PINS - Rule Thirteen: Localities - Imaginary Worlds

(It’s a long way to Tipperary, it’s a long way to go.)

We are currently investigating what, and where, is local. And we have moved through various time zones to worlds that can’t really exist, or if they did, now don’t. Maybe they can tell us what local is. Because without knowing what is local, you can’t make a local decision.

Look at the townscapes out of the backseat window of the smelly Morris, now a Minor estate, on loan. The sticking plaster above your head holds up the sagging roof lining. You smell its petrol fumes. Sun’s going down, lights are coming on and you’re coming back to Lancashire the long way, from Derbyshire. Later we will count the Christmas trees on the Bury Old Road. For now, a town; its buildings dark olive drab and slate blue against the flaming orange of the setting sun, a town whose structures are not so much interspersed than swamped with rubble strewn spaces. A bus stop in the middle of a new nowhere. Tall chimneys with no factories, grand corner pubs still open for a vanished population, one house standing here and there, with wood-barred windows, selling stuff. What’s left of this town looks like the last teeth in an old codger’s mouth. Radio Two’s Sing Something Simple is on the transistor radio playing in the front: arial pushed out the side corner window, slightly agape. There is no one here, no world here, the place is just a space for anything.

Below the Froidal Ocean is the Katchyordeth Sea and, between the two islands of YesNo and the Top Strait are the straits of Yogonotme. Cross those straits, then navigate the Icy Sea, and you will land on the shores of Raupenia. But, wait. On the back of a different (but similarly headed) paper from the County Valuation and Estates Department - P O Box 438, County Hall, Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester, M60 1DU, Telefax 667683 - Raupenia has moved. This time the Froidal Ocean has Snowland in its northern waters. The Top Strait is still there, but the mysterious isles of YesNo are now conflated into one landmass. The Icy Sea has disappeared in favour of a Colder Sea and, most unadvantageously for its citizens, Raupenia has not only moved, but also shrunk. Now it has a border with Polesia, Wurstia and Poenland, with a large and doubtless threatening state called Bucheria to its west. Send a telefax to 667683 to report the situation.

The buddleia border is completely redesigned and incorporates a full sack of leaf mould from the prehistoric ridgeway near Sabden. All the hostas are there, too: including “undulata”, with the cream splash.

We are going to where there are three kinds of sandwiches, luckily all on white bread without the crusts but with mayonnaise, or there’d better be.  Lots are drawn; the remnants of an old cornflakes packet are used because that’s best and makes sense. Later we lie down on an immaculate greensward and watch large wooden spheres roll sedately past our heads into a small gutter. We laugh, to the irritation of the company. Later we see laminated letters on a wall, praising the consistency of the chipped potatoes to be found on these premises. “We know what you are up to, we were like that once”, says the fellow in the wheelchair. He’s loaded, and employed to bet on anything for a syndicate, but mainly on the nags because his brain is smarter than the odds you get in the bookies. 

Who’s for doing? The small, round man shoots out of a door I hadn’t clocked was a door, a large marker pen swinging on a long, thick, rubber band around his neck. It’s next to another chain, holding an ankh. Who’s for doing?

I’m for doing. And here are some written orders for doing. In imaginary places, now long gone. 

Meyerbeer “Le Prophet”

James McCracken

Marilyn Home

Renala Scolto, etc.

Setting out supervision of staff

Supervision of junior staff

And framing.

Burst holes on tables

Blue cellulose rivers

Screens.

Must bend down to see “real” eye level view.

Can hide men naturally.

Each fig can have three figs 

- upright

- prone

- kneeling.

You can try to ring them - that’s the S. of M.I. Semis - on Basingstoke 68551 and see if the orders are taken up and prepared for moves. And maybe - even - a local decision.

Your expected salary is 6,380 pounds new sterling P A.

An accompanying post to this Rule, with relevant illustrations, can be found in the Museum of Photocopies.