I had a dream…

Bad night, but a good dream – I dreamt I found a story of mine that had been published and which I’d forgotten about.  I was really happy, then wrote to the magazine asking why they hadn’t paid me.  The story, interestingly, was called Nineteenthly, which is Mark’s pseudonym on his blog and on the Half-Bakery.  So make of that what you will.  I know I will!

Half-bakery?  It’s a site where geeks come up with ill-thought-out ideas for inventions.  Geddit?  It’s easy enough to find, not so easy to leave (you can log off any time you like/but you can never leave)

I had a really good limerick this morning and now it’s lost.  Here’s a later one:

The age of the train

voice of the creep

winds in the lane

howl in our sleep.

(Remember Jimmy Savile?  I try not to, either.)

Reading Rebecca and for lighter relief, HPDH (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to you).  When, oh when will the film come out?

Short stories are coming on.  I am skimming Tracy Chevalier’s Burning Bright – which, as anyone even vaguely literary will know, is about Blake.  You know, Tyger, tyger, burning bright/in the forests of the night/what immortal hand or eye/can frame thy fearful symmetry?  Not her best, I think – the research is too obvious, hasn’t bedded in to the story.  Girl with a Pearl Earring – much better.  I wonder, though, whether she’s got stuck in a genre because that was so successful.

Compare and contrast with how a tiger when walking:

uses first legs one and three

then alternates with two and four –

and after that, there are no more.

RIP Spike Milligan

Button, button, who the hell is button?

I’m wondering whether “button, button, who’s got the button?” is like “Hunt the thimble”. This is a now largely-forgotten game which we played as children, where our mother used to hide the thimble. She was very good at this, proving the dictum that if you want to hide something, you should place it in full view. (Have you seen The Iron Giant? He hides in full view.) Anyway, this set me thinking about Jenson Button, who purports to be a racing driver. Whenever I hear his name my brain goes into that squirmy improbability-drive mode wherein I just don’t believe it. How can that be his name? That’s not a name – it’s a job description. It’s like a tennis player being called Servolan Volley. (Where was there a character called Servolan?)

 

Today I’m in the library again and could be taken for a Muslim convert as I’m wrapped in a headscarf against the cold. The windows don’t shut properly and the draught is freezing. I’m going to be reading Tracy Chevalier to see what kind of thing she might go for. Why? Because there’s a short story comp which she is going to be judging.

Have a good day!

TTFN

it’s blog-tastic!

Waking up on a Sunday morning at 5.30 is not what you want. But there it is. At least I was able to see that Holly woke up in time for her paper round and ensure that we don’t get a plaintive call from Subash at the newsagents’. We fixed Holly’s bike yesterday – it had a startlingly tiny tear in the inner tube which could only be experienced in deep meditation, which made fixing it a bit of a bitch (by the way, this is the only context in which I consider the word “b*tch” to be acceptable – apart from the original, of course).

Last night Daniel and I finished watching Friends. Yes, we finally got to that episode where Rachel opens the door and whines: “I got awf the plane.” What will we do now? Get a life, I suppose.

Plans for today: write a couple of poems which have been swirling around in my head. Go to church (yesterday we went to Tomatoes – a free breakfast thing they do every other week and I talked to a homeless woman) – Oh! I was going to blog about Daphne du Maurier – don’t let me forget – and then I have some sewing to do. I have untimely ripped the bottom layer from an exquisite skirt which was much too long and put it on some curtains which were much too short. However, the skirt material can’t be washed with the curtains so – hey presto! – velcro. An ingenious solution, I think.

After that, I don’t know. No great plans for today. Oh – yesterday Mark and Holly went to see Zombie Undead at the Phoenix (the new Phoenix, of which more anon) in which Holly was an extra. I stayed home with Daniel, who is not yet ready for the zombie world.

Right. Daphne du Maurier. OK – confession: I avoided Daphne du Maurier until recently because my mum liked her. But before you judge me, please bear in mind that my mum also liked a load of utter tosh. Still – my mistake. Du Maurier hovers on the edge of greatness and at times crosses it. One of her editors says no writer has so consistently evaded classification – and she’s right. So read her. I’m reading Rebecca at the mo. Remember the Olivier film?

The new Phoenix is in the new cultural quarter, a brave and expensive attempt to regenerate a run-down post-industrial area of the city. However, the result is that all the buildings feel like warehouses. Plus, as I’ve said before, how DARE they not call the theatre The Orton?

Ok that’s more than enough for this time in the morning. Have a good day.

TT

At the reference library today

Definitely need to think of some snappier titles for these posts.  Back to working at the library today as Mark seems to be better.  had an email from Artichoke, the people who ran the Plinth project, asking me if I would like to talk to some women’s magazines about my experience.  I said I would.

Working on my stories today.  Some of them seem very lame indeed, and all of them need lots of work.  The radio play is stuck at the moment – but when things are going well I get a real sense that it all works together.  Not feeling terribly inspired today tho.  Tired.

Have you ever noticed how few indoor seats there are?  If you want to sit and have a packed lunch without getting rained on, there are not too many options.

Reading a book called “Mezzanine” by Nicholson Baker.  It is something I read years ago and nearly bought for Mark, even though at that time we weren’t together.  It concerns the minutiae of life, the things we all notice on a subliminal level but don’t pay attention to, such as the nature of the hole in which you insert your straw in a cup of take-away coffee; and what happens to plastic straws when inserted in a cup of fizzy pop (not a problem I ever have to contend with) and how they have designed them to fit exactly into the lid so the straw doesn’t bob up and out of the drink.

I call it Proust for shoppers.

I am also reading Proust again, first in the English, then in the French.  I only have one volume in the French – in fact, it turned out to be the second part of  volume 5, La Prisonniere – and it starts, bizarrely, in the middle of a paragraph.  Took me ages to find it.

Took Mark ages to find the book, too.  It was my Xmas present last year.

I love Proust.  If I had a second life running alongside the first, I’d use it to read Proust, and write all my responses to him.  And  write down all the quotable stuff.  Actually, I’ve found you begin by writing the odd sentence and end by copying it all.

That’s all folks!  See you next time on the Muppet Show.

To my waiting public…

Just realised I didn’t tell you about our plans for the weekend.  So sorry to leave you hanging on like that.  Today we have been shopping, collected Mark from his stint on the CND stall, failed to buy any dinner-plates, succeeded in buying Daniel’s Xmas present, plus some t-shirts for me and slippers for Daniel.

I am hankering for the Saturdays I used to have – meeting my mates in the pub, hanging out, being social.  Nowadays everyone has a Life (with a capital Li*).  Tomorrow I am going to the Martyrs and Mark is going to the cathedral for something relating to his Lay Reader’s course.

Saw Joan (Mark’s mum) on Thurs.  She is waiting for an operation on her knee.

That’s all the news.  Oh!  I am recently getting into Daphne du Maurier, whom I avoided for decades for no better reason than because my mother liked her – and finding her much better than her reputation suggests.  I think I would almost class her than a great writer.

Also reading Proust in French (!)  reading the English first, then the French.  Awesome!

Enjoy your weekend.

*   By which I mean, they have families and houses and gardens and shopping and cars and mortgages and, above all, Work.  Oh, the work!  We have friends who used to be a big part of our lives whom we never see now, because of Work.  I could do a whole Proustian thing on the nature of work and how, pac-man-like, it gobbles up your cookies of time and energy, but I’ll save it for another post.  You know what I mean, anyway

Have you come far? What are you reading?

Wrote an article about the Plinth for OM magazine, a yoga publication.  Steve came round and we watched the video of me on the Plinth.  I don’t seem to have made it into the week’s highlights, although that does say “Last week’s highlights” so maybe that was the week before (That was the week, that was – remember TW3?).

I am reading an Alan Bennett called The Uncommon Reader.  It’s about the Queen discovering a mobile library outside the Palace and starting to read.  As with all Alan Bennetts, every male in it is gay.

Trinity today.  I shall wear my new skirt.  Then this evening people are coming round to watch the video and eat pizza.

Drank a lot of wine last night.  It was great!  Oh, and Steve, having bought a wine box for the first time, complained about how hard it was to get the wine out.  Turns out he’d dismantled the box and tried to get the wine out by wringing the bag!

We put him right.

Kirk out

PS Oh!  And we have booked a week in East Sussex, near Pevensey Bay.  Should be great!

Margrave of the Marshes

… and now I find myself needing to write more about John Peel.  The impressive thing about Peel is not merely his humility, which was genuine, nor his humanity, which was real, nor his interest in other people, which many have attested, nor the longevity and devotion of his marriage, which is rare but not unheard-of.  No, the most amazing thing about John Peel – and this continues to strike me with force whenever I encounter the man – is his incredible one-off-ness.  You have only to see a photo of him or – as I did a while ago, watch a video of the Old Grey String Vest (sorry, I mean Whistle Test) where he is simply sitting there, on a stool, nodding in time to the music and – oh hell, just BEING John Peel – to appreciate this.  There’s a photo in the book of him and Alan (Fluff) Freeman dancing on a roof of the BBC or something – and though their poses are nearly identical, the difference between them couldn’t be more striking.  Fluff has a manic grin, engages the camera, says, “Look at me!  Isn’t this great!  Here I am!”  – while John… John just is.

He was a rare gem.  And we miss him.  Long may he live in our memories.

Kirk out.

HPHBP Review (warning – contains spoilers)

Yes.  Potter.  Very pleasantly surprised by the sixth film, since the same director did the fifth one well, but not too wisely – ie it was much too short.  I guess he looked at the length of the book and panicked.  As anyone would.  So.  Yes.  I’m impressed by how the same cast has followed through all the films – not only in the main parts – which, as the actors have gone through adolescence and are now young adults, is no mean feat, but all the minor parts as well.  So far as I can see, the only change occurred when Richard Harris, who was a great Dumbledore, had the temerity to die after the first film.  One of the great pleasures for me is in watching the children grow up.

There’s a lot of humour in this film, necessarily so because the stories grow darker as the books progress.  Clearly some of the people in the cinema hadn’t read the book, because they were totally shocked when Snape killed Dumbledore.  I was completely gripped throughout the 2 1/2 hours and my first thought on exiting was that i wanted to see it again.

One thing they didn’t do so much (or at least, i didn’t notice it) was to tell the minor stories in the background (eg by a look exchanged, or some people arguing – something which is never explained but which those who know the books will understand.)  I think that what they’re doing, now the series is coming to its climax, is concentrating on the main plot – which in itself is complicated enough to demand all your attention.

I count myself a sophisticated reader – but I couldn’t guess what would happen at the end of the seventh book.  If you don’t know, here’s what happened:

Oh, damn!  We’re out of time.  See you tomorrow.

Kirk out.

PS  Read it yourself.  It’s good.  Honest.

PPS Who was it who loved “not wisely but too well”?

When I am old I shall wear mauve…

this morning’s conversation in bed (picture, if you will, the two of us sitting up in bed drinking tea and coffee, conversing animatedly on whatever subjects float across the akasha of our mind)

Ah! Did you spot the Sanskrit word there?  “Akasha” means “space” and “chid-akasha” means “mind-space”.  But I digress.

The subject of today’s bed-tea-and-coffee-conversation was the word “mauve” and how nobody ever uses it any more (my mate Tony in Chester reckoned that only middle-aged ladies in Harrogate tea-shops ever used it.  I think he’d been reading too much Alan Bennett) and then Mark dredged up from the recesses of his memory the fact that “mauve” used to be a euphemism for “gay” (which in turn used to be a synonym for “happy” but let’s not go there.)  Then I dredged up (though with somewhat less effort) from my memory the line from “Withnail and I”:

-  He’s so mauve, we don’t know what he’s planning.

Check it out.  Great film.

Incidentally, “Withnail” is pronounced “With-nerll” with a schwa on the second vowel.  Which pretty much brings us back to where we were yesterday.

Watched the tennis.  Andy Murray through.

Today I am going to meet my new friend Claire and discover what kind of personality I have.

TTFN

PS I am reading John Peel’s autobiog, “Margrave of the Marshes” and in between bouts of affection and sadness that he’s dead, trying to analyse his highly individual writing style.

Here’s the new plan…

Slept badly, woke up this morning – and now I have a new plan! I think I’m finally ready to start writing my novel. OK so I’ve already written a novel and a half (literally – I don’t mean that my first one was so brilliant that it was a “novel and a half”). The first one was called Seven Days and was about a woman spending a week in a nuclear bunker (yes, it was a long time ago); the second, called “M”, was about a man who changes sex half way through, but I couldn’t make it work. Writing both of these was like blundering about in a dark forest with only the vaguest idea of what a path should look like. I’m still blundering about in a dark forest, but now I’ve learnt the names of some of the trees, and the squirrels are my friends. Some of them even bring me nuts. Speaking of which…

Retaining one’s sanity (as regular readers of this blog will know) can be a bit of an issue, so I need to do plenty of gardening, cleaning, decorating etc to keep me in touch with the physical world. Other than that I am spending my leisure time (as are we all) ploughing through the ten series of Friends which we are acquiring on DVD (we used to have the whole lot on video but they took up half the living-room.) Whether this will help on the sanity front, I don’t know (could I be any more sane?) but it sure is fun. And now, on with the day. I am so gonna write that novel!