the lamp and the worm

Freecycle - the phenomenon

2011-12-16T21:49:00.000Z

It`s a grand idea - big on sharing and everso slightly green, but honestly, what am I to make of the offer posted today: "Retirement bits", which, although unidentified, were taken almost immediately. ???

Someone was asking for "Floorboards".
Drastic.

In the same posting: " Offer - Chocolate coloured floor bean bag " and the item below offered from the same source: "Chocolate fountain - in full working order" - well, evidently!
Last week a request arrived for a "Papa shredder" - some serious problems in that family methinks.

Since my first week as a Freecycler, I have managed to bag just one item, consisting of two lamps, which were brilliant until I had the yellow paint accident... (the spatter was quite widespread, as in yellow tsunami). So I bought a new shade for the floor lamp, costing probably more than the new paper (or is that papa) lamp did originally being an Asda special. Ever since, I have been unable to get anything offered even though I have access to emails at all times, being a sad git with a Blackberry.
So I`m wondering how these things are `taken` before I receive the `offers` - I hadn`t appreciated there was such a high proportion of the Plymouth populace with telepathic powers.

I can understand free sofas and wardrobes being in demand. But even the stuff you`d think no-one would ever want if they had to pay for it, is snaffled within seconds. So as an idea, a movement if you will, Freecycle certainly works. Still, you have to wonder what happens to the stuff that people rush off to collect, only to realise it`s a pile of shite they really didnt want after all.

"Offer: trip to dump in your own car with all my old tat"

have you booked your space on the pavement?

2011-12-01T22:41:00.000Z

Mervyn King! He of the blunt statement... on the news... o a storm is abrewin oright.

I have this nagging image of the middle class Greek sitting on a pavement with a neatly spread tablecloth flapping feebly in a soft breeze, and on the bright white lowdown cloth, an assortment of lovely things - treasures if you will - jewellery, porcelain, things once happily-given now `portable property`. And as such, not worth much at all, set against the mortgage payments.
Not that I think I am middle class.
Those old divisions dont hold overly expensive water these days.
I am on a mission to gather myself up and in. Keep my powder dry. Draw in my horns. Whatever these sayings mean is what I am doing, I hope.

Jeremy Clarkson! He of the unwieldy braintomouth gear ratio... on the news ... to draw attention to his lack of inhibition is to embiggen (thanks Holly) his whatever status, which should be actually no larger, wider or higher than yours or mine ... What he says is neither particularly funny or vile - it`s just a bloke saying what comes into his head regardless, and for that I champion his unthoughtfulnessish folly. Come on, in a welter of (concocted) media inanity thrust upon us from all everywheres, is he such a criminal? I absolutley dont agree with his views - I am just glad he sticks
two fingers up at taste-policing.

a weekend in the attic

2011-11-20T21:10:00.000Z

There are no photos of said roof void to grace the curiosity of any readers here - the attic is very dark -although there is a sulky flourescent bar which deigns to come on at times when it`s in a party mood.
This weekend I (okay then, not I but V as he can reach things better) have/has been taking things out of the attic so that V can then put some of them back again another day. This emptying the attic has caused much argument and moody looking daggerish grr. It has been a purging process. And we have indeed been to the dump thrice with a car full of grot.

Example:
A large box of Navy News newspapers, with no news newer than 2004 . A suitcase 36 years old with extensive mouse-related damage. Three black bin bags full of paper. Disgusting aged pillows. A Tandy shortwave receiver. Battered box files. Dead electronic gear. Umpteen cables for things no longer owned. Zillions of dull data cds. Three pairs of mouldy leather shoes approximate combined age 75 years. A whole boot full of flatpacked cardboard. Old picture frames. And so much stuff, stuff so adrift from its original function it no longer bears a name.

I confess to crying over a carefully folded piece of used brown parcel paper complete with parcel marker pen, last seen in the 1970s perhaps, by V`s mother, whose evident love of stationery has shocked even me. I have filled half a sack with odd brown envelopes and rediscovered enough letter writing gear to see me out, as it were. I have filled an old wooden letter rack with all sizes of rescued envelope and paper of different thicknesses , plus enough gummed labels, tie-on brown labels, and air mail stickers to strain the seams.

The last attack we made on the attic was 4 years ago. This was equally traumatic. The suitcase filled with scissors of every possible specification was a total revelation. I was actually frightened. I can only imagine V`s mother had a soft spot for door-to-door scissor salesmen, if there ever was such a thing (well, they used to sell brushes door-to-door, so it could have been a risky marketing decision by the CE of Betterware or 1960`s equivalent), or was a pushover who couldn`t say no, or (worst case) was entirely bonkers. We got rid of the entire scissor collection, most of them unused it appeared, which may be something to be thankful for. At any rate, there was no evidence of blood staining.
Now I have just thought of another explanation - V`s parents, hard up for money as many people were and still are, took it upon themselves to try scissor selling door-to-door, investing some of their savings in a pyramid scissor sales scheme a la Herbal Life or Amway. And then found out, to their horror, they were no good at scissor selling, but were stuck with the stock. A lesson there, if that`s the story, but it`s a bit late now to be pointing out the dangers of pyramid schemes.

Things in attics. The terrible thing is how they literally hang over you - watch you in your bed - press down upon you. And you dont even have the luxury of knowing their history. All that stuff! Waiting and waiting. Brrr.

I have spent good money on 11 plastic boxes with lids. You can see through the plastic. Which is half way toward having some control over the secret life of this stuff from previous lifetimes. The remaining paper tonnage we feel unable to part with at this time has been labelled, and quietened down a little for that. I need several more plastic boxes but have had enough of the past for a while.
Here`s to being light, which, I find out now or simply remember, is what I seriously desire.
Who was it said their life didn`t weigh enough? A Romantic I think - let me know which. Back then, people didnt amass their pasts so easily. They didnt buy that much I suppose, being uncorrupted by consumer choice. It was all about doing great deeds, not suffocation by stuff...or is that a Romantic notion?

when things fall out of cupboards etc

2011-11-04T13:25:00.000Z

Although this story is not one of rapidly opened cupboards and dislodged soy sauce, but the results are unsurprisingly similar. A litre of yellow matt emulsion makes quite a splash when dropped from a height of 3 feet. It also coats the feet entirely depending where you happen to be standing at the time, so that the resultant yelp is accompanied by a tragic little hopping dance, which makes things worse. Once the shoes are shaken off, there is another tragic hopping dance to the kitchen sink, and a flurry of kitchen towel ripping and wiping of digits which spreads every bit of paint thin, plus smearier than before and totally dried.
There are now two fellas in the dining room, on hands and knees, scrubbing and hoovering and washing and what all, and all I wanted to do was touch up a few patches of filler. This will cost me a bit less than a new carpet, quicker. I dont even know if the end result will be a carpet that looks like it never sat beneath a litre of yellow emulsion, crying softly to itself. I can only hope.

Sometimes I hate Samuel Beckett.

i just phoned H

2011-10-31T18:21:00.000Z

I just phoned H. She knows
about weather and plants and possibly God.
I take nothing for granted.
One day I will ring and
noone will answer.

something`s gone wrong here?

2011-10-31T18:17:00.002Z

I think the post just posted was written and ( I thought) posted about 4 weeks ago!

O Art, How it Talks and Talks

2011-10-31T18:14:00.000Z

Things I liked at the British Art Show -

In the City Museum, Elizabeth Price`s `User Group Disco`; a short film featuring, amongst other household implements, a spaghetti strainer as (U) F O, much akin to the black monolith of Kubrick`s Space Odyssey revolving through a void, and a text derived from power-point presentations. The whole feel one of mystery and fascination, rediscovery and renaming. It made me laugh out loud, twice, though I`m not sure that`s a legitimate response. But of course it was. I was experiencing delight, always a plus at an art exhibition. I think it was the golf ball as spinning planet which did it, and the text giving an air of great purpose and grandeur, something which it never evoked at a business presentation, I`ll bet. (There was some philosophy in there too.)

There`s a lot of story-telling at this exhibition; so much so that the works are perhaps hampered by their backgrounds. The Art Show curators are incredibly present, giving little chance to be with the work alone, without the back stories, which are important, but integral? I haven`t made up my mind how I feel about this. Maybe they need to curb their enthusiasm just a tad.

At the Slaughterhouse, (what a fortuitous title) in Royal William Yard, I was entranced by Haroon Mirza`s installation, `Degree of Control`; tatty black flatpack furniture once prized in the eighties, record decks, a tv, radio, strobe lighting ... tv screens dont do it for me at installations, in general, maybe because they are too much of the here and now, but this one had an actor speaking into a twin reel tape recorder, ala Beckett`s Krapp; listening revealed he was reciting Ian Curtis lyrics. Strung from the ceiling, (ominous) a bare bulb revolves around a tilted deck, which keeps eclipsing the light, and a further unmoving deck holds Joy Division`s `Unknown Pleasures` album, with it`s topographic/soundwave logo. There`s a stuttering quality to the sound, which pulses through a denuded bass speaker diaphragm, and the clicking, popping strobe lighting, which sets up an undeniable Joy Div. rhythm. At this point I was approached by a curator eager to share, and informed that epilepsy was the `story` behind the piece; the artist has it, Curtis had it, and `She`s Lost Control` echoed his horror of losing said control. The degree in the title of the work apparently refers to the interval of silence which occurs during the `loop` of sound and flicker. It was, I think, spot on, as a work which engaged, even without the back story. Drawn in and moved, I went on a journey with the piece, and again experienced delight at having been spoken to by grubby bedsit furniture. If you`ve seen the film version of Curtis` short life, entitled `Control`, this adds another level of narrative to the piece. (It`s a grim film, but someone had to tell it.) This piece is definitely not grim however; it`s quite wonderful.

There are several other exhibits/artists I was excited by; Nathaniel Mellors infamous `vomiting head` wasn`t one of them. His piece literally stank, (not of vomit, I hasten to add, but of plastic and unidentifiable toxic stuffs) and the accompanying Our House films were cruel and ugly. I may go back and have another `go` at them, but then maybe I wont. I found myself thinking a lot about the Karla Black knotted sheet of powdery pink - almost not there, but very memorable - why? And the dirt/soap cake/ziggurat too. My daughter, who`s an artist herself, says if you come away from an exhibition and keep seeing a piece days afterwards, then it`s doing something to or for you; the art`s doing its job. Well, this appears to be the case with Karla Black. I cant say I like it, but I am intrigued, in a right brain way. And I loved what I saw of the Clock film - from 5 to midday to about 25 past in fact. How I was turning it into a narrative even though it wasn`t one, but seconds from thousands.

More stories around than painting, for sure, but Milena Dragicevic`s `Supplicant` series will be with me for quite some time. I`m not sure they were unpleasant images, or even disturbing, just very unusual and component-ish. I mean, like they were built of `bits` that didnt necessarily have anything to do with each other. Curious. Vaguely distasteful even. I found an image. I`m posting it here.

Not riots

2011-08-23T16:30:00.018+01:00

Which is anyway old news. Although there was something indefinably creepy about the possible causes of rioting being mulled over by Tony Blair. Why? As I said, indefinable. I think when I hear him talk now, it`s almost impossible to recall what an utter shit he was. He sounds like a rather old uncle faking being a kindly one. It`s very hard for me to imagine him any other way than creepy, to be honest.

To home; the hoohah around the closure of Plymouth`s Airport. What an absolute sin. I see Viv P (rhymes with telly) on the telly, and think she`s an utterly daft old bat with a string coming out of the back of her head - "Plymouth - beautiful - lot to offer - Life Centre - world class - Plymouth - invest " yawn yawn.

She is another Tony, in as far as there seems to be not one genuinely meant word that ever drops from her simpering mouth. What a vile woman. We stare at the news, my chap and I, aghast, as if in a daze, and he says quietly, as if to himself, which is something he often does, knowing I rarely listen, " Is it possible to actually vote that person out of office? Why is she always there? Who votes for her?" ... and d`you know? I have no idea. But the City Council are entirely mad. They must be. 47 million on an oversized swimming pool, and the airport is CLOSING. I dont get it. I flew to Jersey from the airport a few years ago; it was a delightful trip. The airport`s tiny, but it felt busy and alive at the time. Years of looking at their feet, that`s what the councillors appear to do. Because they really dont have a clue about the bigger picture. They have let the competition steal the routes required to keep the place open. I dont care how many times the opposite is said, Newquay is not handier than Plymouth, for anything, except a holiday in Newquay. As for the success of Exeter airport, well, they do seem to have an idea of a future this city lacks. If dear Plymouth were worthy of any national prize, it`d be The Viv P(eabody) Award for Tunnel Vision.

The Dome; still empty, despite various business ideas put forward, including using it as a conference centre.What`s that Viv? PCC say No? The Mayflower Steps; a whole load of self-congratulation going around the council for the recent repairs ( something to do with the Americas Cup? haha) as if it were something extraordinary to concrete some crumbling dangerous steps, which are only after all part of the main tourist route in the Barbican, and tourists, you guessed, mean prizes. Or revenue, in this case. Same thing. Plymouth will be, or is, depending how bleak your viewpoint, ruined by it`s council. They dont listen to anyone; they want what they say they think we want even when we say we dont want it. Which must mean they want it. I think. Time for a subject change.

This week the Lit Window book group will be discussing `The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo` by Stieg Larrson. Now I did say I`d do a piece on Nordic Noir to accompany the debate, and very conveniently BBC4 reshewed ( that is how it`s spelt, certainly, but what exactly it is, I`m not so sure - reshowed, showed again, put on again, repeated - duh) a programme entitled Nordic Noir.

So that was handy. I sat taking notes. I very much liked the idea that the (`tec with a social conscience thriller) genre has grown out of examining `the light that failed`; the Scandinavian Socialist dream of social reform and welfare, which kind of ended an era of `innocence` after Oluf Palme`s murder in the 80s. (They never caught the killer; how about that?)

Note to self: must read `Jar City` even though I am sure I will hate it.

The Lit Window and other fun

2011-08-05T18:06:00.017+01:00

Some time in March I think it was, just after I`d come home from having a large shaft of stainless steel rammed home into my right thigh bone, I found myself at the inaugural meeting of the Lit Window. Three of us, me seated comfily enough considering, in what my partner`s daughter calls `an old gadgee chair` (it reclines; the seat height is what physiotherapists call 21" when they are talking to those about to go or who have undergone hip operations, despite them possibly, or actually being young enough to have assimilated metric measurements) plus B, who`d dressed up for the occasion ( she had on big beads; I think that qualifies?) and my oppo H, with whom I`d been happy to share book talk when we met up, for many months, if not years. Was it years, dear H? Any road up, there we were, me in a natty pair of baggy track suit bottoms, plus half a pair of crutches, my `helping hand`* hanging handily and helpfully over the wing arm of the chair, in case I might have need of it, during our session.

The Lit Window ( check the link) started out as a way to discuss books we`d read, wanted to read, or were suggested as `reads` we might possibly love, hate, or bark at. That night we were discussing (I kid you not) The Reader, by Bernhard Schlink. It went down quite well as I recall, but to really recall what we made of it I`d have to get up, find the relevant notebook, and see what we voted it out of 10. This is something we do.

I love this book group. We now have 4 core members ( we have 4 members, get over it Sandra), and a lone chap who wants to be a member, keeps emailing to say he will turn up and become a member, but who has as yet not appeared in person. Our last evening together centred around Kurt Vonnegut`s Breakfast of Champions, and Sue Monk Kidd`s Secret Life of Bees. An unholy pairing if ever. Dear ol` K.V was slippery as a thing covered in hand-warmed cooking lard, and then dunked in oil. How can you vote a concept out of 10? Whereas the bee book was rather warm and fuzzy, like a bee trapped behind glass. I`m not going to give our vote on it. Read it yourself.

My hip is great! I can now, six heady months on, run upstairs, if ever I feel the need. I may post more on the whole hip replacement process, in case anyone wants to retch while sitting at their screen. Maybe this explains why I have been so lax with the blog. Yes, I think it does. I`m back, apparently.

*Helping Hand - a claw on the end of a long stick, with a trigger to pinch-squeeze said claw if wishing to pick up errant socks, sweet wrappers or bits of string off the carpet, when it is declared off limits ( by a terse physiotherapist) to bend down from the waist any further than 90 degrees.

Rabbits and such

2010-11-22T11:47:00.006Z

The caravan site is remarkably quiet. A few stayers for the winter, including the obligatory converted truck complete with native American Indian exterior mural. It`s called Spirit of the Wind no doubt . A chap who has a Hansel and Gretel stove pipe sticking out of the top of his touring `van`s roof. Do these people qualify as travellers? What does that mean exactly? Down in the `moat`, a row of Hobby motorhomes which have sprouted gardens - paving slab patios, garden furniture, a solar lighted wishing well. An air of temporary permanence. It isn`t quite a community.

Yesterday, one of the site workers ambling past swinging a dead rabbit by the feet. I wasn`t upset. Dangling from a strap slung over his shoulder, a brown rabbit-sized tube which may have been a humane trap. At any rate, it wasn`t a lunch box or a gun.

We swam a lot over the weekend. The water 32 degrees, and slick like warm milk. I was in a crisis state. I always swim furiously when drowning. The freedom of movement made me happy; dancing I was, with a frantic need to feel my body unrestrained. If I could sprout a fluked tail that`d be as good as it could get. Hobble hobble hobble. I`m no good on land right now. I`m not even that good at being a human right now. I really can`t accept the fact that I can`t walk for more than five or ten minutes without limping, twisting into a shape I am still refusing.

Saturday was short, and I was bad company. Sunday found me in a more gracious mood, apologetic and meaning it. The weather was great, for the time of year. But being together in any sense is problematic right now. Do I want isolation? No. What I want is a genuine sense of wholeness, and it`s not there even though a dear friend said when we met last week that I looked/seemed `integrated`. The problem? A sense of ... something ... I keep trying to describe to myself in my head and get bamboozled. Not watching myself as if elsewhere at the time, not that. It`s like a window keeps opening on a view I am older than. A window keeps opening on a scene or scenes and I`m acutely aware of it`s /their transience, but the quality of this awareness
is perplexed and unlucky and maybe it is just a good ol` disassociative state. I haven`t been able to nail it yet, in words, not trying to describe it to myself, or in print. It feels like a kind of Jonah sensation.

Today I am getting by by making lists. These always get me through to some extent. And I smile dubiously thinking about Plymouth of late, or at least the news ... an unexploded bomb dug up from beneath the old NAAFI building which forced the evacuation of the Holiday Inn, followed closely by a fire at the same hotel which forced another evacuation, and then the utterly weird episode of the emptying National Marine Aquarium tank, which shed tons of water over night, causing the death of 200 fish, despite `several fail safes` which obviously weren`t. The Barbican/Hoe area some kind of psychic blackspot.

Today the sun is good. The view is not peculiar or fractured by my ongoing oddness. Phew. Hurrah. I am actually looking forward to Christmas and lots of visitors, because it`ll very probably help.

a gentle meander where I will try ...

2010-10-13T14:56:00.018+01:00

... not to become annoyed, but will fail, as everything seems to annoy me, and I must therefore accept I am yet another middle-aged Grumpy Woman.

That was the post title. This is the post.

Item the first : The New Palace Theatre. In a Plymouth Herald article today, it was revealed (news to me) that English Heritage had actually offered financial assistance for the upkeep of the property, which was not taken up. It doesn`t explain whether this was not taken up by the now imprisoned owner of the exDance Academy or some other body, or when this non-happening happened. My fear is that if the premises are `taken`from the owner as part of an `illegal gains` haul, the place will be left to rot into an unsafe structure which can only be remedied by pulling the whole lot down. It`s quite close to that now, I think. Which would probably suit the city council very well. (Shades of the old Exminster hospital site ... )

Do join the Facebook `Friends of the New Palace Theatre` group, run by Rich Tucker, and join the debate or just make some noises about what next? I am prepared to chain myself to the dirty brass doorhandle/s of the theatre if any city councillor suggests a new development on the site. It is a Grade 2 listed building, and it is unique, and it does encompass a huge amount of Plymouth`s social history in it`s quasi-rococo brickwork and tile. I believe one of English Heritage`s conditions for funding is that the building be used for the purpose it was originally built. This may be a big hindrance. I can only envision the theatre`s future realistically as a split into studios/workshop rooms and maybe a smaller performance space or spaces, for multiple community use.

This building is very dear to my heart, being beautiful, funny, charming, and full of soul. It has an air of hope about it, even in it`s current tragic state. Maybe because of it`s current state. It hangs on to life, in a delapidated, notorious area of Plymouth, and is a beacon of red brick turrety loveliness in an architecturally base environment. And more than that, the council needs to learn how to behave. Not everthing is improved by the new. The council here are famous for having no vision whatsoever, unless it aspires downward. O dear, I can feel myself becoming enraged ...

Item the second: Tom Daley. How is this young man going to rebel? He`s 16 years old. His life is ruled by what everyone else expects. How long can that last? Can he really be so sound and sorted as to move effortlessly, seamlessly from boy to man? Isn`t his dad a bit too attached to him? Will it end in tears? I don`t dislike his dad, but he does come across as rather too dependent on Tom to give his life meaning. Last night`s curiously directionless documentary, The Diver and His Dad, didn`t answer this dilemma, but did put it into the arena for consideration. Rob Daley said something about when Tom learns to drive at 17; would he still want his dad trawling around with him? Well, will he? I had a sense from the programme and various other news items about dad and son, that maybe Rob has a bit of a problem, regarding Tom being able to decide for himself what it is he wants. We dont know (or need to know) what that is yet, and maybe Tom doesn`t either, but it really needs to happen at some point soonish, for the mental well-being of that incredibly talented young chap.

Item the third: Fleas and things that bite. I`m sporting three horrendous insect bites, and don`t know what insect it was that caused them. I swear that I got all three while sitting at my computer desk, and okay maybe I did have the window open to the evening air. I immediately blamed Suki-next-door, as we`ve been entertaining/adoring/paying obeisance to this haughty creature while her owner`s been away in Africa (see last TLATW posting) and a healthy looking flea actually had the temerity to jump off the cat onto my hand, and, as I stared frozen with disgust, jumped back onto the cat again before I had a chance to run to the kitchen, fill a bowl with water, and drown it. I may have been misinformed about the best way to kill fleas, I agree. Certainly it`s the unlikely option, seeing as they leap very far and fast, and to get to the kitchen with a flea on my hand would take several seconds, during which time it would surely think Ey-up! (A Northern flea, apparently.) VJB was bitten by something which may have been a flea also. His bite is a small reddened bump no bigger than a matchhead. Mine are large watery blisters with a raised extended reddened ring around them, somewhat like a minor planet. The possible explanations are
a) my body`s juiciness quotient ( VJB`s theory)
b) a hyper-sensitivity or allergic reaction
or c) a horsefly got lost in Plymouth and ended up in my bedroom, under my shirt

That`s all for now.

Right now

2010-09-23T20:53:00.001+01:00

...my preferred words are SPECIES and DAGUERREOTYPE. My least favoured = OVEN.

Dave`s in Africa

2010-09-22T15:15:00.029+01:00

Yes, although I found out via a small note dropped through our letterbox the other day:

"Hi, I`m in Africa to climb Mt Kilimanjaro for 3 weeks. Any emergencies call xxxx etc".

I rushed next door to see if I could catch him before he left, just so that I could say, with eyebrows raised fairly high, "Really?", but he`d already gone. To Africa. It`s not the sort of note one generally gets shoved through the letterbox, but then Dave is no ordinary chap. He`s climbing a mountain to raise money for the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, because exactly a year ago Dave`s wife Emma died from this horrendous disease, and is very much missed by all that knew her. I met her just once, over the garden wall, on one of her rare trips home from hospital, where she pretty much lived for two years prior to her death. If you read this, I hope you`ll consider giving some of your no doubt hard-earned dosh to the Trust, so that it can in turn help others who have to endure cystic fibrosis, by raising awareness and gaining new pledges to donate organs for transplants. Emma was by all accounts amazing. Dave is also amazing.

This means the Tortie Twins, Dave and Emma`s cats ( yup; they`re amazing too and no, this isnt irony) are being looked after by family, who drop in regularly to feed, water and fuss them accordingly. But 3 weeks to endure with no Dave! Those cats are definitely putting more effort in, with regard to grabbing their share of adoration from passers-by. I had two visits from Suki yesterday; sometimes she comes in the front door so`s to be let out the back, because she`s too bloomin` lazy to go to the end of the road and get home via the access lane. But she did spend some time grooming, fidgetting and sleeping on the pouffe/ footstool in the front room/lounge/living room/parlour (strike according to age and class orientation), and also came and sat on my lap while I was enjoying a brief afternoon muse in the summerhouse/cabin/shed (see above classification and delete as you are wont).

Suki is the most socially skilled feline I have ever had the pleasure to meet - she does `cute`, `flirty`, `fey`, and is quite good at being superior too. Her best tricks :

1) Playing football with pine cones, on demand - (you throw the cone, point and say "get it", she looks at you, realises she`ll get adoration points if she goes after the cone, executes a few stagey feints and fluffs with her paw, then , er, gets it. This followed by a hammy theatrical rendition of immense boredom.) Her sister, Cally, while appearing less needy of her public, still expects anyone walking down the street to stop, admire, chat, stroke etc. Cally draws the line at cuddling, but Suki positively encourages it. I`ve seen one of the street regulars (male) wearing Suki like a stole; I`ve seen hardened tattooed men stop to fuss her. Floozy!

2) Never being wrong - Her most endearing/infuriating/saucy/outrageous trick is reserved for when she`s pushed the boundary of cat/human relationship, by deciding to climb all over the dining table . When told "Suki, no" in a firm voice, does she get off the table? Laugh or sneer? No, she plays her ace, IMMEDIATELY rolling over onto her back, (still on the table, you gather), paws up in the air. It`s utterly impossible to tell this cat off.

Dont be fooled. If the Krays had been female, and er, cats, no, no this will never work; it`s too brutal and not at all right. Let`s just say that the Tortie Twins rule this street. All other cats, and there are many around, pale by comaprison. These cats have character. In fact they have several, being reincarnated actors or something. ENOUGH of the cat soppiness already. Sponsor Dave! Click on this posting`s title to be taken to his website, and learn a bit more about what he`s doing ...

The Fate of the Universe*

2010-08-19T22:37:00.005+01:00

`The Universe is likely to grow forever`
the headline says, but before we celebrate -
if that`s the correct response - it`ll end up
`a cold, dead wasteland` with `a temperature
approaching what scientists call absolute zero`.

A few things strike me about this what journalists call
story; 1) the word `likely` - is this the same likely
as a) I`m likely to die one day, or b)
I`m likely to end up penniless if I keep writing
or c) diabetes is the likely result
if I keep eating crap?

And what about `forever` - does that mean
into infinity, infinitely? Is that even likely?
Then there`s that kerazee scientific mumbo-jumbo -
`absolute zero` – wow, a new one on me,
but it`ll be alright as the temperature is only
approaching absolute zero, so

it wont actually be that.

*http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11030889

A bit about dads (okay, it`s a sonnet)

2010-08-15T20:00:00.004+01:00

Yes, there are truly vile fathers, but they aren`t what you`d ever call dads.

Dads are tolerated, hardly cool
unless somebody else`s kid dares say it.
They`re total idiots who act the fool
as if they really weren`t one, or they play it
psycho like the gym teacher at school
still does in their nightmares. Either way it
sucks. They can`t win what isn`t a game.
Even the nomenclature`s against `em.
Dad rhymes with mad, bad, sad. It`s a crap name
though crappier is `part time`. That tag paints `em
blacker than the doorstep they`ll never darken
again unless such DIY`s invited
by the holy mum. Mostly it`s park `n`
drop then back to the rented flat, benighted.

The Pleasure of Being a Partypooper

2010-08-10T21:02:00.010+01:00

Fireworks tonight. I`m not attending.
Not due to an excess of curmudgeonliness
I think. I hope. Are you wanting a because?
Because I dont have one. Call it selfishness.
Call it pot pourri or creeping flies -
it makes no difference. Excuses suck.

Excuses suck. My juices are finite.
I know the point past which all else is husk.
I`ve just started to find a source of sauce
to keep me trickling onward. Happy? Yes
I am this now of no pressing demands.
The oo`s and ah`s of fireworks are yours.

I wish you joy with them. I wish you stars
in gold and silver falling like good thoughts
on stilly waters where they hiss and sink
like hot coins to the seabed of best yet.
All I ask is let me stay at home
blind and deaf to all that razzmatazz.

I miss singing

2010-07-24T19:57:00.007+01:00

In the past, when unable to write, I made mosaics, played the clarinet, or sang, and if not all at once then at least two. (If you`re actually reading this I will leave you to figure out the permutations.) Today I am getting back to the idea of being and doing those things I love.

The big red flag ( re missing myself) went up the other night, while watching the BBC Proms. I experienced Shostakovich in a way it would be ridiculous to ignore . The 7th symphony, `Leningrad`, moved me in in a way I can only hope all magnificent art shifts anyone ... not in a simple fashion, but by grabbing hold of whatever best imitates a collar these days, and rattling it so that the stupid skeleton goes into overclack. I sat on the edge of my seat during the first movement, and laughed, as I laugh when inexplicably airborne on a particularly cruel fairground ride which wont stop. After appreciating the humour of the composer`s Stalinist repressed but anyway gall or somesuch, I found that the violins in the fourth movement pulled me to and fro to tears, and then during the finale pushed me to a kind of terror of the soul at the idea of war, if that isnt wet being second-hand as an experience, which it may be.
Last night I played my clarinet for the first time in months. Tonight I listened to Mikis Theodorakis` musical (choral) interpretarion of Neruda`s `Canto General`, and I felt an exuberance put on hold for some time. I dunno why. Life gets in the way of remembering goodness perhaps.
The upshot of which - I miss this kind of engagement with the world. When I used to sing with the choir a kind of all-health came over or upon me, and I want that again. Engaging with music on any level is absolutely good for you. Being in/side it, is as good as this life gets.

p.s. click on the post title ... it`s a link to something beautiful and bigger

A Poet Roaming Abroad

2010-06-22T10:38:00.015+01:00

I`ve been invited to run some poetry workshops at Devon County Council`s HQ, in the fair city of Exeter, on Mon 28th and Tues 29th June, as part of a course entitled Perspectives, which is, as far as I can gather, an event to raise awareness regarding equality and diversity. I have decided to be a roaming poet, with a basket of wares aimed at encouraging other viewpoints, my take on the event being, there`s always more than one way to look at anything, from skinning a cat to cooking a goose, not that I advocate the former, or know much about performing the latter, except it probably involves Delia Smith somehow. Even making your bed and lying on it is open to a myriad of variables, which I now see as such a profoundly complicated series of actions I may have to go and lie down on my bed, which isn`t even made yet, to have a small poetic rest.
I am wondering what a roaming poet wears; something functional like a Ray Mears-ish bushcraft get up? A simple toga, to imply dignity and learning? A grubby frill-laden shirt open to the waist, with equally grubby breeches, and a studied pallor? This last strikes me as far too unhealthy for any serious roaming about. I think gypsy`s the way to go, but I`m not sure if that contravenes any equality and diversity policy regarding stereotyping, and it`s unlikely I`ll be able to find a willing horse anyway... (pause)... Sometimes I feel very old indeed ...

It`s seriously sunny outside. I have a relatively free week ahead, now the Open University exam is done, and my regular work has finished until September. This has allowed me to start reading, for the first time in many months, a book chosen for no useful or instructive purpose. It`s Annie Proulx`s (when and why did she drop the E.?)`Fine Just the Way It Is`, a collection of shorts which my sister very kindly gave me after we`d had a bit of a fiction discussion. I think I thought Annie Proulx was god for a while, but reading these I have found my reverence slipping, though she still does that brutal non-sentimental thing whereby you have to go back and read a page again, to confirm that a main character actually did just die, and you hadn`t imagined/misunderstood it. But because this is so much a trademark of her story-telling, it has started to annoy me. I`m not sure I`ll ever feel the same about her prose as I do Raymond Carver`s ... now I`m scared to read Carver again in case this too has gone off the boil for me. I love/d? Carver because he manages/d to create worlds with such grace and economy of language. And the last time I read the `Ultramarine` poems was maybe 15/16 years ago... (pause) ... I am pretty old, yes ... but still remember the earwiggy cake with awe.

Enjoy the sun!

O Bugger

2010-05-12T16:26:00.011+01:00

What is it with the BBC`s moody picture of Clegg n Cameron looking as if they were carved out of Grand Canyon rock ? I am not happy. Does anyone really think this coalition will last? Achieve? Earn trust? And suddenly these two public schoolboys are statesmen? Really Britain, I had expected more. I suppose I could pretend to go along with the "new kind of politics" squeakiness, but I`m too long in the tooth for that kind of guff. And wasn`t there only a 55% turnout? And what about those queueing to vote, who didn`t get the chance?

2.5 million unemployed, a huge budget deficit, a land that cant compete in a global economy based on how many toasters/fridges/cars anyone can sell to anyone else... A lack of long-term worthwhile skills, useless training which only benefits the trainers, o yes I could drone on and on about how rubbish it all is.

My own sister once challenged me, in an argument about what was then the poll tax, to shut up or stand as an independent ... in other words, shut up. But how can I cope with the knowledge that PLYMOUTH has defiled its own nest, by electing Oliver Coleman Mustard or some such to represent a city with no easily forseeable future, which was bad enough under Labour, but now a kind of joke or virus even after the populace has voted mostly Tory ... The city centre is failing, I mean, the city centre has it`s new mall, and the rest of the traders can weep and wail. In base Capitalist terms Plymouth has the Drake Circus shopping centre, and not much else. All I can say is thank the something up there or not for the University, because for me, this represents hope for the future, based on youth and aspiration and a different way of seeing even if squeezed in vision by funding hoops and target driven education. Despite this. If the youth who want more were to be edged out of this city, it would die. It`s already more than half dead. Why doesn`t anyone get this?

Okay, so the future is revolutionary. According to my artist daughter, this is so. It may become the case on the street as opposed to in a world of ideas. We dont have that much to hold on to anymore. We have a weird thing with two disparate political parties holding hands like incompetent teenagers outside /inside No 10. Having watched the political debates in the election run-up, I find it all rather shocking, in as far as these men have GIVE ME POWER written large in psychic ink on their horribly underdeveloped foreheads. Nobody can give them the power they are asking for. It isn`t about votes. It`s some kind of dumb twattiness and I apologise for not having the correct form of awfulness at my fingertips` disposal. A dumb twattiness that has left the electorate with nowhere to go that makes any sense to anyone.

I am not happy. I will ride it, like everyone else who gives a flying wotsit.

Books! Books! and some fluffy spotty fabric

2010-03-26T16:26:00.007Z

Two new anthologies with very different agendas -

`Identity Parade: New British and Irish Poets` edited by Roddy Lumsden -

(I have some poems in it, as it happens)

http://www.bloodaxebooks.com/titlepage.asp?isbn=1852248394

and `From Hepworths Garden Out`edited by Rupert Loydell -

http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/catalog/2010/hepworth.html

an eclectic selection of poems about Barabara Hepworth`s work, the sculpture garden in St Ives, St Ives and art and St Ives artists ...

There`s been some lively comment/fisticuffs and turned cheeks about Roddy Lumsden`s selection for Identity Parade. I dunno how to respond. I`m mulling it over. I think I`m the `older white previously neglected English female poet` if we have to do p.c. which we dont. I merely mention the fact that a particular male black poet was pretty mad about the whole thing. I`m just grateful to be `out there`, as it were. (Politics? Moi?)

The fleecey spotty fabric pic is to allow you to see exactly what I spent about a week sewing curtains from for Wispy the Caravan. Wispy is now all done up in multi-coloured finery, and I defy you to mutter that making curtains out of fleece is even slightly odd. I have my reasons.

I am not prepared to share them at this time. Thank you.

I mean ...

2010-03-26T16:17:00.003Z

... you cant keep pretending everything`s alright not if you`ve got one single grey cell that isn`t already dying of drugs drink disease debt divorce and the constant dum dum dumbing of dopes and deadbeats - and that`s just Devon

Great Hair; Bad Teeth

2010-03-24T09:53:00.009Z

O Plymouth! I will never love you in an instinctive way. What I feel, gazing back at you from the top of Donkey Lane, toward the Hamoaze as it winds past the Type 45`s and Crayola tower blocks of Demport, is glad to be by the seaside, far enough removed to love you in a generalised, intellectual manner, like a photograph of some dotty, cruel, old Aunt who is dead. You send me mixed messages; `Love and look after me for I am helpless!`, and `Dont even think about feeling sorry for me or I`ll punch your head in, and might punch it in anyway, just for the hell of it.`

It ocurred to me that the only authentic way to love this city would be to move into North Prospect, where every other house has piled it`s old furniture in the garden to rot, but equally and confusingly, every other house to that has lovingly colour-schemed it`s rendering with the window boxes, picket fencing and tubs of spring bulbs. One ex-authority/council house I pass regularly has morphed into a delightful cottage. It`s raspberry pink, with a gothic trellis arch over the front doorway, and years worth of cared-for clematis and honeysuckle partially screening mullioned panes. Kitsch, ridiculous maybe, but so loved it makes my heart do a funny hiccup.

But what about the folk who live in this place? This is another difficulty. In Toni Morrison`s Beloved the sense of dispossession and fractured or missing identity is palpable. I think it`s the only book I`ve ever read which deals with issues of lost culture, heritage, birthright, self and the rest, as something shared rather than thrown at the reader. The idea of having to create an identity or way to be out of such (psychic and actual) violence, with a past that enslaves everyone, regardless of race, is something I can transfer to here and now. I do transfer it. To the majority of Plymouth`s residents. Radical? Maybe. I`m not confusing issues of race with poverty, but the negative effects of deprivation on the soul of a city are evident. Deprivation isn`t just about cash flow. It`s about imagining, and that`s what Toni Morrison seems keen to encourage, as her character Baby Suggs (holy) warns the folk gathered in the clearing; `the only grace they could have was the grace they could imagine...if they could not see it, they would not have it.`Serious stuff.

The dock yard is pretty much done. The houses of the area huddle and cling, limpetlike, but the life inside those houses is different now. And the vast swathes of authority housing stock, especially the squat grey hulks called flats, are victims of a lack of imagining also. It appears that there`s not much grace in Demport, Keyham, Ham or Swilly. But then there are the painted window boxes ... It`s a difficult equasion. Outside one of the old dock gates, a grubby pub advertising, on a skewed slip of A4 :`Topless from 6pm every evening.` The word `topless` has a dot in the centre of the `O`. It makes me wish So Much I were a man, so`s to be able to go in there and see who is the person doing this sad job of work. Can it be true? What is that like? Can you imagine it, really? The kind of pub where you know the average punter would say things like `Don`t get yer tit in me beer luv` and think that was amusing. Grace? And yet...

The youth must be keen to have a future, mustn`t they? The F.E. college is overflowing with trainee hairdressers and mechanics and chefs. The hair and beauty brigade can be seen every day, marshalling forces at bus stops, their brightly coloured wheelie cases shaking the pavements as they pass. Which brings me to the title of this posting; great hair, bad teeth. This would be the average alien`s postcard home from Plymouth. Every third shop is a hairdressers or beauty salon, but smiling is just not an option, as it`s far too costly. First there`s the rotten teeth and then the cost to the psyche. I know this isn`t all true or even factually correct, but that`s not what I`m doing here. Anyway I`m going now. Goodbye.

Vanessa`s Race for Life

2010-02-22T14:29:00.004Z

This is my daughter`s fundraising page - go there and if you feel moved to, give money!

Spelling ... what fun!

2010-02-18T18:13:00.006Z

The past few weeks I have found myself saving (making note of, writing down,)`creative spellings`. The best sources are Gumtree (private ads), and the Plymouth Herald discussion boards online. When I say best, you`ll have to enter my world for a moment, if you please.

Here are the Top 3 from the past week:

Exeserys -

Neckless - (for sale, so you have the right context)

and the crowning glory - Crionfion, or Crhythaim, as two very very overly-excited spellings of the same word. These appeared on a web debate about the dismantling of the diving platform on the Hoe seafront. I`ll leave you with these, and see how you fare.

The platform`s disappearance from the Hoe front is a bit upsetting. I liked to stand there watching the boys leap into the air - an act of freedom and defiance plus a whole lot of adrenalin-filled fun, I imagine. Apparently even if the city council were to place a huge board on the platform declaring

USE AT YOUR OWN RISK

this would not absolve them from legal responsibility for any broken bones ... What a bloomin` shame. So the on-line debate moved to and fro between the angry boys and supporters of the`deskbangers`, as one platform jumper neatly summed up the grey men, a clan to which he hoped never ever in his as yet dim and distant (o just scrap the distant) adult days to belong.

The main concern now the platform has gorn ? The boys will jump from other places even more dangerous. They wont stop jumping just `cos the board`s not there. And they wont. I`ve seen `em fly over my head off the top of the Mayflower Steps, which shocked me for several reasons, the most obvious being I wasn`t expecting to see flying boys over my head anywhere ever, apart from maybe in drug-addled reveries which I have yet to experience. So, being a flying boy virgin, it unnerved me as they plummetted over the side of what appeared to be a wide set of jutting stone steps into fairly shallow water, dropping at an awkward angle which could very easily be misjudged. Ouch.

Consider what`s wrong with this sentence :

When the boys line up and jump off the platform, people applaud; it`s exciting!

Yeah, it`s present tense. Darn. No more leaping and whooping and showing off to the girls. No more naughty boy blood-rush. Okay, it`s dangerous if you jump when the tide`s a bit low. Most people didn`t do this. Boys have been jumping off that platform for seventy-odd years. Big big sighhhh.

So now it`s gone, the jumpers will be looking to prove they can`t be stopped, and where will they jump from? Ah yes! The Crionfion! The Chrysanthemum! The Crumhorn! I mean the Crinthayn, Corbethine, Corblimeyguvnorian, the wall wot is at the side of that posh place ware the boats go out of; the yot club wot is yclepped The CORINTHIAN. Strueth!

The World is Chocka with Wonderous Things

2010-01-27T21:39:00.008Z

Or should that be `chocka of`, seeing as chocka is shorthand for chock full? It is one of those problems much like `comprises` or `comprised of`, though slightly less annoying than the apparent trend for `fed up with` as`fed up of`. Still, the world has produced for me two wonders in a night (last night) being
1) a moon with spectral coloured rings - a whitish inner glow surrounded by growing bands of orange, navy, green and red. A moon corona and possibly halo too. I don`t believe this is something I`ve ever seen before... Then I came inside to watch Iain Stewart (Prof.) on tv, and was struck dumb with awe by the sight him striding across
2) a living rubber tree bridge! A thing so entirely beautiful it made me want to applaud, in that weird way humans do when unable to express adequate er, awe. (This is something I was party to at the solar eclipse in August `99 - when the sun reappeared, everyone clapped and hooted, as if at a cosmic gig). This bridge is in league with the local villagers, who wrap emerging roots round each other to strengthen the structure. Click on the post title above for a link to a root bridges blog, if you missed Iain Stewart`s programme or havent been to Northeast India lately.

Finally, Casper the Cat * who departed this world a few short weeks ago, has become so famous he has his own Facebook page or fan club or both, plus sacks of fan mail (or rather `sad to hear you are dead` mail) from around the world, and now he`s got a posthumous book deal . As you read this, he`s being ghost (!)written and sketched into a series of stories about his travels - but will they be set in Plymouth haha? It`ll be a cartoon series next, for sure. Shame he`s not around to enjoy all the glory. Ah well, fame would have made him intolerable, and before you know it he`d have been cruising up and down Alma Rd in the back of a pink stretch limo.

*That`s Casper, fluffy black`n`white feline of First bus non-paying passenger fame, mentioned in a previous blog. Pay attention!

Wormholes and The Aristocracy

2010-01-22T20:56:00.015Z

This is the title of my latest essay, which features Lord Byron as a burglar `high on a cocktail of drugs` breaking into a pasty shop in Plymouth.

I`m reading Don-Juan-rhymes-with-true-one, which is what all the textbooks seem keen to call Byron`s epic. The essay I have to write is a `compare and contrast` affair, and the poem with which I am supposed to be comparing and contrasting a few stanzas of Don Juan is a bit of an ear-bashing by Charlotte Dacre. I have made lots of notes. The actual argument eludes me.

I`ve discovered that the ability to string paragraphs together and make a coherent, intelligent case which moves seamlessly toward an end neither too creative, challenging or faintly wrong, has evaporated, or maybe I was kidding myself all those years ago in the days when I used to write in notebooks for hours, philosophising and making poems, plus passing exams with gusto at the drop of a flag. My scores are falling with each assignment. I feel like a winkle on the end of a pin. (No, I dont mean I feel like eating one. What a disgusting idea.)

Last night I had a dream where I wrote my essay, or rather I was speaking aloud the plan/argument/thing. Perhaps I was dictating it to a cowering secretary. I may have been delirious... This no doubt top-scoring plan didnt survive the night, so I`m back to square one.

For the past two weeks I`ve had the pleasure of sitting in on lectures about writing essays. You`d think I`d have found this helpful. Sadly, nay.The tutor is very sharp and even has a name to match, which for obvious reasons I can`t spell out here. He introduced himself by telling all present "I can`t abide sniffing." He said he didnt mind us talking among ourselves, or our phones going off, but sniffers were to be handed hankies and if that didnt fix the problem he`d have the miserable offender heaved out of a window. No, he didnt say that last bit, but he had the look of a desperate man. Five minutes later my phone went off (o the shame ) and I hurried out of the room as best I could, having to squish past a dozen legs and bags, only to get to the door before realising my phone was in my coat, which was hanging on the back of the chair I`d vacated. So I hurried back past the row of legs and bags, to reach my phone just as it stopped ringing. The sharp lecturer`s face was steely in the wan daylight, and his eyes, o let me not recall those eyes...
I believe he must have been telling a porkie about not minding phones going off. Or had failed to imagine anyone could be so ignorant. As for essay writing tips, I can reveal that there are many don`ts, avoids, nevers and that`s a fail. It was a little dispiriting. It still is.

Casper is dead! Casper, you know, the cat that queued up for the bus, went for a little ride into town and back, then waited to get off at his stop... A victim of a hit and run. We mourn him.(Who couldn`t love a cat with mental health problems?)

Back to Byron - what a show-off! What a manipulative cleverclogs! Why cant I write opinions like this in my essay? Because I have to be serious, and prove I are thinking for myself by referencing every opinion I may have, initially, had the interest to develop. Referencing, so I can show that my new-spun opinion was someone elses first. O, that`s too harsh and not true either. However (please note, `however` is an essay no-no according to Mr Steely Sharpman) in the past, when I used to do philosophy in A5 notebooks, brain bursting with things I`d posited, worked out, and got high on actually understanding, I`d phone a friend (though of course they arent my friends now) and share this wonder with them only to be told, "Oh yeah, you should read Descartes; that`s Descartes. He wrote about that in 1641." Comedown? Yeah, like totally.

toofausn n ten innit

2010-01-14T10:44:00.018Z

It`s my first posting of the New Year, so many Happy whatevers and so far it`s been cheery enough. Now most of the snow has turned to slush, the local `news` paper has reverted to its usual format of reporting only muggings and beatings and drug-addled burglaries. `High on a cocktail of drugs` must be the single most overused phrase in print. Usually this means the offender has had too much White Lightning and several joints, but anyway, this is not to condone drugtaking or robbery or anything remotely morally suspect, only to counter the newspaper`s unhelpful and unintelligent scaremongering.

My favourite drug story from last year was about a chap who broke into a pasty shop, `high on a cocktail of drugs`, who subsequently stumbled about a bit, rearranged the pasties on the shelf, then left. What a pleasant world that man must live in! We do get some upbeat stories, if it`s not stretching the definition too much to call them that, like the one featuring a cow in the road. The story centred on the fact that a cow ... had actually been seen ... o my the suspense!... in the road. The headline of this story was something like - WOULD YOU HEIFER BELIEVE IT? The reporter (is that the right title?), his/her determination never to be called a quitter certainly worth a story, interviewed a woman who had witnessed this cow, and she said "I was walking down the street when I saw this cow ... in the road! I called (who did she call? the social services? fire brigade? Samaritans? I cant remember) .... but when they got here, it had gone." That was the story. Brilliant!

Enough of that. I`ve been away with a Romantic poetess and here she is - Helen Maria Williams (1762 - 1827) -and we`ve had quite an interesting time. She showed me her poem addressed to her friend Dr Moore, and I made a few suggestions ... there was a bit of a scansion hiccough, I felt, at line 29, which needed attention.

This morning I was counting iambs and anapaests, hearing in my head at the time a great line I`d noted down previously from the tv news. (Seriously, it was really good.) A serendipitous occasion, as it was a near perfect prompt for me to write a poem, something I havent done for quite some time. I have the line, I have the form, I have the sense of where it`s going, but I still havent written it. What is that called? Is there a name for this condition of not quite writing it out? Is it laziness, fear, or ineptitude? Has my poetry muscle atrophied? This is what I do indeed fear. But as for this morning, sitting in bed next to VJB, tapping out metrical feet while naming them aloud, but quietly so as not to appear too entirely gaga, VJB ( he puts up with a lot to be honest) actually thought I was muttering the Sex Pistols, which is a weird enough idea in itself; mutter and Sex Pistols being unlikely bedfellows. But no weirder than me muttering `iamb, iamb, anapaest` and VJ hearing me doing an elders version of Anarchy in the UK. What he heard was `I am an antichrist`. Well my dears, I very nearly had a nasty accident. Toodlepip!

"Language is what there is always more of"

2009-12-17T15:02:00.010Z

Thanks Terry, for that title quote. That`s Terry Eagleton, the Marxist lit critic and all round cheeky chap. There are several great quotes in his `How to Read a Poem`. I have found myself laughing aloud, wondering at the same time if that`s the right kind of behaviour when trying to improve my mind.

Dear Terry,

It`s not easy to imagine Heidegger sporting an iPod, but it is possible. I like to picture him with a pink one, shuffling dysrhythmically from foot to foot at a chilly bus stop to Groove Armada`s `I See You Baby`.

My reading material is as unlikely perhaps. The aforementioned `How to ....` alongside

`Whizz for Atomms` by Geoffery Willans and Ronald Searle.

Dear Terry,

It`s not easy to imagine such an incongruous combination, but that`s what I was reading last night.

The Willans/Searle book is more of an illustrated comic type thing which found me in a charity shop. On flicking through prior to coughing up the sum of 50p I remembered Molesworth with some fondness. This news, if news it can be called, and if it then manages to reach the ears of this particular reknowned academic, will shock Terry Eagleton, for its evident betrayal of the working class, being a small paperback which revolves around the daydreams of a public schoolboy and his wet n weedy chums. It surpises me too, as I`m certainly working class and definitely female, so the world portrayed here of naughty boys doing Latin prep is as exotic as a night in Soho during the 50s. (Why the 50s? Because London was less cynical then? Certainly I wouldnt have been there, being too young at the time, so that will have to suffice as a justification for supposed exoticism).

Talking of naughty boys, VJB has an endearing/infuriating gift for being innocent when proven guilty. His defence is always the same: It wasnt me, it was two other boys. The fact that there are two other guilty parties cracks me up. Thereby am I robbed of any chance to apportion blame, with that monosyllabic dollop of pure sauce. It has occurred to me more than once how glad I am that I did not have to endure any lessons seated next to said villain. If fate had conspired to send us to the same school, I`d have had even less education than I received at the time (which wasnt much, to be honest) as no doubt I`d have spent most of my days being sent out of the classroom, for laughing. (I think that did happen though?)

Chizz chizz

(Can somebody much posher please explain what the hell that`s supposed to mean? Cheers)

n.b. (Latin, you swot Tappers!) The Compleet Molesworth as portrayed isnt what I`m reading, but Whizz for Atomms has no image available at that v famous bookselling site, and I`m not trawling all day on the net for a pic. So yah boo etc etc

12 daze of chrissmess

2009-12-08T17:47:00.004Z

Twelve good things about Christmas:
1) it`s finished at midnight on 25th December
2) ...
...d`you know I swear I dreamed this list last night but now can`t recall any more of it. It must have been a very truncated dream, as I was asleep for only two and a half hours last night. I went to bed very tired, then lay like a log staring at the ceiling for an hour, then got up, had some milk, mooched from room to room downstairs trying not to see mice ( they`re BACK!) brushed my teeth again, then lay like a log staring at the ceiling till about 2.30a.m. There then followed a period of rolling from my left hip staring out at the night sky, onto my stomach, then over to my right hip, and then onto my back to stare at the ceiling again. I think I became an expert at this sequence after a while and was revolving pretty much in one smooth manouvre for quite some time. Last glance at the clock before oblivion = 4a.m. The alarm went off at 6.30 and I couldnt open my eyes properly for about an hour which made getting dressed rather interesting.

At noon today, in my ill-matched socks and back-to-front jumper, I fell asleep in a lecture ( ah it was so cosy!) at least ten times. This is how drivers kill themselves.

Back to Christmas :
2) decorating the tree - but yesterday searching for my tree decs I found I had none, and sort of half remember last year having a fit of `ban it! I refuse to play` which involved giving all the tree baubles and tinsel away to a charity shop. I did what I could with a bargain bag of chocolate decorations. There were ten assorted chocolate snowmen, Santas , little forest scenes, and pretend glass globes. Whilst tying the decorations in place two of them suffered rips to the tin foil which meant they parted company with the gold string, and dropped to the floor. I had no choice but to eat them. Rather nice for cheap chocolate too. After a quick rummage in the attic, trying not to see mice, (they`re BACK! Did I say) I discovered I`d kept five beautiful sequinned stars from the old decs, presumably because they were Nice Things, plus the pom pom Christmas pudding with felt leaves and berries Vanessa made when she was about six. So that`s my tree. And I`ve put it up early, yes. But the incessant rain and darkness has made us feel a bit stir crazy, and the tree helps brighten things up. I dont give the chocolate decs very good odds for surviving till Christmas Day though.

n.b. Two things you should NEVER leave in my care; Ritz crackers, and chocolate.

So ... that`s my twelve good things. (Obviously, the other ten are secret.)

Speeded Up Time

2009-11-25T18:06:00.002Z

Or relative time, as it may be called. Whatever, the day has sped past on a ridiculous tide of administrative tasks, which I wouldnt mind, if they were all caused by moi. (Lie; I would mind.
I hate admin.)
Oo- weird moment - next door`s flirty cat is sitting on a table beside me playing with a rose quartz pendulum, diviner, plumb bob or something although I should know as it`s mine but I digress Big Time. Now she`s laying on her back looking up at me with huge googley eyes - and I`m supposed to think while this is happening?
ANYWAY, today I have made phone calls to the dentist, the tax office, the hairdressers, my daughter, Student Finance (on her behalf), downloaded a heap of forms, bought a washing machine online, made a very long curtain out of two shorter ones, attempted to hang same but found I`m too short even atop a tall step ladder so currently awaiting team of fantasy tailors to stitch another three feet in height to my frame, sorted out my expenses which included wielding a miniscule stapler, written two letters and several e-mails.
Small but nonetheless slightly irritating comedy moment - next door`s flirty cat has just leapt onto the table beside me, dislodging an avalanche of paperwork, and is at this second trying to get into the wardrobe.
I should point out that today I`m not actually `at work`.
I think we`re supposed to be shopping for food tonight. I think this wont be happening. I think I`d rather go on a very sparse diet, starting now.

Gothic Synchronicity

2009-11-22T17:44:00.013Z

The past few weeks I have been subsumed by all things Frankensteinian. Here at Villa Tappenburg I`ve had to fight the urge to deck the halls with boughs of lightning blasted fir, draped with tarantula web and glistening gobbets of crushed snail. The weather hasn`t helped, being early darkness, gale force winds, lashings of heavy rain. Nor the fact that the master of our creekside abode is named Victor.

During the dreary evenings, I`ve read Mary Shelley`s 1818 Frankenstein, plus Peter Ackroyd`s 2008 Casebook of Victor Frankenstein, which seemed quite hung up on electrified phalluses and couldnt decide if it were Dickens, what with the improbably named Fred Shoeberry running about with dishes of chops and gravy. I also watched Francis Ford Coppola`s 1994 Mary Shelley`s Frankenstein, which comprises many scenes starring Kenneth Branagh`s chest, and a strange arrrangement of what appear to be writhing scrotal sacks suspended over a copper bath. The creature, otherwise known as Robert de Niro, had his lip stitched up in a permanent sneer, but that`s not too far out of the way, I guess. I think choosing John Cleese, however, as Ingoldstat University`s Dr Waldman was extremely risky, because even with him barely disguised by false teeth it`s deuced hard to hear his voice and not expect a comedy routine.

The final straw came when a cd of Philip Glass arrived in the post, ( I mean this came to my house - it wasnt part of the film) and listening to Changing Opinions I found I was also aware of `an electrical hum in the room`. Yes, so much so that when a man called by to do a Mori poll and I agreed to let him in , as otherwise I`d have no excuse not to do my essay, he sat at the table becoming ever more disctracted, until he could contain himself no longer, and asked if I too could smell burning? I could. I have no idea where it was coming from, and can offer no explanation. My neighbour is still alive; the fire brigade didnt turn up later the same afternoon, and the smell faded after the Mori poll man left. Was it him? He was soaked through with rain; could it have been his own bodily electricity making the house stink of fritzing wiring? I may never know.

Another Gothic moment came back to me recently, on a wave of Kate Bush :
My eldest daughter, at a table spread with pencils and paper, deeply involved in a gloomy storm of creativity, her arm vibrating wildly as she hatches everything round with black ... Suddenly
Sat in Your Lap is playing. I`m at the other end of the room, typing equally manically, and hear myself saying aloud, "I bet you dont get many requests for this one at the local karaoke...." We laughed for O at least a minute. Now click on the title of this post for a YouTube treat.

memory malfunction

2009-11-13T14:58:00.003Z

You want to know where I`ve been of late? (No, I know you dont, but play the game with me for goodness sake). It`s not very mysterious. I forgot my password. When I say password, it sounds like there`s only one, doesnt it? HAHAHAHAHA sorry - that was a teensy bit hysterical.
I have many many passwords, PIN numbers, safes, lockers, secret tunnels behind bookcases, bunches of keys, all that. Why? Because Someone wants to get into my private places, and that isnt a cause for sniggering at the back there young Snirtblinder (Snirtblinder? Where the hell did that come from?). It is an mattermostserious. That`s serious matter in cod studious, to you.
Anyway. It is very very difficult for me to remember these codes and combinations. So I was locked out of this site for a while. I confess that I did feel like a rather lucky hacker for a few minutes though, in an espionage thriller starring Liam Neeson or Harrison Ford, and me the predictably bespectacled bit part geek.

Also, I have been busy. Do you know the kind of busy? The busy you get when you`re supposed to be writing an essay or reading something worthy? Well, that. I`m now running low on ploys, having resorted to writing my blog as a means to avoid study. I have to get me to a ploy shop pronto. That`ll take the rest of the afternoon for certain, what with searching for a likely retail outlet via Google Map, then finding myself scooting round Bristol or doing the birds eye thing and staring like a virtual (and wierdly stationary) sparrow-spy along a road where someone I used to know years ago once lived ....

The weather here in Plymouth is starting to go a bit crazy. This is the forecast : BIG STORM. So dont be out in a boat of you can help it. Dont even go outside. Do my essay for me instead.

my friend yourself

2009-10-21T16:42:00.002+01:00

A woman at a bus stop is pouring broken eggs from a half-dozen box into the waste bin. What does this mean?

OR

You got the new job. Glory hallelujah. You`re trying to draw out as little as possible from your overdraft, as there are weeks to go before you get that first pay cheque. Even so, you find you need to get things today, which means using your debit card (again!) in a local Spar. You make up the £5 minimum purchase with 6 eggs, as you dont have any eggs at home, and intend to use them during the week ahead in various cheap but nutritious recipes. You put these eggs into your backpack, secured by paperwork and stuff, and go to the lecture theatre, which is after all where you`re meant to be.
You enjoy the lecture, which is if anything a little too informative. Hardly a problem. Afterwards you head for the bus home, and stop to rummage for your purse in preparation. The bag is sticky. Further investigastion reveals two broken eggs from the six bought earlier. You lift out the box, and just as you are pouring the viscous contents into the nearest waste receptacle, the lecturer of the lecture you just sat in on appears in front of you. You do not acknowledge her presence. She does not acknowledge yours. You know she has seen you pouring broken eggs into a bin. You know she knows who you are. She gets onto her bus. You wait for yours. What does this mean?

Misheard Lyric/s

2009-10-18T22:39:00.011+01:00

A friend of mine is compiling a list of misheard lyrics. He once showed me a teletext version of a song he loved, having videoed it with the text facility turned on, as he genuinely enjoyed its inventiveness. It was incomprehensible. I cant remember the song or the mistaken lyric, but I`ll reproduce it here if said friend sends it to me. One of which I have always been fond (misheard lyric, not the song): Tina Turner`s Steamy Windows, where `radio blasting in the front seat` becomes `randy old bastard in the front seat`. This appeals because it is 1) neat, and 2) plausible.

Late Friday evening, BBC4 were showing one of those music programmes they seem to be fond of, which are actually tests of endurance. They`re very interesting, but always overlong. Anyway, having seen this programme was a potted (hah!) history of Brit synth pop, or maybe it was music, (by the end of the programme I`d forgotten, it was that far back in time) I was all agog. The programme started out with Emerson Lake and Palmer, shot through Roxy Music to Human League, passing through Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle, halted at Gary Numan and Heaven 17, sped on through Depeche Mode, calling at Georgio Moroder, Soft Cell, OMD,
Pet Shop Boys, Eurythmics, Yazoo, Ultravox, New Order, oh I was pretty tired by now and heading for the sleeper carriage. The end of the line should really have been La Roux. But it ended somewhere in the 90s, I think. (I`m already confusing two programmes with each other. They were shown `back to back`, but it was the same topic.)

The upshot of this night`s futuristic sound wobbling off and on was a deep deep desire to drag out all my old vinyl and cassettes and indulge in a mammoth nostalgia fest. Instead, I dragged myself to bed. In the morning, I dragged out all my old vinyl and cassettes, and indulged in a mammoth nostalgia fest. It was bloomin ace.

On Human League`s Travelogue there`s a track with a lyric that sounds like a cut-up, or else Messrs Ware and Oakey were on something nasty. I`m talking about Crow and A Baby. Listening intently was VJB, who missed a lot of John Peel`s demo babies growing up (or dying young, as the case may have been, and often was). His excuse for having no knowledge of The Slits or New Model Army being he was somewhere far more healthy during the late 70`s - early 80`s. When it came to the bit about `mushrooms growing from your back/feeding some damn carrion bird` what he actually heard was `mushrooms growing from your back/feeding some damn Carry On bird`. His ensuing look of bewilderment, priceless, while trying to place Babs or Hatti into the story.

Star Stuff

2009-10-16T16:29:00.004+01:00

This is a true story. That is to say, I did watch a programme about the Hubble telescope, made notes, and lost them. It`s not true in the sense that many Creative Writing students say things they`ve written are true. This is not an attempt at recreating any real event. O poo, let`s not go to that place ... just read the poem.

Black Hole Poem Gone Wrong

I was going to change my name to Stella Explosion
and undergo intense spaghettification -
to disappear over my own event horizon
after suffering grave extremes of gravitation

I would have performed this violent transformation
in front of an audience of several million
via video via You Tube for their edification
for posterity too if deemed useful at all for further scientific investigation

but the scrap of A5 paper I`d scrawled my notes on
after watching BBC4 in association
with the Open University – the kind of programme
I ruin dinner for such is my admiration

has either been a) consumed by rodent infestation
or b) disappeared into another dimension

Did Sartre read Dickens?

2009-10-16T13:39:00.013+01:00

I ask, because I`m wondering in what sense are we free to reinvent ourselves, faced with what Robert Bly, when talking about our shadow selves*, calls the `long bag` of our past lives. I`ve often agreed that hell is other people, and can see that I can be anyone I want, in my own head. But to live it is another matter.

I`m reading Great Expectations for the first time, having previously steered clear due to the many film and tv adaptations seen. I do have distinct memories of reading both Little Dorrit and Bleak House, and recall being so shocked by Mr Merdle`s suicide I had to re-read this more than once, as I didnt understand what was happening. I mean I thought it couldnt be happening. (Yes, I know it wasnt real, but within that bubble the reader creates, it was all true.) I`m intrigued by how much of Dickens work revolves around characters being haunted by the past. So I`m with Pip, in his struggle to be more than his past will allow, and curious about Jean Paul`s attitude to this kind of seeming fatalism. If I`ve understood, then for Sartre, all choice starts with the dawn of self-awareness, and from that moment on we are free. This rankles. It makes me itchy. Because I want to know how that freedom can be acted upon, if the past has, let`s say, laid down neural pathways, just to be up-to-the-minute about it, which inform and affect behaviour to such an extent that the individual is imprisoned, in some sense. And that`s just on a personal level. Then think about the rigidity of human societies, and what might happen if freedoms acted upon are at odds with the status quo. Sartre would have none of it, I`m sure. Taking responsibility at a deep level takes committment and a large dollop of insight. Pip doesn`t appear to have these requirements, so his attempts to reinvent himself as a `gentleman` are doomed to fail. And anyway, is his claim to a supposed better/higher station in life even authentic? I guess, if you examine the hypocrisy surrounding English societal structure at the time of the novel`s setting, not. So Sartre wins this round.

Then I think it`s very hard to disprove Sartre. I end up feeling he`s wrong. Not sure this counts.

* Robert Bly `A Little Book on the Human Shadow`

Bus Rage

2009-10-09T15:32:00.006+01:00

Do you wish to travel by public transport? Are you loud, bullish, annoying, unreasonable and prepared to share your personality defects with anyone? Then why not become a bus driver, Today! The bus companies of Plymouth need You!

On Thursday I thought I was going to die, while being driven at top speed on a screeching bus through the streets of this fair city. I was the only passenger. This was the problem. The driver had been foiled in his attempt to get back to the depot and clock off with as few saps on board as possible. I was unceremoniously dumped at Derry`s roundabout, at the traffic lights, which I`m fairly sure is illegal as well as bloody unnerving. He didnt complete the route, by stopping at a bus stop in Royal Parade; he had far bigger and better things to be doing, like lancing the cat`s boil etc.

After quitting this driver`s warm, engaging company, I stomped up the street with arms in the air, gesticulating wildly to myself, thereby frightening other pedestrians unnecessarily. What I was actually asking was somewhat rhetorical; i.e. "what is wrong with everyone?" meaning, what was wrong with that particular driver, and the one I almost became acquainted with that very morning.

The morning episode involved waiting for half an hour for two of the same buses to arrive at once, then being told I would have to have a credit note for change of a tenner - (from a £3.30 fare? Is that an inconceivably large amount of change then?) or get off again. I got off the bus, and stomped down the road, seething quietly. You can see how the second episode of bus misery was one episode too many for me to contain.

All these irritations and rudenesses would have been as nothing to one so entirely reasonable as I, if it hadnt been for the fact that in the same week, I waited for over half an hour for a bus that didnt turn up, the knock-on effects of which meant I lost income to the tune of £40. Add to that the late morning debacle, which cost me £35 in lost earnings, and maybe you`re beginning to get an idea of the mayhem, nay, incipient poverty involved in going anywhere without my very own transport. Green? My arse.

I dont really want much. A bus that comes within 10 minutes either way of it`s appointed time. A seat, though I`ll stand if needs be. A cheery smile, or failing that just plain old courtesy. (It`s called Customer Service nowadays, apparently.) Why is this so FXXXXXX DIFFICULT???

a few friends I dont have

2009-09-28T10:27:00.006+01:00

Two weeks ago now (two weeks!!) the postie left an envelope which turned out to contain poetry - not the everyday yawning kind, but some delighfully subversive greetings cards, bearing legends such as`Andy Warhol is not your friend`. I was immediately happy about this ...

Here`s the opening of `Ad Reinhart is not your friend`:

"The point is that thinking about black

all day long will only get you depressed

or turn you into a goth. ..."

Of course, if you used to be a goth but got over it, thinking about black all day long could turn you back into one again. The authors of the poems inside were Rupert M. Loydell and Peter Gillies. Further investigation (an E-mail to R.M.L.) revealed there are quite a few of these poems which will no doubt soon be available in book form. Though I rather liked the idea of them as cards. Witty; elegant.

The A38 is not your friend, or mine. But for some reason it has, tucked away by the side of its oppressively long body, let`s say under its armpit just to make the whole idea of the A38 sound interesting, a green metal hut beneath a stand of fir trees, bearing the legend

EMERGENCY SIGN STORE.

Being, at the time I spotted this hut, trapped on the coach to Exeter, I was forced to ponder what this meant. Is it

a) a store, as in workshop/shop, where signs are made to order for any emergency - as in

"Here Nige, there`s been a stampede of giant frogs in Ashburton - knock us up a sign can yer?"

b) an emergency sign store, as in a store for signs IN an emergency, such as when Nige has lost the keys to the everyday sign store, or

c) a store for emergency signs

From the three options above, I have to say I find c) the least likely.

Today there was a delightful story in The Herald - "It`s hair today for a model citizen", which tells us lucky Herald readers how Mecia (Misha? Misprint of Mercia? eh?), winner of `Britain`s Next Top Model` on Living TV, will only trust her mum to do her hair, which is okay as her mum is a hairdresser. Quote: " The competition rocketed her into the national limelight, after she beat thousands of other entrants, and appeared each week being put through a series of fashion-orientated ordeals." Now I dont know about you, but I`m having a hard time imagining what a fashion-orientated ordeal might be, unless it`s being forced to wear (a shorter version of) the latest addition to Fiona Bruce`s wardrobe. Feel free to enlighten me, please.

the constant wonder of big things

2009-09-21T20:48:00.004+01:00

the Big Shoe of Plymouth

the Giant Scone of Callington

the Improbably Large Rolling Pin of Saltash

the Huge And Yet Sorrowfully Pointless

Ad Campaign Cat of Orange, at Langage

Rescues, half-rescues, no rescue

2009-09-21T11:39:00.019+01:00

Yesterday at Rame Head we almost witnessed a helicopter rescue. Before we walked down towards Polhawn we heard the coastguard at Rame explaining to some other walkers that the rescue services had been called from RAF Culdrose, to help a woman who was apparently semi-conscious on the `main beach` at Whitsand. I put `main beach` in inverted commas (did you see?) because I wasnt aware there was a main beach, and distrust this description, however seemingly assured, although I certainly cant defend this quirk, or whatever it may be. This is all I heard as we walked past, so it`s only half or maybe a fraction of a story.

Anyway, we saw the helicopter arriving from the West along the coastline, and watched it set down just behind Alice`s Rock - ( this may not be called Alice`s Rock by anyone else though, but it`s been given that name in our household, unsurprisingly, due to a plaque afixed to face of said rock, with ALICE engraved upon it, but no other details, so another fraction of a story here too) - the helicopter was on the beach for quite some time. We thought it would fly off toward Derriford and the hospital, but instead, it rose up and flew along to Sharrow Point, and set down again near the Lifeguard hut. This was a mystery! We speculated, as Sunday walkers are wont to do, and the best we could come up with was this: the 20th of September is Compulsory Beachside Injury Day. The helicopter finally flew off, heading inland, presumably to the hospital.

On returning past Rame coastguard station, we overheard the very informative man on duty explaining to yet another gaggle of walkers, that after rescuing the semi-conscious woman, the helicopter then went to the aid of a man with a dislocated shoulder. By this point I was tempted to fall down on the sod in a spontaneous fit of slight tiredness, in the hope that the helicopter would come and rescue me too. It cost HOW MUCH every time a helicopter is used? O, thousands and thousands I think the answer is. Well, the coastguard seemed convinced that no-one would have been able to ferry a stretcher up the cliff path, especially one weighed down with a real poorly person. If you have any questions about this unsatisfactory lack of detail, ask him.
I trust the wounded parties are now feeling much better.

What I want to know is, where was the helicopter when this sheep got stranded off Gara Point the other week? It was marooned on a miserable lump of rock by the incoming tide, and at this juncture it may be useful to know that a sheep is worth around a tenner hereabouts. I only wish that sheep had been at Whitsand yesterday afternoon. He`d be sitting up in bed having jelly and a cup of sweet tea by now.

on The Standard Model and single-handed rowing

2009-09-15T16:07:00.008+01:00

Dr Brian Cox used to be in D-Reme or maybe it was D-ream or maybe just D-grade, but anyhoo, he`s now a physicist, and has done quite a bit of tv pop physicistry or physysystry, mainly due to his lovely teeth. The programme I saw asked questions about Time, and I got hooked on the idea there was something in particle physics called The Standard Model of The Universe. (I`m not sure it has all those capitals, but it ought to do, if it doesnt.) Brian Cox was very good at explaining things which if anyone else had tried to I`d have probably been snoring after three seconds. (That was HIDEOUS. I will leave it posted here as an excellent example of A POORLY CONSTRUCTED sentence. However, my favourite `bad` sentence of all time is this:
He had a feebly growing down on his chin.
O how I laugh every single time. Even after years and years. ) Anyway, to get back to Brian Cox, or more truly, The Standard Model, I wrote a sequence of poems with this very title, on the understanding that it was my own standard model, and liable to mood swings.
You can read some of these poems at Shadowtrain, in the new issue (30).

As a by the way, but a pretty darned interesting one, while at Whitsand beach the other day, we met a man who has rowed the Pacific Ocean - 274 days at sea, on his own. He rowed single-handed, apparently, which I should have thought would have caused unecessary blistering, but I`m not a rower, so. Barmy! He`s called Jim Shekhdar, and although he wrote `Live your dreams` inside the cover of the copy of the book of his epic adventure, (that`s almost as bad a sentence as the former - hard to choose betwixt `em, if I were asked to hand out a prize. Rather reminds me of a Danny Kay song*) which we bought in the beach cafe along with a cuppa, this being exactly the sort of cliched sentiment which I find hard to swallow, he was a rather imposing figure of a fella, and the book`s not bad either.

* not Danny Kay, I meant Rolf Harris. An easy mistake to make.

his tartan shame

2009-09-13T17:58:00.010+01:00

I love the faff of camping. Erecting a tent in a field at Maker Heights is incredibly relaxing, providing you`ve got all the bits, and it`s not raining. This weekend has been glorious. We stumbled upon a wedding taking place in the lower field as we pitched the questionable four man. There was a draped canopy, dias it may have been, couldnt see, and a bride with yellow hair and white lace, plus a groom all dapper handsome. There was an applauding crowd, and then music from the marquee. The sun rained down, there was a light breeze, and below it all, The Sound, and Bovisand and Heybrook and the Mew Stone ... oh, I was entranced by the serendipitousness of it all.

Anyway, we`ve had a pick`n`mix of camp beds this year - a futon which was so hard I had no feeling in my legs come daybreak, a folding camp bed just long enough for one thin short person, and this weekend, all the cushions from the sofas we possess: four brick red, and two large tartan ones from a sofa bed we bought second hand (we buy everything second hand, as it happens). This sofa has an amazingly durable and comfortable bed within it`s being; this was the clincher. As for the hideous fabric, well, you can cover it with a throw, cant you. (I`ve found that you can cover most things you dont like with a throw, even old boyfriends.)

We swam yesterday afternoon- the sea was 18 degrees, tropical in these parts. We had our meal after watching the sun set over Looe, the clay-spoil mountains of St Austell just visible behind. The band they had on at the wedding`s evening do were stonking. Freshly Squeezed. There, I`ve given them a plug. They did soul covers mostly, but a few original tunes, with a bit of mixing and a witty wedding rap. Considering we werent even at this wedding, I feel bound to send my congratulations and thanks to Heather and Tiernan, as if we were , as we did sort of witness it all, being separated by a mere hundred feet of grass, and a hedge.

Today, after waking to photograph the dawn, we packed up in a trice and headed off to Whitsand for a swim. The car was stuffed with sofa cushions, and VJB was very keen to ensure that the tartan ones were buried on the bottom. But why? I innocently asked. It`s all a bit too Bay City Rollers for my liking, says he - my tartan shame. I feel dreadful for having unwittingly inflicted such an ugly fabric riddled with trauma on one with such tender sensibilities. I misjudged the situation, due to the fact he owns an album by Mud.

*A note for Abbie - the compost loos were fragrant, but certainly not `mingin`!

swimming at bovisand

2009-09-09T15:48:00.004+01:00

The summer went - busyness and rain. This day the sun and a promise of high pressure. The sea is a balmy 16 - 17 degrees. We`re for the water. Last year I lost count of the salt dips. This year, hmm. Maybe four swims.

Being in the sea is the closest I get to being. Unless it`s atop a tor or cliff. Cliff paths make me run and/or sing. I appreciate the danger of this foible. Both is best.

getting lost over the river

2009-09-07T14:45:00.004+01:00

A walk yesterday ended up in someone`s garden. A forgivable gaff, considering the house looked very much like a pub, while said garden was equipped with a flag pole (plus flag), and several of those wooden all-in-one picnic table-bench doobries. There was a large, complicated play fort, for the children to climb in, up, out of and down from, while their parents imbibed real ale in a perfect riverside setting. There was a wooden gate from the footpath into the garden, and people in the garden having fun with their offspring. Upon entry, I asked chirpily, is this the pub? - a mere formality as it so obviously was. But no, I was very politley informed that it wasnt. The pub was further along the footpath at the head of the creek. When we got there it was shut.

In all fairness, the owners of the pub garden themed garden did let us through their grounds, to get us promptly back to the public lane again. Once in the lane, pausing to consider which seemed the most likely route back to the car, we were accosted by a smart woman with an asthmatic pooch, who was extremely concerned to make sure we were on the right path out of the village.

This beautiful hamlet with it`s sheltered watery inlet has a very attractive old village pump, and an alluring footpath to who knows where, which is announced by way of a large plaque saying no-one is allowed to use it, unless they`re from the village. I also spotted a jokey sign post pointing to England, attached to the wall of a neat little cottage. What is the phrase again? O yes, `picture postcard`.

Trees

2009-09-07T14:42:00.001+01:00

They`re great, arent they?

Jackspeak

2009-09-05T20:16:00.009+01:00

You either, according to the Facebook group`s strapline, love it or hate it. That`s Jackspeak, aka navy slang, or slanguage . I joined this group yesterday. I posted a comment regarding one term I have always liked: "muscle bosun". You find muscle bosuns at the gym, or so I`ve heard, but the term pokes fun at a particular type of fella, who fancies himself as buff. It`s a put down, in fact. Which reminds me, today I saw a young chap wearing a t-shirt which read

I have the body of a god
Shame it`s Buddha

which just goes to show that self-deprecation is still fashionable, or at least alive and endearingly flabby.

Back to Jackspeak - it`s in the main extremely punishing regarding women, and I wonder how the female rates cope in an atmosphere of - verbal violence I think it may be - which is defended as humour, though sounds pretty much like hatred and/or fear to me. I wont go into detail, you`ll have to get a Jackspeak dictionary. Some of the slang is vaguely funny, but mostly it`s just crass.

The reason I mention this at all here is because I made a boo-boo on the post, and spelled bosun boson, as in particle physics. Which did make me smile. I`m waiting for someone at the site to pick me up on it, but it may be a long wait.

Well, if my interest in Jackspeak is fairly minimal, yours is probably non-existent, except in a quantum way ( ah, but what if it were the Muscle Boson, which, on being discovered by the LHC, would change the view of the Standard Model and all we know about the Universe?) and I promise not to mention it again.

Muse Musing

2009-09-04T16:40:00.015+01:00

Muse are playing in Teignmouth tonight - fifteen years ago ( fifteen years ago!) that would have been a regular gig I suppose. The band`s two home town concerts have filled Teignmouth with fans, which is now overflowing and will rake in a lot of cash. One local hotelier said he could have sold the rooms he had on offer ten times over, but being useless at maths I didnt understand what he meant. ("John goes to Blackpool, Susan goes at five miles an hour -which of them has ten pence left after buying six pairs of plimsolls aboard the Orient Express?" - that ).

Anyway, as the summer`s been so awful, the Teignmouth Chamber of Commerce, out of clumsily expressed gratitude for the influx of dosh, have decided to erect a statue in the square, in honour of its musical saviours, most of whom had never heard of Muse before last week. It will be a black, guitar-shaped hole, surrounded by air.

Quite obviously what`s missing from Plymouth`s decaying identity/economy is a MASSIVE SUPER GROUP . Why havent we got a Muse of our own? Who comes from Plymouth that`s famous? I mean, in the music world? Is there anyone? Has there ever been anyone? Has Plymouth got a problem when it comes the The Arts? I did think we could swap Tom Daley for Muse, but it`d be cheating and I doubt this is a popular answer to anything. Tom may come in handy after the Olympics, if he brings home the gold medal (to Plymouth I mean. I realise Plymouth isnt that far from London, but then again, in many ways, it`s on another planet). Will he bring in money to the city though? Tom Daley souvenir dolls. Tom Daley swimwear range. Tom Daley Instant Athlete Tan. (That`s actually a good idea!) But it`s not like having a world class band playing back in their home town.

little red arrows

2009-09-03T17:37:00.000+01:00

The Red Arrows just seared over the house. I rushed (I ambled) out to take photos and ended up with half a cloud heart pierced by half a cloud arrow, a weird rainbow, and lots of blue. The jets I did manage to pin down on camera look silly. Static and silent rather than screaming fast enough to break your neck looking. And tiny. You dont really see the Red Arrows as tiny, when watching a display.

This was a thing on Plymouth Hoe, to commemorate the start of WW2. I dont really get this. The End, yeah. The Start? It`s a Thursady afternoon. People here are either off their heads in a variety of difficult fashions, or at work. The majority of witnesses to this air display were pensioners, and why not. Although I watched it, kind of. And my neighbour two doors down, who actually has a regular job, but is obviously on her day off today. She said, as we stood out the front, gazing skyward across the playing fields, the Red Arrows havent been here for about six years. I didnt know that. I`m not sure it made any difference to my enjoyment. I got excited by the noise and speed, but did I think about the start of WW2 enough, or in the right way?
What a difficult thing it is to watch jets, especially ones with red, white and blue smoke falling out of their guts. I could whoop , and cry a bit, and shrug. There.