In the case of Gordon - to whom we gave birthday card and present the answer is 8.

"Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy." A voice in my head recited

We were also joined by a very handsome and distinguished looking man with receding hairline and rather well placed wrinkles.

"I ACT" he said "I act; and I direct"

This man (Rudolf Indigo) was a mere boy the last time I saw him. At the time he was gay and a "luvvy" of the first water. He was now just as camp but he had learned to turn it on and off as required. Now he was in full "Luvvy" mode. He had a part in a film in Budapest, he was directing his own work, he had played the Theatre Royal in Nottingham. His hands flew around like birds looking for escape as he spoke and his voice became so mellifluous that he was nearly singing rather than speaking.

Suitably fed and slightly inebriated with love and wine we all went upstairs to dance. In the dance area there was a woman dressed in harlot red and wearing a wedding veil.

"Oh my God" she screamed at me over the din as I passed. "Would you mind if my friends took a picture of you kissing me"

This was not my previous bride, but I was very happy to oblige. Flash! Bang! Wallop!

I started to dance with Samantha who has recently rediscovered the fun of freedom and sex because she has separated from her husband. She squirmed and swivelled in my arms as we danced and I remembered how much fun it was to be alive and ruddy.

Samantha is an amazing woman who does not know how witty and funny (and now sexy) she is. She really could be on the radio and just talk. She would have an instant fan base of middle-aged women in search of someone to speak to them, and for them. She is brilliant.

I was interrupted by the woman with a veil again. This time she had with her an older woman

"My mum" she shouted at me. "I know it's cheeky but she wants you to kiss her as well" So I did. Flash! Bang! Wallop!

I walked the girls back to their B&B. Samantha (chattering about sex), Phillipa (Who had ensnared my heart 1976 by wearing a rather sheer red leotard) and Paris(Cackling like a swan) zigzagged ahead.

Tamsin (whom I had rejected in ignorance and fear all those years ago) became a little sad, and I hugged her and told her again that I was privileged that she had offered me so much affection, and that she should not worry, because despite the passage of time and all the junk it drags with it we were still friends and if anything I liked her more now than then.

The next day I got up - no maggot surprises and suited myself up, got on my bike and made my way back home. That evening my son Josh said we should watch a film called "Big Fish" which I had never heard of.

At first I kept falling asleep because I was tired and I had drunk some beer.

But the film started to get to me. It was about a man - a father who made up incredible stories for his kids, but as they grew up he kept on making up stories and his son felt that his Dad should stop "lying" and start saying what was really inside him. H wanted know his father before he died. The father lay there in his hospital bed, life draining from him and he told his son that all the stories and all the incredible people he had invented were not lies. They were actually him.

And he looked like My dad, and he sounded like me. And he died. And his son took his body and waded out into a lake and lowered him into the water, and his father became this huge fish and swam away into the deep water never to be seen again.

I was weeping like an open wound and went to bed wishing for my Dad, and for my Tamsin and Josh and Gabriel, and for myself, and for the other Tamsin, and Samantha, and Paris and Phillipa, and Gordon. and Rudolf Indigo, and for Jenson and his wife Tilly, and for the ladies who were getting married and for their Mums. In fact I wept into my pillow for the imminent and inevitable death of every person on this planet.

No 4: Peregrine and Roy

 

Originally posted September 2006

As approach the pool I am pleased to see that there is only one person in the pool. It is “Peregrine Worsthorne”. She swims slowly but steadily up and down the pool. Yes that is correct I did say “she”.

Take the head of Peregrine Worsthorne and put it on a fairly corpulent female body aged somewhere between 58 and 64 and you have the image. Put this creature in a pale, florid and rather large bikini. Now you have it more clearly still.

I slip into the pool and start to swim. Soon Peregrine is joined by “Roy Hattersly” who is also a woman. She is shaped a bit like an apple on legs, and has slightly shorter hair than the real Roy. She also wears lipstick, which I feel sure that Roy does not.

Roy and Peregrine swim together in amiable conversation. They are very nice women. They always nod and say hello, and they are always courteous and polite. They have a kind of genteel and self-contained aura about them.

Next we are Joined by “Groucho”. As his name suggests he has a large moustache, a big nose, and glasses, except in his case the first two items are not removable. Here the similarity with his namesake ends. He moves with such mind numbing slowness, it is hard to believe it is not a piece of modern dance, or performance art.

It is proper to take a shower before climbing into the pool, and Groucho is showering as I complete length 45. On Length 53 he is still showering. On length 64 he starts the slow trek to the steps into the water – a distance of about 20 meters. On length 71 he is still approaching the steps with the concentration of a tightrope walker. On length 74 he starts the slow descent into the water. And here’s the surprise: once in the water he is a fast mover. A big man with a long reach, he can cover the distance at surprising speed.


I get to length 100, and I have 40 more to go. (I have increased the target by 10). It’s at this point that I start to consider what it would be like to be 100 and still alive. I read something in the news about a man who is 100 and still working in a garage. How must it feel to know that statistically you will be gone within 12 months. I watch the mosaic of tiles scroll beneath me. What would you want? Would you fear death or be able to accept it? Of course, it could happen to any of us at anytime. Perhaps I would feel the same as I do now. Worried. I worry about death. Other people do not seem to share my concern. Carrying on as if they are immortal; oblivious of the axe that hangs over them. Happy.


I do not know why am I drawn in to this morbid contemplation so easily? The stench of death hangs about me. The memory of my Dad lying in his hospital bed, still making jokes as the grim reaper advanced upon him makes me shudder. I remember him singing some weird old song:

“Don’t bury my here,
Bury me over there”

I often wish that I had reached out to him and said how much I loved him. But this is only one of the reasons that death so binds me. I have always thought about it, and I don’t know why.

I finish my lengths and head for the sauna. Emerging from the sauna is a woman whose legs look as if they have been badly made from plasticine by a child with shaky hands. One leg is covered in a network of bulging blue veins. She moves with some slowness to the shower, and then to the Jacuzzi. Again despite her affliction she smiles and chats with her friends in the bubbling water.

How can she ignore this disintegration? How can they all swim with such grace into eternity without any sign of fear or alarm? How can they be so brave and dignified in the face of certain death.

I am in awe.

No 3: The Walrus and The Otter

Originally posted in September 2006.

The blue water beckons. Usually a solitary activity, in the sense that I leave the house and my normal life behind, today is different. Today I have taken my son with me.

He has the casual elegance that teenagers do not know they possess, a beauty and health that is simply there, without the least bit of effort.

He flops into the pool and takes up his strange, slightly jerky breast stroke. I get in after him and take up my habitual and repetitive crawl. Occasionally he does a length underwater, gliding through the water with his hair flowing out behind him. On length 16 he gets out and heads for the Jacuzzi.

On length 21 I spot a large plaster lurking on the bottom of the pool. It makes me purse my lips underwater as I swim. I don’t want any of those molecules in my system. On the next length I see it again. Maybe I should remove it, but looking more closely I can see that the thing has a bloody residue on the central gauze patch, This means that the molecules from this person have been dispersed throughout the pool. I am swimming in blood! I understand the extreme dilution and the action of the chlorine, but. . . My God! This another’s body I am slowly imbibing. Should I recognise this as some kind of communion with the humanity around me? I splutter to the surface, take my goggles off, and take a break.

On length 27 I nod at The Walrus who has started his own habitual crawl up and down the pool. A rotund man in his late sixties with hair that covers his back; black and thick against the grey flesh, and the strangest thing – and I swear this is true, is his slightly webbed toes. His eyebrows jut out over the top of his goggles, and his sparsely streaked cranium ploughs at considerable speed through the water. For a man of his age he swims really quite fast, and completes lots of lengths. On land he is less graceful, and walks in a stiff way that may hint at the rebellion of a joint or joints, but in the water he moves quite well.

Length 82; and we are joined in the pool Jack Snow. Jack has pale grey skin and white hair, and sports the scars of triple by-pass surgery. Despite the fact that he should clearly be dead, he is not. He is very alive and very determined. He swims a slow but steady breast stroke, and completes a good forty or so lengths. His jaw set, his brow wrinkled.

The pool is a place where the stress of the day can be worked out, it can cleanse your mind, and calm you. The next day I arrive at the poolside carrying with me an anger and stress from the world of work. There is a woman I have never seen before slicing through the water with great elegance and speed. Her darkened goggles give her a slightly alien appearance. I get into the water, she is turning at the other end of the pool, and streaks back in a very athletic and powerful crawl.

God! She’s fast. I get my own goggles in place and I push off. Ahead of me the water is thrashed and churned as she powers on. I can hardly keep up with her. She gets to the end ahead of me and turns. Shooting off towards me again with a powerful kick, arms outstretched bubbles streaming from her like an underwater jet trail. I am cannot resist the chase or the race – whichever it is. I am after her, in a relentless but unacknowledged struggle. Over the course of the next 10 lengths I manage to draw along side her, and then edge ahead. At each turn I am gasping for breath as I plunge back into the pool.

No such inelegance for the – what shall I call her - “The Otter”. . .

No such inelegance for The Otter she turns with controlled elegance each time. It’s the fastest 130 I have ever done. When I get there, despite having overtaken her a couple of times I am exhausted, I get out of the pool and head for the sauna, behind me she still boils the water behind her; and she was already swimming when I got in. I still have a long way to go, in technique and stamina to get to that standard. I am very impressed.

I sit in the sauna and drip. This human-soup that I swim in; this wet and steamy world teems with amazing creatures.

No 2: I go swimming most days

Originally posted September, 2006.


I go swimming most days. I go to a pool that is part of a fitness club in a hotel. I have been going there for years. It’s a kind of ritual that my day is incomplete without. I have a whole other life in the swimming pool and the sauna.

As well as being a physical activity, it is an inner life, in which I follow a contemplation of my life ex aqua.

I’m doing a lot of swimming at the moment. I am on 130 lengths a day. Sounds much more impressive than it actually is as the pool is quite small.

I count the lengths as I swim. I swim crawl. The matrix of ceramic tiles passing below me. The thrum of the water in my ears. I get to the end, lift my head out of the water, revolve 180 degrees breathing as I turn. Head back in the water a hefty push off with the legs and I shoot off on my next length. 28. Head out, turn, push, stroke, stroke stroke, 29. On and on I go.

But superimposed on this watery rhythm there is a stream of consciousness linked to the lengths and the number that I’m on. It’s a here that I undertake a serious contemplation of death. I read recently the assertion that Thomas More had said that a day that goes by without the serious contemplation of death, is a day wasted. I can’t find the exact quote, but I agree. It’s not that I am morbid exactly, I just seem to naturally contemplate death a lot. I don’t know if others do? 

I have a system of images that represent numbers up to 31. This allows me to remember a calendar month. The images are Bum, Shoe, Tree, Door, Hive, (drum) Sticks, (The magnificent) Seven etc. If I want to remember that I am going to tea with my Aunt on the 7th of the month, I construct an image of my aunt in a dressed as a cowgirl dancing for the Magnificent Seven in a wild west saloon.

That is what I use the system for when I am ex-aqua. In aqua the first thirty numbers hardly count. I just log them as I swim. Then comes a series of numbers that have a deep emotional significance for me.

At length 49, I contemplate that I am 50 in two months time.

At length 56 I think that I have just been born (1956), On length 63 I recall my prep school and how much I hated going there; and at length 71 I recall the Quaker school that I went to and a particular girl that I had a crush on.

Length 75 is a big one for me, as this was the year of my first girlfriend, who left me bereft and forlorn. The first cut really is the deepest.

Length 78 is a big memento mori. This is the age my Dad died at. I always think of my Dad on length 78, and wonder if I will die older or younger than him

Length 80 I am just starting my degree (yes, a late developer) and it is on this length that I first meet my wife.

Length 85 is another deeply felt length as this was my school number at the prep school. I had 85 marked on the bottom of my shoes in brass tacks. God I hated that school.

Randomly along the numbers between 78 and 100 I contemplate the end of life.

So you see I am swimming and going through this kind of inner chant or incantation of my life, and therefore inevitably my death.

I get out of the pool, shower and get into the sauna. I love the sauna. Here I sit and sweat and start to process or order what have to do that day. The sauna looks out over the pool, so from it’s steamy gloom I can monitor the movement of people coming and going and swimming.

There is a quiet tinkling noise. This signifies that there is a new arrival. The noise being that of the locker key pinned to a towel. I wait to see who it will be.

It is “The rag doll”. I make my way into the Sauna. Sit down and feel the steam on my back. I can see a sliver of the pool from where I sit.

She comes slowly into view, shuffling towards the shower with waves of loose flesh swinging from her bones. She wears a rather racy red costume that cuts deeply into her soft pale flesh. She actually looks more like an inflatable doll that has been punctured than a rag doll, the air has largely escaped, and then the puncture has been repaired. Now she makes her way slowly into the water. It seems to take her an age to get in. I want to open the door of the sauna, from where I am watching with morbid fascination, and scream

“Get a move on! Time is short!”

Now she is in the water, and underway. Her swimming action is torture to watch. She moves like a mechanical toy of some sort, the rubber band has been wound up and now the energy is slowly dissipating through an inefficient mechanical system. Her head and body tick from side to side; her arms pat at the water. She develops almost no thrust whatsoever.

Number 1: “A hit, a very palpable hit”

Originally Posted July 2006:

The desire to poke or beat another human being with a pointed stick is strong and probably primeval. Whilst fencing is inherently combative and has it’s roots in violence, it has become elevated to an art and a sport. It calls upon many subtle and finely tuned actions and reactions. It is a noble art. 

Fencing derives its name from the word defence. It requires physical and mental agility, fitness, and psychology to fence. It requires elegance.

This description of fencing is based on using the foil as opposed to epee or sabre, each of which has different target areas and rules. It is also based on fencing “steam” rather than “electric”. In "electric fencing" the foil is fitted with an electrical contact and this activates a buzzer or light to indicate a hit.

In such a sport safety is of primary concern, and can be seen as falling into two main areas; equipment and behavior. All equipment must be carefully maintained and inspected before use.

A major section of equipment is clothing. The head is protected by a mask which has a collar which protects the neck and throat. This collar must be properly turned down in order to fulfill this function. The torso is protected by a vest is made of Kevlar or similar material and is designed with stand the buttoned point of the foil. The vest covers the arms as well. It has a “V” shaped flap which covers the groin area and this is held in place by a tie that goes between the legs. The sword hand is protected by a glove which is gauntlet like in shape, and goes around the sleeve of the vest. This too is made of suitably resistant material.

Women should also wear protection for their breasts under their vest.

The foil itself is made up of several pieces. Starting with the blunt end of the foil there is bulbous end to the handle called the pommel which makes it easier to keep hold of the foil. Just ahead of the handle is a cushioned guard which is designed to protect the hand from the opponent's blade. This entire structure must be properly secured to the blade. Next there is the blade itself which is divided into two areas, the forte and the foible. The blade must not be deformed or have been subjected to stress that might make it liable to fracture or snap as this would result in serious injury. The tip of the blade is capped with a blunt button which ensures that in striking the opponent the result is only a bruise, not a mortal wound.

It is also important to wear shoes which are suitable to allow quick and nimble footwork, and which afford adequate grip.

Equipment in itself is not enough to ensure complete safety, it is important that all fencers behave in a suitable way. This requires that all participants treat each other in a respectful manner, abide by the rules of the sport, and in even in the heat of a fight do not lose control, when losing or subject to an unwelcome judgement.

In fighting the two opponents face each other on a piste. Before fighting they should salute each other (bare headed) in the traditional way, as well as saluting the judges and president. They should then put on their masks (ensuring they don’t poke someone with their foil) and take up the on guard stance in readiness to fight. The president will ask if everyone is ready, and when everybody has confirmed that they are, the president will command them to fight.

The two opponents then advance and retreat in tempo, keeping "fencing distance" and trying to score points by hitting each other in the target area. In foil the target area is the torso, the back as far down as a waistcoat might go, the shoulders, and (worryingly enough) the area below the belly button extending downwards towards the crotch.

As soon as a fencer starts an attack they have right of way until their opponent has parried or beaten away the their blade, at which point right of way is surrendered . Thus the fencers move backwards and forward along the piste attacking, parrying, defending as they go. If one should score a hit on the other the judges will indicate this by holding up a hand. The president will command them to “Halt” and a point will be awarded if the president sees fit.

There are basic moves in fencing which everyone should know. The foil should be held with the thumb along the top surface of the handle in opposition with the forefinger. The remaining three fingers or aides assist in controlling the weapon.

Before fencing the fencer will take up a stance called on guard, in which the feet are at 90 degrees to each other and about two foot lengths apart. The front foot pointing toward the opponent the back foot serves as a base from which to drive forward. The knees should be bent, the front knee above the toes of the front foot. The torso is twisted so that sword arm and shoulder is pushed orientated towards the opponent, and the visibility of the target area is reduced. The back hand is held up in the air and backwards. This can help balance in the same way as a kangaroos tail, and also completes the delightful absurdity of the pose.

The on guard position can be taken up in either sixte or quarte. In quarte the sword arm is aligned with the sword shoulder, in sixte the sword arm is aligned with the other side of the target area. The sword should point towards the opponents face.

In moving forward the fencer will lift the toes of the front foot first, extend the foot forward and plant the heel on the ground first, the back foot following and being planted firmly down to maintain stability . In stepping back the action is reversed. The head should not bob, and the torso should be upright throughout.

In order to strike the opponent a fencer will lunge the sword arm will be rapidly extended by straightening the elbow (not powered by the shoulder) the toes of the front foot are lifted first and the foot is extended forward whilst the back leg extended like a spring in an explosive movement that will drive the point of the foil home. The back foot stays in position and should remain flat and not roll. Thus at the end of a lunge the fences has taken on a shape that is reminiscent of an extremely italicised lower case 

“h” 

with an angled line protruding from it aimed at the opponent’s target area.

The lunge can be defended by means of a parry in which the foil is moved to one side slightly to knock the opponents blade out of line with your target area. This in turn can be followed up with a direct riposte in which you strike back at the opponent, they may in turn parry and reply with a counter riposte

All very neat and tidy but all this is mere mechanics, the real art of fencing is in cunning, and in reading the opponent. It is possible to confuse the opponent by a number of techniques including feinting, disengaging the opponents blade, pretending to start a move using disruptive beats amongst other strategies. The aim is to read your opponent and confound them with the unexpected, forcing them to drop their defence or leave their target area open for your lunge.

It is not easy, it’s very hot and sweaty, and it makes you thirsty.