Brush with fame

Bridget Jones is going to send me an email next week*.  How do I know this?  Because she wrote to Robert Pattinson to tell him, silly. 

 I am sure you can imagine my surprise when a link to the afore-pictured blog turned up in my Google alerts late last night.

*No she isn't. If she emails anyone, it will be the literary agent who shares my name. Still,it gave me a bit of a start. 

Bit Busy Today

But  let me just say that "Bed and Biscuits", some boarding kennels for pets which I've just spotted on a map, might just be my new favourite business name. 

Might be.  I don't have time to decide.  It's certainly right up there with Fishcoteque, which I may have mentioned before is my favourite fish and chip shop name.

Sunday Night Music Club

One of my favourite things in the whole wide internet is Spotify.  It's a brilliant way to discover all sorts of music, whether that means unearthing long forgotten gems (may I gently point you in the direction of The Rockmelons?) or making brand new discoveries.  For the latter, it works best when paired with Twitter, where there are lots of lovely people around who like to create playlists and then tweet about them.  I like these people a lot.

It was the Twitter/Spotify powerhouse combo, in the hands of Time Out magazine, which led me tonight's SNMC selection.  Time Out publish a themed Spotify playlist each week, and on Friday the theme was cover versions.  I haven't quite worked out how to link to a Spotify playlist yet (anyone?) but you might find it by doing a search.

The list contained some brilliant songs, including this, which gave me goosebumps right in the middle of the Royal Festival Hall.  Twice.

Stupid Australian Scientists

Note to new-ish readers:  there's some back-story to this post which you can read, if you like, here. 


I'm sure you have been lying awake at night wondering whether it was my Mum's barnacle or that ridiculous snail which was eventually named Australia's Top New Species.

Let me say: I feel your pain. The bad news is I still don't have an answer; the results were meant to have been announced by now, but because of some unspecified problem I don't know the details of, they haven't.  My Mum has heard a few whispers, but nothing concrete and I would hate to raise your expectations only for you to have them dashed.  So I'm afraid you're just going to have to wait a bit longer.

I don't know if the hold-up has been caused by an overly-complicated preferential voting system, but given how long the Labour party leadership announcement took yesterday, it wouldn't surprise me.  The one thing I do know is that the winner won't be a Miliband.

In other news: I am navigating the murky, unknown waters of what might be described as a burgeoning new relationship at the moment; with someone who is neither stupid, Australian, nor a scientist, and as such could hardly be less relevant to this particular post, but whatever.  I'm not really planning to mention much else about it around these parts, mainly because, well....you know.  I'm just not. It's nice, though, and I do sort of think he is the bees feet.*

Finally, also from the department of burgeoning things which are not very scientifc: I started making a batch of sloe gin yesterday. Sloe gin is made from sloes, gin and sugar; the proportions of which vary wildly depending on which of five different recipes you believe.  In fact, there are almost definitely more than five recipes available on the inernet; that's how many I read before I decided my head was going to explode and I just dumped as many sloes as I could fit and what looked like around about enough sugar into the amount of gin I had left in the bottle that has been knocking around in my kitchen for a while.

 It is going to be another two months before it's ready, making me think they don't call them sloes for nothing and also making me think that there is no way in the world I can be the first person to ever think of that joke.

*Any scientist worth his or her salt could tell you: they don't have knees.

You'd think a world famous rap artist who sells millions of albums a year could afford a decent set of colouring pencils, wouldn't you?

If you useTwitter you could do a lot worse than follow Kanye West.  I'm not a fan of his music, particularly, but his tweets are brilliantly bonkers, as per these examples:

I feel like if I had to be defined at this point I'll take the title of an inventor or maybe curator. Sonic inventions, curated by emotion.

If baroque and mod had a car crash... what would that ambulance look like?

I know I say it all the time but I want to live inside the Helmut Newton book or inside a Guy Bourdin photo*

  Fighting to be prolific but specific

Whether it's financial or personal skill constraints... Have you ever wished you could just draw better when you want to explain your idea?

He does need some lessons in Twitter etiquette; at the moment he is conducting a survey among his followers to find out who they think the coolest famous creative people are, and  is re-tweeting EVERY SINGLE reply which is clogging up my Twitter feed like no-one's business.  Among the usual suspects (Alexander McQueen, various rap artists I've never heard of, and Quentin Tarantino) answers have included:  "Mick Jagger and Marc Jacobs" (is it just me who is intrigued by this pairing?) and "your mum".


UPDATE:  "I know this is an ironically uncool thing to state but this might have been one of the best questions in Twitter history lol!" says Kanye


*I say this all the time too.

Everything I know about Italian wine, I learnt from Jamiroquai

Not really. But I did learn quite a lot about Italian wine on Monday night from a guy who looked a bit like Jay Kay.  It was his hat, mainly.  

I was at a wine-tasting at the Institute of Directors, and the wine we were drinking (sorry, tasting) came from Piedemont, a tiny region in north west Italy. As an aside,the IoD is an incredibly beautiful building, and is worth a visit if you ever have the opportunity. Also, as it happens, their duck-egg blue walls are the exact same shade of duck-egg blue as my new kitchen wall.  If the room we were in had been about a thousand times smaller, with significantly fewer portraits and there had been a damp patch in one corner of the ceiling I would have been convinced I was in my own kitchen.

The evening worked in the same way most of these things do;  there were lots of tables around the room, all manned by wine producers and agents happy to chat about the wines, and we all wandered about, catalogue in one hand, wine glass in the other, trying the ones we fancied.  Or, in some cases, making a bee-line for the least crowded table and then pretending to listen intelligently while necking whatever booze they had out on offer.

I started the evening evening as I meant to go on; taking small sips from each glass, writing perfectly legible notes in my catalogue, and generally feeling quite civilised and classy.  I never spit (my Mum always taught me it's rude) but a few times I did pour the rest of the wine away after I'd tried a mouthful, which took huge willpower - pouring away perfectly good wine does not come naturally to me.   I even tried out my very rusty Italian on a few of the stall-holders, who looked at me with a mixture of pity and amusement and answered my clumsily constructed questions in perfect English.

As the night went on,  sips became slurps, significantly less wine (read: "none") was poured away and my notes turned from neat, detailed descriptions into a blurry mass of exclamation marks, various numbers of ticks of assorted sizes, and other scrawls. These are all crucial elements of  my masterful, self-designed, Wine Rating System.

The system, which  has been finely honed over various wine shows and other events, is a little complicated, so let me break it down for you.  First there are the ticks.  When it comes to ticks, there is no upper limit on numbers, but size definitely matters; a wine I've given four little ticks to will be pretty good, but might be just as good as one with a great big tick next to it.  Then again it might not. Sometimes the ticks are stars, which mean the same as ticks, except I use them more economically; mainly because they take longer to draw. Roughly, two middle-sized ticks mean the same thing as one star, I think, but it's not an exact science.

If a wine is really good I might circle it, or I might put more stars next to it, or maybe an arrow. Sometimes a smiley face, if I'm feeling artistic.  Or I might forget to do any of those things.

Exclamation marks are generally good, although context needs to be taken into consideration, as I will illustrate shortly (such suspense!).  Again, quantity is important; generally speaking, the more exclamation marks the better, but there's a catch; and the catch involves some slightly complicated maths. The impact of each extra exclamation marks becomes considerably less as the number of exclamation marks gets bigger. This is mainly because  I have learnt, over time, the more exclamation marks I've used, the more likely they are to have been caused by my general level of excitement (read: "blood alcohol content")  rather than the quality of the wine.  There is probably a tipping point beyond which extra exclamation marks are actually the sign of the wine being worse not better, but I have never worked out what it is; my guess is around 4 to 5.   

I'm not saying it's a foolproof system, and so this is where the little notes I write become handy; at the start of the evening they contain useful information like "toasty", "very chewy", "could be Chardonnay", or snippets of information passed on by the winemakers; "2007 good year for Barbera*"; "fruity because it's aimed at the American market" and so on.  Later they get less specific but more decisive; I can always tell which stalls I went to last because my notes for those wines say things like "FAB!!!!" or "NOOOOO!!!!!"   (That second example, by the way, is your classic case of exclamation marks being taken in context; here they mean I really, really, really never ought to drink this wine again.)

So what did I learn on Monday night, from the man who wasn't really from Jamiroquai? Well, after dissecting my notes, I realised the main thing I learnt about Italian wine is that I prefer Barbera to Borolo.  I know this because I wrote that information down no less than four times, in various forms.  My favourite version was this somewhat mathematical one:

 " Borolo = tannins = not nice.  Barbera = :-) " 

(For non-wine-drinkers (if you are still here), tannins are things which make your mouth feel all disgusting and dry, which most wine snobs, and some people who are not wine snobs but just have really weird taste, think is a good thing.)

Also, I learnt some things about Italian grapes, some of which I hadn't heard of before. Namely:


1. Armeis, which is white wine, tastes a lot like Chardonnay.

2. Nascetta, also white wine, tastes a lot like Torrontes.  (I only found out about Torrontes a couple of weeks ago but it is my new favourite Argentinian white wine. It tastes like flowers.) 

3. Pelaverga Piccolo grapes are really rare; only 10 producers in the world grow them, apparently, which is completely inconvenient because the Pelaverga Piccolo wine I tried was magic in a glass. It's incredibly light, but still had a bit of substance to it, making it the solution to a problem I've been struggling with for years - finding the perfect red wine to drink during the summer which doesn't taste like fruity water.   I know that in the grand scheme of things there are bigger problems in the world, but finally finding this wine and then discovering I will probably never be able to get hold of any because no-one grows the right grapes is annoying beyond belief. 

4. Barolo wine is made from Nebbiolo grapes.  It's the one you're meant to like the most from this region; I don't.  I am such a wine rebel.

5. A surprising number of  Moscats are a little bit fizzy.  If you are having dinner in Piedemont and don't like bubbles in your dessert wine, go somewhere else for dessert.

6. There are two types of Dolcetto, Dolcetto d'Alba and Dolcetto di Dogliani, and these are completely different even though they are grown pretty close to each other. There's a friendly rivalry between the producers of each type; I am guessing it was no accident last night that they had been put on tables at very opposite ends of the room.  Di dogliani is nicer than D'Alba, I think, but I didn't tell that to the man with the hat.  He grew the wrong sort.



*Don't take my word on the Barbera; there is a very real chance I could have the year wrong.  What I can say, with some certainty, is that there is a particular year which is particularly good for Barbera**, and it has something to do with the weather being really hot or really cold.

**Or maybe it was Barolo.  I'm not sure.

If anyone wants me, I will be doing number 4

There is a new sign above my desk, courtesy of someone I follow on Twitter, who in turn attributed it to someone else.  This is what it says:

How To Write a Novel

1. Think up a story
2. Using about 80,000 words, write the story down.

Pitfalls That Get In The Way Of Writing A Novel

1. Not thinking up a story
2. Not writing down the story
3. Writing down most, but not all, of the story
4. Pissing about on the internet.

It has been making me smile all morning. 

Sunday Night Music Club

Have you ever seen two men enjoy singing a song as much as these two? Me neither.

The world's thirstiest gerbil

I have mentioned the  Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest before.

Here is this year's winner:

For the first month of Ricardo and Felicity’s affair, they greeted one another at every stolen rendezvous with a kiss — a lengthy, ravenous kiss, Ricardo lapping and sucking at Felicity’s mouth as if she were a giant cage-mounted water bottle and he were the world’s thirstiest gerbil.

The Bluffer's Guide to the Bluffer's Guide to the Canterbury Tales

As regular visitors will know, possibly at great cost to their time and sanity, about a billion years ago I started reading Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.  Actually, that's not technically true; I started reading Peter Ackroyd's version of them, which is a lot easier to get through than the original. 

It's a great read;  perfect if you've always meant to get around to Mr C, are mildly curious as to the contents of his Tales, or have heard the rumours about how much sex and filth they contain but can't quite stomach the fact of all those olde worldly fpellings with their crazy mixed up letterf. (Why do I get the feeling this joke will be lost in translation? Stupid Blogger with its limited choice of fonts.  And I do mean fonts, not sonts.  There are no such thing as sonts.)

Part way through, I realised that I'm probably not the only person who has always meant  but not quite managed to get around to reading the Tales.  Mainly because just about every person who saw me reading the book said something along the lines of "oh yeah, those.  I've heard of those.  Never read them though...".  It occurred to me that other people might be as curious as as I was as to what the Tales are all about and so the Bluffer's Guide to the Canterbury Tales was born, right here on this very blog.  I am expecting a call from the blue plaque committee any day.  There are fifteen installments in total, and you can find them all by clicking "Canterbury Tales" at the bottom of this post.

You're probably a busy person though.  So, to make it even simpler, there's a quick summary below. What's more, if you want to read the full version of any of the tales (by which I mean the full version of my bluffer's guide version of Peter Ackroyd's version of the original version....are you still with me?) clicking on the title will get you to the right blog post.  Isn't technology marvellous?

For a more detailed and accurate account of any of the Tales, of course, I will point you one final time in the direction of Peter Ackroyd's excellent book. 

My copy is now looking rather dog-eared and tired, having been carted around in my laptop bag for four months, buried temporarily under a gigantic mound of parsley and introduced, by accident, to the contents of several cups of coffee.  I don't usually treat my books like this, but sometimes sacrifices need to be made.

The good(!) news is there is a pristine copy of another classic text sitting on my desk waiting for the same treatment.  It's something else that I've always meant to get around to reading, but never tackled; I have only read book one (of twenty four) so far, but it's going to be a cracker I think.  And the sort of thing which it could be quite handy to be able to blag and bluff your way through in certain situations.  Watch this space. 

(I am perfectly happy to take requests for future bluffer's guides by the way; just leave them in the comments.  No promises or anything, but it doesn't hurt to ask.  And no using me to cheat on your A levels.  I could do without that kind of responsibility.)

In the meantime, are you comfortable?  Here, for the very last time, is my definitive Bluffer's Guide to the Canterbury Tales :



The Knight's Tale:  Disappointingly filth-free. Arcite v Palamon; Palamon wins, in the long run. 

The Miller's Tale: An old crusty carpenter has a young lusty wife.  She has a bit on the side, he survives an unfortunate incident involving a falling bathtub.

The Reeve's Tale:  Comedy bed-swapping mix-ups galore, involving two Cambridge scholars, a miller, his wife and their daughter.  Who moved that cradle?

The Cook's Tale: Something about a prostitute.  He's not allowed to tell it, initially, and later he's too drunk to care.

The Man of Law's Tale: Constance has the mother-in-law from hell.  Twice.  There's a happy ending though.  Features an excellent picture which is not a snake with a woman's face for a head.

The Wife of Bath's Tale:  A knight, in an attempt to find out what women want, marries an ugly old crone.  Works surprisingly well in Lego. For video evidence, click that link (you know you want to.)

The Friar's Tale: Summoners are evil (allegedly). 

The Summoner's Tale:  No they're not.  But Friars are pretty stupid, and deserve to be farted on (says the summoner).

The Clerk's Tale: Walter, who is an idiot, marries sweet and lovely Griselda, who turns out to be almost as much of an idiot for putting up with Walter's crap.

The Merchant's Tale:  A knight called January marries May, turns blind and then regains his sight just in time to catch his (clearly rather flexible) wife doing the dirty with his squire, while they are both up a tree.

The Squire's Tale: Ghengis Khan has a birthday party and we meet a self-harming bird.  We learn that tercelets are not to be trusted.

The Franklin's Tale: Good things happen to good people.  Features some magic disappearing rocks. 

The Physician's Tale: Claudius takes a direct and somewhat unconventional approach to dating and relationships.  It's not very successful.

The Pardoner's Tale:  Don't trust your mates too much, especially if they've been drinking.

The Shipman's Tale:  Don't trust your mates too much, especially if they're having it off with your wife.  Maybe you shouldn't trust your wife, either.  Someone ends up 100 Francs better off, but I can't tell you who.

The Prioress's Tale: An incredibly annoying little boy sings a lot, then dies. Then he's resurrected, but then he dies again.  Repeat ad infinitum.

Chaucer's Tale of Sir Thopas: Bad rhyme is quite a crime

The Monk's Tale: Why tell a story if you can thoroughly depress everyone by rattling off a long list of people who have suffered great misfortune instead?  (He's a fun guy, the monk.)

The Nun's Priest's Tale: Don't expect to hear much about Molly the Sheep or Colin the Dog. Chanticleer the rooster is a bit of a stud, his girlfriend Pertelote is a drama queen and it doesn't take much to fool a fox. 

The Second Nun's Tale: Everyone turns religious, and then they die.  Blame Cecelia.

The Cannon's Yeoman's Tale: Alchemists are the 14th century equivalent of Gillian McKeith.  

The Manciple's Tale:  We find out why crows are black and can't sing.  (Hint: it's because one in particular was not much of a romantic and a bit of a blabber-mouth)


And that's the end. Except for one thing which is driving me up the wall: The whole premise for this collection of tales is that a bunch of pilgrims are having a story-telling contest, to see who can tell the most entertaining story, but we NEVER FIND OUT WHO WINS.  I want to know who wins.  Is that too much to ask? 

For the record, if I was in charge, and I have thought about this a lot, my money would be split evenly between the Man of Law and the Reeve.  Plus, I'd give the Franklin an honorable mention because he's just so darned nice.  You?

Dancing beats painting, every time

I am half watching Brigadoon at the moment, instead of painting my kitchen which is what I am supposed to be doing.

The thing I am enjoying the most, apart from the comically fake painted-on-backdrops Scottish scenery in the background, is the dancing.  It's Gene Kelly, so you wouldn't expect anything less, but my goodness he is incredible to watch. But you know this already, I am guessing.

Gene is playing Tommy, who has just been out gathering heather and falling in love with Fiona.  The dance sequence in that scene, which consisted mainly of her swooning about and falling into his arms at exactly the moment he is there to catch her, and occasionally of her picking up some conveniently located purple stuff which looks not very much like heather, was just a delight to watch.  (The actress playing Fiona is a fantastic dancer too, by the way; swooning doesn't sound nearly impressive on paper as it looks on screen.)

The comically fake Scottish accents adopted by almost the entire cast are also fun.  Probably no worse than I would sound if I attempted a Scottish accent (which I hardly ever do, except under very specific circumstances which involve describing what is was like to go out, briefly, with a slightly mad Glaswegian), but then again I'm not someone who gets paid to do accents.

In other news, my kitchen looks AMAZING.

The Canterbury Tales: A Bluffer's Guide part 15

The end is near; there are only two tales left to tell.  I feel quite emotional. 

The Canon's Yeoman's Tale: Two quick things about the Canon's Yeoman before we start.  First, he is unfashionably late to the party, only managing to join them all just outside Canterbury.  Second, and this is more relevant, he really, really, really, really, really doesn't like alchemists very much. In fact he spends most of his alloted tale-telling time prattling on about what a waste of time alchemy is, and how all alchemists smell like goats, and so on.  If he was around now I would imagine him to be exactly the kind of person who would rant quite a lot about the stupidity of homeopathy and Gillian McKeith.

His story, when he finally gets to it, is very short and is about a nasty cannon who tricks a priest into paying top dollar (£40, which got you a lot more in those days) for a secret formula to turn other metals into silver.  The secret formula doesn't work.  The priest is stupid, the cannon is evil, alchemy is RUBBISH.  Don't feel too sorry for the priest though; he was shagging his landlady.

The Manciple's Tale:   It's supposed to be the Cook's turn next but he is so drunk he falls off his horse and the Manciple steps in. There's probably a stepping up to the mantle-slash-manciple joke in there somewhere, but I don't have time to construct it.  (If you want to, feel free.  Think of this as the IKEA flat-pack version of humour.)

I think it's quite fitting that this, the final story, is about a gallant knight, because there have been a few of those along the way.  Remember January? And Walter?  This one is called Phoebus.  (Bonus quiz question: do you know who used to ride a bicycle called Mr Phoebus?  Answers on a postcard please, or in the comments if you prefer.  The prize, if I ever get around to making one, will be a knitted squid.)

Phoebus ( knight, not bicycle) was your basic Mr Dreamy: handsome and acomplished and musical and noble and all the rest.  Apparently he was so good at archery he once killed a giant serpent with the brilliantly imaginative name of Python; although Python was asleep at the time which makes story less impressive if you ask me.  No one ever asks me though, so well done Phoebus.

Phoebus had a pet crow, but here's the interesting bit: the crow was snow white.  ("WHAT??? Crows aren't WHITE! Does this Chaucer chap know NOTHING?!" I hear the more bird-savvy among you cry.  Patience, grasshoppers.  All will be explained.) 

Phoebus also has a beautiful wife. Like just about every other  beautiful wife in these stories, this one does the dirty with someone else.  It happens every time Phoebus goes away, which is quite regularly by the sounds of things.  The guy is a bit of a dud by all accounts, and the beautiful wife is silly enough to conduct her affair in their own home, right under the beak of the snow white crow. 

Eventually the crow, who like many people can't stand the sight of preening, soppy couples, tells Phoebus what has been going on.  (I forgot to mention, the crow can talk. Sing, also. You may have spotted this is not normal behaviour for a crow, but this too will be dealt with later.)

Phoebus is outraged. And as it turns out, he has a fatal flaw. (Come on, we all have one.  Mine is a tendency to procrastinate, although it hasn't proved fatal, yet.  Must get around to sorting out some life insurance in case it does, though. Maybe I'll do it tomorrow.) The fatal flaw Phoebus carries around with him is a jealous streak a mile-wide.  When he hears his wife has been cheating, he kills her, then smashes up some musical instruments in a fit of what would have been rock-star-inspired anger if rock stars had been invented yet.

So now he's angry about being cuckolded AND about having a dead wife and no musical instruments, and blames the bird (rather unfairly, if you think about it) for all of this. The RSPB may have had something to say about this, but they were invented even later than rock-stars so weren't around to help.

Free from fear of prosecution or judgement by a national charity, Phoebus pulls out all of the crow's white feathers (which is why crows are black now, DUH!) and then, using some magical powers we haven't even been told about yet, takes away the crow's powers of speech and music.  Which left the crow, of course, with no noise left to make but the dull, crow-like sound we all know and love today.

And that's the last tale.  The Cook doesn't sober up enough to tell his, and the Parson, who is the only one left, refuses to play the game.  He does preach at them for a while, but then Chaucer realises they've arrived in Canterbury and slips off to pray.  So we never do get to find out who told the best tale, or whether the Summoner and the Pardoner ever resolved their differences, or which of the party, if any, the Wife of Bath managed to get off with.  (I say "if any", but, well.... the odds are pretty good, don't you think?)

There will be one final Canterbury post, and then we're done with Mr Chaucer. It has been fun.  But not as fun as this picture of a crow:

Happy Roald Dahl Day

It would have been his 94th birthday today, and there are all sorts of celebrations going on.  Not just today, but all month, which is exactly how birthdays ought to be marked in my opinion. 

There's lots I could say about Mr Dahl but I'm sure it's all been said before; he is simply ace, obviously. I have fond memories of reading The Twits to the the first class I ever taught;  seeing a bunch of tough, street-smart ten year olds reduced to hysterics and fits of disgusted giggles over eyeball soup, worm spaghetti and the contents of Mr Twit's beard was nothing short of glorious.

I can't possibly pick one quote or one story or one recomendation to mark the occasion; but there's plenty to choose from here. Knock yourself out.

Sunday Night Music Club: Hell has no fury......

 A woman scorned, you say?  Rubbish.  Try a woman who has spent TWO WHOLE DAYS waiting for a reply to a text message.

With that in mind, I spent a large chunk of Friday hunting down some suitable, proper angry female rock for tonight's Sunday Night Music Club.  But then today brought sunshine, blue skies, and a champagne picnic in Richmond Park, and suddenly this seemed more appropriate.

Men, eh?   Happy Sunday.

Edinburgh Postscript: Whispers from the Pleasance Courtyard

I've just remembered something I overheard in Edinburgh, from a guy wandering around the Pleasance courtyard trying to drum up interest in his friend's show:

"If you like self depreciating and endearing comedy which lambasts estate agents, South Africans, and the really pretentious people he met on his gap year, you'll LOVE Jimmy."

Is it just me, or is that quite a niche market he's aiming for?

A bit later, on the other side of the courtyard, I witnessed some excellent parenting:

"No, Adam, you don't play with glasses."   (Picture at this moment, if you will, a very annoyed looking man carrying a smallish child in one arm and blindly groping around at the air in front of him with the other.) "Give them back please."

Adam finally got bored, and gave them back.

Father: "Right.  Thank you.  Now, count to 600 for punishment."
Adam: "Oh, can't I just go to 300?"
Father (firmly): 600.  And consider yourself lucky I'm only making you do it in English."

Friday Night Writers' Club

The first rule of Friday Night Writers' Club is that it's perfectly fine to talk about Friday Night Writers' Club.

Friday Night Writer's Club (both shirt AND shoes are advised) is something a few classmates and I came up with after we finished a creative writing course couple of months ago.  The idea is pretty simple: we'll meet up once a month for drinks and dinner, and bring a piece of writing to share. Over the course of the evening we'll read each other's work and give feedback, offer support, make suggestions; basically do all of the things which we did lots of during the course, and have been missing since it finished.

Tonight is our first proper meeting, and I'm really looking forward to it. This month, we've all written a 1500 word short story containing the phrase "when I am Queen". It sounded simple enough at the time; but the story I've ended up writing is absolutely nothing like the one I thought I was going to. I'm dying to find out what the others have come with. I'm also dying to hear how they tackled the writing process itself.  Because writing is fun, but it's also hard and frustrating, and it makes you do crazy things.  

And I do mean crazy.  The other morning I was pacing around my flat shouting quite loudly at someone because  he knew a big juicy secret about someone else and was refusing to tell me what it was.  Which would be fine, except for the fact that both parties were completely fictional, made-up characters.  Made-up by me, incidentally, and you'd think that would mean I'm entitled to the information, wouldn't you? Or indeed, would have access to it?  Apparently that's not how these things work. 

That will sound completely bonkers to a lot of people, I'm sure. To a few people, though, and I count the friends I'll be seeing tonight among that number, it will make complete and utter sense. I hope.

Have you seen Warhorse yet?

If the answer is no, and you live in or near London*, this is what you need to do:

Put this blog down NOW and go and find a credit or debit card.  (Preferably your own, but if for some reason you can't find one of your own, then, well, .......... needs must and all that.  Not that I'm not condoning petty larceny or anything.)  Got one? Good. Now, here's the box-office website;  click that link, and book yourself a ticket. RIGHT NOW.  If you are the kind of person who gets a bit squeamish about going to the theatre on your own, then book two tickets; you can worry about finding someone to come with you later. Hey, I'll even come if you like.  Just GO AND BOOK  NOW. (I'd pay that little bit extra and sit in the stalls, if I were you. But I'll let you decide that for yourself: I don't want to be too militant.  Just GO AND BOOK YOUR TICKET(S) NOW.)
 
Done?  Have you checked your email for confirmation details? Written down the booking reference somewhere nice and safe? Excellent.  You may resume reading.

I am not normally this bossy.  In fact, in real life, I'm not bossy at all. (Occasionally guilty of employing passive-aggressive manipulation techniques to get my own way, if the occasion calls for it, but definitely not bossy.  Ask anyone.)  But I saw Warhorse recently (no, really? I hear you ask) and loved loved loved loved loved it. In fact, I would even go as far as to say that Warhorse is quite simply

The. Best. Theatre. Experience. I. Have. Ever. Had.

I don't use those words (or those full-stops) lightly.  They come from someone who saw Luke Perry's bare bum in the stage production of When Harry Met Sally. Twice.**

Seriously, though, I do see a reasonable amount of theatre, and not all of it features ex-members of the 90210 cast getting their kit off, and I can't remember the last time a production blew me away as much as Warhorse did.  I took my Mum, and she loved it too.

It is phenomonally good, for all kinds of reasons: of course there's the terrific story, which is based on the book by Michael Morpurgo, so its brilliance is almost a given.    I raced out and bought a copy the next day (also Farm Boy, which is the sequel) but haven't had a chance to read it yet so I'm not sure how much of the dialogue came from the original text and how much of it was made up by Nick Stafford, who wrote the stage adaptation.  What I can say is the language used is beautiful and powerful and evocative. Phrases like "shooting their bullets into our bones" have been haunting me for days.

Technically it's brilliant; the set is very simple but is brought to life by clever lighting, audiovisual projections and sounds.  Attention to detail was really impressive; tiny, subtle touches - the sound of seagulls in thre distance, for instance - added volumes to the tone and atmosphere in the room.

Then, of course, there are the animals.  You might have heard the rumours; there are some horses in Warhorse. (They go to war.)  You might also have heard the rumours that there aren't any actual horses on the stage - just pretend, puppet ones.

They don't look anything like that.  But I imagine that the above, or something similar, is what most people conjure up when they imagine horse puppets. The ones on stage, though, were absolutely nothing like this; they were incredibly constructed and creatively engineered, and most importantly they were completely and utterly convicing.  The people operating them, who were visible on the stage but barely noticeable, managed to capture even the slightest moves; a tiny shift of the ears, a twitch of skin, the rise and fall of each breath.   Again, it was the attention to detail which was astounding; more than once I had to remind myself that these weren't living, breathing, creatures on the stage.

There were other animals, too: a comedy goose practically stole the show*** in the first half, adding some welcome light relief, while later, during battle scenes, black crows pecked at the bodies of dying soldiers and horses.  It was a small but brutal addition; the added poignancy struck deeply.

Once you have seen it (what do you MEAN you haven't booked?  Do you not listen?! DO IT NOW for goodness sake) you will be in good company.  As you may have heard, Steven Spielberg saw the production a while ago, and is now working on a film version.  I'm a bit worried about this; I simply can't see how it will work as a film.  As I watched these creatures on stage and witnessed the actors interact with them I found myself falling just as much in love with them as the characters did.  This caused a complete cognitive dissonance; on the one hand I could see with my own eyes that these were just constructions of wood, metal and plastic, being propelled around the stage by humans, but on the other my brain simply refused to process that fact. As far as I was concerned those horses were real, even though I knew they couldn't possibly be. It was nothing short of pure magic.  I'm not convinced that magic won't be lost on screen, but I really, really, hope I'm wrong.






*If you are not in or near London, find a way to get yourself to somewhere which is in or near London, and then follow these instructions.

**I appreciate that this comparison will mean more to some readers than others

***I typed that as "stole the shoe" by mistake, initially; which made me think: there's a phrase which is just crying out to be used as a euphemism. For what, though, I have absolutely no idea.  Answers on a postcard, please.

Er, sorry, Amazon........

I am stunned.  Speechless.  My gaster has been well and truly flabbered. 

Not because some guy in California has managed to destroy 12 acres of woodlands by being really bad at golf*.  Or because I've just heard that one of the founding members of ELO has died after being crushed by a bale of hay.  Those are both stories that sparked my attention today, but the thing which caught me completely off guard recently is this:

My downstairs neighbour, who is a little odd to say the least, recently offered to give me some books he had finished reading. He spends a lot of time hanging around the bus-stop near our flats, and if he's there when I'm waiting for my bus my usual tactic is to say a polite hello and then to bury my head in whatever book I'm currently reading.  So when he offered me his off-casts I naturally assumed that he had noticed me doing this, realised I like to read and concluded that I might be someone who would appreciate them.

But then, last night, he delivered the books.  Just as I had settled down in front of some rubbish telly there came  a knock on my door, and when I opened it, there he was, wild eyes and all, clutching a plastic bag in his hand.  I could see the bag contained book shaped objects, and the book-ness of them was confirmed when he grunted something which sounded a bit like "here are those books" as he thrust it at me.  I said thank you, he asked for a couple of teabags which I gave him (it seemed like a fair swap) and he went back downstairs. 

Then I opened the bag, and the first thing I saw was this:

Regular and long-suffering readers of this blog will understand why my jaw instantly found itself in the vicinity of the floor.  Perhaps some of them, if they have been blessed with an extraordinarily large amount of empathy, will even be feeling the same sense of astonishment that I experienced.

For those of you who are more recent visitors (hello! Do pop in from time to time, won't you?) I should explain: this is a book I ordered from Amazon several months ago and then had an agonising and painful wait for, and then had an even more painful and more agonising conversation with Amazon's customer service department when I thought it hadn't arrived. They eventually sent me another copy, but not until I had fired off several strongly worded emails.  And also moaned quite a lot about it all here.

Just a coincidence, you may wonder? Well, yes, I suppose there's a chance that the crazy man who lives downstairs from me happened to fall in love with little known French author Jules Renard around the same time as I did, and also ordered his impossible-to-find journal over the internet.  Perhaps I shouldn't be so quick to judge.

 But then I dug further into the bag.  The next book was another title I had ordered through Amazon but had never (I thought) arrived.  Hmmmm.  The third, a book which I won in a prize draw several months ago but had never (I thought).....well, you get the idea. Three of the books he was giving me were MY OWN BOOKS. 

The other two were books about Jesus. Seriously. I have no idea where he got those ones from, but I'm pretty sure he didn't read them.   Or maybe he did, and that's why he decided to give mine back.

He's not exactly the sharpest tool in the playground, and I suppose he might genuinely have made a mistake (I mean three mistakes) by taking my post.  Or, and this is quite possible, he just doesn't understand it's not appropriate to steal someone's possessions and then return them by pretending to be doing a good turn.  I don't know.  It's all very unsettling.

My main problem is deciding what to do the next time I see him.  I don't particularly want to confront him, but at the same time it would be quite nice not to have to wait for six months to read any books I order from Amazon in the future.   I do have a copy of The Book Thief in my flat which I could give to him by way of return ("hey, thanks for those books - here's one I've finished with!!")  but I'm not sure he'd get the sarcasm.

Sunday Night Music Club

I almost forgot tonight. But don't feel neglected, I also forgot it was Fathers' day in Australia. I am a terrible daughter.

Isn't Wodehouse glorious?

I know I'm not saying anything new. There's a quote from Stephen Fry on the back of the volume I'm currently dipping into : "You don't analyse such sunlit perfection, you just bask in its warmth and splendour" he says.  And who am I to argue with a national treasure?  These are some random bits:

Barmy went to the door and opened it sharply.  There came the unmistakable sound of a barmaid falling down the stairs

I suppose, all in all, Freddie Widgeon has been in love at first sight with possibly twenty-seven girls in the course of his career: but hitherto everything had been what you might call plain sailing.  I mean, he would flutter around for a few days and then the girl, incensed by some floater on his part or possibly merely unable to stand the sight of him any longer, would throw him out on his left ear, and that would be that.  Everything pleasant and agreeable and orderly, as you might say.

It was a lovely summer morning with all the fixings, such as blue skies, silver wavelets, birds, bees, gentle breezes and what not.


A child who, on her own showing, plugged pigs with arrows and set fire to dormitories was not a child he was frightfully keen on having roaming about the countryside at a time when he was supposed to be more or less in charge of her.


He had a broken heart and blisters on both heels.

The Right Time: the director's cut

My goodness, is it Wednesday* already? How did that happen? 

I know it is bad form and tediously boring to apologise for lack of blog updates, and even worse form and much more boring to offer pathetic excuses for them.  My mum is in town for a visit; I sort of quite urgently need to sort some work out; a few deadlines are approaching, blah blah blah.  Basically the distractions have been flying thick and fast this week; things should get back to normal soon.

For now, as promised, this is the original, longer version of the short story I entered in that competition a while ago and keep saying I will never mention again.  I still prefer this version, personally, but that's just me.

The Right Time

I looked in the mirror and didn’t recognise my face. I try to avoid mirrors normally, and catching sight of my reflection in the bathroom one was an accident. Before I knew it, I had seen myself.


It was just after that nurse arrived. The one who smells funny. I don’t know her name, I hardly know any of their names. I don’t really like nurses. Except that blonde haired one, maybe, who came once. With the fingernails. But that one I had this morning, I don’t like her. She made porridge for breakfast. It was all beige lumps and watery milk, and smelled like wet cardboard. I didn’t want it, but it’s best not to make a fuss. It was easier just to open my mouth and let her put some porridge in. I spat some of it out afterwards, when she wasn’t watching, into one of Walter’s old handkerchiefs. It’s behind the dressing table now, I think. Or maybe I put it in the bedside drawer, where my tablets are.

I look at the clock on the wall, but I can’t read it. So I ask the nurse what the time is. She looks up, and pretends to screw her eyes a bit.

“Those numbers are far too small, aren’t they. We’ll have to get you a bigger clock. I’ll mention it to your daughter. “

I don’t tell her I can see the numbers perfectly. I know where the hands are, too, it’s just hard now to tell what they mean. I used to be able to tell the time. Now, by the time I’ve worked out where one hand is and counted in fives, I’ve forgotten where the first one was.

The nurse says it’s half past ten. That means Jane will be here soon. I wish she was coming later. I tried to ask her to wait until after lunch, but she didn’t listen. She never listens. To her I’m just silly old Mum. But the fog in my head is so much worse in the mornings. I remember better in the afternoons.

The nurse leaves, and I sit on the edge of a chair, practising things I can say to Jane. I hear keys in the door, and she breezes into the room like a Spring day. She’s carrying flowers, and when she gives me a hug her hair smells like apricots.

“Mum!” She smiles “How are you? I’m so sorry I couldn’t come yesterday.”

She has that man with her again. Do I know him? I get muddled with faces, these days. The ones I’m supposed to know I don’t, and the ones I think I know, it turns out I’m not supposed to. Sometimes the people I talk to smile, but not all the way to their eyes, and I know I’ve got it wrong again. I’ll just wait for the man to say something first.

“Hello dear. That’s a pretty shirt”.

“I’m glad you noticed! It’s the one you gave me for Christmas, remember?”

Did I really pick that shirt? Jane has always looked terrible in purple. It makes her skin too yellow.

“Oh, yes, of course, I know that. I just meant.... it looks good on you, that’s all”

She puts the flowers in a vase, and starts to tell me news, stories about people called Charles and Robbie and Jennifer, and other names I don’t remember. One of them has a dog, and it is getting sick, or one of them is sick in hospital and needs someone to look after their dog. I don’t know. The man doesn‘t say much, just puts down the magazines he was holding and sits awkwardly in the chair opposite me. He looks like he would rather be somewhere else.

I smile, and nod like I’m listening. Nodding is good. Suddenly I realise that Jane is frowning. Why is she frowning?

“Mum, where’s your necklace?”

I keep nodding.

“No, Mum, it was a question.” Jane’s voice has changed slightly. She sits down next to me.

“Auntie Rose’s pearls. You were wearing them on Tuesday.”

I know the necklace she means. I’ve hidden it from the nurses. Yesterday, I think. Or maybe the day before. But if I tell her that she will ask me where, and I don’t know.

“I don’t like it any more” I snap. “I’ve put it away”. If I sound angry, maybe she’ll talk about something else. That works sometimes.

The man speaks.

“They do this”, he says. “Squirrel things away. I read about it. You talk, I’ll look.”

He starts to open drawers. Suddenly I feel a burning sensation in my stomach, and I don’t need to pretend to be angry any more. What does he think he’s doing poking around in my clothes?

“It’s not in there.” My voice rises, but the man ignores me.

“Jane, tell your friend it isn’t in there””

“My friend? Oh Mum.” Her eyes fill with tears. “But you know Charles.” The man puts an arm around her and she looks at him the way she used to look at me when she was a little girl. He strokes her hair and murmurs something in her ear.

“It’s rude to whisper, you know” I hear myself say. I don’t like making Jane sad, and I know I have, but don’t know how. Still, I don’t want that man looking in those drawers. My personal clothes are in there. Slips and things.

“Sorry, Edith” he says. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m going to wait outside in the car while you and Jane have a nice chat.” He looks at the magazines as he leaves, and then looks at Jane. She nods. They don’t notice me watching. No one ever notices me anymore.

“How about a nice cup of tea” Jane says, and bustles off to the kitchen before I can answer. While she is gone, I look at the magazines. I don’t read them of course, just look at the pictures. They are all of other people’s flats, which look the same. These are odd magazines.

“Garden’s looking nice” Jane says, coming back with the tea. “Harry is doing a great job, isn’t he?” Harry lives next door. Walter never liked him much. Shifty eyes, he always said.

“I suppose so” I say. “I hope he’s not been in the greenhouse. Walter would have hated that.”

Jane sits down.

“Mum, Charles and I have been thinking....”

“Charles? Do I know Charles?”

“OK, then Mum, look, I’ve been thinking. This house is getting very big, and maybe it’s time to start thinking about, you know, whether, you’d be better living somewhere else. Look, I’ve brought some ...”

“But I live here. This is my house. I like it.”

“Yes, Mum, I know, but now it’s just you.....”.

“This is Charles’s idea, isn’t it?” I interrupt. I still don’t know who Charles is. But it seems like a good thing to say.

“Oh Mum. A minute ago you said you didn’t even know Charles”

I have said the wrong thing, I know I have. She sounds cross.

“Of course I know Charles”

Jane sighs, and hands me one of the magazines. “It’s both of us, really”. She says. “Just....have a look at these. Some of them seem nice. Please. We can talk about it later.”

I shrug, and we sit in silence again. It is so quiet I can hear the clock on the wall ticking. I pretend to drink my tea for something to do.

Jane reaches into her purse, and pulls out a box. “Look, I’ve brought you something” she says. Inside it, there’s a watch. No hands, just big green numbers. I can see it is 10:52.

I like knowing what time it is again. I don’t know what to say. Thank you doesn’t seem enough, but it’s all I can think of.

“Oh, it’s nothing” she says. “I just thought you’d like it.”

She helps me put the watch on, and we keep drinking our tea. The magazines with the houses in them sit in a silent pile on the coffee table. I notice my reflection for the second time today, in the window. I can see Jane too, sitting next to me. For a moment I am confused. Two reflections. The purple shirt; is that her or me? I touch my left ear to check, and one of the reflections copies. That must be me. I’m getting smaller.

Jane watches me, and smiles. She puts an arm through mine. “Aren’t we a handsome pair”

I smile back, and look at my new watch, and at the yellow flowers in the hallway, which are just like the ones Walter used to grow. I look at my daughter and the awful purple shirt she has worn especially. She looks tired. Maybe it’s time. I look at the magazines again.

“Do any of these flats have gardens?” I ask. Walter would want me to have a garden.

*Yes, yes, I know it's also the first of September, and the September-ness of today is a much more astounding quality than its Wednesday-ness, univerally speaking.  But I was supposed to do a truckload of things in August and hardly did any of them.  I am calling today August 32nd.