Some things are less painful than you might think. Others.....

I bumped into an ex-boyfriend last night. By bumped into, I mean we were both on the same boat, on a river cruise down the Thames. It was quite a small boat.

There we were.  Trapped in a confined space for four hours with no way of escape unless you wanted to swim, and have you seen the Thames? No one wants to swim in that. (Unless you happen to be the very drunk man I saw a few weeks ago doing breaststroke in bright pink boxer shorts by London Bridge, apparently.  But his is a story for another time.)

This whole scenario has recipe for disaster (BBC election coverage ringing any bells?) written all over it, you might think.  Especially when I tell you about the free bar.  (There was a free bar.)

But you know what?  it was fine.  More than fine, actually.  As we chatted, and caught up on news, and talked all about The Past and marvelled at how much more grown up and sensible we both are these days I remembered exactly why he is, even now, one of my favourite people on the planet. (To be fair I haven't checked absolutely all of the people on the planet yet, but I'm pretty confident.)   We bantered and reminisced and in between all of that some apologies were made, old debts were settled, and I laughed more than I have in a very long time.  It was a really lovely evening.  If I do say so myself, I have excellent taste (mostly*) in ex-boyfriends.

Then on the way home, I fell down an escalator at Westminster and did this:

(That is a sideways view of my leg, which is sort of hard to tell. There is large-ish (larger than it looks here) gash down the middle of it. I also have a massively bruised and slightly swollen toe, which, annoyingly, none of the photos I've taken so far have quite managed to capture in all its multicoloured splendour.)

Some things are less painful than you might think.  The escalator at Westminster tube station is definitely not of them.

*There are some notable exceptions to this rule.  You do not need to know about them.

In the unlikely event that I ever own a cat

I'm calling it Vinyl (because of all the scratching.)  This is not my joke, as much as I wish it were.  It belongs to Toby Davies, who was one of the people I heard telling Tall Tales in Kilburn last night. 

I've mentioned Tall Tales before, so (assuming you are  the kind of dilligent reader who, after tripping over a link which has carelessly been left lying around mid-sentence, can't help but click through to find out more) you hardly need me to tell you that it's an evening of songs and stories performed by some very funny, clever, creative people.

Last night was a lot of fun. We heard more from the love-struck horses; details of a surprisingly savvy crow-based business plan and, in the same story where Vinyl makes his appearance, an excellent quiche metaphor.  Metaphor for what? Well.
That would be telling.  You'll just have to read the story for yourself and find out.

Science Fiction/Double Feature: Toy Story 3 and Inception

I'm quite proud of that title and have been singing the song all day, and since everyone is describing Inception as "action sci-fi" and Toy Story has some aliens, I'm sticking with it.  Even if it's not quite accurate. (Inception is not science fiction.)

I saw them both yesterday (lucky me).  Some thoughts:

Toy Story 3:   Like a lot of people I loved the first two Toy Story films.  I can still  remember leaving the cinema after seeing Toy Story 1 and thinking that something had changed in the world of movie making.  I wasn't sure what, exactly, but I knew that Toy Story was something quite special.  My memories of Toy Story 2  are more hazy but I *think* I was mainly relieved that I enjoyed it as much as I did, and was impressed that they had pulled it off.  After all, sequels are hard to do, and sometimes they are downright awful (yes, Grease 2, I'm looking at you).

There lies the problem.  Pixar created something amazing with the first Toy Story movie, and then proved they could do it all over again with the second.  Where did that leave them to go next? If sequels are hard, then third-in-a-series films (is there a word for this? Treacles?) are near impossible.

Without wanting to give too much away, Toy Story 3 is set ten years after the last one; the storyline is propelled by the fact that Andy, now 17 and off to college, has outgrown his toys.  Buzz, Woody and friends still take centre stage, but giving the humans a pivotal role as well makes it a different type of story.  Not necessarily worse, certainly not better, just......different.

There were lots of new characters: if you thought they'd already brought every toy you remember from childhood to life in the first two films, think again; there are some old favourites making their debut here.  There were some nice twists on the old ones (one in particular) as well, which I won't describe because that would definitely spoil things.  You'll know it when you see it.

I liked Toy Story 3.  Perhaps it lacked the "wow" factor of the first two, but it was still a lot of fun, very sweet and incredibly funny (I laughed out loud within the first three minutes). For a treacle (see? that term is starting to stick already) it was as good as it could have been.

You will notice that I haven't mentioned anything about having seen it in 3D. (Question: is it possible to see Toy Story 3 NOT in 3D in London?  It wasn't an option in the cinema I went to.)  The fact that I haven't even mentioned it shows you how much this film needed to be in 3D.  It didn't.  I'm starting to think 3D is pretty stupid.  Rant over.


Inception:   By the end of this film, I felt like my brain had just run the marathon.  You probably already know, since it's been all over everything, that it is Christopher Nolan's latest project; he also wrote and directed Memento which remains one of my favourite films ever.  (If you have not seen Memento, stop reading NOW and go and get your hands on a copy IMMEDIATELY.  It is ace.)   I didn't know much about Inception before I went to see it, and that turned out to be a good thing. 

I do think you need to know a tiny bit about it before going in though; mainly because an old colleague of mine hated Memento (which I will stop banging on about in a minute, I promise) because she went to see it one Sunday evening when she was looking for a sit-back-give-your-mind-a-rest movie experience.  Memento, with a storyline which works backwards  in 10-20 minute chunks (which is the thing you need to know before you start watching and which my colleague didn't realise for about half of the film), is definitely not that kind of movie.

Inception isn't that kind of movie either.  I really, really don't want to give anything away here but it does help to know before you see it that it's to do with dreams, and you'll need to be on your toes (not literally, unless you want to make other cinema-goers cross) to keep track of which dream you're in and who is dreaming it*.  That is all the information you need, and probably all the information you should take into the cinema with you.

Half the fun is working out what the hell is going on;  there are a couple of key things it's possible to work out a split second or two before they are revealed on screen, which is particularly satisfying, and will make you feel all clever and smug.   It is very long though, which is my only criticism (and even that's not a real criticism because there's no way I could point to any bits which could be cut out). I had a worrying  moment about two thirds of the way in, when I could feel my brain going into meltdown and I was worried I'd lose track of everything completely, which would have been immensely frustrating after investing so much in the story until that point.  This didn't happen though; just when I thought I was on the brink of collapse things began to fall into place again.  Coincidence?  Maybe, but I suspect it was more a case of clever film making.

It's an incredibly good film. Visually stunning in parts (and just think! It's not even in stupid 3D!) but what I loved the most was the storytelling. For me, plot is the hardest thing to get my head around when writing; I have my hands full just trying to cope with basic, linear narrative structure.  Christopher Nolan's ability to play around with this - turn it back to front, add extra layers and dimensions then switch effortlessly between them -  while still making the story accessible (unlike, say, David Lynch, who messes with it so much you haven't a clue what is going on and end up just not caring) completely astounds me.



* if you've seen the film, and ONLY IF YOU'VE SEEN IT , there's an interesting visual representation of all that here. Seriously, I mean it; don't click that link unless you've already watched the film.  You will thank me for this advice.

Interesting Band Name Fact of the Day

"Hoosier" is the colloquial name for someone from the state of Indiana.   Two of the band The Hoosiers (Goodbye Mr A; Worried About Ray) spent some time at Indianapolis University on football scholarships.  These facts are related.

The Hoosiers were playing at a thing I went to last night; they have a new single coming out called Choices.  It's pretty good.

The importance of family planning

I have no idea what I am listening to on Radio 4 right now; something science-ish. They are talking about a killer frog fungus, which has all but wiped out the golden frog of Costa Rica, which is, I am sure you know, an icon in the frog world.

Hang on, it's just finished.  It was called Saving Species, according to the presenter, who I would assume has no reason to lie about these things.

As it turns out the killer frog fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis if you are being polite, "Bd" to its friends) is quite a serious issue.  According to the half an hour or so of Google-based research I've just done, anyway.  The numbers vary wildly across the different articles I have looked at, but it seems that around about a third of all amphibian species are currently under threat of extinction. There are various theories about the reasons for this, but chytridiomycosis, the disease caused by Bd, is one of the major players.

It's highly infectious and has a 80% mortality rate.  No one quite knows where it came from, or why it's suddenly become so prevalent, or how to stop it, but a lot of scientists are working on answers to these questions.  One of them is Professor Poulter, who is worried about the declining population of corroboree frogs in Australia:

I would really feel quite satisfied if we could say, 10 years from now, that you have to be careful walking around [Australia's] Kosiuszko National Park or you might tread on a corroboree frog because they're all over the place," said Professor Poulter. "I would take real satisfaction from that".

 The earliest reported case of Bd was in 1938, in some clawed frogs in South Africa.   I learnt this from an article in Science Daily, but this is the part of the story which completely blew my mind (which was already reeling from the discovery that some frogs have claws):

Around this time there was a huge trade in clawed frogs when they were used in one of the earliest human pregnancy tests. The global exportation of the clawed frog is likely to have spread Bd around the world.

Frog based pregnancy testing.  Who knew?  Certainly not me.

Getting Busy with the Reminsicing

My favourite piece of car-related economic activity happened a few years ago, when demand for Deloreans increased dramatically.  The reason?  An entire generation who had grown up with Back to the Future suddenly reached that stage in life where they had enough disposable income to buy the car they had been coveting since they were ten years old, and did. Clearly, nostalgia sells.

Cue the re-launch of SodaStream in the UK.  You might know about this already; there have been TV ads, posters and web-based marketing campaigns going on for the last few weeks.  I went to one of their PR events last week.  You may think, hearing this, that I'm a cool, hip media type with my finger on the pulse.  I am not, but my friend Dan is, and he told me it was on.  We had a lot of fun.

We tried some of the new flavours (green tea with berries was nicer than it sounds, pink grapefruit less so)  and swiftly moved onto cocktails which had been made from them.   In case you weren't sure, I can definitely confirm there are worse ways to spend a Friday afternoon than drinking free cocktails. 

 Early in the piece, my friend Dan said to the nice man from the PR company "Didn't Heston Blumenthal put Blue Nun into a Sodastream to make champagne?"

"Oh yeah", said the nice man from the PR company. "Er, we don't really want to encourage that though.  Have you tried all of these fantastic new flavours?"

A few mojitos later, Dan tried again.  "Didn't Heston Blumenthal once put Blue Nun....."

"Hell yeah! Let's give it a go!" said the nice man from the PR company.  Or words to that effect.  I can't remember exactly what he said, but I do remember drinking some rather nice, er, champagne-style sparkling wine (I don't think I have any French readers yet, but just in case I do, I don't want upset them) a few minutes later. 

At this point Dan had to go back to work.  I, on the other had, did not, and after reflecting briefly on what a grand idea this freelancing business was,  settled in for the afternoon, Moscow Mule* in hand, to reminsice with the other people there about the originals.

We came to the conclusion that our generation (anyone now in their late twenties to early forties) can be divided into two groups: those who had a SodaStream as a kid and those who wanted one.  I'm genuinely interested, now, to find out who ends up buying them this time around.  My guess is it will be the people, like me, who belong to the second group; those of us who still need to fill what someone described as 'the Sodastream shaped hole in our lives'.

We also worked out that the other must-have gadget of the era was a Mr Frosty machine.  No household, we think, ever owned both.

(Did they really think they needed the cute kid in this photo?  It's a MR FROSTY for goodness sake!!  It makes crushed ice beverages! Of many colours!!)

I thought these were the two main toys I wanted as a child.  Since then I have remembered several more:

A wooden labyrinth

I was desperate for one of these. Our dentist had one in his waiting room, and I never got past number 12. The fact that I still know this just goes to show: some scars run deep.

Simon
I would have happily traded in my little brother, also called Simon, for one of these:

Remember them?  The lights flashed in a sequence, which you had to remember and then repeat.  The further you got, the longer the sequences became and the harder they were to remember.  I have huge respect for whoever was in charge of marketing this;  I expect I was not the only child  who pestered their parents constantly for what is basically a memory training device.  And a pretty cheap looking one, at that.

The Game of Life

I have never, ever, got to the end of a game of The Game of Life.  All of my friends who owned it hated playing it, and by the time I had convinced them to get the box out and set up the spinner and find the little plastic pegs to put in the little plastic cars, it was time for me to go home. One day, I will finish a game.  I WILL.  I am under no illusion that I might actually enjoy this experience; everyone I have ever met who has played it tells me it is rubbish.  But that's not the point.

Operation

There were bones with comedy names  and it made a buzzing noise.  What's not to love?  My Dad is a doctor, though, and I am pretty sure we weren't allowed to have this for professional reasons.

I am sure that there are iphone apps available for at least some (if not all) of these games.  I am sure that, at some point, I will cave and buy at least one of them.  Am I the only one? And are there any I have missed?

*1 part vodka, 1 part lime juice, 4 parts ginger beer.  Heavy on the ice.

Sunday Night Music Club

You know those songs that you love, and then you don't hear for ages, and then you hear again, and think "oh wow..... I used to LOVE this song!" ?

I used to LOVE this song. Still do.

Quick web roundup

Three best bits of the internet at the moment (in my opinion, though I haven't checked absolutely all of it):

1. Dear Blank, please blank  Does exactly what it says on the tin.  Is a lot more fun than it sounds.  Seriously, just go and have a look.

2. Letters of Note  Brilliant collection of interesting letters, mainly written by famous people. Some are funny, some are moving, some are disturbing, and some, like today's (from Bill "Calvin and Hobbes" Watterson to a fan) are just heartwarming.

3. I write like : Analyses your writing and tells you which famous writer you are most like.  Seriously addictive, mainly because it keeps telling me I write like Dan Brown and I am desperate to prove otherwise.  

Unrelated: this afternoon I am going to a Soda Stream tasting event and then to look at an entire dinner party made of chrochet. What are your plans for the day?

The Canterbury Tales: A Bluffer's Guide part 12

It's been two weeks since the last installment.  TWO WHOLE WEEKS!  How on earth have you been coping? 

The Prioress's Tale: A little Christian boy, who lives near a Jewish ghetto and likes to sing,  learns a new song all about the Virgin Mary.  It's a catchy tune, and he likes it so much he can't stop singing it, especially when he's walking to school every morning.  Which turns out to be a bit of an issue, because his route to school takes him right through the middle of the Jewish ghetto.  The Jews don't like his singing much; they slit his throat and he dies.  A slightly drastic measure, perhaps, but then maybe it was just a really, really annoying song.

When he doesn't come home from school that day,  the boy's Mum goes off in search of him and eventually comes across the body, which has been thrown into a pit.  She is about to carry her dead son home when, miracle of  miracles, he rises up and starts to sing.  She is overjoyed; but then he dies again.  She's less overjoyed about this.

The body is taken to a church where, more miracle of more miracles, the boy rises up and starts to sing again.  The startled priest asks the boy how he can sing with a great big chunk cut out of his neck (ignoring the small matter of him also being DEAD), and the little boy explains:   The Virgin Mary, who he met at heaven's gates, placed a seed on his tounge and while it's there he will be able to sing about her.

The priest, clearly not a fan of the little boy's singing either, removes the seed. They bury the little boy and every one is very sad but also they are all in awe of the Virgin Mary.

Chaucer's Tale of Sir Thopas: Next, the Host asks Chaucer himself (who is also travelling with the party; have I mentioned this?) to tell a story.  He obliges, and starts to tell a hillarious rhyming poem about a knight called Sir Thopas.  By hilliarious, I mean it is so bad it is good.  A summary won't do justice so let me share with you a few lines straight from the horse's mouth. (There is no speaking horse in the story.  It is just an expression.)

Thopas has just been for a long ride through the woods:

Thopas himself was exhausted
He god down from his quadruped
And lay stretched on the ground.
The horse was free at one bound
It wriggled its arse
And chewed on the grass.
Fodder was solace

After a rest, he keeps riding.  After all, he's a man on a mission:

Then up on to his steed
He jumped, in need
Of action with a fairy queen
He rode along each hill and dale
Looking for that certain female.
Then quite by chance he found
A secret spot of magic ground,
The kingdom of the fairies.
In truth it was a little scary
And wild. And deslolate.

A few things happen to Thopas (he runs into problems with a giant called Oliphiant, for a start) but we don't find out how the story ends, or if he ever gets lucky with the fairy queen, because the Host gets so sick of Chaucer's terrible rhymes that he asks him to tell a story in prose instead.

Chaucer says he'll tell a story about a patient and prudent wife but the Host is having none of this either; he says they don't exist, and then launches into a rant about how horrible his own wife is.  Clearly the Host is having a few marital problems, which might explain why he was so keen to join the party on their journey in the first place.  Anyway, Chaucer is off the hook, and it's the Monk's turn next.

The Monk's Tale:   The Monk isn't the cheeriest fellow.  Instead of telling a story, he rattles off a list of people who have had great misfortune strike them from nowhere.  It's a long list, including: Lucifer (fell from heaven to hell), Adam (we all know the apple story, surely?), Sampson (fine until his super-strength hair was all cut off), Hercules (poisonous shirt given to him by his lover), Nebuchadnezzar (turned into an ox), his son Belshazzar (couldn't manage to avoid being killed, even though the writing was on the wall), Queen Cenobia (captured by a Roman Emperor), and.....well, you get the idea.  There are a load more of them, but it's all a bit depressing really.  And, as the knight says, people can only bear so much tragedy.

Am I being unduly pessimistic?

Tina Turner sent me an email this morning.  No message, just a photo of someone called Mildred.  The tax department also sent me quite an official looking email this morning, which did not contain any photos of Mildred, but did contain a link I need to click to claim a £960 tax refund.

I could be going out on a limb here, but I think at least one of them might be spam. 

Having a Positive Latitude

Someone (I can’t remember who, and I don’t have time to Google) once said you shouldn’t let the truth stand in the way of a good story. With that in mind, I nearly called this post A Real Latitude Problem, which would have been funnier (I use the term relatively) although not very accurate. But I just couldn't do it. Latitude was excellent fun and to describe it as anything less just feels wrong.

I discovered that pop-up tents, while a doddle to errect, are a nightmare to pack away again. I only have dim memories of high school physics but I'm pretty sure we didn't study anything which remotely resembled the very complicated twisty mechanics involved.

I also discovered that boys (of any age) have an endless vocabulary when it comes to bodily functions; I went with three friends, all male, and at various points over the weekend one or other of them announced they were weeing, whizzing, whazzing, peeing, having a slash, taking a leak and going to the gents. I am told that these all mean the same thing; the last one was made funnier by the facts that a) the toilets were all unisex and b) Neil, who said it, was wearing a nun's outfit* at the time.

Tom Jones sang in the woods at midnight. Phil Jupitus and Ben Miller rocked at karaoke. Paul "Beautiful South" Heaton donated a bottle of cognac to the front row of the audience, who politely passed it around during his set. Empire of the Sun wore crazy outfits, Stephen K Amos dealt with middle-class heckles ("What's your name?" "Harry" "Of course it is") and Rich Hall was apparently very funny, but I wouldn't know because I was too busy deciding whether to see the end of James or the start of Noah and the Whale to go and watch him.

Late on Friday night, on a stage built over the lake, Daniel Kitson and Gavin Osborn (brilliant comedian and gorgeous singer-songwriter respectively) told stories about love. With the sky full of stars and a breeze blowing through the pine trees, it was nothing short of magic.

I could go on. But I won't; if you were there as well then you know what an amazing event it is and if you weren't, well, poor you. Having me tell you about coloured sheep and the ballet dancers in the woods and poetry performances and comedy and cabaret and the comfy couches in the literary salon probably won't be much fun.

Having me tell you about smelly toilets and communal showers and my newfound respect for the inventors of wet-wipes might be marginally more fun, in a schadenfreude-esque sort of way, but likely to put you off going next year, and that's the last thing I'd want to do.  Latitude is ACE. 

That is all.


* This outfit is also the reason that, in the early hours of Sunday morning I found myself saying to a guy in a wrestling mask "I've lost my friends. Have you seen a nun and a monk?" Not something I ever thought I'd hear myself say, especially while wearing a bright pink afro wig.

Sunday Night Music Club

I'm back from Latitude, and it was ace.  More on that later; for now here's a bit of Noah and the Whale who were my favourite act of the weekend. It was a pretty close contest.

How long could I spend hiding in a tent, do you think?

I’m not really enjoying being a grown up at the moment. Today, especially, has been one of those days when it is just plain hard work; I seem to have been busy sorting out one problem after another, some of which are my own doing and some of which are the fault of other people who I am pretty sure are completely oblivious to the havoc they have been wreaking.

The situation isn’t helped by the fact that I’ve been a bit out of practice at being a grown up for the last couple of weeks.  My parents, who come to the UK around this time every year, have been visiting. (Because I have a slightly complicated family, my use of the term "parents" is more about syntax than semantics; here I mean my Dad and my step-Mum. My actual Mum, as it happens, is also due to a arrive for a visit, but not for another couple of weeks.)

Just like always, for part of the time they were here I felt like a 10 year old again. Just like always, this was a source of immense frustration and great comfort; both at once, and in equal measures. Just like always, I managed to hold it together long enough to hug my Dad goodbye at the airport, then burst into tears the minute I was around the corner and knew he couldn’t see me any more. And just like always, now that they’ve gone, I miss them desperately.

I miss being told off by my Dad for talking on a Zurich tourist tram instead of listening to the audio commentary.  And then spending the rest of the afternoon desperately trying to shoe-horn facts and figures from the commentary into various conversations to prove that, actually, I had been listening all along. I miss hearing the same stories, and the same arguments, and the same bad jokes I heard last year, and the year before, and the year before that.

I miss hearing them bicker about their (our) plans for the day, and trotting along behind them as they try, with the help of my step-mum’s ancient but trusty A to Z, to navigate around the city which has been my home for eight years (a period still not quite long enough to qualify me to have an opinion on its geography or tourist attractions).  I miss listening to my Dad get impatient, and to my step-mum speak her mind, and I miss marvelling at how well they know each other and their ability to keep the peace almost by instinct.

I miss not being allowed to pay for my own Tower of London ticket, and then having to listen to complaints about how overpriced everything is.  I miss being taken out for dinner and collected from train stations.  I miss answering questions about how far it is from the bus stop to my house, and how I'll get home this late at night, and whether I have a doctor and how often I go, and who does my tax returns. I miss the subtle enquiries about my social life, and the relief which is evident whenever it sounds like I might actually have one.

As you might expect, some (most) of these things drive me absolutely crazy.  But, they also make me feel cared for, and worried about, and loved.  It's not a bad trade-off.  For two, sometimes three weeks every year, around this time, I feel incredibly safe.  I'm perfectly fine the rest of the time, but it's still good knowing that they're around. Just in case.  They’ll be back next year, almost definitely, but right now that seems like an awfully long time to have to wait.  In the meantime, it's back to being a full-time grown-up for me.

I’m off to Latitude tomorrow, and still have a load of stuff to sort out and a pile of work to do before I pack up my shiny new tent and even shinier new wellies and head off for a weekend of camping, music, comedy and other lovely stuff. The thought of which would be completely idyllic were it not for the fact that one of the problems I still have to sort out is how to get back a day earlier than planned, for work.

You, knowing you, are probably wondering why, given my footloose and fancy freelance existence, I didn’t just arrange not to be working on Monday? Good question. You might also be wondering why I’m only just now trying to work out how I’m going to get back, when I have had this work booked in for months? Another good question. I have been asking myself the exact same things all day. Except for the times when I have been smacking myself in the head and cursing my sheer incompetence.

It's a long story. I wasn't really thinking.  I didn't read an email properly. And now, because I've made a stupid commitment to deliver some stupid training workshops on Monday, I have to come back early.  I can't just not turn up, or call in sick, or claim short term amnesia.  Well, I suppose I could.  But I won't; because I'm a stupid GROWN-UP.

I'll be off the radar until Sunday, I suppose, so will see you then for an I-wish-I-was-still-at-Latitude themed Sunday Night Music Club.  Unless of course, I change my mind and don't come back.  Ever.  It's quite tempting, to be honest.

Swiss Missed (but does your wolf need a haircut?)

I’ve been in Switzerland. My poxy* camera stopped working while I was there, so I can't show you any photos of the hotel we were staying in. You'll just have to believe me when I say it was pretty cool.

If I had been taking photos, one of them definitely would have been of the tardis-like hatch which gave access to the roof terrace if you pressed the right button. But, obviously, I can't show you that, or the roof terrace itself, or the panoramic views across Zurich which could be enjoyed from said roof terrace.

Ditto the gorgeous downstairs bar where we watched the World Cup final (stripped floorboards, lots of brass fixtures, grand piano in the corner)and the sweeping curves of the beautiful wooden staircase in the centre of it.  You couldn't walk down those stairs any way but elegantly.  I know, becuase I tried.

I also can't show you any of the great stuff they have in Zurich. Like, for instance, a funny water fountain shaped like a goose, and some giant boxes of cereal randomly sitting in a park, and a house which had so many shuttered windows it looked like an advent calendar. Also the massive lake, which as well as being beautiful and clear and almost sparkly had diving boards stuck right in the middle of it. Proper, springy ones at 1m and 3m, as well as a 10m tall platform. In the lake.

The architecture was beautiful, the sun was shining, and the scenery was picture perfect. And I can't show you any of these things BECAUSE MY POXY* CAMERA STOPPED WORKING. I’m sure you have painted much better pictures in your head by now, but still.  It's very annoying.

I was away with my Dad and step-mum, my dad’s cousin (who is my cousin once removed), her second husband, and their granddaughter (who is my second cousin once removed but going in the other direction). Those family connections believe it or not, are the easy bit; both cousins were called Caroline. In case you have forgotten, I am also called Caroline, meaning that Carolines made up 50% of our travelling party. No one knew who anyone was talking to all weekend. It got very funny.

I took exactly one photo in Zurich before my camera died, and this is it:

Had I known it would be my one and only holiday snap, I might have gone for something more traditional.

*this is the filter-friendly version of the adjective I would actually like to use in this sentence**

**I mean, "these sentences"

Sunday Night Music Club on a Saturday Morning

I'm away this weekend and not back until Monday, so SNMC is a little early this week. 

Being a Saturday morning,it's the perfect time (and excuse)for something from the world of kids' TV. I could have picked almost anything from the movie soundtrack; the songs are all glorious, but this one in particular has some killer lyrics.

Octopus Update Update

See post below for context.

I am probably telling you things you already know now, but then again, perhaps I am your only source of psychic octopus intel.

If that's the case, he has predicted Germany will come third and tipped Spain to win.

Octopus Update

Three further things about Paul the psychic octopus, who you might remember from a week and a bit ago, and even if you don't, you must have heard about by now because he is becoming quite the media darling (trending all over Twitter as I write):


1. The Germans are quite cross with him because he predicted Spain's win last night. He did this live on national television, further proof of his growing fame.  My favourite line from the news coverage:

Bitterness at Germany's 1-0 defeat to Spain turned to anger with some sections of the 350,000-strong crowd in Berlin insulting both Paul and his mother.

2. He might be predicting the final (big news, since so far he's only been consulted on Germany matches) but only if he's a) not too tired and b) hungry enough to still care about mussels* after predicting the Germany/Uruguay result.

3. He has his own Wikipedia page.



*Paul makes his predictions by picking one of two musssels; each is kept in a glass jar with a national flag on it, and the one he picks first is his tip.

Lilies on the Land

I went and saw this last night.  It's a beautiful piece of theatre based on the memories of Land Girls; members of the Women's Land Army who worked on farms during the second world war.

The Lions part theatre company, who devised the production, initially interviewed more than 150 ex-land girls and have used their recollections as source material.  This lends an incredible sense of authenticity; the stories - from earliest thoughts about signing up and the excitement of uniforms arriving by post, to encounters with prisoners of war, tractor driving lessons and coping with outdoor toilet facilities - ring true.  It's a small production; there are only four cast members and the set is simple. But this is all that is needed.  The cycle of the seasons provides a natural structure, and against this backdrop the four main characters tell their stories of farm life with a mix of courage, laughter, sadness, and hope. 

It's only on for another week or so, and doesn't seem to have garnered a huge amount of publicity during its limited run, which is a real shame, and absolutely no reflection on the quality of the performances or the production.  Our dress circle seats were upgraded to stalls, and even those weren't full, so I imagine it would be fairly easy to get hold of tickets. 

The only slight drawback last night was that the London Arts Theatre is right next to a Spanish bar, and a particularly poignant moment in the second half coincided perfectly with Spain's World Cup victory. If you do decide to go, and I definitely think you should, I wouldn't do it on Sunday.

The Canterbury Tales: A Bluffer's Guide part 11

Prince was wrong. Stupid Prince.  I must admit, I am not entirely surprised.

The Shipman's Tale:  You know that magic trick / con act where the guy puts a rubber ball under one of three cups and then moves them all around, and you have to guess which cup the ball is under?  This story is a bit like that.  Keep an eye on the 100 Francs.

A rich-ish merchant called Paul, and his beautiful wife are friends with a monk.  Paul and the monk are very close; more like brothers than friends.  At least that's what Paul thinks.

The monk comes to stay with them for a few days, and while he's visiting he tells Paul's wife he's madly in love with her, and that Paul really isn't that much of a mate.  She, by way of response, moans about the fact that her husband is unkind and tight with money.  Poor old Paul.  She needs (needs!) 100 Francs to pay for some new dresses she's already ordered, and asks the monk to give it to her.  He says of course he will, being a fool who has fallen in love, and she offers to do anything he wants to repay him. The implication is that she'll sleep with him which, if you take into account inflation and ignore the fact that Paul knows nothing about the arrangement, makes this exactly like that film Indecent Proposal, where someone offers that guy a million dollars to sleep with his wife.

The monk rather cleverly asks Paul if he can borrow 100 Francs, which Paul lends him quite happily because (in his head, anyway) they are such great mates, and that's what you do for your friends.   Paul goes off on a business trip, which is convenient, and the monk gives the 100 Francs to Paul's wife, and then  jumps into bed with her.  Afterwards he goes home to Paris, no doubt feeling a little smug about the free sex he's just had.

Paul's trip takes him to Paris, so he goes to visit the monk, and gently reminds him about the 100 Francs.  The cheeky Monk tells him he's already paid back the money; he left it with Paul's wife.

Paul goes home and has an amorous night with his wife, then tells her off for not telling him the monk has given her back the 100 Francs.  She says he did give her some money but she thought it was a gift, and that she's already spent it, and then offers her husband more sex to distract him.  It seeems to work.

So long, and thanks for all the barnacles*

This could be my last ever blog post.

The musician Prince, well known for his expertise in the technology arena**, says the internet is over.  I'm expecting someone to pull the plug at any moment.

I mean, why wouldn't you believe this guy?

* Since I might not be here to remind you, voting opens on August 14th. 

** Two words: platform shoes.  Cutting edge, surely.

Sunday Night Music Club

Ray La Montagne has been a Sunday Night Music Club in the making for ages.  You haven't lived until you have heard this man sing.

I'd love to see him blow out his birthday candles

Rube Goldberg's birthday today.  He's the American version of Heath Robinson; a cartoonist who designs machines which make simple tasks very complicated.  Something I discovered today is that there's also a Danish equivalent called Storm Peterson, who sounds more like he belongs in the cast of an American soap opera.

If you've ever played Moustrap you'll know exactly what a Goldberg-slash-Heath-Robinson-slash-Storm-P contraption looks like:

I first fell in love with them after reading the Professor Branestawm books, which were illustrated by Robinson and are full of ridiculous inventions which never quite worked properly.  (Which, incidentally, is exactly my recollection of playing Mousetrap.  Stupid game.)

Here's Goldberg's self operating napkin:

As you raise spoon of soup (A) to your mouth it pulls string (B), thereby jerking ladle (C) which throws cracker (D) past parrot (E). Parrot jumps after cracker and perch (F) tilts, upsetting seeds (G) into pail (H). Extra weight in pail pulls cord (I), which opens and lights automatic cigar lighter (J), setting off sky-rocket (K) which causes sickle (L) to cut string (M) and allow pendulum with attached napkin to swing back and forth thereby wiping off your chin. After the meal, substitute a harmonica for the napkin and you'll be able to entertain the guests with a little music.

A rose by any other name

Thamesmead, where I live, was named via a competition.  Other entries, I discovered today, included 'New Wooabbeleri', 'Bamboo Estate' and 'Blumguston'.

New Wooabbeleri was rejected because there isn't an old one.  And I can see why they didn't go with Bamboo Estate, given the amount of bamboo lying around the place, which is none.  I could quite happily live in a place called Blumguston, though, I think. Maybe it's time to start a facebook petition.

I'll have to do it later though; right now I'm off to go and see some quilts.

Watch your step

I'm reading, and enjoying enormously, 44 Scotland Street.  This interchange between Bertie, a highly intelligent, Italian speaking, saxophone playing five year old and his  mother Irene had me laughing out loud on the tube earlier, much to the amusement of the man sitting next to me.

"Do come along, Bertie," said Irene.  "Mummy has not got all day.  And why are you walking in that silly way?"

"Cracks," said Bertie.  If I step on the cracks, then they'll get me.  È vero."

"What nonsense!" she said.  "Non è vero! And who are they anyway? the CIA?"

"Bears..." Bertie began, and then stopped.  "The CIA? Do they get you too?"

"Of course they don't," said Irene.  "Nobody gets you."

They walked on in silence.  Then Bertie said "Who are the CIA? Where do they live?"

"The CIA are American spies," said Irene.  "They watch people, I suppose."

"Are they watching us?"

"Of course not. And they don't mind if you step on the cracks.  Plenty of people step on the cracks and get away with it."

Bertie thought for a moment.  "Some people get away with it? And other people? What happens to them?"

"Nothing," said Irene.  "Nothing happens to anybody if they step on the cracks.  Look, I'm stepping on the cracks, and nothing is happening to me.  Look.  Another crack, right in the middle, and nothing....."

She did not complete her sentence.  Her heel, caught in a rather larger than usual crack, became stuck and she fell forwards, landing heavily on the pavement.  Her foot, wrenched out of its shoe, twisted sharply and she felt a sudden pain in her ankle.

Bertie stood quite still.  Then he looked up at the sky and waited for a moment.  If there was to be further retribution, perhaps it would be from that quarter. But nothing came, and he felt safe enough to bend down and take his mother's hand.

"I've twisted my ankle," said Irene, miserably.  "It's very sore." 

"Poor Irene," said Bertie softly.  "I told you, didn't I?"

Irene rose to her feet tentatively.  The twisted ankle was painful, but not too painful to walk upon, and they could continue their journey, although more slowly than before.

"It's very important that you don't think that was anything but an accident" she said firmly, a few minutes later.  "That's all it was.  I don't want you developing magical ideas.  Belief in fairies and all the rest."

"Fairies?" asked Bertie.  "Are there any fairies?"

They were now at the end of London Street.  The nursery was not too far away.

"There are no fairies," said Irene.

Bertie looked doubtful.  "I'm not so sure," he said.

A silicon armadillo, left to rot on the information superhighway

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest* is a competition to find the best of the worst opening sentences from made up novels.  Made up as in imaginary, not made up as in fictional stories, which would be a rather redundant use of the term 'made up'.  There's an overall winner as well as ones for various categories.

Some of the entries:

The dark, drafty old house was lopsided and decrepit, leaning in on itself, the way an aging possum carrying a very heavy, overcooked drumstick in his mouth might list to one side if he were also favoring a torn Achilles tendon, assuming possums have them.

 "Trent, I love you," Fiona murmered, and her nostrils flared at the faint trace of her lover's masculine scent, sending her heart racing and her mind dreaming of the life they would live together, alternating sumptuous world cruises with long, romantic interludes in the mansion on his private island, alone together except for the maids, the cook, the butler, and Dirk and Rafael, the hard-bodied pool boys.

 As Ethel arranged the list of company phone numbers under her clear plastic desk cover, perfectly aligning the lower right corner of the list with the lower right corner of the plastic, then swiveled her chair to file one more inter-office memorandum on trimming the budget, she considered how different her life might have been if her parents had named her Tiffany.

 “Please Mr. Fox, don’t take your magic back to the forest, it is needed here in Twigsville!” pleaded little Isabel, but Mr. Fox was unconcerned as he smugly loped back into the woods without answering a word knowing well that his magic was only going to be used to make sure his forest would be annexed into the neighboring community of Leaftown where the property values were much higher.  (Winner - Children's Literature)

The camel died quite suddenly on the second day, and Selena fretted sulkily and, buffing her already impeccable nails--not for the first time since the journey began--pondered snidely if this would dissolve into a vignette of minor inconveniences like all the other holidays spent with Basil.

The countdown had stalled at T minus 69 seconds when Desiree, the first female ape to go up in space, winked at me slyly and pouted her thick, rubbery lips unmistakably--the first of many such advances during what would prove to be the longest, and most memorable, space voyage of my career.

As the newest Lady Turnpot descended into the kitchen wrapped only in her celery-green dressing gown, her creamy bosom rising and falling like a temperamental souffle, her tart mouth pursed in distaste, the sous-chef whispered to the scullery boy, "I don't know what to make of her."

As the fading light of a dying day filtered through the window blinds, Roger stood over his victim with a smoking .45, surprised at the serenity that filled him after pumping six slugs into the bloodless tyrant that mocked him day after day, and then he shuffled out of the office with one last look back at the shattered computer terminal lying there like a silicon armadillo left to rot on the information superhighway.

A small assortment of astonishingly loud brass instruments raced each other lustily to the respective ends of their distinct musical choices as the gates flew open to release a torrent of tawny fur comprised of angry yapping bullets that nipped at Desdemona's ankles, causing her to reflect once again (as blood filled her sneakers and she fought her way through the panicking crowd) that the annual Running of the Pomeranians in Liechtenstein was a stupid idea.

.

*Named after Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, who opened his novel Paul Clifford with the famous (especially if you're a Peanuts fan) line "It was a dark and stormy night".   The rafting capital of Canada is the other thing named after him, and his family own Knebworth.