12 months, 12 pictures part three

..although, as you may notice, there are in fact fifteen pics, in reverse chronological order. I was surprised to find that I'd taken well over 500 pictures on my mobile phone this year: I thought I'd done bugger all. Anyway, these are all mobile phone pics, and I've chosen them just because they speak to me. I haven't necessarily gone for those shots that I love the best, although I must admit the november pic of Angus is one of my favourites.
And Happy New Year to everyone!

12 months, 12 pictures part two

12 months, 12 pictures part one

I've been somewhat remiss of late, thanks to work commitments, so it seems only fitting that I return with an old favourite of this blog, namely children's tv programmes. The prompt for this has been the death of Oliver Postgate, creator of Bagpuss and The Clangers, amongst others.
Being a 70's kid, Bagpuss and The Clangers loom large in my childhood memory, right up there with Pipkins (It's.......................TIME! for a story), Crystal Tips and Alastair, Charlie the Cat and his mad musings on health and safety, Mary, Mungo and Midge, and of course, the titan that is Rainbow. Now, it should be pointed out that children's tv programmes at this period were downright weird and occasinally deeply disturbing. I know I've mentioned Roly Poly Fucking Olie before and The Bloody Weird World of Richard Scarry (involving a worm in a wheelchair), but these are American programmes and bloody idiotic by dint of being far too wholesome. And Crap. Home-grown British kids'tv however...weirdness abounds, alongside some deep political commentary and drugs references, or somewhat disturbing sexual connotations. Captain Pugwash, ALLEGEDLY (that's for the benefit of the lawyers), a tale of salty seafolk on the high seas, contained a Seaman Staines and Roger the Cabinboy. Fingerbobs, a programme involving really duff finger puppets, had a presenter who looked like he should have been confined to an institution that dealt with all kinds of strange...urges. Mary, mungo and midge? Searing indictment on the miserable solitude of modern life, where a single girl is trapped in a high-rise block of flats, with only a mouse and a dog as friends. Crystal Tips and Alastair? a pair of Acid-tripping freaks, giggling and chasing butterflies. Mr Benn? Well, what can you say better than it does itself: 'all of a sudden, the shopkeeper appeared and said, 'fancy a trip, mannn?' and Mr Benn found himself embarking from a UFO in the middle of some mushrooms while all the fairy people danced around singing about the Age of Aquarius...'
Bagpuss is different. Now, i thought I'd already mentioned this in an earlier post on this blog, but I'm damned if I can find it. Bagpuss is actually a communist dialectic. Let's look at the facts. It's set in a junk shop - an Edwardian junkshop. this is clearly symbolic of the collapse of capitalism. Bagpuss himself is a symbol of the Communist revolution. Why? Because 'When he wakes up, EVERYONE wakes up!' that is, all true revolutionaries heed the spirit of the time.
the mice? they are the GLORIOUS PROLETARIAT. Their song is 'we will fix it, we will mend it', that is, they shall rebuild all society into a fair and just place for all.
The frog is the minstrel, composing poems in celebration of Bagpuss' achievements, while Professor Yaffle is the intellectual, guiding with a wise wooden beak the works of the proletariat.
See? it works.
Don't ask me about Ragdolly Anna though. She's some kind of Commie Groupie.

I told you I was ill.....

Happy Hallowe'en!

Snow

Brr, it's cold. Earlier on, returning home, I had one of the worst bike rides I've ever experienced, weather-wise. I got literally drenched to the skin by heavy rainfall, and the temperature was close to freezing. By the time I got home, I could hardly hold my house keys, and once I got in the house, I started shivering like buggery. And now, outside, it is snowing! Great, fat, wet clumps of snow, but snow nonetheless. I don't recall it ever snowing in October before, not this far south anyway.
What is it about snow that fascinates so much? Is it its texture, its evanescence, its seeming purity? Is it the way it blanks out all sound and leaves the earth a quiet and brooding place? I remember being enthralled as a child whenever it snowed, and always wishing that it would continue on and on, and always feeling a sense of baffled disappointment as the flakes would suddenly weaken, then lessen, then stop altogether.
In fact, I can count the number of times I've been in significant snowfall on the fingers of one hand. Even when in Istanbul, I never experienced the joy of a Snow Holiday, when the entire city becomes locked in deep drifts heaved down from the Black Sea. And now, here I am, one eye on the screen, another on the picture outside, of great white flakes drifting lazily through orange street light, wondering when it will stop, half-hoping it won't.

God, I hate being ill. Still, that is how you find me - dosed up on Lemsip, ginger tea and lentil soup. I literally ache all over. I couldn't sleep last night whatsoever, and each time I tried, I felt a wave of panic sweep over me: For some reason, all I could see in front of me was my workload and a feeling of helplessness in the face of it. Unsurprisingly, I've spent the day feeling rougher than a badger's badger. And while I don't feel quite as I did last night, every single joint, especially in my hands and feet, feels as if they've swollen up.

On this day in history....

I've just installed Sunbird (a calendar/task application) on the computer, and was playing round with the dates, when one came up: Sunday, October 5th 1986. Exactly twenty-two years ago to the day, I was on my way to university for the first time. Indeed, it was my first time away from my family, if you except a week at scout camp and another on a school trip. The weather was actually not too far removed from what it has been today: cold and grey and damp, although the rain then came in gobbets and gusts rather than the fairly solid downpour of this morning. My going was not exactly what you could call a cheery affair: for starters, I was feeling extremely apprehensive about what I was heading to, and about what I was leaving behind. My parents had only just split up, and there was a lot of pain and rancour floating around. Dad had moved out, mum was trying to keep it all together, and my sister was going to have to face all the emotional maelstrom by herself. In a way, I was glad to be going – I could shut out all the hurt. At the same time, I really felt for Karen and mum, and was worried about what would happen.
Anyway, I'd packed my bags the previous night. Actually, I should say bag: An enormous blue rucksack, stuffed to the gills with clothes, books, a kettle, some fruitcake crushed in the bottom, a sandwich toaster donated by my aunt, a few items of cutlery, various bits and pieces and, on the outside, a collection of pots and pans, meaning I'd clank as I walked. I say walked, I mean staggered, as the thing weighed a ton. My dad had promised to bring up the rest of my stuff, including my camera, later on in the term. I'd gone up to the pub and said bye to my mates, and had, if memory serves me well, a fairly good night's sleep. Then, early on that cold Sunday, my dad turned up on the gravel drive in his company Volvo, and loaded my stuff, and we all set off for the station in an atmosphere of tense, nervous bursts of talk interspersing the tense nervous silences. We picked up my girlfriend en route, adding another layer of emotional unhappiness to the mix.
We arrived at about eightish at Reading station, and I remember it being surprisingly busy for a Sunday morning. The entrance at that time was through a narrow door in the old Victorian station building, past a grimy, grey ticket office with scratched plastic panels separating the vendors form the public, and a station guard in the old BR uniform, his grey hair slicked back beneath his cap, busily checking tickets and pointing people in the right direction. We crossed over to platform 8, and my dad insisted on us all having coffee in the depressing little tearoom. As we waited, announcements floated through the air, then there was one relating to my train:
'Due to works, the 8.50 to Birmingham New Street will terminate at Didcot. Please alight there and take the connecting train to continue your onward journey.'
My mum looked at me with a wave of first, shock, then disappointment, then concern, then brief anger passing over her face. I just shrugged. Well, we all just waited on that platform, me smoking with Jo, Mum, Dad and Karen stood around, and no-one really knowing what to say. The wind picked up a little: it was cold, and flicked rain at us. Eventually, and with some feeling of relief on my part, the train arrived. I hauled my bag onto the train, kissed mum, hugged Karen, said goodbye to dad, and then Jo burst into frantic tears, but what could I do? I hugged and kissed her and said goodbye and that I'd call that evening, then she abruptly pulled away, sobbing. I got on the train, and pulled the door to behind me. The guard walked up and down the concourse, and blew into his whistle. I leaned out of the door window and said goodbye again, then there was a soft judder and the whole engine strained forward, each wheel rolling first gently then gradually picking up speed. I waved to mum, and karen, and Jo and dad and blew kisses, and they waved back as the receded into the distance, and I saw Jo suddenly turn her back again and sob. The train pulled out of the station: rain flicked into my face. I saw a line of shirts on a washing line, waving goodbye, I saw the graffiti on walls and alleys, the industrial units lining the train tracks, train carriages in sidings, and then I went to sit down, dragging my rucksack with me. I don't recall much of this part of the journey – in fact, it didn't last long, before it pulled into Didcot station, in the shadow of the power station chimneys, and I had to run, or rather stagger with greater alacrity, to catch the connecting train.
What I recall of this journey was first, how long it seemed to take. The train crawled all the way through Banbury, Leamington Spa, Coventry, Birmingham International and Birmingham New Street, Wolverhampton, Stafford and finally Crewe, where I had to change again. Next, I recall the cheery voice of the train driver, who happily recounted the names of the stations and any and all delays and cancellations due to works on the line, and who whistled and sang to himself, having left the intercom on. Over the next few years, I heard his voice many times, and always associated it with that journey into the north. The carriage always seemed to be mostly the same, and in fact seemed to contain pretty much the same people: there were always several students, pretending to read something academic, somebody, usually male, talking loudly and self-importantly, a little old lady, and a group of Glaswegians drinking McEwans and playing cards. On this first occasion, there was also a group of Japanese tourists, taking photos out of the window. Incongruously, sat right in the middle of them, was a fully-blown hippy, with long frizzy ginger hair, John Lennon glasses, and purple corduroy flares with yellow loons stitched in. Considering that this was 1986, it was retro to say the least.
At Crewe, I had to wait nearly an hour in the freezing cold before my connection arrived – the train to Bangor. I got on, and somehow got talking to the hippy, who, it turned out was an ex-student at UCNW Bangor. Anyhow, I spent the journey talking, and the sun suddenly appeared and mountains rose like waves suddenly, and my heart rose, and I realised that I was entering a brand new chapter of everything.
At which point, I think I should stop for now and leave the description of what happened next for another time.

not much to actually write here - just that I'm doing this on my new Advent 4211 Netbook, which so far seems to be working a dream. Considering that it's less than half the size of my good old Dell workhorse, and only about a kilo in weight, and that it does pretty much everything I need a computer to do - surf stuff, hold documents and do writing on - I'm pleased.
Here's a picture of me looking ecstatic taken using the inbuilt webcam.

six or seven degrees of separation?

By how far are we divorced from ourselves? What is the distance between the person we show ourselves to be, and the very core of our souls? How many steps does it take to step out, walk the paths of other people's lives and return to us?
Sorry, I came over all philosophical there. In fact, I'm just going to try a little blog game. You've probably all heard of the idea that we are only separated from any other person by six degrees of separation - you want to find someone, you talk to a friend, then a friend of a friend, that that person's friend, then their friend, then their friend, and a friend after that, and voila, the person whom you seek - but how many steps does it take to get back to oneself? To be exact, how many blogs would I have to go through before finding a link back to this site? And what kind of blogs would I pass through on the journey? Let's see how many I have to go through. There's a single rule: I can't return via the first blog I link to.

Far off signals

I've found myself a little busy this past week or so, and at the same time strangely reluctant to do much, hence my not posting anything, somewhat ironically considerring my previous post. Anyway.
Last tuesday, I returned home, panting and sweating from another evening spent dodging vehicles as I cycled from work, and as ever parked the bike in the garden. Coming back out of the garden entrance, I looked up, and noticed that the Satellite Dish Fairy had been. Alongside our humble Sky minidish, through which the house receives the standard terrestrial channels and about 15,000 other channels of what is mostly mindglop, there was a bloody HUGE new satellite dish. It probably has the ability to pick up signals from TV stations beaming from Arcturus. It only took me a few seconds to surmise what had happened: Nurel had been hankering after Turkish TV ever since coming across a programme, via the internet, called 'Asi' several weeks ago. She spent the best party of two weeks, almost NON-STOP, watching it in 8-minute bursts courtesy of YouTube. To that end, she'd been scouring eBay and Gumtree for cheap satellite dishes, and had even mentioned ones up in North London, over in Yorkshire, even in Wales.
It turned out that she'd actually bought one via eBay for £50, driven up to London (with Sean in tow), collected it, driven back, phoned a local friendly Turkish Satellite Installation Guy to install the bloody thing, and left me to come home gaping in surprise at the whole thing. Which she did: I have to admit I admire the speed and efficiency with which the whole deed was accomplished. So now we have about 15,000 additional channels, this time in Turkish.
Now, this is actually no bad thing, for several reasons. Firstly, it means the boys are getting some badly-needed additional Turkish input - not just the language, but also exposure to Turkish culture, or perhaps the Turkish media's interpretation of what Turkish culture is. What I mean by this is that, for example, watch Eastenders and say that that is an entirely accurate description of what British culture is. However, it can only be useful. Second, Nur's clearly suddenly much more comfortable and happier. Third, while watching snatches of it I can indulge in mentally translating things and also indulge in my love of wordplay and mockery. Next, by having it on in the evenings it makes me much more inclined to go and do something more productive - I become far more aware of how passive I feel in front of a TV when I'm watching something in a foreign language. And lastly, our house suddenly feels like a little corner of Turkey, and that is no bad thing at all.

'My friends, I have wasted a day'.

Or, What Have You Done Today To Make You Feel Proud?
The quote in the title is from Suetonius' The Twelve Caesars, and is reputedly what the Emporer Titus said one day at a banquet when he realised that he had done nothing that day to help others or improve their lot. Had he ruled longer, he may well have gone down as one of the better Roman Emporers - however, his apparent generosity of spirit could well have buggered up Imperial finances and undone all the hard work of his father, Vespasian.
The alternative title is that of the song, and is one of those upbeat catchy things they do at sporting events, e.g the Olympic party in London, and an exhortation to positivity with a capital P. In fact, capital O-S-I-T-I-V-I-T-Y, as well. It's the kind of music that goes with videos of people smiling and laughing on sunny days, or waving their arms in sporting triumph, or quite possibly as the background music to an advert showing some bloke who has sucessfully managed to shave his face with some new multi-bladed razor without ripping through his jugular, and is now getting admiring looks from his significant other, before heading off in his private jet helicopter to the golf course.
On the whole, I prefer the melancholic air of Titus. How is it possible, each day and every day, to do something to make you (sic) feel proud? Make yourself feel good, yes, but proud? The problem with exhortations like this is that, while they sound like good ideas, they in fact set you up to fail. Imagine examining your day at the closing of it; You look at what you have done, and ask, 'what have I done to make me (sic) proud?'; What if you've done things that make you feel Okay, but not outright proud; Wouldn't you feel a bit of a failure? And imagine that day in, day out - you'd end up feeling like a total loser, decide there's no point, and probably rip through your jugular with your new multi-bladed razor.
We cannot possibly aspire to do uplifting things on such a regular basis - such demands finally lead us top failure. So how about a slightly different question - 'What is the difference between this morning when I woke, and this evening before I sleep?' If there is even just a slight difference - a new thing learned, a task completed, a fear faced - then that is good. If the answer to the question is truly 'nothing', then we can sigh like Titus, but then look ahead to ther next day, when new chances may arise.

Back to work today. Bah. Actually, it's not that bad: At least I'll be able to keep myself fully occupied with something other than child-centred activities. I can't say that I hugely look forward to the summer holidays, simply because I find myself flailing around for things to do, and also because I can't get any concentrated work done because of aforementioned parental duties. In addition, this year money has been horribly tight, which has meant that we haven't been able to get away whatsoever. We were considering just taking the tent and pitching somewhere, but the weather's been so bloody miserable it's just as well we didn't - I can't envisage it as having been anything other than a very damp experience. However, I am determined that next year we'll have a decent jaunt in Turkey.

cracking under pressure?

Dear Australia,

RE: NUMBER OF OLYMPIC MEDALS WON

Now, you know that this blog is not one known for crowing, or exulting triumphantly over others. However,
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

HAHAHAHAHAHA

HAHA

HA.

Thank you.

Doing the Time Warp...

Every year, round about Reading Festival time, a slender magazine plops through the letterbox. It is the Bangoriad, the yeary update for graduates from UCNW Bangor, or plain Bangor University as it now is. I flick through it, gaze across the bits in Welsh and see which words I can puzzle out (like most English students who go there, I (perhaps shamefully) never learnt more than a smattering of the language), read about a few new developments and new appointments, flick over the obituaries just in case someone I knew from then is mentioned, flick through only partially interested, and vagualy thinking of my time there, twenty years ago. This year, however, one thing caught my eye: mention of Y Seren, the student magazine, which has now put all the archive editions online. Going to the website, I spent a good hour looking through the editions between october 1986 and 1989, the time when I was involved in it as gigs and events photographer, occasional columnist, sometime scurrilous letter writer and one time spectacularly bad poetry contributor (however, the poem does have a message concealed, not very secretly, in it). I won't say 'the memories came flooding back': perhaps more accurate to say the memories lapped gently at the knee, and I thought with a wry smile of myself, loitering around the Students' Union building and avoiding lectures.
I got involved with Y Seren during Freshers' week, when I went up to the magazine stall and introduced myself as a photographer. There was one problem: I hadn't actually brought my camera kit ( a Pentax Spotmatic F plus various lenses) with me, and had to wait before my dad turned up a few weeks later before I could actually start shooting. Once I started, I realised I had hit upon almost the perfect way to get into events without paying. I could get into all the gigs free, then I would go backstage with the bands afterwards, do impromptu interviews, and drink their rider. However, this left those occasions where my services as a photographer were not required. In order to circumvent the paying for things problem, I became a member of Ents and RAG, and a member of Stage Crew. This meant I could either be sitting on the door stamping hands and taking money for an hour, then go into the event free (mostly the wednesday and friday discos), or I would help coordinate something and again free entry, or I would be the DJ. Failing that, I would be involved in setting up and taking down the stage equipment: This latter strategy meant that I could indulge in some late night drinking - this was well before 24-hour drinking was introduced, and indeed only just after North Wales allowed people to drink after the ungodly hour of 10.30. In fact, I did almost all of these tasks while enveloped in a warm boozy haze. This fogginess may be the reason why the memories do not exactly flood back.
And why my wry smile? Well, I can't help thinking now of what else I might have done had I not spent so much time living the student lifestyle, and if I had been more confident in my own abilities, especially when it came to going out into the big bad world. I ask myself: What if my 40-year-old self could go back in time and talk with my 20-year-old self? What would I say?
I think it would be something along the lines of this:
'First up, don't worry what other people think of you, ever. You can only be yourself, and this is your life, not anyone else's, and only you can live it. If you screw up, if you do something bad, then you are the one who will judge yourself most severely. Being cool isn't all it's cut out to be: A lot of the time, it's away of doing absolutely nothing, but with style. Just be easy on yourself. Next, don't bother with being shy, and stop hiding behind booze and fags. Express your ideas and opinions, even if others don't agree - remember what I said first? People will respect you the more for being honest in your ideas.
Third, do more study - you're just coasting at the moment, and yes, you're doing OK, but you can do so much, much more. If you don't, you'll spend years feeling frustrated at yourself and blaming yourself and the world around you for your own perceived failure. Remember, Carpe Diem!
Last for now - it's not a crime to enjoy life - live it, even when you don't have any money! Believe me, you won't be rich in the future either. Oh, and fame is a load of bollocks. Now, let's crack open the Merrydown and Red Stripe, put the needle to the record and do put away those fags...'
..and the image fades. And this leaves the question: What would my 60-year-old self say to me now? Since the key to the future always resides within the present, perhaps it's a matter of finding the balding, grey-haired bloke within. Just as long as he isn't wearing beige.

movies.

So, a rainy monday, and off to see The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emporer with Angus. Oh dear. I think he enjoyed it, but with the exception of a few bits of things blowing up (admittedly, most of it), it was a fairly tedious affair, with a really tenuous storyline and characterisation that stretched reality so thinly it blew a hole straight through it and into the far side. Also, it had some really ropey CGI effects. Summed up, it would be something I'd fairly happily watch on DVD on a rainy sunday, but not otherwise. Then again, my cinema-going has been curtailed somewhat since having children - it now mostly involves stuff that is noisy and explosive. Actually, come to think of it, an awful lot of my cinema-going experiences pre-child were noisy and explosive.
And then I watched 'Braveheart' on TV a few days back. Now, this is a film to get the heart racing: an atavistic battle between freedom-loving tribesmen and evil overlords. I remember first seeing it in a plush cinema in Atakoy, Istanbul, back in '95, with my old chum Guy Elders, and being thrilled by it. It sang to the Scots part of my blood, and I cheered on Mel Gibson in the guise of William Wallace as he tore apart the flanks of the English. Watching it again, my response was anything but triumphal. The characters were ridiculously two-dimensional, the story flimsy and the historical intervention (read it - Edward II was born well after Wallace's death, for example) outrageous. Most of all, however, I felt sadness - sadness that Mel Gibson has such a blood-boltered, simplistic mind. Looking at his Ouevre subsequent to Braveheart, it is striking how much of it requires bloodshed, humiliation and pain on a grand scale, and requires the universe to work in simplistic Manichean ways. Gibson is always on the lookout for a Messianic figure, even if he plays it himself.

Loose ends.

Well, a week into my summer holidays, and typically, I'm ill - some kind of ghastly sore throat - blocked nose- generally crappy feeling type of thing. Apart from painting a wall, sorting out my rampant tomato plants, one visit to the museums in Oxford and doing some pottering of the domestic variety, I've managed absolutely bugger all. And, to be perfectly honest, I'm totally hating it.
As I've grown older, I've realised that I only ever really enjoy myself when I'm busy doing something. I'm simply no good at loafing. Well, actually that's not true - I would be an Olympic champion at the art of avoiding doing stuff if a) loafing were to be recognised as an Olympic Sport and b) if I could be arsed to participate. Over the years, I have procrastinated, avoided, shirked, lurked, malingered, dithered, hithered and thithered, and all for no good reason, although I have been adept at thinking up ones to tell myself: that if I go down such-and-such a route, then I'll be cutting off a possible opportunity in another direction; that by focusing on one thing only, I'll be denying myself the ability to see the bigger picture; that THIS THING needs doing NOW, but this can wait for tomorrow; And so on, and so forth.
Of course, I'm hardly the first person to complain of this, nor will I be the last. The trouble I have is my immense capacity to be distracted. I could write myself out a to-do list each day, but that feels way too anally retentive and nerdy. I keep seeking ways to tie up the loose ends of my life, but of course they appear as quickly as they can be resolved. And while looking round for ways to resolve them, I waste more time, I dither more, and the looser the threads become.

Race (or is that stroll?) For Life

Nur and my mum, yesterday, triumphantly finishing the Race for Life in Reading. You can tell they ran all the way round, can't you? Well done, though - I'm proud of you.





And here's something I've begun to think about:

14 peaks, 24 hours....hmmm....

New tricks

Grr. You'd think I'd know by now to look before I leap. I've just had to reinstall XP on my ancient laptop after wrestling with an Ubuntu install last night - of course, afterwards I find out that some of the programs I use (Phonmap, for example) aren't compatible. The system did seem to work very well, but it simply refused to see things like my wireless card. Bloody ancient computers. So far, I've got through the main part of a day doing this.

Because You're Gormless.

It's all not going too well so far today: I was hoping to get a lot of writing done, but I seem to be being pursued by noise, distraction, more noise and rogue students talking about hairdressing and cars in a loud voice in the library while I'm BLOODY WORKING. So I've decided to take a break for a cup of coffee and scribble a few things down, just for the hell of it.
Talking of Hell, I haven't written anything about advertisements for ages. The latest beef: noticing that virtually all people in clothing/fashion/hair/makeup ads are about 5 years old. These are people who do not need tarting up, plumping up, or anything lifted, so why are they used? Advertising is all about creating our personal Shnagri-Las after all, and making us feel useless/inadequate/basically crap because we don't have this or that product, or our teeth aren't perfectly white, or our hair isn't Salon Fresh, or our car isn't purring down pristine routes. I just get pissed off at all these apparently over-privileged munchkins traipsing around in FantasyLand.
Some companies, of course, try not to use over-toned homunculi in their ads. Dove is one, with its Real Women "Campaign". I notice it doesn't use Real Trolls, however. Amazingly, Loreal use 70-something Jane Fonda in its ads for Face Glop For Raisin-Faced People. Now, Jane Fonda used to be a stunningly attractive woman, and is still so for her age. Unfortunately, in the ad, what holds me mesmerised are her teeth, which glitter blazing white in unnaturally even rows. It looks like she has an entire gobful of falsies, which makes me wonder why. After all, she is wealthy and famously health conscious, so how come it looks like she's lost all her pearlies?
I imagine she was in some kind of scrap. Perhaps she was on the piss in a bar one time and encountered a tanked up Olivia Newton-John, and they got into an argument regarding their fading revenues from old VHS fitness workout tapes. In a fit of rage, Jane glasses Olivia, who picks up a barstool and smacks her one in the mouth. Because She's Worth It.

Bloggone. (sorry, bad pun)

I'm sorry to see that (not for the first time, it must be said) Marcus has deleted his blog. I've been a consistent reader of it for quite some time, and I've often thought about how I would like to write posts that reflect what he was thinking and writing, but I've not had the time whatsoever to marshal my thoughts and write anything cogent, something that I think is a real shame. He's stopped writing it, or so it seems, because of some kind soul describing it as car crash reading. That's simply not true; it has made good reading throughout. There are certain things he has said that I disagree with - in particular, what he says about Islam, but I understand why he says it - but even so, his awareness of travelling along an important life route, and his sharing of that process, has always made enlightening reading.

I haven't been keeping this up to date once more - been busy doing study. However, I am about top throttle the idiot sitting behind me who keeps on yapping about bugger all and has put me off my stride.
Please also note the addition in the sidebar, and please contribute if you can!

Mess.

There is the kind of mess that is associated with creativity, and which is in fact a fiendishly well-organised system hiding under layers of apparent crap to fool the unwary eye; Then there is the kind of mess that the rest of us occupy. I'm not writing on this or my other blog as often as I would like, nor am I really making any progress with my studies, nor am I doing pretty much of bugger all as far as I can see. Why is debatable, but primarily it's because everything feels and looks like a mess around me at the moment. It's also because, for whatever reason, I feel almost as if I have some invisible presence behind me, a silent, disapproving editor watching every single thing I scrawl down, and this puts me off writing anything at all.
In fact, I often have this sensation of a silent critic at my back, a loitering shadow eager and willing to criticise and moan, and have done ever since I can remember. It has put me off doing mopre things in my life than I care to remember. And one thing it has always been most insistent on is this idea of a mess. In other words, it has always been the thing at my back insisting that I must needs do this, that or the other before I get on with the real task in hand. It's always there, telling me that if I don't get such and such done, I'll be wrong or dispproved of etc. And without doubt, it has led to me not doing as much in my life as I should have.
Well, enough wittering.

Sean.

For want of posting something better..

Aw, bugger it, this blog has lost its direction recently, mainly because of a tremendous sense of weariness on my behalf. I actually feel totally physically knackered, and have done for the best part of this year. This is, as far as I can work out, mainly the fault of work, which seems to be getting in the way of everything else right now, but also there is this tremendous reticence to write within me, an invisible wall built for no reason, having no purpose, and leading to no output from me.
Anyway, let me get writing rather than talking about writing. Eurovision, for want of anything better. This is usually a sodding farrago, but this year has clearly beaten anything yet. The vote went to Russia simply because so many countries were afraid of having their gas supplies cut off. Well, that's what it looked like. As Sir Terry of Wogan said, it's nothing to do with music anymore. I disagree with the last word of the latter sentence. Since when has the Eurovision ever been to do with good music?
However, this year has shown it in all its grim glory: a popularity contest. This is meant to be a celebration of belonging. Instead, it's a tawdry playground game of my gang's better than your gang. And, stupid as it may seem, it tells a lot about what the European Project is, and how it may turn out. In some ways, it's a good thing - we're seeing a gradual readjustment between the rich western European countries and the neophyte members of the continental club. It's a bit unfair for the big, rich countires to start whinging about how they aren't winning the competition anymore. Come on, let's share the cost of hosting the bloody thing around a bit.
On the other hand, it has become colossally tiresome to watch the same old voting blocs: All the Scandinavians vote douze points for each other, Greece gives Cyprus 12, Cyprus arse-licks right back, etc, etc. There needs to be some kind of change to the system, though what, I haven't a clue.
As for the UK complaining about not coming anywhere near winning over the past decade: Which language is used? What muscial format do most countries use? Don't worry, the Anglo-Celtic Cultural Hegemony, even if we get next to nul points for our acts, is still dominant across Europe.

ok, let's see if this works then.

Myyy Precioussss...!

..or, what are the most valuable things I own? This is apropos of a couple of minutes' thinking about what to write here, and waiting for my fingers to start doing the magical thing they do once they start their dance over the keyboard and I can feel my mind slipping into The Zone. What are the valued things? Here, I am not talking about people, or love, or gripes, things that are talked about as being possessed, but which is never true. I'm talking about things, pure and simple. Take my need for my family as a given; take my not very well paid job for what it is; understand that what I am considering of value here is not things that are, per se, valuable, except that they are of worth for me. Let's start.
1) right now, my hands. only after you've had a limb out of use for a while can you truly appreciate having full use of all of them. I suppose I should extend this to all my bits, but my hand will do for now. Hands in general fascinate me: I remember one time at university, when I was in my halls of residence, watching a Sudanese student washing up his plates in the sink, and seeing the gentle, clever grace of his hands as they caressed the plates into cleanliness. Whenever I accidentally catch sight of my own in a reflection, there is always something slightly shocking in the moment, simply because they look so delicate and poised, yet I know how much strength there is in them.
2) The table at which I'm sat, which is in fact a bureau. An old, cheap bureau, a hand-me-down, but one at which I feel at home, and which feels like a thing born to be written upon. It is warm to the touch, I feel stories woven into it, and I love its simplicity.
At this point, I feel I should mention that this is a random list.
3) My key ring. This is in fact liberated from a gym bag, coloured white and red with the slogan 'Play Football!' upon it, over thirty years ago. It is the oldest thing that I have continuously owned upon my person, and it still performs the function to which it has been adapted. Why change what works?
4) A Citizen Automatic, a gift from Nur several years ago, which is currently languishing in the bureau, its mechamism in need of some TLC. I didn't appreciate it at first, but it's a truly lovely bit of watchmaking.

Yum!

This evening's meal was mainly a freezer clearout, and involved stuff you just shove in the oven then shove in your mouth. However, I felt a hankering for cilbir, so I made that too, and realised how much I missed it. I've posted something about it on here before ages ago, but it's worth a repeat mention, because it's so ridiculously simple but so bloody delicious. The first time I heard of it, I thought it would be utterly bloody disgusting, then I tried it. Trust me, if you make this, you'll get hooked. And it's perfect with raki - or a dry white wine, or a well matured and chilled fino.
Cilbir, aka eggs in yoghurt
you will need:
eggs
garlic
yoghurt
mint and/or dill
flakes of crushed chilli.
total time: 5 minutes - 15 minutes, depending on your eggs
first of all, decide what you want to do with your eggs. for this dish, they should, traditionally speaking, be poached, but I think it's far better when scrambled. If you go for the latter, fry the eggs in butter and a bit of sunflower oil.
Crush garlic, and either chop up or crush with a mortar and pestle. take your yoghurt (Turkish or Greek style, but not strained yoghurt - you need to be able to smooth this over, or pour, over the eggs), put it in a bowl, mix with the garlic. make sure your eggs are cooked. put on a service dish. pour yoghurt over the top. garnish with mint and/or dill, and flakes of chilli.
that's it! Eat with big chunks of fresh crusty bread.

A novel cure for Haemorrhoids?

I just recieved this slip through the letterbox.
It reads:
have you got piles?
need help to bring them down again?
well if so give sue a ring on xxxx xxxxx xxx

Oh, sorry, forgot to add the top line:
Ironing service.

Muddy.

That pretty much sums up my sunday afternoon ride up to Goring via the back roads past the Mapledurham estate and back via the Thames path to Pangbourne, Purley and Reading. You'd think a path that is a river route would be pretty flat: not a chance of it. It was up and down, up and down, and some clever bugger put large steps on some sections. The bridge tolls at Whitchurch show the prices from the early 1800s, which remained unchanged right up to the early 1980s.

well, you don't see this every day...

...snow in the south east, that is. Sunday morning. It lasted all of six hours. Of course, I had to build a snowman.
However, it was looking a bit to cute, so decided to make it a bit more sinister.

My desk.

Pinata!

so much to write, so little time, so it seems, so it is. Like so many other people, I am not entirely in control of my time management, and so I allow little jobs to slide until they end up as one colossal bloody mountain of sodding little jobs, and there's me at the base wondering what to do. Perhaps I should take a leaf out of my friend Marcus' book, or rather blog: The enlightened path may not lay at the top of the mound, but rather by walking round the side of it. Hopefully with a nice cup of tea to hand.
I find myself bogged down at present, having to juggle the various needs and desires of not only myself but also others. Sometimes it is frustrating: However, it is my life as it is. I'm well aware that I don't earn enough money, and that doing my Dip is the only current way forward, yet I still wonder whether I am on the right path, and whether I should be moving into something else. I want to study, I want to write, yet I seem to not have enough time for either.Perhaps I should walk around the mountain.
On a different topic, I've had quite a few reactions to the whole Jesus Pinata thing. Most agree with what I said at the end of the post, ie a sick stupid idea, yet it later struck me that theologically speaking it was actually appropriate, as long as it was done on Good Friday. The act of striking a Jesus Pinata until it breaks (spilling communion wafers and wine?) would be hugely symbolic of the mockery, abuse and pain heaped upon Christ in his final few hours, and therefore apt. I formed this opinion while watching BBC/HBO's hugely impressive 'The Passion', which didn't shirk from showing what a miserable, vile and humiliating death crucifixtion was, while not lingering on the thing with the sadistic pleasure evinced by Mel Gibson's film. However, the actor playing Jesus looked a bit too much like Ben Fogle with a beard to be entirely convincing.

Easter

..and chocolate and bunnies. Yum. I was discussing it rather flippantly with a colleague the other day, and wondered why we didn't have any lo-calorie chocolate Jesuses. They'd go down a treat. And what about a Jesus Pinata? All the kids could dress up as roman soldiers and poke it with spears.
Yes, I know, deeply sick.

Dear fellow cyclist...

,yes I think you know who you are, and I hope you're reading. You overtook me on Hemdean road this morning, almost pushing me into the kerb, and disregarding your own safety vis a vis the car directly behind you. There you were, you hero, straining against the wind, your work suit bulging against your paunch and the hi-vis, expensive yellow cycling jacket; you wobbled under the weight of your pricey cycling rucksack and your head bowed under your pricey cycling helmet; And yes, you overtook me,regardless of anyone's safety, least of all your own, you hero, you. Well, the wind was against us, and just for a bit of sport, I thought I'd catch you up and see if I could beat you to the end of the road. And I did, didn't I? However, you didn't like that, did you?It showed you up on your pricey bike and pricey clothes and pricey kit, you hero. So, when I cycled onto Church street, you came racing behind, regardless of the car bearing down on you, hero, its horn blaring. I guess your piggy little eyes were bulging with fury behind your pricey little glasses. And of course, when I reached the mini roundabout, I indicated right, as I always do, but it's a good job I checked behind me, as I always do before I turned right, because I saw you just about to barrel into me in your yearning to get past me, regardless of the car about to turn into your path, you hero. So I hope you're reading this:
YOU ARE A TOTAL FUCKING TOOL, AND IT'S NO WONDER PEOPLE GET PISSED OFF WITH CYCLISTS WHILE ARSEHOLES LIKE YOU ARE AROUND.
Thank you.

the last post was horribly pessimistic. Blame it on reading too much James Lovelock, watching the news unfold about price increases, the threat of recession, and being 40.

Do you know what you're doing?

No, really. Do you really, truly know and understand exactly what you're doing and why? Or is your life just little pockets of control, pushed and whipped around by great storms of total bloody chaos? Now there's a question that I'd like to see a politician answer with a straight face and an honest heart. The fact of the matter is, very few people really know what they're up to. The rest of us just try to control what we can, and are at the mercy of the shitstorm that is life. We might delude ourselves that we're in control, that we are masters of our destiny, but by and large that's bollocks. Yes, we might have the luxury of choosing where we live and what jobs we do: Yes, we have the freedom to have leisure time, go on holiday, buy what we want: But it is controlled choice, limited freedom. The slightest thing could send our lives spiralling out of control.
And of course, we expect those in charge to be able to control things in order to make our own lives easier, to give us a little less to be concerned about. What we neglect, or even choose to ignore, is that these are people just like us, not some race of ubermensch. And as such, they are prone to the faults and follies, mistakes, prevarications and lies that we all are. And these are the people I'd like to grab gently by the throat, stare into their eyes, and ask the question at the top of the page until I see fear gathering in their faces.

quote of the day.

From my son, Angus:
'Dad, you and mum aren't friends, you're husband and wife!'

Old fartdom beckoning?

well, my hair hasn't fallen out overnight, nor my teeth. The Beige Gene - the one that makes you start thinking, 'actually, beige is nice' - hasn't kicked in. I haven't developed a predilection for jackets with leather patches or slippers in a plaid pattern, nor have I developed a yearning for a sports car, golf, or polo-necked sweaters in a diamond pattern. In fact, it's all pretty normal so far.
Happy 40th birthday, me.

marinading.

Home remedies can be a wonderful thing, inasmuch as they show the triumph of hope over cruel reality. For example, my wife has been applying a mixture of almond oil, olive oil, garlic and onions to my head for the past few weeks, because, apparently, it will strengthen my hair, make it more lustrous, and aid new hair growth. I have gone along with this, even though I'm sceptical. I'm being made even more sceptical by the fact that my head smells like a garlicky marinade, and has done for several days despite regular washing. And why all this? well, it's because I'm losing my hair by degrees, and my wife wants to help me keep as much of it as possible, as long as possible, and as coloured as possible, even if it means having to smell like something you'd smear over a leg of lamb and leave in the fridge overnight. It doesn't matter if I go on about telomeres, genetic inheritance, the loss of melanin, the gradually increasing friability of hair once the cell begins to die - 'try this, it'll help'. And because I'm a bit on the vain side, I go along with it, even though I know that it won't work. I don't think I'm alone in this. Having to face up to the, er, bare fact of the balding process is one of those things most men have to go through - the knowledge that one's youth is passing and gone, stupid evanescent thing. Yet still we try to avoid it for as long as possible. It's not that my hair loss is that bad: compared to my dad and grandfather, I actually still have hair, and it's mostly the original colour: No, it's the fact that it is ongoing.
The situation bears a similarity with the inevitable fact of death, the occurence of one's own, that is. The only consolation of my demise will be that I won't smell of onions. Hopefully.

A few more pics

These are from 1987 (21 years ago! How is that possible? there are people at my uni now on the verge of graduating who weren't even born when I first started boozing it up there), taken in the Mandela Bar and outside one of the entrances to the Main building. the former are of Michelle Shocked, a folk and protest singer of the time, and still among the very best gigs I have ever been to, and the latter of a very bored John Webb picketing the massed hordes of students trying to get to a 9.30 lecture. These pictures are all very typical of their time.

back in the saddle

I finally got back in the saddle today, after seven weeks. My arm's now feeling a bit sore for it, but it was good to ride again, even when I had a sudden wobble and thought I was about to go over again. I took it easy, riding by the river to work and giving myself half an hour for what would normally be a 15-20 minute journey across town. Whether I'll do it again tomorrow remains to be seen.
The feeling of mellowness engendered by the gentle release of endorphins into my bloodstream due to exercise was then completely buggered over by the discovery that my external HDD had been nuked my the computer in the classroom. I arrived home, plugged it in, and found it wouldn't work - 'the file or directory is corrupted and unreadable'. This is a bit of a bugger, as I haven't got a backup of it. Cue grinding of teeth, attempted hacking, a brief interlude to smack my head against a wall, then downloading of a file recovery program, which is now running oh-so-slowly on the main tower. I just hope I can save my info.
Nevertheless, even if it is lost, I'll be able to recover the majority of it from here and there, I think, and build it slowly back up again, datum by datum. After all, it's just another way of getting back in one's saddle, of taking control again, getting back in the (not always) right direction.

Nothing.

A somewhat hectic day halfway done....I've had to cover someone's group this morning, and now I've got four solid hours' of teaching to go. Whoopy-do. I'm also not really in a mood to scrawl anything, but feel I should make a more concerted effort than I have been doing recently. Anyway, I have three minutes before the start of my lesson, so I thought I'd take a leaf out of mys sister's blog and write frantically and not necessarily accurately over the space of a couple of minutes.
So, er, what should I write? well, there's the usual domestic stuff and, in exciting news, I put up a load of shelves yesterday. My arm continues its progress back to health, although I still can't bend it completely and the bicep looks distinctly wimpy compared to my other arm. Right, that's three minutes and nothing written - bye!

3 lives lived.

Pepys said that a diarist lives three times: once when he lives it, again as he writes it down, then once more as he looks back at his work, many years after. Of course, it should be noted that in fact he is living three different lives, in a way: the life as it lived, the life as it is recalled and seen through the glasses of reflection and opinion, and the life as it is recalled and (mis-) remembered.
Something similar happens with photos. Certainly, I'm experienced the third life currently, as I am digitising the thousands of negatives I have hoarded away from my university years and later. I recall, as photography editor for the student magazine, thinking I was a pretty damn good shot with a camera, and looking at the results once they were back from the developer ( a tiny specialist photo shop in the wrong end of Bangor High Street), that what I'd taken were damn good pics.
It is only with the hindsight of many years that I can see how crap a lot of them were. underexposure, overexposure, fogging, out-of-focus crap, pretentious, sub-Athena poster posed stuff - all there. But amidst the dross, jewels: a wonderful set of pics from a Michelle Shocked gig; a lovely shot of someone looking out, byond the frame, onto what I recall was a garden full of snow; shots of friends from the 92 Reading festival; and more.
It's going to take me absolutely ages to trawl through and sift out the best shots, and I'll be putting some of the best on here. Here's a few to be going on with, including one of my most favourite shots ever, Cara Greczyn looking distinctly annoyed while holding a water pistol.

My arm makes steady progress towards normality, but getting it moving again has been like trying to relearn the grammar of another language, one that I should be familiar with, but I can only wield partially. I'm discovering the bend and flex of each muscle and sinew, the turn of the radius as it slides past the ulna, a pair of dancers locked in a limited waltz. I find that by pushing each part just a little more each day, the whole of the arm seems to be coming slowly back to life and lithe. Who'd have thought it would be so difficult to blow one's nose, when you can't get one hand close enough? Or how uncomfortable it is to sleep when you cannot tuck your arm into a supine position?

Wrath and judgement.

'You seem very angry about things,' said my mate at Christmas. 'You know, it's counterproductive, and reserving your anger like this...'
'and being so..so generalising,' chipped in his wife.
'..it doesn't help you.'
I may have come across as a bit annoyed: after all, I'd just narrowly avoided having had my head crushed under the wheels of one big Anxious Mummy Child Carrying Juggernaut, shortly after coming off my bike and suffering a radial head fracture thanks to the AMCCJ braking suddenly in front of me. However, it was my usual joking rant, the use of apparent anger for humour's sake, my way of winding down. Unfortunately, it seems to have come across as the real thing. The question is: Am I really governed by anger, and do I generalise?
I have to ask this question, simply because the positing of the idea by another requires me to see whether it is true. On the charge of anger, I am afraid to say that there is some truth in the matter: On the latter, I absolutely refute it. I do not generalise, except for humour's sake. OK, I've written on here about my dislike of Audi, Volvo and BMW drivers, but I hope that it's fairly obvious that I'm writing with my tongue at least partially in my cheek. Generalisations are the refuge of those who are too lazy to think. While people tend to behave in broadly similar ways - for example, in my experience as a cyclist, Audi drivers behave as though the roads belong to them - nevertheless, we are all individuals with our own definitions of normal, and our own eccentricities, foibles and madnesses. I am well aware of this, and so seek to avoid making vapid, broad assumptions of others. Apart from being lazy thinking, it is also dangerous: how easy the fall from generalising to stereotyping to labelling to accusing.
On the point about anger: well, yes. I have my moments, I can't deny that. Indeed, many of the stupid things I have done in my life have been fuelled by a moment, or moments, of anger and irritation. Anger can be constructive, though, if it is directed and leads to positive change. Unfortunately, mine tends to be aimed at myself, whenever it is directed. Yet this, too, is something I am aware of, and something that I strive to change.

Back to basics. And Raki

A different week and better health. The fluey thing lifted faster than I hoped, and the visit to the Fracture Clinic went well: The consultant said to take off the sling and exercise my arm, although, because of the nature of the break, I may never be able to hold it completely straight again.

Anyway, several things have conspired to remind me of the original purpose of this blog, which was to talk about raki, recipes, booze, food, politics, and the odd rant. And raki. Also, a comment on Marcus' blog about the simplicity required to follow the teachings of the Buddha, and an article about mindfulness, got my attention. So, what I am trying to do is a) get this blog back something more direct and b) ensure I write it regularly and mindfully. At least, I think that's the idea.

So, what could be more back to basics than this?
Take two glasses, tall and narrow and preferably taken from the fridge. Take a jug of chilled spring water, a bucket of ice, and then a bottle of raki, preferably cold, preferably Tekirdag. Pour a generous measure of raki into one glass: Add ice, then add water, abd watch as it becomes a pearly white liquid. Fill the other glass with cold water and ice, and see condensation forming almost immediately on the outside: Now, add a plate of white cheese, a platter of sweet watermelon, some sigara boregi, haydari, acili ezme and patlican ezmesi, plus perhaps some leblebi, all to be followed by freshly-caught sea bass or bluefish, fried and served with rocket and lemon, or a plate of kofte and rice. On top of this, have an outdoor setting on a warm evening, overlooking the Bosphorus or the Bay of Izmir, and someone playing the saz and singing songs full of huzun:Now take a bite of one of the things laid before you, then a sip of raki, and tell me that it doesn't get much better than this.
And keep drinking till the angels start singing to you.

I love January.

This is getting ridiculous. If having my arm hurting wasn't enough, the rest of my body has now decided to join in the achy action, and I've got myself a dose of this bloody flu thing going round. I narrowly avoided throwing up in front of, not to say over, my students this morning - hardly a good way to welcome them back. By midday, I had to concede defeat, and dragged myself home, only to find that everyone else is also in varying states of unwellness.

Indolence.

You would think that, being confined at home with my knackered arm, I would be getting on with something productive: reading books, studying, doing research and so forth. But no: I seem to be all clogged up, unable to spring anything forth, do anything of any value at all. Indeed, I've been staring at this bloody computer screen for the past two days, unable even to work up the strength to think of something to write.
Indolence has this effect on me. Once it sets in, inertia follows, then I get nothing done whatsoever. And once that happens, I start feeling depressed at my own inability to move. However, one benefit of this enforced break is reflecting on the fact that movement, action of itself is actually pretty valueless. There needs to be a point to getting something done, and I should know: I'm a master of displacement activities. I've been reflecting on how much time it is possible to waste, even while doing an impression of a blue-arsed fly, and the fact that pointless work is as much a product of indolence as sitting in front of the TV.

not a resolution.

Seeing as my posting became somewhat remiss last year, I'm going to try and keep it more regular in 2008, even if it goes to the point of tedium.