Cappacino Kid

OUR FAVOURITE SHOP
- Amongst those prepared to cast an eye over this green and peasant land are the numbers known as The Style Council and here, within this sleeve, wrapped in their second long playing recording. Brimming with views, observations and contradictions, a whole world of new songs, words and ideas, it has an idea to seriously get over to you, dear reader. Many themes emerge from this collection and, for instance, check the first tune out which tells sad of a family torn and broken in two by the curse of unemployment, the two young sons in London – one in search of work, the other looking to revenge this outrage – whilst the father who has been marked, “Made Redundant” stays behind, his wife swept with nostalgia as he blames all except the real enemy. And be sure that the same evil wind which has blown apart their lives, has done the same for the community, cut away their only viable source of income with its ruthless whisper, forced them to shut up shop and “All gone away” being the only sign left to mark their presence. In the offices of power the figures and statistics written coldly in blood ink, make for satisfying reading. But what about – people ! Of course they may point to the new towns as their alternative but the Style Council have a word about those too. Oh yes, the infant glue addicts, the teenage suicides, the plastic cows, the soulless grey that never permeates the bright and happy colours of their TV ads. Switch on and catch the pristine images of affluence, the open flowing meadows, a “peace of mind”, ah come to Milton Keynes, and pose the following question. Was it named after that seeker of beauty and truth the poet Milton ? Or those men of monetarism Milton Friedman and Raymond Keynes ? Which answer would you like it to be and what’s your view of truth and beauty ? and which side do you fall on ?
  
  Still, there’s plenty to laugh about, right ? We can always take it out on the Irish, the Asians, the Blacks and anyone else who “isn’t like us” and is therefore a nice, neat scapegoat. But as the comic’s stand – up instructions really tell us – these targets aren’t funny ! The misery and oppression the Irish have suffered for centuries, the crap heaped upon the shoulders of fellow Englishmen like the Blacks and Asians, me, I don’t find it funny AT ALL.
  
  There are other tunes that speak of wasted lives – no price is higher – some intentionally thrown away (because they are too troubled for this world) by the filth some still care to glamourise, the devils smack (A Man Of Great Promise). Others thrown away not by choice but by the callous hands of those in power (With Everything To Lose). By what name do they go ? Youth Training Schemes ?
  
  The Style Council would like to train the youth – in the art of revolution. It’s laid out in “Internationalists”, a song about standing proud in the world. No, it’s not a privatised club for intellectuals but a state of mind for all those who refuse to submit to the way our world is run. Stand fast and firm people for when they tell you that inequality is the way of the world or that natural order has to exist, it is only their self made lies for justifying their own means and ends.
  
  And release no more talk of the “but what can I do about it” variety. Track the last track and clear away any confusion – UNITY IS POWERFUL !! Let’s not also forget the contradictions that were mentioned earlier, the manner in which the words and music rub together – the light wistful melody of “All gone away” s’ bleak scenarios, the strong groove for “Man Of Greta Promise” tale – and how can there be any kind of perfection in an imperfect world ? But are matters that bad ? Yes, I’m afraid they are but good fortune !!
  
  The Style Council love and are in love with life and so provide us with truly touching moments, songs about that elusive touch of “Luck” we are all blessed with at some point, songs about falling into love’s confusing whirlpool and the delirious ecstasy it holds, and songs about the stupid games it can force us into. Songs about the ravaging darkness one’s soul falls into at times, a plea of “kiss me quick” or “squeeze me slowly” before you fall into the abyss and are mashed down forever (Down in the Seine) .
  
  All of these performed with a smile and a tear for there is no other way of saying such things.
  
  Listen to every part of this record and take none of it at face value. It certainly, from my point of scenery, wasn’t made that way.
CAFE BLEU
- Of days such as these, it’s here in Le Café Bleu where, amidst the smoke, steam and colours present, I’m to be found passing the hours of mortal time, sometimes exchanging the views, sometimes with my think cap in full view so that those around respect my wish for solitude and refrain from the chit-chat. Until I signal for some that is.
  
  Now, what with things as they are, and most depressing, my thoughts often turn to the ever encroaching squareness which only the few seem prepared to fight. I have often bemoaned this sad fact but noting lack of support will have to continue on this mission, for not only am I keen to wake at my anointed hour each day but fully desire something worth inspiring me, or what point can there be in rolling back the sheets in the first place?
  
  Indeed, and so in Le Café Bleu, when I’m not contemplating the sweetness of Miles’s sad lonely trumpet, I’m checking for the talk around me, talk I might add that speaks with far more truth than any so called ‘moralist’ could put about, golden powered and uplifting in its forcefulness, and it is often to catch The Boy Wonder here, immaculate as ever in his threads, shaking his head sadly as he stirs the cappuccino froth, muttering out aloud, ‘this land! Nothing but a nuclear playground for the nuclear family, the war mongerer’s playful fancy and we so strong in numbers, fast asleep to their wicked manners. How could we let them unleash so much evil?’ How indeed and Boy Wonder will continue thus, ‘it is this sadness, the knowledge that our hearts have a right to so much better that may soon make me vacate my premises. For I say unto thee that verily thou hast forsaken your brothers and sisters to allow the sordids their space and, much like the donkey’s parable, been deceived by the golden carats!’
  
  Now don’t get me wrong here, my instincts have always steered me clear of religion and well it should when it’s been organised by the greed merchants who abide in wealth and power and let their believers starve, dictating dubious morals from the back of bullet proof vans. But belief in (a) God, well I check for it instantly and sometimes in a tight corner often find myself looking upwards. So when Boy Wonder speaks of how the working people have become their own worst enemies, succumbed to the bosses and their worthless temptations, happy and content with the telly, but stone cold neck upwards, willing to sell their strength of togetherness for the rustle of green notes and the promise of “the good life’ which never materialises, it’s then, boy and girl, that his words hit home hard.
  
  For talk of our crappy situations is enough to fill you with a sadness rare, that is often found in Miss Nina Simone’s voice. I mean check for this. The young acting the primitive towards anyone not of their particular skin dye, (as if that mattered or counted for anything) or warring those suss to go against the grain and wishing to avoid the rush hour, fighting their own when they should be fighting the powers above who have strung them like puppets. Or worse ! Happily joining the queue to don a power uniform, become a square boy even when the whole point of being young, being given such energy and spurt in the first place is to fight the rules and rulemakers who wish to file and defile us, filling the innocent starters with their cynicism and vice. Why, I know numbers of both persuasions, over their teens and far beyond with more cool and punch than that, cats who are sundered from the high streets by their unquenchable restlessness, wise to the notions of security fostered upon by those with big money on such horses, and brave to the ‘normals’ who wish their demise simply because they show the stupidity of ‘the accepted’.
  
  What makes matters worse is the inescapable fact that the square boys who jump to authority’s beat never realise that by all of us joining as one with shared ideals and beliefs in love and justice, a common consensus amongst us could in five short minutes overturn the odds, tip the balance into the good and achieve what cynics term the ‘impossible’. But then what have they ever done, except moan and blindly ignore the collected strength of us cats?
  
  Thus, here in Le Café Bleu, as we watch the senseless rush past the window, observe the suffering from here to eternity and discuss the cut of our cloth, we silently pray to be led from this miserable darkness into a place of supreme effulgence, delivered from all evil and yes filled with life’s natural goodness! The lights twinkle sometimes, y’know, and once in a rare moment when I caught sight, by accident, of a rainbow harmony, well, boygirl, let me tell you now that such a spectacle is likely to fill you with such hope and optimism for life’s possibilities that all the sordids throughout this great and vast earthland could never infringe upon your happiness at that moment.
  
  Rare as such a treasure is, there are many happenings which sustain the good and give us the heart, here in Le Café Bleu, to stretch our lives out and am bound to say first that music is one of these joys, a force that when not tainted by the grasping fingers of those who have cashed in on youth and sold it back to the butterflies, is well high in the essential life list, be it the solitary cry from a jazz trumpet, a breezy calypso rhythm, the stirring beat of bass and drums or the sound of a voice so pure and so human that tears swell up in recognition sorrow and loss inexorably pulling you into the sharing of     a pain that actually absolves you from these feelings, filling you with such a stirring
  resolve to grab life (for remember we have but the one chance) and drown in its grace forever !
  
  Ah... if only those         who have cheapened the power of this art were treated with the contempt they so richly ask for, if only the numbers checked for the true sounds of our lives, instead of accepting the listless instrumentation of the clowns, then how much nearer that shining light we would be. Refugees from the affairs of corruption, these peddlers of undignified rumblings are allowed to go unchecked, but will never soil my soul, I can tell you. Why ! I’d rather be rid of my wardrobe     and wander naked in the wilderness than fall for their notions.
  
  The touch and torch of purity might fade, but here in Le Café Bleu the time for uprising is slowly dawning, not just on me you dig, but for all the wise ones, mindful to swerve away from the cabinets. Human nature has proved relentlessly that if one cat doesn’t fit into the basket provided then that boygirl is shunned, abused and generally treated with such contempt that it’s likely to turn my spirit.
  
  One of the sharps here in Le Café Bleu The Plugged Nickel in fact, is given to loving his own kind and who am I, or anyone else, to deliver moral judgement on such a matter ? No-one is who and when the daily sordid times, the do gooders and the rest of their creepy ilk gather round the soapboxes publicising their oh so important opinions designed to protect their precious ‘values’, well, it’s enough to make you revolt into bile. For not only are all of us from every creed and cranny born of woman, but who is it
  that walks amongst   us who is perfect? We have no chance if the simple clear notion that all of us are born equal is not to be entertained amongst the     numbers who fill up this beauteous earth.
  
  And never forget      children that beauty is here, not only in the
  sight of a star filled    sky, the lights of a city, or the sight of a raindrop dripping from a green luxuriant leaf, but also in that magical power termed love which should be used for links as much as lovers, whatever their dealings. For surely it is better that two cats or dolls caress each other than fight?
  
  It is in love, and the supreme quality of passion and pleasure that it brings, that we not only discover others, but ourselves too, for when that gentle smile of love breaks upon us, it is then that we are truly blessed with a purpose and a knowledge of life and dumb is the person who betrays such an ecstatic gift as this. In such matters I must state that I have derived true pleasure for this is one area that the sordids, however much they try, can never truly infiltrate and the more positions possible the better I say, for square is that cat or chicklet who remains in one posture only!
  
  Now there are those who at tender ages have already settled down with their chosen one and are already busy dusting the mantlepieces of their lives. But this is not for me as I have witnessed the deterioration of soul that such a move brings when the saps go in search of ‘security’ and do the expected, trapped beneath the roof of their own making, unable to saunter out and find what is rightfully theirs, blinded to the fact that denial of life is a crime, that a person tied down is no more than a sad butterfly with clipped rings.
  
  Heartbreaking, but here in Le Café Bleu, dawn is beginning to break, orange sunlight streaking the sky, light casting aside darkness and the sharps gathered here ready to collect their things and take on another day in their own inimitable manner. All of us, Boy Wonder, Unlimited Lou, Little Gio and the rest of the cats safe in the knowledge that we must all stay together, be wise to the sordids ways of dividing the love we have and praying for the day when all realise the potential inside them and group as one with divine unshakeable power ready to smash the walls and barriers that have remained for centuries, seize the corridors of power and convert them into pure temples of good, ready to ward off all evil influences and ensure that truth, love and justice is seen to be done in the way we all know at heart is the one and only.
  
  Children to your feet, for although it may be a dogs life for a cool cat, it is in this vision of ‘beauty, hope, and togetherness, that I will forever pray, and forever believe. Truly, and you only have to reach out and grasp and you’ll make that scene.
  
  The Cappuccino Kid
PROMISED LAND
- The multitudes who have admired and followed the words of wisdom, strength and clarity that have flowed like butterflies from the pen of The Cappuccino Kid, will no doubt be saddened and shocked by the following note which this elusive character saw fit to leave on a lampost outside Buckingham Palace, (thereby furthering rumours about his exact relationship with the Beefeaters) giving details of his future plans and asking that they be reprinted In full. As ever, we are more than happy to comply with his wishes, although we note with some concern that he makes no room In his projections for further writings of the calibre we have come to expect from him.
  
  “Dear Comrades of all hues and preferences, us anyone who has come into contact with either my overcoat or Swiss socks will testify, my reluctance to expose my past comes not through a certain shyness or coy deception, but simply because I’ve forgotten most of it and have no desire to clog my brain with irrelevant details that may cloud the issue at hand. However, I find It pertinent to state that at the age of two, l was to be found, Innocent but aware, in the arms of another, basking under a Mediterranean sun, gaining a taste for the touch of skin and rays that has never left me. When, at a much later age, I decided to make Britain my base, little did I realise that the grey colours which surround this Island would rarely make way for the glorious blue and yellow that had inspired me to write my first poem, published in Hungarian, but would sullenly hang around, providing sanctuary for pseudo Intellectuals, cavemen, rock musicians and joyless, narrow boned specimens to pollute the sweet air with cynicism, beer and some very dull football playing. Obviously, there is a certain section who run against this rule and with those in mind, I have decided, oh my fair children of translucent eyes mid fragile ankles, to disappear into ancient European ruins, to experience once more the exhilarating minds of my friends Plato, Da Vinci and Ciccolina, and plot the eventual destruction of open toed sandals. The only one who will know of my fortunes is a Spanish princess I recently met who has agreed to accompany me on my travels once she has finished her stint as a crooked card dealer, and don’t bother trying to tail her, as she once worked for the British miners and is used to such attentions. She is bound to secrecy and will not let any secrets or sighs into the open air, only in my presence, and, as time draws close to my departure, let me just say this: we may meet again, we may not, but as always, keep constant In your thoughts that the future is simply an invisible jigsaw for which you, and you alone, can supply the pieces to make up the full picture. And now, without further dew, let me offer you smiles, no tears, and an affectionate kiss to your tender soul. The Cappuccino Kid
LIFE AT A TOP PEOPLE'S HEALTH FARM
- After being inducted into the Royal Geographical Society, following my conclusive pamphlet concerning the comings and goings of the Serum Dictus species, I found myself bound for these shores to attend the opening of a bow-tie and waistcoat department that a valued and trusted link of mine had bade me come to.
  
  Aware that I have never been at ease with the Perrier and braces routine, nor the fluctuations of Stock, Market and Tradesmen, and that a career in bicycle maintenance was nearer to my calling, I was surprised and delighted to sense the new mood that was now abroad in this country, in its vibrant cities and fast country lanes, a revelation that had not seemed possible for sometime now.
  
  On enquiry into this pertinent fact, I was made aware that the citizens were now starting to peep through the cracks in the fake gold statues that had recently been erected by The Authoritarians, and found themselves uneasy to what they eyeballed, which, in the brief, was a land at perpetual war with itself, where no shelter for the poor and sick existed, where the only wisdom handed down to the rosy cheeked and fresh faced ones was do unto others what you wouldn’t do to yourself, and where the casualties of rapacity and unrighteousness lay strew like an unharvested field.
  
  Away with such a vision was the shout that filled my nostrils and senses, and fair thrilled it to breathe in such elixir, to feel once more the good forces awaken from their closed eyelids and push once more a Trojan horse, filled with nurses, accordion players, teachers, miners, jugglers, chess players, dandies, printers, and a thousand others, slowly down the corridors of power, led by a light that never falters towards the complacent, arrogant and unsuspecting enemy.
  
  As I once remarked to a group of marble players, as I lifted once more the trophy, never under estimate the sound of scissors cutting through cloth.
WAITING
- Fog descended on London and wrapped the city in a grey and impenetrable blanket. The Style Council and I were making our way through the gloomy streets to the house of one J. Wilks, a farmer now turned author and scholar who only that morning had sent us the most urgent telegram requesting that we visit him at the earliest opportunity. On our arrival at his spacious house, we were ushered into the sitting room where we were confronted by a thin, nervous man shaking uncontrollably “He hasn’t been right all day“ whispered the housemaid before taking her leave.
  
  “My dear Sir” cried Weller to this trembling fellow, “Of what service do you require and how can our skills, talents and wardrobes be of use to you?”
  
  The man looked up with scared eyes and feebly whispered, “I’m ruined. All is ruined. O woe befall me”
  
  There was a moment’s silence as we pondered this tragic specimen.
  
  “How,” Sir Michael suddenly retorted, “Are you ruined ? Financially or Spiritually ?”
  
  “The latter” he blandly replied. “Everything I do is worthless. My work, my life, all pointless. Why even when I go out in the street, such is my disposition that people laugh at me, quite openly”
  
  “Perhaps Sir,” remarked that prince of the paradiddles young Stephen White “if you wore some clothes when you ventured out, such laughter would not exist. I have seen the reports of your behaviour in the Daily Exposer.”
  
  Our gaunt friend looked shameful “But I simply don’t care” was his explanation. “Two weeks ago I realised that I had no further purpose on this earth. Oh sure I could keep publishing my penetrating studies of hens and their mating patterns. But somehow it is not enough. There must be something more.” “perhaps a holiday would be of help,” ventured Ms Dee C Lee, “but I can see from the pertinent stain on your trousers that you have recently visited the wine regions of France on such a trip.”
  
  Suddenly Weller was on his feet “enough. The case is solved” he cried. And with that he gathered up his walking stick and galoshes.
  
  “Mr Wilks, I don’t rightly know but in two weeks time you will be restored to your normal health.”
  
  Then gesturing boldly to the rest of us he marched out of the room, the rest of us swiftly following.
  
  Over the next two weeks, although I badgered him constantly he would not reveal to me how he had cracked the case of the twitching farmer. Indeed his companions had swiftly come to the same conclusions and they too would reveal none of their findings.
  
  Instead I found myself helping the Council to prepare for their first dramatic venture, a play they were staging at the Garrick entitled, “A Coathanger Doesn’t Always Fit The Bill”
  
  One morning whilst at rehearsals, Weller was in the middle of a particularly moving soliloquy “as snow fell around the cows” — when a telegram arrived for him. Eagerly he ripped open the envelope and let rip a loud shout of joy. “Just as I thought” he burst out.
  
  The message was from Mr. Wilks reporting that his health had never been ruder, his recovery from the depths of despair miraculous and an impending marriage was now on the cards. “My dear, dear companion,” Weller observed of my bewildered features, “The answer was really quite straightforward. When we spoke to Mr Wilks it was quite obvious that his problem was more one of the mind than the matter. As my files indicated, here was a recluse, a brilliant man but a lonely one. I observed him study a letter, the address of which had been hastily written on the envelope …” “it was postmarked Ealing” Sir Michael put in. “Posted First Class“ said Ms. Dee. C. Lee “and arrived on the Tuesday” completed young Stephen White. “It was obviously from a close friend” Weller continued, “A lover perhaps, for who else would know his address? Anyway, when I gathered up my belongings, I stole the letter and surmised that it was indeed from an admirer who wished to take Mr Wilks. However his stubborn solitude had prevented her from doing so and all relations would now regrettably be cut. I simply wrote to her in Wilk’s handwriting begging her to come to London. Sure enough she arrived at his doorstep and he once again fell in love, threw away his old lifestyle and through their mutual love found a true and lasting meaning to his life.”
  
  “No person is an island” observed Ms Lee.
  
  “And the more we know that” interjected Sir Michael, “then the more we grow towards our meaning.”
  
  “Now” cried young Stephen, “back to rehearsals, for the opening curtain is merely two hours away and already I hear the public queuing around the block. Avanti !”
  
  I, for once, remained speechless but somehow felt fuller than I had in years.
  
  THE CAPPUCCINO KID
WANTED
- STEVE
  
  Stephen White is the first drummer in the history of contemporary music to actually grow younger as the years pass. When he joined the quality ranks of The Style Council he was a mere 18 years old. His current passport now places him at 12 years of age. “An old Red Indian chief, who I bumped into at a neighhour’s Tupperware do, gave me the secret”, Steve explains. “and I’ve been practicing it ever since. Mind you, my Equity card came in handy as well.”
  
  MICK
  
  Grandmaster Michael Talbot, now boasting the most extensive wardrobe this side of Chichester is currently filming “That Haircut”, a self written, produced acted and directed epic which will last no longer than thirty five seconds and is already the talk of legal departments all over the land. As well as running an inimitable forgery service for retired deckchair attendants, the Grandmaster remains unfazed by all the fuss. “It’s minimalism rather than mini skirts he quotes but then isn’t that always the way?” He promises that one day we will find out for sure.
  
  DEE
  
  Unexpectedly Ms Dee C Lee has found herself in the middle of the fight against censorship aligning herself with the forces of good to allay the public’s sense of humour. Organising marches and holding various soirees in the Gobi Desert Ms Lee has also found time in her busy schedule to work on a modern opera entitled, “The Death Of A Snorkel” to be performed at all the country’s leading Universities. “A chameleon? Moi?'' she expresses with evident surprise, cancelling yet another trip up the Amazon
  
  PAUL
  
  Having given up the ghost of bee keeping and re-claimed his title as chess champion of two continents, Paul Weller now contemplates a future as a classical interior decorator for the stately homes of Europe. He says “my grooves are rare and the air l breathe fair. L know the nation will agree with me.” Always on the lookout for antique car tyres, you’ll never catch Paul with newsprint on his face.
  
  JEDEMIAH
  
  Jedemiah Hampden is a new recruit to the talented forces of The Style Council, Labelling himself as a Renaissance Par Excellence kind of chappie. Jedemiah has a past cloaked in mystery and intrigue with some saying he was the mastermind behind the allied forces invasion of Riding-On-Thames whilst others believe that he single handedly set up the Hollywood film industry and a very dubious line in second hand apple carts, both of which he admits to having extensively upset over the years. whatever his past, it is generally acknowledged that the public at large will welcome with open arms the forceful personality of Jedemiah Hampden to the skilful ranks of The Style Council.
THE LODGERS
- Although many have expressed surprise and disbelief at the following fact and revelation, it is certainly true that my links, The Style Council and I, have not shared that many hot minutes together. We are of different worlds although equal in spirit, and to rectify such a situation I decided on the spur to visit them at a cave they had rented to specifically compose and record the enclosed song, for after time spent on holiday in Iceland, I was anxious to know if matters had changed.
  
  On my arrival I was greeted by four characters. Stephen White, who had just been proclaimed Master Of The Sticks by a pirate station in Cumbria run by a retired colonel. Miss Dee C. Lee who I espied on a clifftop alone with nothing but her sweet voice singing out into the clouds and a large parrott on her shoulder. Paul Weller, who sat naked in front of the sea on a deckchair shouting, "stop I say, hold thyselves, my parts freeze," as the waves rushed past him, and Master Michael Talbot by a bonfire, splendidly clad in a lame blanket and hard at work on one of Stravinsky's unfinished works he had come across in a disused priory.
  
  Once we were gathered together and had fallen into clitter clatter chatter, it became blue sky clear that The Style Council, whilst holding even faster to their political and moral beliefs, had been through changes, their minds broadened even further by travel, dialogue, literature, cinema, poetry and a recent fancy dress party held in France.
  
  Different emotions and feelings were now surfacing and it was these they stressed that they wanted to incorporate into their music of a future time. "Nothing is complete." said Mick stroking his hair, "our suitcases get heavier by the day. But remain assured no customs officer will rummage through my essentials."
  
  A fair point and even Weller was moved to say, "our davs are just beginning. I know that some people feel that because our faces are firmly eyeballed we have nothing more to offer. They are manifestly wrong and I'm entitled to say so, for although our music is crammed with the roar of life, its little foibles and major elements, our wisdom teeth are only just about to come through. They bite hard I promise."
  
  Dear listener, look forward every day. these unfinished symphonies are but just starting.
COME TO MILTON KEYNES
- To have only each other in this sphere we populate to share the twinkling lights of a midnight city or the sight of scenery so brilliant to rush away your breath is just a snip snip of what could be, enough but not nearly when you truly consider how we could quite easily link together in sweat of all types, for fun, pleasure and toil.
  
  Instead, it seems, we have chosen to front on the goggle eye box, a wicked vision of children, balloons, sunshine eternal, wealth of the filthy kind, all manner of plastic crap, yanky cop shows and homes for their bombs, and aahh. . . contentment All still more bullshit that masks the real picture of self-inflicted death, addiction, misery and mass consumering. American express? Fuck off, I’d rather walk!
  
  In such an environment the pain of living has been swept away and how nice the kiddies smile for the future, but there is no future under these ‘values’ which are so temporary to be of no usage to man nor (plastic) beast . . . As you will see when I walk you home tonight and you wonder why your feet are on this earth. Not to try and lick the HP top that’s for sure!
(WHEN YOU) CALL ME
- Which is how, if we bump into luck, there will always be that someone, a friend, a lover, both, or the people who brought you into life, who will be there and just to be there is enough for they make it a better world for you and others, and such a knowledge, such a sound is worth more than the sound of split coins into your hand or the spurious slap on the back from the boss. If you have that, it’s your thing and precious above all value. That’s the only true advert.
A SOLID BOND IN YOUR HEART
- JASPER: What I wouldn't do for my beloved to be near me now. caressing my soul with words of enchantment and delight, soothing the beating beast in my heart!
  
  SEE-SAW: Ah! You make me ill. I've seen your kind of couple before. All teeth marks and carpet burns on your elbows.
  
  MARCUS: Boys! Boys! Stop the bitching. We have much more pressing matters on our hands. Like what are we going to do on our return to the home town of squaresville? I mean are we going to engage ourselves in gainful employment or are we going to work?
  
  SS: Well. I'm not selling myself for 2.5 bambinos and a mortgage in New Town.
  
  J: Don't be so bolshy, smolshy. Of course you will. What other alternative is there?
  
  SS: Millions, except you never get to hear of them.
  
  J: You sound like a punk reject on '78, Jasper.
  
  SS: (Annoyed) Well that might be true but why bother? I mean with their whims, wishes and wash outs? They'll have changed their tune in 60 years time anyway. Ignore the bore. Forget the rules. Create your own and then go with the flow.
  
  M: Well I'm just young, free and want a tingle! Does that make me dumb, chum?
  
  SS: Everyone is Marcus. There's nothing left to learn anymore. It's all been said before. The only thing left to shock and be shocked with is sex and you can buy that in your daily now. Brings a whole new meaning to the word bingo! doesn't it. What time you got?
  
  J: Time you shut up See-Saw. You're just ranting. You haven't got any solutions.
  
  SS: That's because you've got to create you own dumbo. I haven’t got any answers, only for myself. Look. be suss to the fuss If you want what's on offer, then fine, there will always be someone ready to flog you a copy. If you don't become your own cottage industry. Or at least a bungalow, if you follow. See people like to file things and have files to go too. It's far better if you elude their alphabet and devise your own code.
  
  J: (Cynically) So what would they file you under mastermind?
  
  SS: (Smugly) Oh. I couldn't tell you that brother You’d only be out and about tomorrow trying to buy shoes to match.
  
  J: Clever clogs!
  
  SS: You might call them that. Then again...
  
  The above extract is taken from “Once I Swept The Carpet” written and devised by The Cappuccino Kid, shortly to be turned into a major drama production for British TV, starring, amongst others. Dustbin Chalfonte. star of stage, screen and David, with full supporting cast!