FREE WRITE

If I were to write a blog about knots I might go some way towards getting an idea for this initial TMA.The word 'Knots' is one of the provided prompts - like charity shop was for the last course TMA01. That one worked well, so maybe will this one will too. Knots is just one word, but think of all the associations that might start me going: knots in wood - whirls in wood that are weaknesses,  flaws perhaps, in  what would otherwise be firm and solid material.  Perhaps we could extend this into a metaphor - move the word from its arboreal roots so to speak and develop it into the figurative - the knot in their relationship was certainly the consequence of Peter's affair.

True it was six years ago, but the solidity of what was once a partnership cast in solid substance, unwavering, fixed, redoubtable - had never look much more than frenulum-fragile and slivering-shaky since Peter strayed whilst he was on that electronics course down in Newcastle Under Lyme.

A knotty problem is a tricky problem.  Something that might require a great deal of guile and thought to find a solution. But knots are nearly always evocative. 'Tie a knot in it' used to be an old saying said by men when giving advice to boys about contraception - a love knot might be a symbol for undying love - such as the Algerian love knot worn by a bond girl and identified by Bond on his realization that this particular Bond girl may not be an easy conquest. Balloons require knots to seal in the air. Shoes, boots, hoods, and waist cords require knots to secure a fastening. Lorry Drivers and sailors receive tuition in tying knots as it is vital to their profession that they understand which knot is appropriate for which task. Mountaineers rely on knots to scale mountains and rocks and at the same time to save their lives. If you want to be rude to someone you may chose to invite them to get knotted (which at least is more polite than telling them to get fucked).  What is meant by the former as an expression, indicating that the object person needs to find themselves in a position from which they cannot bother the subject person, in a literal sense, is not entirely clear.

Slip, hitch, half-hitch and sheep shank. Noose.  Some one once tried to teach me how to do a half-hitch.  I thought that he'd lost his mind. What an absolute boggle of a procedure. Plenty of people have half-learnt how to make a noose before making it one of their last acts. Others have failed and paid the price of their incompetence with unwanted survival and recrimination. The granny-knot is one that's close to my heart. A rag-tag and bobtail, semi-abortion of a tangle that's guaranteed to stay knotted for all eternity simply because its configuration defies logic, physics, and everything else in between.   It's a bundle of mess, the extrication of which could take centuries to work out because it doesn't conform with any rationale - it's a bugger's muddle of plaited nightmares that could be tossed out and left twisting in the wind like one of Hardy's heroines. Why is it called a granny knot?  Why knot. I'm reminded of that other unconquerable knot, the accidental hitch. Throw a hose or an electric cable round a building and see how long it takes to snag on something. Pull at it with the strength of eleven elephants and it's going nowhere. It's a fucking good knot and no-one thought to tie it there. 

And I've got this far without straying into fable and myth - the fabulous Gordian Knot from which everything that might kill you is becoming steadily unravelled before finally its release and your demise is assured.