Dave Tomlin, a giant of British counterculture.

From the video interview "Radical Elders" (2019).

Multi-instrumentalist, lyricist, writer and poet, David John Tomlin (1934-2024) was a seminal figure of the British underground. A founder of Giant Sun Trolley with Glen Sweeney in 1967, a collaborator with the Third Ear Band on “Alchemy” (1969), he was a cultural and political agitator since the second half of the 1960s, after a militancy in trad jazz from the late 1950s with Bob Wallis' band. From 1976 to 1991 he directed a commune experience in the occupied Cambodian Embassy in London, rejuvenating the countercultural model of the legendary London Free University of the 60s (from where Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd, for example, became known). 

Dave Tomlin (right) with Joe Gannon (left) announcing the Notting Hill Carnival, 1966.

From the early 1990s he began a prolific writing activity, mainly in the online pages of the reborn International Times (read here), publishing several books of an autobiographical nature (e.g., on his experiences in India or chronicling his years at the occupied embassy), poetic, non-fiction with strong political and social characterization (such as the essay "Power Lines").

He acquainted me with the dramatic story of Mike Taylor, helping me with research (with his brother Tony) and the writing of his biography, with suggestions and revision of the text. In 2020 he collaborated on the book I wrote about Glen and the Third Ear Band by sending his memories and giving me this unpublished poem of his from 1967, I decided to use as the epigraph of the book:

"The Giant Sun Trolley is coming

League transversing it globally encircuits

Beneath the eversun  

Where lances of pain

Become rays of warmth

Emanating mindwards and on

Till, reaching the epiphany

Of space and time 

Flash in ozonic  splendour

For Cosmic Man."

A true giant of the British counterculture and underground. Intelligent, sharp, witty, always on the right side of those who claim, especially today, the right to a better world.

From the video interview "Radical Elders" (2019).

 

Since very little can be found about him on the internet, I repost here, updated, Dave's bibliography and discography already posted on this archive, willing to supplement or modify it if suggestions are received from you readers.

 

DISCOGRAPHY

. Mike Taylor Quartet – “Pendulum” (LP - Columbia SX6042, UK 1965) Recorded at Lansdowne Studios, London, October 1965. Dave plays soprano saxophone. A 2007 CD reissue by Sunbeam Records also exist, but now very rare.

. Third Ear Band – “Alchemy” (LP/CD – Harvest Records, UK 1969) Recorded at EMI Studios in 1969. Dave plays violin in one track composed by him, “Lark Rise”.

. Hazchem - "Strange Attractor" (CD – Worldwide Records SPM-WWR-CD-0011 7703, 1990) Dave plays violin, keyboards and bass on three tracks, co-composing six tracks of the album and all the lyrics.

. High Tide – “Ancient Gates” (CD - World Wide Records SPM-WWR-CD-0007, Germany 1990) Dave plays violin and keyboard on all the six album tracks.

. Hazchem – “Star Map Excursion” (CD - World Wide Records, Germany 1991) Dave composed two tracks for the album.

. Third Ear Band – “The Magus” (CD – Angel Air Records SJPCD173, UK 2004) Recorded in 1972. Dave plays bass guitar. He writes also the liner notes. A limited edition of 500 copies of 180 gr. vinyl was published in 2019 by Tiger Bay.

 . The Bob Wallis & His New Storyville Jazzmen - (CD – GHB BCD-262, 2006) Dave plays clarinet on three tracks recorded in London, 1959.

 . The Bob Wallis & His New Storyville Jazzmen - "Vintage" (CD – Lake Records LACD280, 2010) Dave plays clarinet on some tracks recorded in London, in the Fifties.

 . Various Artists – “Trad Dads, Dirty Boppers and Free Fusioneers: British Jazz 1960-1975” (CD – Reel Recordings RR026, UK 2012) Dave plays tenor saxophone on one track, “Phrygie”, recorded at Herne Bay Jazz Club in 1961 by the Mike Taylor Quintet.

. Mike Taylor Quartet – “Mandala” (CD/LP – Jazz in Britan, UK 2021) Limited to 500 copies worldwide. Recorded live by Jon Hiseman on 8th January 1965 at the Studio Club, Westcliff-On-Sea, Southend (UK). Dave plays soprano saxophone.

. Mike Taylor Quartet – “Preparation” (CD/LP – Sunbeam Records, UK 2021) Recorded at 19 The Common, Ealing (Mike Taylor’s home) in September 1965. Dave plays soprano saxophone.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

"Tales from the Embassy" vol. 1 (Iconoclast Press, London 2002)

"Bluebirds" (Iconoclast Press, London 2004)

"Howling at the Moon" (Iconoclast Press, London 2004)

"India Song" (Iconoclast Press, London 2005)

"Tales from the Embassy" vol. 2 (Iconoclast Press, London 2006)

"The Collected Mister" (Iconoclast Press, London 2006)

"Into the Holy Land" (Iconoclast Press, London 2007) with Tony Jackson

"Tales from the Embassy" vol. 3 (Iconoclast Press, London 2008)

"A Hole in the Wind" (Iconoclast Press, London 2008)

"Harry Fainlight. From the notebooks. Posthumous pieces" (Iconoclast Press, London 2008) 

"Harry Fainlight. Fragments of a lost voice" (Iconoclast Press, London 2008) 

"Power Lines" (Iconoclast Press, UK 2012)

Dave in 1967.

no©2024 LucaChinoFerrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)

Dave Tomlin passed away on 2 November 2024. R.I.P. dear friend!

 

Dave Tomlin (left) and Steve Pank in London, Summer 2010 (photo: Luca Chino Ferrari)

 

 

 

This is a very sad news for all of us!

Sadly Dave passed away today, age 90.
One of a kind will be missed by all who knew him.

With these few words, Dave's brother Tony gave us the sad news in a page of IT-International Times.

I got to know Dave years ago through Steve Pank (cellist Ursula Smith's husband)  and I met him in London for some interviews published in this archive. He was a cultured, clever, funny, brilliant person, an inexhaustible source about a lot of countercultural events in the 60's and 70's. His books are unique, fundamental documents for any researchers and lovers of the British underground scene. 

"Tales from the Embassy," published from 2002 in three different volumes, was probably his greatest effort to tell the story of his life in the Cambodian embassy occupied by him and a group of friends to create a kind of free university on the legendary model of the London Free School. Thanks to Dave, in 1987 at the Cambodian Embassy Glen Sweeney brought together for rehearsals the first nucleus of the reborn Third Ear Band with Dave's protégé Allen Samuel on violin.

 

Author of countless articles, mainly on the IT web site,  he wrote many books. Among them, I love particularly that one he edited on his friend Harry Fainlight, an underrated poet (1935-1982): this book ("Fragments of a Lost Voice," Iconoclast Press, London 2010) is a genial philological-creative reconstruction of two lost fragments of poetry found by chance. Also his autobiographical novel "India Song", published by Iconoclast press in 2005, is a masterpiece of sensitivity and intelligence.

It was Dave who introduced me to the controversial story of piano player Mike Taylor, prompting me to write what to date is the only existing biography ("Out of Nowhere," published by Gonzo Multimedia in 2015). It was only thanks to him and his brother Tony that I succeeded, and I will be forever grateful to them  for this extraordinary opportunity. 

I will miss him a lot!

Here below the main pages of this archive where Dave is mentioned: 

https://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2012/08/new-edition-of-book-on-poet-harry.html

https://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2012/01/dave-tomlins-lark-rise-origins-cultural.html

https://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2012/07/dave-tomlins-pendulum-real-cameo-in-his.html

https://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2012/02/dave-tomlins-new-book-out.html

https://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2013/03/dave-tomlin-analyzes-for-us-two-his.html

https://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2019/04/radical-elders-dave-tomlin.html

https://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2010/02/thanks-to-journalist-andy-roberts-i.html

https://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2017/05/dave-tomlins-forthcoming-new-book.html

https://ghettoraga.blogspot.com/2012/06/ive-left-my-heart-in-new-orleans-dawn.html

Me and Dave in London, 2010 (photo: Steve Pank).

no©2024 LucaChinoFerrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)

My copy of the original "14th Technicolor Dream" ticket.

This is my copy of the original "14th Technicolor Dream" ticket that Glen gave me in 1989, when I visit him at his flat in Sheperd's Bush (London). It's hanging on the wall of my  studio from that year. On the rear there's a dedication by Glen, a simple  "To my friend Luca."

Apart the preciousness of this rare object and the emotion for having received it from Glen, this event was one the most important in the English underground, the concert I wanted to attend.

no©2022 LucaChinoFerrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)

A new review about "Elements 1970-1971" on "IT".

After a first long review by Mike Ferguson in November 2018 (here), "International Times" publishes a new short review on "Elements 1970-1971" by Drew Darlington at http://internationaltimes.it/third-ear-band/

Drew Darlington

January 26th, 2019

ETERNAL, LIKE THE TIDES, LIKE THE MOON

"Things that make you go… cosmic. The Third Ear Band never fit into any genre that’s yet been devised. Before there was ambient, before there was world music or trance-dance, they were exhaling the mantric star-winds somewhere out beyond the space-time continuum, free, improvisational, as Raga-cyclic as the eternal rhythm of gravity tides. It’s spontaneous music, with as much to do with Stravinski and Penderecki as it has to do with Pop. Two ears, naturally, are insufficient, and yet they soundtrack their curious wide-open era as effortlessly organic as breathing.

This, their second album from June 1970 was essential tuning at every crash-pad and arts lab, free festival and Druid ritual, now expanded into a beautiful 3CD artefact, absorbing bonus previously unissued BBC alternate takes of the four elemental suites – “Air”, “Earth”, “Water” and “Fire”, with added John Peel Concert tracks, plus the full soundtrack for the German ‘Abelard And Heloise’ TV-movie, and the never-issued third album ‘The Dragon Wakes’. Essentially orbiting percussionist Glen Sweeney, there’s oboe-player Paul Minns, plus the duo who split away in September 1970, Richard Coff (violin) and Ursula Smith (cello), making way for future Elton string-arranger Paul Buckmaster with Benjamin Cartland. So turn off your mind, close your eyes, drift away."

no©2019 Luca Chino Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)

"Art form or con?". Mike Ferguson reviews "Third Ear Band" on "International Times".

Probably the first review written (November 10th, 2018???), even if full of little inaccuracies,  Mike Ferguson reviews "Third Ear Band" new edition CD on "International Times" Web edition at http://internationaltimes.it/art-form-or-con/

no©2018 Luca Chino Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)

Dave Tomlin's excerpt from his book "India Song".

Who is interested in reading the beautiful Dave Tomlin's book titled "India Song" (published in 2005 by Iconoclast Press, London), can start reading this excerpt from it on a recent output by International Times, the glorious Sixties magazine available on the Net (http://internationaltimes.it).
Here's the text:

"I get my bowl filled with coffee at a local stall and take it back to my room. I place it on the grass mat covering the bed, climb on and tuck in the mosquito net. Taking out a small fragment of grass I crumble and roll it into a paper, the result is very thin since I only want to test its potency. I light up and take a few good pulls. At this point the buzzing from the neon tube becomes unbearable, the place is like a fish and chip shop. I get up, turn it off and light a candle.

"Kerala Grass" by Nick Victor.

The room is illuminated apart from this by a neon in the courtyard outside the window. It is now silent but for the low hum of the fan. I notice that the light from the courtyard passing through the frosted panes of the window creates a perfect illusion of strong moonlight, all it lacks is a spray of bamboo across the glass. The white net billows around me; it is a Bedouin tent, and, as Kumar had predicted trapdoors are opening in my head.

I go over to the window, open it and look down. Far below the Thousand Lights Piazza is thronged with night life, Mushie sellers cry their wares and late shoppers rub shoulders with theatregoers bent upon an early dinner before the show. Across the sea of twinkling lights an occasional torch rises fiercely towards the stars from the spaceport on the outskirts of the city.

I look out across the park, Tassle will be waiting for me. I climb onto the low balustrade outside the window and leaning forward launch myself out. The movement arouses a few roosting birds which flap around me shrieking as I head for the park.

I pass only a few other fliers and stay low to avoid recognition. The moonlight is intense. Crossing the park boundary I look down and see the trees below as pools of blackness on a silver ground. The place I am heading for is a deserted and overgrown area unfrequented even by day.

A derelict fountain is at its centre which Tassle and I have been using as a trysting place and now I see it below, a faint whitish blur in the darkness among the trees. I come down silently and approach the fountain, its huge marble bowl now filled with the leaves of several autumns.

Tassle is standing with her back to me, leaning gracefully against the fountain. I call softly to her and she turns; there is a strange look in her eyes and she is holding something in her arms. As I come closer I see that it is round and softly glowing with a faint pulse. I hold out my arms and she passes it to me. I notice that it has several appendages pointing like antenna outward from its centre. Examining it more closely I see that is not, as I had first thought, a solid sphere, but seems to be an arrangement of shimmering points of blue light connected by thin filaments of silver wire. The appendages, extending through the axis of the sphere, intercept as they do so the points of light.

‘Listen to it.’ Tassle speaks for the first time.

I put my head closer and am astonished, for as my ear enters the vector between two of the appendages it is immediately as if I am seeing sound.

In the enormous distance hangs a globular cluster of tones. Hovering together their pitches oscillate faintly, brightening and fading as the wavelengths coincide and depart. At intermediate intervals there appear other tones, some speeding across my field of view and gone like darting comets in a flash. Others smaller, move together in languid shoals. I see thousands upon thousands of minute and tiny sounds, each so small as to be undetectable. Now gathered together in a vast cloud they generate a deep bass hum. Out in the far, far distance I detect other faint sources, but I am able it seems to attune myself to any of these points.

I focus upon one such source, a large and very distant sonic mass whose peculiar on-off pattern has been interesting me for some time. There is a sudden wrench… I am momentarily confused, I open my eyes to see Tassle standing before me, she has pulled the device from my hands. She laughs. ‘There are sixty-three other ways to view,’ she says. ‘That was only one of them.’

I am very, very interested. In fact I have already decided that I must have one of these instruments and tell her so. She laughs again.

‘There are only two others known to exist, they come from so far away that knowledge of their origin does not survive the journey.’

‘What will you take for it?’ I ask.

‘I will have only one thing,’ she replies. ‘I will have your World Opener.’

Now it is my turn to laugh, does she seriously think I will exchange my precious World Opener for a toy? Then I remember that distant sonic sun, the remote constellations singing to me along the neurone paths of memory and I know I must again enter that world at any cost. Reluctantly I take out my World Opener and silently pass it to her. I will return to my room and explore the infinite possibilities of the device. But before I can claim my purchase, she steps back and activates the Opener, cutting sideways between my left side and a nearby tree. Then, before I realise what she is about, she cuts a swift loop around me and reconnects the edges from her side, excluding me from the world in the process…

I am sitting on by bed; it is hours later, the candle has burned almost out. I look down; in the ashtray my joint of grass lies there, forgotten…

I blow out the candle and retire".

(©2005 Dave Tomlin)

no©2014 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)    

A new piece about 'music' by Dave Tomlin for I.T.

This is a new piece written by our Dave Tomlin for the glorious evergreen I.T. You can read many other interesting (& clever) stuff  here

Cardboard Vibrations

The idea that sound travels from one point to another, when examined, is revealed to be no more than an illusionary concept, for ‘sound’ remains in the only place it is engendered.

The world seen with the eyes is a world entirely without sound, no birdsong sweetens the air and the soughing of wind among the trees has never happened, for soundwaves are nothing more than puffs of disturbed air; vibrations which extent in all directions from their source; but they are themselves profoundly silent.

Sound occurs when these vibrations of disturbed air encounter the mechanism of an eardrum, activating the nerves connecting it to the brain. The brain then interprets the vibrations of the drum as sound and therefore the sound perceived occurs entirely within the head, while the world which we see outside remains in eternal silence.  

Music: The manipulation of specific tones on a musical instrument, each with a unique rate of vibration and arranged generally into recognisable patterns; these are also absolutely silent until reaching an eardrum, but at least these vibrations, directly received from such an instrument, are genuine.

Recorded and amplified music is however somewhat false, since the original vibrations from the instrument are lost when translated into electrical impulses via a microphone or wireless signal; these travel (silently) along a wire to emerge at the other end by activating the cardboard diaphragm of a loudspeaker.
 
The vibrations from the instrument itself are not heard at all but have been replaced by these cardboard (facsimile) vibrations.

All sound occurs only inside the head via the ears, while out there is a world which is utterly silent.

However, whether these vibrations are genuine (directly from a musical instrument); or cardboard facsimiles; or even come to that, birds, wind, or the voices of one’s friends ultimately makes no difference, for what one ‘hears’ is nothing more than one’s own ear drums rattling.

©2014 Dave Tomlin - Nick Victor(art)

In 1969, on the cover of "Alchemy", his friend Glen explained the thing in this way: "Third Ear Band music is a reflection of the universe as magic play illusion simply because it could not possibly be anything else. Words cannot describe this ecstatic dance of sound, or explain the alchemical repetiton seeking and sometimes finding archetypal formes, elements and rhythms..."

no©2014 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)

An ironic point of view about music by Dave Tomlin...

This is one of the last writings by Dave Tomlin published by IT internet site at http://internationaltimes.it/music/
It's dedicated to the music with the peculiar sardonic irony of Dave...

You can read all the posts by him at http://internationaltimes.it/author/davetomlin/
 

Music
The language of music conforms within a mathematical matrix to produce a kind of grammar, whereby each tone is identified by name and endowed with a chronological period.
Thus each symbol in the language must simultaneously represent both placement and time.
Music though, like its sister, poetry, is founded upon an ultimately ungovernable spirit; wild to the rules of any grammar and always ready to confront the righteous pedant with a more existential viewpoint. 

The Hum  
Smith, a simple soul, has encountered his friend P. B. Rivers, a rabid existentialist, and they now sit drinking coffee at a table outside a café.
P. B. Rivers opens a conversation: ‘This is the age of traffic and shopping’, he announces, and slits his eyes meaningfully at Smith as if willing him to respond, but Smith, not being the least interested in either subject turns for relief to a technique he has only recently evolved.

Realising that whistling distorts the lips, making the exercise obvious if undertaken during a boring conversation, he had discovered that he can hum without this handicap. He has also detected three levels to the discipline. The first is a hum so quiet that it is hardly detectable even by himself. The second is loud enough to be heard by another but not sufficiently so as to reveal its source. The third, an uninhibited and full-bodied hum is capable of overcoming any conversation.

‘Traffic is something other people do’, he thinks, ‘and shopping is some sort of weird art form now more popular than football; both devoid of any interest’. Therefore it is at this point that he begins to utilise his hum.

He chooses a lightish tone, not too deep and one which is easily maintained. Faintly at first and then, given the generous parameters of the situation, begins gradually to increase the volume until he perceives that P. B. Rivers has become aware of it, but not yet that it is issuing forth from Smith. He now begins to go over the top and the, by now, powerful hum, growing ever louder, makes its source obvious.

‘Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm,’ goes Smith.

P.B. Rivers is unfazed by this display of social precociousness and merely cocks an ear; he has perfect pitch and can accurately identify any tone.

‘That’s G sharp,’ he snaps irritably.

‘Oh, is it?’ says Smith.

‘I thought it was Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.’
 
Dave Tomlin
©2013

no©2013 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)

"Armistice". A recent Dave Tomlin's writing on "International Times" Web site.

Here's a recent writing by Dave Tomlin, published on International Times Web site (http://internationaltimes.it).

At the close of the 1914 -18 war the streets of London were inundated with a population suffused with an unbounded joy. Dancing and merrymaking were the order of the day and many tears of happiness were shed; many tears of sorrow too. And one word was on everyone’s lips, a word that flew in every voice from one to another throughout the land ─ the long awaited ‘Armistice’. A word synonymous with peace, conciliation and relaxation from the terrible austerities and carnage of war. ‘Hooray!’ they sang, for at last had come the great Armistice.

In those innocent days when a majority of that population were semi-literate and unlikely to have much access to a dictionary; no dissenting voice was heard; and even the intelligentsia were strangely silent; for one look in any dictionary gives the whole game away.

‘Armistice ─ an agreement to stop fighting temporarily.’


Were those who drew up the documents and devised the terms under this word aware of its meaning? Or of the terrible prophecy which it irrefutably implied. Three wrecked and depleted economies agreeing to disengage for a while to lick their wounds and allow a couple of generations to refresh their stocks of cannon-fodder. For, of course, twenty years later that prophecy was fulfilled and the signatories returned to the fray.

This syndrome, although as illustrated here relates to high politics, can be seen to operate in all walks of human life, and reveals itself on the smallest scale and in the commonest of incidents.


Armistice

Emma has just stepped out into her back garden. She stands looking upward watching an aeroplane as it passes overhead and for one moment she almost loses her balance. She stretches out her arm and holds on to the fence which divides her garden from the one next door. The fence is of light construction and her weight as she wobbles bows it a little.

A curtain in the window of the kitchen adjacent house twitches slightly and a moment later the kitchen door opens and Mrs B─ steps out. She is a stout woman and her manner is stern. She walks up to the fence and addresses Emma who still rests her hand on the fence.

‘Be careful of that fence,’ she says. ‘It’s not very strong and can’t take your weight.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ says Emma, hurriedly withdrawing her hand. Emma doesn’t like Mrs B─, who she thinks is common. ‘But it was quite accidental and look.’ She straightens the fence. ‘It’s all right now.’

‘Well that may be,’ says Mrs B─ ‘But I’d just as soon you don’t lean on it again.’

This gets up Emma’s nose a little; she is not going to take orders from this prole.

‘Well you can just as soon something else then, and be less rude into the bargain.’

‘Rude!’ says Mrs B─. ‘I’ll show you rude if you start calling me names.’

‘I just think you shouldn’t be so rude.’ says Emma.

‘Well as far as I’m concerned you can just piss off.’ says Mrs B─. Emma is shocked by this and throws caution to the winds.

‘You vile woman,’ she shouts, her voice carrying across the nearby back gardens.

‘Oh, so I’m a vile woman am I? How dare you? You dirty whore.’

Emma lowers her voice but puts a steely edge to it.

‘You fat old cow,’ she grits. ‘You piece of low-life scum!’

Mrs B─ now falls into a fearful rage and spittle flies as she screams her defiance. ‘You filthy stinking SLAG!’ She searches through her repertoire for more of the same. ‘And what’s more your husband is a pimp.’

‘Don’t you dare call my husband a pimp,’ cries Emma, this last had got to her and there are tears in her eyes.

‘Oh, crying now are we?’ says Mrs B─ scornfully. ‘It only goes to show your sneaky nature.’

‘But I’m not sneaky,’ says Emma through her tears, ‘and I’m always ready to be friends.’

Mrs B─ considers this and reluctantly concedes a point.

‘Well all right then,’ she says. ‘But you must promise to leave my fence alone.’

‘I will,’ says Emma gladly, ‘and I don’t really think you’re a fat old cow.’

Mrs B─ allows herself just a hint of a conciliatory smile.

‘Well all right my dear,’ she says. ‘And you’re not a slag.’

Now they are both smiling and Mrs B─, imbued with a sudden and unexpected feeling towards her neighbour invites her in for a slice of cake and a cup of tea.

Emma eagerly agrees and since there is a gate in the fence for the convenience of the gardeners she comes through and follows Mrs B─ into her kitchen.

They sit at the table waiting for the kettle to boil while Mrs B─ cuts the cake.

‘I must say,’ begins Mrs B─, ‘you have managed to get some very nice flowers to grow in your garden.’

Emma likes this; maybe Mrs B─ is not so bad after all. She ventures a compliment of her own.

‘Well thank you,’ she says, ‘and I never fail to admire you hollyhocks.’

Now it is the turn of Mrs B─ to harbour warmer feelings; but…

‘You know my dear,’ she says condescendingly. ‘It was my husband who built the fence and he had quite a difficult job sinking in the posts.’

‘Yes of course,’ says Emma, ‘and I have said I’m sorry.’

Mrs B─ pours the tea but hasn’t finished yet.

‘So you must understand that I can’t allow people to go around leaning on it.’

Emma is now on the defensive.

‘But I wasn’t actually leaning on it; just recovering my balance.’

‘Well it looked to me as if you were definitely leaning.’ says Mrs B─ firmly. ‘And if that fence goes down my husband is going to be very upset.’

‘Look, can’t you just shut up about the bloody fence for a moment,’ says Emma now becoming irritated by this. ‘I thought we were over that and I’ve promised not to do it again.’

‘Don’t tell me to shut up in my own kitchen,’ shouts Mrs B─. ‘I didn’t invite you in to be insulted.’

‘Well if you behave like a common fish-wife I have no choice but to retaliate.’

‘Oh, a fish-wife now am I?’ screams Mrs B─. ‘Then you can just get out of my bloody kitchen NOW!’

They get to their feet and Emma’s chair crashes to the floor. She turns and flounces out while flinging a Parthian shot over her shoulder.

‘You’re nothing but a fat scumbag and a dirty slut!’ she shrieks.

‘And your husband’s a pimp!’ screams Mrs B─."

(©2012 Dave Tomlin)

no©2012 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first) 

Dave Tomlin's new book out!

A new book written by Dave Tomlin is out just in those days.  

"Dave Tomlin’s comic parables encompass the grand and the petty, the mundane and the absurd", says Tim Arnett.
And Julia Gurney: "Dave Tomlin shines the spotlight on structures of power that often, ironically, turn out to be spectres of power. Seriously funny: a thoughtful, provocative work".

While the laconic comment by Su Rose is:"Should be required reading for all kids". 

Read an excerpt of the book at the glorious "International Times" Web site:
http://internationaltimes.it/power-lines/ 

To obtain a copy of the book (price £7), send a cheque to: 

Dave Tomlin - 1a, Princes Court, 68, Pilgrim’s Lane. NW3 1SP 

no©2012 Luca Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)