midnight motorway noises
27 February 2006
our children will thank us
The family across the road from my mum and dad are having a giant wooden replica pirate ship built in their front garden. It has decking, a mast and a plastic steering wheel. And it's not finished yet. This is after having their attic turned into an enormous play room for the little ones. Little spoilt ones.
I would have loved a pirate ship in my garden. In fact, I had frighteningly regular pangs to go and play on it when I went home last - I could have made myself an eyepatch and hobbled around with the rest of the scurvey-ridden eight year old shipmates - But Surely it spoils any chance they have of developing a vivid imagination? An imagination that will be increasingly useful when shutting out the increasingly scary world? Those children are going to have to change their lecturers into clowns one day, going to have to read a phone bill as an invitation for tea at Buckingham Palace. There are no life size pirate ships in the real world sonny, you'll just have to make do with a carboard box, a pillow case and a loo roll telescope like me. And the rest of us...
Walking though the park on Saturday I saw a boy (probably about four years old, maybe five) pushing around a duck on a stick. A toy duck, just to clarify. It waddled its feet when he pushed it along the pavement. My sister had a plastic lawn mower like it with little plastic bits of grass that flew about inside when you mowed, like you were chopping up the carpet, or the lino, or the head of an unsuspecting parent. Much better, I think. Although, maybe I'm just jealous.
The parents of the boy in the park are obvioulsy unaware of the fact that they are dangerously desensitising their little one to the dangers of today's British duck... You never know, zat 'armless little duck might just have popped over the Channel.
Pirate ship it is then.
I would have loved a pirate ship in my garden. In fact, I had frighteningly regular pangs to go and play on it when I went home last - I could have made myself an eyepatch and hobbled around with the rest of the scurvey-ridden eight year old shipmates - But Surely it spoils any chance they have of developing a vivid imagination? An imagination that will be increasingly useful when shutting out the increasingly scary world? Those children are going to have to change their lecturers into clowns one day, going to have to read a phone bill as an invitation for tea at Buckingham Palace. There are no life size pirate ships in the real world sonny, you'll just have to make do with a carboard box, a pillow case and a loo roll telescope like me. And the rest of us...
Walking though the park on Saturday I saw a boy (probably about four years old, maybe five) pushing around a duck on a stick. A toy duck, just to clarify. It waddled its feet when he pushed it along the pavement. My sister had a plastic lawn mower like it with little plastic bits of grass that flew about inside when you mowed, like you were chopping up the carpet, or the lino, or the head of an unsuspecting parent. Much better, I think. Although, maybe I'm just jealous.
The parents of the boy in the park are obvioulsy unaware of the fact that they are dangerously desensitising their little one to the dangers of today's British duck... You never know, zat 'armless little duck might just have popped over the Channel.
Pirate ship it is then.
22 February 2006
1:03:46
The ladies are on the run again...
Annually, around Glasgow, around this time of year, around half of the city's ladies start running.
I noticed it last year because Kirsty was running too, this year she's running again but I noticed it before I knew about that.
They are everywhere, in purple t-shirts and red faces. They run down Great Western Road in the mornings, through Kelvingrove Park in the early evening, along Woodlands at night. I constantly feel like I should be running too...
Not because they look like they're enjoying themselves, like they're having a ball, with red faces and "hheee hoooo" breathing. They are A) shaping up, no more pints - just a gin and slim and a packet of lightly-salted-peanuts-for-me-please-bar-keep. B) probably making a bit of cash for their chosen charity. Which can't be bad. C) Making us mere perambulating pedestrians feel a mite sheepish about that chips and cheese we collectively got last night. That twelfth fag, that double decker, that extra hour of the Will and Grace marathon...
The sense of acheivement must be awesome, because (as hard as it was for me to believe before big sis did it last year) the Jogging Ladies were once just as slow and pastey faced as you or I. Mostly I.
Maybe one year I'll do it too, maybe the sense of scorn and shame will turn to resolution and eventual accomplishment. Until then though, I will shoot a smile at those brave ladies who run past me tomorrow, hheee hoooo, hopefully they will see me, although it obviously depends how fast they are going.
Annually, around Glasgow, around this time of year, around half of the city's ladies start running.
I noticed it last year because Kirsty was running too, this year she's running again but I noticed it before I knew about that.
They are everywhere, in purple t-shirts and red faces. They run down Great Western Road in the mornings, through Kelvingrove Park in the early evening, along Woodlands at night. I constantly feel like I should be running too...
Not because they look like they're enjoying themselves, like they're having a ball, with red faces and "hheee hoooo" breathing. They are A) shaping up, no more pints - just a gin and slim and a packet of lightly-salted-peanuts-for-me-please-bar-keep. B) probably making a bit of cash for their chosen charity. Which can't be bad. C) Making us mere perambulating pedestrians feel a mite sheepish about that chips and cheese we collectively got last night. That twelfth fag, that double decker, that extra hour of the Will and Grace marathon...
The sense of acheivement must be awesome, because (as hard as it was for me to believe before big sis did it last year) the Jogging Ladies were once just as slow and pastey faced as you or I. Mostly I.
Maybe one year I'll do it too, maybe the sense of scorn and shame will turn to resolution and eventual accomplishment. Until then though, I will shoot a smile at those brave ladies who run past me tomorrow, hheee hoooo, hopefully they will see me, although it obviously depends how fast they are going.
20 February 2006
bird flu, chantelle houghton, danish cartoons, freddie starr ate my hamster.
Blah my dissertation blah is my blah best friend blah blahhhh.
It is a small flicker in a big dark cave. In amongst the rubbish, the run of the mill degree-necessary work, it is a small (relatively small) smile in a room full of could-do-better frowns.
I liked looking at Els Joglars today. They inspire me and they make me look forward to being out of uni, working on the project that we keep promising ourselves, that one indulgant thing that could lead to a thousand indulgant things... That challenge. Els Joglars (and the others) have also become the thing that I keep talking about until people look at me like I've gone wrong. Everybody has one, mine is political theatre (or theatre in general), Barcelona (the best places to juggle at) and Gloria Estefan with or without the Miami Sound Machine.
The dissertation makes me feel like I'm doing a bit of learning before diving in, that any project I would commit to now would be awful because I hadn't done my reading.
Incidentally, if you're wondering about the title of this post, I thought that "my dissertation" would bore people to sleep. So I lulled you all into a false sense of wonder with things that the world seem to find really interesting.
It is a small flicker in a big dark cave. In amongst the rubbish, the run of the mill degree-necessary work, it is a small (relatively small) smile in a room full of could-do-better frowns.
I liked looking at Els Joglars today. They inspire me and they make me look forward to being out of uni, working on the project that we keep promising ourselves, that one indulgant thing that could lead to a thousand indulgant things... That challenge. Els Joglars (and the others) have also become the thing that I keep talking about until people look at me like I've gone wrong. Everybody has one, mine is political theatre (or theatre in general), Barcelona (the best places to juggle at) and Gloria Estefan with or without the Miami Sound Machine.
The dissertation makes me feel like I'm doing a bit of learning before diving in, that any project I would commit to now would be awful because I hadn't done my reading.
Incidentally, if you're wondering about the title of this post, I thought that "my dissertation" would bore people to sleep. So I lulled you all into a false sense of wonder with things that the world seem to find really interesting.
07 February 2006
pitchers
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I have a brand spanking new flickr account! You can find it by clicking on the badge at the side. The photos are a bit shoddy because I mostly take them with my phone, when people are looking at me like I'm a crazy (which they often do), when I'm drunk (which I often am...) or when I'm precariously balanced on a precipice or cliff face or edge of a vat of boiling jam with an angry mob of locals jeering and jabbing at me with pitchforks and burning torches (which I very rarely am, I just couldn't think of another excuse for the poor quality of my photos).
Enjoy!
the dream team
I'll remember a number of things from the process of preparing for STaG Nights...
If you ask me, I'll tell you what they are, for hours and hours, because I love to talk about it. But tonight, my lovely STaG Nights team has just left. We drank the last of the champagne and toasted off our old friend. We probably wont be all in the same room again, celebrating the same thing again.
But that's good.
Tonight, I remember walking home in the Glasgow fog last week. I remember being in love with Glagsow again, laughing at how much my festival was a childish declaration of that love and thinking "if I can love you without being able to see you at all, then it must be real". I remember seeing the stripes of light from the orange street lamps, I remember looking for the stars so I could try and make up some sort of convoluted metaphor - but not finding them.
I remember feeling foggy, and finding the metaphor where I always find it. With my friends.
Even thought I know how boring it gets when bloggers write too personally or referring constantly to people they know with no funny anecdotes or sad tales to recount, I must just say, I appreciate them so much and I am glad we are friends.
Celebrating and striping the foggy Glagsow sky with their own shade of bright orange.
If you ask me, I'll tell you what they are, for hours and hours, because I love to talk about it. But tonight, my lovely STaG Nights team has just left. We drank the last of the champagne and toasted off our old friend. We probably wont be all in the same room again, celebrating the same thing again.
But that's good.
Tonight, I remember walking home in the Glasgow fog last week. I remember being in love with Glagsow again, laughing at how much my festival was a childish declaration of that love and thinking "if I can love you without being able to see you at all, then it must be real". I remember seeing the stripes of light from the orange street lamps, I remember looking for the stars so I could try and make up some sort of convoluted metaphor - but not finding them.
I remember feeling foggy, and finding the metaphor where I always find it. With my friends.
Even thought I know how boring it gets when bloggers write too personally or referring constantly to people they know with no funny anecdotes or sad tales to recount, I must just say, I appreciate them so much and I am glad we are friends.
Celebrating and striping the foggy Glagsow sky with their own shade of bright orange.
