![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
I went back to work. That's what happened.
My intentions were honourable enough. My resolutions genuine.
It's been eight months since I came here and wrote and work has everything to do with it. After four and half months of leave due to stress I made a vow that I would write more and write more regularly.
It didn't quite pan out that way.
Anyhow, I am quite possibly back again now and all because of NaNoWriMo.
So it's all good!
My intentions were honourable enough. My resolutions genuine.
It's been eight months since I came here and wrote and work has everything to do with it. After four and half months of leave due to stress I made a vow that I would write more and write more regularly.
It didn't quite pan out that way.
Anyhow, I am quite possibly back again now and all because of NaNoWriMo.
So it's all good!
Chihuahua, like 'banana', or the 'gloria' in 'Ding Dong Merrily On High': if you miss the place where you're supposed to get off then you could be there indefinitely, or at least until you run out of breath.
There is no escape from these sprites, mischievous, irate, snappy little demons that they are. I love dogs, more than people in fact. Perhaps it's because we treat chihuahuas so much more like people, allowing them on the furniture, tolerating their picky eating habits and feeding them top quality chicken breast as a consequence, that they, more than any other breed, think they are actually people.
Now normally, given that I am a firm believer in animal rights, I wouldn't refer to having a dog in the household as 'keeping a dog', but the woman opposite keeps chihuahuas. Truly they are the kind of animal that prompts the question "To keep or not to keep?", but a dog is for life and all that. You thought they'd be lovely company, made your bed, now you can share it with your £400 rats.
Evidently she likes them more than I do, being as she's got about six of them. Rocky is the leader of the pack, the smallest, scruffiest and least tolerant, feared by all pack members, including Duke, the giant Neapolitan Mastif. If you are still in doubt that a tiny dog such as a chihuahua could hold its own against the big beasties in the canine kingdom, then I present for your delight further evidence that this is indeed the case.
We had a chihuahua, creatively named Speedy. In fact, multiply that by two, but I'll come to the other one later. Speedy Mark I was relatively pleasant, as the breed goes, mushroom-coloured, short-haired, didn't bite us when we trundled down to the compound to feed him and Sheba the alsatian, who would greet us with muddy paws placed on our shoulders. I was only eight years old at the time, so she wasn't especially large for an alsation, but she was a big dog nonetheless. And who was in charge? Speedy of course.
Sadly Speedy came to a rather awful and untimely end, which we only discovered years later. He disappeared and we believed he had been stolen (the anti-social demeanour is evidently a form of self-defence). However, Sheba had dug a whole network of tunnels under the garden and in filling this in we found Speedy's remains. I still have to shake this from my mind in order to cope with it. I don't much like chihuahuas, but they are living creatures and they should be allowed to live, free from suffering.
Speedy Mark II was an entirely different animal, at least to his predecessor. Otherwise, he shared the common features of the breed. Small, unfriendly and generally not the kind of dog you want around children. Or anyone else come to think of it. He was four weeks old when first we saw him, ten weeks old when he came to live with us and he really did fit in the palm of my hand. Alas he was also very wriggly and fell out of my hand onto a concrete patio. I was convinced I'd killed him and the dreadfully laboured breathing was his final rasps in the throes of death. Thankfully he was only winded and made a full and , dare I say, speedy recovery.
As a puppy, this tiny, chocolate coloured bundle could be very sociable and playful, but as he reached adulthood the chihuahua instincts kicked in and he seemed to develop a particular delight for terrorising my dad. This went beyond snapping at his ankles: Speedy would leap onto the chair or sofa, wherever my dad happened to be sitting, and emit a low, continuous growl. Eventually my dad would try and push him away, at which point Speedy would bite him, then wander off, his work done.
On one occasion my dad got so fed up that he picked Speedy up, held him up, facing him, at arms length, and growled back. Having somewhat under-estimated the reach of a chihuahua's jaws, Speedy took a chunk out of his lip and the following Christmas my grandparents presented my dad with a tiny whip and chair they had made, with a poem telling the epic tale of the chihuahua tamer. We laughed a lot, but that dog was becoming a liability, especially if there was a bitch in season nearby. And so Speedy went off to be a stud, living a happy and fulfilled life sowing the seeds of future generations of snappy, yappy, inbred, tiny dogs.
Before I leave behind this anecdotal meandering, I feel it is necessary to make a couple of things clear. Dogs are part of the family and should be treated as such, live in warm, comfortable safe environments and be suitably entertained and fulfilled. They are not people, but as a species we chose to domesticate them so now we have a responsibility. I don't agree with breeding or buying dogs (or any other animals); there are enough unwanted animals out there as it is.
And even if chihuahuas are the most dislikeable animals I have come across this far, they too need love and care. Just remember there's more to that doughy-eyed, cute thing than you could possibly anticipate.
There is no escape from these sprites, mischievous, irate, snappy little demons that they are. I love dogs, more than people in fact. Perhaps it's because we treat chihuahuas so much more like people, allowing them on the furniture, tolerating their picky eating habits and feeding them top quality chicken breast as a consequence, that they, more than any other breed, think they are actually people.
Now normally, given that I am a firm believer in animal rights, I wouldn't refer to having a dog in the household as 'keeping a dog', but the woman opposite keeps chihuahuas. Truly they are the kind of animal that prompts the question "To keep or not to keep?", but a dog is for life and all that. You thought they'd be lovely company, made your bed, now you can share it with your £400 rats.
Evidently she likes them more than I do, being as she's got about six of them. Rocky is the leader of the pack, the smallest, scruffiest and least tolerant, feared by all pack members, including Duke, the giant Neapolitan Mastif. If you are still in doubt that a tiny dog such as a chihuahua could hold its own against the big beasties in the canine kingdom, then I present for your delight further evidence that this is indeed the case.
We had a chihuahua, creatively named Speedy. In fact, multiply that by two, but I'll come to the other one later. Speedy Mark I was relatively pleasant, as the breed goes, mushroom-coloured, short-haired, didn't bite us when we trundled down to the compound to feed him and Sheba the alsatian, who would greet us with muddy paws placed on our shoulders. I was only eight years old at the time, so she wasn't especially large for an alsation, but she was a big dog nonetheless. And who was in charge? Speedy of course.
Sadly Speedy came to a rather awful and untimely end, which we only discovered years later. He disappeared and we believed he had been stolen (the anti-social demeanour is evidently a form of self-defence). However, Sheba had dug a whole network of tunnels under the garden and in filling this in we found Speedy's remains. I still have to shake this from my mind in order to cope with it. I don't much like chihuahuas, but they are living creatures and they should be allowed to live, free from suffering.
Speedy Mark II was an entirely different animal, at least to his predecessor. Otherwise, he shared the common features of the breed. Small, unfriendly and generally not the kind of dog you want around children. Or anyone else come to think of it. He was four weeks old when first we saw him, ten weeks old when he came to live with us and he really did fit in the palm of my hand. Alas he was also very wriggly and fell out of my hand onto a concrete patio. I was convinced I'd killed him and the dreadfully laboured breathing was his final rasps in the throes of death. Thankfully he was only winded and made a full and , dare I say, speedy recovery.
As a puppy, this tiny, chocolate coloured bundle could be very sociable and playful, but as he reached adulthood the chihuahua instincts kicked in and he seemed to develop a particular delight for terrorising my dad. This went beyond snapping at his ankles: Speedy would leap onto the chair or sofa, wherever my dad happened to be sitting, and emit a low, continuous growl. Eventually my dad would try and push him away, at which point Speedy would bite him, then wander off, his work done.
On one occasion my dad got so fed up that he picked Speedy up, held him up, facing him, at arms length, and growled back. Having somewhat under-estimated the reach of a chihuahua's jaws, Speedy took a chunk out of his lip and the following Christmas my grandparents presented my dad with a tiny whip and chair they had made, with a poem telling the epic tale of the chihuahua tamer. We laughed a lot, but that dog was becoming a liability, especially if there was a bitch in season nearby. And so Speedy went off to be a stud, living a happy and fulfilled life sowing the seeds of future generations of snappy, yappy, inbred, tiny dogs.
Before I leave behind this anecdotal meandering, I feel it is necessary to make a couple of things clear. Dogs are part of the family and should be treated as such, live in warm, comfortable safe environments and be suitably entertained and fulfilled. They are not people, but as a species we chose to domesticate them so now we have a responsibility. I don't agree with breeding or buying dogs (or any other animals); there are enough unwanted animals out there as it is.
And even if chihuahuas are the most dislikeable animals I have come across this far, they too need love and care. Just remember there's more to that doughy-eyed, cute thing than you could possibly anticipate.
I looked at my livejournal yesterday, realised that it was a week and a day since I last posted and quit my browser. Still, I suppose that's a 67% success rate: three weeks into the year and I only missed one of them.
So, having bummed out on one of my Big, Scary challenges for 2008 (next time I shall define them less absolutely), I'm still ploughing through with the others.
I emailed an agent yesterday! Woohoo! I have a series on my blogger entitled 'Here Lies a Teaching Career', which is still how I feel about my job, regardless of the six months that have passed since I started that particular series of posts. I'm hopeful there's enough in it to make a book.
I'm also about halfway through a serious proof-reading edit of my NaNo novel. How many times did I use the wrong 'its / it's'? Too many, that's for certain. There's only been one bit so far where I've thought "Good grief that's boring as hell." Too much focus on story-telling and no description; I think that's what's up with it.
I've just read a brilliant section in Tom Holt's most recent novel "Barking" and it gave me some food for thought on what makes something stand out like that. The essence of the few paragraphs is trying to describe an alternate existence for the main character and how it differs from his 'normal' life thus far. Through a mix of simile and first person perspective, Tom Holt put me inside the main character's mindset convincingly enough, although I had to get up to put credit on my daughter's phone, so I've left it hanging 'mid-experience', so to speak. Now, there's a reason to go to bed early.
Unfortunately my addiction to Guitar Hero is still going strong, so that features in the battle between leisure time spent in bed or in front of the PS2. And by the end of this week I'll have to fit Supernatural in there too. Then next week Boston Legal finally starts here, so books, games etc. can all 'do one'.
In conclusion: I rock at procrastination more than I do at Guitar Hero (let's be honest now - it's playing along on a plastic banjo to passable cover versions - not big, not clever) and my 'on target' behaviours are fitting in nicely, but hardly holding centre stage.
So, having bummed out on one of my Big, Scary challenges for 2008 (next time I shall define them less absolutely), I'm still ploughing through with the others.
I emailed an agent yesterday! Woohoo! I have a series on my blogger entitled 'Here Lies a Teaching Career', which is still how I feel about my job, regardless of the six months that have passed since I started that particular series of posts. I'm hopeful there's enough in it to make a book.
I'm also about halfway through a serious proof-reading edit of my NaNo novel. How many times did I use the wrong 'its / it's'? Too many, that's for certain. There's only been one bit so far where I've thought "Good grief that's boring as hell." Too much focus on story-telling and no description; I think that's what's up with it.
I've just read a brilliant section in Tom Holt's most recent novel "Barking" and it gave me some food for thought on what makes something stand out like that. The essence of the few paragraphs is trying to describe an alternate existence for the main character and how it differs from his 'normal' life thus far. Through a mix of simile and first person perspective, Tom Holt put me inside the main character's mindset convincingly enough, although I had to get up to put credit on my daughter's phone, so I've left it hanging 'mid-experience', so to speak. Now, there's a reason to go to bed early.
Unfortunately my addiction to Guitar Hero is still going strong, so that features in the battle between leisure time spent in bed or in front of the PS2. And by the end of this week I'll have to fit Supernatural in there too. Then next week Boston Legal finally starts here, so books, games etc. can all 'do one'.
In conclusion: I rock at procrastination more than I do at Guitar Hero (let's be honest now - it's playing along on a plastic banjo to passable cover versions - not big, not clever) and my 'on target' behaviours are fitting in nicely, but hardly holding centre stage.
I nearly fell over yesterday, when I arrived at my sister's house to find the baby names book on her kitchen table. No, she said adamantly, definitely not, unless (according to my brother in law) they could guarantee it would be another boy. They already have two: a boy and a girl, and my sister seems very certain that this is all they'll be having.
The book was out only because my brother in law had been looking up the meanings of names. Apparently his name means 'to be heard' - very apt if you know him as we do. Meanwhile my youngest daughter was pleased to discover that her cousin's name was a Spanish derivative of her own, which is biblical. Much to her puzzlement, the book stated the name originated from the 'house of figs'. She didn't ask me what that meant, luckily as I haven't the faintest clue.
My eldest daughter wasn't interested in the meaning of her name, but then she's not interested in much at the moment. She's 14 and exams start this week, so there's a whole heap of stress from this that has been exacerbated by a couple of incidents that are best interpreted as symptomatic of teenagers testing their wings and how far they can lean out of the nest before they fall out. It's a bit of a trial for all of us here.
It seems to be a time of reflecting on parenthood and fertility. My husband was recently out with colleagues bidding farewell to one in their midst, when the discussion turned to a girl, perhaps a pupil at the school they work in, who had a contraceptive device consisting of five tubes placed subcutaneously in the upper arm. Contrary to their disbelief, I can confirm that the 'Norplant' is very real, being one of the first women to trial it in the UK. Unfortunately, I was one of the (allegedly) few who experienced side effects of intermittent, light bleeding and may well have decided to have it removed for this reason had I not ended up having a hysterectomy first.
As my sister passed the age by which my fertility had been surgically removed, she made the decision to have her second baby - my beautiful niece at whose birth I was present and thus have found myself attached to in a semi-maternal, semi-instinctive way. My other sister declared long ago that she didn't see motherhood as something she would be adding to her life agenda, although these kinds of statements apparently have a way of coming back at us. I saw myself as unlikely material for motherhood until my husband persuaded me otherwise. Similarly a friend recently told me he was planning to start a family in the near future when he had previously concluded that being a parent was something he was happy to leave to others.
Another friend, aged 41, visited last weekend with his 16 week old grandson, whose arrival was considered and planned even though his daughter is only just 19. I recall his shock at being a young grandparent, but he has adjusted exceptionally well to the role, even though his new partner wants children, to the extent that he will at some point be having his vasectomy reversed and will father children younger than his grandchildren.
The book I am currently writing has within it a storyline that sees the heroine attempting to single-handedly reduce the incidence of teenaged pregnancies in the village she has moved to. At this point I have absolutely no idea how she is going to achieve this, as I've yet to research the possible reasons behind this kind of trend and the measures that work to address it.
Finally, I've noticed several male blackbirds chasing each other during the past week. For January I suppose it is not too cold and they have seed-sowing in mind. I worry that a sudden cold spell, something we often experience here in February, will thwart their first efforts. They will no doubt make up for it later.
The book was out only because my brother in law had been looking up the meanings of names. Apparently his name means 'to be heard' - very apt if you know him as we do. Meanwhile my youngest daughter was pleased to discover that her cousin's name was a Spanish derivative of her own, which is biblical. Much to her puzzlement, the book stated the name originated from the 'house of figs'. She didn't ask me what that meant, luckily as I haven't the faintest clue.
My eldest daughter wasn't interested in the meaning of her name, but then she's not interested in much at the moment. She's 14 and exams start this week, so there's a whole heap of stress from this that has been exacerbated by a couple of incidents that are best interpreted as symptomatic of teenagers testing their wings and how far they can lean out of the nest before they fall out. It's a bit of a trial for all of us here.
It seems to be a time of reflecting on parenthood and fertility. My husband was recently out with colleagues bidding farewell to one in their midst, when the discussion turned to a girl, perhaps a pupil at the school they work in, who had a contraceptive device consisting of five tubes placed subcutaneously in the upper arm. Contrary to their disbelief, I can confirm that the 'Norplant' is very real, being one of the first women to trial it in the UK. Unfortunately, I was one of the (allegedly) few who experienced side effects of intermittent, light bleeding and may well have decided to have it removed for this reason had I not ended up having a hysterectomy first.
As my sister passed the age by which my fertility had been surgically removed, she made the decision to have her second baby - my beautiful niece at whose birth I was present and thus have found myself attached to in a semi-maternal, semi-instinctive way. My other sister declared long ago that she didn't see motherhood as something she would be adding to her life agenda, although these kinds of statements apparently have a way of coming back at us. I saw myself as unlikely material for motherhood until my husband persuaded me otherwise. Similarly a friend recently told me he was planning to start a family in the near future when he had previously concluded that being a parent was something he was happy to leave to others.
Another friend, aged 41, visited last weekend with his 16 week old grandson, whose arrival was considered and planned even though his daughter is only just 19. I recall his shock at being a young grandparent, but he has adjusted exceptionally well to the role, even though his new partner wants children, to the extent that he will at some point be having his vasectomy reversed and will father children younger than his grandchildren.
The book I am currently writing has within it a storyline that sees the heroine attempting to single-handedly reduce the incidence of teenaged pregnancies in the village she has moved to. At this point I have absolutely no idea how she is going to achieve this, as I've yet to research the possible reasons behind this kind of trend and the measures that work to address it.
Finally, I've noticed several male blackbirds chasing each other during the past week. For January I suppose it is not too cold and they have seed-sowing in mind. I worry that a sudden cold spell, something we often experience here in February, will thwart their first efforts. They will no doubt make up for it later.
My wordcount spreadsheet indicates I'm at just over 6.4K on my combined projects, so I am, as the title of this post suggests, plodding on.
I'm pretty bored by my Mills and Boon novel though. It was a mad idea to try and write one, considering every attempt I've made to read one ends at about page 6. Still, it will be an achievement and it's only 50-55K, so easily doable. The storyline is something like this: a 30 something teacher moves from the city to a small village, where there is a bit of issue with outsiders. There she eventually meets another teacher, who is a widower and whose wife was the only fatal victim of road accidents on the treacherous village road. The accident blackspot is near a twelfth century folly and the Parish Council can't afford to improve road safety and spend money on making the folly safe. Thus the heroine and hero are at loggerheads over this political issue but love wins out in the end.
Exciting stuff or what!
I also have a terrible headache today and note that this is the second time in as many months, which is a bummer, as I hadn't had one like this since my sinus surgery 3 years ago. I hope it doesn't mean it's losing its effectiveness.
Anyway, that's me on this dreary Sunday afternoon.
I'm pretty bored by my Mills and Boon novel though. It was a mad idea to try and write one, considering every attempt I've made to read one ends at about page 6. Still, it will be an achievement and it's only 50-55K, so easily doable. The storyline is something like this: a 30 something teacher moves from the city to a small village, where there is a bit of issue with outsiders. There she eventually meets another teacher, who is a widower and whose wife was the only fatal victim of road accidents on the treacherous village road. The accident blackspot is near a twelfth century folly and the Parish Council can't afford to improve road safety and spend money on making the folly safe. Thus the heroine and hero are at loggerheads over this political issue but love wins out in the end.
Exciting stuff or what!
I also have a terrible headache today and note that this is the second time in as many months, which is a bummer, as I hadn't had one like this since my sinus surgery 3 years ago. I hope it doesn't mean it's losing its effectiveness.
Anyway, that's me on this dreary Sunday afternoon.
Well, on this occasion it took even longer for me to choose a new theme - about half an hour I estimate, although it may have been more than that. I decided to go with the coffee in the end, as at this rate I will be needing to increase my daily dosage by a good fifty per cent or more.
The first thing I remembered when I arrived downstairs this morning was that I had signed up to NaNoWriYe, which technically doesn't have to involve writing a novel in a year. However, it does require that I commit to a specific word count goal for the year. I spent a while considering what was realistically achievable, given that I couldn't possibly put in the hours and effort I did for NanoWriMo every month, and also that I want to keep November special. Hence I settled on a goal of 200,000 words: now I must decide on how to fulfil this self-imposed remit.
In essence, this journal entry is a warm up for getting started on the 'real' 600+ words I must write today, as well as a means of brain-storming some ideas. I am completely against padding for the sake of it and it was always my intention to complete NanNoWriMo 2007 without any padding whatsoever. Having done that, I'm now faced with the odious task of identifying a number of specific projects that I can work on, either simultaneously or in serial, to achieve my NaNoWriYe goal.
So far I have the following in mind:
Meanwhile, Guitar Hero is calling, so I'm off to play and search for inspiration. I've even managed to get my family addicted, which is a bit of a bind as I have to take turns. But first some mince pies and brandy butter.
In the interim, if anyone has any ideas for me, or would like to get involved in some collaborative writing, then let me know.
Oh - and Happy New Year!
The first thing I remembered when I arrived downstairs this morning was that I had signed up to NaNoWriYe, which technically doesn't have to involve writing a novel in a year. However, it does require that I commit to a specific word count goal for the year. I spent a while considering what was realistically achievable, given that I couldn't possibly put in the hours and effort I did for NanoWriMo every month, and also that I want to keep November special. Hence I settled on a goal of 200,000 words: now I must decide on how to fulfil this self-imposed remit.
In essence, this journal entry is a warm up for getting started on the 'real' 600+ words I must write today, as well as a means of brain-storming some ideas. I am completely against padding for the sake of it and it was always my intention to complete NanNoWriMo 2007 without any padding whatsoever. Having done that, I'm now faced with the odious task of identifying a number of specific projects that I can work on, either simultaneously or in serial, to achieve my NaNoWriYe goal.
So far I have the following in mind:
- A recipe book, which I've already started to plan and think might involve an interactive website to go with it.
- At least one Mills and Boon style novel - that's pretty much as far as I've got with that one and I've been saying this since November.
- A set of themed articles on something factual - no idea what yet.
- Some short stories - again I have no clue what these will be about.
- (Perhaps) some poetry, as I haven't written any in a while.
Meanwhile, Guitar Hero is calling, so I'm off to play and search for inspiration. I've even managed to get my family addicted, which is a bit of a bind as I have to take turns. But first some mince pies and brandy butter.
In the interim, if anyone has any ideas for me, or would like to get involved in some collaborative writing, then let me know.
Oh - and Happy New Year!
I'll be honest: I have no idea whether that is a north wind blowing out there or not, but it's cold enough to be one. I suppose if I go and stand in it for a while I might be able to work out which way it's blowing, but it doesn't matter that much. It's really, really cold and the wet end of the hose hit me in the ear. That's more important right now.
Those hazel nut trees are sturdy little blighters though. I'm looking out at my garden that, during the course of the past two months, has become less lawn and more dog-induced mud bath. The trees are all swaying frantically, other than the hazel nut, which is standing absolutely rigid, refusing to budge at all. It may partially be due to my daughter having butchered it severely for her Hallowe'en party, leaving it much shorter than all the others and therefore protected by the privet.
However, there's a definite feel of winter in the air, which may seem obvious, given the time of year, but in the North-West of England, January and February are the bleakest, most wintry months, whereas December remains slightly autumnal. Apparently, the Met Office inform me, the mythical White Christmas in England stems back to a mini ice age and Christmas being 12 days later on the old calendar. Yet there are still moments when it feels right for snow, and this morning is one of them.
I quite like December, even after Christmas is done with. I'm not a fan of celebrating the New Year, so it's not to do with it being so close to 2008. There's just something quite enchanting about December. Perhaps it is the whole experience of Christmas - the mad rush to get everything ready and the only time we don't mind being so ridiculously busy, followed by the sharing of time and gifts with others, then that hoilday feeling when there is little left to do but rest and eat rich foods. Those of us fortunate enough to celebrate in this manner are better off even than the people who live this way all the time.
This will probably be my last post of 2007 and there is much to prepare for. Other than NaNoWriMo, this has been a pretty horrible year and I will be pleased to leave it behind. My plans for the next twelve months include a serious commitment to my writing career. In fact they mostly revolve around that. Thus I will be back here often with lighthearted progress reports (I keep the serious stuff for my blog).
And so to anyone reading this, I wish you a happy new year. See you on the other side!
Those hazel nut trees are sturdy little blighters though. I'm looking out at my garden that, during the course of the past two months, has become less lawn and more dog-induced mud bath. The trees are all swaying frantically, other than the hazel nut, which is standing absolutely rigid, refusing to budge at all. It may partially be due to my daughter having butchered it severely for her Hallowe'en party, leaving it much shorter than all the others and therefore protected by the privet.
However, there's a definite feel of winter in the air, which may seem obvious, given the time of year, but in the North-West of England, January and February are the bleakest, most wintry months, whereas December remains slightly autumnal. Apparently, the Met Office inform me, the mythical White Christmas in England stems back to a mini ice age and Christmas being 12 days later on the old calendar. Yet there are still moments when it feels right for snow, and this morning is one of them.
I quite like December, even after Christmas is done with. I'm not a fan of celebrating the New Year, so it's not to do with it being so close to 2008. There's just something quite enchanting about December. Perhaps it is the whole experience of Christmas - the mad rush to get everything ready and the only time we don't mind being so ridiculously busy, followed by the sharing of time and gifts with others, then that hoilday feeling when there is little left to do but rest and eat rich foods. Those of us fortunate enough to celebrate in this manner are better off even than the people who live this way all the time.
This will probably be my last post of 2007 and there is much to prepare for. Other than NaNoWriMo, this has been a pretty horrible year and I will be pleased to leave it behind. My plans for the next twelve months include a serious commitment to my writing career. In fact they mostly revolve around that. Thus I will be back here often with lighthearted progress reports (I keep the serious stuff for my blog).
And so to anyone reading this, I wish you a happy new year. See you on the other side!
I've finally achieved my goal. I have enough pairs of Christmas socks to last for the entire of December and New Year's Day. Alas, as it has taken me 19 years to collect the 32 pairs, this means some of them have been worn at least that many times and are therefore destined for SunnyView Sock Retirement Home at the end of this festive season.
However, the greatest tragedy is that I wear trousers all the time: at work it's plain black suit trousers; at home jeans or cargo pants. My feet could be adorned in fluorescent pink or go Commando and no-one would be any the wiser. Thus I decided that I'd photograph my collection for posterity, before those old first pairs wear away to nothingness.
So here they are, in all their resplendent festive glory!
So there you have it. 32 pairs of Christmas socks. I'd say that four pairs are beyond wearing, but I can't bring myself to part with them, especially as I will be short of socks again.
I'm a UK size 4-7 incidentally. Just saying.
However, the greatest tragedy is that I wear trousers all the time: at work it's plain black suit trousers; at home jeans or cargo pants. My feet could be adorned in fluorescent pink or go Commando and no-one would be any the wiser. Thus I decided that I'd photograph my collection for posterity, before those old first pairs wear away to nothingness.
So here they are, in all their resplendent festive glory!
 | These are today's selection and in a very poor state indeed. I've even darned them, but there's not a lot left to darn now. This was the pair that started the madness - bought as a gift by my housemate Sylvia in 1988. |
 | Whoever could believe that sheep can be festive! |
 | These are by far the most comfortable and ridiculous of all my socks. It would be worth wearing shorts just to show them off. |
 | A more normal version of the pair above, but still with 3D design. Clever people these sock knitters. |
 | These are very nice socks, but I hate Tweety Pie with a passion. 'Christmas Tweetings'? Indeed. |
 | These used to have little shiny stars attached to them, but they have long disappeared down the washing machine drain. |
 | I like these socks, but they have a high polyester content. |
 | I have never worn these, because I find toe socks a little uncomfortable. Well, for that reason and also as I have no shoes with five raised bits for the bobbles. |
 | Pretty much self explanatory. Socks with socks on them. |
 | Snoopy is the only cartoon character to hold a place dear to my heart, and to my sock drawer evidently. |
 | Slipper socks - what a marvellous invention. |
 | Penguins! Like sheep, not generally revered for their festive-ness, but there you are. |
 | Hmm - more of that ice-skating beagle. |
 | The other side of this sock has a Christmas Tree with a Woodstock tree topper. |
 | Does my bum look big in this? I guess I got these when 'The Fast Show' was on TV. |
 | The diet does not start tomorrow, but a good pair of socks nonetheless. |
 | Merry Kiss-Moose. |
 | Let It Snow. It doesn't do that here at Christmas much - twice in the last fourteen years to be precise. |
 | OK, so they're beige and brown, but it's Christmas. Who cares? |
 | The ninth reindeer strikes again. |
 | And again. |
 | And again! |
 | These are a recent addition and get a lot of wear. |
 | These have an annoying elasticated bit on the inside akin to flight socks. |
 | A reindeer with decorations on his antlers - I'm not sure I should be endorsing such treatment. |
 | Presents! |
 | Merry Christmas - white socks! Good grief. |
 | These are brand new for this Christmas - similar to the pair below, I imagine a fair bit of discomfort when I forget the bells and sit cross-legged on the floor, as I am prone to doing at my Mother's house. |
 | Also, the bells fall off! |
 | The other pair that are new for this year. Saint Nickerless? This is how desperate my Christmas sock obsession is. |
 | Yep. |
 | I pushed the nose on these to see if the battery still worked. It was a frightening experience. They 'play' Jingle Bells. But then, after 18 years of doing so, they're doing very well. |
So there you have it. 32 pairs of Christmas socks. I'd say that four pairs are beyond wearing, but I can't bring myself to part with them, especially as I will be short of socks again.
I'm a UK size 4-7 incidentally. Just saying.
- Location:home
- Mood:
good - Music:Harry for the Holidays - Harry Connick Jr.
It's 9.15 am, Sunday morning and I just answered the door to a delivery person. I'm not sure which company it is who is providing parcel delivery bright and early on a Sunday, but the items that have arrived were only ordered on Friday morning. That's seriously prompt service, plus my order has been accurately fulfilled.
This is the second time in as many days that I have been impressed by the level of service some companies provide. On Friday I sent an email message to Virgin Mobile, our provider of mobile phones and network for around four years. Just to give some idea of the level of service Virgin Mobile offer their customers, I provide the following example.
I called them on 23th December 2006 to order new phones for all four of us. The phones arrived on 24th December. My eldest daughter's was the most expensive, at £102 for a 'reconditioned' model that was £250 new, my own was £89 for a similarly reconditioned phone priced at £200, my youngest daughter's was £40 instead of £70 and my husband's - well this was the best bargain of all. It was a brand new phone costing £60, complete with £30 free air time and I had managed to accumulate £20 of credit towards the purchase of a new phone, so essentially it cost just £10.
If you are already a Virgin Mobile customer and you want a new phone, I recommend you call and ask about their reconditioned stock - these are phones that have been returned, often unused and repackaged. From my experience I can honestly say that you won't be able to tell the difference between a new phone and one of these and they are an absolute bargain. Even purchasing new phones online you will at the very least receive some free air time (at the moment it's £30 air time plus 800 free text messages on all new phones over £49.99).
The email I sent on Friday was to ask them if they could send out a new SIM card for my youngest daughter, whose phone was 'misplaced' at school, as well as to request that they correct a spelling error on my account name. The response was personal, not automated, sympathetic and provided confirmation that the two issues had already been addressed.
Virgin Mobile don't seem to offer any bells and whistles tricks to get you to switch network, but their service is consistently good, their customer service is truly second to none and I recommend them wholeheartedly. This is not something you will find me doing often!
And so to my delivery this morning: I'm a smoker and Brucciani (Carlisle) Ltd, the shop in question, is a supplier of tobacco and smoking related paraphernalia, so not useful to everyone, although they did have some boxes of confectionary (with very short dates) at incredibly low prices; they also sell cufflinks and various other bits and pieces that may make for the perfect gift. You can find the shop at brucciani-ltd.co.uk
In the UK there are three things we do exceptionally well: talk about the weather, queue and moan about terrible service. What we don't do as often is praise companies when they provide us with excellent service. We just expect it as the norm, but if we can take the time to complain, then we can also take the time to compliment.
On that note, I shall head off for a spot of 'Ghostbusters' and some Christmas present wrapping.
This is the second time in as many days that I have been impressed by the level of service some companies provide. On Friday I sent an email message to Virgin Mobile, our provider of mobile phones and network for around four years. Just to give some idea of the level of service Virgin Mobile offer their customers, I provide the following example.
I called them on 23th December 2006 to order new phones for all four of us. The phones arrived on 24th December. My eldest daughter's was the most expensive, at £102 for a 'reconditioned' model that was £250 new, my own was £89 for a similarly reconditioned phone priced at £200, my youngest daughter's was £40 instead of £70 and my husband's - well this was the best bargain of all. It was a brand new phone costing £60, complete with £30 free air time and I had managed to accumulate £20 of credit towards the purchase of a new phone, so essentially it cost just £10.
If you are already a Virgin Mobile customer and you want a new phone, I recommend you call and ask about their reconditioned stock - these are phones that have been returned, often unused and repackaged. From my experience I can honestly say that you won't be able to tell the difference between a new phone and one of these and they are an absolute bargain. Even purchasing new phones online you will at the very least receive some free air time (at the moment it's £30 air time plus 800 free text messages on all new phones over £49.99).
The email I sent on Friday was to ask them if they could send out a new SIM card for my youngest daughter, whose phone was 'misplaced' at school, as well as to request that they correct a spelling error on my account name. The response was personal, not automated, sympathetic and provided confirmation that the two issues had already been addressed.
Virgin Mobile don't seem to offer any bells and whistles tricks to get you to switch network, but their service is consistently good, their customer service is truly second to none and I recommend them wholeheartedly. This is not something you will find me doing often!
And so to my delivery this morning: I'm a smoker and Brucciani (Carlisle) Ltd, the shop in question, is a supplier of tobacco and smoking related paraphernalia, so not useful to everyone, although they did have some boxes of confectionary (with very short dates) at incredibly low prices; they also sell cufflinks and various other bits and pieces that may make for the perfect gift. You can find the shop at brucciani-ltd.co.uk
In the UK there are three things we do exceptionally well: talk about the weather, queue and moan about terrible service. What we don't do as often is praise companies when they provide us with excellent service. We just expect it as the norm, but if we can take the time to complain, then we can also take the time to compliment.
On that note, I shall head off for a spot of 'Ghostbusters' and some Christmas present wrapping.
Oh, what a trauma it is navigating around a supermarket at the start of the penultimate weekend before Christmas. As if the aisles aren't narrow enough already, they are now partially blocked, here and there, with boxes of chocolate biscuits, special offers on lager and all manner of other stuff we wouldn't dare look at any other time of year.
On top of that, there's the impossible, old people who insist on perusing a specific cabinet or shelf for far longer than it reasonably takes to establish which box of tea bags specifically contains a: the greatest contents for the least amount of cash, and b: has the longest 'best before' date, not that they're likely to reach home prior to that however long it gives them.
And then there are the trolley abandoners, who fall into two types. The first tends to wander away on a temporary leave of absence, and I must admit that I have committed this sin myself on occasion, but only because I need to dash back to get a forgotten item and moving at speed through a supermarket with a fully loaded trolley that simply won't go the way I want it to is not going to happen.
The second type are the full-on abandoners, who suddenly lose the will to shop and do a bunk mid-Tesco, leaving their previously collected wares to variously thaw and chill. I can't quite find it in my heart to be angry with them, for many a time I have felt exactly the same way, but not actually been brave enough to do it.
The final type, and perhaps the most irritating, is the trolley parker, who doesn't even bother to park in parallel with the shelves. Instead, they hover at a jaunty angle, pondering over the jar in each hand, not a care in the world for the jam of six or seven shoppers either side of them. And, to add insult to injury, when they're done choosing, they reverse-swing across the aisle, taking out half the people waiting with their nifty manoeuvre and wander off, no apology or anything.
This is of course the norm for shopping in large supermarkets at any time of the year, but it is far worse in December and the closer it gets to the 25th, the more indignant we all become that we are in a greater rush than everyone else. Not only this, but we absolutely need that last jar of cranberry sauce and they don't. We didn't forget the sprouts, we were waiting for a last minute bargain and we were here first, so there, take that in the shin, you fiendish housewifey type and you can stop coveting my 20 metres of foil and go and get your own.
However well I plan, this remains a well-practised and infinitely repeating scenario for me. I will always have to voyage out for something or other, but I try my best not to do this right up to the very last minute. I try and fail. In fact, all I have succeeded in doing is making a tradition out of going to the supermarket on Christmas Eve, although I must confess to quite liking it. A bit.
Last year, I went out early on Christmas Eve to purchase a few forgotten or overlooked items, in a supermarket that is not really local to me; nor to my line manager, but there we both were anyway. For a man with two small children, he looked exuberant in his calm solitude, but then he is an economist - a type that is famed for the ability to pass off any crisis with a well-delivered soundbyte and a cool wave of the hand. We briefly discussed each of our arrangements for the rest of the festivities and I went to find whatever it was I was buying.
It was all going very well - busy enough but the shoppers were in such great spirits that not even a wheel over the toes or a cross-bar in the back of the ankle could raise an expletive. I was done with my list in less than an hour and headed for the checkouts. As I rounded the end of the row, a till devoid of customers in sight, I caught the chocolate bar display with the handle of my trolley and heard a bar or two fall to the floor. No great shakes, thought I, turning back to replace the chocolates I had knocked down. This was where it all went 'for a Burton', as they say around here.
As I turned and looked to the fallen bars, the whole display started to slide, slowly cascading to the floor, a gradual, colourful avalanche of chocolate that kept falling until the shelves were pretty much empty, and being as it was only 8.30 in the morning, they had been pretty full to begin with. People stopped to watch, one or two patted my shoulder in sympathy, although I'm still not convinced it was actually my fault.
The poor, harassed-looking shop assistant who arrived on the scene a moment later looked fairly certain about where the blame lay, and I did offer to help pick them all up again, but he wasn't having it, so I got to my checkout, queued up behind the others who had snook in during the chocolate fiasco, then hurriedly stuffed my shopping into bags and left.
It was only when I got home that I realised that some of the falling bars had landed in my trolley and I now had several Mars Bars and a Dairy Milk that were not on my list. Still, it added a bit of excitement to the day and I did manage to get everything else on my list at the same time.
This year, I have tried to be more organised, hence there I was today, doing my best to keep smiling, along with everyone else, as we played dodgems down aisles barely wide enough to pass each other without flinging half the stock off the shelves. However, all I have managed so far is to spend £140 and I still don't have all the stuff on my list. Indeed I would go as far as to say that I have none of the stuff on my list.
But then it is only the 14th December. If I finish up now, what will I do on the morning of Christmas Eve?
On top of that, there's the impossible, old people who insist on perusing a specific cabinet or shelf for far longer than it reasonably takes to establish which box of tea bags specifically contains a: the greatest contents for the least amount of cash, and b: has the longest 'best before' date, not that they're likely to reach home prior to that however long it gives them.
And then there are the trolley abandoners, who fall into two types. The first tends to wander away on a temporary leave of absence, and I must admit that I have committed this sin myself on occasion, but only because I need to dash back to get a forgotten item and moving at speed through a supermarket with a fully loaded trolley that simply won't go the way I want it to is not going to happen.
The second type are the full-on abandoners, who suddenly lose the will to shop and do a bunk mid-Tesco, leaving their previously collected wares to variously thaw and chill. I can't quite find it in my heart to be angry with them, for many a time I have felt exactly the same way, but not actually been brave enough to do it.
The final type, and perhaps the most irritating, is the trolley parker, who doesn't even bother to park in parallel with the shelves. Instead, they hover at a jaunty angle, pondering over the jar in each hand, not a care in the world for the jam of six or seven shoppers either side of them. And, to add insult to injury, when they're done choosing, they reverse-swing across the aisle, taking out half the people waiting with their nifty manoeuvre and wander off, no apology or anything.
This is of course the norm for shopping in large supermarkets at any time of the year, but it is far worse in December and the closer it gets to the 25th, the more indignant we all become that we are in a greater rush than everyone else. Not only this, but we absolutely need that last jar of cranberry sauce and they don't. We didn't forget the sprouts, we were waiting for a last minute bargain and we were here first, so there, take that in the shin, you fiendish housewifey type and you can stop coveting my 20 metres of foil and go and get your own.
However well I plan, this remains a well-practised and infinitely repeating scenario for me. I will always have to voyage out for something or other, but I try my best not to do this right up to the very last minute. I try and fail. In fact, all I have succeeded in doing is making a tradition out of going to the supermarket on Christmas Eve, although I must confess to quite liking it. A bit.
Last year, I went out early on Christmas Eve to purchase a few forgotten or overlooked items, in a supermarket that is not really local to me; nor to my line manager, but there we both were anyway. For a man with two small children, he looked exuberant in his calm solitude, but then he is an economist - a type that is famed for the ability to pass off any crisis with a well-delivered soundbyte and a cool wave of the hand. We briefly discussed each of our arrangements for the rest of the festivities and I went to find whatever it was I was buying.
It was all going very well - busy enough but the shoppers were in such great spirits that not even a wheel over the toes or a cross-bar in the back of the ankle could raise an expletive. I was done with my list in less than an hour and headed for the checkouts. As I rounded the end of the row, a till devoid of customers in sight, I caught the chocolate bar display with the handle of my trolley and heard a bar or two fall to the floor. No great shakes, thought I, turning back to replace the chocolates I had knocked down. This was where it all went 'for a Burton', as they say around here.
As I turned and looked to the fallen bars, the whole display started to slide, slowly cascading to the floor, a gradual, colourful avalanche of chocolate that kept falling until the shelves were pretty much empty, and being as it was only 8.30 in the morning, they had been pretty full to begin with. People stopped to watch, one or two patted my shoulder in sympathy, although I'm still not convinced it was actually my fault.
The poor, harassed-looking shop assistant who arrived on the scene a moment later looked fairly certain about where the blame lay, and I did offer to help pick them all up again, but he wasn't having it, so I got to my checkout, queued up behind the others who had snook in during the chocolate fiasco, then hurriedly stuffed my shopping into bags and left.
It was only when I got home that I realised that some of the falling bars had landed in my trolley and I now had several Mars Bars and a Dairy Milk that were not on my list. Still, it added a bit of excitement to the day and I did manage to get everything else on my list at the same time.
This year, I have tried to be more organised, hence there I was today, doing my best to keep smiling, along with everyone else, as we played dodgems down aisles barely wide enough to pass each other without flinging half the stock off the shelves. However, all I have managed so far is to spend £140 and I still don't have all the stuff on my list. Indeed I would go as far as to say that I have none of the stuff on my list.
But then it is only the 14th December. If I finish up now, what will I do on the morning of Christmas Eve?
For four years, we reigned the supreme champions of the ultimate, unique, slightly wacky, not-sure-if-you-want-it-or-not Christmas gift. First there was 'Oh My God! They've Killed Christmas', then 'The Best Christmas Album in the World... Never!', the 'No Frills Christmas Album' and finally 'Sod This! It's Christmas!'.
There's not much to be said for singing along to Christmas backing tracks in late October / early November, but we did. Every Saturday my sister and her husband would come over and we would drink beer, smoke fags and record Christmas songs for the forthcoming album. It started as a one-off joke present, no doubt born of too much Heinekin, but they liked it.
They liked it! How could they possibly think that three drunken louts and a drunken lout's lift home, complete with seasonal flu-age, was a top quality festive gift?
The first album was only seven tracks, all heavily edited to get the best take out of the many we completed, most of which had to be abandoned to hysteria, giggling, barking dogs or firework explosions. It is this CD that is responsible for our website's name of Mad Bouncy Dogs and by album number 2, the aforementioned canines had their very own track.
Not content with this, Goody, who was only a puppy at the time, upstaged me by attacking my socked feet in the middle of 'The Twelve Days of Christmas', which we had butchered with our own lyrics, then Max barked at the end of the line 'four collie dogs'. Needless to say, the customisation relates to our family and the things that are important in our lives:
On the [insert day here] day of Christmas, my true love gave to me ...
... a bottle of Napoleon Brandy (for dosing the Christmas cake).
... Two drunken bums (Simon and Nige, the husbands)
... Three wise men (hmm - not so witty that one)
... Four Collie Dogs (at the time, between us we had two collie dogs, a collie cross labrador and a labrador)
... Five Onion Rings (a general favourite foodstuff)
... Six Minus One is (copout)
... Seven Minus One is (while we're at it we might as well cop out again)
... Eight People Parping (not sure where this came from)
... Nine Pints of Lager (this was where we were up to at the end of take one, which became the bonus track)
... Ten Berkeley Menthol (my bro-in-law's cigarette of choice)
... Eleven Manor Crescent (a random-ish address)
... Twelve Months Till Christmas (obviously)
Along the way, my children became involved in the whole festive revelry and thus we have some rather cute recordings of them for posterity. When my sister had her first baby, we decided it was time for a sabatical, something which my husband and children are still keen to move on from, so there may be another album at some point in the future.
For now, I'm writing this because I woke up this morning thinking 'I must re-arrange the track for A Winter's Tale'. I had arranged it for the second album, but alas it has been lost to Christmas past. However, it's now 2.45 pm and I have vacuumed, done laundry, written a blog and now this. I'm beginning to ask myself if I really really want to go and sit at the piano for the next four hours.
Yes. I think I do, so I shall end with this little ditty and a promise that my Mum is a very loved mother-in-law, but her sons-in-law are tormenting swines.
There's not much to be said for singing along to Christmas backing tracks in late October / early November, but we did. Every Saturday my sister and her husband would come over and we would drink beer, smoke fags and record Christmas songs for the forthcoming album. It started as a one-off joke present, no doubt born of too much Heinekin, but they liked it.
They liked it! How could they possibly think that three drunken louts and a drunken lout's lift home, complete with seasonal flu-age, was a top quality festive gift?
The first album was only seven tracks, all heavily edited to get the best take out of the many we completed, most of which had to be abandoned to hysteria, giggling, barking dogs or firework explosions. It is this CD that is responsible for our website's name of Mad Bouncy Dogs and by album number 2, the aforementioned canines had their very own track.
Not content with this, Goody, who was only a puppy at the time, upstaged me by attacking my socked feet in the middle of 'The Twelve Days of Christmas', which we had butchered with our own lyrics, then Max barked at the end of the line 'four collie dogs'. Needless to say, the customisation relates to our family and the things that are important in our lives:
On the [insert day here] day of Christmas, my true love gave to me ...
... a bottle of Napoleon Brandy (for dosing the Christmas cake).
... Two drunken bums (Simon and Nige, the husbands)
... Three wise men (hmm - not so witty that one)
... Four Collie Dogs (at the time, between us we had two collie dogs, a collie cross labrador and a labrador)
... Five Onion Rings (a general favourite foodstuff)
... Six Minus One is (copout)
... Seven Minus One is (while we're at it we might as well cop out again)
... Eight People Parping (not sure where this came from)
... Nine Pints of Lager (this was where we were up to at the end of take one, which became the bonus track)
... Ten Berkeley Menthol (my bro-in-law's cigarette of choice)
... Eleven Manor Crescent (a random-ish address)
... Twelve Months Till Christmas (obviously)
Along the way, my children became involved in the whole festive revelry and thus we have some rather cute recordings of them for posterity. When my sister had her first baby, we decided it was time for a sabatical, something which my husband and children are still keen to move on from, so there may be another album at some point in the future.
For now, I'm writing this because I woke up this morning thinking 'I must re-arrange the track for A Winter's Tale'. I had arranged it for the second album, but alas it has been lost to Christmas past. However, it's now 2.45 pm and I have vacuumed, done laundry, written a blog and now this. I'm beginning to ask myself if I really really want to go and sit at the piano for the next four hours.
Yes. I think I do, so I shall end with this little ditty and a promise that my Mum is a very loved mother-in-law, but her sons-in-law are tormenting swines.
I went to a Marc Almond gig in Liverpool last night. It was awesome, not a word I use often, or at least not seriously, due to its hyperbolic status in our language. However, Marc and his band were truly awe-inspiring: he had a terrible 'cold flu thing', as he described it, making a big deal out of the presence of his Vicks Sinex Nasal Spray on the grand piano. This was his first call out of the evening to all the oldies in the crowd, his avid fans who have been there with him since the bad old days of cocaine and sex dwarves.
Earlier this year, Marc celebrated his 50th birthday, not that anyone could have guessed this from his presence or performance at the Carling Academy. I've seen Marc Almond perform live a few times, on occasion cringing as he limped through the first couple of songs before finally warming up and giving the audience the show they paid for. This didn't happen last night; he was right there from the first note of 'Stardom Road', his opening number, through to the very last farewell of his second encore.
Ever the perfectionist, Marc gave himself a damning critique of his performance of 'If You Go Away', which wasn't his best, although the audience disagreed. This intimate dialogue persisted throughout the show, ending with a seemingly heartfelt rendition of 'The Curtain Falls' - "People say I was made for this. Nothing else would I trade for this. And to think I get paid for this, but now the curtain falls."
There were times when the lyrics escaped Marc, and one can't help but wonder whether this was a result of the cold, his age or the head injuries he sustained a couple of years ago. Sometimes artists simply forget the words to their own songs, ironically whilst they deliver them to a room full of people who know them better than they do. In the penultimate number, this was certainly the case, as Marc killed the drums and conducted the entire audience through the chorus of 'Say Hello, Wave Goodbye'. It was a beautiful thing.
Gags about age aside (next time finding a venue with seats because 'some of us are getting on a bit'), this was a charged and energetic show. At one point, Marc ran through two classic Soft Cell numbers and initially I felt slightly embarassed for the oldies in front of me, balding, sagging forty and fifty somethings boogie-ing like is was 1982. But then I realised that magic was happening. They were truly abandoning the trappings of middle age to enjoy a moment suspended in time.
All this in a venue designed for twenty-first century pop brings its own problems. The mics are of an appropriate specification for today's vocalists and their need to have the things so close to their mouth they could easily bite the top off them. Marc is an experienced performer who knows how to use a microphone and alas the Academy's were not up to the job. On top of this, there was spill-over noise from the Academy 2 venue downstairs, which at times destroyed the ambient, quieter moments of Marc's set.
This is not to say that the Carling Academy is a bad venue. It is modern, well staffed and well located. The bar uses a computerised system and all bar staff have their own scanner for the bar codes attached to the pumps, fridge doors and optics. Prior to the show, as I queued for two pints of Carling (what else?), there was a moment of panic when one of the bar staff noticed that the Bacardi didn't have a bar code. I didn't follow up the demise of the Bacardi, but I wondered if its lack of bar code meant that it wasn't saleable.
This isn't necessarily a major problem, although in a gig full of people who partied through the Eighties, when Bacardi was one of the drinks of choice, I imagine there were a few disgruntled revellers. Add to this the considerable number of stairs one has to climb to reach the auditorium and the lack of seating, I'm not convinced that the Carling Academy is geared up for the older gig-goer.
Marc was right to stave off the persistent requests that he perform 'Sex Dwarf', for it was OK then, when we were all younger, although he hasn't weathered too badly and probably could have more than winged it. This was a tremendous show from one of the great songwriters of our time, someone who has endured drink, drugs, debauchery, unadultered excess and lived to tell a dignified tale. No doubt Marc Almond will still be telling that tale long after they've torn down the dusty walls of the Carling Academy and other transient venues like it.
Earlier this year, Marc celebrated his 50th birthday, not that anyone could have guessed this from his presence or performance at the Carling Academy. I've seen Marc Almond perform live a few times, on occasion cringing as he limped through the first couple of songs before finally warming up and giving the audience the show they paid for. This didn't happen last night; he was right there from the first note of 'Stardom Road', his opening number, through to the very last farewell of his second encore.
Ever the perfectionist, Marc gave himself a damning critique of his performance of 'If You Go Away', which wasn't his best, although the audience disagreed. This intimate dialogue persisted throughout the show, ending with a seemingly heartfelt rendition of 'The Curtain Falls' - "People say I was made for this. Nothing else would I trade for this. And to think I get paid for this, but now the curtain falls."
There were times when the lyrics escaped Marc, and one can't help but wonder whether this was a result of the cold, his age or the head injuries he sustained a couple of years ago. Sometimes artists simply forget the words to their own songs, ironically whilst they deliver them to a room full of people who know them better than they do. In the penultimate number, this was certainly the case, as Marc killed the drums and conducted the entire audience through the chorus of 'Say Hello, Wave Goodbye'. It was a beautiful thing.
Gags about age aside (next time finding a venue with seats because 'some of us are getting on a bit'), this was a charged and energetic show. At one point, Marc ran through two classic Soft Cell numbers and initially I felt slightly embarassed for the oldies in front of me, balding, sagging forty and fifty somethings boogie-ing like is was 1982. But then I realised that magic was happening. They were truly abandoning the trappings of middle age to enjoy a moment suspended in time.
All this in a venue designed for twenty-first century pop brings its own problems. The mics are of an appropriate specification for today's vocalists and their need to have the things so close to their mouth they could easily bite the top off them. Marc is an experienced performer who knows how to use a microphone and alas the Academy's were not up to the job. On top of this, there was spill-over noise from the Academy 2 venue downstairs, which at times destroyed the ambient, quieter moments of Marc's set.
This is not to say that the Carling Academy is a bad venue. It is modern, well staffed and well located. The bar uses a computerised system and all bar staff have their own scanner for the bar codes attached to the pumps, fridge doors and optics. Prior to the show, as I queued for two pints of Carling (what else?), there was a moment of panic when one of the bar staff noticed that the Bacardi didn't have a bar code. I didn't follow up the demise of the Bacardi, but I wondered if its lack of bar code meant that it wasn't saleable.
This isn't necessarily a major problem, although in a gig full of people who partied through the Eighties, when Bacardi was one of the drinks of choice, I imagine there were a few disgruntled revellers. Add to this the considerable number of stairs one has to climb to reach the auditorium and the lack of seating, I'm not convinced that the Carling Academy is geared up for the older gig-goer.
Marc was right to stave off the persistent requests that he perform 'Sex Dwarf', for it was OK then, when we were all younger, although he hasn't weathered too badly and probably could have more than winged it. This was a tremendous show from one of the great songwriters of our time, someone who has endured drink, drugs, debauchery, unadultered excess and lived to tell a dignified tale. No doubt Marc Almond will still be telling that tale long after they've torn down the dusty walls of the Carling Academy and other transient venues like it.
I just spent about 15 minutes browsing themes to customise my LiveJournal page, before realising that it was pointless for several reasons. For a start, there is only one other person that even knows I now have a LiveJournal page; secondly, the likelihood of anyone stopping by when there are no posts on it is pretty minimal. I could no doubt waste at least another quarter of an hour thinking up various other reasons for why I should just get on with any one of the other tasks ahead of me.
That's the beauty of procrastination, a process we are all familiar with, even if we've not come across the word itself before. It was only a couple of years ago that I managed to permanently secure the word in my vocabulary, perhaps caused by my denial of the possibility that I am destined to be a jack of all trades for I am a master of procrastination. I can find entirely plausible reasons for putting off things I must do, failing to attend events, lessons, lectures, refusal to practice musical instruments - a whole array of commitments and responsibilities have dropped out of my life because I am so good at excusing myself that even I believe me. Until much later, when I kick myself for being such a waster again.
However, this is an art form, a well honed craft that is so widely practiced that there are some rules that govern the path of the procrastinator:
There we are then: a first LiveJournal post. I'm not actually sure what I'm supposed to be doing instead - I did write a list a while back, but I can't find my notebook and I can't be bothered to look for it.
Oh dear. Now I appear to be procrastinating over whether I am procrastinating or not.
That's the beauty of procrastination, a process we are all familiar with, even if we've not come across the word itself before. It was only a couple of years ago that I managed to permanently secure the word in my vocabulary, perhaps caused by my denial of the possibility that I am destined to be a jack of all trades for I am a master of procrastination. I can find entirely plausible reasons for putting off things I must do, failing to attend events, lessons, lectures, refusal to practice musical instruments - a whole array of commitments and responsibilities have dropped out of my life because I am so good at excusing myself that even I believe me. Until much later, when I kick myself for being such a waster again.
However, this is an art form, a well honed craft that is so widely practiced that there are some rules that govern the path of the procrastinator:
- The task that is being avoided must be perceived as even more tedious than the most tedious boredom imaginable.
Picture yourself sitting on a straight-backed plastic chair like the ones in school, in the middle of a square room that is completely bare other than the magnolia emulsion painted walls. You have no pen, paper, book, games console, mobile phone or any other device that could be utilised to distract from these dreadful surroundings.
In most cases the task itself will be somewhat less dreadful than this, but if you can perceive it as being more unbearable, then you have met the 1st rule. - There must still realistically be enough time left to complete the task.
For example: you have a 2000 word essay to complete and the deadline is in two weeks. A good essay will consist of starting now with a little reading and research, jotting notes as you go along, intensifying the effort as the days pass, perhaps moving on to a very rough draft by the end of the first week, leaving a whole week to play around with the format and structure of the essay.
There may even be time to spare at the end of the two weeks, a chance to kick back and have a little fun, happy in the knowledge that it was a job well done. Alternatively, you can spend the next week and a half interspersing some very half-hearted research with IM chats, playing games, reading magazines and then three days flying by the seat of your pants to the deadline.
Procrastinators don't miss deadlines, they use them as a form of self harm. - The task must take top priority.
It is entirely probable that you have quite a lot of things to do that all fit into the category of 'would rather not', which have been put into list form, either in your mind or on paper, with THE task at the top. You know you should do it first because it's the most important and time is running out.
Four days later, the rest of the list glares at you indignantly, for you are no closer to starting on any of these things than you were when you prioritised. Now you make the 'sensible' decision to move on to the next job, or you won't get anything done.
This is the ultimate means of justifying your procrastination to others: you're not putting it off - it's just that it's stopping you from doing anything else, and aren't these other things important too? I think we all know the answer to that. - You must be a fully signed up member of Procrastinators Anonymous
This isn't a real organisation of course (or at least as far as I know, but it should be). It's that group of like-minded individuals who come together via email, instant messaging, chat rooms, or congregate in physical spaces that may or may not be associated with work.
Somehow, the act of saying 'I know I should be working, but I can't be bothered' and the rousing chorus of 'me too' responses makes it a whole lot better. The procrastinators know what they are, come out to their peers. This process of proclamation is an advanced form of time-wasting. We are not alone and when the going gets really tough we can just blame someone else for our own tardiness. - The completed task must offer a profound sense of achievement.
Ultimately it is this final point that puts an end to our self-induced suffering, for to fail at the task would take away any justification we have for reverting to procrastination in the future. Therefore, at the very least, doing what we must do will allow us to endure the whole experience time and again.
However, the pinnacle of procrastination is that which is done in relation to the things that bring us the greatest joy. To see that article in print, play a piece of music note-perfectly, admire a fully decorated room, appreciate a garden in full bloom - these achievements make the effort worth it.
For procrastinators are admired. They are not the free-loaders who never achieve anything. The procrastinators wastes time and knows they are doing it; they are self confessed, not judged as such by others. The greatness of the potential reward is directly correlated to the level of dissonance it produces and the pain is worth it for the pleasure that ensues.
There we are then: a first LiveJournal post. I'm not actually sure what I'm supposed to be doing instead - I did write a list a while back, but I can't find my notebook and I can't be bothered to look for it.
Oh dear. Now I appear to be procrastinating over whether I am procrastinating or not.
