22 May

This Saturday afternoon Mrs Crowys and myself were inclined to “chill”, as people of our advancing counter-cultural credentials are wont to do. And where better than Mistress Louisa’s Electric Cafe? Conveniently situated on the Pullens Estate, with its yards of artisans’ workshops, a throwback to the old Walworth – and only a short walk from  the Elephant Shopping Centre, should the need to shop, or riot, arise.

Neither were on our immediate agenga as we sat at a table outside Louisa’s enjoying the heat and its consequent pleasures, the shade and the breeze, leafing through The Guardian. The weekend is an opportunity for us to catch up with the news.*

* Mr Crowys speaks of course with a twinkle in the eye and a grain of coarse sea-salt melting on his forked tongue.

We were amused to see how once again the political commentators with all their sources and honey-traps are essentially reconfiguring the leitmotifs sketched out in Mr Crowys’ own divinatory commentaries of these last days. How could it be otherwise? If John the Revelator is to be believed, then the script is writ and bound with Seven Seals. What else then may these poor players do? Why, PLAY!

The sketch-writers have opted for the same homo-erotic imagery as pioneered in these humble pages, though I confess I have as yet read no strap-line to equal mine own purple post of but yesterday which had Messrs. Clegg and Cam “dogging in the empty car-park of British politics”.

None of the other commentators has thus far followed up on my previous scoop: viz. – that the supposed computer-generation creation of Synthia the bacteriological cell-snatcher was merely a diversionary tactic. Dr Evil Venter’s true purpose was to provide a means of splicing the DNA of Britain’s ‘Body-Double’ Prime Minister to create a single Super-CLAM.

The truth can run but it can’t hide.

After coffee, cakes, gossip and Guardian, we decided to shop, not riot – and not at the Elephant – and, Fair Shares being shut, thirty pounds of our housekeeping well spent on larder provision at the Morrisons Family Store on Walworth Road.

Mistress Louisa was but recently a Devil in the community cast for Mr Constable’s epic The Southwark Mysteries. When the BBC wanted to interview someone “from the community” for their London News feature on the performances in Southwark Cathedral, they were promptly directed down to Louisa’s cafe. She didn’t disappoint.

Another star in that community cast galaxy, Jennifer, the doctor who operated on Jesus, calls to say the Sisters of Redcross habits are washed and ready to wear. She’ll put the word out for any sisters wishing to invoke the healing blessing By the Grace of Our Lady Mary Overie…

Of such subtle strands, other worlds are woven, to sustain and support us even when what’s left of this world of illusion comes crashing down around us faster than the FT on a jittery day in May.

21 May

Without boundaries there is
nothing to dissolve.
Sunset over south London.

Yes, upon this Day of days, when the future of humanity itself hangs by a thread, Mr Crowys is turning his peculiar gift to the native south London art of pedagogic haiku.

Frankly sir, I see no profit in adding my contrarian voice to the din, the pipsqueak commentators, the pandemonium of doom-sayers, the Great Sargasso Seas of flotsam verbiage swashing around the interzone…

As if the pundits hadn’t enough to lather over – the collapse of the Euro and the concomitant dereliction of the British economy, the spectre of mass unemployment, civil unrest, revolution, the State of the Clegg-Cameron civil partnership, for starters…

Now Synthia, infernal spawn of Dr Craig Venter aka Ventnor aka GOD2 – the mad professor who once tried to patent the human genome, claims to have opened his very own Pandora’s Box of computer-generated hybrid lifeforms, bred and harvested for food and transplant organs, or by pollution-guzzling friendly bacteria…

… until the Triffid Day of Truth when they turn on us, their Frankenstein makers, and by the simplest, most insidious mode of invasion: they attack at a cellular level, ingest our deoxyribonucleic acids and repattern to their own alternative evolutionary models!

Easy now, gentlemen, let’s not believe everything we see in the holographic universe. Dr V has not invented new life. He has merely devised a more efficient way for alien lifeforms to colonise their hosts at a cellular level. From there ’tis but a hop, skip and a jump to fancy new ways to splice, to fuse and bond the DNAs of two, apparently distinct and sovereign individuals – so as to create a composite entity that is somehow yet more all-mighty than the sum of its constituent parts.

Ghostly Reader, I did warn you: here will you read the true stories behind the fake news. Only yesterday, I mentioned the name of this unspeakable mutant, this twin-headed spick’n'span, Nick’n'Dave, Clegg’n'Cam…

This rough Beast slouching towards Westminster to be born. This…

CLAM.

On a more seasonal note, Mrs Crowys and I to the Boot and Flogger, the free vintner opposite the gates to our Crossbones Graveyard. Upstairs as ever, the men who rule the world sit in the shadows, shaking hands on deals that will decide whether entire nations live or die. As guests of mine host, we do not disclose their guilty secrets. Indeed we do not for a moment intrude upon their covert pleasures. No, sir, with a few pleasantries to the very pleasant bar staff we are through to a table in the back yard with a happy few…

No, Madam, I cannot name even these intimates, as all are members of Secret Societies, the penalties for revealing the secrets of whom is…

No! Even the penalties shall remain secret. Trust me, you don’t want to know.

Homewards, we looked in at the Red Cross Gardens May festival, with children dancing around an imprressive maypole in the reconstructed Victorian garden to the old alms-houses. Said hello to our fellow active citizens, ‘the usual suspects’ as out local MP affectionately calls us. Simon was there, and greeted us warmly, looking very relaxed. He appeared every bit as unconcerned as I for his prospects of preferment under the current LibCon version of Synthia. He said more kind things about the recent performance of our Mr Constable’s epic drama, and joked that the people of Oberammergau will be flocking here in 2020 to see The Southwark Mysteries

We carried water from Red Cross to Crossbones and there did water the ivy and the primroses. Then paid our respects to John Crow’s coat, currently displayed on a branch hanging in the window of the Ragged School. On the corner of Union and Redcross we encountered Mr Williams, a man with a reputation as an honest broker ‘twixt commerce and the um community. As ever we pressed the case for our Garden of Remembrance.

20 May

The Tenth Day and still the Grand Coalition holds firm. Today Mr Clam unveiled the terms of the Great Treaty.

Having voted Lib Dem – partly to keep out the Cons – I might be expected to be in sackcloth and ashes, weeping and wailing and gnashing my remaining teeth – at the sight of them now dogging, as ’twere, in the empty car-park of British politics.

I am happy to confound such expectations. In truth, no elected MP, or party, truly represents me – not even the noble Simon, for whom I cast my vote with few reservations* * Well, apart from the fact that Val Shawcross was standing against him and Val has already proved herself a true friend of our Crossbones Graveyard. In the event, old loyalties won out – we shall find another way to make it up to her.

Some old comrades from the pre-millennial party scene boast of not having voted. That is their prerogative (unless they live in Australia), though I still question whether inaction can accurately be called a radical act**.
** Exceptions, as ever, test the rule: John and Yoko’s Amsterdam Hilton hot-bed was, by all accounts, a veritable hive of non-violent political activity.

Call us old fashioned… Mrs Crowys and I briefly roused ourselves from our own bed-in to vote in the knowledge that our forefathers and mothers fought and died for that right to vote, and the conviction that a no-vote is a vote for the vacuum that fascism adores.

Preoccupied as I am with my own “rough magic” at the Crossbones, I have not yet had the time to study the fine print of the LibConjugal Arrangements. The word in the coffee houses of Bankside is that it represents a more comprehensive and formal coalition than even individuals parties have heretofore been able to muster between their own left and right wings.

More evidence of the increasingly narrow strip of “centre ground” in the battle for which which all three parties have effectively sacrificed their most loyal foot-soldiers. Just as Blair’s New Labour left the old leftie activitists without a pot to piss in, so know we see the diehard disgruntled old farts of the 1922 Committee put to the long knives in a surgical Cameron coup, leaving Dave free to explore his open-relationship with Nick, a man more his own age and facebook profile.

It could be argued that the much-vaunted New Politics were ushered in by Blair in 1997 and that, notwithstanding the quasi-mythical resonances with which the term has recently been tinted, it means nothing so much as a pragmatic managerial approach to government. We’re got tired  of the last management team. Rightly or wrongly we blamed them for the company going technically bankrupt. So we sacked them – put in a new team to take “the tough choices” to slash public spending and the gross national deficit.

Back in the late millennium, with some perspicacity, William S. Burroughs spoke of: ‘… small groups elevated to positions of power by random pressures and subject to political and economic factors that leave little room for decision… The iron-willed dictator is a thing of the past. There will be no more Stalins, no more Hitlers. The rulers of this most insecure of all worlds are rulers by accident – inept, frightened pilots at the controls of a vast machine they cannot understand, calling in experts to tell them which buttons to push.’

19 May

Pleased to report  the magic lantern show was well received by our patrons at what is, I understand, commonly know as a wash-up for the recent production. We had sandwiches, watched the projected images with your humble scribe providing a commentary to the effect that we had all done wonderful well and partners may wish to consider how they may like to continue supporting our innovative work in the community &ct.

Walking home I glimpsed an Independent broadsheet reporting that Master N. Clegg is about to announce the greatest reform of British Parliamentary Democracy since the 1832 er… Great Reform Act.

Well mote he, root and branch – though I devoutly pray he will respect the quaint time-honoured tradition, viz: that any Government losing the confidence of the House – id est losing a confidence vote to a simple majority of MPs – must resign and Parliament be dissolved.

This new 55 per cent thresh-hold malarky looks suspiciously like a contrivance to force Dave and Nick to share the  marital bed even if the marriage in question has irretrievably broken down and intimate details of their extra-marital flings with new Labour leadership totty – the Milliband Twins? Burnham Wood? Balls! – are splashed all over The Nudes of The World and tHE tIMES tHEY aRE a-cHANGIN’ haha.

To matters of substance. Mrs Crowys yesterday did bake us a most savoury vegetable nut-roast, with carrots, peppers and onions, and cleverly utilising divers left-over nuts in the larder. With peas and potato wedges, one half of the roast did suffice. The remains we did greedily devour this evening, though I fancy the broccoli I cooked to accompany was not so sweet as we had anticipated.

We listened to a fascinating transmission on the wireless – regarding Speeches made by Winning and Losing Candidates to the Returning Officer at British Elections since 1952. It was good to be reminded that the dawn of a New Age of Peace, Harmony and Political Renewal  has been hailed at least once a decade by some victorious party leader.

Losers’ speeches ranged from the gracious and witty to the embarrassingly self-justifying and complaining. The ‘Is it Hamlet or Mother Goose’ award for winning candidates cringingly unaware of the civilitities of the occasion must, must, go to Lord Mandelson, then mere Peter, back in 1997, on being re-elected after being “written off” by the press. Mandy spoke of his somethingorother  - life / career / reputation? – having been “in tatters”. He sounded like a English Pantomime Dame auditioning for Angels in America.

“The people of Hartlepool proved them wrong. AND I PROVED THEM WRONG BECause I  (the voice cracking) am NOT A QUITTER!’

Astonishing! And still crazy after all these years! We shall miss the old rogue – though we do not doubt that, like the Android Governor of California, HE’LL BE BACK!

18th May

Preoccupied as I am with constructing the magic lantern presentation for tomorrow’s presentation to past, present & prospective future patrons of The Southwark Mysteries, & with reconciliations &ct. & not forgetting our impending vigil at the Crossbones…

No time, sir, to pontificate on Daves, or raves from graves, or Cleggs Cleggs and Clotts in the LibConglomerate.

Today I ask my journal to be the humble medium for the transmission of news which, eternity will tell, will prove to be of greater import than the complicated bedding arrangements of those likely lads. So, without further &ct:

Whit Sunday Spring Vigil at Crossbones this Sunday 23rd May

Following the performance of The Southwark Mysteries, in which the heart of Southwark Cathedral opened to receive The Goose and her outcast spirits, our May vigil will affirm the opening of the pathways. It marks the shift into the next phase of our work to reclaim Crossbones as sacred ground and to create a Garden of Remembrance.

Gather from 6.45pm in Redcross Way SE1 by the Gates, the shrine hung with ribbons and mementos, opposite the Boot and Flogger just north of the junction with Union Street. Tube: Borough or London Bridge, 5 minutes walk away.

Please bring fresh flowers (we have vases and water), fabric flowers, jewelry, ribbons and other totems of beauty and truth to tie to the Gates as offerings, or a poem or creative act to dedicate to The Goose… and arrive in good time to gather our minds in stillness for the commencement of the ceremony on the magic stroke of 7.

John Crow’s coat
designed by Annie Kelley, as recently worn by Charlie Folorunsho playing John Crow in The Southwark Mysteries in Southwark Cathedral – currently features in the window of The Ragged School, at the junction of Redcross and Union, less than a minute’s walk from the Crossbones shrine.

On the subject of The Southwark Mysteries, The Times newspaper reported. Click, as they say, here to view.

Or here to see the amazingly life-like portraits of our prayers, as recorded by
Mr Search and Ms. Niemann, click here & now.

Sat 3rd – Sun 4th July: The Restoration Walk with John Constable
for City of London Festival to mark the 350th annivcersary of The restoration of Charles II AND Samuel Pepys’ diary and the English tea-drinking habit!

Monday 5th July, 9pm: LONDON FOLK @ The 12 Bar Club, 26 Denmark Street WC2H 8NL stories and songs with John Constable, Sam Lee, Olivia Armstrong,
London Dreamtime - go to their place and click events

The Friends of Crossbones have been invited to be one of 100 vigils at ”wounded sites” around the world in a Global Earth Exchange Day on June 19th.

23rd June is our solstice vigil and 23rd July our Magdalene-Isis.

Dates for your diaries.

Day the Seventh: 17th May

Having successfully executed our secret commission, Mrs Crowys and I returned in the invisible hours of yesternight to our safe house.

This past days we are all a-bustle. Our kind hosts John and Katie, who work their fingers to the bone to maintain a lodging and a hearth for wandering spirits such as Mrs Crowys and mine own, had seen the garret inundated with the flotsam and jetsam of their recent dramatic production – to the files and papers and posters &ct. compromising the ahem production office is added boxes of costumes and props  &ct. – all to be sorted and stored, and final reconciliation of budgetary items, and all this before they must monitor and measure the goodness that was delivered by their good works for the community – with numbers, ages, genders, ethnicity &ct. – that they may yet be rewarded on earth and receive some modest patronage to perform works of yet greater goodness.

To this end, I have put together a magic lantern show including some of Mr Search and Frau Niemann’s photographic slides with captions written by your humble diarist &ct. depicting the progress of Mr Constable’s drama from introductory workshop through to final performance – and rather an effective incapsulation of the spirit of The Southwark Mysteries if I do say so myself. Some of the captions are unabashed, heart-felt pleas to the gentlepersons of commerce inviting them to help embed, as we say, the legacy of The Southwark Mysteries in a sustainable &ct.

Already 7 days into this Restoration. On the surface little may seem to have changed: the energy and purpose of a new government certainly, yet scarcely the New Heaven and New Earth we were promised in the Revelation of St John. I know, these things take time.

Reading betwixt and between the lines of my literary progenitor Samuel Pepys –  back in 1660, behind the hopes of renewal, the pomp and pageantry, the Court, the mistresses, we read anxiety, rumours… By 1666, War, Plague, Fire… Only then, O then, the charismatic King Charles II was willing to risk all.

Once more, let fortune favour the brave. The question on everyone’s lips, in the Borough at least, is will it be Dave? Will he confound his “posh-boy” label to take on the bankers implicated in the daylight robberies of five years and more? Will he freeze their assets?

The Good Ship ConLiberative has safely docked at Parliament on the North Bank. Some predictable creaking as the Cables take the strain, yet Pugwash Clegg and his crew seem determined to give it a jolly jack’s dance and I for one’ll squeeze a box to that!

Day the Sixth: 16 May

Mrs Crowys and I have this weekend been not resting but recreating – engaged in top secret work for The Goose and her legacy, about which, for the present, no more. The stone is in the mouth.

As for certain temporal anomalies referred to in previous posts as having beset both Master Pepys (regarding the annus) and his poor disciple (re: diem), once and forever, no more. I merely note that a journal is but the mirror of its time, and the time (Mr Pepys and mine) is, most assuredly, out of whack!