Fledgling Sparrows

fledgling sparrows

on the last flight of the day

an empty bench

Paul Conneally
Dronfield Woodhouse

June 4th 2017

YOU CAN'T BLAME THE YOUTH

Walking with no aim I come across a green bus shelter with the name of Peter Tosh graffitied on it. I'm immediately hearing The Wailers in my head and carry them with me for the next few hundred yards.

I've no idea if this scrawled 'Peter Tosh' was in homage to the great Peter Tosh or just some local youth inscribing himself into the very white very middle class seventies urban landscape at least until the next council paint over job but it raised the spirit of the the Bush Doctor in me and up the Gosforth Valley Road.

You can't blame the youth

You can't fool the youth

You can't blame the youth of today

You can't fool the youth

Paul Conneally

June 2nd 2017

Foan Hill to Balm of Rakasiri

Leaving the Robin Hood pub Russ Ralph and I set off not knowing exactly which way to go and choose to go up Foan Hill. I'm not sure of the origin of this word 'foan' it might be an old name for a moor or a bog, well that's what just one reference on the internet told me. I also found a map showing the distribution of the word foan as a surname which seems to be mainly in the south and south west of the UK. Maybe the hill is named after someone. The first thing that crossed my mind was 'fawn' a young deer and the 1911 census tells us that at that time there were in Swannington four houses with a Fone Hill address and one with a Fawn Hill address. The Swannington History Society believes all these houses were on the same road and it is not known when the spelling standardised as Foan Hill. The spellings in the census could just be due to the way the forms were filled in by individual householders.

Walking up the hill we come to the Incline Kennels named after the Swannington Incline, part of Stephenson's Swannington Railway, one of the earliest railways in the Midlands and used to transport coal from the local mines to Leicester.

From behind the fence unseen dogs bark at us.

Russ and I both agree that we are not big fans of dogs but that some are okay and make you think maybe having a dog like that wouldn't be so bad.

Later, still intrigued by the name Foan Hill I search it on Google and it somehow takes me to a page in 'THE DRUGGIST'S RECEIPT BOOK' and to Balm of Rakasiri which was 'Oil of Rosemary dissolved in common gin'. It was made by the Jordan brothers in Canon Street Road, London, who marketed it throughout most of the 1800's as a cure for nervous diseases but actually without saying so openly as a cure for venereal diseases. They were outed as quacks but were still trading through till the 1860s. Oil of Rosemary in gin sounds quite interesting and maybe worth trying not for its 'restorative' properties but for its beverage qualities if it has any.

Any point on a vague walk can lead us to new discoveries, emotions and stories true, half-true and false. Welcome them all.

Paul Conneally

Swannington

Leicestershire

May 2017

Wax and Wane

wisteria

the wax and wane

of my heart

Paul Conneally

May 2017

Giving With Benefits: Just Who Owns The National Lottery?

Gambling is firmly entrenched within British society. The National Lottery is perhaps the most accessible form of gambling with tickets on sale in almost every small grocery or news shop along with the biggest supermarkets.
.
The lottery, with its huge prizes and a percentage of profits going to charitable and sporting projects perhaps feels to many as though it's not gambling at all, just a way of supporting that might result in a windfall. A kind of 'giving with benefits'.
.
Let's not pull the wool over our own eyes. The National Lottery along with its associated scratch cards is gambling and for some it forms an addiction that ruins family finances and life. This is a problem that affects poorer families and communities disproportionately as it is in these communities that most scratch cards and lottery tickets are bought.
.
The government uses the lottery to subsidise some services that have seen cuts through the various funds such as the National Lottery Heritage Fund and the sports funding. One can get the impression that it is in fact a national duty to buy lottery products if only to make sure that our haul of Olympic and Paralympic gold medals is maintained and in fact increased.
.
The lottery is operated but not now owned by Camelot. Camelot is in fact now owned by a Canadian pension company. Annual accounts from Camelot showed that gross ticket sales secured an enormous £7.2 billion in 2015, up from £6.7 billion in the previous year. They reported a profit of around £72 million. Whilst profits go up year on year the chances of winning have actually fallen with tickets doubling in price from £1 to £2 but prize money not doing the same. In addition to the reported Camelot profits millions are also paid over to its parent company, the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, rather than being handed on to good causes.
.
It is improbable that lottery culture will demise anytime soon but bringing it into public ownership rather than private ownership would see more of the profits of our gambling fixation remaining within the public realm. As for online gambling companies with their emphasis on football betting and wall to wall advertising well that's another story.

Paul Conneally
September
2016

Photograph: Filbert Street Grocery, Leicester, Paul Conneally 2016
.
.

OXFORD CIRCUS STATION

OXFORD CIRCUS STATION

The hustle and bustle of London's Oxford Street just before the rush hour. When it's excitingly busy without hemming your body and mind in too much.

The Evening Standard newspaper, I was going to say vendor but they are handed out for free now, sat half on half off the tube station entrance. Shall I pick one up here or outside the mainline station? I'll wait till later.

a blast of warm air
from the underground station
Marilyn Monroe

Little Onion
September
2016

Photograph: Paul Conneally 2016

Blind Hope - work in progress with Tom Green

'on the back of an envelope'
Work in progress 'Blind Hope' with Tom Green
Paul Conneally
Loughborough
2016






.

.

Onshore Sleet

Photo: Pie and Peas Stall - Great Yarmouth - Paul Conneally 2016

After walking for six or seven miles I find myself in Great Yarmouth's marketplace. I gravitate to a small stall manned by a smiling face. It's a pie and peas stall. Small meat pies and hot mushy peas are all that's on sale. Traditional food. I order a bowl of mushy peas,spoon some mint sauce in from the dish on the counter and tuck in. They are the best mushy peas I've ever tasted, just what I needed and I tell the stall holder so. He's pleased, tells me that his grandad opened the stall in 1946, his dad took over from him and now he's taken over from his dad. He's proud of his pies, his peas and the history of the stall and he should be.

onshore sleet
a homeless young man
stamping his feet

Little Onion
Great Yarmouth Market
February 2016

a spring death

a spring death
voices rise and fall
with the breeze

Little Onion
Great Yarmouth
February 2016

Paul Conneally

LOOGABAROOGA FESTIVAL BANNER

A banner flying high above Loughborough's famous twice weekly street market heralds the first ever festival of children's book illustration in the UK, the LOOGABAROOGA FESTIVAL.

The festival runs from the 22nd October until the 25th October 2015.

Paul Conneally
October 22 2015
Loughborough

Panic Attack (Lost in the Supermarket)

panic attack
no organic potatoes
in aisle five

Paul Conneally

From the photographic series Lost in the Supermarket, Loughborough, 2014

LA SCIMMIA SULLA SCHIENA - William Burroughs - book cover by MarioDelgado

LA SCIMMIA SULLA SCHIENA - William Burroughs

Book cover designed by Mario Degrada for the Italian translation of William Burroughs classic tale of drug addiction 'Junky'.

Degrada designed many wonderful book covers for Italian publishers Rizzoli.

To hear William Burroughs read the whole of Junkie click this link:
Junkie by William Burroughs

14 Nights in Carnac

14 Nights in Carnac
mixed media - book and oak leaves
Paul Conneally 2006

14 Nights in Carnac - a piece performed and made in July 2006. The artist spends 14 nights in Carnac famous for its megaliths its standing stones. He lives and sleeps below two oak trees. Each night reading sections of Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-up Bird Chronicle plucking an oak leaf from the trees and placing it inside the book as a bookmark.

The experience exists as the book with the 14 leaves pressed inside it.

In 2007 images of the pressed leaves inside the book are transferred on to white ceramic bathroom tiles and form part of Conneally’s exhibition in Mile End Arts Pavilion ‘The Renewability’ curated by Tomomi Iguchi.

On Leaving Calais

'On Leaving Calais'

After a month in France we drive on to the P&O Ferry at Calais for the crossing to Dover.

A worker in a luminous jacket, hard hat and ear protectors, guides us to park just inches from the car in front and those on either side of us. Getting out is a contortionist's trick.

Up the stairs from car deck five and find somewhere to sit. It's about a ninety minute journey and the captain, via the muddy sound system, tells us that conditions in the English Channel are calm. My stomach smiles.

Yes it's calm but grey. This said the port of Calais, even in bright sunshine always feels a little grey, a little faded as does Dover where, with one blast on the ship's horn, we now set off for.

channel ferry

we capture four seats

and head for the bar

Paul Conneally

The English Channel

2014

Pigeons and Tinsel

In the early evening, Town Hall Square has a two hour period stream of families on their yearly pilgrimage to see the Christmas decorations.

It's a wonderful place that the children will remember when they, years later, bring their own children to the same space, same time of year.

Much later, as Leicester's night time economy starts to close down and clubs spew their punters out on to the cold streets it's a different story.

An altercation of fists by the nativity. A couple canoodling and more behind a plywood Womble.

the long walk home

after the office party

pigeons and tinsel

Paul Conneally

Leicester 2013

Paul Conneally

On the Green

they call for him
the slightly bigger boys

to ‘play out’
and ‘bring your ball’

out on the green
the big green by the main road

now you be careful
and don’t swing on the saplings

Paul Conneally

http://burnthewater.wordpress.com/2013/09/22/on-the-green/ 

REUNITED WORLDS by R.N.FOSTER

Reunited Worlds - R.N.Foster

Reunited Worlds tells the tale of two space explorers, thousands of years in the future, who are sent out to find other worlds inhabited by humans. Their mission goes disastrously wrong when they encounter a medieval world and inadvertently affect the course of a major war. The story is told from both the perspective of the explorers and from the viewpoint of those who they encounter. 

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/353978

RN FOSTER contacted us to say: "There is a more in-depth synopsis of my book on my website ....
http://www.rnfoster.com/reunited-worlds/  "

Underground

underground journey

the closeness of strangers
on my breath

Paul Conneally