Not the TV show, just that general sense of time flowing past like hair in the wind. Or something. I skipped a week. It is a thing of regret, but it was for the best. The week before last week was not… good. The week that followed was troubling, but had many excellent things (most particularly the weekend). However I live painfully in the present alone and the end of that first week and beginning of last were just fucked all to pieces in my head. It was pretty clear early on that writing was just not going to happen. We shall skip the vileness and move swiftly to the significant bits (in my head).
Evenings Out & About
Since I’ve now got two weeks oddly concatenated in my head I can’t really tell which is which… We had a fine Gorilla Burger, and David and I reprised our Bitchcock Kerfuffle twoprov at the end of the evening. It remains one of my most enjoyed team ups. Sadly twas his last Gorilla Burger (for the time being at least) as he’s moving to Bristol to do amazing sciencey things. Since he was buggering off that clearly called for a number of farewell drinkings in some of the nicest pubs in town – The Ned Ludd, Fothergills (very nice food, sorry about my mood), The Roundhouse and the ever reliable The Salutation Inn. There is nothing quite like time out with beloved people.
Lego Trip I
It had been a good long while (gosh, almost months) since our last micro-pilgrimage to Meadowhall’s Lego Shop. It is a place of wonder, and Tuesday’s are excellent days to go. It’s quiet and relaxing. As usual we enjoyed the minifigure building, the pick-a-brick (more about this all during the week) and I acquired what I’ve been saving up for… Captain Metalbeard’s Seacow. Fuck yeah. Plus, The Lego Movie has just come out on DVD. It’s like Christmas in July.
All the crap and horror of the daily grind were tossed into flames on Friday when I (finally) went to stay with my brother and sister-in-law and excellent housemate way oop North in Manchester. It started with a very pleasant train journey; I like trains, they are comfortable (mostly) and have tables: this is better than most transport. Admittedly I did little except scribble and play Minigore 2, but it’s the principle…
Marilyn’s up there doing 2.8 Hours Later again, scaring the crap out of people running away from zombies, so we were all together during the day and I was left to my brother’s mercies in the evening. Friday night was just delightful – superb Japanese takeaway and beers in the garden while cats bounded around our heads and ankles.
Saturday was the main event, our cause: MCM Comiccon Manchester. I’ve never been to a proper comic convention, though it felt a lot like a bigger Alt-Fiction with a much larger market of stalls. I’m terrible for forgetting to take pictures and this was no exception. We did see hundreds of great costumes, in particular these ace Jawas and many, many, many anime characters I didn’t recognise. I also never saw the guys in the pantomime horse-style AT-AT. A shame.
Never mind – comics! art! badges! things! We spent a shocking sum between us. Even though I didn’t worry about getting autographed pictures I instead bought lots of fun and interesting comics and tiny prints from independent comic artists and writers. I think meeting and enthusing with them about their cool stuff was my highlight. We saw the Red Dwarf cast chatting in a panel, and a bit of the Game Of Thrones talk, which will make a lot more sense when we’ve watched the show.
Butterkissed Old Fashioned. That’s popcorn in the top!
Some of the most exciting things there were seeing the trailer for The Boxtrolls, adapted from the sublimely brilliant novel Here Be Monsters! by Alan Snow. We’ve been waiting for that to come out for years. Really though, the most consistently wonderful thing was being with my hilariously enthusiastic and excited friends. It was awesome. I’ll have to do some future posts about the comics and stuff we acquired.
After that we went for delicious drinkings in Manchester, followed by an ecstatic ‘California Screamin’ burger at Almost Famous. I cannot rate their food highly enough – I had a burger that made me think I’d died and been returned to Earth because Heaven don’t make good enough burgers. They also have insane cocktails mixed by dedicated and lovely people. Go there. Ah more drinks…
Sunday was mainly a trip into the Lego Shop in the Arndale Centre. They had very different things and I may have accidentally suffered from impulse purchase disorder. It was nice to introduce my brother and sister-in-law to the joys of make your own minifigure!
Some of my best days are those when we go to the Lego Shop. It’s a relatively small thing I know, but I’ve been finding it deeply satisfying and leaves me with a grin on my face.
We’d been planning to go back again for a while. I’ve been saving up for months for Metalbeard’s Seacow – the massive pirate ship from The Lego Movie, and how can one possibly sit still with all that money desperately trying to escape from one’s pocket? It would be terribly uncomfortable.
Short notice planning (resulting from being absurdly busy at work) made this into a Tuesday mission. That makes a single day week followed by a half weekend and a mere three day week beyond: this is living man. We’ve got our routine down…
We arrive at the Meadowhall train station, and seek out food. This time we went to the really quite excellent Handmade Burger Co. I had a Stuffed Burger with Mozzarella & Sun Blushed Tomatoes, which was succulent and lovely. They do a range of local bottled Real Ales which was a complete surprise, and very welcome. Oh, and the staff are incredibly friendly and nice. I liked it. Then we go to every other shop we’ve the slightest interest in. This time that took us past the Lego Shop an agonising four times. I was displeased.
Pick A Brick Bonanza
I can’t stop being enthused by the wall of bricks. It must be a combination of tactile and visual stimulation, the challenge of packing as much Lego in as possible and the very real visceral joy of pouring them out and re-sorting them at home. Gets me every time. On this occasion the Legoey folks outdid themselves. On top of the many wondrous colours of tiles (I can never have enough) – pink, purple, green and yellow and white (modified with stud-holes).
They have grey levers (a handful is a lot of levers), and some odd bits like the grey crates, fences, windows and doors and staircases. I had very few of these things before… now I have many! The crates especially only seem really useful if you have quite a lot of them. I got even more square white tiles as I’m building a space cube that needs to be lined with the things.
I’ve got a good sorting ritual now, using the interior of last year’s Lego Star Wars Advent Calendar:
Freebies!
We have a general talent for missing the best freebies at the Lego Shop, but this time we did alright. I love Lego Chima, especially the crazy helmet/heads (I’m really not sure which they are, which is rather creepy). Since we bought the *cough*Seacow they saw fit to toss a whole bunch of these little geezers into our bags! This little dude (Frax) is superb. I’m impressed with the new fire and ice theme, and even though his vehicle is quite crap in its own right it does have lots of lovely curvy pieces in it. Also – look at that mental face!
Happy Shelves
So, as a consequence of yet another ace trip to the Lego Shop, the kitchen shelves now look like this:
I wrote this a week or so ago when I realised I was beginning to crash. I don’t usually have the foresight/wit/willpower to write about how it feels. That in itself is part of the problem. I was then unsure about whether to post it, because y’know I feel pretty much fine now. That of course is the other half of the problem – addressing the damn things when you’re well enough not to feel like you need to.
Oh Look – A Precarious and Invisible Cliff
So, it’s a weird sensation- this sudden lurch down a level of feeling. I feel it as a sag in my bones, and in the thinking meat beneath them. I’m not saying my brain’s in my marrow; I just meant the skull. Everything is duller, and thoughts and action have a blurry motion trail that envelops the next thought and the next till all of them are cloaked in a thick miasmic fug.
That’s how it seems to me anyway. I feel as if each individual act or feeling stacks up until there are too many of them that feel wrong and they begin to topple. Somehow the blurring occurs after that fall commences. These are messy mixed metaphors (like a bush full of fish), but it’s proven a difficult thing to grasp and summarise.
The Early Bird Catches A Mental Illness And Lays An Egg (in your brain)
I don’t usually catch myself this early. I don’t think I become aware of the downward spiral until it’s well on its way to the hellish basement of self-worth. So this is probably a good thing. Self-awareness enough to recognise that my mind has taken a turn. Aware enough to do something about it? I don’t know. In the meantime, until such optimism emerges from the sad brain clag, I should really think about why I’m feeling like this.
It’s cyclical. I know it is, but someone’s gotta be cycling, right? It can’t just be a solitary spinning wheel with my mind stapled to it (presumably deflating the tyre of vitality), though that would account for the sensation of being pressed down. Did you know that one of the interesting things about wheels is the shape they make? I didn’t, but someone or something told me about it, or I dreamed it (and so it may not be true). Anyway, if you measure the movement of a wheel by tracing out a fixed point on its circumference it does weird things like being briefly motionless when it’s touching the ground. It doesn’t draw out a circle, it’s a weird series of rises and falls; both more like the feeling of up and down and less like a cyclical thing. I may not have a good grasp of cyclical as a term.
Evasive Manoeuvres
Well that was great. Instead of penetrating the psychic mire I distracted myself with whimsy. I suppose that’s good – at least it wasn’t whimsical musing on forms of self-harm. See: “optimism”. Back to the point: since I can’t pick out a single event that would give me a little push, then a confluence of events or incidents seems more likely (avoiding that horrid notion that it might be a cycle with zero agency on my part – that seems unacceptable to me). In which case I may not be able to find the causes but I can try to identify symptoms, be aware of them (at the least) and maybe be able to do something about them…
Where Are All The Signs? Oh, Sorry, I Was Too Busy To Look Out For Them
Yesterday’s post was about the sensation of plunging into the bleak valley. It’s difficult to spot at the time, because it’s hidden behind some trees, or is wreathed in the dark smoke of activity and the symptoms that precede and accompany it.
It seems to me that maintaining an awareness of the stuff that retrospectively was in my head should help me to anticipate, recognise and ultimately enable me to bridge that valley, or at least only blunder partway down.
These signs seem at the time to come together, but I think the order I’ve got them in here is probably exactly backwards to how I really experience them.
Withdrawal
I’m a fairly sociable sort of person (really), in that I find other people intensely stimulating. Sometimes too much, which leads to massive hyperactivity and inability to sleep. Seeing people at the right times… So if I get the feeling that I don’t want to be part of anything; that I’m rejecting the things, activities and people who usually make me feel good, or inspire creativity, then that’s probably not my ‘real’ response. A few quiet nights are fine, but it’s a swift and slippery slope into “fuck it, you can all fuck off”.
Difficult to manage: if I do too much it can be overwhelming and I don’t feel that I’m getting the all important quiet time with my other half, cat and books. And sitting. Just sitting around (while reading, watching TV and doing a few other things at the same time – that, to me is quiet time). If I do too little then I’m not getting the stimulation I crave and that has a direct knock on effect on my ability (or feeling about my ability) to create and do.
Maybe it comes from the perceptual lag between doing a cool thing and the next cool thing. I have a terrible memory of what I’ve just done. That lovely sensation of being on stage spinning bullshit into gold is frighteningly transient. It’s like a field projected around my sense of self and blends weirdly into time. And it just gets left behind in mere hours or days. It gets replaced by an emptiness – a gap where that good feeling ought still to be.
The prospect of future awesomeness is utterly intangible to me. Until I’m within a couple of days of an event (such as last weekend’s trip to Manchester) it has no impact on me, no window for light to shine through into my anxious psychic architecture. I have a weak sense of future anyway, so I guess that’s wrapped up together.
Imagined Conflict
I like a good argument, a spirited discussion with good humour. I even like talking to most people. But if I’m on the way down (or wallowing in the filth of that bleak valley), everyone talks in my head, picking fights over what I’ve done, what I’m doing, what I haven’t done. From friends to colleagues to strangers in the street: it’s a running verbal battle where I anticipate their enmity and criticism and initiate a counter attack before it’s even happened.
It’s a really stressful way to not-quite-interact with others. Everything is on a knife’s edge of likely failure and defence becomes angry and premature. It generates even more stress than actually having the argument for real would do.
So that sounds like a weakened sense of general self-esteem or a perception of fragility in what is otherwise excellent (the only things I do – joke). It’s one I have trouble preventing it from escalating in my head. I can feel the tension, tightness and clenching jaw of stress both inside and out. It makes me really angry, and hot with self-hatred as well as loathing for the imagined assault on me. A ridiculous state of mind. But once it’s got you…
Self Harm
It was only when I was talking to an excellent friend, some time before I engaged with counselling, that I discovered that actually most people don’t think about self harm or killing themselves now and then. I genuinely figured it was normal. Apparently not. It is not always in my mind, and when I am manically skipping over the waterfall that occludes the dark valley with its spray, it is very far from my thoughts. It might be days or even weeks before suicide lights up darkly in the back of my head.
The symptoms above trigger it; I suppose they all interact, intensifying each other. It seems like the simplest solution to any given problem -resting, of course, on the basic principle that what is causing the problem or what is wrong, is me. Now I know that isn’t true (it’s all them other fuckers), but it’s so self-evident sometimes. It’s the only sure way to wrest control of the situation back again, or to resolve it utterly. Control is the key. Self harm, more than a cry for help (which it may be) is definitively causing an effect that no one else can interfere with, or do themselves. The act is all mine. As is the pain, so beautifully clean and perfect. A complete distraction of everything else running around inside, like all those feelings have just been impaled, stapled into stillness.
If I’m thinking about self-harm or suicide more frequently than a couple of times a week (which I reckon is probably my baseline, and emerge from temporary frustration); a few casually considered thoughts about staple guns and razor blades and burns – then I’m likely on my way back down again. It’s been my intention for a while to start tracking that, though I’ve not figured out whether having to think about whether I’ve thought about a thing counts as having thought about a thing…
Upside Down And Back To Front
Yeah, I think they are backwards. Here’s how I think it goes: I am stressed / anxious / slipping down the slope. My go to response is to contemplate self-harm (I just don’t know why. Next the imaginary arguments kick in, which is the feelings esaping and making themselves articulate and known. The only possible response to that is to get the hell away from everything, because everything is where the conflict and the pain will be. Ah, sorted.
That’s how it always feels in the run up to a little bit of time away from work. It’s my birthday next week see, so I get to not be at work for a few days. This is excellent. Work is, at present, fucking insane. As ever, too much cannot be said. However, separating a public service into part private, part public is as difficult, poorly planned and badly managed at the top as you could possibly imagine. Locally I think the work we’re doing is good (and seriously bucking the national trend), but it’s a constant struggle against systems, appalling levels of competence at the top and there being no time to actually plan anything or handle what we’ve been given. Fun!
On the plus side, last week we finally planted the beautiful roses we bought. That was almost the best thing that happened last week. Our cat’s also rather pleased because there’s now a lovely turned over and available flower bed for her private use.
Anyway, that’s the main reason why I’m days behind my plans again. Also last week, and possibly down to work pressures in part, was not a great mental health week. Regrettable, but there we go. I did spend most of last Thursday’s improv jam making loom band bracelets, having discovered I was not in a fit state to participate. Not into loom bands yet? Why, you must not be a nine year old. Well, as ever it proved addictive and several other improvisers now have their own made bracelets. Yay for organised creativity!
I had the particular joy of being in the audience for the first time during MissImp in Action at The Glee Club. I’m glad I watched – I was able to drink (heavily) and laugh all the way through it. A fine night.
Yay! I’m on leave for a whole week. Sure that may not sound like a lot, but when you slice it into hundreds of frantic activity / inactivity segments it last for aaages. This is only the beginning of the month-long celebration I plainly deserve at least once a year. I don’t have enormous plans for my birthday tomorrow. In fact, I don’t yet have any plans, barring almond croissants for breakfast. They are surely the pinnacle of food evolution and may in fact be proof of a fat deity guiding mankind. I’m mainly looking for a recharging of the ol’ batteries this week, and I’ve so far had three satisfying lie-ins followed by ambling. There will undoubtedly be more Lego-ing, writing, cinematising and drinking.
Yesterday my other half and I celebrated sixteen years together. Hurray! We went to see Guardians of The Galaxy. It is brilliant, very funny all of the way through with a beautifully minimalist approach to backstory (the usual bane of the superhero/comic book film), tremendous chemistry between the whole case with a hell of a pace, extraordinary sights and endless surprises. It really lived up to that first trailer.
After that we tried out Bill’s restaurant. It opened a few weeks ago and we keep walking past it. This time we went in. They do a very enjoyable burger but their drink prices are just thievery. £4.50 for a 330ml beer ain’t a deal. The staff however are excellent and coped very well with us moving tables initially to avoid the squalling of children (if we wanted that we’d have bought our own) and then so Lady M could stretch her arm out without smacking her pinched ulnar nerve on anything. A nice meal.
I think that I’ve finished my space cube. I was dissatisfied with the initial greebling and felt it needed more… here’s a sneaky peek. I am as yet undecided about whether to populate it with Skulltron or classic Space-men. Making a cube out of Lego proved to be insanely complex. I’ve no doubt that there are much, much more straightforward ways to achieve it, but it’s been an excellent challenge that’s taught me quite a bit about Lego tolerances and brick dimensions. Let’s hope some of that sticks in my noggin.
I’ve also begun a small diorama. We got about a dozen newspaper tiles from the Lego Shop on our last trip the Sheffield – far more that we could ever normally require. I guess it’s a good example of how carried away by the plastic frenzy the Lady M and I get. The only possible thing to make is a news stand, so that’s building nicely. I really want to make it in a beguiling simple and brick-light way. I very much admire the fiendish creativity of Joesidon’s Lego builds. Check out the amazingly complex Lockers for an example of why I keep staring at this guy’s Lego pictures:
So I’ve made an initial version and am going to make a new version and see if I can do anything clever with it!
Media Intake
Comics
I’m still harvesting cheap titles from Comixology whenever they become available. They recently had the Transformers: Regeneration One series at somewhere less that half price, so I couldn’t really avoid buying them. They pick up directly after the US Marvel run of comics in the ’80s. Now that’s a bit tricky to follow for me, because in the UK our run went up to 300+, so I’m kinda confused about the overall narrative. The series we read over here became far more complex and I think, better, than the US run. But it is refreshing to be chucked back into that world. It’s also reminded me that I did rather dislike the style of art used for many of those US comics, and they are a stark contrast to the beautiful art done in many of the other recent IDW comics. Still, they’re fun to read even if the story does literally feel stuck in the past.
I’ve also just bought my first Guardians of the Galaxy comic. I thought it would be fun to read it before seeing the film, but I ran out of time…
Books
Last week I read Charles Stross‘ remarkably horrible Laundry novella – Equoid. It’s great fun, The Laundry being a division assigned the challenging task of protecting the realm from cosmically horrifying monsters. This is about unicorns. They are not the unicorns you see in My Little Pony... there were actually a few parts that made me feel slightly ill. Stross is, as ever, funny to read as well as clever and dark. It is a super-short read but it’s only a quid on Amazon. Stross has a bunch of other shortish tales for very few pennies up there too. Tor’s been really good about getting novellas and short stories by the authors up and available on the webbitubes.
Then I read Nexus (Mankind Gets An Upgrade)by Ramez Naam. It’s billed as a technothriller, but it felt pretty cyber-punky to me. It’s the evolution of the mind with nanotech integration, software, AI, genetic meddling and all manner of fun stuff. It bounds around at quite a pace, taking us from the emergence of Nexus 5 and its mind-sharing powers to the meditative monasteries of Thailand. It’s at once hopeful about the future yet besieged with governmental fear and violence. The book has been heartily lauded by the sci-fi community and though I didn’t think it was amazing I certainly enjoyed the book.
I’ve never entirely overcome my childhood fear and loathing of spiders. There’s just nothing I like about them and everything that I find creepy and disturbing – how they eat, move, live, reproduce. It’s all ghastly. Even the solitary vegetarian spider is no less repellent. Sure, they eat flies and stuff, but they do it in the most horrid way imaginable. It could all be done far more easily with geckos.
The bit with Shelob in The Lord of The Rings: Return of the King was easily the part I was most dreading, and I hid behind my hands for it. When they released the Lego (Shelob Attacks 9470) version I averted my eyes and shuddered away. Then they slashed it to about a tenner in Tesco on one of our late night supermarket wanderings. Then I had no choice. Even in Lego form, and even when winking, they made her really really creepy.
Spiders Make Good Carriages
Now you could argue correctly that I should have dismantled her immediately and spread her parts far and wide, but I had no choice. It had to be done. It gave me nightmares. The only way I could escape that atavistic horror was by taking control – make the spider monster into whatever I want. Like a pumpkin…
I suspect it was one of those nightmares that prompted the idea of travelling in a spider’s abdomen. It seems over-large and ideal for putting a chair inside. I made very few changes to Shelob’s front half, other than beefing up her thorax and face a bit, to try to compensate for now huge abdomen. I had to replace the back legs with rigid Technics poles to stop her from collapsing to the floor.
I think she came out with quite an endearing aspect in the end… it does look like a fun way to travel or go on holiday.
I like recorded music. Live music is great if the event is dedicated to listening to the band, but if it’s just there as well as everything else then it doesn’t really get listened to and at its worst detracts from the evening out. But a nicely recorded studio album can be for my ears only.
I’ve been very much taken with That’s Entertainment and their big boxes of sleeveless CDs, DVDs and games for 49p each. Before watching Guardians of the Galaxy we ambled in for a mocking flick through the discs. We decided against the endless discs of Friends (a show I have come to truly loathe) and 24 (the innovative split-screen gave me appalling headaches in season one), and emerged with an eclectic £13.50’s worth of discs…
Music
Pearl Jam – Vs Dammit, I already have this one.
Madonna – The Immaculate Collection From before Madonna learned how to sing, but these are classics!
Jim Kroft – Lunatic Lullabies I have no idea what this is but I liked the album name.
Gwen Stefani – Love. Angel. Music. Baby. I adored No Doubt‘s Tragic Kingdom but am unaware of anything Stefani has done since. This might be good, or dreadful I suppose.
Michael Jackson – Bad I need to find Thriller and Moonwalk as well to properly revisit that part of my childhood.
Drum and Bass Assassins (2 disc) A surprisingly excellent collection – Dillinja, Shy FX, Ram Trilogy…lots of classic D&B.
Black Grape – It’s Great When You’re Straight…Yeah I seem to remember this being ace, but am assured by friends that my recollection is incorrect.
Adele – 19 She has a lovely voice and I look forwards to hearing more of it.
Men In Black – the Soundtrack Aww, back when Will Smith when charming and funny.
Ian McShane – From Both Sides Now OK, somewhat a joke purchase, but the man who was Lovejoy and Deadwood deserves a chance. It doesn’t look like there’s a song called ‘Swidgen Cocksucker’, but I live in hope.
Toploader – Onka’s Big Moka I know…
Mark Snow – Soundtrack from Millennium (2 disc) I only saw a few episodes of the show but I liked it. Hurray Lance Henrikson! I’ve been enjoying film and TV soundtracks while working lately.
Queen – Greatest Hits I, II, III All three for £1.47! A bargain of wondrous proportions.
Fun Lovin’ Criminals – Mimosa From the era when they were just adorable.
Daft Punk – Discovery They are the only good thing about Tron 2
Forrest Gump – the Soundtrack (2 disc) I hate the film of Forrest Gump – Hanks at his most insipid with such a platitude-riddled script that I want to vomit chocolate. Gah. The soundtrack though is great.
Texas – The Greatest Hits Does exactly what it says on the tin.
A lot of this is quite old stuff (I’m heading that way too), but I like shuffle mode where I’ll get blistering jungle followed by songs from my childhood.
Films
John Carter This was a bit of a let down at the cinema, but I think it will improve on a TV viewing.
Let The Right One In (original Swedish version) I read the book recently and it was amazing, I have heard similarly splendid things about both film versions.
Sunshine Another one I was disappointed by at the cinema, but for unknown reasons I feel obliged to try again. Maybe it’s just Cillian Murphy’s pretty eyes…
Big Trouble In Little China Is there anything not to love about this film?
A Scanner Darkly I reckon this is the best faithful adaptation of a Philip K Dick story (including BladeRunner)
Save The Last Dance Inspirational dance movie! My favourite genre.
High Society Another dance movie from a more glamorous era
The Royal Tenenbaums Why am I buying films that disappointed me? This is another one I maybe believe is better than I thought it was
I had an entirely delightful week off for my birthday (thank you, you’re too kind – I do look ten years younger than I did before). I really didn’t do a lot. I find that difficult to accept – my brain only slowly grasps that “relaxation” is achieved mainly when not rushing around doing things. I am not very bright. I’m really struggling to recall what we did do… there was much Legoing, we cinema’d a bit (not a great week for new films) and did a lot of reading and spent much time with a Marmalade Badger on my lap. Oh yes, I ate pastries for breakfast every day. I was also presented with much love, cakes and happiness.
For the main event I got a huge heap of books (only further troubling our book storage problems), pretty jewellery, a loom bands loom (!), Lego (massive shock), more toys and and a delightful array of odds and ends. I have embraced my new age of 36 because I seem to have received more playthings for my birthday than I did when I was 9. This is only getting better. The Lego itself is now stacked to a terrifying height and I’ll have no choice but to tug out the lower boxes first and enjoy the subsequent carnage.
I accidentally erased my entire tablet which is pretty fucking devastating and discovered that since it doesn’t support the right kind of Mass Storage mode you can’t restore the deleted files. Oh how I laughed. Motherfucker. Sigh… Reckon I’ve only really lost a handful of irreplaceable documents and in-game data. Also discovered it wasn’t backing up to Google Drive. Grr. Hilariously I’ve also just this minute discovered that my external HP harddrive has fucked itself up and now believes it needs to be formatted again. Bye bye world… I’m now looking into full cloud back up of everything (BackBlaze, Copy or Jottacloud right now).
Stress-Pacing
Of course, I did have to return to work and it was a devastating change of pace. Working in an organisation while it is being privatised and the managers work in a range of exciting silos is just great. Unhelpfully stressful. By the end of Monday I could only drown my sorrows and regret ever having gotten out of bed. Just achieving that was tough for the rest of the week.
That’s not entirely fair – I went to an improv workshop with our pal Klaus Peter Schreiner from lovely Germany. It was a very welcome evening, and served to not only distract me from the day but went some way to re-delighting me with improv. He is an excellent fellow in all respects
It was a great shame that I then crashed massively while on the train home and failed to go to bed until after 2am. That kinda set the week’s precedent. Fortunately/unfortunately I then wasn’t really back in the office until Thursday afternoon due to various meetings, briefings, shitstorms and a team conference… Sigh. I really want this next week to go better.
Knickerbocker Glorious
My week was rescued by stopping being at work on Friday, followed by further indulgence in Warehouse 13 on Netflix- happiness. Then the splendid humans of Furthest From The Sea. Sure, I missed my train to get there (which really fit the week’s theme nicely), but then I got to cycle at high speed past pedestrians and still get to the venue on time. I was pleased with my self-correction.
Compering the show in the middle of Derby is immense fun. We had Streetlight Theatre Artsbanging out showtunes (a lovely bunch), Alice Macywith her lovely honeyed voice,Black Cats & Magpies , for their first ever gig, Andrea from Cabaret Theatre Schooldancing with classics like Michael Jackson (!), Matt McGuinness and our own Josh Beardsley to play us out, and round off his year on placement as an all round excellent human being.
This time Jamie and Josh gave me a wireless mic – with a Britney Spears headset and everything! I wasn’t sure if I’d like it at first, but if I’m close enough to the speakers I sound like Megatron. It proved entirely natural to wander around, and pursue our missing musical theatre act into Walkabout. I’m looking forwards to playing with it more.
Events and Excitement
Saturday 23rd August
Knickerbocker Glorious – Northampton
I’ll be compering again – in a new place dead centre in Northampton (I have never been there), plus me and Martin will be springing MissImp improv action on the crowd as well!
I just adore the shiny little things. This love is in ironic opposition to our actual bathroom tiles, who I despise and am in a sticking-to-the-wall battle with, which I have lost. I’m determined to make use of the hundreds of tiles I obsessively gather and stroke whenever the opportunity arises. I also get very excited when I get a spare of a really pretty printed tile, like the oven dial from the Parisian Restaurant (lovely) or the thermal detonator from Jabba’s Palace (I am given to to understand that the appropriate expression is “squee”).
Right now, for example, I have a tray of them out and I’m dipping my toes into them: it’s lovely. They don’t need to be any particular shape (although 1×1 round and square tiles do feel quite special.
You Know That We Are Living, In A Cubicle World
We all hope for a better workplace, so I built it… This little set started as just the ground floor and messing about with patterns of green and red tiles. The walls grew from that. I’d just acquired a heap of the lovely grey masonry-faced bricks and was determined to put them in everything.
It stayed like that for ages and I enjoyed giving it some decoration. I couldn’t bear to populate it with office workers though (one of the saddest subsets in society) and it ended up as the office for the robot sheriff from the Lego 70800 Getaway Glider set. It made sense to me… I had a lot of fun in finding pretty office decorations, especially the really old Lego tile as a picture(maybe even Fabuland?)
Movin’ On Up
Eventually a second floor became necessary, because… well, we got some new coloured tiles and they needed somewhere to work. The heroic office worker here is Count Sossiford, one of the monstrous fellows we assemble from the build your own minifigure box at the Lego Shop. He has a briefcase, he is a proper office person. By this point I had a very different number of masonry bricks and window pieces, so he got an office with less light, but more attractive wall decorations and lights. I am however rather fond of th Shell calendar on the wall…
As always these things spin out of control and I found myself trying to make an attractive/office ceiling for the ground floor that would allow me to stick the next level on top. It’s largely a failure as far as inverting bricks goes (the aim was to get studs on both sides) but I did manage to put some duct/pipe things in which seemed appropriate. And of course, you can’t do it without finally bunging a roof of sorts on top.
Now that I’m looking at it again I do appear to have missed a method of attaining the first floor… Still, I rather enjoyed making late ’70s-early ’80s light fittings for both floors. It may have been that requirement which caused me so many resulting problems. One day I will learn to plan. Maybe.
As ever, you can see all these pictures in glorious Flickr colour either by clicking on ’em, or going to this link.Related articles
I so very nearly dated this January; I am uncertain of time. When I spoke to my doctor a couple of weeks ago she asked how I’d been – I said it had been a tough winter for breathing. I was a bit confused when she pointed out that it was still August. Hmm. Possibly a confusion between birthday and Christmas – presents, drinking – all the things that make for a memorable season. Despite the perplexity I’m still bravely wearing sandals and grumbling about how damn warm it is all the time. We’ve also had a splendid array of really creepy moons over the last weekend, going from butter smudge on blue velvet to glaring silver eye through the window. I heartily approve.
It reminds me fondly of venturing across the school fields to see a friend when I was about sixteen. She was a lady friend… To whom I travelled at night, across an unlit expanse of tree and hill bordered grass – entered through a darkling cluster of bushes and then traversed in a variety of speeds, dependent on just how damn scary it was out there. In all the times I went over I never saw another person. It was disturbingly hushed, protected by whatever human sounds of cars by its borders. Streetlights glowed distantly through the trees at start and end, but the space between were shades of black, grey, desaturated green and blue. The moon would flip it from mildly unnerving to a werewolf pelt across the fields. I’ve rarely scared myself so often or so well. Worst was knowing I’d be coming back in a few hours… Ah fond memories! Hello Jo!
Media Intake
So where the devil have I been eh? Getting properly square-eyed that’s where. Yup, my retreat from the real world into the twin obtangles of cinema and television have rarely been so pleasing. I blame Netflix. Damn Netflix.
I’ve already lost track of what I’ve watched. I really enjoyed my Nazi afternoon of Iron Skyand Captain America: The First Avengerand it was only the beginning… film double-bills instantly seem like a good idea. Thor was a decent second watch but I’m disappointed to discover that Transformers 3: Dark of The Moonis terrible. It’s possible my critical filter is completely overwhelmed by giant robots when I see them at the cinema. On a second viewing the truth has emerged and it is not cheering – everything about it was terrible. Orange boy and his new stilted lady friend are just awful throughout, and even the surprising cast list just ends up shouting. While Bay is content to kill off main characters (the Transformers themselves goddammit) left right and centre he cannot bear to part with his appalling cast, dragging them back from films past and lumbering them with new formerly quality actors. It made me sad. It also ends with Prime more or less swearing he’ll protect humans forever. In the next film he goes out of his way to kill one and to generally wreak havoc. I am saddened.
We’ve just started back in on Dexterseason seven – after the hilarious revelation ending to season six we’ve waited for quite a while. It’s proving to be a very welcome return. We wrapped up season one of Grimm, and we’ll be coming back – not just for the lovely architecture and creepy Oregon (it’s where the Transformers crash land in the Ark…) forests but for the increasingly engaging story arc that’s developing. I’m pleased Nick’s getting a team of Buffy-like pals together. The bad guys are properly mean, the effects are cheap and cheerful and the scraps are quite deft. There’s tonnes of fun to be had in Grimm’s Fairy Tales and they’re milking it quite hard already – as far as I can tell about a quarter of the human population are actually beasties who describe themselves with terrible German accents.
Lego
The best thing to do when someone else is watching TV is of course to play with Lego… I am unpopular but have very much enjoyed my Lego tinkering of late. It remains enormously relaxing and with the new series of Mixels out it has been especially delightful! We haven’t got them all yet, but it’s only a matter of time.
Here’s a quartet of the bonkers looking buddies:
Why yes, those are starfish for his hands.Yup, witches hat eyelids.
Plus we’re agitatedly awaiting the arrival of the new series of minifigures. I think Marilyn’s going (unjustly) kill me if we can’t find them soon.
Jam show – a chance for anyone to get on stage and have a go at improv games and scenes for the first time, or the fiftieth! The Corner
8 Stoney Street
(off Broad Street)
Nottingham
7.30pm – £4 Bring Your Own Drinks https://www.facebook.com/events/1471257656494528/
Saturday 13th September 2014
The Opening of St Peters Cross
Live music, dance and general entertainment to celebrate the opening of the further development of St Peters Cross in the St Peters Quarter Derby. Yer’s truly’ll be on compering duty. Irongate House
Irongate
Derby
11am-3pm – FREE https://www.facebook.com/events/303790263137995/
Monday 22nd September 2014
Pub Poetry – Open Mic Comic Lit
A fun, free and informal night of light-hearted and comic spoken word and poetry with plenty of drinking: without beer, literature is nothing. Bring your own words, bring your favourite authors or just sit back and listen. Poems, short stories, songs are all welcome – just so long as they’re funny. Canalhouse
48-52 Canal Street
Nottingham
8.00pm – FREE https://www.facebook.com/events/1553615911516433/ http://www.nottscomedyfestival.co.uk/calendar_136740.html
I’m writing this at 5am on Monday morning. That’s not a good thing. That’s not a good thing at all. That means I haven’t slept – in tonight’s case – at all. Grr. It’s really annoying. I’ve become used to sleeping – for y’know seven or eight hours at a time, without waking up. Without waking up in the middle I mean, obviously I wake up eventually, usually when prompted by my ancient radio alarm clock that can only play a blend of static and glimpses of awful radio music. This is an excellent state of affairs, being quite alien to me from the age of 14 through to 30 something (save for the loving sleepy embrace of alcohol and other cheery brain-numbing drugs). To have reversed this awesome new state of normal is deplorable. Surely I’ve done nothing wrong…
So what the fuck? I mean, what the fuck?
Weeeeeell. I’ve been taking amitriptyline (or “tripty” as I like to call it) for going on two years now (more or less). Generally it’s been ace – I have literally never slept like that before. It’s a boon for the anxiety that blooms in me during the evening and gently puts my worries to sleep. In May I had a bit of a spaz out and got prescribed daytime tripty as well. Seemed to be alright but then I found anxiety actually increasing during the day. In fairness it’s accompanied a hideous phase of work, so that’s perhaps not surprising.
But along with that it became clearer that I was finding it much harder to do creative things in the evening (and sometimes really struggle to do much first thing in the morning), in particular to be able to take me tripty and still be able to improvise, or write, or socialise. If I took the dose I needed to later get to sleep I’d be dulled into dullness and be unable to properly participate. That’s damned inconvenient, especially when performance is linked so closely to self-esteem, satisfaction and all that important jazz. So I’d not take the stuff till later. That might mean it takes longer to kick in, pushing the evening back later without hope of reclaiming those hours in the morning, which shunts ya into an even more awkward bumbling around while under the influence and not really waking up and feeling more removed from the situation etc. etc… But it’s taken me a while to notice, or become concerned enough about the impact I felt it was having.
Change Is As Good As A Good Night’s Sleep
So a fortnight ago I went off to my lovely doctors (with whom I have an excellent and frank relationship), explained what I thought was going wrong and asked to switch drugs. I spent the last week and a bit tapering off tripty while taking my new drug Trazodone. The idea with this stuff is that it kicks in faster, so I can take it later in the evening after doing some stuff and maybe get that balance back. Of course you never stop dead with a brain drug so I gradually reduced the tripty dose and munched the taserdome.
Out cold the first couple of nights of course since that’s more or less just a double-dose. After that it got a bit weird, with some really heightened anxiety and awful bleak valley moments. I was waking up early and struggling to get back to sleep. It felt hideous, a shock, but not especially surprising – transition between anything and especially stopping something familiar is bound to have some consequences. So that’s horrid, but manageable and fine. Well, y’know. I am blessed with a loving and supportive partner, a wonderful cat and pretty damn supportive and reasonable boss.
This is the second night without any tripty at all. The first night it took an age to get to sleep (at least relative to my new normal) and I woke up from vivid dreams about killing an endless swarm of monsters with a lightsaber. One of the nicest things about tripty is to remember dreams so rarely… Last night, well. I’d been fairly anxious all day but a combination of regular hugs, Lego, the new Doctor Who and the magnificently odd Murder By Death(1976) made it all look like bedtime was going to be fine.
Lies, all lies! I thought I was prepped for sleep – the doziness and bumbling that I’m beginning to associate with Trazodone (my god – the number of things I blunder into dizzily!) feels a bit like being sleepy. And yet no. I realised at about one o’clock that this wasn’t going anywhere. I know better than to lie in bed being frustrated so I pinball downstairs, trying to be quiet and dropping everything and smashing into the edge of the kitchen table. Sigh. Initiate self-pity matrix… now. It didn’t get any better. I went back to bed for half an hour. It was nice and warm and there were cuddlable things. But no sleep.
So What To Do Next?
On the plus side I’ve written this post, and the ‘This Week’ post that I’ve failed to write for the last fortnight. And, fuck it – I’m still going swimming in a minute as planned.
So let’s attempt reason: I’m barely into a new cycle of drug use, so really I have no idea what effect it’s going to have. A crap night doesn’t actually tell me anything about Trazodone. I’ve got a prescription for a month’s use, then review. That makes sense. It doesn’t stop me wanting to run back to amitriptyline crying “all is forgiven”. It does make me wonder if I’d correctly assessed the factors in how I was feeling that lead to me choosing to switch drugs. But – I should give it a chance, surely. Or should I?
Um, no. A couple of weeks ago I was challenged to undergo the ice bucket challenge (it feels like at least one of those challenges is redundant). Since I ignore most things on the internet and Facebook I had to look it up first. That was confusing – it looked a lot like you either gave money to charity or had a bucket of ice water thrown over you. Or, you could do both. I’m not very good at doing what I’m told to do and in the spirit of resisting peer pressure (gotta learn someday) my usual response to a challenge is to walk away. Plus I couldn’t be arsed to get wet… that’s what showers, swimming and drinking are for.
So I figured I’d just build it instead…
This seemed like an excellent opportunity to play with flowers and make a small and pretty garden scene! I’m quite pleased by the layering of foliage, trying to offset the plants is surprisingly tricky to do without adding lots of jumper plates. Once I’d got the garden idea it was very satisfying to add cookies and buckets in – things I’ve had little use for, but have adored hoarding them in boxes.
I’d made my usual mistake of making a nice irregular base and then having to fit everything on. Instead of adding to the base I just made things more compact. I’m still not sure about the picnic table – I really wanted to get proper crossbars and benches on it but it was becoming enormous so I rebuilt it about six times before settling. It’s still chunkier than I really want, but as yet I haven’t found a way to strip out the extra bricks… But it looks nice.
Separating minifig parts recently paid off – I dug out a classic ’80s body for the ice dunkee, with Zod’s face. The red eyes of rage are how I imagine I’d feel in his boots. All the other bits are I think from Lego build your own minifigure acquisitions, except for the photographer’s body which is out of the Thanksgiving/Xmas Seasonal polybag from last year.
Hurray for the challenge. It took me most of a day… and I gave money to charity, though not to ALS. There are lots of important and underfunded charities and work out there who also need our donations. I imagine most people feel inclined to give money to something they feel some kinship or personal relationship with. I don’t like the impression of pressure being applied through these challenges – no one should feel bad if they don’t want to give money to charity – it’s not an obligation. So I’m not challenging anyone else – ya wanna do stuff, do stuff.
I’ve stopped taking the new stuff. Trazodone, which sounds satisfyingly like ‘taser-dome’ and conjures joyous imaginings of Mad Max III gladiators duking it out while doped up with SSRIs and Tina Turner in bondage gear just ain’t for me.
It all seemed pretty bad on Monday morning after not sleeping and enduring awesome waves of anxiety, but I was up for giving it a whirl. You never know quite how any batch of chemicals is going to slap up your noggin so you can’t make snap judgements. But it was pretty bad. It’s difficult to reflect properly on the effects a drug might be having, partly because it’s tricky to step back but also because the drug is actively having an impact on how I think and feel. Also, not sleeping is one of the most mentally debilitating things a person can experience. It has a more immediate effect than alcohol annihilating attention span, coordination, memory formation, common sense and emotional control. I needed assistance.
Review, Reflect, Reject
So in the evening I was talking it through with my other half (god bless her [should I believe in such a concept… I suppose I really mean to bestow, or have her self-bestow some form of benediction in an entirely secular way in recognition of my endless gratitude in a deeper way than “ta” implies]) and she suggested the wholly alien notion of reviewing the notes that came with the Trazodone. I’d skimmed ’em when I got them and did some light internet reading because I feel you should always know something about what you’re taking; really hard to do with illegal drugs so may as well take advantage of the regulated industry when you can. But I have to confess to taking the document less seriously because it was just photocopied by the pharmacist to jam into the funny little half-packet box she gave me. Presentation has an effect.
Turns out that I’d already nailed about a third of the ‘other side effects’ and 2 of the 7 ‘talk to your doctor now’ effects. Score! The dizziness (and clumsiness that results), sweating, high temperatures and nausea may not have been the mild cold I thought I had (could be plague I suppose). The weird skin sensations of shivering fingertips running up my arms might not be ghosts and the nightmares not a karmic punishment for laughing about Innerspace. The massive ramp up in anxiety was probably the lack of Amitriptyline, but is also a possible side-effect (like everything) of most anti-depressant / sedative type drugs. So that’s a whole bunch of waving flags right there. I got back in touch with the doc and canned the new stuff. I’m back on my old pal tripty and already feel much better and am sleeping fine, although I’ll have to get used to the morning fuzziness again.
Setting Fire To Clouds
Despite the side-effects I think it’s been a useful experience (and I am not a silver lining person, I tend to feel that the silver lining merely masks the awful darkness within). Having taken tripty for about two years now I’ve actually forgotten what the sensation of anxiety is like. Sure, I’ve had bad moments and days since then, but that’s had to be exceptional to punch through my tripty mask. Fuck me though, it’s awful. I’d lost the memory of what it’s like having anxiety crawling up the very marrow of my bones, spiralling and gnawing in an endless seething wave of ants. It’s paralysing, frightening and very hard to ignore – its lack of a cause (that’s stress when there’s a clear cause) makes it all harder to deal with. I’d forgotten, and for that I’m grateful, but it’s good to have been reminded. Why hadn’t I felt like that for two years? Well, that’d be the tripty. Duh.
It’s definitely worth trying something different, because who knows – it might be better. But for now, for me, the old fashioned broad-spectrum of side-effects Amitriptyline is the right choice. But, starting Trazodone helped me feel like things were different and I could change some of my habits – returning to swimming after sixteen years for example. That’ll do. Plus I’ve got a box of sedatives should I ever need to be sedated: bonus.
As ever we’re contributing a few bouts of entertainment ourselves – Pub Poetry on Monday, a free improv workshop on Tuesday and our regular The Glee Club show on Friday! Join us – we will have fun.
Monday 22nd September 2014
Pub Poetry – Open Mic Comic Lit
A fun, free and informal night of light-hearted and comic spoken word and poetry with plenty of drinking: without beer, literature is nothing. Bring your own words, bring your favourite authors or just sit back and listen. Poems, short stories, songs are all welcome – just so long as they’re funny. Canalhouse
48-52 Canal Street
Nottingham
8.00pm – FREE https://www.facebook.com/events/1553615911516433/ http://www.nottscomedyfestival.co.uk/calendar_136740.html
I’ve been trying to write this post for a while now. It’s about our cat, Merly, who we don’t have anymore. I can’t find a way to start writing about her. She’s gone now, but I want to be able to remember how she fit into our lives, made them whole and happy. Our experience of having Merly in our lives changed everything. Without her there are so many gaps – all the ginger jigsaw pieces have been taken away. I’m not sure we can see what the picture is any more.
Losses and New Beginnings
We acquired the little beastie not long after losing our previous cat, Spats. Spats had apparently died just after killing a bird and scattering it around the kitchen; I suppose she died doing what she loved. That was painfully traumatic. We’d acquired Spats, our Little Miss Moomin, when we moved into our house, taking the little black and white stray renegade with us. I fondly remember her stealing chips as we celebrated a successful move. We only had her for a few years and her loss was devastating.
At around the same time unbeknownst to us, my step-mum’s sister was working away from her home, leaving her cat and dog mostly alone and fed by neighbours. We became an obvious potential home for Merlin, a rather large ginger cat aged about 7. When we went to meet her, neither of us was really ready for a new housemate, but the absence in the house was unbearable. We met a very well fed, placid and gentle pussy cat. We cried over her and made friends. She moved in with us the same day. A lot of the stuff around her settling in and us eventually buying our home for the three of us are mixed up in my head – she so quickly became an intrinsic and intimate part of our lives that it makes no sense in my mind to separate them. Her name changed quite naturally from Merlin (for the distinctive ‘M’ on the top of ginger cats’ heads) to Merly as she took up her rightful place. When Lady M was away for a term at Birmingham Merly was with me constantly, I fondly remember her climbing into bed so I could completely wrap my arms around her as we slept.
Adjusting to A New Housemate
As with any pet, there’s an endless list of adorable things and memories. Merly was a cat for whom enough sleep had no meaning. I’m sure she hit about twenty hours of sleep a day. She quickly established the regular sleeping spots – on the bed, preferably on Lady M’s soft pink dressing gown; or next to the pillows facing the headboard. On rare occasions she would disappear and we’d find her asleep under the bed in some hard to reach nook between boxes of books, or under the folds of the blanket at the foot of the bed. The last resort for finding her would be snuggled down on a large cuddly Bagpuss in the corner by the window. She’d only really be content in the spare room if she could get into the cupboard and shred wrapping paper and bubblewrap into a nest. Merly was able to detect that cupboard being opened from anywhere in the house. Messy beast.
Downstairs, boxes and cardboard featured heavily in her kitchen sleeping. All boxes, and all things paper and cardboard were subject, and had to be subjected to her nuzzling approval. Every book was also faithfully attended to: our little Librarian. Merly had a small shoebox by her food, so she could flatten it out and sit on it. Recently we got an absurd amount of brown paper in a package from Amazon – it was quickly converted into Merly’s Paper Nest, one of her favourite places in the world. The living room was just one big sleeping space. A small sheepskin rug we got for Merly seemed to put her in a state of treading ecstasy, sinking in halfway up her legs in something almost as fluffy as her. On the other end of the sofa a Nici giraffe cushion (the giraffeangle), ideal for mid-afternoon. Naturally the door mat, any cushion approaching horizontal and any paper item were also adopted.
Cave
One of many blankets
Giraffeangle
Box!
Christmas!
Any book is good for Bookin
What?
I have fluffy bits
Boxed
We’d find her in any of those places when we got home from wherever we’d been. Seeking her out, and trilling for her and saying hello were part of the returning home ritual. Often she’d be sitting by the window, ready to hop down with some demanding quacking for attention. Attention we never failed to provide. I’ve never had a cat so cuddly. Merly generated astonishing quantities of fur. You could get knuckle deep in her crazily thick fur, with its ginger whorls, white tummy and bib and fluffy hind legs. Her short ringed tail always seemed completely independent, and surprised her constantly with its thrashing. We have so much fluff from combing her… it’s in all of our clothes and in all the carpets. When we first got her we had to wash her a few times because she apparently never learned to groom from her mum because she was taken away too early. I’ll never forget her heartbreakingly aggrieved meows while sitting in the bath with her. For all the grumbling though she didn’t try to escape (although I did get clawed quite severely), which made it all the sadder. She did look adorably spiky while drying. She got better at grooming herself, but needed help during the summer. I think it was because she had far too much fur and it got hot and itchy so she ended up with some bald spots that needed looking after. Poor little sweetheart.
I’m not sure if it’s because we sort of renamed her when we got her, but we kept adding names and variations, diminutives and nicknames. They emerged and fit perfectly every day. Lots of them are variations on Merly Boo. I don’t know where ‘Picklemoose’ came from. Maybe it was something to do with how damn fluffy she was, dainty little paws surrounded by all this thick fur. She was also quite fat when she first moved in with us. Her placid bumbling around was adorable, her very causal investigation and somewhat dopey sniffing of curious items and places. So sweet. I think the names she got reflect how deeply we loved her and how she fit so completely into our lives.
Living With A Cat
Every day began and ended with Merly. I’d often be woken up by her some time before my alarm as she leaped onto the bed, claws extended, landing on my arm or chest. I’d like to keep all those scratches. If I didn’t wake until my alarm I’d wake to find her asleep on my shoulder blade, purring gently to herself, vibrating through my chest. Frequently that would put me back to sleep, usually with my fingers trapped underneath her. Once it was clear I was actually getting up she would bumble about on the bed until finally getting around to hopping down and watching until I was definitely going downstairs. We’d go downstairs together, or she’d hop a few steps ahead. If I was slow I’d just be able to see her shadow from the kitchen on the carpet at the foot of the stairs. I look for that little shadow every day. The meowing and trilling and quacking would commence, along with the winding around ankles until she got fed. For the last few months she needed a tablet an hour before eating, so that was her ‘Marmite time’ – a smear of yeast extract around the blue pill was quite sufficient to persuade her to eat anything, she’d crunch the pill like a Smartie quite happily once it had been licked clean. There was much grumping about not being fed immediately afterwards; that became a part of the Lady M’s daily routine instead of mine. I’d usually pick her up for a cuddle and ruffling before placing her halfway up the stairs: she’d scramble up the rest by herself and return to bed.
Before leaving home I wake up Lady M, and without fail would find Merly settled on top of her, tail to Lady M’s face (tickling with random lashings), purring with her paws tuddled neatly under her bib (her chicken pose). I’d kiss them both good-bye and go to work. My wallpaper on my work computer, my phone and tablet are all pictures of my Bookin; I see her all day, I’d ask after her at lunchtime. Finding ginger Merly fur in my clothes never fails to make me smile. It’s amazing how few t-shirts I have that are fur free; I’ve got trousers I have to wrap in gaffer tape to clean them.
Coming Home
Coming home to Lady M and Merly was the reason to come home. Unless Merly was in a deep snootle (she did not cat nap, but dozed incredibly heavily so you could sit next to her and stroke her for a while before she’d wake up startled by our sudden proximity, and sometimes not even then) she’d soon be seeking me out. A scooped up Merly in my arms, her loud purr and hopelessly soft fur to stroke and nuzzle is one of the best and happiest things in the world to me. Gathering her hind paws in one hand and stroking the soft fur inside her ears, tufting the cheek fur and under her chin so she sticks her head out and then stroking up her nose between her eyes and stroking down on the very tip of her nose; all good and lovely things for us both.
Once home, she’s everywhere. Underfoot while cooking (of course), hopping up onto Lady M’s lap during breakfast after patting the edge of the chair seat with a tentative paw. A pretty much guaranteed companion while sitting on the sofa. Merly had a particular fondness for lying over our wrists, especially when trying to type. She’d nestle down in crossed legs or between us on a cushion. While messing about with Lego she’d stomp through boxes of bricks and sit in my lap regardless of how much Lego was already there. She did object to further movement with a grumbling quack. The range of weird noises she’d make to herself was extraordinary. I’ve never known such a vocal cat. Her purr went from a Geiger Counter ticking right up to a deep and loud revving purr which collapsed when it reached its rumbly peak. We ended up imitating her inquisitive trills, both to find her and signal to the others where we were ourselves.
Even if she wasn’t actively asleep on one of us, we’d go and find her in between doing something or other. Frequently she’d just forgotten we were home (asleep again) and was curled up somewhere else, sleeping on her head (making it rain) or nose buried in the tip of her tail. We habitually check for her in a room that we pass, and stroked her. That constant looking is really difficult to stop. There’s a ginger shadow in my eyes, at the edge of my vision everywhere I go. Merly would fiercely police any food being consumed, frequently trying to climb onto Lady M’s plate while we watched TV. She had no regard for our meals and would climb over hands with knives in and displace plates from laps. In the morning she’d be treated to ‘morning butter’ – a lick of the post-toast butter knife. She’d happily pester for and thieve crisps, chips and at least sniff-check anything that looked like it might be consumed.
Comfort is A Warm Kitten
Most of my evenings ended with a book and glass of whiskey, stretched out on the sofa or kitchen floor with a Merly on top. A few snacks for her before bed, and she’d pursue us upstairs, and with a little trilling coaxing would gain confidence and hop onto the bed (or adopt the digging in of claws and pulling herself up that has made such lovely work of the leather sofas downstairs…). If we weren’t actually horizontal and appropriately laid out for her she’d either make do, and have to be moved, or grump off to the end of the bed until we were. During the night she’d stomp across us (sleeping tablets keep me out cold), kick Lady M’s glasses off the bedside table and clumsily negotiate the curtains to stare at the outside. Very occasionally she’d sleep between us, or between the pillows on her back, all four paws curled in the air.
When the front door was opened, she would go out to inspect her holdings. She’d never go far – I only saw her as far as six houses away a couple of times. Recently she’d been nuzzling the doorstep and rolling madly in the weeds growing under next door’s doorstep. Crazy little Boo. She stood her ground fairly well against neighbouring cats and I’d watch her in those strange silent Mexican stand offs they have. She seemed to like hopping back inside. Out the back are her flowers. At the right times of year we have tulips, roses, lily of the valley and her beloved bluebells. She’d roll in those and come inside smelling beautiful; I never figured out why the Picklemoose smelled of Chewits some days. She was never a roaming cat- the few gardens either side of ours had enough to entertain her, as well as our lavender tree whose trunk was her main scratching post.
Fearsome Worra Beast
I once, wholly uncharacteristically saw her in the middle of a mad half-hour outside in which she ran straight up the tree and into the branches; I think she had surprised herself, I helped her get down. She really liked to be accompanied and reassured as she wandered outside, but was also perfectly happy to nestle down in one of her grass forts and watch the insects do their stuff. Often she’d come bounding back in crazily, skittering across the tiles and lino floor of the kitchen, skidding further with claws clacking onto the laminated wood of the living room. A couple of circuits might precede going back out again or racing up the stairs (claws still extended) to dive into a deep sleep. Unpredictable, and very funny.
I don’t think I ever saw her attack anything successfully – she ran away from big spiders inside, and didn’t really know how to hunt. Lady M once saw her watching a squirrel avidly, doing that quivering that cats do pre-pounce… and then just sitting back down again. She was a very sweet natured beast, who only went in for hissing and biting (or rather licking and gumming since she had only a few teeth, but she did do a brutal and vigorous grooming of your fingers) if she’s had too much attention or was in the middle of a shoelace frenzy. Merly was never one for toys, though we did get her a few before recognising her total lack of interest. She might nuzzle it if it had corners… and so the cardboard and paper became her play areas. She’d go briefly wild at heaps of wrapping paper at Christmas and birthdays (and always chose to sit on the paper when wrapping gifts to begin with) and enjoyed chasing balls of paper for a bit. It was only a shoelace that really got her going (actually a couple of laces from the ends of combat trouser legs). I could tease her with those for ages in the kitchen and she’d skid over and round chairs and her paper nest to get at the taunting strings. Eventually she’d become overwhelmed and would either race back up the stairs or have to go out for a bit to calm down. Typically she’d stand and wait by the (electronic tag-operated) cat flap until one of us opened the door for her. We were good servant humans.
The Queen of The Ball
Merly-Boo was surprisingly popular with everyone else too, even people who don’t like cats. I suppose it helped that she was so sociable. She’s always come and inspect newcomers and visitors. The door knocking used to startle her, but eventually she’d just stay on the sofa, half-watching the door to see what came through. We’ve got lots of friends who Merly loved to sit on, and cause powerful allergic reactions in. At parties she would hide/sleep upstairs until people stopped moving around too much and then come down to great acclaim to take a turn around the kitchen and living room. I’m glad that a lot of people who Merly considered friends (or notable humans, or whatever it is that cats label us in their heads) got to see her in the last few weeks before her untimely death. She looked intensely pleased with herself, curled up on her paper nest under the table at our last party.
I’ve spent days watching her, gazing at her little face as she slept – at the chocolate chip freckles on her ears and tiny heart shaped pink nose, or as she groomed herself (mostly just the face and head before getting distracted, maybe the paws – oh the beautiful pink petals paws), or went berserk at nothing in particular and ran off.
I miss seeing her, I miss stroking her. I miss the warmth of her fur, her quick heart beat and drilling purr when she’s cradled in my arms, or settling down on me to go to sleep. Her purr sent me to sleep in bed and drove a deep satisfaction into my heart. I miss being startled by her mysterious teleporting around the house. I miss being able to wonder what she’s been doing while we’ve been out, or where we’ll find her when we get home; there was always an excellent chance that she’s have slept for the entire time we’d been out and hadn’t realised we weren’t there. I miss being able to tell Lady M, or our friends about the adorable things Merly has done recently. I miss the feel of her teeth rubbing against my hand when she nuzzled at my fingers. I miss the sound of her everywhere, her crazy trilling and purrkling. I miss the smell of her fur, the feel of her tail flicking out from between my fingers as I stroke her. I miss her pretty little green eyes lazily blinking or winking at me as she dozes off or tries to wake up. I miss tracing the patterns in her fur. I miss finding and making up new names for her. I miss seeing her and smiling. I miss seeing Lady M with Merly and that making me smile. I miss having our little companion – a third of our home is gone. I miss our little babe, our little love.
It’s been quite a while since I’ve done any proper writing. I stopped because I was overwhelmed by other things such as work, stuff and other stuff. It’s not a good thing to stop doing though, especially if, like me, you happen to have a memory like a broken colander and your writing is the only way to keep track of anything. It’s also my main outlet for mind screaming, uninterrupted babble and the road to organising my ideas into stories and partly coherent thought cubes. I’ve been Legoing and things in the meantime, but that doesn’t fulfil the same internal purposes of key-twatting.
So my stories lie tailless and lost, my thought threads are unwoven, my emotions become opaque and unknowable. I was about to begin writing again, at least a weekly update (my diary) or some Lego pictures, but then our baby, Merly-Boo was killed by a dog not ten feet from our back door. I have no real way to convey the loss of a cat or any pet who is so loved. I know that not everyone gets it – some people just don’t understand how you could feel more for the loss of a pet than another human being -stranger, friend or relative. So the first thing I wrote in months was a eulogy to our Picklemoose. Four weeks on now I don’t feel as if I am any more ready to embark on life. Every return home and doorway we pass through is an opportunity to forget what has happened and be bereaved anew. The constant heartbreak is awful. My Dad has thoughtfully brought us some children’s books about understanding and accepting grief for our small fuzzy friends. I can hardly bear to look at them, but I think they will help.
I’m Not Back Yet
At times I feel like a balloon that has lost its skin. It is hard to focus, to create, to live. It is necessary though. I know that there will come a time when I think of Merly, or see my other half think of Merly and I won’t want to stab myself in the heart to let out the pain. That’s almost worse though, to know that grief, the remembering of love can end. Does that mean the love ends? I know it doesn’t, but right now it feels like moving on requires some kind of forgetting and I think I equate forgetting with not caring (because how can I care about something if I don’t remember). I suppose that’s a stage in grieving too.
I miss all of the beloved creatures who have left life behind. I remember the cats: beautiful crazy Smokey, who was killed by another cat when I was maybe only five or six, Bonny who moved to Staffordshire with us and was black and soft and lovely. Little devilish Jeri, a pint-sized cat with half a tail who I used to carry around in my dressing gown pocket – fierce, who loved to bite and claw at a sock dragged half off your foot, and the first cat I’d known from kittenhood. Lovely honey-coloured tabby Holly who lived in my bedroom and visited the world through a catflap we cut into the glass window; the first cat I’d had sleep with me every night. The first cat Marilyn and I had together: Spats, a feisty independent black and white cat with the smartest white tie and spats you ever did see. She preceded our Merly-Boo.
And there are all the other cats we’ve met. Befriended through patience, squeaking and purring and crouching behind cars in the rain. We name them all, and think of them. There are too many to list, but for now I’ll happily recall Mini-Spats, a tiny tiny clone of our darling who used to make me late for work by being adorable and affectionate. Twinkle, a massive white cat with black ears and tail who Spats absolutely loathed despite his overtures of friendship. Powder, who as a kitten climbed up my bicycle and onto my head. Oscar the flat faced ginger cat who headbutted at the gate in his urgency to be stroked and to nuzzle at knuckles. So many friends. All now moved away or otherwise gone with no explanation. I miss them all and think fondly of them.
No longer expecting to see someone is not the same as forgetting them, but I think it’s necessary to keep on going.
I have you!
Lighter Bits of Brain Not Worklings
Being a bit fucked in the brain does however offer some entertainments. Three of my mind-spazzes that amused me today:
1) Gazing uncomprehendingly at the grill tray because it had the liner but no grill bit. It just looked wrong but I couldn’t figure out what was missing. It took me several goes to correctly layer tray, then liner, then grill, then foil and finally gammon.
2) Losing the word ‘beat-boxing’ when trying to talk about Reggie Watts turning up in Pitch Perfect 2 (not a bad sequel, but is far too long with too many new characters, none of whom were better than the funniest characters in the first one. I really enjoyed the mashup songs though). The only version I could produce was ‘mouth beating’. It really doesn’t sound as good. “Reggie Watts is an excellent mouth beater isn’t he?”
3) I no longer understand clocks. In trying to figure out what time an item on eBay was ending, I added four hours to seven PM and got one AM. I appparently think there are now twenty hours in a day. That does explain quite a lot.
In September 2013 my uncle, Colin Barnfather, went missing when hillwalking in the Scottish Highlands. We didn’t know he was missing for a week, and by that time it was too late. Just over a year ago (I know, because Facebook popped up a ‘happy memory’ photo yesterday) I joined my Mum, step-father and brother and sister in travelling way oop north (beyond the bits where ‘oop’ would sound normal) to the area outside of Fort William where he fell and was later recovered.
I’d intended to publish this at the time, but it didn’t seem quite right for reasons I can’t adequately explain. I guess it was a private family pilgrimage. It’s rare for me to spend that much time with family – not because I don’t like them (they’re all mostly lovely most of the time), but I’ve become used to being a bit more solitary. I’ve no idea whether that’s a good or bad thing, but I did enjoy these few days together very much.
Mission Time
It’s a hell of a drive, heroically undertaken by my step-father. Of course my siblings made the trip vastly more complicated, joining us at Inverness airport. So we drove up to Inverness, from Burton on Trent, via Nottingham and Newcastle in a day. The scenery (even Newcastle) was stunning, and driving up into Highlands was particularly magical while listening to the BBC Radio drama version of Lord of The Rings. Mountains, moor, sky and lochs which all seemed like places the Riders of Rohan could be crossing, or the heroes trudging across in their apparently endless quest. An awesome trip. I can provide wholly anecdotal and unreliable testimony that crystallised ginger is the partial solution to all of the world’s problems: travel sickness.
Our accommodation for the trip varied widely between the gorgeous The Croft at Cranford (soooo going there again) and the dive B&B for night two in Fort William. I can’t give you the place’s name but they were triple over-booked and couldn’t muster an apologetic tone or a functioning bar; Tim, Liz and I shared a three bed room – Tim and me in a bunkbed. He was thrilled; I was pleased for him. The last night was spent in Gretna Green on the way back down, where Tim and I got hammered in the hotel bar during a wedding; pints of some fairly awful “smooth” and drams of excellent whiskey make the night fly by…
Between hotel arrangements we drove. A lot. Colin went walking in a beautiful area – Kinloch Hourn, which is some miles out of Fort William and vanishes off into a 22 mile long single track road to nowhere. We became lost several times in the winding roads that vanish into moors and nowhere. Last time Mum and my step-father were here it was night and filled with police and helicopter crews, so it looked quite different on a beautiful sunny day. Eventually we did find the right road, and were promptly challenged by car sickness because the road frankly takes the mickey, rerouted around boulders, up and down in lurching heaves. Just thinking of it gives me a ghastly flash of nausea and has me reaching for ginger.
Raw Natural Beauty
I hadn’t been out into the wilderness of Scotland for quite a few years and I’d forgotten just how astonishing it is. The route down into the valley took us past mountains, a huge reservoir and dam, deer, endless heather and gorse but what struck me again and again were the broken teeth of rock jabbing up and through the startling green. It made me think of broken giants, collapsed after battering each other to death. It’s shockingly empty of human life and the quiet is almost intrusive (I liked it). We made it to the end of the trail at last – literally, it just stops. There’s a tiny farmhouse cafe and a friendly horse who I gave some attention to. I enjoy making friends with strange animals. It seems easier than with people.
I suppose it’s quite rare to visit the place that a loved one died, even quite strange. That’s on my mind because our cat died just outside our back door and I pass it at least twice a day. We’d gone to scatter Col’s ashes. I can’t deny that there’s a certain strange irony in returning Colin’s earthly remains to the place we took them from. It’s not like he planned to die there, so would he really want to be put back? Well, those are the options that you don’t get once you’re gone. It makes sense to us, plus not all of him has gone back – Mum’s still has some of his ashes. Even writing about this now seems really odd… all I can say is that it didn’t at the time!
It was difficult in the day time to properly identify the cliff that Colin had fallen from. I’m not sure we did figure it out definitively. I found my eyes kept being drawn to one ridge in particular, which fit my mental image of how and where he died. It’s fairly unlikely that I’d intuited it correctly, but we run on symbolism and imaginary memories all the time – this, to me, is where Col died. At its foot runs a lovely little stream, with scrub and mussel shells scattered around. We drank champagne, ate lunch, toasted Colin and proceeded with scattering his ashes.
Human Ritual
Just as at Colin’s funeral it was absurd and implausible that he really was contained in that long box, it seemed even more improbable that he could be inside an even smaller box. Nevertheless, we are materialists and atheists in my family. We don’t believe in an afterlife or gods, or ghosts. Our lost and loved ones live on in the only place they ever did – inside our minds. The constantly decaying and renewing flesh of our bodies is inconstant and transient. Our thoughts and memories are even more so. Only by remembering do we reinforce our memories and the ideas, emotions and people who reside therein. The flecked white and grey ash that remained of Colin was not ng different from the matter that encased his mind and its collections of thoughts. Burying or scattering those mortal remnants is an action for us, for those who persist in this world of space and time.
As with all things human, the action of solemnly taking a fistful of ash and scattering it over the land, watching the motes of my uncle vanish into the grass and water is at once deeply serious and tinged with humour. My sense of humour is cheerfully grim and I find laughter in most things. So I was kind of cheered to note that we weren’t really paying attention to the direction of the gentle breeze that had joined us. So we quite quickly coated each other with ash… Fingernails and palms already white with familial dust, we got Colin ground into every fold of clothing, each stitch and seam. I remember the taste of the ashes distinctly, salty and well, exactly like ash from a fire. We’re made of the same stuff as everything else. Despite my inappropriate amusement, it felt like a good and fitting tribute to my uncle. All of us there ambling around this beautiful place with handfuls of ash.
What We Leave Behind
As we left the valley, and Colin’s ashes behind I stuck my camera to the window and filmed the first few minutes of the route out of the valley. It’s beautiful, and paired up with music from The Lord of The Rings it captures both the beauty and my feelings about the place where my uncle died.
It’s also just been Col’s birthday so I did what I’m getting into the habit of doing: sending him a text message and ringing his phone. That’s the same as I tried when we were up in Scotland: his phone was never recovered. I like to think that there are messages bouncing around out there somewhere and that some inevitable bumping of related electrons takes place, linking us all together.
I feel as if my mind is slowly reawakening. Normal things are being normal again, I’m laughing at funny things and am sad about sad things. I’m edging back from the precipice on my mental health unicycle. So that’s good. It’s not yet getting me, or us out of the stasis bubble we’ve been in for the last 7 weeks since we lost Merly. There’s still a moment every day when I’m physically staggered by the change. It’s certainly hit us a lot harder than any other death, but I think we were pretty close to the cliff before that happened.
We’ve been making friends with a bunch of new cats who have popped up around Beeston, and I finally made friends with the adorable little cat who slinks through the garden outside my window at work.
So what is going on? I can’t say we’re going out much, but we’ve returned to useful routines like improv on Thursdays. It’s even started to be fun again. If all goes well MissImp will be moving out of current digs and into shiny new ones soon, and then we can restart monthly shows. Mind you, we’ve got Gorilla Burger this week (I’m compering again, back in the saddle and all that), and Interrobang in Derby on 7th July. I’ve begun saying yes to events again – I’ll be compereing and possibly performing at Furthest From The Sea Festival on 20th June, and I’ve just been invited to be part of the cast for The Mad Hatter’s Cocktail Party at Splendour on 17 July. It looks like it’s filling up quite quickly.
I’ve got to have time for everything else as well though – some of that is returning to writing, because this is how I think and remember what I’ve been doing. If I don’t write about it there’s a good chance it will vanishes into the abyss between thoughts.
Lego
I’ve hoarded a horrifying amount of Lego which sits unopened in a heap on top of a wardrobe. It pleases me to look upon that immaculately packaged mound. I’m waaaay behind in blogging about what I’ve built so I suppose I’ll just have to pick somewhere to start.
Recently I was facing brain freeze coupled with a twitching need in my hands to assemble things. I mastered this fidgety frenzy by building some of the smaller sets I’d acquired, but I knew I needed to build.
I’d had the idea of building more stuff from the Flash Pulp universe. There’s a wealth of inspiring ideas in there – zombies, forests, ancient gods… For the Flash Pulp Secret Kar’Mas game I made one of Opopanax’ illustrations into a Lego (nightlight?) model.
https://flic.kr/s/aHsk7GjTNB
I was pretty happy with how it turned out and I had my eye on several other illustrations. In indecision I looked up FP001. It’s the first story they published and features Mulligan Smith chasing a guy into an alley. Perfect. The story is pretty evocative while giving relatively little description of the location to either limit or draw upon.
Turns out this system is ideal for me! I’m getting to build things I would never normally get round to and filling all the details in is working well. I’ve now illustrated the first three episodes, which is great except when I note that they’re now up to FP452. I may never catch up. Hell, I know I won’t – I’m hitting about one every three weeks they post at least two a week… It’s also nice to be building for a specific audience – the Flash Mob.
TV Inhalation
We’ve been consuming whole seasons of television again. We’ve paused watching the superb Daredevil for now. It is fantastic, but right now just too brutal to enjoy. Lots of well deserved praise is being heaped on the cast, choreographers and everyone else involved for making the first really good TV superhero show (since The New Adventures of Superman, obviously).
Instead we tried out Arrow. It’s terrible: wooden, inane and nonsensical (and I’m saying the original Batman series was better). About a third of each episode is spent watching our hero shirtless doing pull ups. While he does them in a suitably hardcore way it’s not that impressive after twenty episodes. Often that’s the best that the show gets. His disguise is just a streak of black makeup and a hood. The villain is everybody’s favourite West End grinning alien-humper, John Barrowman, unfortunately menace is just outside his range. Some of the episodes bobble along alright, but the tone is variable, fights adequate and plot stupid. I can only imagine the makers of Daredevil watched Arrow and correctly decided not to do any of that.
I’m struggling to remember what else we saw… oh yeah: we watched season 1 of Constantine which was a lot of fun. Listening to John Constantine’s Welsh actor veering in and out of Scouse was amusing too. It’s got some good darkness, with a pace and cast that kept us watching. The wheelchair guy from Oz (Harold Perrineau) as a guardian angel? Yes please. We also saw the first season of Sleepy Hollow, which has a similar vibe to Grimm, dark occult nonsense with a likeable cast and a sense of menace from the villains. We’ve also started to catch up on Castle, which continues the fun of ‘police+random consultant from any walk of life = better detective work’. Then we watched the first season of Ripper Street which I enjoyed a lot more than I thought I would. The Victorian era looks suitably grimy and the cast are grim and focussed.
I’ve been mainlining Prison Break and finished season 4 last week. It’s a deeply daft show with a surprising number of hooks that have kept me very entertained. He tattoos his whole body to break his brother out of prison, he wears long-sleeved t-shirts for the next two series because those tattoos are useless but take ages to draw on. They break out of another prison, they break into a vault, and into yet another prison. The cast are very likeable and the story winds them through impressive character arcs, redeeming villains, crushing heroes, forging bonds and friendships. I was particularly fond of the vicious murderer and rapist Theodore Bagwell who plays one of the real bad guys with relish, his lovely Southern drawl enabling him to say things like “I’ll be right back, lickety-split” without being laughable. His end is very satisfying, and as inevitable as the others’. I realised quite close to the end why I liked the show – it’s basically Mission Impossible, the good one – y’know, without Tom Cruise. I hear they’re talking about bringing it back. I’m up for that, though they’ll need to unkill at least one main character (not that they didn’t do that all the way through the show anyway).
Couldn’t Be Arsed To Continue
We tried out, but gave up on: Defiance, which looked worse than Starship Troopers 3 and was less credible than Space Precinct. The 100, which is just The Tribe in a forest (but at least Will and Jayden Smith aren’t in it), Black Sails, which I was really up for but left me wanting story, Transparent in which all the characters were hateful and unwatchable, Bloodline which ends the pilot with “we killed our brother, but we had reasons” – yup, we believe you and don’t need to see it, Houdini, wow – awful.
Currently On Our Box
Right now we’re watching Marco Polo, which looks lovely and has us gripped in its alien politics, ambiguous characters and action. Alongside that we’re re-watching Hyperdrive, which is much better and funnier than I remember. I think it got a lot of grief because it wasn’t Red Dwarf, though of course a lot of Dwarf ain’t the Dwarf we want either. I’m watching and hugely enjoying the reboot of Thundercats which is a lot sharper, darker and more interesting than the original merch-fest.
I bought a new game and played it on the Wii for the first time in two years! It’s not a new game (obviously) – it’s Lego Lord of The Rings and it’s enormously satisfying. I’d been disappointed by Lego Indiana Jones and the first Batman game and this seems like a delightful return to fun gameplay and a world you can explore without being completely lost. You do have to change the brightness on your TV though – Mordor’s quite dark.
I’ve got generally happy memories of the older Mel Gibson series. I enjoyed them, though I haven’t seen any of them for well over a decade. Mostly I remember being surprises that petrol and gimp-wear survive the end of civilisation. And the films being bonkers.
George Miller’s new, production hell film brings Mad Max gloriously up to date. Mullet and mostly S&M wear free, this has instantly become my favourite film of the year. It looks incredible, and contains some of the most beautiful desertscapes and depictions of cruelty and bleakness and desperate hope I’ve seen.
It starts with a clearly mentally unwell Max (a magnetic Tom Hardy) hallucinating his family and others who have died in his care. He’s immediately captured by a gang of white painted war boys and taken to a mesa topped with farms and filled with cogs, chains and lunatics.There he’s dehumanised into a ‘universal donor’ and imprisoned. Meanwhile, the right-hand woman (Charlize Theron: incredible) of the mesa’s insane partly crippled leader breaks away with his breeding stock. That’s the setup, and it’s all the film needs to explode onto the screen. What follows is visually stunning, heart rending and thrilling with almost no pause for breath.
Themes of redemption, sacrifice, equality and depression are deftly wrapped up in explosions, terrifying and relentless physical stunts, violence and piercing moments of happiness and relief. Every human in the film is disabled, either physically, mentally or emotionally. The villains and their victims are victims of radiation sickness and deformities (and the awful post-apocalyptic world they inhabit), Theron’s character has an awesome prosthetic arm (possibly the best since Evil Dead II), the breeders’ fertility is turned against them and becomes their sole value, the war boy who turns good (Nicholas Hoult) spends the film on the verge of death from tumours and his psychological conditioning to accept Immortan Joe as a god who will lead them to Valhalla.
The apparent lunacy of the trailer is given enough grounding by the story, superb performances from the cast and (again) the shocking stunt work of hundreds of people. Fucking ace. Watch it.
Disney seem to be struggling to make good live action films these days – not that they aren’t financially successful – they’re just terrible. Maleficent and Cinderalla were remarkable failures in story telling . So I was bit wary of this newest exploit. It opens with straight to camera exposition by George Clooney, interrupted by Britt Robertson. It’s a tedious device and I was grateful when it ended and they got on with the story (which was perfectly self-explanatory). The World Fair 1964 sees Clooney’s young inventor recruited by one of Tomorrowland’s robot agents, the excellent Raffey Cassidy (sorry for the spoiler, but really – it’s obvious), some stuff happens and we skip to the more-or-less present. I can barely be arsed to explain the story – basically the future (which isn’t actually the future) is in danger and Tomorrowland (which isn’t actually the future either, but is also in danger – I’m not sure why) may have a solution.
Tomorrowland contains lots of things I really liked – a retro-futuristic world lifted directly from The Jetsons and dozens of films from the last 30 years, but we’re only briefly invited in and when we finally get there it’s into the broken down, empty boring version with Hugh Laurie being a bad guy/Republican. We get robots, big chunky ones (again, for about a minute) and some androids who are cool, but are just Terminator-lites. Their big grins and creative deaths are pleasing, but they get phased out of the film and forgotten. The female leads are superb – very enjoyable and a nice counterpoint to broken-hearted Clooney, plus they mostly ignore his instructions (and I do like it when people do what they want). There’s a fantastic steampunk scene featuring the Eiffel Tower (worth watching it for), a great fight in a sci-fi and fantasy shop, some cool gadgets, stunts and flashes of what Tomorrowland could have been. Stitched into a different film I’d have loved it.
It’s a film that’s bothered me more since watching it. I get wrapped up in whatever I see and am happily whisked to the ending only to look back and sigh. I completely approve of the film’s message – we are fucking up this planet and failing to do anything about it. They literally state that in painful moralising dialogue during the film. We’re also accused by the film of revelling in catastrophe and dystopian apocalyptic fiction; we’re so in love with those ideas that we’ve assumed they’re going to happen and that’s the other reason we’re doing nothing. Even more so – those constant images of an apocalyptic future are directly affecting us and our future (yup, it’s a parallel dimension paradox thing) and we should just stop, y’know and watch old Disney movies and become better people and inhabitants of this planet. It’s a clumsily wielded sledgehammer which derails the story and characters. It also doesn’t make any sense. There’s no point having Tomorrowland in the film – it’s not the future, it’s a parallel dimension that great inventors have discovered and semi-developed. Instead of sharing the technological benefits with the Earth or y’know, moving everyone to that bright future it’s fallen into disrepair and depopulation because… Earth is going badly? I’ve stopped caring.
If this is the best film that Brad Bird can make, the man who brought us the finest superhero film ever made The Incredibles and The Iron Giant, then bring on the apocalypse.
I hardly know where to begin. In case your own childhood wasn’t traumatised by Tove Jansson’s bizarre albino hippos leaving in the creepy Finnish forests, you really ought to take your kids or heavily drugged adults for the experience. There’s even a comment about them not actually being hippos, leaving the viewer even more disturbed by this weird, self-aware film.
It opens with the Moomins hosting a party on a cliff, featuring a little folk music, a fire and fireworks that fail; the gathering is disappointed, “not this time” says Moomin Papa. It’s a strange note of despondent acceptance to start a film with, but it perfectly fits whatever philosophy lies behind this creation. Soon the cast are joined by pirates and the malicious, vicious Little My (who begat nightmares when I was a child) and her big sister. Shortly after salvaging whatever they could carry from the ship (books and fireworks), the pirates arrive seeking their treasure.
Then the Moomins decide to go for a moonlight sail into a massive storm, because such things are good for the soul… They find the Riviera, source of Snorkmaiden’s socialite/womens’ magazine fantasies. There they take up residence in a bed inside a hotel room (they assume they are guests in someone’s house, and the room is too big). Soon, Moomin Papa and Snorkmaiden are deep into the bohemian and celebrity lifestyle. Meanwhile, Moomin Mama and Moomin (the son) go to live on the beach and get back to nature by making a rock garden.
Ultimately the lifestyle proves shallow, though Snorkmaiden’s hell on the roulette wheel and Moomin Papa and his new sculptor pal raise hell introducing art to civic society. They leave under a cloud, racing away from arrest (but paying the vast hotel bill with Snorkmaiden’s winnings), and distract the police and beach by unleashing a bagful of fiercely swearing insects…
“What the fuck?” is an appropriate reaction. It was certainly ours, and the four other people who saw it. If it sounds crazy and disconnected, that’s because it is. The film is a bizarre sequence of events, peculiar folk philosophies, satire, and nightmarish characters. It’s a bit like Hellboy 2 for children. One of my favourite moments is as they arrive at the hotel: Sniff (possibly a rat) stops to take aside one of the rats who works at the hotel – “I need you to take my place in the story – I’m going to get married.” And indeed he does.
Moomins on the Riviera looks great – they’ve kept the look and feel of Janssen’s comics and cartoon and it perfectly scales up to the big screen. It’s gentle weirdness saturates your mind until you wake up nights later sweating. I both enjoyed it and deeply regret watching it.
I struggle to remember what I did yesterday, let alone a month ago. Still less do I recall what delightful alcoholic beverages I might have imbibed and thus scrubbed from my mind.
I’ve also signed up with Beer52 who deliver a lovely box of somewhat unusual craft beers each month. They’re giving good beer, or at least are now.
The first few months had quite a few repeats, but what I’m after is stuff I can’t easily acquire myself. It’s better now!
If you fancy giving them a whirl you can use the link below to get yourself a tenner off your first box:
There’s a lot of IPA, which I guess reflects the current trends. I prefer darker beers, which I can get cheaper at B and M Bargains and Home Bargains. It’s a challenge for others to compete with 89p for a bottle of Innis and Gunn American Oak IPA.
There’s Nowhere To Keep The Bottles
So I’ve started a Pinterest board called Drunkled Beer. I’ve been adding empty bottles and occasional bargain victories for a couple of weeks now. If nothing else it’s a summary of gentle alcoholism and bargain hunting (mostly by the extraordinarily discerning and teetotal Lady M).
By all means follow it and commiserate with my internal organs. I only intend to pin each drink once, so if it looks rarely updated that’s because I’m drinking the same things!
There is little of note. This is good. Life is fairly quiet right now, and thankfully so. We’re thinking about kitten things, and about what to do with where we live. Complicated thinkings, but good ones. There’s some fun events coming up too – the Furthest From The Sea Festival on Saturday and Interrobang and Gorilla Burger a couple of weeks later.
Last weekend we enjoyed my Dad’s birthday. He’d planned it so that we could empty the lofts and have a vicious sift through things that we kids wanted from our childhoods. I only came home with four boxes of books and toys… We’ve sent a tonne of stuff on to freecycley things and charity shops, including some very battered and worn old Star Wars vehicles.
Once I reopen the boxes I’ll also root through my old school books and reports again. I feel a curious nostalgia for things I really don’t remember at all.
I also came across the fantastic kids’ book about where babies come from that the internet has recently discovered. I was never in any doubt that babies emerged from the flesh of their mothers. Precisely how it all works is still an horrific mystery.
Keeping Limber, Mind and Meat
We’ve had a variable start to the year, which has mostly gone undocumented due to creative fails. I started swimming again at the end of last year and was feeling pretty damn good about it. I missed swimming, having swum for Staffordshire waaaay back when I was a teenager, and hadn’t gone in the water for about 15 years. It took a while to get back up to speed and it was good to be charging through the water again.
In March I burst both my eardrums (possibly due to some infection) and promptly smashed myself and my bike into the new tram line going up into Chilwell. That was a shit weekend. The doc’s immediately told me I couldn’t swim for at least a month, and I had to get my bike fixed.
I only really discovered through abstinence just how much enjoyment and relaxation I was getting from swimming every day. It’s a nice little pool just round the corner from work so if I get there between 8 and 9 I can swim before work! But not for a month. I grew grumpy and frustrated. With the burst eardrums I’ve also now got the possibly permanent joy of tinnitus which adds exciting screaming and whooshing sounds to everyday life. Sometimes it’s so loud I think I can’t hear anything else (although I actually can) and I act as if I’m deaf. It’s weird.
I am however back to swimming now. I was going daily even when on sick leave after Merly died. I do think it pulls you together. It’s a focussed activity with zero distraction, except for slow people. It’s become a good reason to get up and leave the house in the morning, and I can go swimming every day that I’m working from my usual office, so that’s at least 4 days a week.
I’ve been bombing up and down with my beloved compact breast stroke and hadn’t really paid attention to how much I was swimming. I’d been told I was pretty fast and have frightened a few people out of the fast lane. Sure, front crawl’s faster, but it’s really hard to maintain for more than about ten lengths. And that’s when I cruise past… I can’t keep track of counting lengths, but I managed it for long enough to get an average. I reckon I’m doing about three 18m lengths a minute. So when I’m swimming for a whole hour I’m doing nearly 3.25 km! I like the stamina part of not stopping at all. Fun! Brain happy!
Improv
We had a fine Gorilla Burger last week, which I very much enjoyed compering. We had a slick order of play too: started with stories, then a round of two-minute games/scenes followed by two rounds of one-minute scenes and then an interval. The last bit was a series of four person Henrys; all of them were great.
I’m looking forwards to performing on Saturday with Martin (once he’s returned from his American adventures, and gosh, they have been adventurous). No idea what we’re going to do with our ten minute slot, but it’ll be good.
A huge free event with 6 stages around the Cathderal Quarter Derby showcasing live performances and entertainment – music, comedy, dance, theatre and much much more!
This is one my favourite events of the year, and I’m gutted to have been away from the gang for so long. MissImp have a slot on the theatre stage at 2.20 and I’m compering on a stage somewhere…
Handcrafted at the Cathedral Quarter features handmade and designed products from artisans across the Midlands!
Come on down and explore the stalls full of treasure, the workshops full of wonders and the performances of a lifetime! #CQSaturdays #FFTS15
Interrobang is part of the Derby Comedy Festival. The only show of its kind in Derby, brought to you by MissImp & Furthest from the Sea Music, Comedy & Arts, features an improvised comedy jam in which everyone can take part, followed by a showcase of the best improv in the region.
Tickets are £5 preorder and £6 on the Door. Click here to book:http://bit.ly/1FwwgMt
Hosted in the Cube (Cafe/Bar) area of Déda Derby through out the night you will be able to order food and drink.
I am knackered. I blame Matt McGuinness and Dan Webber in particular. The reasons are diverse and good, and chiefly centre on last Saturday. For the third year in a row Furthest From The Sea have organised a huge free festival of music, theatre, comedy and arts in the middle of Derby. It’s ace, and I’ve been privileged to be involved in them all. This year I got involved really late, and I’ve been out of the FFTS scene all year. I really only have two skills though, and I’m pretty much useless until this point. I can talk (endlessly), and so got to compere the St Peter’s Quarter stage. I managed not to say a single offensive thing about religion (into the mic) for the whole day. My other skill is in carrying things. I lack any technical grasp of the magic boxes of switches and sliders, but I can carry bits of gazebo and weights across the town centre.
It was an amazing day. I got up early (though not as early as the hardcore crew) and got to Derby at around nine. It was drizzling cheerfully and a cool tonic to my recently caffeinated frame. I haven’t been drinking coffee daily for nearly a month and by god it felt marvellous. So – two hours of set up, a change of stage to compere, many, many weights to carry and people to chirp at happily. It was great to see a whole bunch of people who I adore and hadn’t realised I’d missed so much.
A Lovely Day’s Babble
Arjana DanceRebecca Rhythm
We managed to kick our stage off on time, despite the inevitable agonies of tech. I was happily reunited with the dedicatedly miserable Jamie Darcy with whom I’ve done many Knickerbocker Gloriouses and his assistant Becky. It went marvellously. I enjoy the shuffling of acts when someone’s late (or missing entirely) and conspiring to get it all back on track. I also love talking to drunks and shouting youths: they make great stooges, as do many of the acts.
We had a couple of improv slots too, once on our stage for some improv games like Alphabet Game and Letter Replacement Therapy which went down well, then we ran off down to the Theatre Stage an hour later to deliver a spot of mock-Shakespeare: The Locksmith, a formerly unknown work by big Bill. That was a lot of fun.
The only problem with compering a stage is that you don’t get to see all the other cool stuff happening. Still, I loved the day. I even loved the break down afterwards (third t-shirt!) and then, of course, going to the pub. I also got to see a very old friend – the friendship is old, she’s the same age as me… oh, that is quite old – and meet her other half and miniature humans. Shocking! But very lovely.
Here are some badly taken photographs: https://www.flickr.com/photos/eric_the_bewildered_weasel/sets/72157654543018859/
The St Peter’s Quarter Stage Running Order
Samuel James Tidmarsh – a beautifully coiffed man with a ukelele and a voice you could spread on toast
The Feathers – the superb folk act who actually fought back the rain
Rebecca Rhythm – the rain returned and Rebecca tapped right through it, which looked very much like a slip hazard. Turns out I might not be a good tap dancer.
Carl North – the quality half of Lucille (sorry Scott…)
Rhythmical Mike – fast-paced performance poetry delivered into the faces of an unsuspecting crowd The Herron Brothers – very good humoured indie pop stuff (I don’t know what genres mean anymore) with two charming performers
MissImp – that’s us! Marilyn and Martin joined me for a string of word torture games Arjana Dance – as ever, the ladies captured a huge crowd with their graceful dancing and glittering costumes
https://youtu.be/30haUG7-IIM The Open Road – the only set I missed because I was performing on the Theatre Stage. But I have their CD and it’s great!
Louise Grattan – fine fiddling action which made me feel like I was in the middle of a film. Electric violin – what the fuck! Fine Arts Society – they put me back into the nineties with their splendid indie sound
Tuesday 7th July – Interrobang – Improv Comedy Night
Interrobang is part of the Derby Comedy Festival. The only show of its kind in Derby, brought to you by MissImp & Furthest from the Sea Music, Comedy & Arts, features an improvised comedy jam in which everyone can take part, followed by a showcase of the best improv in the region.
Tickets are £5 preorder and £6 on the Door. Click here to book:http://bit.ly/1FwwgMt
Hosted in the Cube (Cafe/Bar) area of Déda Derby through out the night you will be able to order food and drink.
In wonderful contrast to the previous weekend’s FFTS15 exhaustion (though mild compared to many of the crew), last weekend was characterised by all day drinking and sleeping for 10-12 hours at a time. I feel much better.
My Dad invited me to join one of their occasional forays into Nottingham’s drinking establishments. Since they start before midday I was a little apprehensive; I’m a happy evening drinker but daytime drinking tends to destroy me. So I enlisted support from Parky. It turned out to be a lovely day:
This is a delightful little spot. It’s a dinky, wood lined little pub up a rather exclusive and well hidden alley (which also hides the amazing and best coffee shop in Nottingham: The Coffee House of Nottingham). They’ve got an amazing well stocked craft beer selection, and no Carling-style filth in sight. There’s also a giant stand of ciders, should that be your weakness.
We were only there for a pint and a getting to know everyone chat so I plumped for the Starstruck (aniseed) Porter. At 6.6% it was an excellent starting beer… rich and delicious. It’s certainly a flavour with the potential to overwhelm but
This is a bit further out of town, but since Parky had a with cricket we proposed it as an intermediary between drinking and getting him to the cricket on time. I’m glad we did.
It’s a lovely pub with nooks and crannies in the bare rockface. It’s a place I’ve mainly eaten at before (and happily), but it meets the real ale / craft beer requirements of the pub crawl too. I was unable to resist Totally Brewed’s Papa Jangles Voodoo Stout which set me firmly on the dark beer path for the afternoon.
I’ve known about this place for ages, but it’s proven just too far up a hill to draw me in before. It has, of course, been a regrettable error on my part. This is Blue Monkey Brewery’s Nottingham pub and serves a dray’s worth of their ales. We weren’t in there for long, but I’ll definitely be back.
I’ve enjoyed all their beers so far, but my eyes and tongue were drawn by a guest bottled ale: Brooklyn Brewery – Black Chocolate Stout. I can’t avoid chocolate stouts even if they do have a hideous £5 a bottle price tag. I’d already had two pints, it was hot and a 10% beer… Tasted of rich Russian aristocracy.
I like the Roundhouse, it’s round and has nice furniture. They don’t have the most dramatic range of beers but they usually have a good small selection.
I went for Cottage Brewing’s Tornado, which was about the darkest they had. It was a refreshing and light beer to consume outside. I guess it was a good break from the rich and hard stuff. The sun was starting to addle my brain by this point (it definitely wasn’t the beer) and I proposed another diversion on the semi-planned beer route.
The Ned Ludd’s been a favourite of mine since it opened. Partly it’s the oddly shaped ground floor (I think it was an employment agency or something before its refit) and green leather, as well as an upstairs I’ve never seen, but mainly it’s the fantastic selection of strong ales on tap. I’ve spent several nights perched on tall chairs there, ogling the taps.
At this point my photo diary attempts fell apart, and I’ve had to resort to the Ned Ludd’s Facebook feed to figure out what I had to drink… I had Atom – Dark Matter. It’s another irresistible chocolate stout (plus oatmeal!) and was inevitably lovely.
It was crazily warm sitting in the window, which confirmed that I really ought to go home. Originally we’d planned to see Minions afterwards, but the showings were almost entirely full. Just as well, I was pretty much fucked. The mob managed another couple of pubs, including The Junkyard, which is another fine pub/hipster bar deserving its own review. For my part I did very little else that day.
Tuesday 7th July – Interrobang – Improv Comedy Night
Interrobang is part of the Derby Comedy Festival. The only show of its kind in Derby, brought to you by MissImp & Furthest from the Sea Music, Comedy & Arts, features an improvised comedy jam in which everyone can take part, followed by a showcase of the best improv in the region. This is going to be awesome.
Tickets are £5 preorder and £6 on the Door. Click here to book:http://bit.ly/1FwwgMt
Hosted in the Cube (Cafe/Bar) area of Déda Derby through out the night you will be able to order food and drink.
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I can’t stop being enthused by the wall of bricks. It must be a combination of tactile and visual stimulation, the challenge of packing as much Lego in as possible and the very real visceral joy of pouring them out and re-sorting them at home. Gets me every time. On this occasion the Legoey folks outdid themselves. On top of the many wondrous colours of tiles (I can never have enough) – pink, purple, green and yellow and white (modified with stud-holes).
Most of my evenings ended with a book and glass of whiskey, stretched out on the sofa or kitchen floor with a Merly on top. A few snacks for her before bed, and she’d pursue us upstairs, and with a little trilling coaxing would gain confidence and hop onto the bed (or adopt the digging in of claws and pulling herself up that has made such lovely work of the leather sofas downstairs…). If we weren’t actually horizontal and appropriately laid out for her she’d either make do, and have to be moved, or grump off to the end of the bed until we were. During the night she’d stomp across us (sleeping tablets keep me out cold), kick Lady M’s glasses off the bedside table and clumsily negotiate the curtains to stare at the outside. Very occasionally she’d sleep between us, or between the pillows on her back, all four paws curled in the air.
Merly-Boo was surprisingly popular with everyone else too, even people who don’t like cats. I suppose it helped that she was so sociable. She’s always come and inspect newcomers and visitors. The door knocking used to startle her, but eventually she’d just stay on the sofa, half-watching the door to see what came through. We’ve got lots of friends who Merly loved to sit on, and cause powerful allergic reactions in. At parties she would hide/sleep upstairs until people stopped moving around too much and then come down to great acclaim to take a turn around the kitchen and living room. I’m glad that a lot of people who Merly considered friends (or notable humans, or whatever it is that cats label us in their heads) got to see her in the last few weeks before her untimely death. She looked intensely pleased with herself, curled up on her paper nest under the table at our last party.
I feel as if my mind is slowly reawakening. Normal things are being normal again, I’m laughing at funny things and am sad about sad things. I’m edging back from the precipice on my mental health unicycle. So that’s good. It’s not yet getting me, or us out of the stasis bubble we’ve been in for the last 7 weeks since we lost Merly. There’s still a moment every day when I’m physically staggered by the change. It’s certainly hit us a lot harder than any other death, but I think we were pretty close to the cliff before that happened.
Just Drinking And Sleeping
This is a delightful little spot. It’s a dinky, wood lined little pub up a rather exclusive and well hidden alley (which also hides the amazing and best coffee shop in Nottingham: 
