To the late Toby Izlington...

I pressed the link for the London Underground.net Triplanetary and the other one. Pretty bloody thin stuff when you consider what work needs doing in this troubled world.Frenetic activity amounting to little more than whimsical ephemera. Self promoting vanity at best. Begging for funding, donations and talented volunteers. It doesn't go down well with me son. The work we do here at home will be more of a service than tea and poetry against homelessness. How many of the core members have sustainable economic home lives. The facade as portrayed on the internet may be well meaning, but it is hardly recommendable as a life supporting career opportunity. No solid product, and little to indicate essential service. Clever button pressers ought to realize that the real work is not done on the internet. What eventually will become our charity is being established by real personal effort and sweat. It isn't a just for fun preoccupation. It is about getting people OUT of Shit street, Anytown, not attracting more gullible people to it. I came to see you to dispel if I could my deep felt misgivings about your present activities. I am more concerned now than before I arrived. Perhaps I am a fool for caring. Such waffle as I have heard about Grass Roots cultural movement is self appeasing delusion.Grass Roots need a permanent terrestrial base.
Mud Toby, not overpriced temporary rented accommodation. It needs clean air , oxygen being the vital ingredient in short supply ,the fuel of all positive action and the food of consciousness. Trying to move the world with little more than photographs as a fulcrum and bitten down fingernails as your leverage, is hardly what I call cultural inspiration. The network is vulnerable,fragile son. Prone to breakdown at the weakest points. the stressed up heads. You have been there and done that, so what has been learned that would serve the greater common good, not just the exclusive elite. Mudskool realism is what you need most.I couldn't find anything that even loosely fit the bill at the Tree House Gallery. I have a hole in my shirt caused by a screw protruding from the tree house door. Well my camera and my penknife was stolen. I had to come away with something. I did collect a load of Birch seeds, from the clump of trees near the Tree House site. Thanks to the Royal Park for that. I will patch my shirt and sow the seeds. They are destined to be planted as little trees in our next working location. Home will get bigger over time, no instant results, this is a slow and steady progress. At this moment the jam pot is bubbling on the stove. I write awaiting Anne-Sophie's arrival. The jam needs jars she knows where they are stashed.It is a sunny day, breezy and fresh.I look forward to getting out to do a bit of good. Key board stabbing is the least satisfying of all my activities. Probably a wholly wasted effort. Who's to say?
I hope you turn up here Toby. There is nothing I could do towards your permanent well being in London. We can talk while we work together. If you've a will.
If you don't turn up the work will go on without you . We wont be begging for funding volunteers or "amazing acrobats and musicians". We will gradually form good working associations with others enlightened to practical durable progressive development. News from Nowhere was William Morris's fantasy. The book is as real as it will ever get in London. I am grateful I live somewhere other than in a dead mans imagination.
When I was homeless stray,saying I lived Nowhere was the truth as well as I could articulate it. I didn't call what I was doing Living. Just working to find a way out that didn't compromise what good I hoped to do. I don't call my home Nowhere. Living and working at last have a context where our modest effort and investment can appreciate and mature. Myopic screenside vision of the work is just a past time illusion. You have yet to join the people on the ground son. Wish you were here.