I 'Signed On' Today.

Toads Revisited
by Philip Larkin

Walking around in the park
Should feel better than work:
The lake, the sunshine,
The grass to lie on,

Blurred playground noises
Beyond black-stockinged nurses -
Not a bad place to be.
Yet it doesn't suit me.

Being one of the men
You meet of an afternoon:
Palsied old step-takers,
Hare-eyed clerks with the jitters,

Waxed-fleshed out-patients
Still vague from accidents,
And characters in long coats
Deep in the litter-baskets -

All dodging the toad work
By being stupid or weak.
Think of being them!
Hearing the hours chime,

Watching the bread delivered,
The sun by clouds covered,
The children going home;
Think of being them,

Turning over their failures
By some bed of lobelias,
Nowhere to go but indoors,
No friends but empty chairs -

No, give me my in-tray,
My loaf-haired secretary,
My shall-I-keep-the-call-in-Sir:
What else can I answer,

When the lights come on at four
At the end of another year?
Give me your arm, old toad;
Help me down Cemetery Road

John Cooper Clarke - Chickentown

Something for the weekend.

The School in August by Phillip Larkin

The School in August

The cloakroom pegs are empty now,

And locked the classroom door,

The hollow desks are lined with dust,

And slow across the floor

A sunbeam creeps between the chairs

Till the sun shines no more.

Who did their hair before this glass?

Who scratched 'Elaine loves Jill'

One drowsy summer sewing-class

With scissors on the sill?

Who practised this piano

Whose notes are now so still?

Ah, notices are taken down,

And scorebooks stowed away,

And seniors grow tomorrow

From the juniors today,

And even swimming groups can fade,

Games mistresses turn grey.

Philip Larkin

The title of and inspiration for, my next series. Which I am working on at the moment. Looking at the history of The Whitworth Street School which was founded in 1900 and is still going today as The Shena Simon Six Form Collage. Using typology to explore that history. I'll put up a link when it's on my homepage.

River Irwell Poem

Have been doing some reading lately about the River Irwell, and it has struck me how far it has come since the 1970s. A walk along it around Peel Park in Salford on a warm summer day is fantastic! Its the first time I have done this for almost a decade and I was stunned at how nature has took back great swaths of river bank, especially around Salford cresent. I hope the planners and developers take this into consideration when working there.

In my research about the river I found a poem from before the Industrial revolution it's funny to think how we have almost come almost full circle...

"Behold, behold with wondrous eyes

the towering hills that reach the skies

the fertile plain and vale below

where the lovely streams of Irwell flow.