Meloney Lemon

Market Research

2010-08-26T10:06:00.000-07:00

A woman from the suburbs of Delhi rings with a number of consumer based questions. They are mostly about home insulation and utilities providers. I've already got insulation. 'Thats a no then' she says. She asks about my income bracket and how many times a year I go on a foreign holiday. More than four times a year? Less than four times a year? 'Once every four years' I reply.
'Thats a no then.' I can tell she doesn't believe me. 'And who do you book your holidays with?' 'No one' I say 'we just turn up'. Just turn up? Who is your holiday provider?' 'Me' I say. 'We just go to a campsite and pitch the tent.' 'A no then.' 'Yes' I say and she gives a stifled giggle conscious of the fact that if I possibly complain about her rude guffaws she will lose her job and not be able to pay for her children's school fees, nutrition, medical treatment or the roof over their heads. How can that be a holiday, she is thinking.... I think of the Pakistan flood. Suddenly a weekend's camping in a rainy field in Kent seems sad, sick and completely insane.....

What Can Possibly Go Wrong ?

2010-08-23T05:49:00.000-07:00

Apart from the climate and world economy.... In a very parochial way -
quite a lot. And it all seems to happen in the last week of the holidays
when panic rises regarding imminent lack of free time or being able to
ever think one's own tiny thoughts again until half term.

First the internet is down. We need a new rooter (little red rooter).
Distraught at lack of access to social networking the kids make
a zombie movie. I have a cameo role as a member of the undead
breaking into the house, because actually in real life the door
handle is broken. "Help it's a very coordinated zombie" I shuffle
towards them, ketchup covered, clutching a screwdriver. Multi tasking,
I manage to complete a DIY job WHILST entertaining four twelve year olds.

Then some more pre termtime tension due to urgent need to contact
the Inland Revenue about a form left unsent... The phone is dead.
Turns out a zombie melted the cable in the panini press darling.

We return to our cardboard box after visiting the mansion of our
country cousins... The lamb was delicious we all agree, gagging on
another tuna pasta. Why do we think we can afford to go on a three grand
skiing holiday with them when bits of rusty metal-mimicking plastic are
beginning to break off the car and it stinks like an oil refinery?
Why don't they just come camping with us and save £ 2900? The question
hangs in the lavender and beeswax scented air and remains mysteriously
unanswered.

I try and sign in to blogger after many months away. It does a
Martin Guerre on me and I have to re establish my entire personality,
thereby wasting precious time I could be using to mend the cracked
bathroom basin. In denial people still use the basin, the ensuing drool
collecting underneath in a small plastic camping cereal bowl......

The borrowed guinea pig is beginning to sneeze in the August Monsoon.
Could be the first line of a poem I don't have time to write.
But it isn't.
I still have to gloss paint the outside window frames.....

Infrequent book reviews

2010-03-27T08:22:00.000-07:00

On my way to Ch***** School yesterday, having volunteered to run the cloak room for Quiz Night, I see a dead cat on the pavement. One of of it's eyeballs is hanging out. I absolutely know it was hit by a car not bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat by a Ch***** student. 'American Psycho' springs to mind. A nasty book written by a nasty man (Brett Easton Ellis) but with a sense of humour. The two are not incompatible. I would only ever read this book to examine the craft of writing. And then only once as it is so poisonous.

Another book about nutcases is 'Human Traces'(Sebastian Faulks). My definition of a good book is that you wish you'd written it. The man has a mind like a Victorian library, full of musty reminiscing. Hallucinating history. Yes there is imagination - but it is rooted in the vernacular. Yes, flashes of visionary brilliance but they are deeply conservative. It's an endlessly corduroy astounding feat of fogeyish intrigue. Very educational factually but there's a lot of it. Rather puffed up and schoolmasterish. And no, I don't wish I'd written it.
I probably wouldn't invite these two to a dinner party.....

Minimal but startling is good. Ann Enright is great for this. Energetic, surprising - often poetic. Minxish and life affirming. I would happily to do an egg on toast for her and for Ernest Hemingway....should he be wandering this way. Looking for a cat or some other dumb animal to shoot.

So, keep reading folks. Books don't crash like computers.

What people did before computers

2009-11-11T14:01:00.000-08:00

Not Wearing Rose Coloured Spectacles

2009-10-13T14:06:00.000-07:00

Erm what's happened to the last few years.
They seem to have shrivelled up. My friends, some of them,
have retained a bone structure upon which to hang their
marshmallowed sagging jowells and look rather distinguished.
Me, I look like a potato. Pale and mottled with whiskery bits. If I dressed
in sacking I'd be chips before I knew it
It's not helpful if you want to be taken seriously. I have chicken's
hands. Yet I can still run about on Peckham Rye like an escaped Ostrich.
Across field and dale with no regard for wet or cold. The Marathon glory is years behind. Yet remains a possibility. Well - this is on a bad day. On that same bad day I entered my home and the term Crack Den sprang to mind. Was it the shredded carcase of a lampshade, revealing it's dreary low wattaged eco innards. Was it the Empty Quarter of the living room devoted entirely to bikes, skateboards, spanners and old socks (that had been used to clean the former). Possibly it was the kitchen floor. Plastic wood. There but for the grace of god - and held together by patches of gaffer tape. Or was it the stair carpet - with the colour, texture and smell of a long dead Labrador. It could have been the cobwebby bookshelf with orange Penguin Classics and a foxed, leather bound Shakespeare that in any one else's house would have vintage chic but in mine are just old. Perhaps it was the rest of the family, wan in the gloom, dressed in a selection of still muddy football kits - or the repellent combination of dressing gown-over-clothes. "Put on a jumper for goodness sake". This is a look that stems from the wearer's slug days in a damp Glasgow hovel. Pot of tea with a stained cosy and a pipe of something. Lentils in the cupboard. Down to the garage at 4.00 am for a packet of skittles. Actually it is much colder in Scotland and everyone wears dressing gowns and woollen tights and dresses (even the men), nearly all the time. When R visited last week from the Highlands she could barely walk through being weighed down by tweed. I had to push her round in a shopping trolley. Up to the West End. Down the Burlington Arcade to the Royal Academy in her Tam'O'shanter. Searching in the Wallace Collection for Damien and his sixth form skull that grinned smugly across the gallery at the Laughing Cavalier.

It pleases me. The revelation that TS Eliot "wrote nothing whatsoever for three years"... and saw "no immediate likelihood" of doing it. "The writing of poetry takes time and I never have any time." It makes me feel OK about the hours spent sorting pants. Or pondering the Zen of a 'buy one get one free' pack of granary baps that would do for packed lunch, in Somerfield - when only one is left. I feel lucky. He had to struggle in a suit. He would have welcomed a murky room full of bikes and the accompanying enthusiasm for them. I see mess. He would have seen the manifestation of creativity and I'm sure would have been liberated by Lycra. Oops - watch out for that tool box Tom. He would have felt the poetry in a half eaten tin of anchovies lending their aroma to some quark in the fridge. The chaos of rushing hither and thither - he would stay for coffee and stir it thoughtfully. He would use the imagery of vanilla pods sinking in a panacotta - rather than cry about it. Not that I've ever made one or cried about it. I leave that for the next phase of existence. Along with cycle touring in Spain and skate boarding up mountains. And writing poetry, innit.

Camping Colours

2009-08-31T09:56:00.000-07:00

Uncivilised Camping (get your copy here)

2009-08-24T07:41:00.000-07:00

We'd been in the wilderness living like iron age tramps.
Except they probably had a table.

We had an uneasy combo of nylon, candles, paraffin and pyromaniac kids.
We were the only family who ate left over noodles for breakfast.

We were the noisiest. The person who painted her nails to come camping also had Blair Witch hysteria in the woods when searching for sticks, then bug in-sleeping-bag-wobblers at 4.00 am. None of them went near a badminton racquet or played a nice organised game of cricket. Instead they found an old door full of rusty nails to play 'a game that I invented but it's already been invented'. You rest the middle on a log, stand on one end and get some bigger heavier people to jump on the other end. Then you get catapulted up to heaven.

We made lots of fires and burnt all sorts of stuff. We didn't sit behind our wind break in green canvas chairs because we haven't got any. We cooked at ground level. We made muddy coffee in a pan. We drank red wine from tin mugs then we played raucous guitar in the dark. Then there was this rope swing....

We didn't bring our Xbox and portable TV but we laughed rudely within earshot at those who did.

We hung our pants out to dry on the fence.

We very soon had the entire campsite to ourselves....

2009-07-12T15:53:00.000-07:00

2009-07-12T15:51:00.000-07:00

2009-07-12T15:48:00.000-07:00

2009-07-12T15:45:00.000-07:00

Rome Domes, Columns and Arches

2009-06-22T11:18:00.000-07:00

So here he is. An old man who wears his trousers rolled - if only for
cycling. At 50.

Here we are on a birthday trip. Sitting on the Spanish Steps suddenly burning under the same unfiltered sun as Caesar, Caligula, Hadrian, Nero...and all those other bling covered fated genius nutcase despots. Huge, everything. The legacy of their egos is still astounding. In the Colosseum Russell Crowe winces as metal clashes and glints. He squints at the soft robed Emperor. He wrestles with tigers.

Saints have been carved. Gods have been carved. The gods have become saints. Writhing on the banks of the Tiber, a mess of Tritons, sea gods and odd looking fish. In St Peter's, in a space really nearly as big and planned as some people's kitchens round here, shrouded Madonnas lean out of the dusk. Living liquid marble billowing like silk.

High Renaissance nonsense cascades in a gold swarm of cherubs from Bernini's altarpiece. Everywhere bluish stained glass light. Candles illuminate a row of Popes. The priest emerges from the multi lingual confession box, choking on his dog collar....The nun in supplication palms clasped, slyly checks her BlackBerry. Emails from Jesus. A trillion years of religious hysteria. You could cut the air with a candelabra.

Scorched and blistered we pour water on our heads in the shade of another stone church. Traffic hums around the piazza. Richard Scarry mousemobiles. Scooters appear from nowhere, rumbling trivially over the tarmac skin of doomed, buried civilisation. How could you even wield a hammer in this heat - let alone conquer continents.

It's a short trip but cold beers and pizza are swallowed as the world turns on it's axis and A contemplates his miniscule previous five decades - and those yet to come.

Enclosed within the Colosseum's arches, vaulted like the dead sockets of a gladiator's skull, we reflect on the legacy of those gaudy emperors. Pomposity and amnesia. In the garden of broken columns and climbing weeds, an American woman rests her head on a slab of marble and sleeps.

Beatnik Sunday w/rain and fridge magnets......

2009-05-17T07:56:00.000-07:00

Loom through morning miasma
to cool glass drying freely
with harmony and hug

Me to canvas could scream
like instrument dazzle

Wild shopping
Absurd original drunk fashion

Coffee lunch full of blue ink

Purple silhouette almost
like metal water

Smoke dust
Make more neo electric
psychedelic sculpture

Cheer up luv...

2009-04-19T12:38:00.000-07:00

April is The Cruellest Month....

2009-03-07T06:33:00.000-08:00

After many moons another blog. Not because there's been nothing to say - just that the effort required to book space on the computer means I now write on the back of an envelope instead of on the back of the internet. Same difference.

So here we are five months later. In a pixilated economy, with our new best friend Obama trying to tidy it all up and re-freeze the ice caps like lime flavoured ice pops after they'd left the fridge door open. Increasingly I'm feeling like I'm in a really bad disaster movie. For instance, only last night my neighbour knocked on the door with reports of a smell of gas rising through the pavement. Stand back it's gonna blow. Soon the house was swarming with fluorescent jackets and bleeping bleepers. We'll be back in half an hour to drill up the pavement they said at 11.30 pm on a Friday night. A decided to have a bath before they switched everything off. Went to turn it on. A beer and a little look at a bicycle parts website later.......Drip drip drip. His bath had come to him. Through the kitchen ceiling next to the light socket. Stand back it's gonna blow. But no. They couldn't afford the special FX, so all that happened was we mopped the floor and the gas people drilled two tiny holes outside then drew yellow chalk round them.

Vacuuming dust coils from around drum kit in boys room I muse upon missing Trivial Pursuit cards and Teenagers Lost Watch. Recent sleuthings convince me that watch has been sold and cards have been used for roaches. Dare not mention to A who is is now the Dad from Quadrophenia despite his Irvine Welsh Glasgow years. Raise loose floorboards searching for stash and own lost marbles.

In this fickle time between winter and sun, April is chucking cold blossom on the pavement. The small children are big. And the eldest is away to the woods. A mental spring clean. A paradigm shift. Remembering always that truth is stranger than fiction. Remembering to look - but not too closely. Clean those windows.

I think I have to go. And it will be more Shawshank Redemption than The Great Escape.
(3 film - and 2 literary references in one blog indicate a winter of hibernation.)

Pick n Mix

2008-11-23T14:58:00.000-08:00

As the four boys relaxed in the luxurious crumb upholstered
interior of the speeding Peugeot 406 estate, the talk was of the
morning's football...'What a goal!' exclaimed L, his flinty
gaze alert under a superficially relaxed stance.

'Don't look now but we've got company' murmured B.
I took a sharp right - careering through a shop front and winding
up in a deserted carpark. 'I think we've lost them' said J through
gritted teeth.'Can't believe you have to pay to park on a Sunday though'
grunted L.' We don't' said B as he brought down the parking meter in a
hail of bullets. 'Make it snappy guys - the film starts in five'.

The agents honed bodies tensed for action.'They've tracked my phone.
They know we're here. Quick. The roof!' Expertly they scaled the wall,
bounding across the tiles to the Peckham Multiplex - sending several
lumps of Deco architecture crashing to the pavement in the process.

Meanwhile the mysterious leather gloved Mr X intercepted the coded
message on the abandoned phone:
'Will u b home 4 t?'

J clutched the bullet wound on his arm 'Are we gonna make it?'
'It'll be tight- but if we don't pull this one we'll staying in at playtime. Forever!' B was ashen as they approached the kiosk. Fingers crossed. Here we go.
'Four children and one adult please' said J firmly. Minutes seemed
like a lifetime as they waited for the hungover-looking youth to print out the tickets....

J didn't flinch as he felt the inevitable muzzle of a gun in his back.
'Ah Mr Bond' purred a chillingly familiar voice...'It seems you have
forgotten your Pick n Mix....'

(To be continued........)

It's Closer Than You Think.

2008-11-10T04:43:00.000-08:00

Feathers Ruffled

2008-11-09T07:53:00.000-08:00

This week I joined the online discussion forum for local residents.

Like Caspar Hauser on a bad hair day, I wandered through the creaky door of this virtual village pub and everything went quiet....

A slightly obtuse statement endorsing a friend's new retail venture resulted in accusations of fraud and me being blocked from the site. People suspected I was the self promoting owner of the business. I had seriously breached the etiquette. The hostility my comment generated was amazing, even when it became clear I was unconnected to the owner.

In this cultural melting pot new tribes are still developing, both virtually and in Real Life. Tight little communities with their own rules, rituals and language. And I had spoken the wrong language...

So I apologise unreservedly to all those affected or offended...
Please accept 3 cows, a goat, and 2 Nintendogs.

Hey kids remember this day. Er.. mum wasn't it that other guy?

2008-11-04T14:37:00.000-08:00

Cildo Meireles:Something Fishy at The Tate Modern

2008-11-01T15:00:00.000-07:00

The Mighty Bush. Wall St. Crash and Bash

2008-09-26T13:51:00.000-07:00

George we'll start with you. How the mighty have fallen. It's all your fault. Yep - that everybody has to work themslves into wan bleached out existance just to survive and ends up living on the knife edge of sanity. Being a Wall Street banker right now must be great. At last you are released from greed to go and keep sheep (or something with Kevin Costner in it.) Someone has to take the blame - and this month it's your turn, President Boosh. In July it was China - but then the Olympics were so much fun we forgot all about His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Damage Done. Who he? Funny old fusspot with glasses. Anyway they ain't rich so it don't matter wot happens to Tibetans.

...and now for Something (not quite) Completely Different.

All Secondary Schools are equal. But some are more equal than others. Don't go there you will be punched and become stupid. Do go here. It's all shiny and the teachers have nice hair.... 3 years later - entire reversal of opinion.

Fickle, Lemming like flock of parents topple over educational cliff to intellectual death and middle class alcoholism. And no, your job probably isn't safe. Particularly if you collide particles.

Now that the Cern Giant, as it were - (now there's a person with problems) has broken. What will happen? They can't all be getting their soldering irons out. Must be some element of redundancy.

Thank goodness somebody, probably God, sabotaged it before we all ended up in a strange screaming Francis Bacon world of anti-matter where it rains donuts.

How do you get Protons to stay in a tunnel anyway? If they are that teensy why don't they just jostle between the metal molecules to Proton Freedom? Please answer this genuine question !

So they whizzed round getting faster and faster. When they got very fast they got heavy. Then they were going to be bashed together. A bit like Crashing and Bashing. A game played with die cast matchbox model cars by, as I recall , seven year old boys.

I think we could learn a lot but "There's a hole in my neighbourhood down which, of late. I cannot help but fall." Frankly, Elbow, with a sentence as clumsy as that, you deserve it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXzugu39pKM

I'm off to do some hoovering.

Junior Holiday Fun. Spot the Boy in the Orange shorts.

2008-08-19T14:30:00.000-07:00

Meloney's Melons at THE HOP FARM

2008-07-18T13:34:00.000-07:00

Photo of a screen. But I was there and HURRAY for Neil Young

2008-07-18T13:14:00.000-07:00

Fashion victim at the Hop Farm. Twilight falls on some serious recycling

2008-07-18T13:05:00.000-07:00

Vodka Jelly Snots. Eddy is tempted.

2008-07-18T10:08:00.000-07:00

'You are old Father William' the young man said..... 'and your hair has become very white

And yet you incessantly stand on your head....Do you think at your age, it is right?'

Absolutely. The parents recently celebrated 50 years of drinking tea together. My dad still breakdances and my mum says ' well what do you want me to do - sit on the back step?'

We sat on Brighton beach with our jetlagged cousins comparing family feet, and the genetic bunion that I escaped because of the milkman. It was a very blue sky that day.

In June the whole family sat entranced through 3 hours of Hebrew on a hard Synagogue bench, to witness J's Barmitzvah. Even the usually hyper twins were stilled by the gravity of the situation. Acknowledging with all of their 9.99%, years the concentrated effort of a 13 year old dyslexic in the latter stages of Measles, as he deciphered the inky scrolls of an ancient Torah. The gossiping of the Maureen Lipmans behind us became gasps as they witnessed a strength of character not taught in any school.....

Nearly all Neil Young's songs are about growing up or growing old. And words that rhyme with old and begin with G. In 1978 when I suppose I was young, he was increasingly whiney and skinny but not in a cool wasted speedy way. So I sold Stars and Bars and collected pink punk vinyl versions of Nellie the Elephant....'1,2,3,4....Nellie the Elephant packed her bags and said goodbye to the circuuus!!!'

Now that Neil is fatter and more baritone and I can't find all those gimmicky singles that were in a cardboard box at my brother's house, I've come crawling back and found myself tail between legs watching old Mr Young in a damp field in kent. A totally sober event. Most intoxicating drug being a flask of PG tips (pyramid tea bags). Fave accessory: wicker hamper. Fave hat: Stetson. Fave hobby: fossil collecting. Mood: stalwart. Fave motto: I can't find the Piriton.

Of course he was excellent to the point of not really bothering about the other bands. Guitar surfing over a sea of gortex to produce yet another one of this summer's life affirming experiences. Also strangely and gothically - though not in a Phantom of the Opera-ish way, he played a church organ. What a great 48th Birthday treat it was. Another year under the belt (embossed leather, cartridge with pistol holsters). Yes folks, the new old Young ticked this year's box for seeing an icon a year. There are definite waistcoaty straw chewing similarities between Neil and Nick (Cave). It's certainly been an Old Testament kinda coupla months...and if I could've lifted both my parents up in their chairs, I would've.

Halleilujah to it all !........

Technoflop 3: Fossilised Blog

2008-06-05T15:04:00.000-07:00

My blog won't let me edit anything in the side bar - links/pics etc.

Any ideas anyone, as some things there are 2,000,000 years old

and need freshening up.

Dulwich Dawn of The Dead

2008-05-24T12:26:00.000-07:00

It's eerily quiet on the South London streets. There's no queue outside the cheese shop- just someone's lost looking Chihuahua. In the pub the big screen is delivering football to an empty bar. The unpleasant 70's chairs being sold in the street market have been upturned . Loaves of rock hard overpriced olive bread are strewn on the recently refurbished, strangely pink pavement. Where is everybody? Not a 3 wheeled buggy containing IVF twins in sight. The sweet shop is shut. The coffee shop canopy flutters slightly in the breeze - some one has left in a hurry leaving an original Marimeko fabric handbag on the table along with a receipt from a hotel in Cannes.

A life coach and two holistic therapists run for their lives past a Wine Merchant's and an an Estate Agents window. Scrawled in huge letters of dripping blood across the plate glass are the words 'The Smashing Pumpkins' . The organic butcher has suffered a similar fate - the words on his shop front say. 'Skeen!' What has happened here?

As darkness falls on a couple of vandalised his and hers identical silver Vespa scooters, I notice the lamp post they are chained to is advertising a Kooks gig.

A deep but distant rumble. It seems to be coming from way up the hill. The site I realise, of the local Secondary School. Then I see them. Lurching, mumbling. I smell the stench of Adidas Sport as they close in, heads lolling insanely in time to the ghastly rythmn of their deadly Ipods. ( on closer inspection I see these are merely cheap mp3 players, bought as replacements when they'd left the originals on the bus after drinking someone's parents Pernod supply.)

The skinny jeans.... the hair putty. Ceramic straighteners. little skirts and ballet flats. Boys in cccc...cardigans! Scary scary pointy shoes... I know there is no going back. They drag themselves towards me grunting. What is it they are trying to say. I can barely make it out. Rooted to the spot in terror I shut my eyes waiting for the inevitable....' CanIhavesomemoneytogointotown ' they growl in unison. I crumple, defeated in the face of the invasion of the TEENAGERS, my last words tailing off as they trample over me, crushing me with their Converses....' It's way past ur bdtme and I bet uv gt homework....' I yelp helplessly.... too late. I see the madness in their eyes and realise I will never be able to text as fast as they can....

Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds - Hammersmith

2008-05-11T02:19:00.000-07:00

Nick's atmospheric lighting

2008-05-11T02:06:00.000-07:00

Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds. Hammersmith 08

2008-05-10T14:12:00.000-07:00

The man is 50 and living in Hove. Not Brighton I hasten to add. And yet he could still cut the mustard.

Never really saw him being Nosferatu in the Birthday Party. I think that was when I was a jazzer - or else pretending to like Dvorjak. I don't suppose he ever envisaged giving out party bags at a six year old's soft play session but I gather this is now this iconic rockers life. Incredible then, that he can still summon the spirit. I have much admiration for a person who can adapt/ divert some of his energies to the universal mundane . Sanctify, perhaps.

Anyway. The words were good. The music was good. And the words matched the music.

How great to be doing a job you enjoy. Am I too old for this? Never say that. The perpetrator is older. 'An old rock and roller with a three wheeled stroller.'

Not yet ridiculous like Jagger. Wise way beyond indie teenagers hairstyles. And possibly in his prime. Hey we were lucky to be there.

A is 49 next week. This was his birthday treat.

The Exploding Plastic Inevitable

2008-05-02T10:51:00.000-07:00

Forget the Anarchist's Cookbook. This one's straight from the freezer.

One day. One of those not quite multi tasking days, when the shopping had been wrongly compartmentalised and the toothpaste was in the oven etc.... a disappointed child removed a solid bottle of pop from the icebox: "Oh yuck it's all frozen".

"Leave it to thaw then" says the daft parent. (A level in Science - but not in Common Sense.)

So there we were on Sunday sitting round the table. Unusually all at the same time and all managing to hold our knives and forks properly and not leave our broccoli stalks. Even a semblance of communication going on. When.......

POWWW!

-Icy shards shocked the air in slow motion. A hail of citrus fallout crashed around us. We sat deafened. Snipers, Al Quaida, British Gas, the neighbours?

In the white silence that followed, the kids moved first. Racing gleefully to the plastic bottle's wrecked fuselage - they crammed their faces with lemony lolly shrapnel shot to the furthest reaches of the room.

- Only a dimension away from blood, blindness, A+E and the Southwark Social Services of a parallel universe.

James Brown and Pavarotti

2008-02-12T12:44:00.000-08:00

I've had a gap in my musical education since 1968.
It was this.....

....and if I didn't have a thirteen year old son who recently
discovered Soul and it's Godfather. And if Youtube hadn't been
invented, then I would still be living in ignorance.

Go to the bit where JB and P sing together. Ignore the purple
cast to the footage - and the fact that Pavarotti has what looks
like Creme de menthe sick on his collar.

Listen and be amazed...never mind about the delusional lyrics.

Does any one know of any other unholy but brilliant vocal alliance?

(OK - I've seen the one of Roger Daltrey singing Wheels on the Bus
with a bunch of under fives.)

Not Dr Who

2008-02-05T08:30:00.000-08:00

Oopsa - I seem to written a scene from 'Torchwood'.

Click on the red handbag in the sidebar for the story so far.....

Ouch - It Burns........

2008-01-27T08:01:00.000-08:00

Pete Burns .... Mr Burns (excellent, excellent.)
Rabbie Burns... Whatever.....

This time I didn't liquidise haggis, neeps and tatties and
funnel it down the kids throats. In fact the night itself
went unmarked.

After all, they're a quarter German. And within that whirling
genetic soup float certain similarities.
For instance potatoes, alcohol and dubious meat products
stuffed into some poor unwitting mammal's mucous membrane.
All at once? Surely not but possibly, yes.

The Scots would claim desperation, starvation - an infertile soil
and an inclement climate.

The Germans would look sideways in a folkish way that spoke of
goblins, forests, houses made of sweets and old, old hags that
ate anything, especially children.

The Scots have Kilts. The Germans have Lederhosen.
Scots have Burns. Germans, Rilke.

Scots have a sense of humour (If you ignore the bagpipes and golf.)
Germans have good physicists ( If you ignore the hairstyles.)

Scots, Haggis.
Germans, Wurst.

What is the common denominator?

It's pizza.

Snow On It's Way

2008-01-02T11:28:00.000-08:00

Xmas. Ex year.

Funny how mince pies feel all grey and greasy on the tongue
once we're into New Year.

It's been very nice and healing for the brain
not to have to rise like an electrified Frankensteinian creation, at 7.00 am
every morning. Bolt upright in bed. Bolts in my head. Fizzing.
Actually feel quite human and capable of following a train of thought
somewhere.........

Christmas has its uses. It allows you to slow down and reflect
and as you soak in an overfilled bath of lukewarm sentimentality
you can ponder what's really important. This is universal. Whether
you are having an estranged or homeless Christmas or trying to
dodge bullets - your mind will at some point
engage with Christmas.
Even if it's not your religion of choice.

After 47 years I can choose which traditions
I feel like observing. Not that many actually.
The overiding aim is to stop and think

We had Elvis, turkey and candles and then the oven broke.
Stir fried stuffing is unusual.

The children were lucky enough to have presents.

I read' The DaVinci code' - and so what if Jesus did have kids.

I read a more interesting book, 'The Paris Review '- interviews
with authors. The giver of this gift said they hoped it would prod
me into action - or words to that effect.

I went to see 'The Magic Flute' at the Young Vic and I'm glad I did.
(I went with two special people.)

I watched Mary Poppins - and still wish the dad didn't end up returning
to his old job at the bank.

I wore my new scarf, which is good because Snow Is On It's Way.
( James Thurber-ish capitals.)

It's this blog's first birthday.

Joy Division's Greatest Hits (boxed set with free counselling session)

2007-11-02T14:58:00.000-07:00

It's all Joy Division innit.
I can honestly say I have had several conversations
about that band from the 80's, this week.

" My favourite song is
She's Lost Control. " - This came from a seven
year old.

"Hey y'know Joy Division were like a really cool band?"
This came from a thirteen year old.

"Shall we go and see that film about Ian Curtis?"
A forty seven year old said this.

So. - With depression, suicide, nostalgia and
monotonous base riffs, Joy Division have something
for all the family this Christmas, folks.

Do we Know We're born?

2007-10-26T12:25:00.000-07:00

Debi Alper has been commenting on aspects of
NHS care as it exists in London today.

As I recall it was crisis management at St Thomas's
hospital nine years ago - but there was still a sense
that the show must go on. I emerged from it's
double doors with perfect double babies, which
although born two months early had been
given the best possible care. I was in
an interesting, fairly grubby ward with a variety of new mothers.
Ranging from traumatised teenage parent (also of twins)
being treated for psychosis, to a woman with learning difficulties
who twice dropped her baby. But I was so chuffed my kids
and myself, were alive. And the staff were very smiley.

Last March I was a little bit ill - and then more ill.
The GP prescribed antibiotics for a chest infection but
when I said I couldn't really breathe - listened and couldn't
hear a 'rattle', so declined to investigate further. He grumpily
signed me off from work for five days.

At home I phoned out of hours service and described
intensifying symptoms - couldn't breathe without feeling as if I'd
been stabbed. Advice: Carry on with antibiotics. Take painkillers.
Several types at once. Couldn't move and had to sleep sitting up.
Too ill to feel sorry for myself, I just hoped I wouldn't stop breathing
completely. Entered strange grey world and wondered how soon
I could leave it. Wondered if lungs were tiny, deflated party balloons
and what sort of salary GP was on.

Looked up Pleurisy on internet.

And yet we do have an NHS.

Apparently Michael Moore said 'the only place you can get
free medical treatment in America is Guantanamo bay'.

What is the reality. How do different systems compare?
Global comments welcome - even from Aberdeen.

Odd things happening in the NHS ( Thanks, James Thurber).

2007-10-26T12:23:00.000-07:00

No.1 boy with guitar he made. He's quite proud and so am I.

2007-10-24T08:43:00.000-07:00

For Phoctober at Moon Topples.

The Divine Comedy 1: L' Inferno

2007-10-16T13:23:00.001-07:00

After a strange summer of jumping and wondering
if the parachute would open - we hit the ground running.

To celebrate, we did a bit of tidying up. Painted some walls
took things to the charity shop. Then we thought a smart new
desk would make us think we were organised.
We would still have piles of paper - but they'd be important
and not covered in jam.

So we found ourselves, on a mellow Saturday afternoon
approaching the Croydon Ikea....

" Ho! thou comest to the house of pain
Cried Minos when he saw me, the appliance
Of his dread powers suspending, think again. "

Have they changed the road layout - this roundabout
wasn't there last time. Can any one see a parking
space. No? Keep looking. What! it shuts in half an hour?

"How thou dost go, in whom is thy reliance;
Be not deceived by the wide open door!
Then said my guide - wherefore this loud defiance?"

Round and round we wandered - in ever increasing circles.
Passing unsustainable potted ferns ripped from the Amazon
basin. Averting our eyes from hideous printed fabrics and
polyester rugs. Feeling the static rise from a hundred
mass produced orange plastic camping forks. Ooh they'll
come in handy. Entering a zone of soft furnishing despair....
and then a bright and jolly halogen lit kitchenette hell.

Mum. I really really really want a fluffy cushion.
You'll get a hot dog if you're lucky!
It's closing now. I'll get the desk. See you at the checkout.
They haven't got the legs that go with the top bit.
Get it anyway.....

"And now the sounds of grief begin to fill
My ear: I'm come where cries of anguish smite
My shrinking sense, and lamentation shrill "

The coffee place shut five minutes ago.
But I REALLY wanted that fluffy cushion!

" When they are borne to the rim of the ruinous path
With cry and wail and shriek they are caught by the gust,
Railing and cursing the power of the Lord's wrath."

The shop is now closed, will customers please make their
way to the checkout.

"Hither and thither, up and down, outworn,
Hopeless of any rest - rest did I say?
Of the least minishing of their pangs forlorn"

Yeah, though you gain a toughened glass table top (with no
legs and as yet unpacked) - verrily you shall lose your soul.

......... And still not get a fluffy cushion.

( Apologies to Dante Alighieri )

Phoctober: Peckham Rye, South London. ( where Blake saw the Angels) An African wedding photoshoot.

2007-10-12T13:31:00.000-07:00

2007-08-14T15:11:00.000-07:00

Pots and telescope at Castle Hill Pottery (see side bar)

2007-08-14T15:03:00.000-07:00

Campers that blog: part 3. Wales

2007-08-14T13:01:00.000-07:00

Finally caught up with Lois, who lives Far Far Away
in the land of historic battle re-enactments and quality roadkill.
Yes folks it's called the Countryside.

Lucky them. They live on an archaeological hillside with no
KFC's lining their peripheral vision. Lucky them
they can actually breath without increasing their cancer risk by 30%.
Lucky all of us while we were there. We could see stars.

We built a cairn on Castle Hill and in the gathering gloom it took
the shape of an ancient cloaked king, arms folded.
Watching us as we shook earwigs from our sleeping bags
and failed to light waterproof matches.

Watching as our camp fire sent sparks to dance with shooting stars.....

And as we snored, empty Murphy's cans as pillows... a thousand warriors
slept under the hill.....

So - what do you do all day in Wales?

If you are Lois and Tony you do great drawing and make cool pots -
(having learned your skills from French potters.)
you also look after Billy and Kate who are four.
You get to eat the veg you've grown and the eggs your
hens have laid.

People visit you expecting Shangri - La ( actually it was
when we where there) - but it's raining and anyway you have to
work.

The visitors remove their thornproof tweeds and settle down to
watch Spongebob Squarepants with the kids.

We are under no illusion. Life's what you make it.

I would give anything for that sky.
But I quite like being able to buy Japanese vinegar
from the corner shop.

Bye says Billy, cheerily.

'See you at Halloween.'

Scary fanged people head back to London.

Back to popcorn
and another Pixar film.
It's raining here too.....

Bloggers that camp: Part 2 - Our tent in Tony and Lois's back garden. Cnwclas, Powys (from Castle Hill)

2007-08-14T12:47:00.000-07:00

Bloggers that Camp. Part 1: Gathering of the Clans

2007-08-07T14:10:00.002-07:00

Well we've got the family toothbrush and the family towel.
Got the meths stove and the old guitar....

Heading off on that blue highway.

Here's one we did earlier......

2007-08-07T14:02:00.000-07:00

Three bloggers on a Sphinx. Crystal Palace Park, London 2007

2007-07-28T12:27:00.000-07:00

When shall we three meet again
in thunder, lightening or in rain.

I'd say more than likely - rain.

Real Life/Virtual Life - and that interesting space between them

2007-07-21T13:15:00.000-07:00

Go on get a (Cyber) life!

I'd been saying it for days but the other life.
So called real one, wouldn't shut up - so I couldn't hear
myself think. When you try and print out, and it's not
working - and you get a queue. Then it works and
suddenly you have 20 pictures of a Cat that Looks
like Hitler because the computer can't stop itself.

Now real life can be like that.

I couldn't stop.

And on one of the evenings that I couldn't stop
I found myself gazing at Mark E Smith's ravaged
features at the Carling Academy, Islington.

The Fall - at Angel. Ha.

Those Smiths of Rock. How very fabulous they are.
Bessie, Patti , THE Smiths, Mark E - and do I include
Will? He has done a song. And do Aerosmith count?

You have to be feeling psychically strong. I can understand
this could be dangerous if one is tired or stressed.

If you're feeling chipper though, it makes for a remarkably
good value evening. One of the reasons I do like The Fall
is because, although they've been going since A was too young
to shave - (me too actually) - they haven't sold out and only
want £15 off you.

MES, a cross between Albert Steptoe and Toad of Toad Hall,
lurches about greasily in an ASDA shirt creating
sounds of such inventiveness that one's eyes water.
Very tuneful it is. Very layered. And very loud in
it's textural intensity.

(What was that Hemingway said about not trusting adjectives?)

You try jumping up and down in a half remembered pogo.
But you are 47 with 3 children and a nectar card - and your
plimsolls stick to the floor. There is beer. There are Germans.
There are people who could be or do almost anything but
probably work with computers. Punks, Bankers, Bakers and
Candlestick makers.

Should I even be here? Isn't it rather sad. No. I belong to the
Patti Smith school of aging and will go on having badges on my
lapels forever.

So - hooray. Though cyber life has been shrivelled and neglected,
Real life is excessive and persistant .... and...in the space between
this world and other worlds... there is music!

Testing... testing.....

2007-06-15T14:05:00.000-07:00

Debi Alper blah blah Nirvana Bites
blah blah Trading Tatiana .......
blah blah ..... is your google alert
awake Debi?

HEROES: Revised version for Shameless Lions

2007-06-15T13:32:00.000-07:00

" Joe the Lion - made of iron"
         said David Bowie

          influenced by
         Dylan Thomas

         Walt Whitman

    William Shakespeare

               Ovid

              Virgil

           Lucretius

            Epicurus

         Democritus

         Pythagoras

        his wife Theano
        - who discovered
      The Golden Mean
       magic number in
          architecture
              shells
           sunflowers

Heroes (For the Shameless Lions Writing Circle)

2007-05-30T14:00:00.000-07:00

' Joe The Lion - made of iron.....'

Said David Bowie.

Who was influenced by
Bob Dylan

Who was influenced by
Dylan Thomas

Who was influenced by
Walt Whitman

Who was influenced by
William Shakespeare

who was influenced by
Ovid

Who was influenced by
Virgil

Who was influenced by
Lucretius

Who was influenced by
Epicurus

who was influenced by
Democritus

Who was influenced by
Pythagoras

Who was influenced by
his wife, Theano who
discovered The Golden
Mean. The principal on
whch the ancient Egyptians
and Greeks based their
architecture. A number
found in the spiral of a
Nautilus shell and in the pattern
of a sunflower.

Chocolate a la Murakami

2007-05-27T06:20:00.000-07:00

A man awoke on his 48th birthday.
It was cloudy, rain forecast. What had he expected?
A glorious May morning, coloured envelopes on the kitchen table
illuminated by a shaft of sunlight?

Just a normal day. A day like any other. Everything happening
slightly later than it should. Bathroom clamour, the brushing
of teeth and hair.

A hurried bowl of cereal and there were cards. Some expected
but one a surprise. It changed the day a little. And the children's
felt pen greetings. Their misspelt words stayed with him as he
gathered speed, joining the traffic, forehead damp with city drizzle.

He could see his office block ahead. He imagined the purposeful
atmosphere. people already at their work. Phones ringing.
The hum of the computer sytem.

He would buy chocolates. Make an effort. Today would be
be different. He cycled to a railing, locked his bike to it
and entered a newagent. He chose quickly, struggling outside the shop
to pull the rucksack clips together, careful not to crush the boxes.

They would turn from their screens to thank him. They would stop
writing and talking just to taste his chocolate. There would be a moment
when everyone would be thinking of him and his birthday.

He padded across the unpleasantly squashy office carpet, smelling the
scented, aftershaved morning. Slurped the froth from a cup of machine
coffee. It lay on his upper lip as he tore open the usual, large format
brown envelopes that lay in wait for him each morning.

He replied to a couple of urgent looking emails. Then fetched a pale yellow
serving platter from the office kitchen. This was really just a cupboard,
a sink and a fridge. If you wanted to make a snack you used the top of the
cupboard. This was not a place for serious food preparation.
He arranged the chocolates, with some thought, on the cold china.
They were proper Belgian ones, not just Quality Street.

Then he turned to his computer to compose his birthday announcement.
As he hovered the mouse over 'send' he noticed
a new message alert. He opened it:

' could all staff assemble in the conference room as soon as possible
thanks, Roy.'

He slid the sweets, still on the plate, into a drawer on to a pack of
printer paper. And there they stayed for a week.

Everybody had been a little anxious. Joking over
their nerves. Gatherings could mean sackings or serious financial problems.
There were faces, staff from other departments that he'd barely
spoken to. No one had put out chairs. Soon the entire practice
shuffled expectantly in one room, waiting for Roy.

Roy wasn't smiling. He pushed his hair back from his forehead.
His words faltered:

' Thankyou everyone for your attention. I erm..I have just received
news from, er, on behalf of, our colleague, Paul Kinley.'

Roy paused and seemed to swallow hard.

' I regret that I have to pass on the extremely distressing news
that Paul suffered a fatal heart attack at 6.30 this morning '.

There was a collective gasp, a murmer, then complete silence.

In this silence he thought of Paul's crumpled shirts.
The train journey they had once shared on the way to a meeting
and the photo Paul had shown him of his nine year old son on a
skateboard.

But mainly he thought of the china plate in his drawer. And
the sweating chocolates now slowly gaining a whitish bloom.

Lost In Space

2007-05-25T12:20:00.000-07:00

I lost my post. An hours worth of words.

My Seven Pillars of Wisdom that I didn't
leave on a train.

Where is it ?
Where is it !

It WASN"T automatically saved by blogger.

Monster Moths From Mars Ate My Past

2007-05-05T10:13:00.000-07:00

For weeks, months, the house has been full of teeny silver moths
fluttering about their mothy business.

I found out their evil plot.

Opened an innocent looking army holdall.
In it I keep my collection of ethnic and historic textiles.
There is a long, indigo Gambian dress.
Bedouin embroidery.
Rajasthani mirror work.
An Afghan gold threaded table cover.
Tibetan woven apron.
My old bedroom curtains from when I was 6.
Some pieces of 1930's silk
Pieces of material that I just liked the pattern of.
Bits of Turkish kelim.
An Indian sari, block printed with vegetable
dye.

All ruined.

I unzipped the bag. A cloud of the little bastards
hit me in the face. There lay my shredded past
in a mass of frass and moths at every stage
of development. Vacated, gossamer cocoons,
grubs and full up, healthy looking, contented adults.

Well it was curtains for them - but not
as they knew it.
Yes this was definitely a lesson in letting go of worldly
objects. The transience of all things....
( which is why I think I gave up Textile Conservation
as a career several years ago.)

Anyway, I gave them Ariel hell in the Hotpoint.
Full voltage UV on the washing line.

I don't care. I'll get over it. I've learnt the lesson.
But now I fear I may come back as a moth.

Ghost Jeans.......

2007-05-05T08:19:00.000-07:00

.....In that if your ancestors were gold digging, jeans wearing pioneers
out west, you could inherit er, perhaps a liking for baked beans
or a tendency to fart.

Or if your distant desert forefathers had
given their lives to pyramid building, possibly
suffering scorching sun and a limited diet of beer and chicken
you might then be partial to chicken in a basket and half a
shandy on the veranda of your Marbella villa?
(With a dash of green eyeliner)

I was going to explain further and talk about past lives
and deja vu but my daughter just HAS to meet her friends
on Club Penguin. Sheesh maleesh...Now those Arctic
ancestors......

So if you want to know more you can. Just look up
'Epigenetics' and 'Ghost Genes'.

Go on then.

Join the Club

2007-04-22T01:10:00.000-07:00

Club Penguin? Small girls chatting online to
men in their fifties called wozzle or flappit

We are now coughing up to virtually furnish
a virtual igloo and buy virtual petfood for virtual
pets. What madness is this?

Whatever happened to the Puffin Club?

The Potala Palace (not)

2007-04-21T12:01:00.000-07:00

A new term in the hallowed portals of learning.

In the cool, labrynthine depths of this temple to education,
young children are being schooled in life by wise, patient sages.
A mountain breeze wafts the sweet scent of sandalwood
through still, orderly rooms where peace and contemplation
pervade. Children sit calmly, alert to instruction from their
venerable elders......

A ragged croak breaks the silence. Could it be the cry of a
bald Eagle? Or perhaps a Snow Leopard on heat.

'How dare you talk in line!
Do that again and you'll be missing playtime for the rest
of the week.....'

Outside coloured prayer flags flutter like butterflies
on the bodhi tree
'..and whoever dropped that litter can stay in at break'

A football slams against the flyblown staffroom window.
' The year 6's are playing up again'.

The ancient stone architraves of this cliff top edifice
frame the ice capped purity of the sacred Kailash.
Below, voices. Students eloquently debating
a philosophical point......

' Oi minger! '
' Loser '
' Double loser '

'.for it is only by shedding our ego that we can realise
the illusory nature of existance..'

' Can of Red Bull dahn the park anyone? '

What do they teach them at school?

2007-04-07T04:37:00.000-07:00

The Easter bunny is a genetically manipulated animal
with the the DNA of a hare, chicken, cow, cocoa bean
and sugar cane. A small, long eared mammal that lays
chocolate eggs.
Now what would happen if it escaped from the lab?

Short (very) story competition for 8 year olds and
over. Enter in comments.

Technoflop 3

2007-04-02T11:08:00.000-07:00

Go away. Just get lost.
Why do these pictures not stay with their correct post?
Stop following me!

knock knock. Who's there?

2007-03-31T01:45:00.000-07:00

Tonight's the night. You can feel the sonic crackles of
anticipation.

A new series of Dr Who will hit the screen at peak
viewing time and the only families that won't be watching
are those where the adults spent their 60's childhoods in
Hong Kong or Sao Paolo, haven't a clue what the fuss
is about and didn't spend their Saturday evenings lurking
behind the legendary purple draylon sofa.

Dr Who hysteria is clear psychological evidence of how
parental values influence young children.

This British institution is rooted entirely in the reactionary
nostalgia for all things past that is part of our culture.

....And yes, we'll all be glued to the set, eating fish and chips
round our Victorian fireplace.

The Prisoner

2007-03-27T12:18:00.000-07:00

I walk down the street. I turn the corner. I walk. I cross the road
Iwalk down another road and I'm back where I started.
The buildings look strange but familiar. I know there is no escape.
I am not a number, I am a free person.

There's the posh sweet shop...and the shoe shop, the poodle
parlour - I mean hairdresser and the triple gift shops that smell
of parma violets. I stop by the knick-knacks-for- the-home
-that-can-be-purchased-with-disposable-income shop. Sinister
people in 60's style suits approach me.

'You are middle class. You cannot leave. Your world view is
based on received information from the Guardian newspaper.
You buy organic butternut squash, you think omega oils will
make everything alright. You think there are more interesting things
to do than housework, but you don't like humus on the carpet.
You have never been hungry. You believe reading is more
improving than watching TV, but you crash out in front of
unfunny game shows. You like your children to have interests
and you drive them to and from their interests leaving a carbon
footprint the size of Greenland. You would like to live a stylish life
in a house gutted by minimalism - but there is ketchup on the walls
and old socks and crisp packets under the sofa.'

You cannot leave.
Here comes the giant ball.....rolling down the street, squashing
art gallery owners and people selling unusual olives. Teenagers
in pink crocs run screaming.... Japanese bottled beer spills
onto the pavement outside the tattily trendy bar.

There is no escape

Taking Health for Granted

2007-03-14T09:55:00.000-07:00

Sorry, everyone I've not blogged as been rather poorly with an orrible illness
that used to be very good at reducing the size of Victorian families.
Some kind of lung thing where you feel as if you've been stabbed every
time you take a breathe - and so drift around in a toxic miasma of
painkillers and antibiotics.Thank heavens for antibiotics.
Or Alexander Fleming (Phlegming) actually, but I expect
he was divinely inspired.

You could have partied at my blog - but the ambience might have been
that of old tissues, daytime TV....and me upstairs- mad aunt rats-taily
and wheezing about noise levels.

The point is that one day you can be running the London Marathon
and the next day feeling to weak to pop a Nurofen out of it's plastic
bubble.

Another of life's little reminders to get on with it while you can.

And thanks everyone who rounded up, fetched and fed small
people. What would I have done without you!

'From Kuzhnisk, the world appeared faded as if through a nurses stocking'

2007-03-06T12:14:00.000-08:00

Have just finished 'Ludmila's broken English' by DBC Pierre.
So I do actually read - not just manage children and their
homework. Feel that literary types, apart from those that know
me better - are deserting this blog. Arggh have been labelled a
saddo that writes about kids as nothing else in life.

Anyway, right. I read this book right. (And it did take me weeks and
I did have to renew it 3 times. And once upon a time could
have finished it in a day....and been hunting round for something else.)

It was worth hanging on in there - because this is a novel you can
stand your spoon up in.

The story is a mere posturing, anorexic clothes horse, but it wears it's
prose like Kate Moss. Each page is packed with bizarre similes that seem
to have escaped the refining process and jump instantly from instinct to page.
Boy are they quick. Loads and loads of living description and conversations
that are still writhing on the paper as you attempt to pin them down.

After a while it is totally indigestible and you just have to stop to process everything.
Sort of the opposite to reading a children's story.

I think it has a happy ending.

We are all in the gutter but some of us are doing our homework.

2007-02-27T12:52:00.000-08:00

Was Oscar Wilde ever a teenager? Did he ever have conversations like this?

Me: Got any homework?
Son: (silence}
Me: Have you got any homework?
Son: Uuuunnnghhh?
Me: Homework?
Son: Err...no
Me: No homework?
Son: No. Yes.
Me: Have you got homework?
Son: Yes.
Me: What is it?
Son: Dunno.
Me: WHAT is the homework that you have to do?
Son: Er.. well...erm. I've got to do a thingy about a wotsit......

Fashion Victim

2007-02-25T11:54:00.000-08:00

I went into a shop today and looked on a clothes rail. Is it me or
is current 'fashion' designed to make you look like a glum, baggy
extra from a BBC WW2 costume drama.

I know I am a jeans type - but if the alternative is a brown ruched
nylon above the knee skirt or some kind of vile spotty big girls
blouse that ties on the HIPS! Then I'll stick with denim (and some
pre-Columbian Primark jewellery.)

Guardian Angels

2007-02-25T10:21:00.001-08:00

Last Friday A was cycling home from work. A journey
that takes him from London Bridge to East Dulwich
via two monster three-lane roundabouts at Waterloo and Elephant
and Castle, then through Brixton to Herne Hill.
Coming into Brixton the traffic is funnelled into smaller, slower
roads.

A had stopped at the lights in Brixton.The lights changed. As
he put pressure on the pedals and pushed down on the low
racing handle bars, the metal snapped. The bars had sheared
suddenly into two halves that crashed to the tarmac throwing
A forward with them. Miraculously, with only grazes to elbows
and knees, he picked himself up as the cars behind him
remained stationary at the lights. A few people asked if he was
OK as he dragged the bike to the pavement to begin a shaky
trudge home.

This could have happened absolutely anywhere along that route.
But it didn't.

One of our favourite films is 'Der Himmel Uber Berlin'
by Wim Wenders - the one with the guardian angels.

Tools

2007-02-19T14:42:00.000-08:00

What do all these spanners and pencils mean all over
my blog?

PS check out http://catsmother-grannys-house.blogspot.com/

All Work And No Play.....

2007-02-19T13:49:00.000-08:00

So our kids are the unhappiest in Europe.
Why? we know how to show 'em a good time.
We spent half term researching their Egyptian project
when it was too rainy to go out - and we did all that
maths and literacy homework that had been set for the
week. We even found time to visit family in Cambridge
- and ended up in the museum's Ancient Egyptian section looking at
dead cats. Wow it were great.

Thing is, when you are an eight year old boy - what you
remember most about the Fitzwilliam Museum is
that to get to it, in Cambridge on the train, you have to
pass the new Arsenal Emirates football stadium.

My Funny Valentine

2007-02-14T11:03:00.000-08:00

So in he comes.' Honey I'm home.' ( says Homer
simultaneously and quite amusingly from the telly.)
A rustles in a plastic bag- and reveals a dozen
red.....four cans of Carlsberg and today's paper.

Totally Wired

2007-02-13T14:48:00.000-08:00

I'm back. Seem to have momentarilly flickered back into existance due
to A having reloaded Windows for the 5th time in 2 days - a shimmering
figure in the transporter room. Not him, me. He doesn't shimmer. Sparks
are flying as he finally makes it to 'The Fall' website to offer obscure
comments about his nylon clad alter ego.

I'm surprised at how much of a pain all this is. While in post office
looked longingly across road at a sign saying Cyber Cafe. It sounded
good. In there in the warm with state of the art machine - no smeary
old moniter recued from a skip. And a frothing cup of ......er, nothing.
Peering into it's depths could see no sign of coffee. Just feverish
geeks tapping away. Feel like marching in.
Trade Description etc...Cheese shop etc
Realise am in England - where word cafe could mean,
possibly, slight hint of an atmosphere of someone having put
the kettle on 3 blocks away. Depressed caffeine addicts shuffle past
the cyber non cafe in the rain. I wend my way to the library with two
kids for another English experience. Library computers. First of all you
have to give the librarian your card so they can register you. Then you
log in with your number. Then you google interesting facts about the
Rosetta Stone. Interesting but not as interesting as the incendiary
count down that seems to be going on in the top right hand corner.
' I've got 8 minutes and...3..2..1.. 7 minutes...' ' Right 7 minutes..
quick, mummification.'. 6 minutes now to learn
about funeral rites that existed in a corner of North Africa several
thousand years ago. Was that before or after the Tudors?
Oops- time's up. And even if you have got a few minutes left after all
that study..and you didn't spend it paralysed by the clock like L.
The protestant work ethic pooter won't let you play games on it!

Just go home. Just go home to a Laurel and Hardy film.

Something and Nothing

2007-02-09T15:12:00.000-08:00

Been away for a while. P.C says it can't read the C drive.
Does not recognise itself. I think this could be curtains.
Am prepared for the worst.
Anyone have any advice or techy words of comfort for
a dying computer
It is going out. It may be some time.

Anyway......I'm sure people are going to do daft things
to save the planet.
Like this idea of releasing some sort of shiny particles
into the stratosphere. Why? To deflect the sun away from
the ice caps. All I can imagine is permanent gloom. We
maybe saved from climate change - but it'll be really
DARK.
Or building huge billion dollar orbiting disco mirrors.
Another great idea from Fat Boy Slim and Norman NASA
Foster.
We were going to colonise another planet or invent time
travel, but we didn't have the imagination. (Too much
Playstation.) Instead we worked out how
to speed up built-in obsolescence in washing machines
and computers.
R.I.P(C)

Teenage Pregnancy

2007-02-02T10:19:00.000-08:00

From the corner of my eye, I see a small girl cradling
a 2 month old.
Now, not only can I NOT get to the computer, listen to
Steve Reich, cook searingly hot South Indian food,
collect glass animals or take class A drugs,
I also have to be quiet in case I wake the baby.
The children have had children.What madness is this?
Most people have grown out of dolls by the age of
6. When you are approaching 9 and serious about burping and
4 hourly feeds - one's scalp begins to tingle......
Chillingly, the Baby Annabel wears the same gear H
was taxied home in from St Thomas's. Premature girl
twin Church wives knitted pink polyester bobble hat.
How easy it is to produce an Eraserhead atmosphere
of domestic unease....
Now she's putting it to bed.
Baby Annabel snores her recorded snores in bed with
her mummy.
'Don't you think she might keep you awake?'
'No, I'll take her batteries out - and look mum
her dummy glows in the dark!'

....And while on the subject of dolls, teenagers and plastic,
does anyone think Amy Winehouse resembles a Bratz doll?
(or is it the other way round.)

Blair, come out from under that Bush!

2007-02-01T15:21:00.000-08:00

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Why doesn't it surprise me.

That Britain hadn't quite managed
to pay off that
multi-million dollar debt
to that best friend.
At the time of loyally
supporting it
in the invasion of Iraq.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Burns Night

2007-01-25T12:51:00.000-08:00

Why not, I thought, they're a quarter Scottish.
Give the kids a haggis.

"Some hae meat
and canna eat"

It's a kind of sausage - ketchup anyone?

"Auld Scotland wants nae
Skinking Ware
That jaups in luggies
But if ye wish her grateful prayer
(don't!) Gie her a haggis"

The Essex genes remain dominant, closely
followed by the Teutonic ones.
Flecks of nicotine coloured neep rest evilly
next to the freshly heated orange fish fingers.

They eat the potatoes.

I scrape ketchup bloodied haggis into the
bin - to the sound of fading bagpipes
in the glen ( overlaid with Eastenders theme tune.)

It's early nights all round.

(What rhymes with haggis then?)

Interesting yet unrelated facts

2007-01-20T12:42:00.000-08:00

In September 2006, ten million websites were being
censored by the Iranian authorities. Many bloggers
were arrested.

School catering staff get paid for the number of meals
they prepare each day.

No word in the English language rhymes with
Orange, Silver or Purple.
(prove me wrong)

That's just SAD

2007-01-18T13:39:00.000-08:00

I know it's not that interesting and in the grand scheme of things, not even important
and that I thought I was going to escape it this year. But No.
Have tried these things:
Zap self with caffeine.
Turn on lots of lights when get up.
Stand in shafts of weird, transient, midday sunlight you see fleetingly
on the sides of buildings at this time of year.
Decide that being grumpy can be quite endearing and even trendy.
Be in denial about the fact that people will just want to punch you as they
too are SAD
Shake self and realise self absorbed, trite blog is symptom of condition.

It's a feeling of never entirely waking up. Of early onset Alzheimer's
and morphine overdose crossed with sleep deprivation.
So, not really fully functioning until late March and can barely speak
or drive a car. Walk silently everywhere, sporting silver foil collar
to concentrate rays on third eye. Life for four months based
on wearing a huge coat, bluff, avoidance of issues that require
thinking and cat naps at every opportunity.

A peculiarly Northern European syndrome. Would far rather be
dozing next to flickering firelight on layers of fur in smoky hut,
following nature's cycle - than having
modern life drilled into brain.

Ah well.. as Frank would say " pass us the remote, Sheila"

Good evening, I'm from Essex..........

2007-01-13T11:37:00.000-08:00

.......in case you couldn't tell.
Wot's the difference between an Essex girl and an Alsatian?
A bag of chips.
It's obvious to all that it's Sa'dee night and I'm IN.
Thanks to that man and his Microsoft
I remain cyber-gaged incommunicado.
Yeah forget the bedtime story my blue eyed son.
And where have you been my darling young one.
(round to Callum's for band practice).
This precious pearl moves in a cloud of humid Lynx,
struggling in the hormonal cusp between
Horrid Henry and muscley hairy.
Meanwhile I'm eyeballing the screen
as their lives pass me by
on jet propelled heellies.
Time's Winged Chariot etc.
Speaking of which, Googleguyhas
threatened to
disengage me if
I remain idle.
"I'm afraid you can't do that, Dave"
(yet again)
Hurray for Linux.
Here come the Microsoft Police.

Technoflop

2007-01-07T12:10:00.000-08:00

I'm wanting to comment - but can't. Can't see where to
do it on Minx's. Help?

My Name is URL

2007-01-04T13:25:00.000-08:00

.....Although apparently only sometimes. If I don't have caps lock on.
Much of my time has been swallowed by cyberspace this week.
(Is it my time. How can one own time? Comments invited.)
I'm not that techy and the initiation of this blog coincided with children's
MSN and "Oh , I just downloaded some smileys". This resulted in 40
Trojans and a surge of computer led hysteria that led me to suspect
that I may not have many windows (ho ho) of opportunity to blog.
So. It will be sparse but it will be good. I've never got used to the
computer tone of voice. Not as solemn as HAL. "I'm afraid you can't
do that Dave", just cheery chappy transatlantic male. Computers aren't
female at all.
Anyway, huge thanks to female friends and bloggers for all your (?)
time.
(Bill Gates has just given 29 billion dollars to chariddy.
I guess we give what we can afford.)

Nappy New Year

2007-01-03T15:30:00.000-08:00

In with the new. Baby Ed born within earshot of waves crashing on Brighton
beach.
And out with the old. Old friends older parents and older parents old friends
taken by that eternal tide.
A final text message blinking on the knocked about Nokia.
Christmas and other deep midwintwer (but unseasonably warm) festivals of
striplight and shopping thankfully over, I can go back under the covers til
at least half eight, when woken sweetly by ball of wrestling, screeching children.
R has returned to Aberdeen, where they had to defrost the plane
before takeoff, and found she didn't need her bearskins and plaids in London afterall.
Holbein (a Christmas present) was brilliant.
So now, unfashionably reactionary, I declare there is more Art in John Moore's
right arm than in Turner Prize offerings. Can relate to 16th Century better than 21st .
Could be that space/time rift. Must do more drawing. Use it or lose it.
If I put Ritalin in their spag bog, would they sit for a portrait? No - instead
sketch " Man With Can of McEwans Export Watching Life of Brian".
" He's not the Messiah. He's a very naughty boy!"