I cannot remember what it was like before this raging hunger I sprouted a chimmney and breathed from the fire burning in my belly it said: Rise up, expand, consume, reach out, adapt Out with the old and in with the new, the fast, en mass, on a grand scale. Each man, each beast, each tree, each leaf should take an oar and heave to the beat of the drum The beat of the drum. Cos round here cotton is king. Beat back nature with machine and tool and howling engine Let towers of black and soot and steam riee up and cast their dark shadow across the land, their lives, their homes their streets, their lungs, their fingers can reach everywhere and they always take more than they need. Each man, each beast, each tree, each leaf should take an oar and heave to the beat of the drum The beat of the drum. Cos round here cotton is king. Boom time has come and passed but we've still got fight in us India, China, Japan. No match for our spinners. So stoke the fires more heat, more steam, more work, less pay You've got to dig deep to compete Dig deep to compete More bleach, more burn, more twist, more turn, more rain! YOU CAN'T STOP ME NOW HAIL THE POWER AND THE GLORY! Cos round here cotton is king Round here cotton is king. All hail! All hail! All hail!

Do you feel a guilt borne of your privilege? Are you tired of the la-di-da of Oxbridge? Are you left and socialist? Feel the world begin to list? Crave adventure in a far off land of smoke and mist? The unclenching fist, is the least suspicious! So don't ask the birds, only observe each cluck, each crow each cheep. How it likes its eggs in the morning could be a sign that Doomsday's dawning. Don’t ask the birds but eat the same worms build your nest in the same tree Totally immersed Don't ask the birds The truth is always hidden from outside the herd. They call us nosey parkers Peeping Toms and pryers but we're bad-ass social scientist guns for hire! We're shadowing the church-mouse The spectre in the alehouse and bear the marks from the teeth of the work house louse The unclenching fist, is the least suspicious! So don't ask the birds, only observe each cluck, each crow each cheep. The fate of the future could hinge on a button dropped into the church collection. Don't ask the birds Totally immersed Don't ask the birds The truth is always hidden from outside

It is I Tom Harrisson and this will be my garrison its from here I will ride out and find out what's to do. This will be my castle keep and bugs permitting here I'll sleep Adventure forth unswerving whilst observing all of you. I spent two years in the jungle with the wild men or Borneo. Now the wild men of Bolton and the women will be the ones I'll get to know. Though I dressed in moderation I never showed my arse This level of commitment surely qualifies me to study the working class! Here is where my knight will sleep 85 Davenport street Mostly men from Oxbridge and a couple of women too. They will always be discreet following you down the street They'll watch you in the pub and in the club that's what they do! For me Tom Harrisson there's no comparison. Observation of the masses and all of the different classes. Mostly you!

A large tough guy with masses of hair held down by a hairnet sits at a table. With a group of four puts his head in his hands and complains of being tired. They talk about trade being bad Hairnet suddenly takes a small live tortoise out of his overcoat pocket and threatens a woman with it. She screams a little. “What do you feed it on?” somebody asks. “Milk.” “How much?” A quiet thin man in a bowler hat sitting in another group leans forward and says quickly: “about a quart and a half.” Hairnet says: “I give it a saucer full on Sunday” Woman asks: “how old is it?” “Oh its only thirty-six” Conversation goes on and on about how you cant drown tortoises or suffocate them. “The only way to kill them is to cut off their heads but you can't get at their heads.”

She isn't much to look at yes I know And she talks when I'm not listening gulps it down while I drink slow. And we've been two pieces of the furniture here for so long I can almost see the dust of our ghosts. They'll say one of us is from Venus, ones from Mars. They don't realise you hold tight to anything right, when you're always in the wars. Don't misunderstand, This ain't an understanding. This is love This is love This is love Young 'un. We held each other tight and watched the stars And wheeled around the cobbles her sat on the handle bars And we dreamed of a future of just enough And of children, maybe a pools win and holidays and fun And we got it, well some of it And we were never too alone. So drink up butter cup Times chased away Youre as beautiful as the day As beautiful as always In the streets our lucky stars shine Even through the smog I can see mine.

Aspidistra, a piano with sheet music out. Man peeps through the curtains as his wife calls him out. His dirty stop-outing is fuelling her ranting. So there’s: Six smokers, two bald heads, skinny black dog, wobbly chair leg. To best observe nature one must blend with the furniture and discreetly peer over the rim of a beer. To the loo, but not to wee (no) to study graffiti. The scrawling of a savage? Ney, a flat capped young Babbage! Chap with Vaseline hair finds finger with nose. So..err...that’s: Twelve smokers, four bald heads, wobbly black dog, skinny chair leg? Maybe this drinkin has befuddled my thinkin'? Aspidistra plays piano but can't reach the high notes! And I'm lost in my shoes Spinning room blues Spinning room blues Spinning room blues

I nine months a baby Then born my troubles began. Took my first breath of air in a worktown and cried as it stung my lungs. Oh I cried as it stung my lungs. And my ears ring with machinery. And the braying of the mule So we drink and we sing our sorrows away. Oh for a quiet life Pray God for a quiet life So soon to the mill yard where minutes pass so slow. Yet life passes by in the blink of an eye and I feel my young bones groan Oh I feel my old bones groan. And my ears ring with machinery. And the braying of the mule So we drink and we sing our sorrows away. Oh for a quiet life Pray God for a quiet life One day came the painter, to treat the mill's wood frames Her eyes were as blue as the ocean and her lips they fanned my flames Oh her lips they fanned my flames. And my ears ring with machinery. And the braying of the mule So we drink and we sing our sorrows away. Oh for a quiet life Pray God for a quiet life We'd run away and we'd marry escape the factory walls but the filthy air laid too deeply in her and it choked her little lungs Oh my love she died so young. And my ears ring with machinery. And the braying of the mule So we drink and we sing our sorrows away. Oh for a quiet life Pray God for a quiet life And I’ll forever curse the system that profits from my life. It pays good money to preserve dead wood but nowt for a human life Oh nowt for a human, nowt for a human, nowt for a human life. And my ears ring with machinery. And the braying of the mule So we drink and we sing our sorrows away. Oh for a quiet life Pray God for a quiet life

The sun, the sand the clean sea air This precarious perch hung high in the air Till it bucks and it glides this dragon's alive Then we duck and we weave, give into the speed. And my tie flaps up in my face. Heavens alive! Should I open my eyes? And soar like a bird where the sea meets the sky. A smile on my face. The wind whistles its grace So fast so high. Look down there its Frank dancing on the pier The donkey's on the beach look like ants from up here In the distance a haze and a dormant chimmney Turn my head to the west I belong to the sea! And i'l never come crashing back down. Heavens alive! Should I open my eyes? And soar like a bird where the sea meets the sky. A smile on my face. The wind whistles its grace So fast so high where the sea meets the sky. Where the sea meets the sky.

The cow with five legs The sight of a lifetime Is here and raring to moo! So beholden God's revision This wonderous volution She is one leg smarter than all the rest She's the Queen of the milking shed Turning heads wherever she treads She's the cow with 1,2,3,4,5 legs! On Earth there is no other It's not an enlarged udder, No! Its a leg, its a leg see the proof, its in the hoof. That we caught this beast alive It took cunning to match her exotic stride But we did it, yeah we did it, its the truth! Every question that it begs leaves you scratching a whole in your heads She's the Queen of the milking shed Turning heads wherever she treads Shes the cow with five legs! She's the pentacled paradigm Putting the fine in the word bovine She's the Queen of the milking shed Turning heads wherever she treads Every question that it begs leaves you scratching a whole in your heads Shes the cow with five legs!

Three girls set out on a journey to save their father and the family fortune Father's head has been turned by a ruthless glamour girl Who has stolen his heart just to steal his loot. Into the unknown go Kay, Joan and Penny To New York City to find him And remind his of dear mother who still pines for his daily Dreaming that one day he'll come back home So off they go. Three smart girls leave all they know behind them The country house, the boat house and the lake Father is surprised they've travelled far to find him The glamour-girl fiancé smells a rat Through dizzyingly social circles Go Kay, Joan and Penny and chance upon a dashing Count with a massive bank accounts And oh so accidentally bump him in to the fiance But sparks don't fly, they got the wrong guy hes some drunken schmuck pushing his luck With all seemingly lost for Kay, Joan and Penny and the wedding to happen in the morning Penny runs away to make Father come looking He finds her and the mother too And as they gaze in each others eyes the focus fades and the music implies...

You got a bee in your bonnet? You got a flea in your ear? You want a little tonic for it? Make that itch disappear. I'm here today (and probably tomorrow) Let me take away all your sorrows I got something money just can't buy for only 6 and 5 I'm your working man's hair specialist I'm the bogey man you can scare your kids with to make them lather to a foam to make them wash and brush and never share a comb. So hand your head down sonny. Don't feel ashamed If you had these itches in your britches Why you'd engulf them in flames! (well that’s what I’d do) But my tonic is non invasive It gets to work and is very persuasive No anaesthesia, will cure alopecia In under an hour your strutting round like an alpaca! Cos I'm your working man's hair specialist I'm the bogey man you can scare your kids with to make them lather to a foam to make them wash and brush and never share a comb. Eyes like a coal mine tall as a tree Hair he found washed up by the sea. He feeds on hair lice children's are extra nice and soon he'll come for you and me! Trust me to act accordingly I've studied medicine and zoology Let me take this weight right off your mind Why don't you gimmie a try? Cos I'm your working man's hair specialist I'm the bogey man you can scare your kids with to make them lather to a foam and the mites will leave their home to make them wash and brush and never share a comb. Cos every working man needs a benign eye looking down from above like a friend in the sky.

A large bald guy in a football shirt of green, white and blue sits at a table. With a group of two holds a beer in his hand and complains that theirs nothing to eat. Six ninetyfive for a cavery! talk about your meats at the Richmond pub just as you go to Southport near Tesco Any meat you want No questions asked I have worked, look at them 'ands! An old man watching the horse racing holds his palms up for his wife to inspect she leans forward and dryly says: “thems paper-cuts” Football shirt says I'm going to that Lanzarotte We fucking hate Saloo don't we all that Koperberg and Guiness Three days on the piss but we'll be alright Duty frees and a full case of cigs A woman walks in and the pub goes silent: “She's go loads of money, got paid up with that PPI, I leant her that kettle I did my eggs in”

The unobserved observer A life and times preserver Recording every detail of your life Aloof behind the viewfinder Anticipating lengths of exposure Waiting for that moment of stillness to press Or an uninformed informer An univited gawper Here for the free sandwiches Exploiting their grief Are these in loving memories or crass holiday snaps? The future isn't for us but we leave a mark for it to find us. And when it does what will it make of the figures in these frames? And the unobserved observer hidden away? A good man or a bad man? I did what I thought was best. I hope I made a difference and the flowers bloom over my head. The unobserved observer A life and times preserver. “Observer was at the graveside at 2pm. Two gravediggers dressed in floppy felt hats, brown overalls and clogs of wood. A third workman in the same dress stood at the bottom of the main path and supervised the carrying of the coffin to the grave. The mourners got out of the cars and formed a procession four abreast as they came up the hill. First came the gravedigger, then the coffin borne by 6 men. Then the mourners, 21 men and 8 women. The coffin was carried to the grave and lowered in. Each of the mourners was given a white chrysanthemum by one of the gravediggers. The ceremony consisted in an address read by a middle aged man with black hair. Observer did not notice any earth was thrown on the coffin, and certainly no words were spoken by anyone apart from this address, which was original and moving, and well delivered by the speaker. Most of the men had tears in their eyes. Observer could not get down all of the address, but the following fragments give an idea of its content: “Our friend has entered into the eternal rest...Death comes as a soothing anodyne...The penalty of life is death...the clouds over him will weep for us...the flowers will grow in the earth where he lies, and the earth will produce a harvest rich with fruits of the earth...This is the only immortality that we recognise – the immortality of the great ones of the world...May the flowers bloom over his head.” Are these in loving memories or crass holiday snaps? The future isn't for us but we leave a mark for it to find us. And when it does what will it make of the figures in these frames? And the unobserved observer the unobserved observer the unobserved observer hidden away?