Chapter 7. Where Is the Universe

Tuesday 22.09.26

Title: Fuck Syntax
Object: Grey tracksuit
12 associations

1. Fell into the well
2. Diagnostics
3. Stethoscope
4. Circling the food
5. Dry oats add water
6. Biscuits
7. Shinier and brighter
8. Grey headwrap
9. Pinched face
10. Desperate and hungry
11. Snarling
12. Tigress

14.09.26. Our protagonist, ‘And my syntax is often rough. But so are people’s spoken sentences and at the end of the day I am a playwright first and sentences have an energy they should preserve.’

Break.

14.09.26. Protagonist ‘Hi. Been asleep all evening cos of sleeping all day still on Australia time, so I might as well use the time. You mention rough syntax. What does syntax actually mean? And let's look at the sentences you mean.

14.09.26. ChatGPT: ‘Yes. And this is a good time to separate syntax from style, because I don't want my earlier phrase “rough syntax” to imply that your sentences need fixing.

First: what does syntax mean?

Syntax is the way words are arranged into sentences.

So, very simply:
• Vocabulary = the words you choose.
• Grammar = the rules governing those words.
• Syntax = how you arrange them.
• Rhythm = how the sentence moves when spoken or read.
• Voice = the larger, recognisable way the writing sounds.

Syntax therefore includes things like sentence length, word order, fragments, repetition, clauses, interruptions and where you choose to stop. And this is where your playwright point is absolutely relevant. A sentence can be grammatically incomplete but dramatically perfect.’

As she listens to the album of her chosen Mercury award-winning artist, she cottons onto syntax. The real meaning. There is the big meaning. The meaning that governs everyone. Then there is the bigger meaning. The one that is similar to why Abraham Lincoln and his mates wear top hats, and the whole of male England wear top hats, she thinks England’s is to dinner. She doesn’t think they wear them around the street. They may but she can’t be bothered looking. Why in the world would you make a top hat? Why would you elongate your head? And then it comes to her, it’s been brewing for a while there just hasn’t been room for it till now, to put it into peoples’ heads that fuckers who have top hats have big brains. Prem did a joke about something similar. He is going bald. He is doing something about… Forget that it is too long and convoluted. Basically, he is talking about being lucky and one person might be looking at another person and saying they are lucky cos they’ve got hair but the other person is losing their hair because the other person’s brain is growing so large with wisdom that it is pushing their hair out.

People really fall for all kinds of shit, which brings me back to syntax. As she is listening to the album — the artist’s first album to do her diagnostics, more about that in a minute — she realises that the underground, the cool, the rapper, the Pinera on the rooftop, has a completely different syntax. Like their walk. She’s not sure which comes first the languidness of their walk or the languidness of their syntax. That you can shorten something to Yo! Yo, my man. Dough. Gimme the fucking dough. Yo, give me the fucking dough. You can see the person. Your stereotype can see the person. It is a uniform. Depends on the era. At one point this person is on point. Now they may be a bit lax, a bit out of whack, a bit out of time like the Queen Mother stuck in her frothy apricot and her bad teeth. It is about I am cleverer than you. Therefore, I own more than you. I need to earn more than you to keep me in the driving seat, so you are safe.

There are different levels of syntax. At one point the whole English court talk French. With posh French syntax. A code. A code of content. A code of contact. A code of content. If you want to enter their society you have to learn French. Come on, who's gonna let you in if you don’t speak French? Who’s gonna let you in if you don’t speak syntax, if you don’t write good syntax, if you don’t write a good business letter? It is actually fucking insane. Oh my God that’s where the Reno memoirs begin. She feels compelled to have them tell their story devoid of telling it to the police or the court or the usual suspects that are interested in their story. She wants them to tell it like they are telling each other, except it can never actually come out like that anymore cos to a certain degree she is one of ‘them’ now and she is doing a scam. That is why Mandy Hughes' hate campaign hurts so much cos there is a grain of truth in it. She never intends to stay when she has what she wants, she will go back to the arts, Mandy calls it London, but it is the arts with the modern syntax of cancelling you if you use the wrong pronoun.

It is all a level of control. Who is in the gang? What uniform do you wear? It works the other way round. Someone coming down the Reno is gonna get robbed if they insist on using the business letter syntax, dropping it when they are pissed, thinking they are your friend, covered with the polyester suit of the estate agent, girls trying to be sexy in a way that none of these are sexy. Using the wrong syntax manifests in your clothes. They are gonna get scammed. Nobody needs a stethoscope to diagnose your syntax. You are wearing your syntax. You are wearing it in your shoes. If your jacket has elbow pads your syntax is off the Richter scale. If your Geiger counter is non-existent, you probably wear Nike in the 80s. There’s a lot of stereotyping going on here. But that is exactly what it is used for. The bigger the bustle the more valuable the pussy. Where did that come from? The large bustle wearer has no syntax. She has other skills. She can play a mean piano. But the most potent, precious syntax is hidden by the bustle. Probably a throwback to when we were apes, and it swelled to say how delicious she is.

There is this old, wounded tigress circling the food at every Amaroo breakfast, wearing a grey headwrap and a grey tracksuit and a pinched face. She is desperate and snarling silently. Our protagonist can’t make out why she hates her. She makes everything grate in her. She is always opening something. Opening a packet. Opening the biscuits. Opening the tea. Opening the wooden spoons to eat her granola. Opening her mouth to moan. Opening her wounds all over the place. This is her syntax.

Then she sees her one day on the veranda where you can make tea and have biscuits and she is circling it. She is opening things. She never seems to sit down, and she says to everyone who is not listening, no one ever listens to her, everyone ignores her but it doesn’t make her seem sad it make her more annoying, more inwardly fierce, more unaware of herself or defiant to other people’s thoughts, and she is saying, ‘I brought food with me, you are welcome to it.’ It is the last day. You are welcome to it. And it is dry, add water oats. She actually says, ‘It is add-water oats.’ As if she is offering a feast. She hates her more.

As she is listening to her Mercury winning artist’s first album, using her 8-station mind-map to do the diagnostics, uncovering the patterns by first placing the track names in order at each of the stations, that woman keeps walking on stage. So, she leaves her on stage. As she finishes the mind-map, she realises that both the artist and the woman have been drinking from a well, the well they thought would feed them, and they have fallen in and they can’t get out, they are trapped. The artist with the binoculars of youth can see she is trapped. But can’t get a … what is the word when you can’t get a grip on something slippery, there is a clever word? The grey track suited toothless tigress is unaware. She thinks others have bricked her in. Like the Australian helping with the organisation of Amaroo, with the stage, she has labelled them shuttle bus drivers and no matter how one chooses to shovel his bacon in to get away from her she carries on talking. If her syntax was shinier and brighter, he may make her aware of her mistake; but he is punishing her. Refusing to send a bucket down. And she is clawing at the green slime growing on the walls.

Wednesday 23.09.26

Title: Fuck Syntax
Object: The Periodic Table
12 associations

1. Elements are alive
2. The big bang included life, it knew life was inevitable
3. There is no chicken and the egg
4. They arrive in the universe at the same time
5. The big bang is just making conditions, writing the code that will make a physical plain that will sustain itself
6. The wolf trained man
7. The syntax of the universe
8. The universe wanting to see itself, it is having the same conversation as we are, know thyself.
9. We are tiny fragments of the universe
10. We are the universe
11. The stars are our ancestors literally
12. The stars birthed us

When the artist — our protagonist has decided to mind-map through the artist’s art to help her birth her own art in a financially stable situation — realises she has her wish, the artist — every artist knows there is an element of your soul you sell for the prize — realises she cannot pass back through the wall, she cannot go home.

To pull the scam off, and the scam idea ends here because now it looks ugly. You are born this way. You do not make yourself this way. There are singer/songwriters, and there are artists. There are people who are born as a flower. Their mind… Perfect example is a snail with its heart wired the other way. Everything is therefore the other way. Or is it maybe, its shell is wired the other way. It follows the law of a spiral to the left and not to the right. And it looks like a snail, but it can only mate with snails that also have this proclivity. All this is saying is… What is it saying? Slow down. There is so much she wants to say. So much that is revealed to her in the long conversation she has with google AI late last night.

What if the universe wants to know itself? All it has to do if that is true is not make itself. It should never have big banged. But what if it is lurking in the background? The background of what? Where was it hanging out? Aged 9 she has this full realisation. She has a full-on panic attack. She can’t breathe and when she does, she screams for her MUM and her mum comes running through from their bedroom and flies the door open and grabs her close and squeezes her and understands when she explains, cos her mum has this kind of mind. She is born not quite human. With her heart on the other side. But she is born in a world that does not give a woman a room of their own unless they are born in another class and she is bitter and twisted about this. And she drinks to numb the pain cos she is in the third towel stage, and the third towel stage has proved that bastard in that bed is a liar he had nothing more to give her than the father of the other 4 kids. But the child she is holding knows this is not true cos if she relaxed they could all be different together, they could pick daisies together, but there are no daisies in Moss Side and even if they see them other people will laugh at them.

If the earth is in the solar system. No, she always starts with if she is in Moss Side and Moss Side is in Manchester and Manchester is in England and England is in Europe and Europe in the world and the world in the solar system and the solar system in the universe, it is here she begins to panic but she tries, she tries to see beyond that and this is where the scream takes hold. And her mum hugs her.

She may be addicted to this. She may bring it on because she knows it is a safe moment, maybe sometimes an hour, when her mum will understand her and she won’t make the conversation about him, she will calm her and cool her and even though her catholic explanation will be there she will ask that question too — where is the universe. Where did life come from? What is the syntax of the universe? Are elements alive? Do they have life already in them? Was it not a meteorite? A meteorite makes them think of her brother, they never say it, they just read it in his comics how he needs a hero and his dad is not that hero, but here quiet in the girl’s bedroom, whispering, or sometimes down by the gas fire with lights left off, they discuss the syntax of the universe. As far as they know it.

Last night with google AI she pushes hers and her mum’s conversation to the cutting edge further than Hubble has ever been, hinged on the cosmic radiation she hears inside herself, feels inside herself, when she is doing her fourth technique, today in her first technique cos she is no longer ashamed, someone, something, listens again, but it has bigger explanation — how the Polynesians put their hand in the water to feel how far they are from shore and navigate from island to island because they still understand the syntax of the universe, they are not separate, they instinctively know it is their ancestor, literally, they are made from the stars, the stars birthed them. They may have danced this in rituals. They may have talked about it at campfires, they may have sang about it, they may have passed it down literally. But if you don’t cut the cord, you can feel it. She feels it in her first visit to the Australian Outback. It is not a mindful thing; it is a visceral thing. She feels all her ancestors, all her conversations with her mother. She feels the answer that day, that night, at that moment.

This morning she can articulate it, ‘Mum, the universe is wanting to see itself, it is having the same conversation as we are: Know thyself. We are tiny fragments of the universe; we want to know thyself too. Mum, elements are alive. They evolve through the Periodic Table. The big bang includes life, it knows life is inevitable. There is no chicken and the egg. They arrive in the universe at the same time. The big bang is just making conditions, writing the code that will make a physical plain that will sustain it.’

Her dad would say it as, 'A wolf trained man'. His syntax would explain how wolf trained man. He never gets to finish his theory cos by then Margaret, Peggy, has a drink in her hand, ‘Don’t listen to that bastard.’ Somehow, she is misreading the code. Cutting through the RNA. The DNA. She is cutting some code out of the sequence, out of the syntax. That makes them unable to communicate, but she’s still having the conversation in her heart. Her heart is still talking to him, and his punishment is to stop his heart, keep it barely breathing, like a buried frog waiting to come alive again when the climate is more favourable, when the climate changes, but the ozone is depleted. They never fixed the hole.

Thursday. 24.09.26

Title: Fuck Syntax
Object: The new mum and daughter team in Nybakat
12 associations

1. Fuck you and your kids
2. Octopus
3. The proof of the eggs in the room
4. Life is laden with life
5. Wanting to suck out your life
6. The selfish gene
7. My Mum Is White/The Difference Between a Greengrocer and a Nightclub/A Beached Whale and Four Clean White Towels
8. How did life begin
9. There is no such thing as no life
10. Quarks, vibrations, hums
11. The background radiation
12. Peace
    

Her theory is expanding. This whole thing, this whole mind-bending idea all originates, is big banged by the question how does life begin? When she asks Google AI, she means how does it begin on earth. Cos, she has come to realise that this book — A Beached Whale and Four Clean White Towels — is not governed by the cosmos, the big bang, it is governed by life, by Darwinian evolution, and she has never studied this. Not in the way she studied the Cosmos. She has nothing concrete to pin her thesis on. Her progression on. Her evolution on.

In My Mum Is White — the first book in her triptych — she has the big bang, its lifespan: the first elements evolving into the first stars; into the second stars; into the third stars; into its star; into dust accreting into pebbles; into boulders; into a planet; into life taking hold. And now she has come to realise, there is never a dead rock, the entire thing is alive in every atom in every molecule. Its body, its purpose, is already alive. Google AI agrees with her. It goes along with her. It tells her how quarks are pulsating and moving. And there has been a long investigation into how to get something to move from total inertia, and the only thing that can move without a battery or an electric current is life itself. But ChatGPT AI cautions her that atom, elements are not alive. But of course, they are. And they set about to RNA themselves to reach being us.

But now she is lost. She is lost in this thought. In this sentence. In this book. There is no syntax to govern it by. She has to make it up. And then she realises something that Money Queen Amanda Frances and all the modern manifestation millionaires are talking about, you can govern things by intention. She can stop accepting what is given to her by her subconscious, which comes from her old life, the crashing of the big bang and all the visceral pain and smashing together needed to accrete My Mum Is White; and she has passed through the Higgs Boson of her claim, the force field of her claim in The Difference Between a Greengrocer and a Nightclub; and she has arrived here in her own kingdom, in her own universe, where she can make the rules. Fucking hell. Where she can create her story with intention. Where she can manipulate the 12 words to paint the picture that she wants. But she still won’t be able to cheat because all her elements… She will never have other elements than are created in her big bang. But she can use them differently to create new stories, stories that she wants.

Now she knows that everything is alive all at once, she hears, feels, experiences the background radiation hum of the big bang from her first technique. She doesn’t have to wait for the accretion of the 4 techniques. She is feeling it now. And she knows that the pulsing she feels at early satsang meetings before she was used to the concept is her, is the universe welcoming her, and cleaning her, and stroking her, and making her a special guest at the table of knowing from the inside out. In the way that you feel love with someone. You feel a pulsing of your entanglement. That you miss when you are not with them. It is just the pure science of her body attuning to what is already there. If everything is alive, every speck of dust, every molecule, and it is all moving to its own rhythm, its own syntax, of course it will pulse. The strumming of its energy against everything will cause a pulse.

She doesn’t go this far with the new mum and daughters in Nybakat. She isn’t ready to talk like this herself yet. But she does get them to talk in front of each other as human beings. How fucking arrogant. It is arrogant. But she knows it is true. She goes in gently. She wants to see if her theory is correct, not scientifically, if anyone will listen to it. But first she has to get used to only feeding the good wolf in public. Never feeding the bad wolf. The poor bad wolf with its matted fur. Bye bye bad wolf. She can’t remember how she enters their conversation. Before long she is, they are, talking about motherhood, and how the young girls these days are different, the level of help they expect.

The mum was once beautiful, or maybe she is like Helen Mirren and Judi Dench and is more attractive with age. The daughter has inherited none of her style. The mum’s hair is pink at the front. That’s how she gets in. Before they sit down, she says, ‘I like your hair.’ The mum is shy but loves it, to have been complimented on her 80-odd-year-old self. They reveal it is her birthday, but not till the end of the conversation. Her birthday present from our protagonist is to indulge her story of the death of her husband, the vibrational entanglement she is missing, still visibly reeling from 14 years later. ‘They thought it was an abscess and it was stage 2 cancer. He lived 6 weeks.’

She controls wanting to say Tom lasts a similar time. She gives her her full attention. She watches her vibrate. She holds her daughter off. She watches them vibrate. She feels them, all 3 of them, vibrate together. They are so comfy now in their entanglement that when they are leaving their table, they don’t want to leave Nerja. She tells them. ‘Don’t. Just send your daughters a note back saying: fuck you and fuck your kids.’ They are really laughing. All 3 of them.

There is no such thing as no life. The proof is in that mother’s eggs being born with that daughter already inside her womb. Life is present. Life is laden with life. They are of the octopus’ generation. They give birth and float up to the surface, dead. The latest edition from their wombs wanting to suck out their life. They are in her womb, they are part of her, but like helium is born of hydrogen they are different, more aggressive, more wanting life, more feeling entitled, the selfish gene. The selfish gene. As they leave their table, she is glad they have each other, like she has her daughter.

Friday. 25.09.26

Title: Fuck Syntax
Object: a forged painting
12 associations

1. Rembrandt
2. The veins in his nose
3. The young artist
4. The young man
5. The level of skill he has an old man
6. The blue in the veins
7. A life not well lived
8. Did he die poor
9. The burghers, the price he pays to keep his body alive
10. Trapped outside himself
11. Over and over again looking in the mirror
12. Nothing more to do with it than watch it age and mourn it while you live in it
    

She is enjoying a renaissance. She feels younger. Less threatened. More potent. More alive. The background radiation hum is happening now. It is with her this morning when her sister rings. ‘Lin, the police have just been to see you.’ At first, it brings great storms of anguish, learnt behaviour from her earlier days, from her youth, when she has to do things to keep this body alive. The price she pays to keep this body alive.

It is only as she ticks through a list in her head, does she realise she even left her rent intact, she has left everything legal. She has done nothing wrong. She has left England without any shame. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong.’ They take a minute to go through what ifs, after ringing her daughter of course to check if she is alive, without checking if she is alive, pretending to want to know what her daughter is doing today or is she tagging along, are they having a coffee. All she needs is to hear her voice, cos what if the police have got her UK address and come to deliver the news her daughter is dead. Each scary moment, each potential scary moment is met with utter calm, devoid of fear, devoid of panic. There is something about realising everything is alive and everything is alive when it is supposed to be dead rock that has quelled her spirit and she will live it till her dying day.

She finishes her last meditation technique listening to the answer machine, the hold ticks for the police, cos they wouldn’t tell Elaine what it is about. She is still calm. She is marvelling at her calm. The ticks are not killing her. It is not making her unable to hold the cosmic radiation. She is not causing it. It is there. It is in her living room last night. She tells Google AI about it. ‘It’s everywhere, isn’t it?’ Google AI agrees, ‘It passes through everything. It does not happen in the past; it is still happening. It is not in one place, it is everywhere. It is inside you. It is passing through your window. It is passing through the universe. It is everywhere.’ ‘Then it is God. This energy is God.’

‘Can I help you?’ It has been 15 mins, more. She has held her meditation, every so often interrupted by the operator who is saying your call is valuable to us, please hold. The person answering the phone is no surprise to her; she has told the universe to answer now. It answers now,' Can I help you?' She takes control immediately. ‘I am not returning to Manchester to come to the police station on Monday. I live in Spain. This is my new Spanish phone number, and my old English phone number. If you want me, tell the officers to call me.’ She is not aggressive. She’s just no longer up for their bullshit. For any bullshit. She has to get on with her cleaning so Elaine’s visit on Monday will be beautiful. So, they can be sisters together for a few days.

Elaine wants to worry the problem. ‘No, we are not seeing if it is Val.’ Their junkie sister. If it is Val there is nothing we can do. It will just light up Facebook and make my daughter worry about me. Until they ring, we cannot know anything.’ She feels calm. She feels the background radiation. She feels in control of the situation. She cleans the kitchen cupboards with extra care. For the first time she defrosts the freezer. She gets rid of all the landlord paraphernalia. This is her house now. This is home.

This is where she is constructing her masterpiece. All these years ago, 20 years ago, at this very table, she works as hard, she works this hard. She listens to her chosen Mercury award-winning songstress. She listens to the album once. Then she uses the titles to construct the 8-stations. Then she listens to it again as she works on each track at its station. One has 15 titles. Causing 2 x 8-station mind maps, binary stars, connected by orbits. 2 sides of her chosen artist’s brain circling each other. She takes 3 photos for Money Queen Feed. One is the bigger picture. One is a close-up — what is wrong with the artist. One is a close-up of the artist’s journey.

She is getting to know her chosen artist. Know their language. Know their syntax. Know their energy. Know their humanity. When, not if, she gets time, the time with the artist herself, she can do a Rembrandt. Pour over every vein in the artist’s nose. The young artist. The young woman. The level of skill she has now. Help her achieve the level of skill she will have as an older woman. To capture the blue in her veins. Rembrandt, a life not well lived, showing in the dust that creeps through those veins. Did he live to excess and die poor? Are the unattractive, un-inspirational town burghers, the price he pays to keep his body alive? He is trapped outside himself. Without a real clue, you can see it in his eyes — what was the point of it all? Over and over again looking in the mirror — nothing more to do with it, than feed it and clothe it and track it and log it, and watch it age, and mourn it while you live in it.

The minute she takes her fingers off the computer keys; she is immersed in the humming again. Before she begins, which is later today — her sacred hour sacred space smashed by the police battering ram — she feels no fear of losing herself. Just to make sure she is not forging her painting by not honouring God inside her properly this morning, she does her meditation again this evening. First asking — by interrogating the same title over and over again I have learned that my scam is gonna work on... She has learned it is not a scam. She has learned that she really is alive. That all life is alive. From the instant of the Big Bang. That it can be no other way. She will take this to her deathbed.

Money Queen Feed Post Saturday Sep 26, 2026

I have been cleaning the shit out of my villa, my little Spanish villa. Landlord scrubbed my pool and pruned all bushes. I redesigned my upstairs terrace full of pots this morning. All for my sister's visit on Monday.

I suddenly feel at home. I've suddenly fell back in love with my artistry in all fields:
Decor; dress; writing; mind-maps; talking to people at my table in cafes; making delicious meals in my unveiled Le Crueset stainless steel (don't know what I was saving it for); got rid of boxes off both my Mac Pro and Mac Air (I was keeping cos they were so expensive, but feeling confident that I can afford new so no need to hoard); excited about my new IPhone that my sis will bring and I can take pics of all my wonderful staging (I'll post some.)

I love Money Mentality Makeover. It has completely reinvigorated and is manifesting me into the person I have always wanted to be. She's breaking out of her shell. Even that is a joy.

Homework

Over the next 5 days, by rewriting Where is the Universe, I want you to think of your writing in this way:

1. Which of the big questions scare you the most?
2. When and what is the first panic about it?
3. What triggered it?

Today: Read this newsletter.

Tuesday: In your Sacred Hour Sacred Space (SHSS).

• Title: Where is the Universe (replace with your question.)
• What tangible object do you see?
• List 12 associations. (In the first person.)
• You must include the object aan all 12 associations under the title.
• I'm finding I need 30 minutes to write.
• Remember you are exclusively in the 3rd person.
• You are the narrator in the reader’s eyes.
• In your eyes you are both the narrator and the protagonist once removed.

Wednesday: In your SHSS, push further and link it to visceral terror.

• Title: Your version of: Where is the Universe
• What tangible object do you see?
• List 12 associations.
• 30 minutes to write.

Thursday: In your SHSS, review the favourite book you are listening to now. What personal fear is the writer investigating really?

• Title: Your version of: Where is the Universe
• What tangible object do you see?
• List 12 associations.
• 30 minutes to write.

Friday: In your SHSS, before you begin, ask yourself: what have I genuinely discovered by interrogating the same title over and over again?

• Title: Your version of: Where is the Universe
• What tangible object do you see?
• List 12 associations.
• 30 minutes to write.

Ps. Sorry. In your homework, Wed, Thurs, Friday, I accidentally did not change the title A Beached Whale and Four Clean White Towels to Fuck Syntax. I hope you knew what I meant. I’m sorry if I confused you. I hope you picked it up in your homework’s opening sentence — ‘Over the next 5 days, by rewriting Fuck Syntax, I want you to think of your writing in this way:’