Rhys Jones, gangs and responsibility

Here is an interesting focus feature on last week's murders in Liverpool (ignore the flourishes, Guardian readers need them). It makes an honest stab at probing responsibility at the personal, family and neigbourhood levels.

Here is the Croxteth Heds video, which received attention on the recent Panorama investigation of violence on YouTube, and which is clearly relevant here, too.

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Friendship is an upgrade

Leo and I agreed in June to travel together from London to Washington, to take up our place at SAIS. From Vienna airport, Leo tried to sit us together. The operator couldn't find my name in the system. From Manchester Airport, I tried to sit us together. I failed because the operator couldn't find the system. So when we met in London Heathrow to jump the ocean, we weren't sat together. At the boarding gate, we pleaded to be moved to neigbouring seats. Sorry, the plane was full. But at the last moment, as we stepped on board, two seats did become free, not only together but also upgraded.

So we whooped with laughter at the films and drank the wine.

Changing Speeds

She in her room
Waking as always some minutes before the alarm sounds, she stretches fluidly - first she kicks her legs to dispatch the covers down-bed and frees her feet; at the same time her arms reach up and out, rolling thin wrists towards her full length, she arches her toes and back, belly taut, and is splayed out; without stopping she springs upright, stands and takes a step, one hand working her t-shirt from her torso and the other pulling her knickers towards the floor; with a kick and flick, they arrive in the room's corner.

Dressed and stepping out the apartment, she points her key at the door still in motion, and sets off down four flights - 3rd floor: neighbours, 2nd floors: acquaintances, 1st floor: only strangers left - to the house door whose glass panels give onto the street, and she thrusts another key at another lock, freeing a navy blue pram from its lock; she pumps the cushions that pass for a baby at first sight and high speeds, aligns this pram up for an uninterrupted exit, takes a composing breath and for reassurance chirps, "Safe and secure".

He in his room
The alarm is bellicose and persistent. He lies motionless. Certain people are silent when they moan. He moans like he's yawning, and blinks. He tests the warmth outside the covers with a hand, and then an arm. It's colder. Between statis and progress, one foot emerges; its toes curl, and the alarm sounds anew. Then peace and renewed movement. Currents of fresher air make new contact with his flesh: his flanks, his legs, and as he rolls over, his back. He sits up slowly, hugging the still willing duvet to his shoulders.

Shoes and coat, pulled on over body parts warmer but less free. Key in hand, he pulls the apartment door to. It exhales and he turns the lock. He counts the 34 steps to the ground floor, taking a breath on each, and his hand on the banister invites friction. He pauses before the house door to whisper his augur, "Safe and secure."

She and He on the street
Trouble, they both believe, travels at four miles an hour at street level; since they had both met trouble before, they changed speeds - she sped up and would walk all day, making the white blankets inside the pram jump and leap like white horses on the sea, turning heads and attracting tuts as she roved from pavement to road to roadside, on a mission not to stop. He slowed down and would seek shelter in libraries and dis-favoured cafés, he sunk his shoulders, dipped his head and dropped his gaze, reduced his gait to a scrape, wearing greens and greys in anonymity, and keeping the air from his neck with a scarf.

She and He meet
On the day they met, she careered around a corner he was approaching from the other direction, and they collided. He fell beneath her wheels.

He hopped in collapse.
She waved and wailed.
His moan made noise.

She, fearful of attention and pacing in circles, wrung her hands. He, lying prostrate with eyes closed, clutched his injured flesh. She bundled him onto the pram like a road-kill and swept him away. He was happy to leave the cold floor. She jingled him home. He heaved up her stairs.

--

In time - though slower, though faster – they set about whispering their charms together in the morning: “Safe and secure” and out the door! She would push him with caution, he would nod in his customised carriage as they sailed around trouble.

--

In bed, under the covers, when they loved one another, he in newfound frenzy stabbed her like a knife, and she lay stock still.

Pigeons controlled by Chinese Scientists.

A Nice Spanish Idiom

"Mas azquerosa que una cucharada de mocos," that is, nastier than a spoonful of bogeys.

The La's of Liverpool in 1991 (one last time).

Beef and the Human Body

Firstly, there is beef anticipation. This is due entirely to the proximity of steak. It makes you over-salivate and talk nonsense.
There is also beef comfort. This is the pleasure you derive from eating beef (stemming, perhaps, from the satisfaction gained from eating an animal much larger than yourself; there is no such pleasure to be had from chicken).
Finally, there is beef angst. This is the ill-at-ease you suffer after eating too much beef. The physical symptoms - perspiration face, discomfort at table, clammy palms and belly-stretch - are reflected mentally in a certain bovine lethargy, which is a preference for groaning over talking.

I am no scientist, but I think that eating beef probably makes you more like a cow.

So, in the cold of New York last week, my brothers and I would seek constant refuge in burger joints. Running in, heaping coats and hats and scarves and gloves into a corner, we ordered whatever might be beefiest, with a root beer. Saliva and nonsense would follow. Quick, quick, hurry, hurry, I can eat more than you! Then the plunge of our teeth through the bread and into the warm meat: a rush of comfort, another triumph of man over beast, sensational well-being. We were warmed from without and from within. (Note that my face was already warm because I have a beard.) Conversation and root beer, a pick at the fries, life's a delight. Then, 10 minutes later, the second plunge: eating induced dementia and the need to lie down. The hunters as target: sitting ducks full of beef. More root beer, in bigger gulps, but the brick in the belly would be stuck. Terrible thirst, a bloodless head, pounding ears. This is beef angst, come to chase comfort from our table. Attached is a picture of Tommy in the depths of the condition.