Welcome To Hellville - Part 4 (1/2) By Rich Mills 11th November 2040

Next Page, Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

Addict vaccine, social behaviour training, helicopter strafes overhead, government propaganda drenched lo-fi media docu-slice-of-life info-mercial broadcast, fed straight to your hole. (Written on a Planet Coffee branded paper napkin.) The napkin referred to above was found inside a box of old stuff I happened across. Well I say happened across what I actually mean is relocated to a better home. Not that the home the stuff came from is or was a bad home! Quite the opposite, the original home of the box of stuff once belonged to my Grandparents.

I can remember staying weekends there as a young child. Weekend after weekend, through long summer days and cold winter nights I sat with my Grandfather either listening to the rugby on the radio and watching re-runs of Bonanza on Satellite TV. My Grandmother would occupy my young mind with card games, puzzle books, conversational riddles and things to do with flour and water, a load of old magazines from a jumble sale and a pair of scissors. The latter I now know to be Dadist and Surrealist methods of collage creation, but that's by-the-by. Then I thought it was a load of messy fun that killed a Sunday afternoon.

The idea of this exercise was not to waffle on about the golden days of my childhood round at my Grannies house. The point of this exercise is to document what I have found in the box, or at least what it appears I have found in the box.

How I came across this box... Cutting a long story short! I was on the water bus going past my Grandparents old house, noticed it was up for sale. In a moment of nostalgic spontaneity I rang the agent and arranged a viewing. Came to viewing, no agent turns-up to meet me, I get pissed-off and ring office to complain.

Full of apologies, agent off-sick and short-handed in office, but I can come and collect the keys if I want!

Shoot down, grab keys, next thing, I'm at the front-door to Grandma's house. Fucking Hell! So in I go, soak-up atmosphere, it stinks! People have been using it as a toilet and a shooting-gallery; shit and needles everywhere. I find (the) box among it all.

The box contained items that hold great interest for me, and being a collector of such paraphernalia as my Grandmother would say after a visit to the jumble sales, It looked like it needed a good home and no-one else seemed to want it. That last bit I just justified to myself, just as my Grandmother did. She may have brought home bags and bags of what appeared to be junk, but she'd have fought hard for those treasures she held aloft as she came blustering in through the back-kitchen door after a hard afternoon down at the church hall.

I'm getting off the point again. The Box! Itemised list of contents: VHS format video tape (E240) - Sony brand VHS format video tape (E180) - Sky brand 2 x CD-R 1 x DVD-R Chrome Audio Tape (C90) - BASF brand (very old... Mid. 20th Century)

20 Gig IDE hard-drive from an old PC - Fujitsu brand A well decayed black plastic bound note-book. Some other stuff! (Including the napkin.) I had been digging through the box, running tapes, cleaning down data streams, mending scratches on CD's, and just generally seeing what information I could retrieve from all these aging bits and pieces.

Continued Welcome To Hellville - Part 4 By Rich Mills.. Next Page

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