Not riots

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

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

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 ...

... 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

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

Dave`s in Africa

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*

`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