Colin Barnfather – Condolences and Memorials

Posted on 11 October 2013 By Captain Pigheart

Thank you so much to all the people who have followed the news about Colin Barnfather who went missing in the Scottish Highlands two weeks ago, and the subsequent discovery of his body. Your comments about Colin and messages of support mean the world to us. We are especially thankful to the very many people who shared links about the search and appeals to try and find him.

Funeral and Memorial Services

Colin’s funeral and memorial service will take place on:
Tuesday 22nd October, 11.20 am – 12.20 pm
at Markeaton Crematorium
Markeaton Lane
Derby DE22 4NH

We look forwards to seeing and meeting anyone and everyone who may wish to attend the service and the wake which will follow at a nearby venue (details available at the funeral). If you have a particular wish to actively participate in the service, please contact us through the email address below.

Family flowers only please, but donations to Lochaber Mountain Rescue are most welcome. Details of how to donate can be found below.

Respectful Contributions

A donation page for Colin has been created at JustGiving.com (by some wonderful people; thank you very much) where if you wish you can make a donation which will be given to Lochaber Mountain Rescue in recognition of their devotion and professionalism in searching for and recovering Colin’s body. The work they and their colleagues do is challenging, demanding and exceptional.

https://www.justgiving.com/friendsofcolinbarnfather

If you would prefer to donate by text message just send a message to 70070 containing CBRN59 and the amount you wish to donate in a text message to e.g. ‘CBRN59 £5’

It will also be possible to donate in a more traditional manner at the funeral (and the wake) itself.

In Memory

If you would like to send your condolences to our family and other friends of Colin, memories of him, photographs and anecdotes we would be immensely grateful to receive them. We only usually know the side of a person’s life that we see the most and it has become very clear over the last few days that he was known by many, many people with experiences of him that the rest of us don’t know at all. We would love to hear from anyone who knew Colin, or whose life was touched by him – no contribution is too small or too large.

I want to compile as much as we can for the family which survives him: his big sister, Jill (my Mum) and her husband, my sister Liz and my brother Tim as well as our extended family and his many friends across the world. I’d like to store all that information on a memorial website so that everyone can share in those memories and thoughts.

If you have thoughts, stories or condolences that you would like to share please send them electronically to in.memory.of.colin.barnfather@gmail.com or in real world form to the address below:
c/o Nick Tyler, 77 Windsor Street, Beeston, Nottingham NG9 2BW

Could you please tell us where you know Colin from and whether you want your name and/or email/contact details listed with them, or if you’d prefer not to.

My Uncle is Missing in Scotland (captainpigheart.com)
Thanks for Everything, But He’s Gone (captainpigheart.com)
Body found in west Highland hillwalker search (scotsman.com)

This Week, Monday 14th October 2013

Posted on 14 October 2013 By Captain Pigheart

A Blur of Days

If I thought the weekend before last took forever, this last week has taken at least a month to go past. I can remember days occurring, but not what happened in them. I’m pretty sure I just stared at my computer (no change there then). That odd sensation of being adrift in the time stream where the world just slews around you at a different speed is slowly reducing, which is good because it’s damn creepy. I’m now trying to get my routine back in shape – we were going to bed after one almost every night last week and I can’t keep doing that.

Y’know, I’m trying to write this now and it’s just a blur of non-words and emotional blanks. I really just want to get on with doing something, but it’s been another day of failing to achieve anything at work. That’s getting all too common. The most I feel I can hope to achieve is just to read a book – that seems to go alright, though when I pick it up again the next day I have to skip back a dozen pages to find anything I remember. I guess this is grief.

I went to the funeral director’s with my Mum and step-dad. I’ve never been involved at that stage before and it’s amazing how many things there are to consider, be consulted on, to approve, to debate, to get hysterical over. Obviously there are complications – Colin’s body still being in Inverness for example. I’m glad I’ve been able to offer some support to my Mum – makes it feel more like I’m doing something. After that we went to Colin’s house. He was not a tidy man… I can’t really complain – hoarding is a family curse. I found myself wondering why on earth someone would keep so many old cameras or bicycle inner tubes, before reflecting on how many hang off a nail in my garage, above the rusted frame of my last bike: chilling.

We’ve found at least some of the things we need to find though and with siblings and partners have begun to reveal some floor spaces and see the surfaces of furniture again. It doesn’t feel as personal as I’d expected, but then little of it is really personal possessions – endless letters, magazines, clothes and stuff but it doesn’t tell you much about who Col was – he was a man defined not by the things around him but by what he did. I think that’s good, but he could have used a filing system, for our sakes.

Writing

♥ This week’s scribbles
Probably… I got a few things done last week – not necessarily the stuff I wanted to do, but whatever I’d already prepared a little for. I’m struggling to even write this, let alone get on with writing more story chapters (though I want to, I really do). So this week’s going to be even more erratic I’m afraid. I’m not even going to commit to days… Mainly this week I need to write the eulogy for Colin. I’d considered writing from scratch, but I can’t face it. I feel I said much of how I felt last Sunday, so hopefully there’s enough there to adapt. Maybe it was that writing which divorced my mind from body so much, any other words I put down have less worth.

The Desert Crystals – Part 23 “Vanishing Distance” It can be hard to get perspective high above the clouds.

Stuff in the Post: Where’s the Cheese? Another fine Kickstarter project sends out their rewards.

Last week’s scribbles

Thanks For Everything, But He’s Gone – thoughts and memories of my uncle who lost his life in the Scottish Highlands last week

Book Review: Feast and Famine by Adrian Tchaikovsky – an excellent compendium of short stories

Shankchism: The Gash of Angry Poetry – some vitrilioc verse for the week

Colin Barnfather: Condolences and Memorials – funeral, memorial and charity notices for Colin

Updates on my thrilling life

Lego

Faint progress again. I decided I needed Lego so I went out and acquired Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles Lego. It’s nice stuff, and deceptively complex to build. It filled some of those brainblank moments that otherwise I’d just have stared at the wall during. I can tell I wasn’t really paying attention because I constantly forgot what page of the construction I was on and had to dismantle or figure out what the hell I’d done.

Dismantling older builds was easier and felt more productive…

Improv Comedy

Last week’s Gorilla Burger raised £110 for Colin’s JustGiving page which is really cool. I took part in Parky’s ‘Newsshite’ which was fun though I don’t remember it well. I decided to perform rather than hang back; I think it was a good idea. I did a fun ‘Hey You Down There’ with Max and enjoyed a hyperskeptical police interrogation with Amy. I drank, I laughed.
I was on better form by Saturday night, performing in Lloydie’s birthday party show – a long Armando thing – along with Marilyn. Neither of us were sure we wanted to get up there initially, but it was fun and felt like the right thing to do. We made viable, if disturbing offers and had a bunch of enjoyable scenes.

We’re back with the beginner’s tonight. It was a great thing to do last week and I totally focussed on it and forgot everything else while we were teaching. I liked that. Hopefully I’ll get into the same zone later on. The group are going to be marvellous -once more we have a strange and diverse mix of people. That range of ages, backgrounds and interests makes it fascinating to watch and prod.

Books

Makers by Cory Doctorow was brilliant. It’s carried me through the week quite well. I can’t remember what I’m reading now, but I very much doubt that’s any comment on the (mysterious) author.

Events and Excitement

Friday 25th October 2013

MissImp in Action – live improv comedy show

Thrilling all-action end of the month show sporting the best of MissImp inventing scenes and playing games.

The Glee Club
The Waterfront
Canal Street
Nottingham
8.30pm (doors open at 8pm) – £4.50 in advance/£6 on the door (£3 students/MissImp)

https://www.facebook.com/events/630962766948498/

Stuff in the Post: The Monkey and the Mouse: Where’s The Cheese?

Posted on 18 October 2013 By Captain Pigheart

Things!

I do love getting things in the post, especially stuff I don’t really feel I’ve paid for. Kickstarter gives me that pleasant vibe all the time. Partly it’s because you don’t pay when you sign up to back a project, so it’s already mythical money, and by the time it gets funded and they take your pennies I’ve already forgotten that was going to happen. Oh, and then I forget that I’ve backed it at all until a man hammers on the door and thrusts a parcel into my naked hands.

Local Projects

I spotted this project because a friend shared it on Facebook and I noticed the artist was local – a Mr Kev Brett of Nottingham. I like supporting local activities but I’m lazy so doing it online is marvellous. Kev’s been doing a webcomic for ages called The Monkey and The Mouse and was simply seeking to get it printed and lovely. I like his style of art – for want of a better description it’s very smooth and curly. It looked like a fun little comic and I was happy to back it.

I was hoping to go and meet Kev at Nerdcon in Nottingham this month, but family emergencies kind of took over. A shame; I would have liked a nice scribble in the front and the chance to say “hi”.

I have the cheese

That said I’m thrilled with the rewards – oddly the mug arrived first, in a box on its own with no note or anything. A proper surprise package! Since I’m a man over the age of 30 I already have more mugs than I can ever possibly need in several lifetimes but it’s on the front of the heap so it’s currently my breakfast tea mug. I am happy with its tea holding properties.

Then the comic itself arrived. The cover art is also on the mug and on the A4 card poster that came with the comic. The colours positively glow. The comic itself is a delightfully clean black and white throughout and I found a nice little personalised doodle and note inside. Oh – and badges! We love badges and these are charming buttons which will soon be added to the badge wall before being arbitrarily assigned to a jacket or hat. This weekend is presenting a fine opportunity to sit down and read the comic.

http://kevbrett.wordpress.com/

http://themonkeyandthemouse.com/

Kickstarter project

[kickstarter url=http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1478064521/the-monkey-and-the-mouse-wheres-the-cheese width=480]

Stuff in the Post: Skinner Co Pendant! (captainpigheart.com)

Colin Barnfather – funeral and memorial service Tuesday 22nd October 2013

Posted on 19 October 2013 By Captain Pigheart

Funeral and Memorial Services

Colin’s funeral and memorial service will take place on:

Tuesday 22nd October, 11.20 am – 12.20 pm
at Markeaton Crematorium

Markeaton Lane
Derby DE22 4NH
(Google maps link)

We look forwards to seeing and meeting anyone and everyone who may wish to attend the service and the wake which will follow at a nearby venue (details available at the funeral, or feel free to email me for details if you’re unable to make it to the service – (email Nick).

Raising Money in Colin’s Name

I’ve been very touched and delighted by all the people who have chosen to donate to the Lochaber Mountain Rescue team through the JustGiving.com/friendsofcolinbarnfather page.

I’m very grateful to Fuz, David, Parky, Di, Martin, Carla and Lloydie for their support in setting that up and for being generally quite marvellous. Even further there are a number of improv comedy groups out there who are also collecting donations, which is incredibly sweet (thank you We Are Improv and The Maydays and our home team MissImp).

If you would like to make a donation just follow the link, or if you would prefer to donate by text message just send a message to 70070 containing CBRN59 and the amount you wish to donate in a text message to e.g. ‘CBRN59 £5’. Our funeral directors, Murray’s will also receive and pass on donations.

Memories and Pictures

We would love to get a collection of photographs of Colin from his many and varied walks of life, as well as any memories or anecdotes you would care to share.

Please email anything you may wish to share to in.memory.of.colin.barnfather@gmail.com or in real world form to the address below:
c/o Nick Tyler, 77 Windsor Street, Beeston, Nottingham NG9 2BW

Awaiting an End

So… Colin’s funeral and memorial service is on Tuesday. I’ve written my eulogy and I think it’s okay. I wrote and read a eulogy for my Nanna’s funeral and I remember it being a peculiar experience. I’m used to performance and saying things in front of lots of people, but that’s usually improvised and I stand by my belief that everything is fine as long as you don’t plan it. Once you’ve written something there is endless possibility for disaster, every word is a raised paving slab and every dot and slash of punctuation an enladdered bucket. There’s a lot of responsibility to say the right thing, and not nervously say anything appalling (genuine risk for me).

I’m slightly calmed by the knowledge that although I’m speaking first, three other people who knew Colin in different aspects of his life will be speaking afterwards. I’m looking forwards to hearing from his colleagues at Rolls Royce and the ATC where he spent so much of his time. Between us we can hopefully come close to encapsulating his life in affectionate and warm words.

It’s a curious event to look forwards to, but I am looking forwards to meeting people who I’ve only exchanged messages with since Colin’s death. It has also been a rather fraught few weeks and I hope Tuesday will help along that sense of closure which it traditionally provides. Perhaps bursting into tears over my script will help…

Related articles

Thanks for Everything, But He’s Gone
(captainpigheart.com)

My Uncle is Missing in Scotland
(captainpigheart.com)

This week, Monday 21st October 2013

Posted on 21 October 20133 February 2020 By Captain Pigheart

The Times They Are A-Changing

For some reason the classic song by that guy who can’t really sing has been playing in my head quite a lot this week. Bob Dylan, that’s the feller. I’ve no real interest in his music and even that most famous song I only really know from the film adaptation of The Watchmen. There it provides the backing from the incredible opening scenes of the twentieth century with superheroes. It’s exciting and bleak and frightening all at the same time. I can’t hear it without seeing a blue guy blast Vietcong into bones. So I’m not sure why I’ve been hearing it all week. Strange.

I think things are slowly coming back together after Colin’s death. The eulogy has occupied my thoughts (as well as that song) for much of the week, it’s an honour to speak at someone’s funeral but ya wanna get it right, y’know? I can only do things the way that I do them. That’s Tuesday.

Despite all of that I may have achieved a few things at work, finally. Maybe the next few months won’t be absolute hell…

Writing

♥ This week’s scribbles

I’m still struggling to pit fingers against keys effectively, which is annoying me no end. It’s like a fog descends over my mind. I’ve had ideas but they evaporate when I try to write them down. I’m not even getting angry, just weary. That said, I did get a flash of scribbling inspiration on Saturday afternoon and so have finally written part 23 of The Desert Crystals! Hurray! I decided not to squeeze it into last weekend and I’ll shove it out into the world next Thursday as I begin to get my scribbles back on schedule.

The Desert Crystals – Part 23 “Vanishing Distance” It can be hard to get perspective high above the clouds.

Film Review Round Up: Prisoners & How We Live Now (2013) A terrible pair of films to watch while a family member is missing.

Last week’s scribbles

Stuff in the Post: The Monkey and The Mouse – Where’s the Cheese? Another fine Kickstarter project sends out their rewards.

Updates on my thrilling life

Lego

I’ve been really good at not indulging in Lego retail therapy and I’m unreasonably proud of myself. One of the things I’m looking forwards to in life returning to normal will be some building time. That same brain fug that fucks up writing also makes the bricks into incomprehensible plastic lumps.

I’ve also backed another of Guy Himber’s Kickstarter projects – Skulls. He’s the chap who did the awesome Pigs vs Cows which I still need to make good use of. His new project is delightfully detailed, well – skulls – as you might guess. There’s a mix of skulls with studs on top (to add hats!) and without. I’ve no idea what I want to do with them, but I love that they’re going to exist.

Improv Comedy

I’m very pleased with our new beginners. They are funny and fun. We have a nice number – eight – which means they get to play lots and we get to laugh and offer assistance. On Thursday we played with the ‘Living Room’ format. It’s fun but I’m not sure I’d be interested in watching it unless I knew the participants. One thing I did very much like though was having scenes that were possibly just one or two lines long without there being any pressure to extend them or take it anywhere. That was rather nice.

Books

I’ve had to half re-read the book I was struggling to recall last week because so little had been absorbed by the meat in my skull. It was Neal Asher’s The Engineer: reconditioned – a bunch of novellas from his Polity universe, which I adore. They were all strong and featured his trademark hideous alien creatures with horribly alien behaviour. Of the sci-fi authors I read he seems to have the best grasp of just how alien things can get – everything on Spatterjay (Hooper’s World) for example…

I’ve been spending my otherwise blankly staring lunchtimes by reading more of Atomic Robo‘s fantastic ‘Action Science’ adventures. I know I’m always late to the party but isn’t that what’s wonderful about this era of technology? Right now we have the potential to keep everything forever (or until we destroy the world properly anyway), so we can discover awesome things months and years after they were created. Since I don’t spend my hours browsing Gawker, YouTube and Reddit I am constantly decades behind the thrilling memes that Twitter twatters on about. I’ve not yet regretted that distance.

Events and Excitement

Friday 25th October 2013

MissImp in Action – live improv comedy show

Thrilling all-action end of the month show sporting the best of MissImp inventing scenes and playing games.

The Glee Club
The Waterfront
Canal Street
Nottingham
8.30pm (doors open at 8pm) – £4.50 in advance/£6 on the door (£3 students/MissImp)

https://www.facebook.com/events/630962766948498/

Saturday 26th October 2013

Knickerbocker Glorious

Live and free in-street entertainment from Furthest from the Sea‘s finest musicians, spoken word artists and whatever else we can jam on a stage.

The Fountain
Market Place
Derby
11am-3pm
https://www.facebook.com/events/531624910217919/

Thursday 31st October 2013
Cabaret XXXI

An evening of fine food, Prohibition cocktails and roaring Cabaret entertainment

The Lacehouse
Stoney Street
Nottingham
7pm-11pm

https://www.facebook.com/events/167224226812108/

Colin Barnfather 1959-2013 RIP

Posted on 22 October 2013 By Captain Pigheart

Today we cremate my beloved uncle and friend Colin Barnfather and celebrate his life and how he has affected those around him.

https://www.justgiving.com/friendsofcolinbarnfather

Related articles

Colin Barnfather – funeral and memorial service Tuesday 22nd October 2013

The Desert Crystals – Part 23: Vanishing Distance

Posted on 24 October 201321 October 2019 By Captain Pigheart

Part 23 – Vanishing Distance

Rosenhatch Traverstorm stumbled out of the main hatch and onto the deck of The Dove’s Eye as she slewed wildly to port, almost hurling him to the floor. He barely maintained his firm grip on the biscuit tin he held with both hands.

One of Lord Corshorn’s crew rushed to him, clipped a lifeline to his belt and ran aft without so much as a word. The lifelines radiated out from the lifestem, the iron structure that joined ship to the air-rack to which the canopy was affixed. Between the two hung a series of rings to which the many lifelines were attached, making a hissing rattle as the lives they held ran across the deck. An intricate sequence of catches and sub-rings allowed the ropes to criss-cross without snarling the crew into tight knots.

Rosenhatch ducked under the more tightly wound lines about the edge of the ship where crew were undertaking some activity or other beneath the gondola itself.

He spotted Harvey without trouble, noting that even his enormous friend had been tethered to the deck. The vessel twisted sharply to starboard, this time tossing Rosenhatch off his feet and the tin out of his grasp. Lord Corshorn smartly snapped it out of the air, his feet remaining miraculously in touch with the bucking deck.

“Biscuits Traverstorm? It’s hardly the time for tea.”

“Indeed not, and I’d advise caution when opening it,” Rosenhatch pulled himself up, using Harvey’s shell for support, “I think we’ve found what pressed poor Bublesnatch into madness.”

Corshorn levered up the tin’s lid and recoiled at the sight of the white grub thrashing about in its interior. “Dear lord – from his eyes?”

“Well, one of them anyhow. We’ll need to fashion the lad a patch if he ever regains consciousness. The ghastly things burst out but we contained them all. I’ve no great hopes for his other eye mind, I wondered if you might take a glimpse Harvey.”

Traverstorm took the tin from the captain and popped it open for Harvey. He winced as the giant centipede speared the grub with his foot and brought it mere inches from his mandibles and eyes.

“Intriguing. From his eyes you say?” Harvey took Traverstorm’s nod for agreement and lightly snipped off the grub’s head with his mandibles. Traverstorm and Corshorn both looked away somewhat greener than before.

Harvey ejected the creature’s head neatly onto another of his feet. “Larval, obviously. It would be interesting to see precisely what they become. I trust we still have other specimens?”

“Oh yes, we’ve got at least a dozen of them.”

“Excellent. If you wouldn’t mind preserving a few, and dissecting one I’d be most grateful Rosenhatch.”

“Certainly, as long as all this banging about hasn’t harmed our kit,” he offered a querying eyebrow to the captain,” but I’m rather more concerned about the boy’s other eye.”

“I’m loath to suggest slicing it open, and it’s already taken several washes. I wonder if we might prise it out, with a spoon or similar and see if we can’t cut the eggs off the back. If they are inside the eyeball then there’s not much hope.” Harvey mused.

“Fascinating,” interjected the captain, “and though I share your concern for the boy’s eye you may have noticed we’re in some difficulty up here as well.” He gestured at the darkness which surrounded the airship. “It seems we are not quite where we thought we were.”

“I thought we were mapping the place,” remarked Rosenhatch.

“We were, but that’s become difficult – Harvey?”

“Yes captain. Initially I could sense the various openings and and spaces within this Sky Cliff, but it has all begun to change. The very structure of the place is changing. You recall that central pit we were heading for? Well it’s gone now. I am unable to predict where we are heading for more than a few moments at a time, hence our rather hasty corrections.”

Traverstorm had not previously noticed the silk flags tied to two pairs of Harvey’s legs. During their conversation he had been flicking them, apparently at random, but Traverstorm now dimly perceived them as directions to the crew.

“Ah,” Harvey’s gentle tone belied the stress behind it, “gentlemen I believe that we are trapped.”

As if to emphasise Harvey’s warning a deep groan echoed around them, shortly followed by a shriek from below the airship.

“Haul ’em up lads, do it now!” bellowed Lord Corshorn and immediately a series of pulleys snapped taut the lifelines and reeled in furiously. The crewmen on the other ends appeared suddenly in the light of the airship’s deck as if flying in from the darkness. A couple fell hard to the deck where their mate picked them up, but the more experienced skipped through the air, apparently having run up the ship’s side and landed neatly in the centre of the deck as the pulleys slackened their grip.

“Report,” commanded the captain..

“Sir, we’re being squeezed in. I was hanging off the keel and touched rock with my boots, then it pressed up.” The speaker wiped sweat from her forehead and unconsciously squeezed the lifeline between her fists.

“She’s right,” Harvey added, “this cavern’s growing smaller.”

The ship suddenly lurched again, this time without direction from the centipede.

“Dammit, it’s squeezing the bags. We’ll be crushed by them if can’t get free. I’m open to suggestions.”

Blank and panicked looks were shared by all, except for the crewmember who had come up from below. Her name – Freymald – popped into Traverstorm’s head as she spoke again:

“Fire, sir. I dropped my lantern when I was standing on the cavern, sir. It broke on the rock , and well it sounds strange sir, but it twitched, and pulled back away from me. Like it was alive sir.”

“That sounds exactly as strange as everything else we’ve encountered here. Fire it is.”

Shouts, cries and the usual business of ordering a ship about followed. Harvey untethered himself and dashed aft to retrieve the enormous cannon he had toted earlier when facing the winged beasts. Traverstorm stood, holding the empty biscuit tin until Freymald seized him by the arm.

“You’ll not want to be standing here in about a minute Professor,” she said, hauling him towards the cabins, “the captain’s about to light our way.”

They reached the hatchway and clipped themselves onto the internal lifelines that ran along the inside of the hallways, then leaned out of the doorway to watch.

Harvey re-emerged with the artillery strapped to his shell. Two crewmen anchored him firmly, driving bolts of steel into the wooden deck at four points around him. Another pair of crewmen crouched by the railings at the front of the gondola, hugging canvas sacks to their chests. Harvey’s gun let out an aching roar and it blazed its charges into the darkness. Instead of just disappearing into the abyss, they struck the walls of the cavern almost immediately, lighting up a stretch of grey rock which flinched and writhed in the explosive light. His volley paused for a moment and the crouching crewmen leaped to their feet and off the railings, landing on the volatile rock face beyond. With hammers and pitons they fastened the canvas sacks to the wall and threw themselves back on board.

Harvey gave them a moment to move aside before unleashing another fusillade from his mighty weapon. The canvas sacks detonated immediately, searing the front of the gondola. The scream that followed shook the vessel and her crew to the bone. The whole cavern spasmed around them and the rock face ahead of them fell away. They began to move, lurchingly thrust past the burning wall. The Dove’s Eye bumped and grated as it was forced through the vast Sky Cliff, forced onwards with its flaming prow jabbing at the rocks which folded away to avoid its touch. With a harrowing tearing sound from high above the airship, they burst out into daylight.

Next Week: Part 24 – The Taste of Light

In the same series:

The Desert Crystals – Part 22: Dead Air (captainpigheart.com)
The Desert Crystals – Part 21: Nascent Horrors (captainpigheart.com)
The Desert Crystals – Part 20: Eye in the Sky (captainpigheart.com)
The Desert Crystals – Part 19: Newly Bespectacled (captainpigheart.com)
The Desert Crystals – Part 18: Cut and Dried (captainpigheart.com)
The Desert Crystals – Part 17: Stolen in the Breeze (captainpigheart.com)
The Desert Crystals – Part 16: Look But Don’t Touch (captainpigheart.com)
The Desert Crystals – Part 15: Blood’s The Thing (captainpigheart.com)
The Desert Crystals: part 1 (captainpigheart.com)

This week, Monday 28th October 2013

Posted on 28 October 2013 By Captain Pigheart

So All Back To Normal Then?

Well, no not really. Last week still felt very much as if it was about Colin. Obviously there was the funeral and memorial service on Tuesday which certainly occupied my thoughts for all of the weekend and Monday and Tuesday. I did enjoy the wake in particular though – it was wonderful to see so many people celebrating Colin’s life. It was also nice to see some family members I haven’t seen or spoken to in quite some time; I suppose it’s sad that it takes these events to bring people together.

I haven’t done a whole lot with the rest of the week… well, not in my mind anyway. We’ve seen some films, did a show on Friday, then Knickerbocker Glorious on Saturday and been out for several bouts of drinks. So… I guess we’ve actually done quite a lot!

Writing

♥ Scribbles of time and space

*Sigh* life hasn’t quite snapped back to itself yet, so I did fail to do more last week than post the most recent chapter of The Desert Crystals. Maybe it will take slightly longer to get myself back together. I don’t yet know what I’m going to get up to this week…

In Memory: Sadness and Laughter – thoughts on the funeral of my uncle, Colin Barnfather.

The Desert Crystals – Part 24 “The Taste of Light” – freshly escaped from the monsters in the sky, a moment of peace can be hoped for.

Last Week:

The Desert Crystals – Part 23 “Vanishing Distance” It can be hard to get perspective high above the clouds.

Updates on my thrilling life

Lego

I feel shame that I haven’t been building… I did acquire the Colby City Showdown at a decent price however while tootling around book and toy shops in Derby on Saturday. I had hoped to build it, but I was exhausted and stared at things on Saturday night until falling asleep… Next weekend!

Improv Comedy

Our improv beginners were marvellous on Monday – they are not only really rather entertaining to observe and assist, but have proven themselves to be legendarily fine distraction of a Monday evening during this rather trying time. Thanks guys!

Last week’s jam was my attempt to impart some love of Shakespearean styles as passed on to me at The Maydays Residential Improv Festival in September. I focussed on getting the feel of iambic pentameter into our heads and mouths. It went well – people said strange and beautiful things.

MissImp in Action! We’re still experimenting with a mixed show format and personally I’m getting a lot out of it. It’s reignited a pleasant sensation of excitement and anticipation with not quite knowing how it will go. This month Parky led us into an initial half hour of shortform games (I only played a splendid Should Have Sung with Parky about running a human hair emporium, y’know, for cloning and such) followed by Newsshite which offered opportunities for German soldiers, hellish imps, French film voiceover and much more. We need to tighten it up a bit but I’m digging the variety. The second half started with my beloved Unspeakable Acts – the audience selected Pretty Woman for us to abuse. And we did… pipe smoking financiers, magicians and a prostitute with a prosthetic leg with spring-loaded toes. Enormous fun. We finished with a round of short form games and an evil, impossible Party Quirks that utterly blew my mind.

I was very conscious afterwards that Colin wasn’t there, which made me feel very sad. I felt it was a really strong show for me and I’d have loved for him to see it. I can take some comfort in how much he enjoyed our ludicrous version of Jaws a few months ago.

Events and Excitement

Monday 28th October

Mayhem Improv Monday – The Show

A brand new show featuring a mix of shortform and longform sketches from Nottingham’s up and coming improv talent.

The Corner
8 Stoney Street
(off Broad Street)
Nottingham

8.00pm – FREE

https://www.facebook.com/events/629109527110874/

Thursday 31st October 2013

Cabaret XXXI

An evening of fine food, Prohibition cocktails and roaring Cabaret entertainment

The Lacehouse
Stoney Street
Nottingham
7pm-11pm

https://www.facebook.com/events/167224226812108/

In Memory: Sadness and Laughter

Posted on 29 October 201311 December 2022 By Captain Pigheart

Funeral Review?

Well, the funeral and memorial service for my uncle, Colin Barnfather went well last week. It’s a strange thing to say, but I think it was the best funeral I’ve been to… (not just me; several other people said so too). It was certainly the longest. I’ve been fortunate to have had few causes to attend funerals, and this was the second one at which I’ve spoken. We had a double slot (about an hour) which have plenty of opportunity for people to share their recollections of Colin. As we arrived the ATC 126th had arranged an honour guard who stood waiting for the arrival of Colin’s body and family. That in itself was a touching tribute to how much influence Col had on the lives of others. It was also the first hint at the depth and complexity of the man.

We entered to the strains of the Star Trek theme, as arranged by Michael Giacchino (the end credits from the remake). It is a peculiarly moving piece of music, and I suspect will be ever more so for me now. It did raise a grin to my face, which is pleasingly incongruous for a funeral. The room was rammed. I was pleasantly surprised – I’d had a horrible notion that the room would be empty, but there was no chance of that, with people standing all the way around as the chairs were all taken.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jtl0aQCauJA&w=560&h=315]

Our humanist celebrant, Martin Fowkes gave a simple but moving introduction for Colin and led us through the various speakers and into the committal. Personally I’m grateful for his warm and sensitive facilitation of the service. I’ve been to some religious services and I find their focus on myth rather than the person who has died to be quite offensive. This felt like a true celebration of Colin’s life with tributes from all parts of his life.

Tributes

First we heard from the Chaplain of 126 (Derby) Squadron ATC, Amanda who spoke about how Colin had been involved in the ATC since he was thirteen! I hadn’t realised, or acknowledged I suppose, quite the level of importance that the cadets played in his life. Countless anecdotes and thoughts and actions of Colin’s made me smile throughout. The next tribute was from Iain at Rolls Royce where Colin worked for, well I can’t remember how long (many details are a blur from the morning) which again was touching, recognisable and affectionate. Iain spoke of his dedication, knowledge and integrity in a way that made me feel very proud of my uncle. The tribute that moved me most was that by his best friend, Richard. More than any of the others, Richard’s words told of a man who was a wonderful friend, godfather to his children and a constant companion and part of his life; I feel Richard’s loss very strongly.

My Tribute

I spoke on behalf of our closest family, but mainly for myself. In eulogy more than anything I else I realise that I’m always writing about me, and in this case how Colin affected my life, and my life with my other half. I also wanted to tell the story of what happened to Colin in Scotland and the narrative that I felt just needed words to be pinned to it. It’s a sad story, but only because it ends sadly for Colin. The impact he’s had on everyone else will continue to be felt for the rest of our lives.

If you would like to read my tribute to my uncle you can read it here: Colin’s Eulogy.

What I really loved was that all the tributes were funny; I find that humour punctuates sadness so much more effectively than anything else. Tears and laughter are found in all parts of our lives, and I’ve found that for me tears don’t come easily and rarely come with grief; I was content to smile and feel grins aching up through my chest and throat. Colin will remain in my mind a funny person, with countless odd habits and admirable qualities, the sum of which made him a most remarkable man. The music Mum chose for exiting Markeaton Crematorium was the cricket test match theme – an infuriatingly cheerful slice of music actually called Soul Limbo which seems apt. Again, it was the presence and attentiveness of the cadet honour guard with their flags and poise to me spoke eloquently with respect and affection.

Outside was oddly hilarious to me – you get led out into a little concrete area where they lay the wreaths and other floral tributes. It’s really weird – only family really go in there and everyone else mills about outside. It’s like being in a cage. It was nice to see the floral tribute for Col – we had found a nice old pair of leather walking boots in his house and they had been filled with heather and other highlands-like flowers. Really pretty. I was very grateful to the rest of our family and our friends.

Then we went to the pub… not quite like that, but a lot of people did come back for drinks and refreshments and I very much enjoyed the opportunity to meet and talk to people I have only recently known through the stressful period while Colin was missing. Everyone told me something about him that made me laugh and deepen my understanding of a man I can no longer get to know better myself.

Donations

I’m delighted to report that our campaign to raise funds for Lochaber Mountain Rescue has now achieved over £1000 of donations: https://www.justgiving.com/friendsofcolinbarnfather

Slightly Broken: Getting a Good Bad Night’s Sleep

Posted on 30 October 201311 December 2022 By Captain Pigheart

It Cannot Be Morning Already

And yet it is; the horror. I’ve been sleeping weirdly for the last month I think. It’s a combination of lots of things. It certainly started when Colin went missing and the general increase in stress and anxiety that followed was naturally accompanied by ‘variation’ of my evening routines, so that I was drinking in the evenings in addition to my usual dose of amitriptyline (damn that word, it never looks right). I know full well that will mess me up, but it definitely makes me extra sleepy and I was grateful for that, since for one reason or another we struggled to go to bed before 1 am.

The consequences of that roll through the next day… it’s considerably harder for me to get up and go on alcohol + sleeping tablets, so my mornings crash and burn into a slurred lethargy and I’m knackered by the time evening spreads its dark wings over me. It cheerfully reawakened the ‘second wind’ phenomenon of waking up again in the evening. That pushes the time I get round to taking sleeping tablets back further and encourages a glass of whiskey or beer to start the relaxation ball off again. So it’s an obvious vicious circle that is surprisingly hard to get out of again.

I’m slowly pulling out of that circuit, though I must admit that we’ve retained our usual fairly busy lives which also conspire to prevent the earliness of sleep. I need to vigorously reinforce my routine of Ami at 7.30pm, all electronika (minus Kindle) off at ten and be in bed at eleven. It will help, I just need to make it happen. This morning is sufficient evidence – although my eyes feel sticky I did haul my corpse out of bed at 7.40am and have bumbled through breakfast and am now able to scribble here. I haven’t managed to write in the morning for at least a month. It’s good, though I’ve got a cracking headache coming on. Hurrah.

Ding Dong, Summer Is Dead

The clocks went back at the weekend (which already feels like weeks ago, so I guess I’m still suffering from time dilation) which is the only way round I ever enjoy our ludicrous practice of pretending it’s an hour earlier or later to briefly and ineffectually see slightly more sun in the morning. Personally I’m baffled by the whole British Summer Time affair. I’m certain that we spend more time changing the times on our clocks than could possibly compensate for ‘gaining’ an hour. If you want to see more sunshine – start getting up earlier. Would it really be so hard to just do things earlier? Who the fuck is being successfully tricked into thinking they’ve actually got an ‘extra’ hour? Every year this makes me angry. It’s certainly confused our cat, who now begins bouncing around with daintily clumsy paws at about half past six. That really helps…

It’s All In My Head, Man….

I’ve also been dreaming vividly again. I used to dream very intensely in my late teens and mid-twenties with frequent lucid components and regularly recalling three or four of the dreams each night. It’s fun and interesting to dream like that, but again, I’d wake up exhausted having spent the night running away from zombies or battling fish in space. Maybe it’s related to the change of season, coupled with the abuses of my routine. Normally in summer I’m bitterly resentfully woken early by the cursed rising sun, but this year the wondrous Ami has kept that at bay and I haven’t been disturbed at all. So why would the decline of sun in the morning make a difference? I’ve no idea. These are morning word babblings, don’t blame me if they don’t make sense.

I realised as I woke up this morning from the sea of sleep that I’ve been having the same dream for days, if not longer. They slip and slide from my view when I wake up (as well they ought, the distracting bloody things), but being woken several times by a cat slipping and snortle-purring into my face allowed me to rise briefly from the dream before returning to its deeps. It’s a simple dream of death – always cheery.

In the dream I am hugely anxious and distressed about the killings that have taken place – there are five bodies of young people buried within ten yards of each other in an area of common land bound by tall brick walls and the terraces that vanish off on either side. There’s a path that leads through the common, with crumbled brick edges that passes a large pond of grim grimy green water and the remains of a Japanese water garden. I’ve witnessed three of the murders personally, being the person murdered each time. I am aware that there are more deaths because once dismembered and in the earth, damp from the pond water and wrapped in a sheet, I can see one other shrouded body through the mud.

The fifth body I know about because I am playing most of the roles in the dream and switch perspective as required – the fifth we find and disinter beyond the right wall, below a tatty clothes line that holds only pegs and the ghosts of clothes. The graves are shallow and callously hewn for these brutalised bodies (my brutalised bodies), and though there is no recollection as the person who uncovers them that we are the same person, nonetheless a miasma of horror and fear permeates all the perspectives. We return to the discovery of the bodies over and over again, focussing on the child who lies weeping in death, the one who retains a violent shuddering and the empty eye sockets of the third.

Eventually we come to suspects and watching for the deaths, so I suppose we’re going backwards. Despite that, the murders have happened and the murderer, rather than the potential murderer is sought. He becomes less of a murderer as we go on. I knew who the murderer would be, I think, right through the dream. Focussing on the deaths and the discoveries just hid that away for the longest time, but finally he’s there, seen through the clouds of dust and fog that blanket the common land, appearing from over the brick walls. A dark ghost; the only character not played by me; the only character I’d never wish to, never to seek to play. And he kills them again.

This time though, there are witnesses – we expected him. Though the children die again, they leave clues to mark their passing. A scrap of paper, a wad of chewing gum. The bodies are found sooner. Perhaps this time we’ll catch him. But then we wake up.

The Desert Crystals – Part 24: The Taste of Light

Posted on 2 November 201321 October 2019 By Captain Pigheart

Part 24 – The Taste of Light

The sun had heated the breeze and sent it mischievous and daring through between branches of devil-trees and into the long helmet grasses surrounding the master airfield. It chased fakemice and thornbirds out of their roosts and perches, distressing their feathers and brush-teeth. Agitated and spoiling for a fight two fakemice espied and assailed the nest that hanged low from the peak of a stand of helmet grass. An unwise choice on their part; halfway up the stem the bottom of the nest tore open, dropping a bundle of squirming teeth and beaks onto the bolder of the fakemice, almost instantly shredding its feathery coat.

The slower, or luckier fakemouse shrieked and abandoned the venture, bounding into the deeper grass. A cautionary check behind itself for pursuit showed only the minor-gambimole’s tearing slivers off its former companion and returning to their nest. That glance was enough for the fakemouse to be snatched up by a thornbird roused by the racket and swallowed whole. The clatter of the thornbird’s teeth hid its prey’s death cries.

The breeze carried on, undeterred by the blood in its wake or the thornbird vomiting chunks of fakemouse into its kinder-pouches. The thick copses that punctured the grass slowly thinned out into garden and trimmed order. The rich scent of honey and appledarts cleansed the wind of its past. Here it plucked cheerfully at hair and leaves, playful again. Spotting an opportunity it caught at the sheaf of papers which rested precariously on the edge of a folding table, gently nudging them clockwise across its corner. The updraft gave the sheets a flutter, teasing them off the table.

Emaille lunged forwards and snatched a handful of paper from the wind’s grip. He returned them to the centre of the table, next to a sliding dune of similarly rescued papers, sketches and photographs. Casually he placed another hunk of rock on top of the additional papers, which joined the motley collection of garden stones, paperweights carved from geological oddities (notably a rare fossilised gambimole footprint) and the thumb spine of a Cactus Lion presently engaged in defending his work from the elements.

The proximity of the Cactus Lion’s spine set a fearful itch to work in his jaw. The familiar bone-deep itching irresistibly drew thumb to face. He ran it hard into the deep crenelations left there by the spines that had punched all the way through the bones of his face. Although pain had accompanied their acquisition, time had softened the memory and rounded it with thoughts that made Emaille smile wistfully as his thumb rose and fell along his jawline. The zephryous weather whisked his hair across his face, tickling and blinding. He fell back in his chair and thrust his hair back behind his head, tying it loosely with the leather thong dangling from his right wrist.

Though Emaille was supposedly working in the garden, he had in fact been deeply engaged in staring into the middle distance. Brought back to himself by the breeze he took a moment to glance over the messy rabble of paperwork weighted to the table. His article was in middle of revisions, and consequently marred by rivulets of red scribbles running between margins, up down and across the papers. Most of the handwriting was his, but a more crimson vein had been opened by his rather more critical colleague Professor Ryme, despite the latter’s reluctance to acknowledge Emaille’s field at all. He sighed; what else was there to do? Almost all of Ryme’s spidery commentary was worthless, but he would have to incorporate at least some suggestions if he was to have any hopes of committee approval.

The sheer frustration of dealing with the academic hierarchy was easily enough to drive a person quite insane; a concern that Emaille’s partner, Mehlion tended to note just before departing on another aerial voyage. Emaille sighed again and stretched backwards in his chair until it rocked onto two legs and only his bare toes kept any grip on the wiry grass beneath. He tipped back to earth, and rose to his feet with the bounce. As he returned to the world outside of his work the sounds of the grass being blown seeped back into his awareness, followed by the clatter of stoneleaf trees as the leaves vied for sunlight.

The twins were out of sight and for a moment Emaille stiffened, until a giggle preceded Chilai bursting out the purple bushes in the middle of the garden with Erlaigh tripping on her heels. Emaille allowed himself to breathe; he hadn’t been quite so inattentive as to lose track completely of the pair. He had however lost track of his article. The twins vanished into another thicket of carefully clipped plants in a blizzard of papery leaves and tiny blue flowers.

Emaille sighed again and sifted through the papers until he found what he was looking for: his letter book. Mehlion had left him a letter, as usual before departing with The Dove’s Eye and Lord Corshorn. As usual, Mehlion had hidden it in their house and it had taken three days for Emaille to find it. He was certainly glad he’d found it before either of the twins. Their letters had been slightly easier to find – Mehlion had hid one inside Erlaigh’s favourite book and Chilai’s had been between the last two slices of bread in the loaf. Emaill’s letter was taped behind the bedframe, where it would be barely visible in the mirror on the other side of their bedroom. If Emaille wore a cravat more often he might have spotted it sooner while struggling with the knot.

The least Emaille could do was to write a letter in return. It was highly unlikely any airships would be heading out in the same direction as the Traverstorm expedition, so Mehlion would have a stack of similarly well secreted missives on his return. With that thought in mind Emaille set pen to paper and smiled at the sound of their children play-fighting.

Next Week: Part 25 – Ghosts of Dawn

In the same series:

The Desert Crystals – Part 23: Vanishing Distance (captainpigheart.com)
The Desert Crystals – Part 22: Dead Air (captainpigheart.com)
The Desert Crystals – Part 21: Nascent Horrors (captainpigheart.com)
The Desert Crystals – Part 20: Eye in the Sky (captainpigheart.com)
The Desert Crystals – Part 19: Newly Bespectacled (captainpigheart.com)
The Desert Crystals – Part 18: Cut and Dried (captainpigheart.com)
The Desert Crystals: part 1 (captainpigheart.com)

This week, Monday 4th November 2013

Posted on 5 November 2013 By Captain Pigheart

Autumn’s Fallen

It’s been a nice quiet week, followed by a nice quiet weekend of getting some sleep and not doing very much. I have enjoyed it! Mainly I’ve been noticing the wind howling down our road the last couple of nights. We didn’t get anything from the much rumoured storm of the century earlier in the week though, which is sort of disappointing. We don’t get a lot of interesting weather in Nottingham – shielded as we are from the best and worst of it all. It was windy enough to be irritating when cycling to the chip shop – forcing me to actually pedal in one direction was tiresome. I much prefer to be pushed.

With the prospect of radical change in the near future at work we’ve been given access to ‘enhanced’ career/finding a job guidance. The first day of that was primarily looking at CVs and how they can be written as well as information about how best to seek future employment. It was interesting and the gentleman running the session was knowledgeable and funny, plus we got chatting about favourite sci-fi novels, so I felt very comfortable.

Many things became clear during the day for me. The first was that I don’t want to seek work doing the kind of performance management, spreadsheet and query writing activity that I spend much of my time doing. I like training people, that’s dynamic and fun and has high potential for spontaneity and improvisation. It’s also the arena in which I can make best use of my communication skills and can synthesise information from the specialist and generalised information I’m good at holding in my head, and then direct that straight to those who need it, in what feels like the best way at the time. Spontaneity and communication seem to be the aspects of my work, and of improv that I most enjoy.

While looking at CVs I realised that the key achievements and experience I would wish to talk about are mostly related to MissImp, not the work that occupies my daytime. The experiences that have had the strongest effect on me are those of performing and organising improv comedy, as well as going through counselling and writing about my various journeys. I’m quite comfortable speaking about mental health and myself and I wonder if there is a genuine role out there where I can use these skills and experiences to be of benefit to others and accomplish something that I feel is worthwhile. Mental health outreach in schools? I’m unsure, but I’m strongly interested. If you have any ideas I’d love to hear them!

Writing

I didn’t get as much done last week as I’d hoped, I suspect applying pressure to get more writing done is likely proving counter-productive. It’s going to be a useful measure of returning to reality. I’m quite pleased with last week’s Desert Crystals, I’ve wanted to do a follow up chapter to the first person account of Mehlion, who (unnamed at the time) falls from the airship to his death (presumably – he’s a long way up!) but struggled to find an angle that felt right, since his family can’t possibly know that he’s missing or dead.
Re-reading Part 14: A Timely Intervention felt personally quite poignant; I’d forgotten the feelings I ascribed to a man falling to his death. It’s strange what we find ourselves writing about. I do want to follow his family alongside the rest of the story. I always struggle a bit with red shirts in fiction – that they die serves no purpose and they don’t get to be treated as people. I’m going to try not to do that in my writing (unless I want to!)

♥ Scribbles of time and space

Lego Blog: Sticking Bricks Together – it’s easier to make odd things than good things.

The Desert Crystals – Part 25 “Ghosts of Dawn” – morning comes at last for the crew of The Dove’s Eye.

Last Week:

In Memory: Sadness and Laughter – thoughts on the funeral of my uncle, Colin Barnfather.

Slightly Broken: Getting A Good Bad Night’s Sleep – horrible dreams and failing to sleep properly.

The Desert Crystals – Part 24 “The Taste of Light” – freshly escaped from the monsters in the sky, a moment of peace can be hoped for.

Updates on my thrilling life

Improv Comedy

I’m a big fan of Improv4Humans, a podcast by UCB founder Matt Besser. It’s a consistently funny podcast with some delightful improv and often entertaining, interesting discussions about improv and the people who do improv. I was disappointed and a little surprised (I suppose I shouldn’t have been) when had a bit of a rant about hating shortform. Shortform’s the stuff we grew up watching on Whose Line Is It Anyway? and for lots of people who do improv it’s either the first thing they do or what they cut their improv teeth on or what they find themselves doing on stage. But there’s an especially noxious snobbery about shortform vs longform. Like most snobbery it’s unjustified and exists to boost one’s self perception as being better than someone else.

The skills required and used in shortform and longform are the same, particularly when you acknowledge that “longform” is a rubbish term since it includes very short scenes as well as hour long pieces off a single suggestion. I don’t find the terms helpful; games and scenes may be a better description than shortform and longform. The only difference, as far as I can tell, having done both for a while is that shortform games provide and require an additional constraint or element that is not organically generated by the performers. People sometimes talk about there being a different mentality involved, that longform requires greater attention and skills. Sorry, but that’s just snobbery again. Those same abilities to listen, to adapt, to recognise and build on opportunities in a scene are all still there in shortform, you’ve just got to do something else as well. External intervention exists in most longform too – editing of scenes, tagging in and out, jumping the timeframes. These can all be someone who is not (right now) in your scene forcing a change on it. You can perhaps make a case for greater concentration needed in a longform set, but I think that’s pretty weak as well. If you can’t concentrate on what’s going on you’re not going to successfully play an Alphabet Game or an Armando.

The differences exist as attitudes in the minds of those who regard shortform and longform as different things. If you approach shortform as you would do longform, with an intent to create a scene with characters and relationships then your shortform will be amazing. It’s a false dichotomy, and that becomes apparent whenever you get deeply into defining the differences between them. Just embrace it, enjoy it all and remember that the audiences just want to be entertained.

Events and Excitement

Tuesday 5th November 2013

Happy Mondays (on a Tuesday) – Open Mic for Open MIND

Jam show – a chance for anyone to get on stage, plus special show slots!

The Canalhouse
Canal Street
(off Broad Street)
Nottingham
7.30pm – £3

Thursday 14th November 2013

Gorilla Burger: improv comedy carnage

Jam show – a chance for anyone to get on stage, plus special show slots!

The Corner
8 Stoney Street
(off Broad Street)
Nottingham
7.30pm – £4

https://www.facebook.com/events/174297189420385/

Tuesday 19th November 2013

Unspeakable Acts

Nottingham’s longform improv troupe, will create a mutant hybrid of scripted drama and improvised comedy.

The players will begin performing a scripted play chosen by the audience; as the show progresses, the script is distorted, violated and abandoned. In its place we will create a new narrative, a squalid perversion of the playwright’s intentions or a beautiful butterfly made of broken dreams.

The Corner
8 Stoney Street
(off Broad Street)
Nottingham
7.30pm – £4

https://www.facebook.com/events/711364735543846/

Things I Hate: What the fucking fuck is wrong with people?

Posted on 7 November 201312 January 2023 By Captain Pigheart

The World Is Broken

Some days I could just let the world burn, sit back in a deckchair with a bottle of beer and watch everyone just tear themselves into thin strips of dead flesh and lay them across their own special barbecues of stupidity. Alright, that’s most days. I don’t consider the unique and mundane stupidity that affects all of us to be unduly problematic, by sheer balance of hatreds a lot of that gets evened out between ourselves. I think it’s those who initiate or encourage the eye-bleeding idiocy that really wind me up.

I’d also allow that I’m not especially noted amongst those who know me for remaining entirely calm. I am easily driven to anger, but it’s a passing, easily dissipated fury. Sometimes it gusts through me for days and it’s like catching fire again. Things I don’t like: lies, wankers, bigots and incompetence. That’s just today’s list obviously. Oh, and laziness- not that random idleness where one might spend an evening or weekend in idle dalliance, but proper laziness that causes purpose and competence to elude a person leaving them just fucking useless.

A lot of hatred and stupidity is ignorance I suppose, but I find I dislike a common current use of ‘ignorant’ to mean rudeness. I’ve always thought of it more as a lack of knowledge or understanding, in the sense that you can fix ignorance with learning and experience, but rudeness is just someone deliberately being a wanker. It follows, then (to me) that it’s doubly inexcusable to be deliberately ignorant; to refuse to expand or consider one’s actions and beliefs is to dehumanise oneself.

An Object of Hatred

Totty Clicker – Gauge Your Pulling Power

Now and again you bump into the odd thing or person which feels as if it exemplifies all that stupid arsehole paradise world. This week it was in B and N Bargains – a great discount store where we find lots of useful and reasonably priced things. They also had this – it’s a handy little device to help you judge and quantify your fellow human beings.

Obviously this is a novelty gift, of the sort you might give someone if you or they consider the female half of our species to be only noteworthy if they meet your personal high standards. Because they should; I mean, how could they possibly exist without knowing and attending to your shallow aesthetic hatred? What a lovely gift: “I think you are the kind of twat who would stand in a bar and use this to count those you consider worthy.”

If you see this, and think you have someone (who you like enough to buy a present for) who would like this then maybe just should just kill them and yourself. That is the greatest possible contribution you could make. Don’t worry about all the people who will go unclicked, unlisted, unrated by you and your diamond of a pal: they’ll be fine. They’ll be just fine.

Maybe you think that’s a little harsh. I’m okay with that. I’d be interested to know what the values and vision of the producing company are. I imagine it’s something like “to demoralise and belittle our fellow humans”. Even better, it costs only £1.49 to make other people feel like shit. That’s a bargain. We should all get those and click our little wanker hearts out.

I realise this is a joke gift of some kind, I mean, wouldn’t it be hilarious to diminish each other, y’know to not only judge others by their attractiveness, but also yourself by whether they give a flying fuck about you. What part of that makes sense? This is bad for everybody.

Already got one? Use it? Go fuck yourself.

Other Things I Hate

Fucking Adverts

Hate filled poetry

Lego Blog: Making Stuff and Finding It Strange

Posted on 9 November 201314 January 2020 By Captain Pigheart

A Highway Into The Mind

There are lots of supposed indicators of what’s really going in people’s heads, I’m thinking of ‘Freudian slips’ as well as complete nonsense like astrology and personality indicator questionnaires. There have to be simpler ways to get those insights. I think Lego’s one of them, or at least Lego and any other creative endeavour. If a person doesn’t do anything creative, be it music, writing, acting, knitting or whatever then I’m pretty sure they have little of interest to offer. On the other hand, assuming the creative person isn’t just mindlessly copying something (which I suppose gives you a clue anyway) then surely some aspect of their character is going to be revealed by what they choose to or are inspired to create.

It’s a discussion that comes up in improv and acting quite often – to what extent are the characters we portray representative of our inner selves? There are usually two different cases: one is that we can be anyone and it is has nothing to do with who we ourselves are. Personally I find that rather weak, where does the information, inspiration and words we use come from if not within? I find the notion that everything we produce comes from within (because it can’t come from anywhere else) far more persuasive. If I play an astronaut or serial killer all I can use is the information I have digested from other media and exposure in my life, parcelled up with my own feelings and ideas. That doesn’t make me an astronaut or serial killer (unless I were directly using those memories) and neither does it diminish the aspects of humanity that I’ve chosen to use and reflect on through those roles.

Everything we do and see is through the filter of that loose conglomeration of concepts and memories that we label the self. Our perceptions of the world outside are heavily coloured by what lies inside and so it seems pretty straightforward that what we project externally is filtered through that same bag of meat. You can see then tension in someone’s mind in the tight weave of their knitting for example, and in the increasingly strained handwriting of an angry person (but that only tells you they were angry when writing it, and it’s probably quite hard to spot unless you knew they were angry. Otherwise you’ll be taking crap like a curly ‘d’ and making a vast leap about their character which isn’t terribly reliable).

Show Me Your Lego Mind

Of late I’ve found it difficult to engage with creative activities. Partly that’s simply because I’m busy and the time available has constricted, plus I’m tired and brain frazzled, so those slim intervals of opportunity tend to be pissed away on staring at things. Lego is very calming though, and simply having a box of random parts to hand gives opportunity for disconnected creativity. I found that last weekend while chatting on the sofa with a friend. I’d dismantled some models the week before and the sad detritus still sat unsorted in a tray. While talking we both naturally leaned into the box and fished about for whatever our fingeers wanted to build. That semi-conscious awareness of what I’m doing often leads to interesting results. I’d say it’s how I best improvise – being alert enough to listen and respond, but blank enough to prevent planning and thinking about what I’m doing.

So I made a neat little bug thing which I promptly dismantled and then constructed this little robot fellow. The head and legs and arms seem fair enough, but what the hell is that appendage sticking out of his body? I guess it’s a claw-bladed face gathering device. Or something. Possibly just for stroking a cat. It looks damn weird though. Now what does that say about me? I seem to remember thinking that the front of the body was just too empty (I don’t know what that means…) so it needed something and it just got more, um, stabby.

Oh well, I’ve finally got around to building my Lone Ranger set, Colby City Shootout and that will occupy my devilish fingers for a few hours yet…

Lego Blog: There’s An Ogre At My Castle (captainpigheart.com)
Lego Blog: Birthday Minifigure Gallery (captainpigheart.com)
Lego Blog: Jabba’s Palace (captainpigheart.com)
Lego Blog: Pigs Vs Cows (captainpigheart.com)

Gorilla Burger – Improv Comedy Show – Thursday 14th November 2013

Posted on 12 November 2013 By Captain Pigheart

This will be excellent fun as always!

This week, Monday 11th November 2013

Posted on 13 November 2013 By Captain Pigheart

It’s Time To Get The After Eights In

Seems Christmas is a-coming. We’ve been poring over the glut of Christmas catalogues spilling out of shop doors and thrust (with astonishing inexpertise) through our letter box. It has as always whipped round with frightening speed, especially since the last two months have gone by in molten Dali toffee loops anyway. I like Christmas. It’s a nice time of peace and quiet to me. We’ll have some family time, but I feel it as a freedom from everything I’m ordinarily required to. I have no religious association with the event, though I’m grateful that some people thought it was important enough to justify taking a fortnight off work in the middle of winter- ta.

We’ve also been popping out and stocking up on Christmas beers from lovely 4 for a fiver. We’ve been collecting such delights as Young’s Chocolate Stout, Old Crafty Hen, Fuller’s 1845, Old Peculier, London Pride, plus a couple of bottles of Pilsner Urquell and some Erdinger Weissbier. Oh, and some Buddy’s Bourbon Beer. It’s a fine cupboard full of strong ale. I must remember to top up the stack of alcohol free non-booze to stop myself from falling into an alcoholic coma over Christmas. There will be Lego to assemble and I can’t afford to be unconscious for that!

I have been burying myself in reading, which is always relaxing and satisfying. I’ve been highly remiss in keeping track of what I’ve read this year and I finally persuaded myself to plunge back into the book cupboard and Kindle to figure out what I’ve been enjoying. Turns out I’ve read 76 books so far this year (including graphic novels, or collected comics depending on your personal pretension or shame), which ain’t bad. It’s a little slower than usual, but I’ve had stuff to do! It does include re-reading the whole of Peter F Hamilton‘s Commonwealth Saga which is 5 giant tomes (and amazing).

Right now I seem to be on a paranormal fiction bender (not paranormal romance I urgently point out). I’ve just finished the second on Ben Aaronovitch‘s brilliant and hyper-readable Moon Over Soho which is basically Dresden Files vs The Bill. Then I hopped straight into the first of the Mercy Thompson series about werewolves and the Fae by Patricia Briggs, Moon Called. Or maybe it’s just books with ‘moon’ in the title. I wonder if I’ve got any more mooning books…

Writing

I’m still struggling to write. I still feel quite broken and my mind is not in my fingers where I need it to be. I’m trying to convince myself that this is okay. They are only promises to teh internets and it’s okay if I don’t do what I intend to. It does irritate me though. I didn’t manage to write the next Desert Crystals chapter, though not for want of trying. It just wouldn’t come. Instead I had a lovely rant and babbled about Lego and creativity: it’s not all bad. Perhaps I need to just not be so hard on myself and take it slightly easier. You’ll note that this post is two days overdue… bad Captain Pigheart.

I substituted reproduction for innovation over the weekend and recorded the Alex Trepan in ‘Midnight Shopping’ for my friends at Flash Pulp. That’s another really fun thing that has somehow slid for a few months and I’m really very happy to be able to contribute once more. Super folks.

♥ Scribbles of time and space

Things I Hate: What the fucking fuck is wrong with people? a small and justified rant about stupid sexism and stupid people.

Lego Blog: Making Stuff and Finding It Strange Lego can be gloriously therapeutic and has lots of creative overlaps with improv and writing.

Updates on my thrilling life

Improv Comedy

To continue briefly from last week’s raving about shortform, we had an especially fun shortform jam last Thursday which I enjoyed immensely. Many thanks to one of the current crop of students on the beginners course Parky and I are running, Chris, for endowing himself and me as having vagina monsters in a genre rollercoaster. A fine and strong choice sir. And it was very fun to do.

This week we’ve got Gorilla Burger and unless I chicken out I’m going to do some solo stuff which I’ve wanted to have a crack at for ages but not found an opportunity, so I’m making one for myself. Next Tuesday we’ll be doing a full show of Unspeakable Acts which is one of my favourite things in the whole world.

Here’s JAWS from the show in August – chaotic and silly:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXa3TyqGbfM&w=420&h=315]

Events and Excitement

Thursday 14th November 2013

Gorilla Burger: improv comedy carnage

Jam show – a chance for anyone to get on stage, plus special show slots!

The Corner
8 Stoney Street
(off Broad Street)
Nottingham
7.30pm – £4

https://www.facebook.com/events/174297189420385/

Saturday 16th November 2013

Knickerbocker Glorious

A sweet layered stack of free live Entertainment, an abundance of Acoustic Music, a generous measure of Performing Arts. Topped off with a liberal sprinkling of family friendly Comedy. I’m compering!

The Fountain
Derby Market Square
Cathedral Quarter
Derby
11am-3pm – FREE

Tuesday 19th November 2013

Unspeakable Acts

Nottingham’s longform improv troupe, will create a mutant hybrid of scripted drama and improvised comedy.

The Corner
8 Stoney Street
(off Broad Street)
Nottingham
7.30pm – £3

https://www.facebook.com/events/711364735543846/

Gorilla Burger – Improv Comedy Show – Thursday 14th November 2013 (missimp.co.uk)

Slightly Broken: Morbidly Musing

Posted on 14 November 20131 March 2023 By Captain Pigheart

Dark Thoughts, Wayward Minds

I think about dying a lot. Well, sometimes. I don’t have an especially good grasp of the regularity of these thoughts, maybe I should attempt to keep track of them. When I was undergoing a course of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) in the early part of last year each session began with a series of questions and scales to enable me to rate how I was feeling, mood and such to provide some quantifiable information about the therapy. The last few questions were ‘have you thought about self-harming or killing yourself this week?’, followed by another about frequency and seriousness. I always said that I’d thought about those things on most days, but that I hadn’t made a plan for it and that I still had things to live for.

Just being asked those questions reminded me that I do find my mind in dark places at some point on most days. Since the mind and my models of other minds are based on me I never really thought that was unusual. Apparently it is not usual. Oh well. What to do? I’ve always figured that the contemplated horror is less awful than the uncontemplated. To consider a thing is to give it both life and the possibility of death in your mind. To have a lurking horror that is given no expression or exploration is a thing of infinite potential. If you grant it enough room to be played out inside you can get to know it. You can see where it would go, what it would actually do and what the outcomes might be; you remove its relentless and remorseless shadow power.

Skipping To The End

I have never attempted suicide, in part because it would be so galling to attempt and fail – to get halfway through and fail at that. I don’t think I could live with myself… The reason I always gave in therapy was that ‘something new will happen tomorrow’. Dying and denying myself the possibility of a future strikes me as even worse than ceasing to exist. I would also not wish the pain on my family and friends, but honestly that concern comes second. Suicide is often described as a selfish act, but it’s so much more than that – it’s the ultimate self-denial, denial of choice, of opportunity, of agency. It’s also an assertion of power, of destiny and of independence. If we can choose nothing else in this world we could choose to escape it.

The Pain Runs Freely

Self-harm seems much the same, though less drastic of course; it has far more opportunity for future choices. I suspect it’s about seizing control. I know that from when I was trying to put myself back together after that catastrophic trip to Amsterdam when I was sixteen. There was no other way to excise or supplant the pain I felt inside, the sense of utter loss and degradation, the horror at my own memories and mind. Slicing strips out of my own skin was strong, decisive, painful, and hugely distracting. You can bleed out the pain for a while. It doesn’t work for long though. Long term I needed more substantial fixing.

Nearly twenty years later I am a different person, though I remember feeling that way. I still consider the freedom of a razor blade. Some short sharp pain that lingers and draws out the suffering. I choose not to indulge. I know it’s an indulgence, I know it’s a distraction. It’s also a way of not dealing with information. We can’t always choose how we respond, and I know that when I’m tired – either physically or emotionally, when frustrated by failures or by others, what my mind turns to first is that it could all just be over. I could just not be here, and it wouldn’t matter what is happening anymore. I wouldn’t need to choose, to argue it out and fix it. I could just step away, off this mortal plane and nothing would ever concern me again. It would just… stop. All of it: the noise, the feeling, the colours, me.

Out Of Control

I think about dying when it is not of my choosing. Accident, cars, fire; being broken and just dying. Dying alone. I’ve always felt that I’ll die alone somehow. But I can’t imagine the world without me. I don’t mean that ‘I’m just so damn important that it just won’t make sense’, I mean that I can’t conceive of the world when it’s not from my perspective. The whole of reality is intimately bound up with existing. When we go to sleep the world may as well stop for all we are connected to it. When we die, the world presumably goes on through others eyes, but that’s not the same world.

Why so gloomy today? I don’t feel gloomy, just a little sad and emotional. We went to see Gravity which is pretty much as good as everyone is saying that it is. I found it frightening and deeply upsetting – I guess the prospect of dying utterly alone struck a chord rather violently. Oddly, the film’s outcome didn’t make me feel less horrified but rather more appalled and filled with tears. Strange.

We saw Gravity on Monday and I wrote this immediately afterwards, but it didn’t feel like something I wanted to post right away. It’s later in the week now, and I’m less gloom-filled, which is nice.

Slightly Broken: Getting a Good Bad Night’s Sleep (captainpigheart.com)
Monday Musings…On mental health issues. (renwaromsumwelt.wordpress.com)

This week, Monday 18th November 2013

Posted on 18 November 2013 By Captain Pigheart

Sad Television

The main drama in my life this week has been the death of our BT Vision box. It had been titting about with failing to record or recording weird skipping images so I made the possible mistake of contacting BT for some support. Well… I should preface this by saying I’ve been fairly content with BT for all the years we’ve been with them, so I have no grindable axe. The straw that broke the TV’s back seems to have been the factory reset where you unplug the box and hold down some buttons. The box has never recovered from it and it’s sent the TV picture all washy and shadowy, no matter whether the aerial is plugged in, or if it’s the Wii or DVD we’re using. Sigh. I’m talking to BT now… my hopes of a swift resolution are low. The screen is now strobing at me. Positive? Actually I have a tiny axe to grind and that’s about their infuriating password reset process failures on the website. That has nearly driven me insane.

Never mind. It’s been quite a nice week. Our Level One improv beginners class is nearing it’s end, which is sad. They have been marvellous though and it is enormously cheering to see people internalise the kinds of behaviour we teach and promote in improvisation. They’ve come a long way. I look forwards to taking them further. It’s also been great fun to teach with Parky again, I find it a very rewarding thing to do together.

We’ve got more improvisation to enjoy this week – the last session with our Level 1 group, then Unspeakable Acts on Tuesday, on Wednesday I’m exploring improv on a one-to-one basis with a client, Thursday’s more improv jam time and then I think I get to sit down and read a book on Friday!

I’m compering several Knickerbocker Glorious(es?) in the run up to Christmas in Derby city centre. Last Saturday’s was a blast. I very much enjoy working with the Furthest From The Sea crew and I’m looking forwards to further collaborations, including improv shows and workshops in Derby in the new year. Oo-rah! I’ll be back there on the 7th and 21st December, hopefully with MissImp.

♥ Last Week’s Scribbles

Slightly Broken: Morbidly Musing – Gravity made itself felt.

Writing

Okay, so I still suck at getting stuff done. I’m beginning to realise that I’m genuinely struggling, rather than just not being organised or focussed enough. I’m finding it hard to re-engage properly. I find I just stare at the screen. It’s annoying. Perhaps I need to ease my brain back into it and initiate a new series of morning pages to convince myself it’s alright and I can still do it. It’s possible I should also be making better choices of films to go and see – Gravity was brilliant but it really didn’t help.

Media Intake

I’m reading Gozeul’s Dark World Toy Box by Michael Nokes on Kindle. It’s one of a dozen or so free ebooks I downloaded, but of those I started is the only one that survived beyond the first page. I’m not certain whether I regret starting it or not. The premise appears to be some kind of Bermuda Triangle style island/world where people end up and their lives are controlled by the evil god Gozeul. I’m fine with that but it’s lurching weirdly between characters and feels like it’s implying more than is being revealed. I don’t know whether I’m enjoying it. The book does suffer very badly with spelling and grammatical errors (at least three on every page) which is distracting me beyond all reason. I wish to persevere, but I won’t hate myself if I don’t. That said, I do dislike abandoning a book once I’m more than a quarter of the way through it – I feel I’ve invested the time and want the pay off.

We finished watching Dexter series 6 last week. It ends on a great cliffhanger! I’ve been consistently impressed by the show and its cast and I’m going to be seeking out bargain prices for series 7 right now… A friend lent us Boardwalk Empire too and we’ve watched the first two episodes. It’s beautiful, a truly gorgeous set design and vision (the tailoring is impeccable) and it’s already shaping up to be as much fun as Justified. Steve Buscemi is finally getting a chance to shine and I’m thrilled to see Michael Shannon getting so much screen time. I’m also hugely cheered that there are at least three seasons already in the can.

Events and Excitement

Tuesday 19th November 2013

Unspeakable Acts

Nottingham’s longform improv troupe, will create a mutant hybrid of scripted drama and improvised comedy.

The Corner
8 Stoney Street
(off Broad Street)
Nottingham
7.30pm – £4

https://www.facebook.com/events/711364735543846/

Friday 29th November

MissImp in Action – live improv comedy show

Thrilling all-action end of the month show sporting the best of MissImp inventing scenes and playing games.

The Glee Club
The Waterfront
Canal Street
Nottingham
8.30pm (doors open at 8pm) – £4.50 in advance/£6 on the door (£3 students/MissImp)

https://www.facebook.com/events/699359346758274/

Unspeakable Acts – Theatre on Bath Salts – Tuesday 19th November 2013

Posted on 18 November 2013 By Captain Pigheart

I love this show format, it’s the most fun I have on stage. We start with the script of a film or play as our scene inspiration and rapidly go off script (and rails). Recently I played the hooker with a prosthetic leg and spring-loaded toes from ‘Pretty Woman’. You remember that bit right? Anyway – this is tomorrow!

Shankling – Combustible Verse of Hatred

Posted on 19 November 201312 January 2023 By Captain Pigheart

I am frequently filled with emotions I don’t know what to do with. Counselling helped somewhat, sorting out the feelings that are relevant and appropriate versus those that arise from unknown causes and towards unknown antagonists. I’m pretty sure why I end up writing angry poetry though – I just want to be left alone to get on with things. If I want people’s input I’ll go out and find it, enjoy a cheerful babble-filled conversation with those who I enjoy having such conversations with.

Spare me the banalities of forced customer service culture and the imagined altruism other foist upon us. At least try to get things right, that’s almost all I ask. Just try, maybe even succeed. You never know, with a tiny bit of effort you won’t even need me – imagine how awesome and empowering that could be!

Follow @shankanalia on Twitter for irregular poetic updates.

Shankling – Combustible Verse of Hatred

Love It or Hate It I Hate You
I wanna see your eyes inflate
As I bellow loathing in your ear
Till they pop
Like runny jam-bags
To spread on toast
Tastes of pain;
Tasty treat.

The Eye of The Beholdened
Oh you fucking moron twat
What do you think you’re looking at?
I can’t bear to hear you sigh
I want to punch you in the eye.
Oh you fucking..

Proactive Solution Identification
Today’s the day that I strangle your baby
Self,
Travelled back in time,
Spelunked into your momma womb,
To lasso you with your own belly rope.

Choking Serpent
Every word from your mouth
Is ear-bleeding poisonous crap,
Like a serpent pissing itself through its teeth.
Your worthless husk,
Dry in my path.

(Good) Customer Service
Hi, thanks for calling
(Hope you die)
How can I help…
You to kill yourself?
Mmm, that sounds like a problem.
I don’t care, just fuck off.
Bye,
Die.

You’re a Chatty Sort
Fucking shaft-twazzling shit-flute,
Erectile cock-muffin.
Slide your burning mind-fucker
Into your own cranium:
Spare me your noisy verbo-spunking.

More of The Same

Shankaz’eroth: The Dead God of Bitter Verse (captainpigheart.com)
Shankulation – The Screamery of Angry Poetry (captainpigheart.com)
Shankania – The Nation State of Angry Poetry (captainpigheart.com)
Shankchism – The Gash of Angry Poetry (captainpigheart.com)

This week, Monday 25th November 2013

Posted on 25 November 2013 By Captain Pigheart

Slow Motion Acceleration

The run up to Christmas always feels really strange – it skips from September to a month from Christmas Eve with alarming fluidity. Maybe it’s just that it’s dark all of the time now. Generally I don’t

mind that – I have little use for sunlight. I’ve always been perfectly content inside away from all that sunny business. I think I’ve spent more time outside since compering for Knickerbocker Glorious than ever before.

Our TV is still fucked. That’s the technical term. A very nice gentleman from BT came and replaced the BT Vision box with a softly purring black and purple lit beast. It appears to be recording, which is nice. The TV is still trippily awash with the clarity of an acid trip. Hopefully it will sort itself out, otherwise we’ll have to go through the agony of choosing a new TV from the four hundred almost identical models. Competition isn’t particularly helpful when everything is the same.

For no clear reason we’ve finally decided to paint our kitchen. I had grown fond of the white and bare plaster look. We’ve picked a lovely ‘Moody Blue’ but have sadly run out of paint. There is more on order. Until then our kitchen is swathed in plastic and everything is in the wrong room again. Ho hum. It’s both enjoyable and frustrating as activities go. It will be lovely when it is done (one day).

I’m still a bit memory blind and failing to track the passage of time. I know I’ve played quite a bit of Plants Vs Zombies 2 and I’ve also watched this video of a porcupine making adorable noises while eating tiny pumpkins more times than I should really admit. I’m currently turning the audio chuckling in my new ringtone. There may be something wrong with me.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cILZ_cB3_so&w=560&h=315]

Still, there’s a lot to look forwards to this week – we’re undertaking a pilgrimage to the Lego Store on Wednesday as a mini road trip. It is likely we will be consumed by glee, schinkling and spending much money. I am excited. We’ve also got our monthly improv show at The Glee Club which will be outstanding, not least because we have the musical geniuses of Heather & Joe from The Maydays joining us. To make that even better we’ll be having our annual musical improv weekend with them immediately afterwards!

♥ Last Week’s Scribbles

Shankling – Combustible Verse of Hatred – ah, a bit of rage never goes amiss – enjoy it in poetry form.

Writing

Alright, I confess – I am not pulling myself back together well. I’m perplexed that my writing has taken such a hit and is proving so hard to get back on track. I’m doing quite a bit of improv so I suppose I’m creating stuff, but I’m spending a lot of time working and much of the rest just blank. I’m going to refocus on small thing and try to remove the self-imposed pressure which I’m pretty sure isn’t helping.

With luck I’ll be writing and putting up some slightly different poetry and ideas than the usual angry ranting. We’ll see.

Improv

It’s been a busy improv week.

Monday was the last session with MissImp’s most recent crop of new improvisers. I’m impressed by how far they’ve come in such a short time, and they did say lovely things about me and Parky (and each other). They finished their course with a series of splendid scenes, including a La Ronde (or park bench as we tend to call it) which developed beautifully into an insane spy thriller by a duck pond. Really nice work from everyone. It will be odd not seeing them all this week. Guess we’re going to have to schedule in the next course!

On Tuesday we performed Unspeakable Acts, my absolute favourite thing to do with other people. We did three acts – They That Sit In Darkness, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Les Miserables. Brilliant fun with quite brilliant people.

Wednesday was my first meet up with a prospective one to one client for improvisation. We got on well and we’re going to do some work together. I’m rather excited because I think improv is a fantastic way to build confidence and develop creativity. For me, alot of it hangs on trusting that the ideas you have and the things you say are at least as interesting and valuable as anyone else’s.

Thursday – more improv jamming funtime. We played a tonne of games and developed into 5 player montages. I was particularly fond of ‘Blunder Bra and Cod-Peace’ – crime fighters in lingerie.

Media Intake

I’m still reading Gozeul’s Dark World Toy Box by Michael Nokes. Despite my frustration with the typos I’m approaching the end, mainly because I now feel I have to find out how it ends. I may not feel it was worth my time though.

Since our TV’s knackered we have not watched the new Doctor Who – I wanna see it on our pretty TV not my laptop. It’s annoying though… we’ve been snagging odd episodes of Boardwalk Empire though and it really is very good, even if they seem to have felt compelled to include graphic sex scenes. I know this gets people talking about the series (e.g. now) but it doesn’t add to the story or bring out the characters especially, other than those who are defined solely by their sexual activity. It’s kind of annoying.

We have failed to hit the cinema this week! Disaster. The Hunger Games is out though, so it won’t be long…

Events and Excitement

Friday 29th November

MissImp in Action – live improv comedy show

Thrilling all-action end of the month show sporting the best of MissImp inventing scenes and playing games.

The Glee Club
The Waterfront
Canal Street
Nottingham
8.30pm (doors open at 8pm) – £4.50 in advance/£6 on the door (£3 students/MissImp)

https://www.facebook.com/events/699359346758274/

Poem: Apricot Shades

Posted on 26 November 20131 March 2023 By Captain Pigheart

MissImp in Action @ Glee Club 29th November 2013

Posted on 27 November 2013 By Captain Pigheart

copied off of yon MissImp site…

It’s the last MissImp Glee show of the year!

This time we’ve got music

Start your month of happy boozing and indulgence early with us this Friday. What with it being nearly Christmas and all we’re celebrating by inviting Heather & Joe, two of our friends from Brighton’s award-winning The Maydays to join us on stage and add music and singing to the mix.

We bring you entirely unplanned adventures, scenes, sketches, games and songs from the darkest depths of our imaginations. You give us the suggestions, we turn them inside out. We’re on in just a few days – and you can seize your tickets now.

A silly sketch that Parky and I did recently…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fa6mo06wFM&w=420&h=315]

It’s going to be ace fun, and for us it’s just the start of a weekend of improvised musical workshoppery with Heather & Joe, which is most definitely one of my favourite weekends of the year. Pretty damn psyched for that.

Fight off the terrifying imminence of Christmas

We are the only show in town bringing you a gorgeous blend of seasoned old pros and brand new improv comedy talent. Brilliant and weird enough to shake all thought of what you want for Christmas from your mind.

There’s nothing like improvised comedy – it’s unique and different every single time. You will NEVER see the same scene twice, so come along and enjoy comedy that is for your eyes only.

This month’s show is on Friday 29th November. Book your tickets here and we’ll see you on Friday.

Show Details

The Glee Club

Castle Wharf, Canal St, Nottingham

Friday 29 November 2013
Doors open 8.00
Doors close 8.15
Show at 8.30
Tickets £6 on door (£4.50 in advance) / Students and MissImp members £3

This week, Monday 2nd December 2013

Posted on 3 December 2013 By Captain Pigheart

Do They Know It’s December?

Holy frikkin’ tinsel everyone, it has become December. I haven’t done any Christmas shopping yet… surely people just want to be thought of fondly and receive a manly nod across a pint? We were in Meadowhall last week and I’ve been into Nottingham and my god, the hordes of stumbling shoppers were horrifying. And those were on relatively quiet weekdays. I think I’d better retreat to the internet for thing acquisition.

Meadowhall’s food court was particularly awful. I think it’s partly the use of the term ‘court’ an not ‘parade of restaurants’ or something similar which makes people think it’s either a sport, hence the scrums of fat children having chicken juiced into their mouths by their greasy-faced parents, or a judgement, which would explain the evil eyes and hatred directed towards those of us who successfully attain tablehood.

People are possibly even more frightening than birds. I’m thinking mostly of their button eyes and weird limblessness when their wings are folded and they’re walking around like demonic clockwork toys. Evil I tell ya. They’re clearly still wondering how to eat us since they got all small and feathery and we got big and naked, then un-naked. That said, I do like pied wagtails. Thems’re dinky little birds who really do jig about like they’re wound up. I haven’t seen any this year though.

♥ Last Week’s Scribbles

Poem – Apricot Shades – I’m trying to make words pretty.

Writing

I blame work, other people and me. In that order. Work for making me stressed (though it’s my response to the work that produces stress), other people for wanting to do cool and interesting things (which I want to do as well) and me for saying yes and / or no to things people and myself. Sadly very little of that has been oriented around getting writing done… Bastardfish.

I did enjoy m’little poem last week though. I have a few little bits like that which don’t fit the Shankanalia requirements because there’s more melancholy than hate in them.

I am at least making notes and adding words to a pile of other words when they occur to me. So that’s something. I plan to write about our amazing pilgrimage to the Lego Store last week and the musical improv weekend just gone by.

Improv

A slightly slower early week for improv (thank the good lord Monkey Feet for that), but it accelerated dramatically towards the end. I met up with my one to one client for our first proper session. Planning for it is proving thought-provoking and interesting since there are only two of us (yes Nick, that is what one to one means) and that wipes out a whole bunch of games that you can do insanely with three but don’t make sense with two. Nonetheless we focussed on agreement, because that seems truly foundational for any creative endeavour, and also listening to oneself. We had fun and I am booked in for further sessions, so that must have been successful!

I ran our weekly jam on narrative. Nothing too heavy, just pushing us into thinking about cause and effect and scenes that follow each other. Because of playing around with the Armando structure a lot we’ve become used to seeing scenes that are thematically linked or at least share inspiration but aren’t really part of a story. I like stories, I like writing them and I like watching them. Very often we don’t see what happens to characters and it makes me sad inside. So we told some really weird stories. Many thanks to Mr Steve Roe (of London’s Hoopla Impro) for inspiration.

I’m going to have to deal with the Friday show and the weekend later because they were immense.

Media Intake

Goddamn it, I finally finished that Gozeul’s Dark World Toy Box which took forever to get through because of the insanely irritating typos only to find that it’s not even the whole bloody story. I liked it in parts, but I’m not going back for the sequel.

Whispers on the Underground

In need of mind refreshment I dived into the third of Ben Aaronovitch‘s supernatural detective series Whispers on the Underground. That’s the one I tried to read first before clicking (in my dopey way) that I didn’t understand what was happening. It’s just great – natural, funny, a bit scary with characters who pop off the page and wander round your bedroom. I very much enjoy the magic and Peter Grant’s attempts to rationalise and explore it as well as the splendid villains. I’m really hoping he’s going to keep knocking them out – the main character is barely into magic and there’s surely ten to twenty books in the story. These are superb and remarkably readable.

Boardwalk Empire

We just finished season one over the weekend and were fairly blown away by its overall awesomeness. The set design and costumes are astonishingly beautiful. Mrs Schroeder’s hats are a thing of wonder and the suits worn by Nucky and Jimmy make me want to wear nice clothes. So yeah, it looks pretty, but it’s got a killer script, magnetic cast and a simmering tension that makes it feel like a glossy Deadwood.

It is a joy to watch Steve Buscemi finally given a chance to shine – I love him in any film, but I’ve never had the opportunity to witness his range and the terrifying flat silver eyes he can turn on and off at will. Kelly Macdonald is equally gripping as domestic abuse victim turned I-don’t-know-what: enigmatic and stunning. The cast really deserves individual praise but I’m sure they’ve got that elsewhere. I just want to mention Stephen Graham‘s frighteningly psychopathic young Al Capone and Michael Shannon‘s prohibition agent – they both glue your eyes to the screen whenever they’re on it. A fantastic show and I can’t wait to start season 2.

Events and Excitement

Saturday 7th December 2013

Knickerbocker Glorious

The Fountain
Derby Market Square
Cathedral Quarter
Derby
11am-3pm – FREE
https://www.facebook.com/events/360132110789127/

Thursday 12th December 2013

Gorilla Burger: improv comedy carnage

Jam show – a chance for anyone to get on stage, plus MissImp annual awards ceremony.
The Corner
8 Stoney Street
(off Broad Street)
Nottingham
7.30pm – £4

Saturday 21st December 2013

Knickerbocker Glorious

The Fountain
Derby Market Square
Cathedral Quarter
Derby
11am-3pm – FREE

Author: Captain Pigheart

Funeral and Memorial Services

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In Memory

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Friday 25th October 2013

MissImp in Action – live improv comedy show

Saturday 26th October 2013

Knickerbocker Glorious

Thursday 31st October 2013 Cabaret XXXI

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Part 23 – Vanishing Distance

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So All Back To Normal Then?

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Improv Comedy

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Monday 28th October

Mayhem Improv Monday – The Show

Thursday 31st October 2013

Cabaret XXXI

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Tributes

My Tribute

Donations

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Part 24 – The Taste of Light

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Autumn’s Fallen

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Tuesday 5th November 2013

Happy Mondays (on a Tuesday) – Open Mic for Open MIND

Thursday 14th November 2013

Gorilla Burger: improv comedy carnage

Tuesday 19th November 2013

Unspeakable Acts

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The World Is Broken <img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" class="alignright size-full" title="TottyClick2.jpg" alt="image" src="http://captainpigheart.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/wpid-dsc_0100-1_piper_burn_intertwined.jpg?w=648" data-eio="l" />

An Object of Hatred

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A Highway Into The Mind

Show Me Your Lego Mind

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It’s Time To Get The After Eights In

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Thursday 31st October 2013
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