Well, well, well; there we have it & here we go… an actual blog. Not too sure how many actually people do these in 2025… the social media explosion has seen most people go to strain-stuffs like facebook, instagram, etc. I, however, am consummately a literary-minded fellow, & I do believe in continuity, & having assembl’d many a blog & travelogue over the years, I thought let’s do another public journey to finish off my second epic poem of the year.
As for the first of those epics, I finally created a printable, 900-page version of Axis & Allies. To date 14 people have a copy of the weighty tome; my Baron, his mate; my sister, best mate, & uncle down Burnley; Oxford & Cambridge University poetry dons; the National Library of Scotland; & several pals across Scotland – Tam, Teri, Ewan & Iria. I also have one copy, while my mate Stevie Vickers got my uncle’s original, which was actually printed backwards by the printers in Edinburgh. At around £50 all-in for printing & binding, these first editions have been quite the mission, & the thing.
So, epic poetry, an art form where Homer reigns rampant, right!? the great epic poet, the first & best master, the pregenitor of it all. He’s also meant to be untouchable, but nobody knows the future, even Homer can be beat. Nah then, I’m not saying I’m better than Homer, not at all. But what I am saying is that, by emulating his achievement, I can be plac’d at least in the same discussion; from the tables of the literati, thro’ the halls of academe, to the pages of critical posterity.
Axis & Allies is done, bar the final edits, that is my Iliad. As for the Odyssey, I hope to rival it with my Silver Rose, an epic sequence of sonnet sequences, interspers’d with thematical other-poems, telling the story of my personal avatar’s travels from Britain, thro’ the Mediterranean, on to India – then back again to a ‘Penelope’ style reunion with my idealis’d love interest – Sally Cinnamon. Well, it all makes sense in my head.
As a creative entity, The Silver Rose needs me to travel, thro’ which process the creation of sonnets becomes enrich’d via osmosis of each environment’s latent poesis… & so I’m off, after a delightful five months in Sannox, on Arran, the majority of which was spent ihistorical studies & writing a follow-up album to Roger’s Golden Ratio, call’d ‘A Goan Love Song.’ I was meant to be writing a piece of musical theatre utilising the songs over in Goa, but that’s not happening now. The India’s refus’d my bloody visa, probably on account of my passport photo which, for the life of me, I could only upload sideways – a sheer scam. I’ll still write the piece, tho’, for Goa’s fairly lock’d in my memory, in the same way Shakespeare was drawing on his trip to the Mediterranean in 1586 when he wrote the Tempest in 1609, so I’ll be reyt.
I am going, instead to, Turkey & Greece; Istanbul to track down Shakepeare’s visit to the city via the Ottoman Archives; then the trenches at Gallipoli; follow’d by a trip to Hisarlik, Homer’s Troy; then Sappho; & finally, for a while at least, Chios, the home of at least one of the Homers & his subsequent acolytic Homeridae.
But first thing’s first, I am off for a cycle around Kintyre – with far too much baggage -, before heading to Jura for a festival next weekend. I then fly to Germany a few days later, from where I will continue, after a week, to Istanbul. Writing a blog along the way also means I’ll have to engage more with more travels in order to have something interesting to write about, thro’ which I mate my spirit public.
I am thusly writing these words in the very warmly-heated library at Campbeltown, the capital of Kintyre, a fine enough place with a swathe of gentrified shopping options. Quite posh, really, & a fabulous setting, tho’ the inhabitants seem a tad dreary in spirit. I don’t think I’d like to pass a full winter here, & it’s definitely not a place to write one’s memoirs.
On the poetry front, this summer has been quiet a fallow period – about 40 stanzas of my Kurt Cobain saga were toss’d off, a handful of sonnets, & some work on Pardiso Travato are all my quill’s fair fruited. I have, however, & ever since my visit to Finland in May, been deeply immur’d in solving the Pictish problem, so the general lack of compsition is quite understandable. For every fallow period, I find, there follows a favorable flourish, & I feel, today, completely ready to write, & rhyme, & revolute thro’ this finale period of the Silver Rose.
So let’s do this, let’s hit the road!
My journey began two days ago, furiously washing & ironing bedding for the Air BB units which had help’d me raise funds for my trip at Sannox. The ‘boss’ had insisted on me leaving ethebedding cupboard as she left it, which was beyond the realms of my boy-minded capabilities, tho’ I did try my best. Towel arranging has never been my forte, but epic sonnet sequences have.
I set off with clearly too much baggage, including a guitar. Next weekend is the Jura music festival, which I intend to attend after visiting the island in the summer – it really is a joyous place. The idea is to first circumnavigate the Kintyre peninsula en route, which leads me to today, Tuesday morning, typing up this first blog of the tour in Campbeltown library.
From Sannox to Lochranza & the ferry north to the mainland began with me listening to the Arsenal-City match on my tranny while pushing my bike up the steep hill north of Sannox. As I did so, a new sonnet come tumbling into my mind, which was fully compos’d on the long downhill to the Lochranza Inn, for a departing pint of Timothy Taylor. The ferry to Clonaig came not long after that, & I left Arran in tthe glow of a lovely September sun. My Sannox Summer was over, my Oriental Autumn was about to begin.
ONE FOR THE ROAD
Took a pill for a hill and a headwind
What a thrill when the voyager starts
Limbs laden with bags like a Bedouin
Full of bedding and biscuits and charts
As hauling the hill slope demands a
Huge effort of pedalling legs
Downhill all the way to Lochranza
To the inn and it’s tasty old kegs
And a pint as I wait for the ferry
With a salad of radish and ham
Washed down with a wee glass of sherry
Finished off with a single malt dram
Setting off, then, I felt rather merry,
Flying drunk and I don’t give a damn
I then cycled 15 miles south in the ever-dwindling light, scattering sheep on the road as I went, & at all times basking in the wonderful vistas of Arran to my left. My home for over four years so far, this coming venture would be the longest I would ever be away from an island which has invigorated my writings so much. En route I got the second sonnet in a day.
CALM KINTYRE
Far from the shock & shockwaves that inspire
Testosterone, that rages as an ape
Set in a dity cage – this is Kintyre
Of pristeen, tranquil herbages, escape
The rituals of bedlam & retire
From vistas concrete & fermenting grape
Far from the shock & shockwaves that inspire
Testosterone, caged like a dirty ape
Overgaze to gorgeous isle, Arran,
Whose mountains are dwarfing Pirnmill
Where the beiges & browns are all barren
& the sea is incredibly still
As a boat lumbers slowly like Charon
where the long lakes of Hades oerspill
Reaching pretty Carradale, & grabbing a couple of packets of crisps from the Glen pub, plus filling up my water bottle, I proceeded to the clifftop hamlet of Port Righ, overlooking a compact & gorgeous bay, where a small ledge & a bench proved to be my first camping spot of the tour. The stars were scintillating in a clear night sky, which meant the temperature dropped to 4 degrees & I realised I might have under-estimated the bedding I’d need for at least the Scottish part of the tour.
Next morning I was up, strumming & singing ‘Wont you see that my grave is kept clean’ to an upper middle-aged lady swimming in the sea off below me. Pure troubadour vibes. It was then a a wee cycle to the clean, well-ran Carradale Community Stores to desposit cash into the post office there, & get some breakfast, after which I began the 14 miles hykle (hyking & cycling) to Campbeltown. This was like seeing one of those hot, bi-polar high maintenance chicks – really brainscambling heavy heaves uphill, follow’d by thrilling, breathless glides downhill, & stunning scenery either side.
En route I composd a new sonnet, recording the route poetically, including a brief stop-off for a rest, a water-refill, & a butchers at the long ruin’d abbey at Saddell. Christianity really is fading from the landscape across the whole of Britain, one could say!
A pedal push or two later I finally reach’d Campebtown, the true home of Scottish whiskey, where illegal & illicit stills bubbled far from the cluthces of even the most unbribeable coppers. First port in the port wad the Nickel & Dime store, ran by a ridiculously moody middle-aged woman, where I bought, firstly, a sewing kit, & secondly, a throw for a second warm layer for that night’s camping. It actually looks like a set of regnal robes, purple silk on the outside side, fluffy white on the inner – the veritable crowning garb of a poet king!
While sewing my guitar case back together – it had barely been holding the guitar in situ since Peninver – I ask’d a local where a good place was to camp, who promptly directed me to a loch at Crosshill. I went there at a relatove canter, & set up camp near the loch, overlooking the Campbeltown’s bonnie bay – a splendid viewpoint once more to wake up to, with south Arran, Alisa Craig & the hills of Galloway all cramming into the view.
HYKLING
Two steep climbs from Carradale
I will not tire, I will not fail
Eleven miles to Campbeltown
Where the sloops set sail
Two long drifts to Saddel(?)-side
I saw the abbey, stepp’d inside
These seven miles from Campbeltown
Effigies abide
Peninver-side, Ardnacross Bay
The Isle of Arran drifts away
Just three short miles to Campbeltown
Where tonight I’ll stay
Fair camp’d under lips of the Crosshill Loch
Aqua Vitae in the morn’s mist’s spray
Then it was then time for a cycle back into town for the Tesco, & a couple of hours in the local library – charging & computer. The library was open til 7, but unstaff’d – a handy oasis indeed. Back at the campsite I gorg’d on my dinner & drifted off to sleep in the dark.
I slept warmer last night, & waking up this mornig, & before I set off back to the library, I mused on the view & my epic, decdiding upon the running order of the poem, which I will be setting up later today on Mumblewords as provate posts, waiting to be finish’d & uploaded thro’ the tour.
To An Englishman, With Liberty
The Grand Tour
Lancashire Rose
Song of the Morning
The Thistle & the Rose
The Language of Birds
Humanology (incorporating ‘The Language of Beasts’)
The Language of Flowers
Paradiso Trovato
Saraswathi Song
The Raj & the Rose
The Honeymoon
To a Sonneteer, With Liberty
I then cycled back into Campbeltown, commuting as if I were a resident. Nice morning, if cloudy. First port of call was again the Nickel & Dime store, where the owner seem’d even more pissed off than yesterday ! Anyway, I stocked up on some loud ear-buds for the journey, & then hit the library, where, after working a while on notes for my ‘Arthurian Chronicle’, I uploaded this about 1PM.
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