I Wish I was This Good

Nap Time

This is the little artists’ version of Bloodhead by Marc Quinn. Now rumours have been about for some time, that Nigella Lawson had builders unplug the fridge in which this was stored resulting in red ooze across her normally pristine kitchen. Sounds a bit unlikely and I cannot be bothered to find evidence to debunk it.

Daughter was back at school yesterday; it is her first year in the juniors. I was expecting some first-day enthusiasm instead of the usual shrug in answer to the question “What did you do at school today?” but I got a cheeky reply saying that she spent all day asleep. How can someone that age have perfected a knowing smile for such an obvious falsehood? She does not seem to be bothered about first days at school in the way that I was. I can just about remember being three and taken to nursery school. I said that I hated it and would walk home. I might have managed it as well if it wasn’t for the pesky nurses; only three main roads and a labyrinth of leafy suburban streets lay between what I considered a prison camp and my goal. I cried and cried though I seem to have only been there for a few minutes. Maybe they called my mother and had me taken away. Maybe I was just too loud. My wife was watching Supernanny yesterday and the kid on it cried and screamed which was difficult for me to take because it triggered memories of how loud I could actually cry; not that I had the language that the kid last night had. Anyway, my daughter has none of this hang-up and seems quite excited about school. It would be nice if she would tell me about it though.

Tripping on the Water Like a Laughing Girl

A day out with work today meaning a drive from here to Chesterfield. There was a lot of red in the sky first thing and there was mist on the moors by The Cat and Fiddle. All this time in a reasonably fast car equipped with hi-fi of good order meant a lot of great driving moments and a lot of fun had by all. Conclusion is that the best track for such a journey is Stupid Girl by Garbage though best album is Lovelife by Lush. Stories from the city, Stories from the sea is still good however.

Leaving at the far end, with the thought of home in your head and good loud music in your ears is powerful magic. This drive is through green and pleasant, real countryside, just losing its summer shine at this time of year. It goes from the bright edge-of-the-moors provinciality of Chesterfield itself, through bucolic and seemingly sleepy Bakewell, genteel Buxton to Macclesfield, the missing link between mill town and farm town. This journey must also be one of the few drives of a hundred miles where it is possible to see the final destination when not even half way through. The twisty descent from the tops after Buxton down towards Macclesfield has views of the whole Cheshire plain, spotted with towns and heading towards the Welsh midlands. In the distance are the various landmarks of Merseyside and South Lancashire, while nearside are various peaks, which always surprise me in countryside so close to where I live. The PJ Harvey Mercury Prize winning album is a good start as music but it makes me miss a useful stop in the still-green valleys near Bakewell, a café and bookshop, so unexpected but by the time I have seen it, I am past the entrance and on the wrong road as well. This means I have to go through Bakewell itself, though this seems like going back in time, with old cars, and no clone town this. I want to sound like Pevsner here but Architecture passes too fast, a blur of stone, the opera house gone and in last week already.

The high tops might have meant a stop for coffee at the Cat and Fiddle but the long road and long views towards home keep my foot on the pedal. We are into the Lush now. The jangle and rock of Ladykillers keeps me happy for the downhill stretch to Macclesfield but the Auto-Eroticism of 500 seems most appropriate for the gradual population of the roadside. At these lights in half-village – half town suburbanity, a languid couple, skater kids, sit or lie on some street furniture, tapping away to something I cannot hear. And we are back in a landscape I know, almost like where I grew up. Slowing for a turn, I rumble by another couple, teenagers I think, though sensibly dressed for possible rain. She is long faced with hair to match, walking ahead of him by 10 paces, though I am sure that they are together. The whole world of their day has filled my head, each thought, each reason for them being here and separated by this distance. What quarrel has happened or has it been gradual tiredness overcoming their day between A levels and college. There it is; Nascent love, split by different degrees. There is no argument, just fear of the future. Now I have their thoughts in my head from so far back on that road, all the mixed up ideas of what has been and what might be. A powerful thing is love. Forget that old thing of dumping boyfriends/girlfriends when you go to university.

What is the world like when no one is there?

This is from Mrs Dalloway.

There was nobody. Her words faded. So a rocket fades. Its sparks, having grazed their way into the night, surrender to it, dark descends, pours over the outlines of houses and towers; bleak hillsides soften and fall in. But though they are gone, the night is full of them; robbed of colour, blank of windows, they exist more ponderously, give out what the frank daylight fails to transmit—the trouble and suspense of things conglomerated there in the darkness; huddled together in the darkness; reft of the relief which dawn brings when, washing the walls white and grey, spotting each window-pane, lifting the mist from the fields, showing the red-brown cows peacefully grazing, all is once more decked out to the eye; exists again. I am alone; I am alone! she cried, by the fountain in Regent’s Park (staring at the Indian and his cross), as perhaps at midnight, when all boundaries are lost, the country reverts to its ancient shape, as the Romans saw it, lying cloudy, when they landed, and the hills had no names and rivers wound they knew not where—such was her darkness; when suddenly, as if a shelf were shot forth and she stood on it, she said how she was his wife, married years ago in Milan, his wife, and would never, never tell that he was mad! Turning, the shelf fell; down, down she dropped. For he was gone, she thought—gone, as he threatened, to kill himself—to throw himself under a cart! But no; there he was; still sitting alone on the seat, in his shabby overcoat, his legs crossed, staring, talking aloud.

I read all this to my wife last night, as it is just perfect. It says all I want to but cannot, about those little calming places I think about at night. As I drive past a wood in the rain, I imagine it while I am asleep, the rain falling on no one, just the dark and patter of the rain. And this is the argument about sound when no one is there. I hear the whole world at once, like the thoughts of these two who should be in each other’s arms, not silent and separate. They talked some night months ago, and kissed, drunkenly, their first time drunk perhaps, trying not to admit they don’t like the feeling, but she thinks of poetry and hopes he will write her some. Maybe he is not the sort she thinks but there is always the chance. She thinks she loves him but thinks she might be too young to know. I thought in cliché at that age but knew I shouldn’t. Still what’s wrong with a good cliché? Most pop for the last forty years has been full of things already said but the best of them are still good songs, good enough to give a chuckle of recognition when spoofed to people who do not even know the song. Don’t you want me baby? Woe We We Woe Woe! They have a whole story to themselves, and now they are together still, with grey hair and Bupa.

The last stretch is always powerful; entry to Liverpool is always on long, straight roads, powering down from the high moors, with dramatic sun and dark clouds. The music ends and home opens like a dream. Coffee keeps me awake and thoughts of all my life make me sleep.

Breakfast Juice

Cleared Up Mate? Yeah! Freshly bombed with ‘biotic and that made it go all psychosomatic and fading into brain cracks. The shrewish mother nearly died on us and went away in this hospital. She laughs to hide the pain, to call her saviours evil. In the end, we won’t believe her. If only I could make you see how all solutions end in this music at this time. Here is the answer in everything I obsess about, the future perfect. Hear that chime of the last piano note fading out with the breathy flute. I’ll have them out of my house and kicked into river if my friend turns up. They use to say he was mad but not his head is together, we may start something. Anyway he can take these two any day; they’ll be in the river you seem, floating down to the sea and not able to string two words together to ask for help. That’s what’ll happen I know. Mustn’t say anything now or it will tell them what’s up for sure for sure for sure. You are with me I know but as I am not speaking you can’t hear this. It’s just my own voice within my own head, pounding tired down the hours after the light goes out with thoughts of void and ending things. And in the morning it is misty, was today anyway, like some blanket came down over us and took all the air. It’s all gone now, kicked off, blown away by the little birdies flapping back and forth over the river. Maybe the birdies will save them from the sea. Couldn’t lift them I think. I heard there’s an execution today, something with electricity and all your nerves burned in a line. I want to say that will hurt but of course it will. I’m not stupid. Why do we want to do that? They’ve not killed anyone I think so it’s just revenge on them for giving something away. No worry anymore for them though. Who will remember them when they have gone. I can’t even remember their names now and I just read about them. The paper has no comics today, the funnies they call them here. No funnies! That’s it!. They made them smaller and they’ve just vanished into nothing, like all those tiny screens at the cinema. Oh well. Here they come again. She looks down manically. Hello again. A hand at her chin to lift it smells of cigarettes. She smiles a weak smile, like the sun just through the fog this morning but like the sun it fades again.

You Got It All Planned Out?

Listening to Three Tales by Steve Reich

We are sort of alive. This gives me Pause. Must post! Must Post!

Three Tales is a Reichian Opera based on three events from the last century. Firstly, you get a spooky recreation of the crash of the Hindenburg, with dramatic newsreel style voiceovers. In the next tale, the newsreel talk becomes more light-hearted despite the fact that the subject is the use of Pacific islands for atomic bomb tests. Finally, we have Richard Dawkins raving manically with others about the intelligence of robots and cloning (especially that of Dolly). I have so say that it is the typical Steve Reich cut-up-and-paste style which makes Dawkins sound as if he is raving – Are machines – are machines – are machines – are machines – are ………..

You might lump Three Tales together with The Cave and Different Trains though I have to say that Different Trains is far ahead of the other two in both concept and pure technical excellence. Different Trains is a contrast between the trains across the United States on which Reich travelled with his nanny, shuttling back and forth between his estranged parents, and the cattle-trucks used by the Germans to transport Jews to concentration camps. It has three sections - before the war in America, during the war in Europe and after the war. All the way through it has a pounding and clanging rhythm, helped along by recordings of real trains and whistles. The conclusion has a sense of humanity dragging itself up from as deep as it can be and starting over, a powerful obscene gesture at the black heart of the worst depths of what people can do to other people. The strange thing is that is has a rocky feel, even in the Europe section; it drives forward creating a conflict between the enjoyment of something which ostensibly is not there to be enjoyed. Maybe you could take this to be an affirmation of the future over the past. Did I not say that this is performed by a String Quartet (The Kronos Quartet in my version) playing against two recording of itself?

Back In ‘52

I found my wife listening to The Freak Zone on BBC 6 this evening. At first I thought it might have been the ‘It’s that nice Stuart Maconie’ factor but she was actually enjoying it though something over the edge sent her back to Classic FM. I have also found out that the enthusiasm for the radio is probably more due the fact that I am more likely to do the washing up with BBC 6 available in the kitchen as well as from the TV. Anyway – digital heaven has arrived in this house.

The cinema trip this afternoon was almost free for both my daughter and me. She had a free ticket for Herbie: Fully loaded courtesy of a certain fast food outlet while in best Beano fashion I had been handed a reward after returning a lost purse. I refused it at first of course but was threatened with something if I didn’t. Well you can’t just drop it on the floor can you? It was either that or a ‘slap-up meal’. What is a slap-up meal? There are always curly sausages in mountains of mash and tongues hanging out. Never had one myself. Saveloy and chips was my reward meal of choice. Anyway, film review is short. Great effects, great races, naff plot, cut so bad that it makes the relationships of the main characters difficult to believe. They did manage to avoid to many digital manipulations of the car but there were no real laugh-out-loud moments. The Wallace and Gromit movie is still ‘coming soon’.

We watched Mrs Dalloway yesterday. I have had the book by the side of the bed for some months now but I have never really got started with it. I was beginning to wonder if I could manage another Ulysses even if it is a lot shorter but after seeing the film, which was wonderful, I may restart it. The production notes on the DVD also made we think about dragging a biography of Virgina Woolf out of the library. I may be forced to finish all the other books I have to read before this is allowed.

Selggub

Well as you can see the digital radio has been purchased at last and got a high approval rating from all the family. Number One Son’s thumb is somewhere behind this picture playing with the mains adapter but it’s OK everyone; he’s not hurt.

I have just heard a sprinkler hissing in one of the back gardens behind the house and this has reminded me of a theme I have been meaning to mention for some time. There has been an advert, in the style of swingball and other garden fun stuff, for an attachment to your common-or-garden hose, which stands up in the ground with a flexible bit of trunking. When the tap is turned on, this trunking flaps around like hoses always do in cartoons (my image has Tom clinging to the end while Jerry giggles in the shrubbery) spraying everyone and everything with water in a random and mathematical chaotic way. So we spend all this money on some mechanism which means a sprinkler gives an even covering using some regular process and all along, the simplest method is a bit of flexible hose with a fixed end and an free end. The other thing in this theme is a toy, one of the kids in the street has. It consists of a battery-powered mouse on wheels (clockwork versions were also in Tom and Jerry), which sits inside a clear, plastic globe. As the mouse runs around inside the globe, it rolls around the floor. When it hits something, the mouse just falls to one side by gravity and rolls the globe in a different direction. It has no other sensors and never gets stuck. Why spend loads on fitting some bit of Mechano with bumpers, servos, eyes and trip wires? May keep this in mind when programming. Och A vay.

Funny and Zooey

Type a sentence randomly and then take it back. Delete it. See how far you get before you decide that it needs erasing. I was readin the food and drink section of the bee book yesterday. It quoted a 17th century recipe for mead which seemed so lacking in detail, as to be meaningless. These days we expect our recipes to have a Deliahesque amount of detail. Lets face it, deliah's recipes always work. My wife actually has the video of one of her shows in which she demonstrates how to quarter a chicken. It has to be dead first! Before I read the mead instructions, I was contemplating having a go but after that and the description of the taste of mead (horrible apparently) I don't think I will bother.In my final year at middle school (three years - 11 to 14), a couple of us made some ginger beer which we left in the biology lab ready-room (The bit where the science teachers go to make their tea in the lab equipment). We never got to consume it for whatever reason and I suspect it remained undiscovered until causing a minor explosion as the building was demolished. The lab also featured live chinchillas which escaped from their cage and made a frugal living behind the plasterboard walls, occasionally livening up a lesson with their mating squeals. Practical biology! You can't beat it!

We were also taught how to kill and pluck chickens. I have probably told you about how I was lucky enough to have to do Rural Science until I was 14. I bet there aren't many people in my town who can draw the insides of a cow and thankfully, having managed to forget the trauma that was RS, I am one of them. We did have bees I remember. OK! I told you that already.

I Knew You Were Going to Say That

Listening to Joy Division (Oh No! One of those posts)

I hate the future! It creeps in whenever I wake up before the required time and fills the gaps of calm that sleep creates. Maybe it is never going to be the real future; that is reserved for the wackos who see major events. I see myself in some one-room hovel, hands over a guttering gas ring, surrounded by empty tins, a hostage of the kiddies in the markets who can’t see beyond next week and then only because they are off to some do with their cloned mates. The major worries usually pass when the cold of the day seeps in but like a bad dream, half-remembered, it colours moods and creates depression over time. And I am safe here.

I am glad that the BBC apologized for the programme (Bring Your Husband To Heel) last week where dog-training techniques were used to bring husbands to heel. There is the obvious and probably clichéd argument that if the programme had been about using the same techniques on women it would never have been shown. I know as well that some radical feminists might well say that it was redressing the balance of years of oppression of women. The BBC did say that it was just a bit of fun but even without the emotional element of an interview with whoever said that, it did seem as if they were trying to adjust the scope of the programme. After being slightly concerned by Michael Buerk’s comments about the women running the BBC, this does seem to have confirmed at least some of what he said. Am I straying into dangerous ground here? We have been given the idea that women have a greater intuition and ability to solve problems in ways that just don’t occur to men and certainly this is true. However, going as far as to say that if women ran the world, there would be no wars because of these abilities actually conjures up an image of a world as screwed up as this one. It would just be in different ways.

WARNING! Very Old Actorial Joke



Listening to The Guitar and Other Machines by The Durutti Column.

My wife actually hid the Radio Times yesterday so she could be first to read about Johnny Vegas’ Bottom. I feel like adding a ‘Geddit!???!!?’ like Private Eye’s moronic columnist Glenda Slagg.

It is sad that the version of Midsummer Night’s Dream is not in the original language but rather a modern interpretation much like the versions of The Canterbury Tales from last year. Still, a good story is a good story and Johnny Vegas with pointy ears is fascinating in itself. I tried to watch his show but he just seemed to be a very loud shouty drunk – playing to type, you say? No! Worth a go. At least the Canterbury Tales were originally in language requiring translation of some sort. I have probably already raved about them in this blog due to a crush I had on a Sixth Form girl who would list the plots as we walked home across the common where we lived. Of course, my adolescent ear filtered out the boring bits and my memory is now full of the more racy passages. I like the idea of Chaucer more than Chaucer itself. Iff Lyffe bee so muche payne, theyn coulden nott thye lyffe be forsworne for eteynety. It is code.

The notebook has come up with mention of an Oboist which refers to the winner of an oboe competition who was on In Tune yesterday. Her name is Holly Fawcett who seems to be quite web-wise as well as being a brilliant musician. I arrived home just as she was playing something by Schuman (It’s not on the playlist). My daughter was sitting on the step with an ice-lolly watching the rain and I opened the car window to let her hear the end of the piece. All this has reminded me that a modest windfall has prompted me to think about getting a digital radio at last. I was hear so early this morning and I was hoping to write so much more but things have gotten in the way.

Fossil rabbits in the pre-Cambrian.

Read, digest and know you are right.