And on, and on…

It’s cyclical. We do seem to be caught in spiralling downturn. I am in Basel now. They have split society into two privilege levels to try and coax people to be vaccinated. Of course, I was always the causeless rebel. Give me one and I’m worse. Is it stupid of me? Some might think so. But mass movement has a habit of backfiring badly. We’ll see. In other news, I’ll be a father soon. I’m happy about this. It tempers my distaste for what is going on – a lot. I’ll be trying to post more on here and move away from Instagram (again!). Instagram leaves me cold somehow. Here’s a picture from my summer trip to Russia. I took it in St Petersburg. If you’re out there reading, drop me a line. Cheers!

Ghosts

Back in Basel. Amongst my ghosts. Some old, some newer. It’s a strange feeling. Somehow fresh but also that perhaps I am not really moving on. I keep coming back here. What is it? OK, a new beginning of sorts – in the old familiar shoe of time. Lets go.

Moscow, Moscow!

Moscow, Moscow! I love you more, when I know that I might leave you. I escape your back courtyards, your homogeneous inhabitants, your chain bars and food outlets, your rivers and parks. I might miss your steely winters and tepid summertimes, and your cheeky babushkas, even your refreshingly naive kids. Maybe even your impregnable communications and quirkiness. You are gentler than your reputation for really only a few fearful lions rule your jungle. You are passive like your compatriots. Bent to shape by year upon year of tyrant after tyrant. Oh how you keep on choosing them! Will I miss you? Maybe just a bit. I’ll come back, and probably you’ll be the same. We met unsure of one another, we were never lovers but we part as friends. For now, до свидания

Travel in a time of communicable disease

I wake before the alarm. Brush my teeth. Grab my things. Adieu ma cherie. Bisou, bisou! The uber delivers me to Sheremtyovo and it‘s all fairly normal bar the temperature check and obligatory mask. I get on a large steel tube with many Russians and we cross the skies to London. Something is grandly amiss in the capital. And the wider British psyche is so clearly damaged. The metroplois is running at maybe an eighth of it‘s usual capacity. And, everywhere masks are being worn. And signs are warning. And theirs is the stench of fear. What the fuck have they done to this once thriving place? Can it ever recover? I drop my Visa application with the Russians. No return for me otherwise. It goes well. And, once done, I just want to get out. Home beckons. It‘s been over 5 months. I am thoroughly ripped off by my trip to town.

So, back out to Heathrow. It is so very very quiet. The flight is how flying is now. Everyone wearing masks. You order your meal and make it last as long as possible… because of course you can‘t wear a mask when you eat or drink. I get to Zürich late. So, whole journey from Moscow without any real checks about the bat monkey virus or quarantines. All the news stories are basically sensationalism. All the government bravado just a front. I fall asleep on the train to Basel and get woken up by cleaner a good half an hour after we arrive. they think I‘m drunk. And so begins my three weeks in Switzerland. It goes by so so fast. I don‘t see so many people. Keep myself mostly to myself and get the jobs I need to do done. And, before long I‘m getting my Covid test to make the journey home.

Armed with a negative result I fly from Zürich. I need to use my result within 72 hours. Zürich airport is like a ghost town. I get there around 6 and there are only 5 flights left for the evening. I fly into a still fearful London leering through it‘s masks. But, three weeks later it feels a little livlier. It is late when I get my airbnb room. I am trying to work out the code for the door to the fat flabby slapping sounds of fucking from my neighbours. The next morning I walk to the Russian Visa Centre. London is still strange. Many shut up businesses. Some signs of dead businesses being renovated and turned over. Pheonixes planning a glorious rise from the ashes. A city this big cannot go on being this dead. But the British are sick, in their heads. It could be a while.

I catch a train out to the airport, and finally a plane back to Russia. The only health check I receive during the whole journey is upon entering Russia. A group of kids taking the paper forms we had to fill out on the plane. Paper forms? Really? The whole thing is a farce. So much fuss and so much disaster. And, when you look at the real raw statistics, it is all for nothing. A waste. A political front with no real conviction put in place to satisfy a terrified public. What has become of us? We are not sleeping. We are on life support.

Asahi Pentax Spotmatic SP / EXA 1C / Fomapan 400 / Kodak 400 / Ilford Pan 400

If you think it really helps…

If you really think it makes a difference. I want my promised hundred year plus. It‘s my basic human right. Otherwise what‘s all this hassle really for. I want my billion dollar yacht. My equality with the global elite. Equality: what every ape wants. While also wanting to beat all the other apes. I may go flying soon. Passing amongst the Earth‘s cowering masses, an unvaccinated judaeic angel of death spreading malcontent far more potent than any damned virus. It‘s in my head. It‘s in my head.

Asahi Pentax Spotmatic / Jupiter 9 85mm / Kodak Gold 400

Moscow / August 2020

The softly dying summer

Zenit E / Takumar Asahi Super 50mm 1.4 / Jupiter 9 85mm f2 / M42 / Ilford Pan 400
Moscow August 2020
 

The road and the ring and the gold.

We get up and drive into the boonies again. Our not so little mini bouncing along the not always smooth Russian roads and their unpredictable traffic. Six hours out and one pitstop: Kostroma. It‘s dark on arrival. In the morning everything feels kind of rushed and disorganised. We are 8. That kind of travelling is always shambolic. After a boat ride we end up driving to a place called Plyos. Covid is still causing restrictions in this little village so our lunch feels a little weird and I can sense the locals are a bit tense. It‘s picturesque. Our group splits. It’s been fun but thankfully we are left to ourselves. On the way out we stop at the weirdly named “Private Visit“ (Частный визит). If you ever pass this way go there. It‘s a charming and beautiful boutique hotel set in fantastical gardens with a quaint restaurant. Sadly we didn‘t have lunch there. Anyways. Back in Kostroma it‘s late when we arrive. So, next day we have a wander around. It‘s not as delapidated as some other towns I‘ve been to here. There‘s a nice market and some good cafes and restaurants. Normally it‘s probably full of tourists, but I think we shared it with the locals. That’s not to say it was very quiet. Then back in the car. Next stop Yaroslavl. It was once capital of Russia apparently. We walk a little. The centre is quaint. Worth a visit for sure. Seen it. Back in the car. We then drive to Rostov. It‘s not on the usual tourist route. Strangely we couldn‘t book anywhere here other than a kind of hostel place run by an alcoholic. I‘m sure Rostov has a few of those. Beautiful views of the lake and Kremlin And a certain charm, but it could do with a renovation or at least a damn thorough clean… it wasn‘t so cheap either. Anyway. You can kill a day around Rostov. And next day we did. If you want good food go to Hotel Bravis. It’s on the the edge of town but near a rather spectacular monastery. Russia has lots of spectacular monasteries. To be honest they can get a bit samey. I suppose you could say the same about any country. And that was it. Long drive home into the usual heavy Moscow traffic. Nice trip with a lot of impressions. I liked it.

Кострома / Плёс / Ярославль / Ростов – July 2020
Zeiss Superikonta A 530 / Portra 800 / Fomapan 400

Citizens Awake

An Ian Simpson record. His gentle charasmatic voice set over minimalist folk pop. I reviewed it nearly 18 years ago. The blink of an eye. And everything changes. Again and again. Different times now. Like my 5th life. They say a cat gets nine. A middle aged man wondering round Moscow with a camera. A voyeur. With but a few friends and little legacy, but good ones nonetheless. And I am settled in my sixth decade. How did that happen? And, are we awake? We citizens. We prisoners of our greater ideology. Or do we sleep in our fear. Perhaps I should go and throw molotov cocktails at random figures of authority. For surely silence is complicity. Give me a cause. Give me a cause!

Moscow July 2020.
CineStill 50D / Voigtlander Bessa R2S / Nikon Nikkor P.C 8.5cm f/2

All the fun of the fair.

I smashed my phone. Or so I thought. As I went down the stone stairs inside our building to go on my habitual midnight run through Gorky Park. The stairs are dimly lit. My phone fumbled clumsily out of my hands then flapped down screenside like a dead fish on a chopping board. I bought my phone cheap just over a year ago.

We have an ongoing battle – she and I.

I am anti apple. She isn‘t. She has had two phones in 8 years. I’ve had four. All cheap. One I lost in a Crimean Taxi near Yaltra. And one the battery was only a little too quick running out of charge. Another fell into the toilet. I actually still have it and it still works. Actually, I think that‘s the one with the battery problems. The current one has two sims. I need this just now having a foot in two countries.

And the current one is on it‘s second screen. It also has a dodgy power plug. Of course when I saw it had cracked, I asked myself, to repair or replace. I hate to lose an argument. I want a phone that can last forever! So, I spend all day looking for a new phone. I find rugged phones. You can drop them from great heights and even take them swimming. And, after too much online time, I find THE PHONE. I plan my great adventure to the outskirts of the Moscow Metropolis.

And, as I am about to go on this odyssey, I tell her. I had kept quiet about my phone breaking because of this running competition we have. She asks to see my phone and then strips off the cracked protective glass she had put on months ago without me noticing. The screen is completely intact.

Hmmmm….

Anyway, anyway. We went to a kiddies park. I travelled through town a little. I shot a film. The pictures don‘t always match the words folks.

Zeiss Superikonta A 530 (c.1937) / Kodak Portra 400
Moscow July 2020.

Parklife

Mornings. Heavy like a stone. Slow starts and click click click. The ever present thread to the new now, which I can hardly tell from the old then. Click click click, chemicals and scanning is all that keeps me going. I fool myself with creative no through roads. I long for cake and dancing but my militant disciplinarian stiff upper lip refuses me the free expression. But in the park, I can watch. I‘m a voyeur at the end of the world. Have they seen the fucking news? I have and really I don’t care. If we can turn it off we‘ll live forever. Or at least another day. Or maybe we only have a month of Sundays. I hate Sundays but I’ll take it. One of the fish died. He had been sucked into the filter backwards, left dead with a look of disbelief frozen on his tiny fishy face, eyes bulging in the evening light. His companions seemed oblivious. The wee one put the remains in a jar of water. Hopeful, but pointless.

Zenit E / Asahi Super Takumar 50mm 1.4 / Fomapan 400 / Fujifilm Pro 400 H
Moscow July 2020.