smiler

 

write about a picture ...

Mona Lisa. La Gioconda: from the Italian, the smiling one. Smiler.

Well, if you're going to write about a painting, why not start at the top? Because this is simply the most famous painting there is. I remember visiting the Louvre, twenty years ago, and negotiating the crowds around the painting, taking endless useless flash photos of it (behind security glass, all their pictures got was a photo of their flash) as the guards tried half heartedly to stop them. It was almost impossible to get close without fighting your way through. But the inexplicable popularity is clear. This is what they come to see, even though there are four better Leonardos just around the corner, which I quickly sought out to view in splendid isolation. Perhaps because of this I have tended to dismiss La Gioconda in the past, and so it has been interesting to look at it up close for the first time.

Perhaps the enigmatic smile is what draws people to it. More likely, she is famous for being famous. In 1911 an Italian patriot stole the painting from the Louvre and eventually offered to sell it to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. He was arrested but hailed as a hero in some quarters. Before then it was not well known and indeed the theft was carried out during opening hours and not noticed until the next day – and even then not by the staff. It was returned to the Louvre after two years, by which time the mystery of its theft had become a cause célèbre in the popular press around the world, so that on its return it became an object of intense curiosity. Since then it has survived numerous attempts at vandalism and now sits behind bullet proof glass.

It is a small painting: the figure is about life-size. Painted on a wooden panel, which has cracked slightly at the top with a line through the forehead, it is done in oil paint which seen close up is heavily crazed – no doubt due to its storage in less than ideal conditions over five hundred years, and not least during the second world war. It depicts the lady in three-quarters profile, her head turned to us, with her hands held loosely in her lap. It is a set-up like many Renaissance portraits of the Virgin Mary. The expression is mysterious but innocent. Compare Leonardo's Portrait of an Unknown Lady, nearby in the Louvre – someone who is much more worldly-wise.

Is La Gioconda really smiling, or is this fanciful? Look closely and you can see laughter lines in the corner of the eyes, and the mouth has a distinct upturn. But then again, is the title a pun? This is generally held to be a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo. Vasari, the unreliable gossip-historian who wrote a Life of Leonardo, thirty years after his death, noted that such a portrait had been commissioned, and he refers to her as Mona Lisa (Madam or My Lady Lisa). Leonardo's assistant is recorded as having a portrait called La Gioconda in his possession, having been bequeathed it by his master. So did people call her Smiler as a pun? Or was Leonardo creating a visual pun, giving his sitter a smile? Then again, a lot of his subjects are smiling.

The portrait itself seems realistic, not particularly flattering: although I have always felt that the skin tone of the face is rather waxy. It seems to shine in an unnatural way. But actually it is similar to other Leonardos such as the two Virgin paintings in the Louvre in this respect. The Portrait of an Unknown Lady by contrast looks much more realistic, photographic almost. Mona Lisa's pose looks comfortable; her hands relaxed, natural.

The fantastical background has often been criticized. Some of Leonardo's portraits have almost no background, just a dark anonymous space, although the Virgins and his St John the Baptist in the Louvre feature mountain prospects too – but not on this scale. We see a range of foothills, a vast lake behind and then rocky mountains rising up, but the two sides of the image do not seem to match. It is as if the aerial perspective is drawn from different altitudes. On the right hand side there is an even vaster lake and bigger more distant mountains, and the horizon line is much higher than on the left. This seems unresolved, unfinished, as though he changed his mind and didn't get round to correcting the other side of the view.

As I study the portrait closely, I am amazed to discover that this image that I have seen reproduced thousands of times, has a number of features I have never noticed. She is wearing a veil, so slight as to be almost invisible. It covers her head and the edge can be seen at the top of her forehead, and is more visible on her right where it falls free of her hair. I had always thought that the hair was badly rendered here, or that this was a reworking or unfinished in some way. She is also sitting in a chair, very upright it seems. Only the arms are visible. Immediately behind her is a wall and the merest hint of the base of two columns either side, as if she is sitting on a loggia that looks out over the vast landscape behind. I was aware of the mountains and the lake but not some of the detail: the foothills in the foreground with a road to the left and a bridge to the right, and beyond a sail boat in the lake.

So this has been a valuable exercise. I understand and appreciate the portrait much more than I did previously. I have always admired Leonardo and his works, including his paintings, and now see my dismissal of La Gioconda as a rather snobbish affectation merely because of its popularity. Long may you smile on us, Lady Lisa.

influença

   

Something YA

Look down on the city now.

The city, under its toxic smudge of polluted air, yet thinly gleaming in afternoon sun. The river swings through, glittering between mud banks, lined with glinting stubs of new towers, second homes for the new rich, like crocodile teeth in the jaws of controlling concrete embankments. And all around the bustle, the hum, the noise, the smells of the great city, built layer on layer over two thousand years of crisis, death, fire, plague, joy, rapture, fear, hate, success, money, squalor: stretching out, out to the surrounding low hills seen dimly through the haze.

Look closely now. See the seething streets, the shuttling trains, the jammed vehicles, the streaming crowds. See the people, method in their madness, intent on a myriad journeys, a myriad goals. Eight million souls, eight million thought streams, their dreams, their plans, their lives, all intermingled, tangled, a vast web of complexity, of intermingling, interchange, interface. All dependent on the city, interdependent of each other, yet scarcely aware of the others as they press past, jostle, push through the obstructing masses that thwart them. Blaring their horns, cursing those in their way. Somehow it all works.

Look closer. Frustrated faces, irritated expressions, annoyed glances. Yes – but here and there still you find joy, still you find rapture. In the parks, groups gather, move together under a beating sun. In the packed theatres, the matinee crowds share a laugh, a fear, a sadness. Outside bars, in their shorts and summer hats, they giggle and jostle, they bond as they drink their warming drinks.

On those concrete embankments, this summer Friday, they throng, they pass, they watch the river. The water churns: the tide is turning, the streams disturbed, whirling about the bridge piers: the banks start to disappear as a new, fresh force from an unseen sea disturbs the muddy flows. They watch and do not yet know that it is the day when everything changes.

Look closer. Down there in the square, by the pinnacled towers, a huge mass is coalescing together. Along all the streets groups are coming to swell the crowd, brightly dressed, shouting, singing, with banners and balloons. More and more coming in good spirits, in optimism.

And in the square, they flow from point to point, here a thinning, there a denser patch of bodies. Two in particular. This will be the start of it all.

Zoom in. Closer. Here they surround an old man and a tent and a crouching girl. And there a boy with strange hair with a phone on a selfie stick, which he swings around as this crowd watch. They are pressing all around these two groups, dodging, weaving, trying to see the action. Who is it? What's going on?

Two girls are trying to push through. All they can see is the selfie stick and a flash of blue hair. But that's enough.

'It's Spensa.'

'No way.'

'In person. He said he'd be here today. Didn't you catch his last vlog?'

'O my god!'

The boy is holding court, drinking in the approbation.

'Hey kiddies! It's Spensa Influença live streaming from Parliament Square. Yes, here I am in the heart of the big city checking out the school strike for my peoples. This is slammin.' He swings around with the selfie stick to show the crowds behind him, then he calls out to them 'Say hey for the peoples!'

Those closest to him whoop and scream and cheer to order, and then like a wave the people behind who can almost see what's going on cheer and then those that can't see at all cheer because they think something cool is going on and out and out it spreads until the people in the other knot hear the cheers and think it's in their knot and so they cheer and then the people at the front of that knot cheer too.

Fatima stands up and wonders why they are cheering. 'Well demos are defo funner on a school day', she shouts above the noise. She speaks to her own phone and selfie stick. 'So get down here and join us – we need to show the plonkers we mean business. I'm here today to march and also to interview a very special person.'

And the people whoop and cheer again and send another wave back across the square. She turns back to the old man and his tent. 'So here he is: John Battista.' He looks up at her, a rather wan smile, unsure of the crowds and the attention. 'You've been here for, what? Three months now?'

'Four almost', he says with a little shrug.

'So cool that you feel so strong about the climate emergency. How ya feel about the school strikes?'

'It's what I've been hoping for,' he says. The future is with you young people. My generation – ' He seems to struggle for words.

'What about your generation? The baby boomers?'

'My generation, the most entitled, the luckiest, the least caring.'

The crowd around cheers. Fatima allows the noise to drop off before responding.

'Well not all. You've sacrificed everything, you've sat here in all weathers, to shame our politicians. We look on you as a role model, John.'

'Well, I'm flattered. But it has to come from you – you guys are the future. And it's your future. The climate emergency. Destruction of our ecosystems. The rich getting richer while the poor starve. Starvation in this day and age: millions without running water.' He pauses and smiles: he was starting to go into his spiel. 'But you know all that. I'm preaching to the converted.' They cheer and some cry out his name, calling for a speech. He pulls himself to his feet, pauses again and then gives off a mischievous grin. 'Don't you call us gammons?' he smiles and looked up at Fatima. 'Middle aged, meat-faced white men who hate everything and have no respect, no interest in the future.'

'Well some people might say that, but not me,' she says. 'I'm Muslim!'

Laughter and cheers, which travel all the way back to Spensa.

For a second he looks knocked off beam. He's thinking: Could there be someone who is getting more attention than me?

'So yea, my peoples! So the school strikes are getting the right-on kids well pumped up and, like, YAY! Let's all save the planet. Cos there's no Planet B right? But if you thought I was just gonna bunk off and just like hang with a bunch of rank hippies all day, do not be afeard, kiddies! So I'm up in the city and not gonna drop by my favoritest fast fashion outlets? Are you kidding? Are you catching the shirt already? Spensa is out there, doing it for you! So in a few I'm gonna be unboxing some new goodies exclusive to Spensa Influença!'

Another great cheer from the other big group and Spensa looks annoyed. This was meant to be about him! He chucks his phone to one of his entourage, who continues to film him. He clicks his fingers at another, who starts to lay down a boombox beat as Spensa goesinto his rap, to cheers and chanting from his fans: 'Wanna be goin' mental / Cos you're first with wot is trendin? / I gotta be at the centre / of the look that you're presentin!' He starts to push forward towards the other mob. The waves part as the fans enthusiatically follow. 'Then u gotta catch up with Spensa / I'm your crucial Influença!'

Fatima was now standing on a small platform next to John's tent and she's pulled him up with her. 'This man,' she's saying, 'is showing us the way. Sitting here, day after day, he's shaming us all into saving our planet. Please speak to us John.'

He seems reluctant, but the crowd shushes and looks on expectantly. He starts hesitantly, unused to the attention, unused to making speeches. 'It's great to see you all here,' he says. 'You are the future. The politicians over there can't see beyond the next five years –'

'– the next five weeks!' shouted someone in the crowd.

John laughed. 'You're right! Can't see beyond Brexit and their own petty squabbles. Brexit is an irrelevance.'

A huge cheer.

'This is war. The whole world needs to be on a war footing. Not fighting each other – fighting together, fighting for our life. Our lives. The lives of everyone on this planet and the lives of those generations to come. Your children and your children's children. We need to fight together, to build a sustainable world. Fight for a common cause.'

Another cheer and a commotion at the back of the crowd.

'Sitting here week by week, I'm just a voice crying in the wilderness. But you can do this. YOU!' He points all around the crowd taing in everyone as Fatima films him.

'Yea, all together, old man!' the crowd turns as Spensa's voice yells out. 'Yea, save the planet, ditch the plastic, let's get manic, let's all panic. And most of all, buy the tshirt!' He turns to his vid-man and displays his tshirt with its picture of a turtle deformed by a plastic band and the message: Plastic Kills. '£4 just in at boohoo.com, my pretties! Focus in bro.' The vid-man moves in.

Fatima comes out from behind John and sees who it is. 'You!'

'O my god, it's Fatima! My sister from another mother.' Said with his usual sneer.

'What are you doing here, you heartless, materialist bottom feeder?'

'Woooo! I heard on the clothesline that you was here, sweetest. Isn't she adorbs! Would you believe we was at the Peckham Fashion Academy together, 'til she flunked. Now she's the goddess of catastrophe porn. O you think you're so deck, Fatima with your scuffed trainers and your torn jeans. So last year!' He pointed to his feet: the cameraman followed. 'And speaking of footwear: how about these, peoples? LQD-Cell Origin Drone – part of Puma's brand new training shoe range. Awesome kicks yea?'

'Really? You're using the climate strike for product placement? How much you getting for that? And I did not crap out. I left when I saw what damage the fashion industry was doing. That tshirt – '

'O come on, loveliness. Hey, check out the shoes at puma.com, peoples. And hey, this tshirt is made in the UK – not by little brown slaveboys in Bangla Desh, so –'

'You know, cos we talked about this. The fashion industry creates 1.2bn tonnes of CO₂ a year, more than planes and shipping combined; and a third of microplastics found in the ocean come from synthetic clothing.'

'So' he says, pointing to the message on the tshirt, 'there's your message right there. And this is pure cotton.'

'Growing cotton consumes vast amounts of water: whole lakes have disappeared. You just don't get it, do you?'

Growing mutterings in the crowd turn to applause and some whoops for Fatima.

'Hey, how about a vlog-off, honey child? And uh –' He smirked. '– my following is bigger than yours.'

Somebody called out: 'Size queen!'

'O, you wanna try it for size then, bro?' He expected wild laughter but the crowd is starting to jeer. This is new for him.

John intervenes: 'Together. You all need to come together and fight the politicians, the short-termers. This is the War for the World!'

Applause and the cry is taken up: 'War for the World! War for the World!' It starts to ripple out across the square. Spensa suddenly looks non-plussed. It wasn't meant to be like this.

'Do you know how many followers I have, Fatima? How many you got, huh? How many likes you get a day?'

'You haven't been looking at the stats, then, Frank? More than you now.'

His beatboxer nudged him: 'Bro, have you seen your feed? This is not going down good.' He showed him the feed. Spensa the Influença was losing it.

Someone close up called out, 'Who's Frank?'

'O yea, sorry, Frank. I let that slip, didn't I? His real name isn't Spensa. We were pretty close at school, weren't we? You were gonna drop out with me and build a vlog with me until you

realised there was more money in unboxing and you left me to it. Frank the Influença doesn't really hack it.'

Booing now aimed at Spensa, growing. His feed is going crazy.

Someone calls out: 'Influença – isn't that a disease?'

Quick as a flash, Fatima comes back: 'Yea, and it's an epidemic all around the world that's killing people.'

Cheers, but Spensa is still focused on his feed: for once he can't think of anything to say, the stuffing knocked out of him. His real name was his deepest secret. One false move in the social networking world and … His brain is whirring away, thinking, thinking.

Fatima knows him well enough to know he will take the main chance. 'Together, Frank. Listen to what John is saying. It's time to move on from 'stuff' and fight for what really matters. The War for the World.'

When he looked up again, there were tears in his eyes. 'Collabs?'

'Think what we could do together, Frank. Us here – and all over the world there are people, young people, who understand. India, Brazil, China, Africa. It's our future.'

'We could start a – like a world-wide thing?'

'You know it in your heart, Spensa.'

'My heart? I thought I was heartless.' He turned to his vlog feed. 'You heard it first here, kiddies. Spensa has a heart.'

And he was thinking, thinking. The War for the World.

And all across the city the same people, the same seething, shuttling, streaming crowds, now starting to be lost to view as a giant sun sets behind the poison clouds. The lights blink on along the river, as always. But something has changed today. One day those poison clouds will be gone.

pawukon calendar

 

 

Write about one of your possessions 

I look up at the familiar object on the wall above my desk. It has hung there for over ten years now, but it still intrigues me when I look at it. I always think of the first day I caught sight of it in the shop of the mysterious Mr Sudirman in Senggigi.

I had been looking for something distinctive to take home as a reminder of my time on Lombok – a very memorable time alone on this perfect tropical island: deep palm fringed beaches of white sand, with huge ocean waves skimmed by feather light one-man fishing boats. On my last day there I walked into the town and saw the shop in a side street I hadn't noticed before. An old fashioned shop front was filled with the usual sort of tourist trophies but I thought I would try it anyway. I walked through the door with its tinkling bell. Mr Sudirman looked up from the counter and gave a half smile and a nod of greeting. There seemed to be nothing authentic, nothing original. I could feel the shopkeeper's eyes on me as I poked around. As I got nearer to the counter I looked up at him. He was giving me a quizzical look – half smile, half something that seemed to agree with my assessment of the cheap factory-made items, and then I thought he nodded. He stood and beckoned me to follow: we walked over to a darker part of the shop towards the rear. There was a huge old mahogany vitrine. And there amongst a much more interesting collection of artefacts he pointed to the object I have on the wall above me today.

It is a pawukon calendar. It is a rectangular piece of wood about 45cm high by 10cm wide by 2.5cm deep, made of a dark hardwood that feels fairly light for its size. The front is intricately carved.

At the top is a creature in bas relief with arms stretched wide and legs akimbo, so as to form an X. The head is round with big ears and a frowning mouth and sad eyes. The figure could be a lion or it could be a man – it's hard to be sure. At the bottom is a decorative flourish or swag of stylised vegetation. But most of the front is divided into a series of incised squares, 210 in all, arranged in thirty rows of seven. Many of these are inscribed with symbols: a + sign, an x, a single oblique line to left \ or right /, a half moon, a dot. Some of the squares have their corners rounded to make them into circles.

These are the days of the year in the pawukon calendar. Here at the equator there are no seasons to speak of: the sun is roughly overhead every day and rain is evenly spread. Out on the rice paddies they follow an unceasing cycle of planting and harvesting and the time it traditionally took was 210 days. So the symbols represent the auspicious days for carrying out all the activities of the rice farming process: after 210 days the 'rice year' starts again. The seven day week is represented by each row, and each week of the year has its own name. At the top of the calendar is a small wooden projection through which a string is passed. A loop is knotted above with two hand carved beads, which allows the calendar to be hung on the wall of the village house. The string hangs down and holds a pointer, which can be stuck into holes at the side of each row to indicate the current week. At the end of the string is a beautifully carved brown bird, made of bone like the pointer.

The pawukon calendar is much more complicated than just the seven day cycle of the Gregorian weeks. There are ten day cycles, nine day cycles and eight, six, five, four, three, two and one day cycles. It is the interactions – the interference patterns – of these different cycles that tells the village the auspicious days to deal with their crops – to weed, to flood the paddies, to plant, to harvest, to winnow, to store. And the special days when the gods and the ancestors must be honoured. Some of this Mr Sudirman explained to me, some I found out later. Although Lombok is now largely Muslim, the village traditions date back to when Indonesia was Hindu, and perhaps even to cultures before that.

I have tried many times to understand the patterns of the marking in the day squares of my calendar. Do the crosses correspond to the five-day or six-day cycle? Are the dots every three days, or alternately three and five days? But no, they're not – I haven't been able to decipher it. It's good to think that the symbols were understood implicitly by the village this object came from, as generation after generation passed on the knowledge perhaps over thousands of years. This itself will be a descendant of many similar calendars that have governed the life of their village before wearing out and being replaced.

I suppose it will sit on the wall above my desk, the man-lion frowning down at me, urging me to get on with my writing, until I pass it on to another generation. Modern agricultural techniques have meanwhile moved on in Indonesia. Now they can achieve three crops a year and my calendar is redundant. The meaning of the symbols will be lost to the next generation: but it remains a reminder of the cycles of time, of growth, of life, and of the continuity of a culture stretching back through countless generations.

I gave Mr Sudirman the price he asked for. He seemed surprised – I suppose most tourists feel compelled to haggle, but the price seemed fair. He seemed to understand that I really appreciated this and would care for it. He raised a finger as if to say: wait there. He scurried into a back room and returned to present me with a bonus: a small carved statue of a grinning man with a long nose and blank eyes, fingers knotted together and with an elaborate headdress and big dangly earrings. It was made from the hollow bone of a water buffalo. We were all three grinning now: a fair trade had been made.

cerulean blue

New Orleans. 30.0N, 90.0W. Sunset 20:04, Sunrise 04:43

Summertime

And the livin' is easy

Fish are jumpin'

And the cotton is high

Your daddy's rich

And your mamma's good lookin'

So hush little baby

Don't you cry

London. 51.5N, 0.0W. Sunset 21.21, Sunrise 04:43

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

Skagen. 57.4N, 10.3E Sunset 22.22, Sunrise 04:16

Now the midsummer comes to Denmark's homesteads

Larks are twitt'ring underneath the eaves

And the eye can wander contented

'Twixt the meadow, fjord and field

Everything around

Wears its summer's dress.

Scent of clover and breezes from the seashore

Float across this bright and sunny home

Do you hear the leaves softly whispering?

Love is summer's welcome guest

Laughter here and there

In the summer air.

¶ Above the rooftops the sky remains azure blue. An airplane trails its history as it catches the last golden moments of the longest day. Down here the buildings are already fading to grey, silhouettes against the summer sky.

The vespers ring,

The nightingale's waiting to sing,

The rest of us wait on a string.

Perpetual sunset

Is rather an unsettling thing.

The magical night that never quite comes. A twilight of dreams, of transformations, of a secret world, delved in moonlight under a cerulean sky. A night when fairies and mischievous creatures of the underworld become visible for a moment, when we imagine we can acquire some of that magic: a midsummer's dream time.

A time when the eternal spheres pause for a moment, before turning back towards winter on their infinite cycle.

For once no-one sleeps through the dark hours: it is a time of smiles in a summer night, a time for romance, for secret meetings in noctilucent glades, for mystery, for lovers to entwine and for a poet to immortalize his unrequited gilded youth, for indiscretion, for infidelity, for dreams fulfilled.

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact.

Why, this is very midsummer madness.

A time of plenty, to luxuriate in the warmth that lingers from a summer's day, a time for ease and comfort, to satiate, to pamper, to indulge.

Earth's increase, foison plenty,
Barns and garners never empty,
Vines and clustering bunches growing,
Plants with goodly burthen bowing.

¶ Now the vault above us slips a shade darker, dark enough for the first stars. Mercury, trailing and still faint. And then Jupiter low in the east.

Here in the northern lands, people have always known this time was special. All across the world they have watched and waited for the sun to turn, and they have celebrated. They have kept watch through the night, waiting for the early dawn. They have built fires to keep the other world at arms length while attempting to steal some of its magic.

At the northernmost tip of Denmark, looking out over the still distinct glow on the northern horizon the poets and artists gathered and built a great fire and sang their song of summer and homesteads. And now on every beach, by every lake, across the country, people sing their Midsommervise in the glow of their fires.

And across all the countries of the north they go to their summer houses and build their fires and celebrate the endless cycle of the seasons and of life in a tradition we share with the earliest people.

¶ Another hour, and still there is a glow as the stars wink in one by one. Saturn follows Jupiter and then there is a growing aura, a false dawn as the gibbous moon rises, indulgently smiling down tonight on this dissembling world.

In Finland, it was named Ukon juhla – Ukko's celebration – to honour the god of the sky, of thunder – and the harvest.

For Estonians it is Suvepööripäev – Summer Solstice Day – their biggest festival of the year. They gather with their families, or at larger events to celebrate this important day with singing and dancing throughout the night, as they always have.

Across Europe, the early christians commandeered the pagan festivals of course, and it became le feu de Saint-Jean, Jaaniõhtu, Jaanipäev, o dia de San Xoan, the fires of Saint John the Baptist, celebrated on the night before 24^th June.

In Slovenia, the communists moved the festivities to May 1^st , International Workers Day. Originally Kresna noč – Midsummer's Night – was dedicated to Kresnik, the god of fire, storms and of summer, who travels across the sky on his golden chariot.

In Britain, the puritans moved it a second time, from St John's Eve to November 5^th and saw it as an opportunity to attack the catholics. It had been a strong tradition before. In the late 14th-century

men stay up at night and make three kinds of fires: one is of clean bones and no wood and is called a bonnefyre; another is of clean wood and no bones, and is called a wakefyre, because men stay awake by it all night; and the third is made of both bones and wood and is called St. John's fire.

There is even evidence of huge midsummer feasts and bones at Stonehenge, the monument that points to the rising sun on midsummer day, thousands of years ago. The burning of bones in a bone-fire to produce lots of smoke seems to have been an important element, and had the power to drive away the spirits or the dragons or whatever evil thing lurked locally.

¶ Now the sky is at its darkest, but the moon near its zenith casts a wan light on the scurrying comings and goings below. Soon it will descend and the sky will begin to glow again in the east.

Fire not only drives away evil, but purifies. People put summer flowers and herbs on the fires, and in very many countries people jump through the fire as the flames die late into the night, to purify themselves and to increase their fertility. In Spain

when it is relatively safe to jump over the bonfire, it is done three times (although it could also be nine or any odd number) for good luck at the cry of meigas fora (witches off!)

In Norway it was said that, if a girl did this and then put flowers under her pillow on Midsummer's Night, she would dream of her future husband.

In Bulgaria, they dance on the embers of the fire at dawn. Anyone seeing the sunrise will be healthy throughout the year. It is believed that on Enyovden – Midsummer's Day – a variety of herbs have the greatest healing power, and that this is especially true at sunrise.

In northern Spain the smoky bonfires are also accompanied by a gathering of magical medicinal herbs, including St John's wort, which may be dipped in the pure waters of seven springs to be most effective. People gather round the fires and feast all night, and sometimes a dummy, representing a witch or the devil, is placed on top and burnt.

¶ Now in the east another star – Venus, the brightest yet – rises then rapidly fades as the sky runs through its many hued sequence and the Sun God appears once more renewed.

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
And I say it's all right
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...

¶ The sun appears, still shocking with its power, and soon dispels all the magic and the mystery of this special night, so that it seems just a dream. Tonight I have experienced the wonders of Midsummer's Night like millions of northern folk, and millions before over countless generations. As the cosmic wheels reached the extreme of their repeating rhythm we were allowed this glimpse of the other world for one night. Now they begin to shift back and reality returns until next the next cycle, the next Midsummer.

If we shadows have offended,

Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear,
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream.

the switch

today, a horror story!

I have always had a strong imagination. I think this is important in a historian-criminologist. It's not just about the cold facts, the police reports, the evidence. You also have to be able to put yourself into the mind of the criminal; to see the world through his eyes (almost always it was he not she; to understand the culture and the times in which he operated. I can walk through a present day landscape and imagine how it was at the historic time I am researching. I can see almost like a double image how the streets would have looked at the time – the old fashioned shop fronts, the hurrying people in crinolines and top hats, the horses and carts, like a black-and-white movie overlaying the technicolor image of today. I can even move back and forth in time, fast forwarding the chiaroscuro image, back to a time of wooden cottages and dirt roads, forward to impressive facades and brick and cobbles.

So it was a real privilege to visit the actual scenes of one of the murderers I have always been interested in: Carson Ferzackerley. He was no Jack the Ripper. It was a fairly banal murder as they go, but my interest was sparked by the fact that he was the first to be executed by electric chair, in 1920s Chicago. As I looked into it, something fascinated me about it. It seemed to be a motiveless crime. His relationship with his wife previously had been idyllic and their love for each other was remarked upon. There had been no sign of mental illness – Ferzackerley lived a blameless life, he was a hard worker, a good churchman, a follower of the temperance movement. There was no evidence of gambling or debts; nor of infidelities on either side. This was Chicago in the 1920s, but there were no indications of connections with the underworld. So all the usual motivations for murder were absent. Some thought that a devil had possessed him, others that some kind of seizure had made him mad. The violence of his attack was horrific, by all accounts. But he offered no resistance to the authorities afterwards, and no explanation. In fact, he claimed not to be Ferzackerley at all, on the rare occasions when he spoke.

So with my good wife I decided to visit modern day Chicago. Olga likes to accompany me on these trips, even though I can sometimes appear to be in a dream as I wander the streets with my double exposure imagination going full tilt. The courthouse building where Ferzackerley was tried and convicted, and which housed the horrific machine that would end his life, was still there and is now a museum, although the execution suite is now normally off limits. I had been given special access by the curator, Sam Wise, whom I knew through collaborations and conferences we had both attended. So I arranged a private tour a few days after we arrived. The courthouse was quite close to the house where Carson and Marie Ferzackerley boarded, which is even now a small family-run hotel, little changed externally but with better plumbing and quite plushly furnished rooms in that characteristic American 'inn' style, and that is where we stayed. As I walked through its hall and sitting rooms I could picture how it would have looked in the twenties, somewhat faded and filled still with the heavy Victorian mahogany and brocades that survived from a more prosperous time. It would have all been threadbare but respectable: my research showed it was run as a temperance boarding house by an impoverished widow. The silent movie ran in my head, overlaying the real images as we toured the house and climbed the ornate staircase to our room. I had of course booked the room where the Ferzackerleys had lived, generously sized and now with an ensuite carved out of one corner where there would have been an overbearing wardrobe and dressing table. There was a small closet and the chimney breast of a fireplace, long since boarded up. The bed would have been a big iron-framed affair in the same location as today's twin beds.

We went out to dinner and then back in the room to read. I wanted to find all I could about the house while I was there. Olga retired early and I stayed up in a comfortable armchair, reading once more the police reports, which survived. I imagined the door opening and Ferzackerley entering from a late shift, his wife already in bed just like my wife tonight, the room cold and dark but for the flickering light of the dying embers. It was as if I could really see him now, standing there, taking off his heavy coat and his hat, brushing off a little snow on this deep winter night. He stood for a minute looking down at the bed and his sleeping wife. Then suddenly he looked up and seemed to stare right at me. I shook my head to lose the image: I had seen the police mugshot, directly into the camera, so that was the look I imagined.

I went to bed and turned out the light. The house, one of those late Victorian trophy houses, all gothic details and grey clapboard, creaked and cracked as the night temperatures fell. I fell asleep I think, because I seemed to see him again, staring at me in the firelight.

Next morning was bright and clear. [something about perfect relationship with wife]

That evening we had dinner with Sam who explained the history of the courthouse, an imposing classical edifice that had seen many a famous criminal sent down. Tomorrow the building was closed to the public but he had offered to take us round personally. It was an entertaining evening: Olga enjoyed Sam's anecdotes and decided to come with me on the tour.

We got straight to bed, ready for an early start. As I lay down, I felt decidedly chilly, even despite the late spring sunshine earlier, and decided to fetch the extra comforter in the closet. As I turned back into the room, I seemed to imagine Ferzackerley entering the room with his wife, perhaps a happier earlier occasion, I thought to myself. With these visions of the past it was always vision only, but tonight instead of the sketchy version of the mind's eye, the figures, while still black and white seemed more solid, more real. He was taking her in his arms: they seemed to be laughing wildly, whirling round and round in a mad dance, then abruptly he checked them and threw his wife roughly on the bed. Enough: my imagination was running away with me. I shook my head and thought no more about it. I went to bed and switched off the light. My wife's sleep seemed to be disturbed: she was breathing fast and shallow and moving about in her bed. I opened my eyes and looked over. I was shocked to be confronted by the vision of Ferzackerley's face no more than a couple of feet from mine, as if he was lying on top of Olga, looking straight at me, staring wildly. I jumped up and the vision was gone. My heart was beating fast and I decided I had lapsed into a dream, perhaps a little anxious about tomorrow.

Early next day Sam took us around the museum exhibits then into the courtroom, oak panelled and surprisingly small. He pointed out the various features – the judge's dais, the witness box, the jury bench, and the barred cage of the dock, with its stairs down to below. 'To be honest, it gives me the willies,' he said, 'every time I go down there. So if you don't mind, here's the key. Take your time down there and come up to the office when you're finished.' To be honest, I rather wanted to have some quiet time there, to imagine what it would have been like for the prisoner. I could imagine him standing there in the dock, with the officers behind him ready with their truncheons in case of trouble, hearing the dread words of the foreman as his fellows of the jury looked on – serious and upstanding gentlemen aware of their solemn duty – and then the awful sentence of the judge as the lawyers and the gawping public looked on. I saw him pleading, pointing at the jury then once again, strangely, seeming to stare directly at us, shouting something. This imagination thing was getting out of hand. I wondered how he felt as he descended the steps into the darkness below, then was led to the small whitewashed cell we found there, probably much smarter and cleaner than in his time, but still grim and dark. We walked along the corridor to a plain metal door at the end. It was heavy and creaky: it was obviously rarely opened. Quite large, with some natural light from arched barred windows high on the wall. To one side, a heavy partition with a window, through which could be seen a brighter room, with ancient electrical equipment, and a separate entrance to another circulation route. This was where the witnesses would have stood, with the executioner. In the middle of the electrical panel was a big switch, the kind that Dr Frankenstein would have used to pulse electricity into the dead body of his monster, to give it life. But here it served the opposite purpose. And in this room accessed from the cells, stood nothing but the horrific instrument of torture and death. We both shivered a little. In fact, Olga was shaking and I took her in my arms and comforted her. I could imagine the moustachioed gentlemen watching as the guards dragged Ferzackerley into the room and strapped him down. Was he terrified, was he calm? There was nothing in the record about this, just the bare fact that he was executed at such and such a time on such and such a day.

I imagined him there, scared, looking nervously over to the window as the guards left and locked the metal door, alone now. Seeing the men in the other room, looking back grim. I could see it all. He seemed to be calling out. Then the hand of the executioner moving almost in slow motion towards the switch. Then it seemed all too real for me: I could see his actual body there, as he turned and looked at me and he was mouthing – something. What was it? It looked like 'You – you!'

I hurried Olga out and back up the stairs and locked the door to the cellar behind us. 'What is it?' she said. You look more scared than me! Like you've seen a ghost.'

'Just my imagination running away with me again' I said.

'Such a sensitive creature' she said. She laughed and kissed me on the cheek.

That night we went to bed early as we had an early flight in the morning. I lay awake thinking about what I had seen in the execution chamber. For a minute it had seemed absolutely real. I really need to get more detachment, I thought. My eyes were just drooping shut when I thought I saw a flash of light, as if the door from the hall had opened. I sat up and looked over. There was the form of Ferzackerley, just like the first night, still wavering - but I realised that it was if he was seen in firelight – otherwise he appeared to be completely solid. I jumped out of the bed and stood at the far side of the room. He seemd so real. He brushed off the snow and took off his hat and coat again. Then he took a knife from the coat pocket, long bladed like a butcher's knife – the knife that was in the police report – and went to stand by the bed. Over the sleeping form. Was it my wife? Was it an image of his wife? It was hard to tell. I saw the old iron bedstead and the modern twin beds like a double exposure in my head. Then he lifted the knife and slowly turned to me and once again was looking directly into my eyes: into my soul.

Then he started to plunge the knife rapidly down into the body, over and over. I wasn't thinking, but just from instinct I rushed forward and tried to grab the knife, but my hands seemed to go right through him. Then there was a blinding flash. Suddenly the room was brightly lit and there was blood, bright red blood, lots of it below me. It was Ferzackerley's wife, stabbed over and over and I heard her last gasps as she expired, and almost the echo of her screams from before. And I looked down at my hand and it was bloody too, and in my hand was the knife. And I looked around and there was the mahogany and the brocade, the dowdy wallpaper of the old boarding house, just as I had imagined it. And there was a sudden banging on the door, a crash, a splintering of wood, and two men burst in and wrestled me to the ground. And they dragged me away from the bed, wrenched the knife from my hand.

'Ferzackerley, what have you done?'

There was another flash. Suddenly I was in the courtroom from this morning. The judge and the jury and the counsel were all there, just as I had imagined them, but real this time, in full colour and sound. They were all looking at me sternly. Three people entered the floor of the court – strange, insubstantial people I could barely see in the glare of the winter morning. One of them was pointing around but making no sound. The other two, a man and a woman, were laughing and smiling, taking no notice of the courtroom proceedings. And the grim-faced jury stood. And the judge said: 'Have you reached your verdict?' And one of them said: 'Yes, your Honor. Guilty!' And there was some cheering and clapping and the judge banged down his gavel and called for silence. Then he sentenced me to death. 'No, no, I'm not Ferzackerley,' I yell. 'Tell them!'

Another flash. I am sitting in the dreary cell. Unpainted, dirty, dank, just as I had imagined it would have been then. The man and woman appear again at the barred door hatch. They look in. They are insubstantial, like ghosts. But I recognise them.

Another flash. I am strapped into the electric chair. The guards are just closing the door. The man and woman are there in the room, black and white, flickering now, fading. I look across to the side and there are the men behind the glass; and there is the switch. I stare back at the couple. He takes her in his arms, hugs her tight, tenderly.

It is Olga and me. Or is it me? The man checks their dance, stopping facing me, staring into my eyes. It looks like my face: but suddenly it breaks into a malevolent grin. I realise now. 'You! You!' I cry. He grins wider, the embodiment of evil. Suddenly he slams her body against the wall. Olga's body. Out of the corner of my eye I see a movement behind the glass. The hand moves towards the panel and starts to close the switch.

life sentence

'So, what would you put on your gravestone?' said Ferzackerley, returning from the bar with a couple more IPAs.

'I'd probably run with something like Keats,' said the Author.

It was a suitably apocalyptic night to consider epitaphs: flashes of lightning were rapidly followed by deafening bangs and sudden bursts of slashing rain that sent the homeward crowds dashing past the windows of the Oscar Wilde.

It was the first time the Author had felt really stuck for a structure for his daily short story. Ferzackerley had quizzed him from time to time on progress and it had been satisfactory enough, although only a few of the stories so far had left him really satisfied.

'They're getting a bit dark aren't they?' said Ferzackerley. 'Horror stories then epitaphs. So let me get this right. Today it's got to be about something on a gravestone, or an obituary? And bonus points for a long sentence? Well, you're not going to be scouting around cemeteries on a night like this. Can't you just use a famous headstone?' He was fumbling with his phone. 'Here are a few epitaphs I like,' he said, pulling up some images.

DEAR FREND FOR IESUS SAKE FORBEARE,

TO DIGG THE DUST ENCLOASED HEERE,

BLESTE BE YE MAN TY SPARES THES STONES,

AND CURST BE HE TY MOVES MY BONES.

'That sounds a bit banal and illiterate,' said the Author. Nothing about the qualities of the deceased. Whose is it?'

'Shakespeare's.'

'Oh.'

'How about this then?'

I'M A WRITER

BUT

NOBODY'S PERFECT

'I wouldn't mind Nobody's perfect for my epitaph. I once sponsored a cinema seat and you had to give your favourite line from a movie. That was mine – the final line from Some Like It Hot.'

'So this is Billy Wilder's headstone.'

'There you go. Best movie ever made in my view. What's your best film?'

'Don't get distracted, stick to your theme.'

'I seem to remember that Jack Lemmon, perhaps not wanting to be outdone by his good friend Billy, simply had a final marquee title.'

JACK LEMMON

IN

'And of course there he was, in the grave below.'

'On the other hand there are the bitter and twisted ones. Like this.'

MAY ETERNAL DAMNATION BE UPON THOSE

IN WHALING PORT WHO, WITHOUT KNOWING ME,

HAVE MALICIOUSLY VILIFIED ME.

MAY THE CURSE OF GOD BE UPON THEM AND THEIRS.

'Nasty. Sounds a bit like what Trump would put on his.'

'This was some cat lady apparently. The good citizens of Whaling Port report that everything has been fine and dandy there ever since she died – the curse isn't working.'

The Author was starting to despair of his task. 'The interesting epitaphs seem to be either jokey or vicious.'

'Not all of them.'

'Anyway, how do you sum up a life in a sentence?'

'You don't. You make a joke, or bear a grudge, or, well – some are deliberately bathetic.'

'Like Spike Milligan's?

I TOLD YOU I WAS ILL

And that brings me back to Keats.'

'What was that again?'

The Author explained. Keats had died of consumption at the age of 25 in Rome and was buried there at the Protestant cemetery. His wish had been that his stone would bear the words

HERE LIES ONE WHOSE NAME WAS WRIT IN WATER

Above it was to be carved a Greek lyre with four of its eight strings broken to demonstrate how his genius was cut off by death before its maturity. However his friends added a lot of other guff.

'Somewhat pretentious.'

'But nevertheless true,' said the Author. 'I wonder what he would have achieved if he had lived. He hung out with all the famous poets of his time – Shelley, Southey, Wordsworth – and they recognised his great potential.' He took a swig of his drink. 'Actually I wouldn't have an epitaph at all, or even a memorial. Just scatter my ashes on my favourite beach when I'm gone.'

Ferzackerley was continuing to flip through his phone. 'Actually there are some that are very moving. Look at this.'

NEVER AGAIN NEVER FORGET

6 July 1943 22 June 1988

A GAY VIETNAM VETERAN.

WHEN I WAS IN THE MILITARY

THEY GAVE ME A MEDAL FOR KILLING TWO MEN

AND A DISCHARGE FOR LOVING ONE.

'That's in the Congressional cemetery in Washington. Leonard Matlovich was the first American soldier to come out publicly, and fought to keep his job in the army. A brave pioneer. It does sum up his life in a sentence, in a way, and also stands as a rebuke to the present and a challenge to the future.'

'You know, that is actually a short story right there.' The Author slumped forward over his drink. 'Very moving. I could never equal that.'

They both paused for thought for a minute.

'So what are you going to do for this challenge?'

The Author finished his beer and looked out into the darkness. The rain was diminishing and it was time to go home. 'I don't know. Maybe something about all these epitaphs we've been talking about,' he said.

'That's not really a short story though is it? It doesn't have an ending – a – what do you call it?'

'A resolution. You're probably right. Maybe I could finish with something like:

That night the Author went home and, feeling inspired, wrote a brilliant story about epitaphs and headstones and obituaries; and about his conversations with his good friend Ferzackerley, who many years later, on hearing the sad news of the death of the great man, had remembered what the now famous Author had said and, standing up to the publishers and literary executors and all the other hangers on, decided he must honour the wishes of his best mate, and so he went back through all his writings to find the story that proved the last wishes of the Author, and persuaded all his friends to fly out to his favourite tropical beach where they lit a great bonfire – like the one that the friends of Shelley had lit to immolate his corpse on a lonely Tuscan beach: not that Ferzackerley was going to do anything so dramatic, as he'd already had his corpse quietly dealt with at the crematorium in Golders Green – and they had a great time dancing around the fire; celebrating the life and achievements of the great Author; sharing the many happy memories they had of him; and scattering his ashes over the clear tropical waters of a coral sea and all the time knowing that those memories of him would stay with them as long as they lived and would be the ultimate memorial.

How would that be?' said the Author.

'Well, it's not really a resolution,' said Ferzackerley. 'But at least it's a long sentence.'

For a final instalment in the meta drama go here