bye bye bellulah

Life has its ups and downs

2008-10-13T12:04:00.004+01:00

Just got out of hospital last night after +40 temperature, difficulty breathing and coughing up blood due to a lung infection landed me in there. I think I felt pretty rubbish for the last week or two due to overwork, cat loss grief and illness.

Feeling much better now

Tallulah Bellulah

2008-09-30T18:13:00.004+01:00

24th December 2000 - 9th September 2008

My little Bubadub

My buddy Boodah

My best friend

I love you, Lulla xxx

Bye Bye Bellulah

Bye bye bye bye bellulah

2007-08-17T06:48:00.000+01:00

Time to go. It'd be three months next week, but I'm off tomorrow for a month anyway. I wanted to try this for a while to see what it's like to blog and what the bloggy world's all about. And, I've had sooo much time on my hands for the past 9 months, from tomorrow I won't have nearly as much time to myself. I'll still enjoy visiting other blogs and a big thank you to everyone who came here and especially to the wonderful people who commented, I'll be lurking.

Matootoo on the open road

2007-08-16T10:29:00.000+01:00

I just bought my first car, for £100. She's called Matootoo.

So it goes

2007-08-10T23:56:00.000+01:00

De La Salle and not MGS (Mostly Going South), that's what made the difference. Have you read Stuart Maconie's Pies and Prejudice? .....Manchester is big-headed, good-hearted, full of itself, opinionated, even-handed, arrogant, musical, over-confident, but comes up with the goods, even if they're not the exact goods you really want.

The Free Trade Hall, the Halle Orchestra, GMEX, Deansgate, Afflecks Palace, Placemate 7, Piccadilly Radio, Manchester United, UMIST, Joy Division, the Hacienda, Friday's, Saturday's, the Underground Market, I'm in love, I'm in love with the girl on the Manchester Virgin Megastore checkout desk, the Buzzcocks, The Smiths, Gordon is a Moron, Anthony H Wilson, The Communist Manifesto, the Trades Union Movement, the Royal Exchange, Caroline Ahern, Fat Bob, Pauline Calf, Queer as Folk, Shameless, Oxford Road, Eighth Day Vegetarian Cafe, Canal Street, the 41, the 112, the 263 and 264, Peterloo, Suffragette Movement, Trams, RNCM, both Old Traffords, the Stone Roses, What do you call 12 Mancunians in a filing cabinet? Sorted., The Hollies, 10cc, Mark E Smith, Anthony Burgess (Xaverian), MCFC (I suppose, if you like that sort of thing), The Apollo, Marc Riley, Mark Radcliffe, Piccadilly Gardens, Frank Sidebottom, John Cooper Clarke, Alistair Cooke, Manchester Town Hall, St Peter's Square, Albert Square, MRI, Ringway, Christie's, the Palace Theatre, the Refuge Assurance building.

That's what I think of when I think of Manchester.

(Apologies for the blatant Salford thefts, but what the heart wants)

Still by Steve

2007-08-09T12:14:00.000+01:00

Steve was one of my first friends. He told me that the big girls had come back for the Spacehopper when it disappeared after 3 months and he read my cards and told me I would die aged 88 (murder victim). We had a secret club in Sandra's garage, the password was Nastursium, hope it's OK to give that away now, I had such trouble remembering it at the time, and payment for entry was a bag of sweets to be shared around and he would read out his made up stories of bloody death and creepy carnage. He introduced me to Joy Division too, which was a very good thing.

Now he's telling stories to a much wider audience in posher surroundings. I'm sure he'll Still accept lemon bonbons as payment but I expect the password's changed.

Break a leg, Steve.

Olive

2007-08-05T13:53:00.000+01:00

For years I thought her birthday was the 8th August and sent cards, presents and flowers and phoned her on the 8th every year and I never forgot because it was the same day as a good friend's birthday and my cats were born on that day and I remembered phoning her to tell her on the day.

Then, when she was 90 she told me that actually her birthday was the 10th and this year she was having her ears pierced as a present to herself because she'd always fancied it and why not?

The past being a different country, Olive has been and is still my translator. From a time when most people knew their lot in life and made the best of it and were happy with an absence of trouble, rather than aching after lives led by other people. Working 'in service', then a hat shop, visiting disfigured soldiers in hospital during the war, raising a family, holidaying at the coast, a trip abroad to Austria in the 1980s. Everything else is details. Olive feels incredibly lucky to have had such an untroubled life and to still be enjoying every day. Of course it hasn't been untroubled, but she always had a loving husband, a home and enough money to pay bills and feed her family, who stayed close to home and had families of their own.

What more could a young working class girl ask for?

Over the past 15 years, since Arthur died, she's taken up painting and won a Commended in a regional competition; worked, until the last year or two, in the local Help The Aged shop; regularly attend concerts in Manchester city centre; won a Best Garden competition (with a little help from her weekly gardener); fostered pets; knitted jumpers for Kiwi oil-slicked penguins, and been an all-round wonderful Grandmother to me.

Next week I'm going to visit for a couple of days. Yeh! Just the two of us for two whole days and nights. I'm going to ask her everything in case it's the last time I ever see her. Although it'll be just as nice to just be together, she's that sort of person.

PS: The first time I ever Googled for people, my grandmother was the only member of my family with a virtual presence, she was listed as an official knitter for Trafford Borough Council.

Love it when a plan comes together

2007-07-30T19:32:00.000+01:00

Yesterday my travel buddy Em gave me two tickets to see Gogol Bordello at their one and only gig in Canada this year. It just happens to be in Vancouver, a couple of days after we are due to arrive and a few days before my birthday, and the venue is only 500m from our hotel.

Oh, it's just all so wonderful.

Years ago (1989?) I was travelling round Northern Italy with my boyfriend and we found ourselves being driven around Milan late at night in a raging storm in the teeny-tiniest little car, that doesn't have a red doors and a plastic yellow roof and that you push along with your feet, by an Italian soldier who was trying to outrun the military police and get us to the railway station for the midnight departure to somewhere.

Cowardice being the better part of valour, we ran like fuck when he slowed to walking pace and opened the doors, and got on the first train we saw. It was absolutely packed to the ceiling with a Dark Side of Pink Floyd fans who were on their way to Venice to see them perform on a big floating pier in front of St Mark's square. We changed our plans and went along for the ride. A lighter in the air affair, but one to remember with great pleasure.

Does anyone remember Archaos? They toured and then camped out on Clapham Common in the early 1990s for a couple of summers and juggled flaming chainsaws while doing wheelies on the wall of death on motorcycles. The first time I went to see them I came out in a daze, it was like a 3D virtual Mad Max circus, but real. You just don't get entertainment like that anymore, outside Moss Side.

Any favourite nights out...?

Seventh Heaven

2007-07-26T20:14:00.000+01:00

Jenny lists 7 songs she's currently listening too, here are mine -

Santa Marinello by Gogol Bordello: New York/Hungarian Gypsy Punk, Clash, Pixies, Pogues type combo who are so much fun on disc, I can't wait to see them live.

Ickythump by the White Stripes: My fave tune this year so far, bit prog rocky

the whole of Takk by Sigur Ros: Not listened to this for ages and then plopped it on one day and fell in love again. It's practically one extended track anyway.

Life During Wartime by Talking Heads: Takes me back to being a student and going to see the concert film at a late night showing in a small independent cinema. and dancing, in a cool fashion, in the aisles. They were so entertaining, intelligent, a bit dark but danceable and singalong.

Tom Traubert's Blues by Tom Waits: I have a different favourite Tom Waits song (does that need an apostrophe or not?) every month. Something in the lyrics or his voice or the music or the mood will catch me and that'll be my new fave for a while.

The Cowboy Song by Tom Hanks (from Joe Versus the Volcano film): Not much to write home about as a song, just makes me happy.

Open Heart Zoo by Martin Grech: He was about 17 when he recorded this and yes I did hear it on the TV commercial and go looking for it, but I'm glad I did because the rest of the cd was a real find. noisy and intense, but rewarding.

None of these would make my poptastic top 40 fave song list, but you don't want to eat cherries every day!!

Water of Life

2007-07-23T11:45:00.000+01:00

So with nothing left to look forward to, ever, how about a wee dram to take away the pain?

Whisky's always been my drink of choice, but initially with coke or lemonade and ice. The first time I went into a London pub I asked for a whisky and coke and the barman sneered back,

'what sort do you want?'
'well, what've you got?'
'Bells, Paddy, Famous Grouse'
'Bells'd be great, thanks'
'that's not whisky it's Bells'

I puzzled over this for ages, (almost as long as I puzzled over 'a blind man walking past a fishmonger's says "Hi Girls"', and why it was funny. Well it was funny to a group of teenaged boys in the 80s) the day I realised I blushed so hard it made my hair curl (at the whisky remark, not the fish joke).

Oban has a distillery in the centre of town, on the main street. It's been there since 1794 and is either the oldest town based distillery or the only one, I tend to glaze at the interesting historical fact bits. It's between the white building and the short building next to the yellow building on the photo in the post below below. Around 8.15amish, it lets out a big sweet whisky vapour cloud which drifts up Jacob's Ladder and filters through the fir trees to McCaig's Tower (the colosseum on the top of the hill).

A couple of years ago Andrew Jefford, author of Peat Smoke and Spirit, visited our bookshop for an evening of readings from the book and whisky-tasting and general bonhomie. That was when, for the first time, I really appreciated the difference between Bells and coke and a good, solid Bowmore with a dash of room temperature water, a frisky Talisker or a smoke soaked Lagavulin.

Bowmore distillery on Islay.

But, even though I live in whisky world I'm finding it difficult to buy some specific bottles for a friend. There's a whisky supermarket chain called The Whisky Shop, but its range is limited in a way its prices are not. A fantastic local deli, The Kitchen Garden, has a good selection and can order even more, and each distillery has its own retail outlet. But it's striking how few places specialist places there are. I wonder if it's the same with cigar shops in Havana, chocolate in Hoogstraten or record stores in, what's the name of that place where they make the best music in the world? It's on the tip of my tongue, erm, erm, oh yeh, that's it, Manchester.

Can't wait 'til midnight

2007-07-20T10:01:00.000+01:00

I wonder if the Mail on Sunday will be giving away free copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows this weekend?

PS: More free copies here, when you buy books!

Home Sweet Home

2007-07-16T16:20:00.000+01:00

I live here. Just off the right edge of the photo. When I first arrived in town to have a look around, I hated it on sight. I thought it was shabby and tired and barren. I was bitten 6 times by midges, it was three hours by train from the nearest city, it was misty and rainy and I decided within 50 yards of the train station to get the next train back to civilisation.

Luckily for me the next train anywhere was six hours later, so I took a walk up and down the length of the high street, bought a newspaper and a sandwich and went to have a look behind the railway station for a sheltered place to sit down.

Behind the station is the ferry terminal for boats to the Western Isles / Inner and Outer Hebrides and there was plenty of time for a round trip to the Isle of Mull. Forty-five minutes by boat, one hour on the coach to Tobermory (Mull's capital) at the other end and time for a hot cup of tea and a nice sit down before coming back with half an hour to spare for going to the loo before the train home.

A dull, tiresome, wet day. All in six hours on the train, an hour by taxi, an hour and a half on a boat, two hours on a coach just to decide that I wasn't going to apply for the job and move out here.

But, on the boat on the way back I went out onto the deck in the dirty muggy rain and watched the scenery roll by. Just off Kerrera Island I caught sight of two dolphins playing in the water, the sun came out and a rainbow appeared, the smell of warming earth wafted over the water and I just changed my mind. Moved here a month later and can't believe I ever wanted to be anywhere else.

Decent days and nights

2007-07-12T17:42:00.000+01:00

George Melly died last week and I was a little bit sad because I liked him. Am not a huge jazz or blues fan, but I do enjoy it live from time to time. And he had such a wonderful joyous fuckit way about him.

In '92ish, between Christmas and New Year sitting in the Clapham South Pitcher and Piano sipping Sol with lime in the top and slightly jaded Yah and Hoo, we decided to go into town and try something different. We ended up standing outside the 100 Club on Oxford Street debating whether to spend £12 a head (plus dinner) for George Melly downstairs, or £6 for the Salsa club above. We were cheapskates.

A couple of hot, sweaty loin-bumping and grinding hours later my boyfriend tapped me on the shoulder and whispered to get everyone together with fresh drinks and quietly nip behind the long black velvet curtains covering the fire escape. Girls first, followed a few minutes later by the guys we walked down the stairs, past the loos and under the next fire escape sign into the 100 Club proper. Be nonchalant. Nonchalant. OK Chris.

Just as we'd all met up at the bar, the party of 8 at the table front and left of the stage, made for the exit, coats and bags in hand. Two or three minutes later, George came on and wowed us with his Jellyroll Loving. While we were a chillin' and 'laxin' and noddydoggy in appreciation and picking at the chips left by the 'clean-looking' People Who Left, in swept Chaka Khan and settled at the table right next to ours.

George invited her to sing, and she did and it was good (well, he couldn't not really - her aura was huge and blocking the eyeline of even those on the far far other side of the room).

Once up, though, he couldn't get her to sit down again and he must have thanked her a good half dozen times before she finally got the hint and fucked off HIS stage. Chaka had a persistent lesbian admirer / proto stalker who ordered up mucho Champagne and all but flung herself onto the table legs akimbo, so we made out we were with The Chak (as if!) until the Lady moved away. Chaka said thanks and gave us all her champagne and left, though not before just one more song 'for my fans'. Bless her little cotton socks.

More George, more drink, more chips, more music, taxi home, more drink, more music. Aaahhh. Perfect post-Christmas, pre-New Year night out had by all. And every time I hear his name I think really happily of that night and those friends and living there then.

Goodnight Goodtime George.

Two Degrees of Separation

2007-07-09T13:01:00.000+01:00

My friend Emma's father works with someone whose wife is seriously ill and was being treated by two doctors who have been arrested for the London / Glasgow car-bombs.

My friend Marie works with someone whose Grandfather was in the same class at school as Hitler.

Holding hands in love around the world

2007-07-07T10:23:00.000+01:00

Apologies to any teenagers, or parents of children or people who used to be younger, but I hate teenagers, children and young people. Well, children aren't that bad, except they take such a long time to get to 30.

Facebook: The social networking site – which until last September was restricted to students - saw its unique user base soar to 26.6 million users as of May 2007, up a hefty 89 percent year over year and more than double the 14 million users the site claimed prior to the lifting of all registration restraints, according to a new report issued by comScore. And perhaps most surprisingly, close to 40 percent of Facebook’s audience, or 10.4 million uniques is now 35 and over. That’s nearly 3 million more users than the 7.8 million 18-24 years olds that frequent the site.

Ha!

Work experience boy (14): I like mostly old stuff, Led Zeppelin, I don't know if you've heard of them - to,

Me: No, I was born old yesterday

Me: That was rude - to,

Saturday girl (16): All my friends at school speak to each other like that. I think it must be an age thing - to,

Me: No I know old people who are rude too. Oh, maybe you're right, you're not properly grown up yet are you, not socially mature

Me: I'm coming to your school to sit a supervised exam while you're doing your Highers - to,

Saturday boy (17): Don't worry, Angus and I'll look after you - to,

Me: (Insert grateful response here) Why will I need looking after? - to,

Sb (17): Aren't you bothered about being older than everyone else? - to,

Me: Why would I be bothered? Why would you assume that the opinions of children would interest me in the slightest? It's not like you're important in the bigger scheme of things

I hate their optimism and plans and world revolves around me-ness. I love being older now and wouldn't go back beyond 30 for anything. You don't know shit, babies. Why do they assume they are the default setting for the present and the future?

Like what men do. Men? Men? Big Swinging Dicks and Masters of the Universe everyone of them. In their own heads and trousers. Oh look at me I'm a man therefore I'm the boss of you. I'm the default setting for "a person". How many times when people say 'and other people' do they mean 'not men'. There are no other people except men, except women.

Women, what's that moaning all about? Always fucking moaning about something. Younger women, see above, and stop being so vain and fragile, yes people do like you for the way you look and then you'll hit 40 and the invisible conveyor belt under your feet will stop and fling you off the end onto the scrap-heap. All middle-aged women are boring, self-righteous, neurotic and patronising, especially mothers. Mothers, like young people and men assume they're the default setting and childlessness is naturally, pitifully or willfully wrong.

Get a whicker shopping basket and die.

Arthur

2007-07-04T11:25:00.000+01:00

In the 1930s my grandfather played piano for passage to America. Six weeks by ship and a long, winding motorbike road trip later, he found himself living with the Coca Cola family in Atlanta. I don't know how. His history was a bit mysterious. Somthing to do with the Earl of Stafford. Something to do with a grocery shop. Something to do with nothing really factually substantial.

There are some wonderful photos of him sitting out in the gardens of the house surrounded by Southern beauties in white cotton lacy summer dresses, picnicing and laughing and looking to all the world as though he'd been born to the life.

But, after just a few years he came home. Then, things I do know - Rented a council house in Manchester, took a quiet job in accounts for a small local business, played piano in Clubs (and for Ken Dodd, no less), took the Morning Star and drove a functional Trabant-looking half van half car for the rest of his life. He was lovely. Modest, unassuming, gentle.

I wish he was here now, he died about 15 years ago. I miss him because now I'm old and unselfish enough to want to know him for the person he was. Not just the grandfather who'd slip me a few quid with every goodbye kiss or who was there to be proud of me or to maintain a full complement of family for me.

He was asked to stay with the family and join the business, but came back because he couldn't live with the social and racial inequities he saw. He could have looked the other way, could have lived the American Dream, and then some. I want to know what made him turn his back on personal gain and become such a satisfied, content person. What are all the things I didn't know about him, who was he? On the other hand, why didn't he do more to improve the world if he felt so strongly that it was full of wrongs? Not that he had a duty to do so, but why didn't he?

I haven't got a photo with me at this house, although there's one in particular I'd love to post. When I find it I'll stick it up. He's standing in the Cheddar Gorge in front of his big black motorcycle wearing an ankle length black leather riding coat. Hands on hips, shoulders back, in his little round tortoise-shell glasses and hair slick-combed back, looking every inch the 1930s intellectual superhero. Who took that photo?

How to Make Friends and Influence People

2007-06-30T14:31:00.000+01:00

Blow up three round balloons, quite firmly

Push a small cloth bag of marbles into each balloon making sure that the ends of the bag hang out below the rim of the balloon and tie-off the ends of the balloon and marble bag into one knot. Don't question this, just do it, The balloon might burst the first couple of times you try it, but eventually it will work

Tear a newspaper of your choice into strips (I favour the Financial, Sunday or Oban Times)

Fill washing-up bowl (or bucket) with tepid water

Dip the newspaper strips into the water and then apply to the surface of a balloon

Make sure each balloon is completely covered in paper with no gaps except for a small (tiny) circular space around the knot of each balloon

When this first layer is drying, apply a second layer. Repeat until you have good coverage

If you want to cheat and use Copydex, I won't tell on you

When the paper shell is dry and hard to the touch (could mean sitting up all night watching, touch-testing and re-testing), stick a pin through it popping the balloon, but crucially you must hold onto the knotted bit that's sticking out and make sure you don't lose it up into the brain cavity area

Next you need to paint a face on one side (or both sides if you want two-faced friends) of the shell and add a wig, make-up, facial hair or jewellery as desired

Take a pillow and sew to each of the four corners an arm or leg (tights (colour of your choice) stuffed with scrunched up newspaper)

Tie a ribbon around the bit of the balloon and bag sticking out and feed and re-feed the two ends of that ribbon through a circular bit of cleaned washing-up bottle that you cut up earlier even though I forgot to tell you because you are so smart that you anticipated you would need a neck bit and I might forget until now

Safety pin the ribbon and the plastic neck to the middle top of the pillow

You have now made a new friend.

Repeat until you have 3 (or more if required - not recommended, they can pair up and leave you alone, but with 3 there'll always be one left over for you to talk to) new friends

Name them (I named mine Keanu Reeves, Drew Barrymore and David Foster Wallace, for example)

Put Radio 2's Jeremy Vine Show on and let them know you're just popping out for a while (ask them if they need anything while you're out, he/she/they is your friends and maybe feeling vulnerable and new at the moment) (and they are naked, which is why you are going out anyway)

Buy capsule wardrobes - casual, formal and at home lounging around vestments, including underwear and shoes. Definitely hats, too - for each

Spend a few hours getting to know each other a little then set off for a caravan holiday on the South-West coast of Scotland (you will have to do the driving, and pack the car and make the picnic, but they won't need pee-stops on the way)

Enjoy your holiday

PS: Don't forget to take them home with you (unless you have a huge argument or you decide your first attempts weren't that great and fancy making new ones when you get home again, in which case you could leave them artfully posed around the caravan for the next occupants to find and maybe have more luck with than you did)

Not too far from the truth

2007-06-28T19:57:00.000+01:00

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

I hate bagpipes

2007-06-26T20:39:00.000+01:00

I hate bagpipes. I'd rather listen to someone screaming for an hour. If I stood on the hill behind my house and screamed very loudly every summer Sunday evening between 7 - 8pm someone would complain, I'm sure. When that bastard bagpiper does it, it's all "culture", "heritage", "tradition", "stirring".

It's very horrible. Are we listening to the same thing?

I had assumed everyone else really hated bagpipe music too and they were just pretending because it was the right thing to do, like with beer or Mozart, but no. I've got into enough Highland taxis now to know they actually listen to the stuff of their own free will. Incomprehensible.

Yul Bryner is better than bagpipes.

(pic stolen from erin o'brien's blog)

What does it feel like?

2007-06-25T16:23:00.000+01:00

I've been studying Psychometrics with the OU and last week my exam result arrived. (78% so yay!). I love exams, always have. It's the element of surprise that I like - what will the questions be? how well can I answer them? what result will I get? They feel like works of art, creative experiences. Even if I don't know the stuff very well or care less.

This was the first ever where I sat down and just blanked. Totally empty head, nothingness, very scary.

I'd booked into a swanky hotel for two nights before the exam and just read and read, so felt exceptionally well-prepared. I even sat in the ante-room and while the other candidates poured over last minute notes, I just sipped my water and gazed out of the window, smugly. Then, after asking to sit at a new desk because mine was too wobbly and slowly and calmly filling in all the admin bits and opening the question paper to decide which ones to do and in which order, I just freaked. Suddenly ALL the names and dates I'd learned vanished, I couldn't remember the difference between key concepts, the hands on the clock were spinning, whizzing round. I looked around the room and everyone else was scribbling away.

I felt like putting my hand up and asking them to stop while I pulled myself together, I seriously considered it. It took about 10 minutes which seemed like ten seconds and ten hours at the same time.

I told myself to relax, close the booklet, take some deep breathes, think about the sea lapping on the shore under August moonlight, blah, blah, blah. "It's not fucking working. Aaarrggh!". Tried looking for my favourite topic and making notes. Still nothing. After twenty minutes I'd resigned myself to failure. I picked the first question on the paper and just started writing, anything I could think of connected with the topic whether it answered the question or not. When fifteen minutes was passed I stopped and started on question 2. Twenty minutes later, number 3. Somewhere in the process my head must have come back online because that result is good, but the shock of blanking threw me and I've been convinced that if I'd passed it would be by a mark or two at most.

I used to wonder what happened when your mind goes 'completely blank', why people screamed when they saw dead bodies, how they knew they were really in love. Now I'm wondering what it feels like to be an actual grown-up entitled insider adult lady.

Why do some people make you laugh and others don't?

2007-06-21T21:09:00.000+01:00

Emma, who lives in Llanwrst, AnnieRhiannon territory but I'm sure they don't know each other, makes me laugh till I cry. Nine years ago our first coversation went something like this, "Your shoes are no good for standing and walking around in", "Hello", "Hello. Change your shoes", "OK", "Good, what's your name? I'm Emma".

If I overheard other people having our conversations I'd shake my head dismissively and coolly leave the room - we spend entire evenings chatting on the phone, saying not very much about anything, but taking the Ss out of everything we ay, (Jeu Chrit upertar, The Penninular War, ing a ong of ixpence), randomly using trigger words to set off the FBI phone taps, having the ritual conversation about Simon Cowell, Simon Callow, Matthew and Harry Corbett that makes us laugh so much that we can barely breathe enough to splutter out the last line, "What's that you say, Sooty?".

We don't like the same music, TV programmes or films or books, or fancy the same people (well, Brad used to be a given before he went off with Angelina) or have the same politics or moral values or similar experiences or expectations of life, and, apart from Phoenix Nights, the same things don't make us laugh. But we can easily spend 5 hours on the phone or 3 weeks sharing a hotel room without a cross word or a moment's uncomfortable silence.

Every year or so we meet up to go on holiday together. This evening I was looking at some of the photos we've taken in various places and there seems to be a disproportionate number of pictures of private investigators' offices.

And, signs.

Life as cure for broken hearts and dead souls

2007-06-21T12:25:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I had lunch with an ex-colleague, who, since we became ex-s, has become a friend. She's a wonderful woman who lives life to the full more than almost anyone else I know. She did more last week than I've done since 2002. This weekend for instance she's off with her family and friends to Sea Bangor 2007, a maritime festival in Northern Ireland. They'll dress, painstakingly authentically, as pirates, re-enact some pirating on real tall ships using actual cannons and generally have a good time. Last weekend she played viola in an orchestra visit to the Isle of Coll, (Inner Hebridean island), next week it's a dance workshop in preparation for a Regency themed ball, after throwing a barbeque for some visiting Russian friends and taking her son to auditions for Junior Mastermind. And running her own very successful translation service.

I'm exhausted just typing it. How do people become such wonderfully free spirits that they can let go of their lives so easily in order to live them so fully? It's made me think about how tightly I've been holding on to the details of my life in recent years.

Nick reminded me of the Unbearable Lightness of Being. The gist, for me, being that life has no value, weight or meaning other than that which we construct or accept for it ourselves.

So, in the spirit of living a bit more freely I've accepted her invitation to a commemoration of the 1745 Battle of Prestonpans at Holyrood, Edinburgh in September. I have to make a dress from a contemporary pattern and materials, learn to dance a la mode and get into character as a comely whore (don't know which'll be the most taxing). Two days of partying and carousing and being on display, meeting new people and generally letting go.

I've never done anything like this before and I already feel inspired to try more and more new things until I start to forget to remember to hold onto the life I have and to live the life I could have if I let myself, again.

Dream a little dream

2007-06-19T22:28:00.000+01:00

For 12 weeks a year I get fantastic full-colour film quality dreams.

This week (Bye then!) I was in a boat without sails going round in circles planning to sail around the UK and wondering whether to (Yup, OK seeya, call ya soon) head off northwards, or to go down the West side first then save rounding the top till, (ciao bella) till the end.

Then I got out of the boat and was standing in the harbour and this enormous whale erupted from the water and just kept on rising higher and higher till it was as big as the hill behind it. I was afeared that when it crashed back down all the water would empty out of the bay. As it began to sink down I could see the water coming in slow motion so I turned my back on it, hunched my shoulders and put my hood up. But when it came it wasn't too bad after all.

Then I had (oo just you and me, then?) a round black box in my left hand and I had to open it up and shake out all the crabs of different sizes that had been splashed out of the water. The biggest (bye?) fell on its back and I had to turn it over so it could scuttle away. Hum. Um.

The next night I took a trip back to the place where I grew up .....

PS:Chris van Nus are you avoiding me?!

Which department? Lost and Stolen, please. Hello, you've lost or stolen my money and I'd like it back.

2007-06-17T17:01:00.000+01:00

'We're very busy at the moment.....We're experiencing excess levels of busyness just now.....We're inundated with unexpected levels of business.....No time to talk, busy busy busy.'

I DON'T CARE. I'd just like my life-savings back, please.

Went to my favourite Building Society in April to ask about moving my savings from another bank to them.

Easy-peasy lemon-squeezy, smoke me a kipper It'll be done by breakfast they said. Well, to be fair they said it would take a couple of weeks. I filled in the forms there and then and came home feeling very pleased with myself - modern women in control of her own finances, chasing the interest rate dragon and catching the financial tiger by the tail.

Two weeks later a letter from the old bank arrives to say my account is closed and a cheque has been sent to the new Building Society.

Great, no problemo methinks. (Did think, do they actually really still send physical paper cheques through the post? They do, apparently. How quaint.)

Waited another couple of weeks for paperwork from new place to arrive, but it didn't. Called in to local branch who chased it up and said they had not trace of it. At all. I walked at a somewhat brisk pace over to the branch of the old Bank and asked them for confirmation that it had been 'put in the post'. It had, nothing more they could do. Although, they did do nothing very helpfully and politely.

Fleet o' foot back to the new building society - they'd need to try to trace the cheque, could I go back to the old bank and find out when they'd posted it, what the exact amount was and get the cheque number? Please?

"Why don't I just sit here in your nice comfortable offices and you phone them and get all the info you need while I wait?"

So we did. They found the cheque. Hurrah! But, it was in a backlog pile as high as a kite and they were very very busy and they'd get round to processing it in due course and I'd have to be patient and not make a fuss otherwise it might go back to the bottom of the pile again. Really. No, not really, but maybe. "Come back in 5-7 working days." 9 workings days later it's still in the 'to be processed pile'.

Am turning lime and moss and sage and jade and my clothes are bursting at the seams, "I want my money, I want my money" "Be patient we are very busy" "That's not my problem, (only as it turns out, it is, but still), I just want my money. I've been waiting 5 weeks"

OO it makes me so mad that they make millions, billions, caerphillions in profit but won't spend a few thousand on a temp or two to help catch up with the backlog. When I started complaining directly to Head Office one of the operators agreed that the processing staff were equally pissed off for exactly that reason. And racking up a series of complaints from the "plenty of customers in your position".

After being a patient, reasonable, polite and good girl and getting nowhere I got quite short, and grumpy, cross and rude and got somewhere. We have a Deadline for Action agreed.

I need a chunk of the cash for a professional course that I have pay for NOW, and if I miss the deadline, the next session is 2008. Obviously I can sue for loss of earnings which will be way more than these savings, but how will I value the lost year of professional experience that I can't experience until I've completed this course? Maybe I should hope they don't make the 4.45pm Monday deadline we've agreed for sorting this out. I could take a couple of years off to explore the desert regions of the world and ride to Petra on horseback, camp out beneath the stars on the Steppes, go Walkabout or open a small beer shack / tea room / strip joint / bookstore / tattoo parlour on the edge of the Mohave.

Damn their possible efficiency in the nick of time.

Roflmao funny

2007-06-15T13:26:00.000+01:00

Don't know where these came from originally, but to me via Jax (thanks)

"These are metaphors from actual GCSE (school exam, usually taken at 16yrs) essays...

Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two other sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

McMurphy fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a paper bag filled with vegetable soup.

Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.

The door had been forced, as forced as the dialogue during the interview portion of Family Fortunes.

His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a tumble dryer.

She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again.

The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the centre

Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.

The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left York at 6:36 p.m. travelling at 55 mph, the other from Peterborough at 4:19 p.m.at a speed of 35 mph.

The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the full stop after the Dr.on a Dr Pepper can.

John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

The thunder was ominous sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play.

The red brick wall was the colour of a brick-red crayon.

Even in his last years, Grandpa had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long it had rusted shut.

Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

The plan was simple, like my brother Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

Oh, Jason, take me!" she panted, her breasts heaving like a student on 31p-a-pint night.

He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

Her artistic sense was exquisitely refined, like someone who can tell butter from "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter."

She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

It came down the stairs looking very much like something no one had ever seen before.

The knife was as sharp as the tone used by Glenda Jackson MP in her first several points of parliamentary procedure made to Robin Cook MP, Leader of the House of Commons, in the House Judiciary Committee hearings on the suspension of Keith Vaz MP.

The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a lamppost.

The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free cashpoint.

The dandelion swayed in the gentle breeze like an oscillating electric fan set on medium.

It was a working class tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with their power tools.

He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a dustcart reversing.

She was as easy as the Daily Star crossword.

She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature British beef.

She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.

Her voice had that tense, grating quality, like a first-generation thermal paper fax machine that needed a band tightened.

It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall."

Rapture

2007-06-13T15:46:00.000+01:00

From the Crockatt and Powell Bookshop blogspot: Tuesday, June 05, 2007, via "(thanks Marie for the link)" originally designd by QuizFarm.com, (breath), and inspired by various Facebook rantings, selected responses to Tim Footman's Comment is Free, Ian Paisley Junior at Nick here and now, godhatesfags (UK version)

What kind of atheist are you?

Agnostic

83%

Apathetic Atheist

75%

Spiritual Atheist

67%

Scientific Atheist

58%

Theist

33%

Militant Atheist

25%

Angry Atheist

25%

Hubristic 100%.

"You scored as Agnostic, Agnostics consider the possibility that they may be wrong about God's existence, no matter which side of the fence they stand on. Always willing to evaluate objectively the most ridiculous proof, nevertheless, these guys are skeptics to the Nth degree."

They had me at Hello, but then just kept on talking.

e by gum

2007-06-12T20:34:00.000+01:00

Walked into my kitchen this afternoon, door to the garden wide open, sun shinning happily in the sky. Picked up Sunday's paper and today's junk mail and stepped outside to Blue Bin them.

I could hear the beat of Ickythump, the fab new White Stripes single, playing on next door's radio.....dum, dumdumdumdum, dum dum, dum, dumdumdumdum, dum dum......

Walked back into the kitchen humming.......la, lalalala, la la.....

Next door neighbour comes out into his garden whistling......whoo, whoowhoowhoowhoo, whoo whoo......

Just one of those lovely moments

I would go out tonight, but I haven't got a stitch to wear

2007-06-11T14:10:00.000+01:00

Just lost half my blog. Much 'hilarity' and swearing crimes against humanity later.....

Lord Justice Richards has been charged with exposing himself in public on commuter trains. Wonder if he'll use the Pickles defence. Having been the flashee on a number of occasions, can I just say that unless I approach you, shake you warmly by the hand and ask, "Please will you show me your genitals in a public place?", I'm not asking for it.

Badges of honour go to -

The man who lived in the house behind ours whose garden backed onto ours - from the window of his daughters' bedroom. Not once but several times. He'd just appear naked, up close to the window and fiddle away.

I used to gaze out of the window as a young teenager, the first time made me cry. Then I'd just leave till he went away. One night I had 2 friends over and I waited alone, as bait, then they popped out at the opportune moment. He never showed after that.

At the tome I had no cognisance at all of the wider implications. The man next door to him did it once or twice, too. But by that stage I was older and bored more easily.

Walking in high heels and a wraparound pencil skirt along the banks of the canal at night (so, yes, asking-for-it) when I first got to Uni. He walked alongside me and provided a running soundtrack while I kept my eyes front and played cool and unaffected.

Beneath my balcony on holiday at sunset. Twas so romantic, post-modern serenading. Again it was all my fault for gazing out over the seascape and not noticing him going at it 12' below. Tut.

Walking across another Uni campus with a new friend, a group of teenage boys get them out and push us against a wall and fondle us, till I slap one and tell them to step back from the Mad Kick Boxer Lady. The worst thing about that was that the other girl was devastated and said nothing like that had ever happened to her before. I felt guilty, as though my walking boots, jeans and kagool were silently signalling asking-for-it without my awareness.

In my late twenties, and finally well educated in the ways of man, and woman, a young shaver, no more than 14, performs with gusto "you want me dontcha? you want this, love? d'ya wanna suck me? come 'ere, come 'ere" Hmm. Think I said something like "You'll catch your death of cold out there, son". Not brilliant, but I am not going to agonise over the quality of my Flasher put downs any more. It was suburban tea-time on a fairly main residential street with houses well set back from the road, long driveways, he was just inside a gateway.

How grateful was I when a stranger approached me on a platform with a small bunch of flowers? Even when he explained that his girlfriend hadn't turned up so that meant she was never coming back, so I might as well have them. It was still an improvement.

Happy Birthday bye bye bellulah

2007-05-30T16:39:00.000+01:00

It's my one week blogging birthday. Over 150 visits (and only 37 of them from me), a handful of much appreciated comments, have discovered how to do links to words, to add links to other sites, used pictures and still working on making labels appear in the order I want rather than alphabetically.

Been wondering what'll be next. I don't even have a mobile, so, if I now have a myspace page, a facebook account (including belonging to a secret group that no-one outside can see!!), a blog...there must be a whole new world of interactivity out there that bright young things are already moving on from.

Funny thing at a personal level, the more time I spend in front of the PC the more I end up committing to things in the real world. Am now half way through a Masters in Psychological Research with the OU that wouldn't have crossed my mind without a random browse one day; have booked a trip to Vancouver later this year, to meet up with an old friend, and see the beauty of BC. Without the medium of electronica, I wouldn't be doing that; have agreed to climb Ben Nevis in September with a very experienced walker, up the tourist path, so should be fine, another PC inspired event.

This might surprise you...............RRRAAARRRGGGHHH

2007-05-29T11:08:00.000+01:00

In answer to the question, "which one word would your friends use to describe you?", it seems the common consensus around here is SCARY.

I thought they were joking. Their meek half-smiles suggested differently.

"Scary? Scary? What the fuck do you mean, scary? Why would anyone be frightened of me? I'm lovely."

"Sometimes..." "Sometimes, what?"

Inside my head is a calm and tranquil garden by the sea. There's a maze, a big milky, pearly orb on ornate gilt legs, a sculptured secret forest, a tiered lawn down to the beach etc etc.

I don't have raging issues. I do ask "Why is the sky blue?", "what would you do if the person you were talking to suddenly disappeared?", but it's peaceful.

But then we examined the evidence. 'slebs are the buffer the elite use to keep us proles in our place', 'bastard middle classes don't have a clue about the reality of relative deprivation', 'Boris Becker was my imaginary fri end'. And, that was just yesterday.

Seems I might be harbouring a mad, reactionary sister under the skin. One that always sends thank you letters, swoons at the mere mention of Dick York's Darin or his lovely son Mike Patton doing Bacharach, loves ickle fwuffy kittypuds and enjoys a good hot spanking every so often.

I wonder how many of the people I know and love are actually somebody very different and I've just never noticed. My oldest friendships date back 35 years, the most recent, just 4 years. I'm not sure now if I could accurately describe any of them, in my head they're how they were when I first met them and any behaviour that suggests differently is out-of-character.

Roll on the day when we can download out personalities and try out new ones. Or, upload ourselves into other bodies. Firstly, I'd like to try Bi-1950's deb working as a showgirl in Vegas.

I don't care if a monkey did it

2007-05-26T11:10:00.000+01:00

I'd like cy twombly wallpaper, big fluffy de kooning bath towels and Jackson Pollock bed linen.

A Grayson Perry dinner service and Rothko carpets. Lampstands by Gormley and Bill Viola's Messenger as my screensaver.

Maybe a spiegel im spiegel alarm clock, too.

I vant to be alone

2007-05-23T10:40:00.000+01:00

Four years ago I moved to a house on top of a hill by the sea. 3 hours by train to the nearest M&S, franchise coffee outlet or pretty much anything global. Buses off the cover of "How we used to live 1950-55". Random local bank holidays, as and when.
It's not a village (pop c. 8,000), has an internet cafe (open Tues and Thurs 2pm - 5pm, and Wed 10am - 12pm), and a much-loved cinema (one screen in mint 1970s condition, the other a room with 24 chairs for 24 souls).
Watching the news, reading national newspaper Lifestyle sections, listening to the incessant whine of 'London types' on radio phone-ins, it feels like I'm in that other country where they do things differently.

And, there's a whole other world north of here. There we're the metropolis. We're where the action is. A couple of weeks ago we took a day-trip to Skye. 3 hours north of here. 3 hours back. Through a 1,000 year old time tunnel of mountains, moors and lochs emerging into a rainbow-gated, whisky-scented cloud kingdom. Still UK '07, but, I tell you, if I was a native, I'd wonder wtf Westminster, hose-pipe bans, the successful Olympic games bid ..... had to do with me and my life. Any more than Sarkozy, Californian forest fires or Helsinki 2007.

At 244.9 people per sq km the UK is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. What a selfish, heady joy to live where it's possible to drive, without hesitation, deviation or repetition, for 6 hours, (hot running water and lectricky at both ends), and still wonder if you're unwittingly IT in a gigantic game of hide and seek.

away from the things of man

2007-05-21T14:30:00.000+01:00

Take me away
to a roche mountonnee
unwrap me
reduce me
fucking seduce me

All that I long for
all that I ask
don't make me love you
and don't bring me back