little.red.boat.
Saturday, November 30, 2002
Tonight, at midnight, december starts, but so does another thing.
A secret thing.
Oooooh, the excitement...
Watch this space...
My kitten likes warm places, and things that smell of food.
It would seem to follow that I should put my kitten in the oven.
If I put my kitten in the tumble-drier, how fluffy would it be when it came out?
My glittering TV career - Part One; "Chat show star"
You see, now this is one of those stories that are better told out loud.
Because I know what I sounded like a 14. And anyone actually listening to me naturally knows what I sound like now.
And the contrast between the two is part of the comedy.
So bear that in mind.
Now, and in the background, forever, I've had this nothing-poshish-BBC-type accent thing.
But my accent chameleon genes have always been there, and for most of my youth and childhood, it was the good, solid West London accent that stopped me from getting beaten up any more than I already did.
I can still do it, in a moment, when needed.
Where the lisp came from though, I don't know.
I have a little problem with the letter 's', but I think most people do.
The more I think about it, the more problem I have, and the letter 's' seems to go on forever.
But I think that happens to a lot of people.
It's just one of those 'evil' letters.
So.
TV.
I was about 14. 14 and talkative and good with words. Sometimes.
Mr Owen, the French teacher I had a slight crush on from 1990-1993, asked another verbose classmate and me if we'd like to be on television.
Of course we would.
Wouldn't everyone?
It meant we missed half a day of school, for a start...
It was a talk show. About discipline in schools.
And God knows they were right to ask our school.
Our school was the closest 'rough' school to the BBC, wedged next to a hospital and a prison, both of which might have come in handy in term-time.
We went, and we went to talk about how class-sizes affected discipline.
We sat there for a long time.
Some bird from a private school talked a whole bunch. Nadine (my classsmate) and I nudged each other and pointed at her and laughed quietly. She was posh. She had no idea what she was talking about.
We were street.
We knew stuff.
We could talk.
And so, after the third time 'little Maggie' spoke, I raised my hand.
I had something important to say.
Something important. Goshdarnit.
Kilroy, the host came over.
Kilroy, and his mike, and the camera.
"Well" I said "The thing ith, right, the thing ith, in my thcholl, in my thkchool, you've got thirty kidth to one teacher and if he doethen't have control over them then...."
at this point, my only point, the point I'd thought about beforehand, the only intelligent point I had to say, the point that was coming out unbelievably badly, Nadine cut in.
Nadine, my friend, my classmate, cut in.
And made a much better point.
Much more intelligently.
Much more verbosely.
And the camera swung over to Nadine.
This is, by a long way, the best point in watching the video.
For quite a while you get a two-shot of Nadine and Me, with me, having just spouted spluttering shite, and Nadine talking well and intelligently about life in a State School, and I'm staring at her.
I'm staring at her with daggers...
I hate her. Right at that moment, I hate her, and it's horribly obvious on camera.
'Why didn't I say that?'
'Why is everyone nodding and smiling at her?'
And that's what happened for the whole episode.
Nadine thought of the things I wanted to say, a couple of minutes before I realised that they were things that I wanted to say, and everytime she said them, the camera caught me being jealous. Horribly, horribly jealous.
I stared at her, in each of these shots, like I'd like to rip her tongue out.
It really is quite funny, watching it now.
You think that your facial expressions are subtle.
They're just not, let me tell you now.
And as we were leaving the studio, Nadine was asked to appear on the next day's show, and I wasn't.
At the time, I was outraged... 'Why not Me?'.
And now I see.
Because she was better.
She was better then.
She wouldn't be now.
Now, I would be able to hold my own.
I would.
I promithe.
Yeth.
Friday, November 29, 2002
I'm better now.
Thanks.
I would have used many of your hangover cures, but I couldn't.
That would have meant dragging my arse out of bed and struggling down to the shops.
I now realise why people get married.
Tomorrow morning, and - well planned - I don't have any classes, I am planning to be quite hungover indeed.
Which is fine for a while, but then I've got shit to do.
Things that I really shouldn't do hungover.
Or can't.
So...
Any quick hangover remedies would be mint.
Ta.
I just got chatted up by a man that cuts his own hair.
Badly.
And, independently of that, is insane.
Please, what the fuck?
Why?
Why him?
I said no.
Are my standards too high?
(correct answer; 'NO')
But why is he the one that....
Oh, fuckit. Is neither big, nor clever.
One particular type of belgian beer, I don't know what type, but it began with a 'D', and ended with an 'L', is bad stuff for making you a very drunk person.
I write this as a very drunk person,
therefore I know.
Not that I am a falling over or slurring drunk person (which reminds me of a very good joke but not one that I can type only one that I can say and one which isn't so funny then)
I've always managed to be a very verbose, coherent, intelligent drunk person.
Whether it was coming in to houses late at night after gigs and having to talk to my mother, acting sober as anything, I don't know.
If it was drinking the contents of my dad's liqueur cupboard, and acting sober when he unexpectedly popped down for a glass of water in the middle of the night, I don't know.
If it was discovering that the bunch of students I lived with the first time around were such a bunch of dipsticks that someone needed to act sober and take control of the taxi driver, I don't know/
Whatever it is, I have a skill.
Useful for what?
Not sure.
Point?
Lost that.
End here?
I think so.
You?
Thursday, November 28, 2002
Everyone else is saying happy thanksgiving, so I'm going to join in.
I don't know if it is actually thanksgiving, or if you guys (bloggers, journal-writers, BBC) are ganging up on me to make me think it is.
Why would you do that?
That's mean.
But, Happy Thanksgiving. Just in case.
And just to celebrate, I'm going to go and get drunk!
Give thanks!
"Ladies and Gentlemen, we apologise for this interuption in your reading.I like Nuts.
In a change to the scheduled planning, tonight's episode of;
'I'm only 25 an I'm single, and it's not fair, and Meh Meh Meh, whinge whinge',
the popular mid-twenties comedy-talkshow-drama-soap, will be postponed to any such time as anyone gives a shit, and will be replaced this evening by the perennial standard
'A short rant on packaging'.
We apologise again to those of you tuned in for
'25 and Single Whinging Diatribe', and we assure you that normal service will be restored as soon as we forget (once again) that sub-Bridget-Jones-wank just isn't big, or clever. Thank you."
I do like pistachio nuts.
I like them in pubs, with beer.
Like them so much that sometimes I buy them to take away.
But I have this to suggest;
A small bag, taped to the side of the big bag, for shells.
Because otherwise I have to litter. And that's a bad thing.
Or a portable bin, for every customer.
Or a littering waiver.
A piece of paper that says 'She doesn't want to, but look Officer! Shells! What shall she do with the shells?!'
Or a little monkey.
Any of the above is fine.
And the other thing pisses me off?
Lucozade.
I drink Lucozade when I need energy, because it has lots of sugar in, and that's good.
But for a drink that they want you to drink when you have no energy, they sure screw the cap on awful tight.
Usually, approaching a bottle of Lucozade, I don't have enough energy to get the cap off to drink the Lucozade I need to get the cap off the Lucozade.
So here's the idea;
Syringe of concentrated Lucozade strapped to the side of the bottle.
You shoot the orange sugar goodness, you immediately have enough energy to drink the product.
It's my idea, I know, but if anyone from Lucozade happens to be reading this, you boys can have that one for free.
If you need any more help, though, just ask.
I am sad because no one has e-mailed me in about 50,000 years.
I think my e-mail is broken.
Someone has jumped on it and it is sad and hurt.
It will not give me e-mail.
Either that, or no-one has e-mailed me in that time.
In which case I am sad.
*sigh*
Wednesday, November 27, 2002
I'm sorry, but I'm simply not able to take the news seriously if people continue to refer to the Conservative leader as IDS.
It sounds like a tax office.
Or a bowel condition.
(Bowel condition?! Bad anna. We promised not to talk of such things.
What would Emily Post do?)
Sorry, having just read my earlier post, I would like to reinforce two points.
1. As a writer, I am highly prone to exageration.
2. As a person, I am beardless.
I don't know what posesses me sometimes.
Writing things that in my head, sound harmless but when looked at again make me sound like an idiot.
With a beard.
It's terribly unladylike as well.
What am I going to write about next?
Leg shaving?
How, when I wake up in the morning, I look like I've been struck by lightning?
Farting?
God help me, I wouldn't write about it even if I did do it.
Which I don't, of course.
Ever.
So no more beards around here.
What would Emily Post do?
This will be our catchphrase.
Oh, no, hang on, it's alright, there was something caught in my throat.
A bad hair day
While at the theatre tonight I, unusually, became obsessed with my chin.
Very very slowly, I think, I am growing a beard.
Every six months or so, I find a long black hair under my chin. It is thick, and dark in colour.
It disturbs me, for I do not want to grow a beard.
Yet, It is slowly happening.
I estimate, at this rate of growth, I will have a full beard by 2094.
I will be 117 Years old.
And beardy.
Every six months or so, one thick, dark, slightly curly hair appears under my chin.
It is somewhat like a pubic hair, and then I worry for a while, and fret that my torso is growing upside down.
And then I realise that that is a silly thing to worry, and that I should instead look to the simplest explanation.
I am turning into a man.
Worse, I am turning into a man with thick, dark, long hair.
I am turning into a man from a 1980's Metal band.
I do not want this to happen.
I do not want to turn into a man.
I'm not turning into a man, am I?
No, that would be awful.
I do not want to grow long hairs on my neck.
It is not pretty, it is not ladylike.
It does not suit me, it makes me look odd,
and, worst of all, it draws attention to my adams apple.
Tuesday, November 26, 2002
I am Hangover.
And the first shall be last and the last shall be seventh
Fucking seventh.
Always fucking seventh.
Every Monday we go and do the quiz at the post-graduate club, every week we come seventh.
No matter the content of the quiz, no matter the number of teams, 7-20, we'll come seventh.
Or sometimes 8th.
This week was not so bad as the other weeks. This week we came seventh, and in this case (where there were only seven teams), we came 'a very much last'.
At least we got peanuts for coming last.
I would, of course, rather come first.
I mind, not in the least, coming last.
I hate coming somewhere in the middle.
It's so fucking average.
And who wants to be average? (apart from the 'having sex' people. And fair play to them)
So tonight, as usual, we were coming seventh.
And I'm glad.
Because with those kind of no-social-skills-nor idea-of-real-life academic-wank questions (round one - latin medical terms and the parts of the body they effect, round two - European philosophers 1800-2002, round three - musicals, round four - james bond baddie lines, with film name, director, actor and context, round five - draw a goat, round six - the self proclaimed 'geek' round)
I'd rather come last than first.
Anyway.
The point of the story would be, if I could be arsed to get around to it, a bit pissed as I am,
we felt so critical of the quiz as a whole that when a guy smugly approached our table, thinking we'd be too scared,
We immediately signed up for being quizmasters.
In January, yes, but still.
We've been so dismissive of quizmasters before, that it's going to have to be some kind of kick-ass quiz.
I'm taking suggestions already, for rounds, themes of questions we might ask.
I'm thinking a round on sexual fetish is definitely in order... I know things from my search referrals that these people don't even know exist.
For an example; "What is Crush?"
No, don't tell me. They've already linked here too many times.
Other rounds? Questions? Fetishes?
It's alright. You've got two months. Think about it.
Monday, November 25, 2002
British people have sex 149 times a year, on average.
If this is an average, then for all the people having sex not at all, there must be some people having sex twice. And if there are more people not having sex than there are having sex, then those people who are having sex must be having it a hell of a lot.
Hang on. Shift in logic.
Perhaps it's not an average over the population, perhaps it's an average over a lifetime.
So not having sex at one point in ones life would mean, by average and by logic, to produce other years with much more sex in them.
So seven lean years would be followed either by seven double bonus point years, or just a couple of years, but with higher frequency.
Can someone remind me to turn the answerphone on for 2004, 2005, 2006?
I'm going to be too busy to get to the phone.
hello?
Why is Dolly Parton living in my tummy?
So on we go, talking like normal people, accent flitting from London to Manchester and skipping around the Highlands and Islands for a while before coming to rest somewhere around 'posh'. And words from all those places make appearances in our conversation, turns of phrase familiar to one or all of those regions, learned words, made up words, flattened and rounded and drawn out vowels, with a slight touch of the incessant 'up-talking' that seems to afflict so many Britons with any kind of affection for US sitcom. (Me very much included).
When all of a sudden, I drip coffee on my trousers...
'Aw, Shoot!' I say.
Or I remember something I'm meant to be doing;
'Darn!' say I, 'dang!'
Or we see something large, or beautiful...
'Gee!' I'll sigh, 'Ain't that purdy?'
Alright, perhaps not the last one, but I swear, it's only a matter of time.
What's going on? These words, not native to me, not purposefully acquired, have become part of my vocabulary, from where?
Where?
Are there a bunch of dead country stars looking down from heaven, with a big remote control and a naughty grin?
Is Dolly Parton living in my tummy?
Am I turning into Scarlett O'Hara? Will I start swooning soon?
Do I need to get a fan? A parasol?
Big hair? Breast implants?
Eat biscuits, gravy, grits?
Own dogs in dog-jackets?
Never leave home without lipstick?
No.
It's going to stop. I'm sure. Dolly Parton can't live in my tummy forever.
The dead people will find new toys.
Either it'll get worse, and I'll end up with a fabulous accent in an alternate reality, or it'll wear off when I find a new cuss of the week.
If it just remains around the same ridiculous level, you have to promise to tell me.
You will? Why, thank you.
I'm trusting you, y'hear?
All yall.
What's the difference between a happy person who is sometimes depressed, and a depressed person who is sometimes happy?
What's the difference between life being occasional high points and general okayness between inevitable disasters, and being occasional disasters between general okayness and inevitable high points?
Where's the baseline?
Is there a difference?
Is it all just dependent on camera angle, what you can and can't see?
No, I've confused myself into a little corner now.
shoot.
Smiling and beckoning, Monday invites you to walk with her into her lair.
She may look fresh and new and exciting and full of possibility,
but beware.
She has teeth.
And her breath smells.
Sunday, November 24, 2002
Girl... You'll be a woman soon...
I think it's a growing up thing.
I'm finding it all the time now. I'll be sitting in a seminar, talking about some play or other, and I can hear my self talking and everyone listening, and I'm thinking;
'Haha! fools! they must think I know what I'm talking about! Haha!'
And then I realise, to my suprise, I do know what I'm talking about. I'm not bullshitting. I actually know.
Growing up, sitting in classes and things, you knew you were never going to be completely right, unless it was a really easy question, not in Arts subjects.
In maths, sure, an answer is an answer, but when it comes to debate and opinion, you knew that someone was always going to know better than you; the teacher, the book, the expert. So you were always a bit wrong.
Suddenly I feel like I'm more right than wrong.
And I know what I'm talking about.
It's the funniest feeling.
I'm not pretending anymore.
It's a nice feeling.
It's the same difference as thinking; 'Ha! Fools! They think I'm confident! They think I know what I'm doing! Hahaha! How wrong they are!'
And then you realise it might not be them that are wrong...
Is it a grown-up thing?
I knew that no-one was ever going to hand over the 'book of Grown-up rules', bu I didn't realise it was going to happen so slowly, bit by bit by bit by bit.
I'm even sitting here listening to Opera.
For Fuck's sake.
I hate opera.
Or at least I thought I did.
Am I a grown-up now?
Can I still eat squirty cream out of the can?
Well, someone asked for a script counter...
Euipedes -'Ion', Sophocles - 'Antigone', Aristophanes - 'The frogs', Aeschylus - The Oresteia ('Agamemmnon', 'The Libation Bearers', ''The Eumenides'), translation Robert Fagles, translation Tony Harrison, Translation Ted Hughes, Anon - The Townley Cycle, William Shakespeare - A winter's tale, Ben Jonson - Volpone, Thomas Ottway -Venice presev'd, Aphra Behn - The Rover part 1, John Dryden - All for Love, John Ford - Tis pity she's a whore, John Webster -The duchess of Malfi, Robert David Macdonald - Webster. Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais - The Marriage of Figaro, Noel Coward - Design for living, Noel Coward - Private Lives, Moliere - The school for wives, Marivaux - The game of Love and Chance, Racine - Phaedra, Lee Hall - Spoonface Steinberg, Lee Hall - Cooking with Elvis, Lee Hall - Bollocks, Mark Ravenhill - Shopping and fucking, Anthony Neilson - Stitching, Anthony Neilson - The Censor, unknown - Cold Cuts, 2 entirely forgettable new plays, William Shakespeare - The taming of the shrew.
If I'm going to do some kind of counter (see right), by God I'm going to do it accurately.
I still don't like swimming pools.
Apart from the whole enforced near-nudity thing, which frankly leads to me seeing things that I never want to see.
And the whole the whole deal with my gammy shoulder and the lifeguards looking at me as if I'm about to sink.
I hate that too.
Not that that was so much a problem today, as I was hanging out in the childrens pool.
Because I was there with children, you understand, not just because I thought I'd be happiest kneeling on the tiled floor of a lukewarm body of water containing approximately 30% kiddy wee, while high-pitched echoed screams burst my waterlogged eardrums and all around me the embodiment of our future indulged in their weekly hour of smacking each other around the face with floatation devices and displacing as much water(/eye-scalding chlorine/kiddy-wee/soggy band-aids) as physically possible.
Oh, I had a point, but I'm now far too tired and far too grumpy to remember what it was.
Maybe it was a point about effective contraception devices and spending the day with children.
No, I'm too tired.
And my brain is full of chlorine.
Fucking kiddy pools.
That's as good a point as any.
This was precisely the laugh I needed today.
Cheers.
Saturday, November 23, 2002
I can't cope with this debt anymore.
I can't cope.
I had the good fortune to witness a magnificent pre-menstrual hissy-fit the other day.
Standing in the kitchen, the stovetop espresso maker started pissing boiling water from its middle, all over the floor, the cooker, the work top. A not unusual situation with a rather temperamental coffee thing.
"WAAaaaaargh!" she cried. "Fuck! Fuckfuckfuck!! Why?!?" she cried. "All I want is some Fucking Coffee! You fucking... Why? Fuck!" She cried.
The coffee pot thrown into the sink, the oven glves flung to opposite corners of the room, she stood in the middle of the linoleum and, in a beautifully 'cartoon' moment, she bawled - tears seemed to spring horizontally from her eyes, spraying the kitchen.
"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! All I want is a fucking coffee"
And as soon as it had started, it stopped.
"...*sniff*....*sniff sniff*...."
"oh...." she sighed.
And then she breathed, in, and out.
Fine again. She started a new pot of coffee.
*sniff*
It was fab.
You know, it's the kind of hissy fit that you see in hindsight, that you hear about second hand,
but you don't usually have the good fortune to witness.
So it's nice that some people have the presence of mind to put a mirror in their kitchen,
otherwise I'd never have seen it...
You know, sometimes I forget how much fun working behind a bar is.
It is.
If I could make a career out of smiling and pouring drinks, I would.
It's nice.
They're all drunk, you're sober.
They are your playthings.
It's fun.
It's an enormous boost to confidence too.
You're every man's perfect woman.
You've got breasts, you smile, you serve, you're a source of unlimited alcohol.
How can you *not* get chatted up?...
wonderful...
Friday, November 22, 2002
I've had too much coffee.
I feel sick.
And now I've got to go to work.
8.45's a stupid time to go to work.
It's half way between awaketime and sleepy time.
It's stupid.
mehmehmeh.
I've just realise that October 2001 is completely missing from my archives.
I don't like it.
It says it's october, but it's not.
I feel like I'm losing my memory.
Meg's put up the pictures of her summer holiday in Iona, to go with all her other beautiful Iona pictures in her gallery.
*sigh*
All my favourite people in my favouirte place.
I feel happy. And quite sad.
'Find a penny, pick it up and all day long you'll have good luck.
Give a penny to a friend, and then your luck will never end.'
I have a few questions.
1)If I find a penny, I'll be lucky for 'all day', does this mean
a) until the end of the working day?
b) until midnight? or
c) a full 24 hour period from the penny-pickup?
2) If the correct reading is (c), and I find a second penny within that 24 hour period, is the luck extended by a further 24 hours, or does the second 24 hours start from the point of the second penny-pickup, meaning that in the remaining hours of the 'first penny pickup' luck-value will be doubled?
3) When receiving a penny that I have picked up, does the 'friend' also receive some portion of luck?
Or do they just receive a penny?
4) If I drop pennies for random strangers to pick up, does that make me a 'giver' of luck?
5) If I go around dropping pennies for other people to pick up, do I receive any luck for being the giver of luck?
6) If I am able to give luck to others by dropping pennies that they can pick up and receive luck from, does that mean that I am actually holding an infinite amount of luck, and that if I do not drop pennies, I will be infinitely lucky?
7) Does the phrase 'Never End' really mean infinity? If I give a penny (which I have picked up) to a friend Will I be infinitely lucky?
8) My luck will 'never end'. Does this extend beyond death? Or does it make one immortal?
No, not even luck can stop you from dying.
Could it stop you from going to hell though?
Does picking up a penny and giving it to a friend mean that all my sins are forgiven and I'm going to be eternally happy?
Is that what 'never end' means?
9) Why the sudden jump from 'all day long' to 'never end'/infinity?
If I find a penny, pick it up and give it to someone I don't like, will I be lucky for an intermediate time? Like a week?
What If I only want to be lucky for a year?
Do I have to give it to someone I know vaguely (from a friend's party, say), but would only call an acquaintance?
Do I then get to be lucky for a year?
10) What if I find a penny, pick it up, and give it to the bus driver?
How lucky am I then?
Someone should clarify the smallprint on these things.
Thursday, November 21, 2002
To those two blonde undergraduate girls in my playwriting class;
If, while one of the premier playwrights in Scotland is talking,
If, while I am, and everyone else is, trying to listen,
If, while one of your class mates is having her original piece performed for the first time,
If, while we're giving the poor lass criticism,
If you sit there and talk about;
how drunk you got at the weekend,
how your boyfriend bought you a mobile phone,
how you love your new skirt,
how your housemate doesn't clean, and leaves her 'jamrags' on the bathroom floor,
how you can't wait until the class is over,
one, more, fucking, time...
I'm going to stick two whiteboard markers up each of your noses and make you write
"I am an arse and an ingrate"
On the board 70,000 times.
Thank you.
I was just flicking through the channels when I happened to catch a couple of minutes of Britain's first televised autopsy.
The man in the hat had cut down the centre of the cadaver's torso, from neck to groin, and was opening the walls of his chest like a television cabinet, peeling sinews and layers of tissue out of the way.
The cadaver, sorry, the dead 72-year-old man, lay there on the table with his face turned toward the camera.
His face was puffy and grey. As were his genitals.
He was lying on the table with his face turned toward the camera and the walls of his chest opened like cabinet doors while the man in the hat peeled layers of sinew and tissue to get a better view. The cadavers face was grey. Black in parts.
Someone in the audience shouted at the man in the hat; "Wouldn't it be a mark of respect to take your hat off?"
The man in the hat said 'no', and he pointed at a painting of man in the 18th century, doing an autopsy.
The man in the 18th century painting was wearing a similar hat.
People laughed.
I have to go to bed now.
This is not a good thing to go to bed on.
Big eared Lipless wonder
I went to see a film tonight, in the amazing highrise cinema in Glasgow centre.
Kenneth Brannagh was taking small Aboriginal children away from their families and relocating them in a school where he taught them about magic and dark arts and tried to integrate them into western society and stuff. Some of the children were quite happy there, but others were deeply mentally affected and started conversing with large bunnies. And then some of them ran away on broomsticks and had to find their way across 900 miles of desert in an attempt to get home in 28 days, killing some people on the way.
It was a twisted, moving, spine chilling, thought provoking, black comedy riot of fun for all the family.
The book was probably better though.
Wednesday, November 20, 2002
I'm glad I'm Five foot seven.
You know I was talking about all that stand up comedy stuff?
Well, I don't need to do that now.
In fact, I never have to leave the house. Ever again.
Not for that kind of purpose.
You see, the small girls I live with have a toy, called a 'Fun Days Stage Microphone', which I can't find online anywhere. I can find karaoke microphones, but that's a different thing entirely.
This is a very simple thing, plastic, primary colours, microphone, a lead that stretches to exactly 5'5".
A volume control that goes from off, to whisper, to breach of the peace.
And a little box at the bottom. With foot pedals. And this is what rocks. It's got a pedal for a audience of people laughing, a foot pedal for applause, and one for an angry crowd.
I swear, I shouldn't be left alone in the house, or sooner or later I'm going to have my comedy routine completely worked out, complete with invisible audience, laughter at every single joke, and my own set of easily quietened hecklers.
Soon I'll be a perfect stand up comedian. But only in my living room.
And only on my own.
Why would you leave a comment anonymously?
Quick poll:
and people - do leave a name, we've all got them...
So why? Gimme a good reason...
All I ask... Just one little thing... Only little...And the princess said to the handsome prince "Yes, handsome prince, I will marry you, but only if you go to the valley at the end of the world and kill the fearsome dragon living there, (even though he's far away and means me no harm), and, on your way back, if you could pop into the forest of eternal gloom, fetch me an apple of eternal happiness, an orange of wisdom and a kiwi of liposuction, swing by the castle where the evil wizard lives and lift the curse placed on me and all my offspring, and if you're passing Safeway we could use some milk"You see, I'm not being too pushy, not too much.
Princesses in fairytales could ask anything. I'm not asking much.
But a long time ago I decided. I can't let it go now.
Quite a while ago, a couple of decades, say, when I still believed that what I was going to be when I grew up was a career 'fairy princess', I had my own, pre-marital conditions.
I was not going to marry anyone, no matter what kind of handsome prince they were, until they bought me a doozer.
And for some reason, this idea has stuck with me.
I want a doozer.
And not a stuffed toy one, no, don't be silly.
That would be too easy. This is me we're talking about here.
Not a stuffed toy one. Any fool can get one of those on e-bay or at a market stall or your local branch of at toys-r backwards-us.
I want a real one.
I mean, not a wild one, I'm not nuts.
I want a real one. One of the ones that lived at fraggle rock.
Anyway. So I'm kind of thinking that I should buy myself one now, seeing as I'm 25 and a spinster.
I still should have one.
Takes the pressure off any handsome prince that should happen along too.
Anyone know where I can get one?
Tuesday, November 19, 2002
I have a friend who continually sends me group e-mails about how if I just close my eyes and wish for world peace every third tuesday at 6.30pm while standing on one leg and imagining myself to be part of a huge pink cloud of universal souls,
world peace will magically happen.
This annoys me because
- It's bollocks
- I haven't got time to do that.
- Every time I think I've actually got some e-mail, I haven't, and it's this damn earth-healing circle again.
- It makes up a good 40% of the mail I get and
- It's bollocks.
But if I tell her this she'll be really upset.
grr.
You know, it's the funniest thing, I was just pootling around the BBC website, formulating my plan for broadcast media domination, same old same old, and the one thing I decided not to look at was the Scotblog.
Which is a shame, because I'm on the Scotblog...
Hee hee!
Thanks lads. Och aye n' a.
Hoots.
How are you today?
A colleague of mine on my course at school did a stand up comedy night-school course.
She said it was free to do, as long as you were willing to do a five minute spot at the end of the course.
I'm sore jealous.
I want to be able to do that.
I'm jealous.
And tempted.
Am I tempted?
Or just jealous?
Tonight, while doing my homework for school tomorrow, I cried five times.
And I think that, even if you do not think that reading plays is as good as reading books, you should read this.
And in this edition, you also get 'Cooking with Elvis' and 'Bollocks', which are not. Bollocks.
They're amazing.
And I have added it to my wishlist, because as soon as I have any money at all, I will buy it.
Because Spoonface Steinberg is one of the most beautiful things written.
I am no longer in love with Beaumarchais. I am now in love with Lee Hall.
I hear you, I realise that falling in love with one famous author or another will do me no good.
Particularly if they are dead. Or married. Or gay. Or dead and married. Or dead and gay. Or married and gay. Or dead and married and gay.
Which most of them are, to be honest.'Cooking with Elvis' Scene Twenty-ThreeAh, an effective use of sarcasm, what more can you ask?
Jill: Scene Twenty-Three. The unbelievably Glib Epilogue.
Mam: It's funny how things work out.
Jill: It's funny how all your problems can just 'disappear'.
Mam: I think we're actually quite happy now. Just the three of us. Me, you and your dad.
Jill: I think so.
Mam: I'm glad you've got that cooking thing under control.
Jill: I'm glad you're eating properly.
Mam: It's amazing what a good piece of catharsis can do.
Jill: It's funny that you can get rid of all your problems at one fail swoop.
Mam: I couldn't agree more, sweetheart.
Jill: Any more 'stew'?
Mam: Don't mind if I do.
Seriously. Spoonface Steinberg could change your life. 'Cooking with Elvis' will make you realise how good modern theatre can be. 'Bollocks'? I've not read that yet. I'll tell you in the morning.
Theatre evangelism rant over for the evening...
Thank you for listening.
If you did.
Talking of political things, which we weren't, really - In the course of research today I found a feminist theatre website that talked of the 'premier feminist forefathers'.
Is it me, or does that sound wrong?
Monday, November 18, 2002
You can blow up the world, but don't touch my pets.
I'm not really very political.
I am, a little, but not very.
I wish I was, but I'm just too scared of offending anyone.
I was the kind of kid who, when being taken on a Nuclear Disarmament March and instructed to paint a picture on a placard to carry, would do so.
I would sit and think about what picture I wanted to paint, look at my large piece of cardboard and my paints.
And I would paint a picture and a slogan for my demonstration placard.
But while every other clued-up, already left-wing, intelligent child was carrying a banner proclaiming;
"I don't want to grow up in a world with bombs"
with cartoon trident symbols scored through,
or
"Think of the children, we are the future!"
with small round faces smiling all around the carefully formed lettering,
or
"Nuclear bombs make kids cry"
with some fancy picture that would make it onto the six o'clock news,
I'd be marching round, proudly holding high a placard with a picture of a brown and white oval and the words;
"This is my ginny pig her name is debbie.".
Which could possibly make a political point, but I'm fucked if I know what that is.
Today's Interesting Fact About Restoration Tragedy.
( or, 'I.F.A.R.T.' for the day)
(heeheeheeheehee)
Interesting not only to theatre historians, I found out today why so many Restoration tragedies, and comedies for that matter have plots completely concerned with people cross-dressing.
You see, in the mid to late 17th century, from the start of the restoration period in 1660, one of the innovations on the London stage was the use of Female players.
Women appeared on stage for the first time (ish) as women, as opposed to the boy players and men that had always played women before.
So writers devised endless amounts of scripts in which, on stage, the women had to remove their big gowns - onstage, mind - and replace them with much tighter legwear. Britches, say.
Bitches in britches is what the crowd wanted, and that's what they got, over and over again.
Meaning you may have had to go and see a bunch of comedies and tragedies quite similar in plot, but that didn't much matter, because what you were really going for was the poorly veiled stripping.
It was licensed voyeurism.
And that's hilarious. That's what people complain about most in modern theatre, needless violence, nudity, all that.
Bollocks!
How many dead bodies pile up at the end of a 17th Century play?
Do you want me to tell you?
Well, in one I was reading today, there were 13.
One person got his eyes gouged, another ended up disembowelled.
There was one rape, and two attempted others
Three of the characters were prostitutes, four were cheating on their spouses.
They cursed each other horribly, and referred to their genitals often.
And we think that portrayals of sex and violence within entertainment and art are 'new' things?
Fuck no.
They're part of the whole convention of the thing.
Nothing we do can be shocking.
And nothing we do is new.
Oh, look, I've got quite carried away.
I almost sound as if I know what I'm talking about.
Sorry about that...
I'll just say 'fart' again.
Fart.
heeheeheeheehee.
Well, you see, big horizons are all well and good, but you don't get them in cities, so much.
You get them on little islands.
And I don't live on a little island anymore.
I live in a city.
And you don't get big horizons in cities.
The previous design was based on big horizons, and how much I love them.
But everything has to change, and my adorable sister and I have been talking about a redesign since I moved house.
It's a little red boat in a big city.
That's what the background is now. That's obvious.
Talking of backgrounds, I'm to apologise, because it is a heap 'bigger' than the previous, but it should still work ok.
And really, the little red boat thing is more about gutters and puddles than it is about wide oceans.
So I made some vague, sweeping statements, as usual, and Meg made them into code and pictures and layout.
She's good like that.
Great, in fact.
If anyone misses the old background, which I knew I would, we've used it as the background on the about page, to which we've also added some more pictures.
The writing's not changed.
I'm still incoherent when drunk. Snappy when tired, pissy when pms-ing, all that kind of thing.
I've not changed.
But my background has.
And I really, really like it.
I feel dead urban.
Sunday, November 17, 2002
Well?
Oh boy oh boy oh boy.
You just wait til you see the new design....
You just wait....
I'm going to learn to cook.
I can't.
Cook.
So I'm going to learn.
Delia is going to teach me.
The house where I live has a big book by delia, and I'm going to read it, and then I will be able to cook.
I will start today, with fried eggs.
And I'm sure they will be successful, although she makes them look a bit complicated.
And if they go the way my usual fried eggs go, I can just say they're an omlette. Or scrambled eggs.
But I think there are other ingredients in those.
Heck.
I am going to learn to cook.
And I will start tomorrow.
Another quick poll;
Before I write too much about Disney, and the absolute passion He (and 'It') inspires in me, I need to check;
Why does everybody love Disney?
No, really, Why?
Why do you?
Why?
How?
Why?
Damn, I've got to find a new place to store my pencils.
At the moment, the premium storage facility is my hair, a trait I may possibly share with other single academics and ditzy people.
But it means that I'm forever losing my pencils.
Or pens.
They're back there too.
I lose them all.
And then have the experience of;
1) Someone pointing them out just when I'm trying to look cool.
2) Kittens attacking the back of my head.
or
3) A cascade of pens from - it seems - nowhere, when I release my mane, last thing at night.
So I should find another storage place.
I absolutely hate pockets, of course, so that leaves...
My Hair.
Now I just have to find a way of reminding myself that there are pens in my hair.
Maybe if I kept one in my mouth the whole time.
No, I'd forget.
I should get my nose re-pierced and stick one through that.
That would remind me.
But on the other hand, it could look silly.
hmmm.
Saturday, November 16, 2002
And just as images of Satan can appear in clouds of smoke over ruined buildings, just as evil can present itself in a child, a tree trunk, a conservative MP,
so can the dark one appear in the fresco of a Maltese Church.
F**king Disney.
Gets f**king everywhere.
Please, excuse me.
I have issues with Mr Disney.
Later.
I've just spent the day writing 'A Doll's House', By Ibsen.
Not reading it, writing it. I meant to read it, but I didn't have time, and looked up a quick summary on the 'net before I went to the workshop.
Still, that was, as it turned out, the best thing to do.
I've come across the method before, in study of particular texts, in art, various things, the idea of using something with which you're familiar to whatever extent, and then re-membering it, bit by bit.
Like Emma Kay's work, where she writes a history of the world using no resources but her own memory, or creates a remembered version of Shakespeare's complete works.
We did the same thing. Two people that had read the play in the last two weeks, four that had read it in the last couple of years, one that had read only a summary (cough), and three that had never read it at all, two of whom couldn't pay attention for more than 20 seconds and who need to be hit around the head with a blunt and heavy object. Or dismembered. But I digress.
And together, without reference to the text, we tried to remember the names of the characters, what they did, when the entered and exited, what they might have said.
We basically wrote the first act. Or tried to.
I haven't really got a point with this, actually.
I just wanted to get it down somewhere.
It's a good way of examining what we find important in text. What we remember, why we remember it.
Not that that was why we were doing it today.
I don't know why we were doing it today.
An interesting concept, but for seemingly no point at all.
What a theoretically interesting, yet technically wasted day.
Balls.
or 'yay'.
Depending on how you look at it.
Wow.
I'm really impressed with how that whole 'Please sign my guestbook' thing worked.
Thanks.
Now, about that wishlist...
(Kidding...)
Friday, November 15, 2002
Meg reminded me of a question I had to ask.
How does one correctly give the name of a URL?Because I've always used the former, but the nice lady who came to teach us how to use the internet the other day used the latter.
- Say "It's double-u double-u double-u, dot whatever, dot..." or
- Say "It's werwerwer, dot whatever, dot..."
And she does these things for a living.
So I don't know whether I'm saying it, well, not 'wrong', but in an uncool fashion.
I really hope that saying "werwerwer" isn't de rigueur.
Because I wanted to punch her every time she said it. She said it six times.
(Actually, come to think of it, I'm not quite sure that saying de rigueur, is de rigueur.
It's too late now.)
I suppose I could get used to it, but I don't really want to.
I have the feeling I'd sound like Tigger with a mouthful of thistles.
Or a pensioner chewing a bee.
Werwerwer.
Werwerwer.
Werwerwer.
No, I don't like it.
And Opera, for that matter, what's the point of that?
What's the point of ballet?
In love with Beaumarchais.
Yesterday a classmate who'd missed a seminar asked if she could look over my notes.
I instinctively agreed, but getting them out of my bag, realised that the first paragraph alone read;Take for example, the f***ing greeks. They start from the beginning, you have the whole unity of action s**t, everything happens, and you're left with a conclusion. It may be a whacked-out, f***ed-up, bloody and sickening conclusion.I really don't think I've got the hang of the whole 'writing notes' thing yet.
But at least the damn thing ends.
But reading? Reading I've got.
I've got reading down.
I keep surprising myself, and this sounds stupid, by how much I like theatre.
I mean, I thought I liked it a bit, but no, I was wrong.
I like it a lot.
And I'm in love with Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais.
Yes, I know it'll never work, we're from completely different classes, he's part of the aristocracy, I'm not, he's married, in the secret service - which is dangerous, my french isn't very good, he's been dead for 200 years, he's a writer, he's been in and out of prison, I know, I know.
But how can I not love him?
The man writes like a dream and has the kind of life that makes you realise what the concept of 'life' might be.
I'm sorry, I'm being dull, but I love the fact that I can pick up 'The Marriage of Figaro', and find a characters who wander into rooms and forget what they came in for.
I always think of 'classical' drama as stuffy, or inhuman (apart from Mr Shakespeare, obviously, who makes a good exception to this and most other rules) but I was completely wrong. I was an idiot.
Plays are about people. Always.
Sure, they might be about people in big dresses shagging their brothers and stabbing their servants, but people are people.
There's going to be something in there that we recognise.
Hopefully not the 'shagging siblings' bit.
Because that's icky.
Anyway, dull as I may be, I'm happy to be dull.
For today, And at least tomorrow, I shall be in love with Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais.
Which is at least better than last week, when I was in love with John Webster, who although easier to type, had been dead twice as long.
And probably had syphilis.
But didn't they all. Ah, writers.
Do all writers still have syphilis?
My wet pussy
My kitten fell in the bath yesterday.
It's not a great story, he just hovered around the edge looking curious until, well, until curiousity wet the cat.
He fell in the bath, he got soaked, and then he jumped around looking disgraced and disgusted at his wetness.
But that's what cats do...
There's no story, no good story here at all.
I admit it.
I just wanted to write the title.
Thursday, November 14, 2002
You know when you're walking down the road and something magical happens?
When the wind comes up out of nowhere, turning a pile of leaves into a cloud, and you're surrounded by red and brown and shades of green dancing.
And you feel like it's a scene in a film when the whole world changes for your hero,
Except the film is yours and the hero is you.
I like those moments.
Incidentally, in case you've not been able to tear your eyes from the left-hand side of the screen, just remember that just over there, a little to the right, just over there, a little further, are things like my guestbook.
You can sign my guestbook.
At the moment, the last person to have signed it is me.
And God knows that sucks.
Wednesday, November 13, 2002
Quick poll;
Hands up who, at the moment, would call themselves single - completely unattached.
This is not a chat-up line, I'm just curious.
Hands up.
Pubs - one.
The Winter Gardens - Blackpool.
A square of linoleum in the centre of an open room, formica tables and carpet soaked and stained with liquids and dirt.
Florescent light, shopping bags clustered around table legs, fat fingers around pint glasses.
Thick glasses and piggy eyes, smeared where greasy fingers have wiped rain from the lens.
A dog - lack-lustre, half strangled by tartan rainjacket, rests his head on the foot of his owner, unmoved for two hours.
Long haired blonde woman, in early middle, middle middle or late middle age, stands on a stage, raised a foot above the floor, with her balding companion, light-fingered on his casio keyboard.
The poster outside gives their name -
Barry. It says. And Brenda.
The hits of the sixties right through to the eighties.
And Barry, and Brenda, singing and playing, watch the dancefloor.
The fat man with smeared glasses watches the dancefloor.
The woman with her shopping bags, the dog. They watch the dancefloor.
The barman, acned and sneaking drinks behind the bar, watches.
The barmaid, buxom and bored of endlessly filling and emptying ashtrays, watches.
I stand at the door.
And I cannot help but watch the dancefloor.
There she stands. Hand on shoulder, opposite hand, opposite shoulder.
Eighty years old, at least.
With clothes that drape from a skeletal frame.
Hand out in front of her, other hand too.
Skin hangs from her cheeks.
Her eyes are deeply set, and dark, and empty.
She looks ahead.
Flip a hand over, another hand.
a clap, or a move, and a shuffle around, to face another way.
She does not look strong. She looks as if she does not stand too often, that she needs a stick, a frame,
an arm to hold on to.
She dances The Locomotion.
At three in the afternoon, on a square of linoleum, by florescent light in a seaside resort.
She dances the Locomotion alone because she knows how to.
She retreats from this world because she knows how to.
She dances alone because she has to.
We cannot join her.
She does not want us to dance.
We can only watch.
I think it's sad that when I see a handsome young man rushing along a winter pavement with an air of intention and a big bunch of flowers, I think not "How beautiful that is, and how wonderful it must be to have such a sweet and romantic boyfriend",
but instead "What a bastard! I wonder what misdeed he's done to the poor woman that's about to recieve those...".
Does that reflect badly on me, or on the nature of romance?
I say it reflects badly on the nature of romance.
Obviously.
Anyone rational (and not me) would, of course, disagree...
Ah well.
Tuesday, November 12, 2002
[13/11/02 - after ten comments have been posted...
Do I actually need to write anything here?
Is the seeming insatiable human need to comment when offered the opportunity based on content?
Does my writing, or the time I put into it, have any effect on the comment box attached?
Or is it an organic and psychologically neccessary process on behalf of the commentor, and something I therefore should not attempt to tamper with?]
I'm not at all sure.
What do you think?
Stop me if you think that you've heard this one before.
42 punchlines.Sorry If I've ruined any of those for anyone. I''m sorry, a couple are a little tasteless.
- And for my third wish, I wished that my head was a tangerine.
- a Wonkey.
- The cigarette Machine's out of order.
- Oh, shit, I've just run over a nun.
- Ding DONG, Damnit, ding DONG!
- "I wath thick!"
- To get to the other side.
- Ouch.
- "Well, whose arms are these then?"
- A stick.
- Come Dancing.
- "Alright, this time youhold the pigeon down, and I'll shit on its head!..."
- It's driving me Nuts.
- The guy in the next bed wants to buy your slippers.
- I'm sorry, we don't serve food.
- "I didn't say she had 'dental inadequacies, I said she was Fucking Goofy"
- You see that nurse over there? I've shagged her.
- And the monster says "Tag! You're it!"
- What would I need with a prince? You can make a lot of money out of a talking frog.
- Well, darling, you know where the matches are...
- Just the one, but it will take a long time, and the bulb has to really want to change.
- To keep her ankles warm.
- Two, but how the hell did they get in there?
- Its arse.
- So the barman gave her one.
- "You think I really wished for a twelve inch pianist?"
- "In that case, Have you got any duck food?"
- Don't mess with that guy, he's fuckin' menthol.
- One.
- "Pardon me, God, But he was wearing a hat"
- That's not a lion, it's a giraffe.
- No, I'm a knot.
- "Well, you can come in, but don't start anything.
- "It's the way you tell'em..."
- Both of them are small and round and purple apart from the tractor.
- "Pardon me Al? Is this the Cat that chewed your new shoes?"
- Is it Ray Charles?
- You come in here, giving it all that...
- Marmaduke stew
- "No, darling, you can flush like everyone else..."
- A baby in a microwave.
And I have to admit, I made up two.
But which?
And the worst thing is, now I've got started, I could happily churn them out all day.
I can't remember the word for 'fork', or 'telephone', but jokes and punchlines?
Obviously.
Because you need those in life.
Thank you to which ever nice, anonymous person sent me the Joni Mitchell from my wishlist.
I'm very happy and listening to it very loudly.
Thank you.
Monday, November 11, 2002
' fog! listen to your auntie.'
'Seance phalitis!'
'Repent and attune.'
Of course, I realise what I'm doing.
You realise what I'm doing, and I realise what I'm doing.
I realise what you're doing, or trying to do; you're telling me interesting and important notes about the draft of the essay I asked you to look at.
And what am I doing? I'm nodding and smiling. It was all going in, a moment ago, I'm sure it was.
Or it is, present tense. As soon as you tell me something, it makes perfect sense.
I see exactly where I might go wrong with the essay.
I see exactly what I should do, in the present tense.
The moment you've finished, it not only doesn't make sense; it may as well have never been said, and I'm left here.
Nodding and smiling.
But it's alright. I know that you've seen his plastic smile on a thousand eager faces before.
To make sure I have the important points to take home with me, you write them on the side of the essay, in pencil.
I'm grateful for this.
Or at least I think I am.
I am, until I get them home and look.
This is, with no exception (not even my dad), the worst handwriting in the world.
Ever.
What does it say next to the first paragraph?
'Repent and attune'?
'reprint of ovaltine'?
I don't think we talked about that. Did we?
'Space fo' Svett!'?
An advert for a Nordic sportswear company?
I'm obviously making up the words here.
My brain's getting ahead of itself.
I need to just sit down and pick them apart, letter by letter.
J. I'm sure that's a J. e. a. v. (or it could be u...) then n? w? but then an e. Definitely.
Then a capital P. h. a .f. (phaf?) i.t.s. Hafits? Habits!
It says 'be aware of habits'!
I'm not sure how these marks make up those words, but that phrase rings a bell, it sounds like an old tune that I've nodded and smiled in time to.
And so, taking more time than it may convceivably take to write the essay, I sit and pick apart a mere 25 words of comments.
Letter by letter by letter...
'Wil is the pat, hen?'
'fog! listen to your auntie.'
So that's one more small, grey haired, stubborn, poetic, loving, generous, powerful, peace-protesting Christian Criminal in the world then.
Today, remembrance day, Jan, mother of three, was found guilty of causing, willfully, a disturbance of the peace, by sitting down in the road outside the gate of a Nuclear Submarine base, attempting to avoid future disturbances of the peace.
She was further charged with not moving 'when required to by the police'.
Of course, she wasn't 'required', rather 'requested'.
She didn't want to go in and fight the case on semantics.
Courts don't like it if you do that.
Lawyers don't, anyway.
If everyone is capable of making their own argument, why pay lawyers lots of money?
(Actually, that's a point...)
Anyway, talking of paying lots of money, that's what she's to do now. It was either that or community service.
And even though her entire life is community service, she's paying a fine...
But she got to stand up and say what she did, and why she did it, and what she believes, and that, after all, is the point.
I love my mum.
[Meg explains the whole thing more eloquently here]
Cheap day return fare on train; 12 pounds.
Charge for booking online; 5 pounds.
Charge made by library for leaving library book on train; twenty-bloody-five-pounds.
Cheap-day rerurn; 42 pounds.
And then some money for coffee.
Not cheap.
I could probably have flown to Malta for less...
grrr.
Hands up if your mum's appearing before a magistrate's court this morning.
Hands up if you're a little nervous.
Sunday, November 10, 2002
What am I supposed to do witha stage direction like;
'Enter Cardinal sitting on a chair'
Is that possible without looking stupid?
An open letter to a 'popular' Public Transport Provider
Dear Mr Branson.
re; Virgin trains; disorganisation to the point of high comedy and low humour.
First of all, Mr Branson, I feel I must take this opportunity to congratulate you upon your beard. It is a fine beard. We live in a world where many men of business would shrink away from the idea of 'ginger beard' as trademark, and I truly believe that your dogged commitment to facial hair displays a businessman unafraid of individuality, of taking risks, of going out on a limb, and not minding how the world might perceive him. All these can only be applauded.
As can the unstoppable rise of the Virgin empire. From Virgin Records, to Virgin Trains, Virgin Airlines, Virgin Vodka, Virgin banking, Virgin insurance and Virgin Condoms (only pipped in the irony stakes by your rumoured chain of Virgin Abortion Clinics), your empire has gone from strength to strength, even though you insist on wearing wooly jumpers and a ginger beard, and I feel that no letter of complaint can begin without making reference to these remarkable achievements.
This is, however, a letter of complaint.
Perhaps, by diversifying in your business interests quite so much, you may have lost touch with the fact that each of them needs as much attention as the others. You may, in fact have forgotten that some of them exist at all.
They may just seem like one big crowd of 'Virgins' with no individual faces, obeying your every command.
And in that respect, your life is probably much like Mick Jagger's, apart from the fact that Mick Jagger doesn't run a train company, with thousands of people each day trying to travel somewhere with the 'help' of his company's resources.
Maybe he should.
So let me introduce you to Virgin Trains. You own it. And it's not very good.
A couple of years ago, I was walking past the newsagent's on Manchester Piccadilly station, where, for want of space, they were cheerfully displaying the new Virgin Timetable on the rack labelled "Puzzles and Humour".
And I think that sums it all up pretty accurately.
I do not ask that your trains run exactly to time - I realise that there are a million factors that go into not making that happen, and I realise that some of those million, perhaps 8, are not your fault, so we'll not speak of that in this letter.
So I do not ask that your trains run exactly to time, I'm understanding about that.
Many of your customers I'm sure, would ask that very thing, I do not.
I do not ask that your reservation system be understandable to mortals.
I do not ask that, if you book me into coach 'N', that you should actually have a coach 'N'.
Or anything above coach 'D', in fact.
I realise that true visionary business skills run outside the constraints of common logic.
I do not ask that you lower the price of your coffee, I am sure that the price of employing branded Brazilian Virgins to sit in the buffet car and squeeze each bean individually to get the most of the flavour is a necessary, if somewhat expensive, marketing tool.
Nor do I ask that you request that your employees actually fill the cups of coffee that they serve.
I am sure that to fill more than a quarter full would be in disregard of the Health and Safety laws.
So well done on that one.
I simply ask that, for helpfulness sake,
you would sell tickets on trains that actually exist.
That you would inform your agent, thetrainline, that it takes not 3 hours, but a mere hour and a quarter to travel between Glasgow and Carlisle, and to suggest otherwise can lead to confused travel plans and frostbite.
I would also like to complain that the coffee on Carlisle Station is too hot, and that cups too flimsy.
I realise that this is not entirely your jurisdiction, but it is an additional factor to a bad journey, for which I blame you entirely.
Incidentally, I apologise for the spillage of said station coffee over your technical equipment, company furniture, and employee.
Although I would like to complain that your employee was pretty clueless.
And wet.
Although for that, I take slight responsibility. (Although the responsibility really lies in the lap of the coffee provider. Just as the coffee lay in the lap of the travel provider. Anyway.)
In conclusion, I would like to say that although I hold all respect for your hard work and business acumen,
your train service sucks shit.
Thank you.
Your passenger (on occasion, when the trains exist at all),
Anna Pickard.
Friday, November 08, 2002
Maybe I should be a benedictine monk.
Bendictine monks get to write a lot, but not anything original, just copy out what other people have already written, which sounds like fun, because they get to draw on it, as well.
Incidentally, I don't mean I want to be a benedictine monk of Now, I mean I want to be a benedictine monk in the thirteenth century.
I could brew ale too.
I'd like to be able to do that.
And if I was a benedictine monk in the thirteenth century, then I'd know how to.
I could also wear a big wooly jumper down to my feet with a hood.
And no one would mind.
Because I'd be a monk.
In fact, I could do pretty much anything I wanted, by the same rule. And no one would say anything, because I'd be a monk.
I could hide things under my big jumper.
Animals and things. Although why I'd want to, I don't know.
Smuggling, I guess.
I could smuggle other monks. I could be a Monk monk-smuggler.
Actually, I suppose I could do that if I was a nun too. Or if I was a tent.
I'm sorry, it's taken me three hours to write this one small paragraph inbetween phone calls and work and trying to get kalamata olives out of jars of olive oil with a tooth pick (five minutes an olive, there's got to be an easier way...), trying to figure out my weekend,
between
workshops that I know I'm privileged to have a place on but don't actually know any details about (time, location)
and
people that I really very much want to see coming to stay but not being sure where to put them
and
three plays to be read and a dramaturgical presentation to be prepared by monday morning
and
a day trip to carlisle because I've worked out it's the easiest way of seeing friends from Manchester (it's halfway, I get 3 hours on a train either way in which to read...)
and
dinner with my mother, the night before her court appearance
and
e-mails to answer, finances to sort out
and
sleep, at some point.
My weekend seems like one of those puzzles where you shift little squares into the gaps, to try and make a whole picture.
And I can't do those kind of puzzles.
You know, I was attempting to do some research into the text and context of a seventeenth century play earlier.
'Tis pity she's a whore, by John Ford, first produced 1626.
And I was shocked at the kind of sites google threw up for search on the title.
There are some sick, Sick academics out there.
There are ways of being liberal, and ways of being polically correct, that seem to merge so well into conservatism that you don't know where the red ended and the blue began. And it's angry right-wing views spouted by people who believe that they're not that annoy me. People who believe they are being socialist and fair to everyone (and self-righteous about it because of that) and yet manage to damn many things that socialism rests upon...
Any way. This only comes to mind because of a couple I met the other day. We took a dislike to each other within a few minutes. It's unusual, but when it happens, it really can be quite, you know, fun...int. kitchen, dayFor a person that has 'people-centric' stamped all over her CV, you'd be mistaken for thinking that I didn't like people at all.
SPIKEY-HAIRED MIDDLE CLASS COUPLE: But of course, we're terribly open-minded about it all.
rahddyrahddyrahddyrahddyrah.
Then again, people like that unemployed couple in the newspaper shouldn't be allowed to have children, if they're not going to bring them up the right way... it should be banned....
ANNA: That child looks happy enough to me...
MIDDLE CLASS SMUGS: Happiness? pah! What are they going to achieve with that?!
int. kitchen, ten minutes later
MIDDLE CLASS SMUGS: Of course, it's like communism... God knows, State Schools are a good idea in theory, but would you send your child to one in practice?
ANNA: I went to a state school.
MIDDLE CLASS TWATS: Oh, you poor thing, was it just awful?
ANNA: No. It was school. I actually think that people had more chance to develop as rounded human beings in my school.
MIDDLE CLASS SMUGS: Oh, you poor naiive soul. Let's see if you're still saying that when you have children...
int. kitchen. Fifteen minutes later, as smug couple are heading off to a sing-a-long screening of Victor/Victoria with other, nicer people. The screening is part of the GlasGay festival
MIDDLE CLASS TOSSPOTS: Well, you're supposed to go in fancy dress but...
ANNA: Oh really? What are you going as?
MIDDLE CLASS MARRIEDS: Hetrosexuals!
ANNA: ..!..
Well. You're not very convincing.
MIDDLE CLASS MARRIEDS: .... oh.
Ah! What if we do this!
[they embrace]
ANNA: No. Then you just look like you're trying too hard.
MARRIEDS: ...
Right. ...
bye then.
ANNA: Yes.
And some of them, less.
Thursday, November 07, 2002
Ideas for posts rejected so far today;Coming soon to a slow week near you, only on
- Why I love folders (And other filing aids)
- People that cough in libraries
- Did my kitten learn how to use the cat flap, this wet, cold, November evening? Or did he fall in the toilet? (Again?)
- My favourite towel.
- John Webster, The White Devil and the use of sarcasm in Jacobean Preface.
- Tomatoes.
Little red boat...
The Spandex Hypothosis
Let's say, for example, that in your youth, you looked good in Spandex.
Rooting through your wardrobe one day, you happen upon your very favourite pair of Spandex leggings.
Now, you know you stopped wearing them for a reason, but looking at them now, they don't look so bad.
Do you;
a) Immediately add them to your current wardrobe, and wear them every day.
b) Throw them away immediately
c) Try them on, knowing that the likelihood is that they'll look terrible. And then you'll feel justified throwing them away...
or
d) Put them back in the wardrobe.
[later - I'm serious, bear in mind this is hypothesis. not actually about spandex at all, it's about other things.
Think of it as a wider, life question... About, you know, other stuff...]
Wednesday, November 06, 2002
'Overpolite or Underabusive?' - or - 'A thinly veiled excuse for swearing'int. shop, day.How many times do we have to say thank you in an every day interaction?
Anna takes newspaper to the counter. Puts newspaper on counter...
MAN BEHIND COUNTER: Thank you.
ANNA: Thanks.
MAN BEHIND COUNTER: Is that everything?
ANNA: Yes thanks. Oooh, no, sorry, can I have a small a packet of Golden Virginia please. Thanks.
MAN BEHIND COUNTER; (reaches for tobacco, puts it on counter) There you are, thank you.
ANNA: Thanks. And some papers please.
MAN BEHIND COUNTER: (gets them)
ANNA: Thank You.
MAN: Is that everything?
ANNA: Yes, thanks.
MAN: That's Two pounds and ninety pence please.
anna hands money to man behind counter
ANNA: Thank you.
MAN; Thanks.
man hands anna's change to anna
ANNA: Thank you.
MAN: Thanks. Bye now.
ANNA: Thank you! Bye bye!
This has always amused me. That, in this country at least, the purchase of a pint of milk can lead to the exchange of at least 4 and up to 50 niceties.
That's roughly a transcript from this afternooon. And that must be pretty much the norm. I mean, give or take a few, mumble a few, mean to say a few and forget a few...
But we realy do just fill up our conversations with pretty meaningless noises.
I amused myself on the way home from the shop by going through the conversation again and replacing all the niceties with insults, swearwords and blasphemy.int. shop, day.And you say I swear more since I moved to Glasgow...
Anna takes newspaper to the counter. Puts newspaper on counter...
MAN BEHIND COUNTER: Fuck off.
ANNA: Bastard.
MAN BEHIND COUNTER: Is that everything?
ANNA: Yes, dipshit. Oooh, no, tit-wank, can I have a small a packet of Golden Virginia, twat face. Go an' Shite.
MAN BEHIND COUNTER; (reaches for tobacco, puts it on counter) There you are, fat arse.
ANNA: Needle-dick. And some papers, fuckwit.
MAN BEHIND COUNTER: (gets them)
ANNA: Christ's Balls.
MAN: Is that everything?
ANNA: Yes, you cunt.
MAN: That's Two pounds and ninety pence, bitch.
anna hands money to man behind counter
ANNA: Wanker.
MAN; Lardy cow.
man hands anna's change to anna
ANNA: Up yours.
MAN: Big hairy Bollocks. Now Fuck right off.
ANNA: Your mother sucks donkeys! Shove it up your arse, rug head!
Don't fucking tempt me.
Ah, bonfire night.
Fireworks, huge explosions of light and colour in every park and on every street corner.
And apparently some in the sky too, or so I heard report.
The smell of smoke, sulphur and charred flesh fill the air, and sound fills the mind, crackling and explosion, all the sounds of war, with ambulances, fire engines, police sirens and screaming mixed in for good measure as crowds of thousands of people gather round a large fire to burn a human effigy.
As festivals go, it must be said, there are some that I prefer more than others.
To top the night, sitting alone in a railway carriage on the way back from work tonight, travelling back to a wet suburban station at the end of a long, dark alleyway, I was overjoyed to read in the free Metro Newspaper that I am no less than 3 times more likely to get murdered in Glasgow than the national average.
Fucking thanks for that. A whole fuckbunch.
[aside, 6/11/02 - meg who is on the other end of the phone, thinks that it's quite rude that I'm typing while speaking, and is giving dictation. She would like to say that she likes the word 'fuckbunch' and doesn't think it's often enough used... I'm posting this disclaimer. Because I have to.]
Tuesday, November 05, 2002
What is the point of setting plays to read if the only way to read them is to buy them through amazon?
What's the point of that for a poor person?
Oh, gosh, that reminds me, I meant to say, I've been updating my wishlist...
Silly of me, slipped my mind...
lalalalalala...
Thank you for all the ideas.
On my first attempt I attempted to use them all, but I'm afraid it was rubbish.
I think it was the word defenestrate that threw me, which is a shame, because it's one of my favourites. Otherwise those ten ideas would have worked magically together...
Here we go...Two men in a cafe bar, while having a particularly heavy conversation about how Man A ran off with Man B's girlfriend several years beforehand over a game of chess and a cup of coffee,Did I forget anything?
after much conversation (and chess) the conflict between Man A (lets call him Benjamin) and Man B (Del) is resolved, not least because Del has, in the intervening years, travelled abroad and taken Vows of Chastity in an Albanian Monastery.
While Benjamin goes to the bathroom, Del orders something from the waitress, and after arguing over starters from behind a menu for a while, looks up to discover that the waitress is the very woman, who, in spurning his advances in letter form after they couldn't agree on the placement of their communal christmas tree, drove him to the monastic life in the first place. They get very emotional for a while, and just as they come to a resolution, Benjamin reappears and discovers that the waitress is a young woman that he happened to chat up on a peace march the week before.
As they flirt, Del realises that he is able to vocalise all their thoughts, which is a skill that comes to Albanian monks just bafore they reach true peace.
Although the initial flirtation goes well, soon our potential lovers discover they have absolutely nothing in common, and after throwing both the table and Benjamin out of the window, the waitress runs away as fast as she possibly can damaging her achilles tendon on the way.
Del spontaneously turns into a fly, the spiritual goal of his brotherhood, and lives happily ever after.
You may see why I didn't go with that.
Instead I've gone with the old "girl arrives way too early for an internet blind date, and because nervous, drinks a lot and becomes utterly repellant to blind date who comes and waits by her, without either of them realising who the other is... Until the end, when she does." story line.
I wrote it in a fit of sleeplessness last night, and lets face it, it's just going to have to do...
Monday, November 04, 2002
I've just remembered that I've got to write a 3/4 minute scene for a Playwriting class on wednesday.
On top of everything else.
And I can't for the life of me think of a scenario.
Or any characters.
I need two or three characters, in some way interacting, in some kind of scenario.
Any ideas?
A word is fine, any word. I might be inspired by a word.
Please.
There are no prizes, but there is eternal gratitude...
I can't remember how you made the hair-grow on a hair-grow Barbie.
Was it a button you pushed at the back of her head?
Or on her arse?
Or was that the Mopatop Hair shop? Did the Mopatop Hair Shop Exist?
Did you revolve her skull, like in 'The Exorcist'?
Did you just pull her blonde split ends to release the hair resevoir, stuffed up inside her little pointy head?
I can't remember. I never had one.
I only got to play with other people's, and I really can't remember.
I always wanted one.
Now I just want to be one.
Not Barbie; I don't want to be Barbie, no more than I want to be a fire truck.
I want to have magical hair.
Because maybe then it wouldn't be a problem when I woke up with my fringe at right angles to my head.
Morning, after morning, after morning.
Like a small bird trying to find a mate, puffing its feathers and having a spiky tiara of fluff.
And like the Eighties, just for me, all over again.
Jesus. It would be enough for me to say.
'Bad hair day, grumph'.
But why use one word where you can use 78?
Every time I open a new window on Marvin, he makes a noise like a kitten coughing, or someone squeezing a baby.
I find it disquietening.
Why would anyone put that noise on a computer?
Sunday, November 03, 2002
The technical information about my new pooter.
People were asking for the 'specs' on my new computer, because it's the kind of thing that people like to know.
Apparently.
Well, it's called Marvin; that's not the manufacturers name, just what I'm calling him.
And it has a photo of the North End beach on Iona [taken by Lee] as wallpaper. Which makes me very happy.
In terms of more technical information, which I think were the kind of 'specs' that people were wanting to know, well, it's grey, various shades of grey, with a nice subtle matte finish.
It's not shiny, which I think was a good decision on behalf of the manufacturer.
It has a large metal box bit which is sitting on the floor and vibrating ever so slightly. That's grey.
It has a few buttons on the front and a tongue that it sticks out when it wants feeding.
You feed it CDs.
But sometimes it sicks them up again.
It has a keyboard, which is grey.
Along with the usual assortment of letters, numbers, punctuation buttons, it also has a range of buttons at the top which have random words printed above them and scare me slightly.
These buttons are also grey.
There is a mouse, which is grey.
It is bigger then an actual mouse.
I'd say it was somewhere between hamster and rat, but that doesn't sound quite as good.
It has a little scrolly thing on the top. The scrolly thing is grey.
It has two of the cutest little grey speakers you ever saw.
They play me radio stations in Tennesee, which I think is cool.
It has a monitor, which is the size of a small house, and grey.
It's mine, and didn't cost me very much money, I found it online, it has some large amount of space inside where you can put things from the Internet.
Memory, I think.
It's quite fast.
And it has solitaire on it.
I hope that helps.
Five things I like, in no particular order;Oh look.
- Sunday mornings with nothing in them.
- Time to myself.
- Cheesy love songs on the radio.
- New pooters to play with.
- Raindrops on kittens.
- Frosty things outside, radiators inside.
- Marmalade.
- Toast.
- Satsumas.
- Juice
- Coffee strong enough to strip wallpaper. At twenty paces.
- Phone calls from loved people.
- The day stretching out in front of me.
That's lots more than 5 things.
And I have them all.
I must be very happy indeed.
Saturday, November 02, 2002
I know that everyone in the world has probably heard of "Rather Good" man, but I hadn't.
Not til today.
And now I feel sick from laughing too much while hungover...
Especially at Paverotti, who loves elephants.
And at the kittens. I was only looking doing a search on the song, and I got this...
Bonus.
I have a pooter.
I'm really quite excited about it, it being the most expensive thing I have ever owned.
And it's mine. I can download anything I like. I can have pornographic wallpaper if I choose (I don't want to, mind, thank you very much...)
Because it's mine.
Mine I tell you.
Mine!
(Evil laughter echoes around room...)
And it's unlikely I'll leave my bedroom, ever again...
I've put my AOL Instant Messaging name thing over there. ->
I don't use it often, but it's there, if you've something pressingly important that you can't put in one of those e-mails no-one ever sends me...
If you can't be arsed even to look over there, it's littleredboatuk.
I like talking to people.
This, the only e-mail I got today, the first e-mail I opened on my new pooter, is a joke, right? It's one of you yanking my chain.
Right? Because I really can't be expected to take;I have visited your site and I think that design looks not good now.seriously.
Here we are - www.templatestyles.com . Check it out! We have hired 2
new designers
from Indonesia. They rocks!
Swap your current design on ours.
Aby Sultan,
www.templatestyles.com
Marketing staff
Come on, fess up. This can't be serious.
Or you could tell me that I've opened a deadly virus, and killed my new compooter...
Did I mention that I have a new pooter?
It's new. And it's mine. I have it. It's a pooter. And it's new. And it's mine.
It's my new pooter.
I'm typing on it now.
And I'm a little bit chuffed.
Can you tell?
It rock.
Friday, November 01, 2002
Of course, the benefit of creating bruises with face paint is magnified by a thousand times when you have a doctor and a dictionary of pathology on hand to give tips.
The result, of course, are bruises so effective that people are not so much impressed as shocked and repulsed by the sight of your neck.
Which was fine, I managed to keep it under my ridiculously long scarf for most of the night.
I had to explain, to various parts of a party filled with Overseas Students, who Isadora Duncan was, and the whole 'long scarf, open top car, wheel, strangulation, death', thing. And then I'd prove my point by unwinding the scarf on what they thought was a pretty non-descript costume to reveal hideously convincing strangulation bruising.
You hardly ever get the chance to make people recoil in horror.
It was cool.
However, in the present tense, occupying my mind almost entirely, the most expensive thing I've ever bought sits on my table upstairs...
I can't quite get it to work at the moment, but I'm fizzing with excitment.
Tonight, tonight....
a weblog by anna pickard
(adrift in a sea of commuters)
(adrift in a sea of commuters)
stuff:
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