little.red.boat.

Thursday, February 28, 2002

I have a brand new conversation-killing technique.

For anyone who knows me, or knows this island, you'll know that the most frequently asked question is 'So! What was your job before coming here?', implying that what we do here is no job, or just a holiday occupation, or whatever.

My new answer to this question?
"Well, I used to be in video distribution."
"Oh, Films! What films?"
"Well, Porn, mainly. Some hard-core, but mostly animal..."

I can't wait for the first guest to question me. I'm prepared.

Thursday, February 28, 2002 |

excuse me for being honest, but i've had a complete F***er of a day.
Some days you feel good about being yourself.
Today's not one of them.
I really don't like myself today.
And I can't even talk about why.
I'm sorry if that's not very entertaining.
I'm sorry. I know that's not a great comedy blog post.
'I dislike everthing and myself today'
sorry.

I'll give you this.
today I heard a mini-skirt descibed as a 'fanny-pelmet'. now, That's funny. I'm not. Not today.

Thursday, February 28, 2002 |

Wednesday, February 27, 2002

So. Lets talk about the word ‘Scone’
Tell me. How do you pronounce it?

Or don’t tell me. Because I don’t really care.
I’ve heard this conversation half a billion times. Does it really matter? Does it?

Let us consider the following factors.
1. Everywhere in the UK, pretty much, people have a different way of pronouncing ‘scone’ – either ‘Skoan’, or ‘skon’.

2. Every week, we have guest from all over the UK. Nay, all over the world.

3. Every lunchtime, we serve scones.

Therefore, it is likely, or perhaps even a given, that this conversation will happen anything up to 5 times in any week. And I don’t care anymore. It’s a f***ing foodstuff. You can pronounce it ‘fish-slice’ if you want to. It’s meant for eating, not inspiration.

There was one point last year when the conversation started again. For maybe the fifth time that week. For possibly the seventy-fifth time that season. With the added-bonus-point conversation, which is even worse…
“so, do you say Barth, or baeth? What about Larder?…”
etc, etc, ad infinatum.

It had been going for about ten minutes. I was about to lose my rag. I could see b, four seats down the table, on the edge of rag-loss too.

“Anna!” he shouted down the table, “would you mind passing that Jor of Honay, please?”
“certainly!” I yelled back, “might you have any margeryne down there? I need some for my scoon.”
“would you also like the Strawbarry Jim?”
“yes I wood. Thankyow.”
“oh look! I need to refil this jog of wattir. Excuse me.”

And we carried on until they shut up.
Rude? Yes, I like to think so.
Know what? I don’t care. I think I said that already.

How do you pronounce scone?
And how important is it to you?
Is it?
Is it really?

Wednesday, February 27, 2002 |

Last night I dreamt that I met the queen. She was just taking a stroll, with her old mum, down the main road of the town where I used to live. I walked past her, said ‘evening’, and carried on along the way, thinking “that’s ace, I must remember to put that in my blog”.

When I woke up, I was thinking the same; “Good lord, I saw the queen. I must tell everyone. I must put that in my blog. That’s a great story. Very impressive. And I said hello. Top…”

It was about 20 minutes until I realised it had been dream, and consequently wouldn’t be a good story at all.

That’s a step forward. Last time I didn’t even manage to stop myself telling everybody all about it. It was a lengthy and intricate dream that led to me walking around for half the next day telling people:

”I dreamt about Margaret Thatcher last night. And she wanted me to tell everyone that she’s very sorry.

Oh – and that she’s a drag queen”.

Wednesday, February 27, 2002 |

Wandering round a 'castle' today (more a hunting lodge, quite wee, with lots of stuffed animals with stary eyes) I heard the best true story Ever.

The Lady (and believe me, I don't use that word lightly) showing us around her home was telling us about her husband, some lord of something or other. She told us all about his adventures in the war, and showed us documents to prove it all.

He travelled behind enemy lines, for some covert mission or other. In case of his capture by enemy forces, he was given some false identity papers. His name, on the false identity papers, and I love this, was 'Ivan T. Bugurov'

You can imagine all the British Intelligence Officers wetting themselves in their offices, going;
'I wan t'bugger off!
I van t Bugur Ov!
Ivan t Bugarov!
Ah those foolish foriegners! They'll never get the joke! What Ho, Boys! I say!"

It's just so horribly British and smug. Not bothering to come up with something authentic sounding, because a bad pun is better value.
And yet, of course, it is also very funny.

Wednesday, February 27, 2002 |

Tuesday, February 26, 2002

Just doing some research for my book on etiquette – first chapter; “when is it alright to be naked?”

As far as I can tell, there are six degrees of naked;
1. Not naked. Not naked at all. This, usually, would manifest in the ‘fully-dressed’ state. No natural colour should be available at this point. One wearing a wetsuit would fit easily into the ‘not naked’ bracket.
One wearing a greased wetsuit would fit even more easily.
2. Nowhere near naked. Most clothing of note still in position. Some tantalising glance of flesh may be available (most likely a wrist, neck or ankle, rather than nipple or buttock)
3. A bit naked. This person could be wearing a few more clothes. But they aren’t. They are, therefore, a bit naked.
4. Rather naked. One of the most dangerous degrees here, as will usually involve kaftans. Never look under the kaftan. Nakedness lies beneath.
5. As Damn near naked as Damnit. ‘clothing’ here will involve string and tassels.
6. Naked. Well, and truly, thoroughly naked. Symptoms including a flesh-coloured skin tone, and an alarming absence of clothes.

So now I have my definitions set out, I’m sitting here trying to think of situations in which it is ok to be in the buff.

I’d say dinner parties are generally a bit of a no-no, etiquette wise. Certainly in the case of the guest who arrives at the party naked.
If, once the party is in full ‘swing’, as it were, and a culture of nudidity would seem to be de rigeur, then it’s probably OK to strip off. Slowly.
Not just to nip out during the main course and come striding back in starkers.
Everyone else might have changed their mind.

Obviously baths are a reasonable situation, but etiquette doesn’t cover baths, I don’t think. It covers mainly social situations. So it might cover the bath if Bath time were a social situation. But if bath time were a social situation, I’m not sure it would quite constitute needing etiquette. I don’t think anyone would care.

Oh, I’m going to have to do some more thinking on this.
Nudity…. Nudity…. Nudity…

Tuesday, February 26, 2002 |

I decided (at 3.30 this morning, in a fit of rather dull insomnia) that I'm going to write a book on Etiquette.

I'm not sure how I'm going to do that exactly, but it's been the closest thing resembling a 'plan' that I've had in ages. How cool would that be?
Large Gruff Southern Person; "Hello young winsome lady, what do you do for a living?"
Anna (with a flutter of her eyelashes); "Why, I write books on etiquette, thank you very much for asking!...."

I realise that there I may have confused 'writing books on etiquette', for 'being Scarlet O'Hara', but I think my point is the same. Whatever that point may be.

I also realise that I'm going to have to pull my socks up if I'm going to become an expert on the whole 'manners' thing. I'm not bad at the practical stuff, the holding doors open, the saying my please's an my thankyou's, the managing not to punch someone if they're eating an apple too close to me, all that stuff.

But I think there are somethings I should try not to say.

1. I might actually start saying "I beg your pardon?" rather than "Ha?" or "Ugh?"for example. I've been trying for years and years and years to change this. Every time I hear myself saying "ha?", I immediately correct myself with, "I mean 'I beg your pardon?'", which would be fine if I at some point stopped saying 'Ha?' in the first place. Now it just leads to, when ever I don't hear something... "Ha?ImeanIbegyourpardon?Damn!" Every single time. Which sounds worse.

2. "This is a complete pain in the nuts". Apparently, this is not a very ladylike thing to say. Something to do with not having nuts, or something.

3. "Hell's Teeth!". I sound rather more Old Sea Dog than debutante.

4. "Make it so" As previously mentioned, this has slipped from a joke into my main vocabulary. No Good.

5. "Totally...", or rather "Toadally..." Anna, you are not a Valley girl, you're not american, you don't even watch Buffy. Give over.

I'm sure there are more than this, well, there's always the blasphemy and the swearing, of course, but I must admit I'm rather fond of those...

And once I've ironed out these small creases, I'm going to write a book on Etiquette.
First chapter - "When is it OK to be Naked?"
I may serialise it. At least it'll give me something to write about. There's bugger-all happening around here.

6. "bugger-all" I really must stop this. I could go on forever...

Tuesday, February 26, 2002 |

Sunday, February 24, 2002

I'm begining to think everyone's getting a bit too tired for this 'concentration' lark. I'm so tired I'm foaming at the mouth (although this can also be a symptom of Epilepsy, Clinical Shock, Infantile Convulsion or Hyperthermia), And biting the ankles of everyone around me (although this can also be a symptom of Dementia, Stroke, or Being a Yorkshire Terrier).

And sitting in the last First Aid training session, we were writing testing situations for each other. I recieved a hypothetical (or is it hyperthetical? I know one's to do with heat and the other cold...) scenario to solve which read;

'You are sitting in the common room, when an old man sitting opposite complains of pains in his arm. He is clearly in pain, and has some trouble breathing. Before you have time to run for help, he clutches at his chest, makes a rasping Croaking noise, goes stiff for the briefest of seconds, then collapses back into his chair.

Then his head falls off.'

Apparently, the writer's reasoning was that it was all looking too easy.

According to the trainer, spontanious decapitation is one of the only situations in which we should assume that the casualty may be dead. So that's good to know.

Sunday, February 24, 2002 |

Things that sounded a whole lot better in my head, and on reflection should probably have stayed there; Number 469 in a seemingly never-ending series.

Watching a family-orientated television programme - some dross ‘pop idol’ thing – trying to unwind for the blood-and-guts day…

Woman 1; Aw, look! Couldn’t you just hug him?
Woman 2; Aye, bless! Couldn’t you just imagine taking him home to meet your mum?
Woman 3 (well, me…); Yeah! Couldn’t you just cover him in peanut butter, only to lick it off again?

Everyone was suddenly staring at me.
Damn it!
What had I been thinking?
Peanut butter? Peanut butter?
How much would your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth after that?
You’d not be able to talk for a week. And thinking specifically of the terribly wholesome, fairly traded, organic peanut butter we have here? The amount of stuff that would get stuck between the teeth is too painful to bear.

Peanut butter indeed.
I can’t believe I said that out loud. I meant Raspberry jam.
Seedless, obviously.

Sunday, February 24, 2002 |

There is only so long you can sit in a small, warm, low-ceilinged room before sleep or hysteria sets in. There’s only so long you can sit and listen to all the vile and terrible things that can happen to people, and the things you can do about it, before something’s going to give. Other people got the sleepiness. In our corner of the room, it was hysteria.

We’ve been in intensive First-Aid training for two days now. Sitting in the same room for twelve hours today, and only slightly less yesterday, with little breaks for food and fresh, cold air.

Luckily, the woman doing the training is very funny, otherwise I don’t think many of us could sit through so much angina and blood loss. After eleven and a half hours, I was pretty much ready to drop. Then we were given a fictional situation to deal with by one of the other groups.

‘You enter one of the guest bedrooms. A woman is lying on the floor next to the bed, clutching an electrical devise plugged into the mains. She is unconscious, but seems to be breathing. What do you do?

Of course, the industrial Vibrator jokes flowed like water. (I’ve just talked to someone, and apparently that shouldn’t have been ‘of course, the industrial vibrator jokes…’ as it wasn’t obvious at all. Maybe it was just the way it was read out. Anyway…) mild hysteria came, and passed, but unfortunately came back when we had to read our findings to everyone. All it took was one small snort from one of the group, one comment from a nice middle-class middle aged lady across the room about how it would certainly save on batteries, and there were five of in a row, holding our noses, rocking back and forth and crying into our practice slings.

As soon as we could, we carried on with the incident report, which went well, for approximately 30 seconds until we hit the section on the entrance and exit points of electrical burns. On being asked whether we had made the area safe of possible further shock, a comment was made later about having to remove the element from the fundament, and, oh it doesn’t matter...
It may all have got a little distasteful after that.

Sunday, February 24, 2002 |

that's me, that is.

Sunday, February 24, 2002 |

Saturday, February 23, 2002

Firstly - i love snow. snow is romantic, snow is cleansing, snow is pure, and beautiful
Blizzards are not. Blizzards are vile. They hurt. But they do make everything so pretty.
I've just walked home from the party in the pitch black with snow spiralling down and smacking me in the face.
It's romantic, maybe. But not the right kind of romantic.

Secondly - I've had the most wonderful evening talking about language. I love my language. And the more accents i come to know, the more I love it. The words we have in common, the letters we have in common, and the million ways they can be used. Three examples of the language conversation;

1. In the middle of the conversation, someone walked past and said "m'aff haim".
This is 'i'm going home now' in the west of scotland. I love that.

2. Someone close to my heart, someone I worked in the theatre with, from Bolton, Lancashire, England, would use the phrase "I'm going f'..." so, for example, when asked what he was doing of the evening, he might say "I'm going f't'see play". Literally translated - "I am going for to see the play" grammar unchanged for 500 years. Isn't that fabulous?

3. I've forgotten the third one. But it was very interesting. I'll put it in when I remember it. It was great, it was kind of like a punchline to the whole post. shame I can't remember it really. ach well. Oh no, here we are, it's coming back to me.
That's right. the conversation on language drifted off into spelling, and someone quoted a limerick of which they could only remember a bit. The point was that on paper, it should rhyme, but in reality, it just couldn't. The bits she coulld remember were...
'There was a young lady from slough,
Who had a terrible cough,
dee didly dee
dee diddly dum
but he doctor said she'd pull through.'
If anyone knows the rest of this (the 'dee diddly' bits, in case you were wondering. They're not how the poem really goes. That would be rubbish.) please let me know. It tickles me a lot.

Oh, there you go. Maybe it wasn't a punchline after all. Or it would have been funnier. Or maybe that wasn't it. I'll think of something else. Probably during first-aid training tomorrow, and burst out laughing. Which would be inappropriate. Oh, sod it. I'm aff tae ma bed.

Saturday, February 23, 2002 |

Friday, February 22, 2002

I've just been corrected. Apparently 'deaths warm duck' is not cute and little. He is 30-foot-tall and mean looking with a scythe.
And he smells.

Friday, February 22, 2002 |

Quite possibly the sweetest thing I've heard in a long time -
My new friend - an intelligent, hilarious woman - until she was about 28, thought that people under the weather described themselves as 'death's warm duck'.

The mental picture of the grim reaper and his pet, all wrapped up in a little ducky blanket, is almost too cute to bear.

Friday, February 22, 2002 |

As I mentioned, although I can't scuba dive, I can swim. Ish.
I used to be able to swim. I still like being in water, and flailing around, and swimming. Ish.

It's since my shoulder got painfully and extremely jiggered, six years ago. A very funny story, I'll tell it later.
But since then, I can't swim. Not well.
I try.
But whenever I climb into a swimming pool an start a lap in good faith, the life-guard climbs down off his stool, and watches me with intent.
'Oh look out for that one! she's going to drown if we leave her alone for a second! Look out!'
And so now I can't swim without feeling self-concious because;
a) I'm wearing a swimming costume
b)i'm flailing around, wildly and
c) there are people standing around, waiting for me to sink.

What chance am I supposed to have?...

Friday, February 22, 2002 |

Thursday, February 21, 2002

It's thursday night. It's nine o'clock.
That's right. The pub's open.
And between the four of us, we've scraped together enough money to drown all thoughts of my new haircut. Which is good.

You know the best thing said to me re; haircut, so far?

"Oh look! Your hair! Well Done!"

What does that infer? That I myself caused my hair to get suddenly shorter? That I closed my eyes and concentrated really hard and sucked my hair back into my head? Or 'well done' because it so badly needed doing? I don't understand.
But that doesn't matter.
Because The pub's open.
So everything's alright.

Thursday, February 21, 2002 |

I've decided the purpose of this blog. Finally this bloggy/journal/thing has the direction and purpose it may, so far, have been lacking.

I'm going to record how many candles I make (or facilitate the making of) this year.
It's an important thing to be doing, personal documentation-wise
Else how will I know?

So. So far this year, I have made, of facilitated the making of nine candles.
Have you got that posterity? nine candles.
Look forward to future, and plentiful updates on the candle count.
I know I, for one, just can't wait.

Thursday, February 21, 2002 |

This morning my hair was down below my shoulders. Now it's mainly on the kitchen floor.
It was just getting long enough to do nice stuff with.
And now, like a mad, impulsive fool, I have virtually no hair.
Virtually none.

I look like an athlete. I have short, sporty hair. Like a Javelin Thrower.

It's fine. It's fine. It'll grow on me.

Well, quite literally, it'll grow on me. That's what it does.
Until then, I'm holding the first national Hat Amnesty.
Anyone care to donate? It's in a very good cause.
Oh God. My hair.

Thursday, February 21, 2002 |

My hair.

Oh god, my hair.

Thursday, February 21, 2002 |

Ask me why, when I usually pay as much as I possibly can for a haircut, I am today going to have it cut for free, And I'll admit I have no clue.
Not only am I having it cut for free, but I'm having it cut by an untrained collegue.
Not only is my collegue untrained, but also, I don't get on with her very well.

And so desperate to get my hair cut am I, that I'm going to do it. Just now.

So to recap - this morning, a tetchy, untrained colleque who doesn't like me will cut my hair for free.
Nervous? Me?

squeak

Thursday, February 21, 2002 |

I sat down at the desk and answered fifteen questions – at least – on something I knew nothing about. I didn’t even, if I remember rightly, have to answer any questions on anything else. Just that one thing. Those two small words at the bottom of the application form.
I really wanted a place on the summer school. I was only fifteen. I didn’t know any better.
So what? I lied.
Well, st-re-tc-he-d the truth a little.

No, bollocks to it all. I lied.
Sitting in the waiting room before the audition, I’d looked over my application form again and again and again.
Information, fine. Name – got that one down right. School details – not a problem. I’d even got a day off school to come. Hobbies and Interests? Not so bad. For a fifteen year old. Reading, writing, playing the piano. Listening to music. Going to the Movies.

And I panicked. Suddenly, it didn’t seem rock and roll enough. My interests should surely reflect my interesting personality.
My cheap ballpoint scratched across the page, and as soon as it was lifted off, my name was called to the audition room. No time to erase.
Those two words.

‘Scuba Diving’

Scuba diving? I lived in Inner City London. Where exactly was I supposed to be going Scuba Diving? The Thames? The bath?
I don’t think I knew what scuba diving was. Come to think of it, I’m still not that sure.
And to be honest with you, my swimming’s not really that hot. So how I was supposed to be getting on with the scuba diving, I have no clue.
Fifteen minutes I was in there. Answering question after question after question about bloody Scuba Diving.

It was and Summer’s acting course, for goodness sake. Surely I should have got in on the strength of that performance alone.
I only lied. Only a little. Only a little lie.
That’s not that bad? Is it?

Thursday, February 21, 2002 |

Wednesday, February 20, 2002

A fabulous amount of wind.
The post being carried from the van to the front door, was caught in a sudden gust, and eight of us chased across the fields after bank statements and underwear catalogues.

Every door is opening and closing, every window is banging, the draught is destroying the neat paper work on a whole bunch of desks.

And small children are being held on to Very tightly, in case they blow away.

Seriously.

Wednesday, February 20, 2002 |

I was reading my journal from the year before last.
There was an episode I’d entirely forgotten, and felt very embarrassed at the time. But when I read it over again, it all suddenly made sense. Or more sense at the time. Which isn’t hard. But I felt suddenly that I could write a thesis on three words drunkenly spoken.

“I am Velcro."

That moment has passed, and now it doesn’t make sense again. Perhaps, If I write out the circumstances again, it will, again, make sense. I’ll give it a go.

It was a party. An ‘End of Committee Meetings Party’

We’d not been at the last meeting, we’d been elsewhere drinking wine. And then we’d come to the party. And drunk the party wine. And when that had run out, we’d opened another bottle. It was time to go home. I started swinging my 14 layers around my shoulders, when someone very important asked me a question…

“So, Anna, what are you doing when you finish here?” she said, in a terribly sober way…

“Helen!” I said. It seemed a time for dramatic pronouncements. I don’t actually know if her name was Helen.

“Well, Julie, the thing is…” I said. Searching desperately for the next part of the sentence.

“Barbara…” I have no idea what her name was. I just know she was Very Important…

“well…” and by now six people were looking at me, waiting for me to make this grand announcement. I, of course had no idea what was about to come out of my mouth.

“I am Velcro!” I said. Looking at the twelve people now staring at me intently.
Unfortunately, I obviously felt that this statement deserved elaboration…

“I am the fluffy… no, I am the hooky bit of velcro. I am like the hooky bit of Velcro, flying around the world. Just trying to find my ‘fluff’.”

And, after agonising moments of silence and staring, someone else admitted that she knew exactly what I meant. And everyone stared at her instead.
Which gave me a chance to run out of the room.

But the thing is. I think I may know what I meant now too. But I’m not sure I could explain it. Does it need explaining?

Wednesday, February 20, 2002 |

incidentally, anyone who used to have my e-mail address won't have it any more. I've had to change it for nasty capitalist reasons. My e-mail's best-gettable through this site anyway.
Anyone who's reading this would probably do that.
So there's no point to this.
Ah, bollocks.

Wednesday, February 20, 2002 |

Can I just state, unequivically, for the record, that there is nothing - whatsoever - funny, about a girl who shouts 'chuff!' every time she sneezes.

It's not something to laugh at. Much as I enjoy the experience of sneezing, I don't necessarily want everyone else laughing too.

Shouting 'chuff!' shouldn't be that funny. Surely.

Except in Manchester. I'll allow that it might be funny in Manchester. What with it being a euphemism for a... for a... for a lady's front bottom, and everything.

Wednesday, February 20, 2002 |

Tuesday, February 19, 2002

Well, that's alright then
A compliment from a five year old has improved my mood considerably.

'That sounds like you!' she said.

'What does?'

'That lady on the radio with the nice voice sounds like your voice.'

I sound like a dj. Apparently. Thus I'm in a good mood again.
It doesn't take much.

The weather's still driech. But it'll stop sometime.
Maybe. And then the sun will shine.

Tuesday, February 19, 2002 |

Monday, February 18, 2002

'Hi, you're through to the inside of anna's head,
I'm afraid there's no-one here to take your call at the moment, we've gone on strike 'til the sun shines, or 'til my good mood comes back from wherever it's gone.
Please leave a message after the beep, or try calling later, and we'll get back to you as soon as we possibly can.'

Beep...

Monday, February 18, 2002 |

Sunday, February 17, 2002

Did your mother ever sit you down and say to you;
“Billy, by far the wisest thing to do when you’ve cut your thumb, by far the best thing in the world in that case, is to soak it thoroughly in the kind of chemicals you use for developing photographs, and then whack it with a hammer.”

No, no she didn’t. Or rather I’m guessing she didn’t.
Else she’d have been judged criminally unfit, and taken away.

My mother never said that either.

I have spent this afternoon discovering why.

Because it hurts. A lot.

Ow.

Ow ow ow.

Hurty thumb.

Sunday, February 17, 2002 |

Over night I've expanded on the interactive TV button theory, to include;

-a) 'what are you wearing button' That every now and again flashes up alerts such as
'that tie with that shirt? Are you blind?' or
'leather trousers? I wouldn't if I were you, love'

-b) a 'cynic button', that follows the words of any polititian or similar windbag with a small box saying
'Oh, right, sure.' or simply 'my arse'

c) a 'pish-alert' button, that, when switched on, would alert you whenever neccesary with little signs saying 'whatare you watching this for? it's rubbish.'

You could of course, just get my ex-flatmate to come and sit in your living room.
Probably slightly cheaper.

Sunday, February 17, 2002 |

Of ideas, I've had the most brilliant idea Ever.

You know this interactive TV they're introducing?...
They need an extra button. An extra button, which, when pushed, would tell you, whenever anyone appears on screen

1. what that actor's name is
2. what else he's been in that you might have seen.
3. who they're married to.
4. any other reason why you - personally - might think their face familiar. e.g. because they look like your best mate Sarah's ex-Boyfriend Jim, or similar

This is the best idea in the world. I'm going to get the patent.
When I can be arsed.
But it is the best idea in the world.
Tonight.

Sunday, February 17, 2002 |

my life as a dog

interesting experiment, spending most of the day without opposable thumbs.
One burnt with bad cooking practice, the other stabbed with an aluminium candle holder.
Both bound with the smallest plaster I could find (a very big plaster. That's all I can ever find when I need a small plaster)(in fact, it's all I can find when looking for ibruprofen too. I think my first aid kit is entirely made up of big plasters. I don't think it's a very good first aid kit. where was I?) .
Both thumbs entirely immobilised.

Living life as a cow, just for one day.
Or maybe more. Depending how my thumbs are tomorrow.

It's interesting what you discover.
Door handles are rather hard.
The TV remote is ok if you lay it flat on the bed at the right angle.
It's certainly helped the 'not-smoking-much' by making it near impossible to roll cigarettes, and lighters a world of pain.
It makes no difference in my terrible typing. I could do this all day.

Sunday, February 17, 2002 |

Saturday, February 16, 2002

I've now had two people tell me that the swan/song/surrealist advert is, in England, for a different Bank and with a happy bespectacled blooke rather than the impossibly wide-mouthed blonde woman that we have seranading us in Scotland.

Regional differences.
Now I hate that advert even more, knowing that they deemed it so good that they made it twice.
It shouldn't even have been made once...
Maybe it's even more than twice - god knows how many more versions there are - jolly ginger young men in Ireland, Sultry looking black-haired beauties in Wales. It's a nightmare, it really is.

If there are anymore sightings of large swans with bank tellers astride. Let me know.
Actually, don't.
I don't care.
I hate them.

Saturday, February 16, 2002 |

Someone take this TV away. I don’t want it anymore. Don’t get me wrong, the programmes are ok, some of them. There’d be no other way of viewing the Mystery Olympics, but I need the television to go away.

It’s just two adverts that are driving me insane. One on heavy rotation;

A smiling lady appears in front of a Branch of a Scottish Bank.
Wearing her Bank Tellers uniform, she starts to sing that song that usually goes ‘Just call me angel in the morning’ with the words
‘I’ll give you extra in your pocket – angel
pop into my branch, and you’ll see – angel”
or something. Words that don’t scan, and don’t make any sense. Especially not with ‘Angel’ tacked onto the back of them.

The next minute, and this is the bit that makes me really cross, she’s wearing her bank uniform, singing this God-Awful bastardisation of was quite a nice (if sappy) song, and riding on the back of a giant swan over such landmarks as the Grand Canyon, and the Golden Gate bridge, and Sydney Harbour or similar.
Which have, as far as I can see, no direct connection with the bank she’s advertising, and certainly bollocks-all to do with giant swans and the riding of same.

This would seem to be the inevitable effect of those Crack-cocaine-bonuses they’re giving in advertising nowadays.

The only funny thing about it was sitting with a small girl who was increasingly curious to see if you could see the bank lady’s knickers – I have admit here, she was actually asking if you could see the lady’s ‘hoo-hoo’ – as she straddled the neck of this ridiculous swan.

Now, I’m usually not bad at spotting when things are supposed to be funny, and I really don’t think this is. It’s only annoying. It’s simply bad. An abomination. I may well be missing something. Tell me if I’m missing something here.

The other is less annoying, so I’ll try and calm down. I just find it slightly in icky, or dubious, taste. But I may be reading too much into it. It’s for anti-diahorrea drugs.

Gentle male voice talks about how dreadful it is to have diahorrea. He should also mention how terrible it is to spell. Anyway. He talks about the dreadfulness of a runny tummy, and how you never know where your next toilet is coming from.

We see an anxious looking woman hurrying along a busy street. She spots a cafe, and rushes in, only to cut to a shot showing *gasp!* the toilets are closed for cleaning. But what’s this?! We then see her settling down with a latte and a fat slice of cake! Because she’s taken the nice drugs, and is bottom-troubled no more! Huzzah!

That’s not the bit that offends. The bit that offends is this:

We then cut to two very brief shots, one of a can of squirty cream going ‘pththththth’ on top of some chocolate cake, and one of the steamer on a espresso machine spitting muchly and going ‘fshshshshshth’.

Is it me? Or are these suggestivly graphic, and frankly quite ‘euw’, images, when talking about diahorrea?
I hope it’s just me. Otherwise the world has gone mad.

Saturday, February 16, 2002 |

Happy Valentines day

According to my handy calendar of Saint's days, today is also St Valentines day.
So Happy Valentines Day again.

I also got no cards today. Which is rather sad.
Two valentines days in a year, and I still don't get any.
I should go back to the calendar. See if there are any more waiting to Not spring out at me.
whinge moan grump

But remember. Only seven days to go 'til St Polycarp's Day...

God, but I'm in a piss-poor mood.

Saturday, February 16, 2002 |

Friday, February 15, 2002

Finally. Proof - if any were needed -that apples are evil and morally wrong.

Well, bad for your teeth, at any rate. I mean, I know a whole bunch of other things are worse for your teeth, but apples are bad. And that makes me happy.

So now they're not only hideously loud, but bad too. Bad apples. Bad, loud, stinky apples.

Irn Bru is bad for your teeth too. But by God it does wonders with hangovers. And it's not irritatingly loud.

Which is more than you can say for apples.

Right, having successfully banished my hangover, I'm going to go fetch myself another one.

Bring it on...

Friday, February 15, 2002 |

Oh God, my head.
Irn Bru and Back to bed. It's the only way.

Friday, February 15, 2002 |

I have a problem.

My favourite drink - Port and Brandy - Is something, it seems, no-one else in the world has Ever tried.
So I end up giving half my drink away for samples.

How do I not get annoyed by that? Please?

Friday, February 15, 2002 |

I passed another milestone in the pub tonight.
I ordered my drinks, I watched her key them into the till (£8.16), she came back, turned to me; "That'll be 8 pounds please..."

That's when you know you've made it on this island. When, without pushing, you get let off money, in the shop or the pub. It means they know you, they trust you. The same happened in the shop last autumn, a "Oh, pay me when you're next in" moment. I smiled, said "Oh, thanks...", but when I walked out I was punching the air and on the verge of somersaults. All of a sudden, there was a tacit agreement on the island. I was no longer one of the tourists. I was better. I was on the island, I was acnowledged as living and woking.

And they liked me. In a quiet kind of way,

Friday, February 15, 2002 |

Thursday, February 14, 2002

As m@ has put in the comments, for which will have eternal gratitude, it's improved my day ten-fold...

St Polycarp is the patron saint of Earaches and Dysentry.
So remember folks, St Polycarp's day is February 23rd.
Are hallmark stocking the cards yet? or do we have to make our own?

Thursday, February 14, 2002 |

Is the pope the head of your church?
Do you like free stuff?
Then this site is made for you.

You don't have to provide ID to become a member - but how do you prove you're a Catholic?
Is there a quiz on the address form?
Can I have free stuff? Is there a 'gratis goodies for agnostics!' page anywhere?

Thursday, February 14, 2002 |

Nothing for Valentines day then.

Which is fine. I wasn't expecting anyhting. It's fine.

Anyway, It's St Polycarp day in 9 days time.
Maybe I'll get something for that.
Some fish, perhaps. Or a 'carp-card.

Not sure what St Polycarp is a saint Of. Maybe of whinging single people.
Happy St Valentines day, anyway.
Though, according to the book I was looking at, it's St Valentines day again on sunday.
An Extra helping of joy.

Thursday, February 14, 2002 |

Sitting in the cloisters with no noise at all is wierd, after 5 months of being in a wind tunnel.

But I have to admit, no noise is better than constant, niggling, riling, infuriating noise.

That was one of the things that stopped me listening properly to the geology talk.
One person in the room sat, and listened and jangleed, constantly and in an irregular rhythm, the change in his trouser pocket.

I was looking around the room, although mainly at him, hoping that for just this once, looks could kill - slowly and painfully.
And some people were shooting similarly pained glances, some were every now and again flicking a look in his direction, an some were not noticing at all.

He, of course, was utterly unaware.
Until someone hit him in the face with a coal scuttle.

They didn't really.
They should have.
Someone just told him to "please, Please, stop" instead. How very Polite and community minded.

The funniest thing (peculiar funny, rather than ha-ha) was the poll taken in the cloisters just after the talk.
While some people agreed that this was the most annoying noise in the history of the world... ever, others claimed never to have heard it, others still to have heard it, but blocked it out.

Why is it that one single noise can be let in or kept out of the mind, depending on whose head it's in?

Thursday, February 14, 2002 |

So, most of the day was unsatifactory, spurts of activity, but no time to actually concentrate.
Until this evening, when I went to a really very interesting talk on the geology of Iona, and the surrounding area.

I learnt how old the rocks were (really quite old), why some rocks are pink, and some black (different kinds of rocks), why some rocks have bands of lots of pretty colours (it’s a rock thing, apparently), and why rocks around here are all heavy and dense and stuff, and not soft and furry (it’s because they’re rocks).

Actually, I did listen. I really did, and will probably be able to regurgitate a whole bunch of information as soon as I trip over the appropriate rock.

I even took notes, of which Ms Stack, if she could see me, would be very proud. Granted, my notes trailed off once I’d drawn the little diagrams of how sedimentary, ignateous, and (insert rock type here) rocks are formed, and then I got carried away with drawing ever more fierce streams of molten lava, and volcanic dust clouds, until I’d lost ten minutes of the talk completely, and it didn’t seem worth taking notes anymore.
As far as I remember, the same thing happened in many of Ms Stack’s classes.

At the end of the talk, I hauled out my ‘interesting stone collection’ (two) (well, the rest are interesting, but all bound up in investments right now – shelves and the like). I was commended on one fine piece of unusual serpentine that I’d found, and felt very pleased with myself indeed, until I remembered that I had, after all, found it, and had had no idea in the world how rare it was until that moment.

So remember, if you’ve any questions on the geology of Iona, any at all, ask someone else. I’ve already forgotten.

But I’ve a fine piece of serpentine on my shelf.

Thursday, February 14, 2002 |

Wednesday, February 13, 2002

Where is the line drawn between 'insomnia' and simply 'not being able to sleep'?

For several months now I've been still mentally pacing the waiting room 'til 3 or 4 in the morning, knowing that sleep will be along soon, but may be delayed by, oh, I don't know, something funny.

It's really starting to piss me off.

Fortunately, the last few nights I've discovered that this is the very time when Schools programming is on, so I know more about fractions than I have since I was twelve. The day I win the Nobel Maths Prize (fractions), I'll be sure to thank my f*****-up body clock for helping me all the way.

And my rudimentary French is coming on apace too.
Tres bon.

Wednesday, February 13, 2002 |

There was a place we used to frequent.
A club. But not quite a club. Not really a bar. Definitely no pub.
I’d go so far as to call it ‘a dive’.

Formica tables, ripped red velvet seats. Basement location, nicotined walls, tiny dance floor (with glitter ball), tinier stage, kareoke four times a week, dancing all the time.

In Manchester, open from midnight, when we finished work at the theatre, until 6 am, enough time to go home and sleep for one or two hours before we had to work again.
Members only. Members, or anyone working at a theatre in the city, or anyone that had been there enough times, or anyone famous enough to pass the door without a card, or anyone that the doorman wanted to sleep with.

I’ll post more about this place, I’ve been getting all nostalgic about it tonight, but I did remember one of the most dangerous moments of my life.

It was one of those things that are only supposed to happen in bad movies.

On just less than half the nights in the week, the place would be filled with theatre folk. Laughing too much, and dancing too much, drinking too much and ‘ladidah, darling’-ing constantly.
The rest of the week, it was the drinking den of the local mafia. Big guys in too-flash suits and killer rings, blonde women with pastel drinks.

It was one of the latter nights that we were in, unwinding from a bad day, and a worse evening. The kareoke was blasting away, someone shouting ‘La Vida Loca’, and we were sitting trying to have a conversation in the corner of the room.

‘Why Is It…’
I half yelled at Sadie,
‘Eh?’
‘ WHY IS IT…
I screamed at the top, of the top, of my voice...

‘…THAT SomeTimes It’s NICE PEOPLE In Here, And SOMETimes…’
‘YEAH?…’
‘The Place is FULL OF…’

The song ended abruptly.
I just didn’t manage to adjust the volume of my voice accordingly.
And was left yelling in near silence...

‘CHEAP TARts!’

71 blue-sparkly-shadowed eyes swivel and fixed on me suddenly.
I smiled.
Sheepishly
5 minutes later I was on stage singing 'Hit me baby, one more time', in an attempt to stop myself from getting hit even once.
To avoid getting scratched to death with manicured pink nails...

but that’s another thing.

(Sorry.
‘71 eyes’ doesn’t work does it.
They come in pairs. Generally.
Although, to be honest, it’s a fair bet that at least one of them had at least one eye missing.
If not more. Scary women.)

Wednesday, February 13, 2002 |

I've decided.

I'm giving up pancakes.

And mice.

Wednesday, February 13, 2002 |

Tuesday, February 12, 2002

I have it.

Lent begins tomorrow. Valentines day is in two days.

I shall Give Up Valentines day,

Tuesday, February 12, 2002 |

Lent starts tomorrow.

So what to give up?
Golf?
Line dancing?
Cross country skiing?
Luge?
Bear baiting?

Oh, apparently you have to give up something you already do.

Then I shall give up
Insomnia.
Having a big nose.
Being single.
Sneezing.

No good. I don’t think. I don’t think I have much control over sneezing, for a start. Besides. I’ve a feeling that it’s suppose to be something you like, otherwise there’s no point.

So what to lose?
Smoking? Drinking? Cream cheese? Bacon? Making candles? Something vain like Expensive shampoo? Shaving my legs? Sandwiches? Pencils? Talking? Singing? Blogging?

euw...

Tuesday, February 12, 2002 |

I was watching the mystery Olympics at dinnertime.
And I have several questions regarding The Luge.

That one with grown men sliding down hills on fancy tea-trays.

In search of luge-y answers, I trawled through a couple of extremely dull Mystery Olympics sites, sites that talked a lot, and answered none of my questions.

The main question, “why the shiny lycra body-stocking and lack of underwear? You think I want to see that while eating?” Went largely unanswered. Which was disappointing.

The other stuff I found just didn’t make much sense.

Critical Moment
A bad start can mean defeat in this Olympic sport where victory can be determined by a thousandth of a second.

It seems to me that most sports boil own to tiny fractions of time. That doesn’t make sliding down a hill on your arse special. Sorry, Luging.


How Do They Do It?

No, “Why do they do it?”

At the starting line, lugers grasp metal handles along the track to rock back and forth. A strong final pull is required for a powerful run.

I’m resisting innuendo here, with all the powers in my possession.

Lugers use their gloves, which have small spikes in the palms, to move forward after the push-off.

And look like seals running away from polar bear on their flippers. That bit’s quite sweet.
Still pointless, but quite sweet.

‘A heavier load provides greater acceleration. In the doubles competition, the heavier of the two racers lies in front.’

Another one of my questions. “Why are they all so thin? Surely some bloke, twenty stone in weight and built like a brick shit-house is going to slide a lot faster down that hill?” The lycra might not look as good, but, to be honest, it didn’t look that good in the first place.

And that’s it. Apart from the next, fabulous section;

Fun Facts
Luge means "sled" in French.

Woo-Hooo!
A riot a minute, these luge-boys, they really are.

Tuesday, February 12, 2002 |

The felon has been released.
Which I'm happy about.
And still proud.

Tuesday, February 12, 2002 |

Monday, February 11, 2002

She had said she wasn't going cause trouble. Not again.
She was going to support the people who were sitting down in the road.
She was going to shout and sing.
She was going to do the tea and sympathy thing.

And then I recieved an e-mail from a friend Anna that did go to the Faslane Anti-nuclear protest this morning;

"I clapped when your mum got arrested. then said 'bugger, I didn't get a picture'! Don't worry, she looked happy enough. We made a little kind of jetty party and waved her off in the bus. She seemed very happy actually, chatting away to all the other arrestees. At one point they were taking forever to leave, and we thought that maybe the police were trying to read her her rights, but she was too busy asking them if they were warm enough and offering them biscuits! Your mum's lovely!"

My mum is lovely. And I'm extremely proud of her.
Blankets and biscuits. How very her.
My mother got arrested today.
She is lovely, yes.

Monday, February 11, 2002 |

So the mouse has gone. Or one mouse has gone at any rate. There may be more.

Someone bigger and braver than me came and took the mouse away.
In its little humane trap. It was still alive, surprisingly enough, so they came, took it away, and released in the fields down by the shore.

It will, of course be back.

And this time, it'll be pissed off.

Monday, February 11, 2002 |

So the mouse and I are still occupying seperate floors. Still ignoring each other.

I haven't been down there all day. I have been out, don't get me wrong. You enter and leave my house from the top. I just haven't been 'down there'.

Down where the mouse lives.

I'm too scared. I know that's stupid, I know, I know, I'm a big jessie. I know.
I know it's only a mouse.
I know it's probably as afraid of me as I am of it. (actually, come to think of it, I don't know that at all)
I know I have a height advantage.
I know if it came down to it, I could probably have the mouse in a fight.
But I also know how afraid I am.


So I haven't been downstairs all day.

Which is where I have the dilemma.
Downstairs, with the mouse, is the humane mouse trap. The mouse may well be in the humane mousetrap, but I've no idea, because I've not been downstairs all day and I'm too afraid to look. By the time I get someone to look, tomorrow morning, the mouse may well be dead. Which would kind of defeat the object of having a humane mousetrap.

Actually, this isn't a dilemma at all. A dilemma's one of those things where you have a difficult decision to make.

And as cruel as it may be, I have no intention of going downstairs. I'm too afraid.
So no dilemma. Right?

No, not right at all. Dang. I'm not even convincing myself here.

Monday, February 11, 2002 |

Just went to get some ice-cream from the big kitchen freezer, and discovered a mysterious new plastic bag with "'*****'s liver! do not touch!" written in marker on the side.

Now either someone's going on some radical de-tox program, or that bag doesn't actually contain her own liver, it contains bits of chopped animal liver that she's trying to stop anyone else from eating.

I wouldn't worry about it too much if I were her.

Monday, February 11, 2002 |

Sunday, February 10, 2002

I don't want any of these. But the fact that someone bothers to manufacture Happy Hank, the Christian talking hound that says "Rejoice! you're a child of the King!" (presumably not meaning Elvis) when you squeeze his tummy has brightened my sunday. Considerably.

Sunday, February 10, 2002 |

Picking up on Sprocket’s theme, which seems relevant coming up to Valentines day (hereafter referred to as ‘bloody valentines day’), I’ve been thinking about nicknames all afternoon. I think, in my time, I’ve been;

1. Sausage. (by my mother)
2. Felix
3. Peanut (by the bastard who shall remain nameless)
4. Pickle (as above. Bastard.)
5. Darling (working in a theatre for four years will do that to you)(you and everyone else that isn’t important enough to have their name remembered…)
6. miss p.
7. Scrumble. (why does that make me feel nauseous?)
8. thingie. (that doesn’t really count as a nickname, I know. But I tend to think that if you’ve been called it more than 50 times, it should.)
9. binnie (increasingly often)(for the rather sweet reason outlined here)
10. captain. (get it? Captain Picard. Off of Star Trek. It’s not funny. Or big. Or clever. The worst thing about this is that people always used to make me say ‘make it so’ to improve the gag tenfold. Unfortunately it’s now slipped seamlessly into my vocabulary. And now I say it all the time.)
11. annaoj
12. binky (the wonder horse)

I’ve always longed for a sweet and affectionate, yet unbelievably cool, nickname.

But I think Binnie’s the closest I’m going to get.

As suggested, I could well try to introduce new nicknames into conversation myself. I just think that starting a conversation with ‘Hi, you can just call me Baby’ would seem to suggest that the next thing out of my mouth will be something like ‘sucky sucky five dollar?’, and the evening will end with some sort of cash/favour exchange.

Just maybe.

Still, maybe I should give it a go. Insist that from this moment on, everyone calls me Sugar. Or Missy.

Good lord, I sound like a drag queen.

Sunday, February 10, 2002 |

I jumped in puddles today.

For anyone who hasn't done it fo a couple of decades, as I hadn't, I'd like to recommend it. Highly.

It was the end of a beautiful and unexpected walk, that was supposed to be a wee ramble up to the North end of the island to watch the waves. Got diverted up a mountain (ha! mountain! 330 feet, possilby classifies as a 'slight incline' in the rest of the worl, but it is all we have, mountain wise...), down a mountain, down to the shore on the north-west side of the island, somewhere I'd never been, around bays and beaches and picking up and climbing rocks. Different sized rocks.

At the very moment we'd reached the point furthest from home, the sky opened and heaven dropped on us, a drop at a time.
We wandered the beaches, jumping on sanbanks and running after birds, and by the time we got back to the road, were so wet that kicking puddles over each other and splashing ourselves in the process seemed like the best use of energy available.

Jumping in puddles. Non-water-proof-clothing and no care.
I recommend it. Highly.

Sunday, February 10, 2002 |

I'd like to admit here and now how excited I was by the 'Pop Idol' final on television this evening.
I was, I'm thoroughly ashamed to admit, bouncing up and down on my seat at the prospect of one of these bland little boys with big voices winning the game.
And it's not as if I've been following it for the whole 5 months, no, just the last two weeks, and yet, I hate to confess, I even tried to vote for one of them.

I couldn't get through, but that's not the point.
I even tried, though.
I don't know if I want to put this in writing for the rest of time, especially as I won't care even tomorrow who won.
But tonight, I cared a lot.
I bounced up and down, I laughed, I swooned.
I guess I'm a sucker for the power of mass hysteria, or mass other hormonal activity.

If anyone knows what I'm talking about, (and it's this pap), Did you vote?

Let me know. The brand spanking new comments system's just there...

Sunday, February 10, 2002 |

Saturday, February 09, 2002

There’s a mouse in my kitchen.
I won’t go downstairs.
Not ‘til the mouse has gone.

Every time I hear a noise, I imagine it’s the mouse. Coming to get me.
And it’s not. It’s the wind, or the phone ringing, or a door banging in another part of the building.

Most ridiculous of all, I just walked into a room, and surprised to find the light was on, I was jolted by a sudden panic. A panic that this light being on might well indicate that the mouse was in the room. Because of course, that’s the first thing a mouse does when it enters the room. It switches the light on. It unsheathes its little mousey ladder, or its little mousey grappling hooks, or its little mousey suction pads, scales the wall, leaps to the pull-cord and swings and swings and swings until the light comes on.

And then it goes about its business, and leaves the room, lights blazing.

No concept of energy conservation, mice.

Of course, there’s now a trap down there. A humane trap. A little box with a flip-down lid that falls when the mouse eats the crumbs inside. And then you take the mouse, and release it into the fields away from your house.

The best thing about this trap of course, is that we borrowed it off friends who know it works, because they’ve used it. They had a mouse, caught a mouse, and released their mouse far away from their house.

Far away from their house – pretty close to ours.

Three days later, we discovered we had a mouse.

I’m going to catch it.
And just guess where I’m going to release it…

Saturday, February 09, 2002 |

Because I’m out of good books to read, completely out.
And because sometimes it’s good to switch your brain off.
And because the body needs sugar. Or saccherine.
And because it’s the only romance I’m likely to see this side of the Coronation.
And it’s my day off, and I’ve finished the newspaper. And I’m bored.

That’s why I’m reading cheap romances. That’s why I’m all bound up in the world of Mills and Boon (or harlequin, I think they're called now...) That’s why the ‘should I? Shouldn’t I?’ relationship of Melody (young winsome secretary, shiny tawny-red hair and hazel eyes, wronged in love before, 158 wpm) and Butch (ex-cowboy, now brash chief executive, with a winsome smile, a piercing gaze, a well-cut suit and a throbbing purple manhood, I should think) has got me all addicted.

The ‘plot’, although quite obviously pap, hasn’t quite come into its own as yet. I’m not even sure what the general theme of this one is yet. Not that I’ve read them before. It’s called ‘Rash Intruder’, which leads me to think, depending on the emphasis, that it’s either about someone that rushes into situations quickly, or someone who gets excited by the idea of Thrush.

Last year, just when practically everyone on the island seemed to be falling in love, I found somewhere that was selling these terrible novels cheaply, and bought a dozen, distributing them to any friends whose lives were lacking in romance.

The problem with Mills and Boon, quite frankly, is there’s no sex to them. Two people meet, she naïve and virginal, he worldly and masculine, they dance around each other for a while, have various misunderstandings, petty jealousies and meaningful glances, and then realise what fools they’ve been all along, not realising they were so perfect for one another, at which point they share one world-shaking embrace and get married.

So quite a lot like life then, in many ways, leaving out all the drunken revelations, people-already-being-married glitches, the realisations of incompatibility six weeks into the relationship, the shagging and the shouting, the silliness, the unpoetic moments of magic, the insecurities, feelings of inadequacy and anything that goes toward making us 3D people.

I had a look to see if there were any more racy ones anywhere, but there weren’t. In the theatre I used to work in, we would have readings of books left in lost property. There’s only one phrase I remember from one of them, just after the main protagonists, Desree (servant girl) and Lord Tarquin St John Benedict Leo Franklin Ralph Geoffrey Randlington-Yaddayadda-Smythe (ponce), had had their wicked way with each other in the stables;

‘He lay back, and sighed, like a warm tiger.’

As opposed to ‘shivered like a cold tiger?’. How does a warm tiger sigh? Which bit was like the tiger, the lying or the sighing?

Oh, I don’t care anymore. I’m going back to wrap myself in the strong arms and inhale the musky aroma of my teddy bear. And read my terrible book.

Let’s face it, it’s the closest I’m going to get to a Shag.
Apart from the dead one I trod on earlier on the beach.
But that may have been a Cormorant.

Saturday, February 09, 2002 |

Do parts of the anatomy grow and shape-shift in the night as you sleep?
No, other parts of the anatomy, like noses.

I'm sure my nose is bigger this morning than it was when I went to bed.
Perhaps I slept on it.
Perhaps it isn't juust last night, it's actually never stopped growing, and this is merely the first time I've noticed it. It's a medical phenomenon. By the time I reach my 30th birthday it'll cover my whole face.

Oh dear, I don't want it to do that.

Saturday, February 09, 2002 |

Tonight, sick of being the people excluded from any party, or any situation, just because we're vile enough to smoke, we took the party in our hands.

Out into the cloisers, that refuge of quiet and reflection, we brought the CD player, a standard lamp, two armchairs and a coffee table, to put by the usual 'social outcasts' bench.

It was cold, it was raining, it was a party of only 8 people, but it was the best party I've been to in a really very long time.

I know that's not saying much, but it's heartfelt.

And that's the important thing.

Oh no, sorry, there were 8 people and a full bottle of very fine whisky. That's the important thing. whoops.

Saturday, February 09, 2002 |

As both Des and Matt have now mentioned to me, shooting stars are not stars at all, but meteorites falling through the atmosphere and burning up.

I would like to state here, in writing, so it's done, that I am perfectly aware of what the physical facts are. Shooting stars are not stars shooting, or falling, or doing anything else extraordinary. They're space-rock waste, falling through the outer bits of our atmosphere, and destroying themselves through the speed and the heat and all.

I just don't care.

I had this conversation while I was away. I was staying in the house of lovely, rational, hospitable people, and we were watching a programme on meteors. This shooting stars theory (yes, alright, fact) was mentioned.
'Oh look!' I said, watching the illustrating pictures, 'A shooting star!'
'No,' said my host, 'A meteorite. As the narrator just said...'
'mm', I said, 'A shooting star!'
'meteorite'
'shooting star'
I can't be typing out the whole argument, but it was basically between logic and magic. He argued on behalf of meteorites, I stood firmly by the word 'Star'. He brought out astronomy books, found pages an held them in front of me, talking about fact and meteorites and atmospheres. I looked at the pages and listened to his words and said 'magic'.

Some people find the understanding of mysterious things magic in itself.
Some people find the ignorance of scientific things magic.
I'm one of the latter people, an during this argument I discovered just how much the former type hate people like me. We won't be reasoned with, because it's reason itself that we're arguing with.

It's the same as when people try to explain 'how planes fly' to me.

I understand the component parts of their argument. The particles and velocity, or the aerodynamics and complex engineering. I understand the theory and the bits that go to make these things happen. But when it comes to the actual happening, I just don't care to know.

While it's magic, it gives me tingling feelings. While it's mystery, it's all sorts of usually unattainable words, like 'beauty' and 'miracle' and 'joy'.

I just find that when I break things up into dust and metal and air, I can't quite put them together the same way again.
It's probably just me.

Saturday, February 09, 2002 |

Friday, February 08, 2002

The pub was open tonight.
I find that perhaps a little worrying.
I leave the island, the pub closes. I come back, they open.
I can't be the main source of income, surely?

Actually, myself and b put together...

And on the way a huge, blazing shooting star.

I made a wish. The same old wish.
( I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you...)

And on the way back, another enormous and falling star.
I couldn't think of a wish in time.

I remember when I first heard in science lessons that the light from the nearest star takes around four years to reach us, I felt distinctly disappointed, and partly glad.

Before that moment I'd always simply thought that my wishes didn't come true.
Suddenly I realised that that wasn't the case. It wasn't that they didn't come true, it was simply that they were in transit.
If it took 4.2 years for light to travel from the star, it would take my wish the same time to get there.
And the same time to get back and come true.

So I could expect a delay of 8.4 years between the wishing and the coming into being. At least. Some are much further away.

I was glad that I had reason for my pony's non-appearance, and disappointed that anything I wished for from then on was likely to appear sometime in my twenties.

Still. Deferred Gratification and all that.
So any day now I'm expecting some tickets to a Stone Roses concert, a new tie-dyed dress, good marks in my Maths GCSE and a bass guitar that I no longer want to learn to play.

And half a decade from now, I should, in theory, fall in love. Possibly longer than that. Possibly centuries later.

And in about 8.4 years, I should get rid of this cold.

In theory.

I don't think I like this theory much...

Friday, February 08, 2002 |

ten hours of sitting in a gloomy room. meetings, discusions, training and talks.

I wouldn't mind, but it was all dome by one person in the same, beautiful, sing-song voice. Very like the teacher in Charlie Brown. A whole day of 'wawawawaaa, wa wawawawaawaa', interspersed every now and again with 'which is, of course, the most important thing...' after a good ten minutes of my thinking about Toast, or 'so, get into small groups an discuss what I've just been saying', after a lengthy mental trip to hawaii,

Friday, February 08, 2002 |

Thursday, February 07, 2002

Ten things which should not be done in public. Not very obviously at least. Not if you can help it. Not in my opinion.

1. Nose picking. No, you’re not scratching it, you’re picking it. We’re not stupid.
2. Snorting. As in that kind of laugh that pulls back any mucus that might be hanging around spare. As in my laugh. It just shouldn’t be done. Don’t make me laugh. I’ll hold you socially responsible.
3. Line dancing.
4. Pissing in public. Proving you have a small bladder doesn’t make you a bigger man.
5. Killing animals. Especially not small cute animals. Not pets. Especially not other people’s pets.
6. Surreptitiously checking your armpits don’t smell.
7. or your underwear.
8. Eating Doritos. The day I saw them sold in a cinema I realised civilisation was coming to an end. Inviting people to eat something with the selling point ‘The Big Crunch!’ in a situation of public concentration? That’s all wrong.
9. Masturbation. Especially not on long distance buses. It doesn’t attract the opposite sex. Take it from me. It doesn’t.
10. Reading out loud. Espe… Sorry, I just want to make it clear that I don’t know masturbating in public doesn’t impress people because I’ve Done it. I realised it might sound like I’ve done that, and it didn’t impress someone. I haven’t. I’ve had it done to me. Or at me. Or for me, I’m not sure which. On a bus, that’s coach story no. 4, I’ve not got round to that. Anyway…
11. Reading out loud. Especially on trains. And if I ever meet the gentleman who sat opposite me and ruined my entire journey home by reading Gaelic poetry ostentatiously to himself, again, I shall kill him. With a rusty tin whistle.
12. Discussing the state of your sanity. With yourself.
13. Talking about your diet, and how much weight you’ve lost. Yes. You’re very saintly. No reason to make us all feel bad.
14. Cutting toenails. Yours, or anyone else’s.
15. Being in love. It’s too close to valentines day. You’ll make the rest of us feel sad.
16. Breaking wind. Dame etiquette says no.
17. Disclosing yourself as a convinced agnostic in the middle of a Bible study workshop in a Christian community. You'll soon know the meaning of chilly. chillier than the winter wind. Still, I feel good.

Oh. That's not ten things at all. That's more. Well That just proves my point. Whatever my point was. Did I have a point? Can I go to sleep now?

Thursday, February 07, 2002 |

Wednesday, February 06, 2002

The world is infinitely better this morning. It may still be cold enough to freeze a hopping bunny, but the sun is shining.

The sun is shining. And that's all that matters to me.

And I'm having a good day.
A new delivery of carrots came, meetings are going well if a little bizzarely ("but surely, if everything we do is 'head-based', then we're excluding people who don't have 'heads'"), and some lovely person sent me a packet of non-stop disco from all the way over the ocean....

Wednesday, February 06, 2002 |

Happened to be looking through some chat-up lines somewhere, and among the magic words, all listed, one after the other, magic ways of getting anyone to fancy you, were two approach lines.
The first?

"I couln't help but notice you..."

Fine. sweet, sort of shy, depends on delivery, but could go down very well.
The line following hard on its heels?

"What's a cheap tart like you doing in a classy joint like this?"

I'm sorry, what?
This is a line that these people are suggesting would endear you to a stranger?
Would it be possible to actually use this without being hit very hard in the face with a barstool?
I don't think so.

But what do I know?
I heard a rumour recently.
That there are rules. That boys, or some boys, have game plans. That all the chance and lovely connections that seem to happen might well be well-planned battle manouvres. Act like this, and she'll think youre sensitive and after her mind... Act like this, an she'll think you're shy, and sort of sweet. That there are rules, game plans, of how to catch a woman without her knowing she's being caught...

Apparently, where I thought some people were open and sincere (and still do think so, as friends, very much so), the rules of the game of love are apparently set out in stone. Very much beforehand. Being open and sincere is, as well as a great personality trait for their platonic relationships, also one of the major weapons in their war.

How is this supposed to work?
What do the rules achieve?
When the game ends, what then?
I promised never to tell, but it's really dented my MGM romantisism.
I didn't know there were rules.
I just thought it was girl meets boy, or whatever, la la la, happily ever after, the end.
From the way he spoke you'd think it was national curriculum; 'Men vs. women: The way it's done; Stage 3'

I must have been off school that day. I don't seem to have any notes of this anywhere. Or of how to calculate the radius of a circle. I think that must have been on the same day.

Wednesday, February 06, 2002 |

Tuesday, February 05, 2002

Remember, Valentines day is only 9 days away.

So make sure you do something special.

Or even better...

romance - The Dahmer Method
Can you imagine how annoying this could be?
"Good morning anna. How are you Anna? I love you, Anna. Sleep well Anna? I've made you some breakfast Anna. Would you like some coffee Anna? Sugar Anna? Milk Anna? We're out of cornflakes, Anna. I thought I told you to buy cornflakes, Anna Didn't I tell you to buy cornflakes Anna? I thought you loved me Anna. I love you Anna."

Is this supposed to be romantic?
Because romantic to me doesn't usually involve chainsaws. And this sounds as if it just might.

Tuesday, February 05, 2002 |

ah, that'll do it.

I'm okay.

Two ibruprofen and a stiff gin and tonic, a night of mindless television horizontal. Me horizontal, not the television horizontal. The television wouln't like being horizontal. I shouldn't think.

But I suppose it already is. It's flat at the bottom, which would seem to suggest it was.

So both the television and I were horizontal.

Glad we have that clear.

Tuesday, February 05, 2002 |

Monday, February 04, 2002

I have wept ten times or more today.

May have been more. At one point one bawl merged into another. So I don’t know whether that counts as once or twice. And then at some other point I was crying about three things at once. So I don’t know whether that counts as one hissy-fit or multiple.

I have cried today because;

1. It rained and my socks got very wet.
2. I couldn’t answer one of the clues in my crossword.
3. I dropped a plate.
4. my dinner (salad) burnt.
5. I looked in the mirror, and the puffy faced girl that looked back was twice the size of Paris.
6. I couldn’t find my blu-tack. I only put it down two seconds before. It’s not supposed to be easy to lose. That’s why it’s blue. Surely. I’m going to cry again.
7. I shut a door on my finger. That sounds like I did it on purpose. I didn’t. It hurt.
8. I got no mail.
9. I was painting the sea, and my paint fell over. The sea became very wet. And fell to bits.
10. I’m no good at anything and everybody hates me.

You could say I was being girly and hormonal.
You could, but it’s a pretty sure bet that I’d punch you if you did.

And then I’d cry.

Monday, February 04, 2002 |

It’s been ages since I stood and stared, mouth open, at the stars. I always forget, or take them for granted, or am somewhere that has streetlights instead. Or they’re covered in clouds, and looking to see if they’re there means an eyeful of rainwater.
But I looked just now. At the stars, with no moon, and it’s pitch black out there.

And there were billions of them, billions of stars along with Jupiter, and Mars, Sirius and the big cloud of the milky way, sitting there twinkling away as if they had nothing better to do with their time.

It’s just awe-inspiring, heart-exploding, mind-blowing. Lovely.

No shooting stars though.
But you can’t have everything.

Monday, February 04, 2002 |

Sunday, February 03, 2002

Happy to report that I just defied Mr Television and approached the coastline, picking up rocks to put in my new accomadation...

And nothing bad happened to me at all.
Apart from my boots leaking, but that's not really the same as the whole 'washing out to sea never to be seen again' experience I was led to expect.

It was brisk, and the waves were crashing over the isle of storms, a large rock off the north end of the Iona. The wind whistled through the holes in my woolly hat, rather defying the point of wearing it in the first place.
I'm rather wary of taking it off now, for fear of finding my ears inside.
I wandered the beach, talking, picking up shells and stones and slate and running away from waves.

And now back in the warm, I'm listening to the 'O Brother Where Art thou' soundtrack, and watching the darkness fall across Mull, and the sheep wandering aimlessly across the field behind the office.

And the Antiques roadshow is on in a bit.
And I have a carrot.
So almost verging on a perfect day then.

Sunday, February 03, 2002 |

You know these baths they advertise for the elderly and infirm?

These baths with the doors in the sides and chair on the inside?

These ones they advertise with a smiling elderly person, opening a gate in the side of a bath tub, then cutting to a shot of them sitting happily in the bath-tub in a swimming costume, and then to a shot of them fully dressed and smiling (obviously because they have a bath tub with a door in the side)?

Well, it's the inbetween bits that confuse me.

How do you empty it without the water going all over the floor? Or do you have to wait until all the water has run out of the bath before you open the door? Isn't that a little unwise for the elderly and/or infirm person held therein? Might they not get very cold? Sitting as the water drains slowly away, shivering, wet? Perhaps even Pneumonia cold? Would they do that? Are they allowed?
I'm thinking they probably wouldn't be allowed to market something that may give the elderly and/or infirm pneumonia.

So, therefore, it would have to follow, in order not to have too much waiting around time while the water gurgles away, I'm thinking that they must empty terribly quickly.
And in order to empty so quickly, they must have an terribly big hole in the bottom.
Which would seem to present health risks in itself, if the elderly and/or infirm person were terribly thin.
It would be throwing the elderly and/or infirm person away with the bathwater.
which strikes me as cruel. And inhumane.

What's more, how do these things fill up?
How would you properly regulate the temperature?
Must you sit, naked, cold, as the water fills the bath?

There must be something I'm not seeing here. The final piece of the jigsaw.

Perhaps I'll never know.
Or, at least not until I'm old and /or infirm.

Sunday, February 03, 2002 |

I am confused.

The weather report said to stay away from the coastlines because of big waves.
How far away?
Is 700 yards far away enough?
Because I can't go more than 700 yards away from the coastline without being less than 700 yards from the other coastline.
Is that far away enough?

I mean, I would think that would be enough. I would hope so. Because it's not like we're expecting a tsunami, is it? It's not tidal waves and the end of the world. It's just a bit of weather. Quite a bit of weather. We're not expecting a tidal wave.
Are we?

And even not thinking entirely about myself for a minute - only one minute, obviously, this is still me we're talking about here, what do you expect?...- there are lots of other things nearer the coastline than I am. There are sheep, and we're not sure whether they sink or swim, there are lots of lovely houses, with lots of lovely people in them, there's the village hall, and thr shop, the post office, more sheep, and most worrying of all, closest to the coastline of all, is the Pub. What am I going to do with myself if the pub washes away? Then it'll never open again. That's no good. I wouldn't like that at all.
Oh look, this bit has ended up being about me after all. Sorry about that.

I shall just go and listen to the pelting rain and howling wind and fret.
700 yards is far away enough.

Isn't it?

Sunday, February 03, 2002 |

Friday, February 01, 2002

Carrots. Bring me carrots. I demand carrots. I don’t care how loud they are. I want them.

I also want celery. And biscuits.

This is good. I’m now demanding things that are in theory good for you (apart from biscuits)(well, I suppose it would depend on the kind of biscuit they were. If they were no-added-sugar celery flavoured rusks, then they’d probably be not bad for you at all. Apart from the vomiting thing.)
which is a step forward, because for the last few days, my body’s just been demanding food. Any food. All the food in the world. As soon as is convenient.
I’ve been eating as if I hadn’t eaten since March 1986, or sometime around then, anyway.
Which I have.


I don’t know why, but I wish it would stop. It’s really pissing me off.

I even had a pot noodle yesterday. I don’t have them often – I generally am wary of food whose full ingredient list reads ‘bits’ and ‘powder’. Never ceases to amaze me the difference between pre-boiling-water – factory floor dustpan contents – and post-boiling-water – toxic waste.

Cupasoups I’ll admit I have fondness for. Yes, they don’t taste of what they say they taste like, but they do usually taste of something, which is my only main requirement. Never enough salt though. But they always make you feel like your stomach is full, at least for ten minutes. Whether that’s because they contain dehydrated rocks, or just the high ‘powdered glass’ level, we don’t know.

While I was away on my jollys a few weeks ago, a friendly American made me dinner. Kraft Dinner, to be exact. I’ve never had Kraft Dinner before, and I’m glad that I did. It makes me appreciate every new day in a different way. I wake up and think;

“Yes! It’s good to be alive! The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and I don’t have to eat another Kraft Dinner again as long as I live!”

It wasn’t quite that bad. It was a little like the Backstreet Boys I suppose. Or the gastronomic version of s-club 7, brightly coloured, factory manufactured, nice in small mouthfuls, bland, apparently wholesome but actually extremely sickening.

I’m starving.
I’m off the find root veg.

Friday, February 01, 2002 |

How is it possible that the only thing missing from my unpacked belongings - that i'm aware of - is my 'his girl friday' video?

Where has that gone?
Who wants that but me?
No-one in my flat would take that.
No-one ever even wanted to watch it, no matter how much i enthused, no matter how vehemently i tried to force them, no matter how tightly i tied them to the chair.

No-one ever wanted to watch it. So where did it go? did it self-destruct? did it fall out of the window? or was it pushed?
Watch this space. Or rather, watch this empty video box.
That's all there is to watch.

Friday, February 01, 2002 |