Day 147: Packed Up

The end of a very long week.  All duties have been discharged.  I am now in the exact moment that I have been envying my future self for the last five days.  It's good.  My mind is empty.  It feels like a house when you've packed up to move out.  Echoey and expanded. 

Nothing more to say.  Everything's in boxes, wrapped in newspaper.

Day 146: Secret Garden

Running a pilot workshop at the McLaren Technology Centre.  A homage to light - white walls, water, and steel, all designed by Norman Foster.  The first time I visited I was impressed, but I couldn't figure out how to get in (satellite podule entrances, with underground tunnels to the central node, accessible by a cylindrical glass lift that delivers you from darkness into light - obviously...).  Today - six visits down the line - my palate is getting a little jaded (oh, for some flock wallpaper and East London irony).  Until I bump into a lad in reception who's come for a work experience interview.  His eyes are like saucers and he keeps breaking into a big grin.  It's like seeing a Christmas tree anew through the reaction of a six-year old. 

Ugly

With lots of time to kill before my next job in Maidenhead, I find myself heading to a hotel that I haven't visited in years.  An ugly Holiday Inn near White Waltham.  Remarkable for the fact that behind the standard modern hotel building exists another world. 

Not ugly

Lawns and topiary and an avenue of little trees leading to an ornate iron gate.  And behind the gate, a rambling house.  Beams and mullioned windows and mellow bricks.  Shoppenhangers Manor.  Built in 1915 by an antiques dealer,  who created an extraordinary patchwork house from leftovers - bits of grand old estates and ancient ships.  It looks far older than its construction date.  It may just be a folly, but its eccentricity has its own ricketty charm.

Not any more.  It's gone.  Demolished, and where it stood is now wasteland, complete with rubble, weeds and buddleia.  I duck under the barriers and wander around over broken glass and fragments of brick.  What a waste.  I ask at reception - the dead-eyed Eastern European girl shrugs.  She doesn't know anything about a house.  I try at the bar.  Apparently it cost too much to keep up, so Holiday Inn pulled it down in 2007.  I'm not sure this is the truth.  I rather suspect it simply wasn't ugly enough to qualify as a piece of Holiday Inn real estate...

But the garden still remains.  And nobody from the hotel seems to realise it's there.  I spend two very happy hours lying on the lawn, reading my book.  I see nobody.  I take my shoes and socks off, and listen to the birds, and watch two yellow butterflies dance around the box hedges.   

Day 145: Cabbage and Air in Advance

A bracing morning.  Spurred on by the promise of June heat, I dare to go coatfree.  Who needs a coat in twenty-three degrees of sunshine?  However, at six o'clock in the morning, it's still only one degree.  As I pass my car, I notice some ice on my windscreen.  Other people at the station are wearing coats and gloves.  I feel like a pioneer.

By the end of today I will have cracked the spine of a very intense week. If an agent had booked me this sort of schedule, I would resent them, and wonder whether they were trying to break me. As it is, I did this to myself.  For two reasons.  Firstly, it's very easy to stitch up your future self.  It's December - the jobs are in March, so you'll deal with the pain then.  It'll be fine.  Secondly, there's always the slight awareness that in the current economic climate, the tap may be turned off at any time. 

Every freelancer I meet is muttering about the summer disruptions - how the Jubilee and the Olympics will mean nobody is doing ANYTHING, and we will all be eating cabbage and air by September.  It's easy to get spooked by this sort of talk and to get manic, saying yes to everything, JUST IN CASE.

No Petrol; Fern 'exhausted'

Yesterday I was low on petrol so I went to a garage on my way home.  It was rammed.  It's not one I normally visit, so I just assumed that either I picked a bad time or it is always busy.  I'd not heard the news, so it wasn't until later that I found out about the future possibility of a tanker strike.  By last night my local garage was completely out of fuel.  People panic buying.  Creating the results of a shortage in advance of the actuality of one.

So, I am philosophical about the summer.  If there is work, I will do it.  If there isn't, I will eat cabbage and air, read books, and allow the soles of my feet to go leathery from being barefoot. 

I suspect I know how I'd prefer to spend the summer...  (Shhh.  Fate - I'm not tempting you.  Honestly.) 

Day 144: String Theory

Yesterday I promised some mind-knitting in today's post. Both mañana-ish and vague.  Today I must deliver on the promise.  Which is difficult, considering that 'mind-knitting' was the product of a wool brain.  Which makes me think of a head full of tangled threads.  Which leads me to...

...'The Listening String.'  A concept that Peter and I created during an improv show.  It's an invisible thread through which you can tune into the truth of any situation.  We invented it by accident, but it worked brilliantly. During any scene, we could enter, pick up 'The String' and reveal hidden subtext or information to the audience. 'The String' quickly became universal - all players could use it, to take the most mundane scene to a new level.

It's been on my mind a great deal recently. Probably because Radio 4 is advertising 'The Listening Project' - which aims to record and preserve conversations between two people on subjects that matter to them. Conversations.  Not monologues.

'The String' also requires two people to make it work - one at each end (a bit like a yoghurt pot/string telephone).  I don't know why it works.  But it does.  Two of you, listening in the right way, can quite clearly hear things.  Not literally (I'm not hallucinating).  It's more that in the silence of attending together to a pretend string, you create the space to hear each other's minds.  So the 'truths' are obvious and known to both. 

This was in 2005. A long time ago, but the concept stayed with me.  I would like to use 'The String' more.  Not everybody else knows it's there though.  (Some people do though.) 

So. There's my mind-knitting.  'The Listening String'.  You can use it, but you have to choose it.  To pick up your end and bother to listen. 

Go on.   

Day 143: Speechless

Today I reserve the right not to post, as I have wool brain.  No words in there, just wool.  Will be back tomorrow with some mind knitting. 

Day 142: Tray Rage

Crime Scene (add toddlers and pushy woman)

Another day spent outside. Hampstead Heath in the spring sunshine - although it's pretty cold initially.  So I take refuge in the Kenwood cafe while I wait for Jude.  Refuge is the wrong word - although the physical temperature is warmer in there, the atmosphere isn't.  Numerous thwarted toddlers stab the air with terrible shrieks. 

 
And I allow myself to get nettled by a pushy woman at the serving hatch.  She's behind me, but so hot on my heels I'm practically wearing her like a rucksack.  Not very mellow for a Sunday morning.  Although it will not make the process any faster, she rudely shoves my tray forward with hers.  So I push it back.  Just to make my point.  (It's not really the tray that bugs me - it's the sense of her presence intently pushing behind me.  Had she absentmindedly shunted my tray, I wouldn't have given a monkey's.)  She flies off the handle.  I pour some petrol on things by saying 'You seem disproportionately angry.  Is it rare that someone stands up to you?'  I don't get an answer.  But judging by the look of her husband, I suspect it would be 'yes'.   

Criminality with Charm

I escape the cafe as soon as possible, and Jude and I wander around the Heath.  We watch a Old English sheepdog attempting to steal a picnic, and a small furry dog lifting his leg on a sunbather's backpack.  Both crimes committed with a total lack of repentance, but with so much benign enthusiasm that it would be impossble to take offence. 

They could teach Tray Woman a thing or two about getting away with bad behaviour.         

Day 141: Nun of Action

Sumer Is Icumen In.  Hot sun and a cloudless blue sky.  But still with the freshness of spring.  I have work to do, but that must give way to a long walk.  There are hordes of people aiming for Verulamium Park.  Not me.  I'm going to Gorhambury.  Apart from the odd cyclist and walker, it's beautifully quiet.  Three bullocks dozing in a sunny paddock.  A bank of white violets.  Ewes bulging with lambs.  A murder of crows, and a nye of pheasants. 

Yes.  A nye.  I just checked to see whether a murder of crows is any particular number (inconclusive, but I'm sure what I saw qualifies - there were about thirty of them, dotted around a field like mole-hills), and I found a whole list of collective nouns for birds. 

Excerpt from The Boke

Most of which comes from 'The Boke of St Albans', printed in 1486.  It has three sections - hawking, hunting and heraldry, and was the 1486 equivalent to Harry Potter (ie very popular).  It also hosts the first appearance of specific collective nouns in the English language. 

Action Nun

The hunting bit of the Boke was written by prioress Dame Juliana Berners (go, the sisterhood - obviously an Action Nun).  Very pleased to discover that her nunnery was none other than the one at Sopwell, which has already made it into my blog (see Day 102). 

So in honour of Dame Juliana, a nye of pheasants.  In the state she'd like to see them.

Day 140: Heroes and Women

'The Hunger Games' opens today.  I will go and see it once the teenaged hordes have dissipated.    Katniss Everdeen is the latest in the very pleasing list of strong, smart, resourceful heroes who happen to be female.  She joins Lisbeth Salander and Sarah Lund on my shelf of hope.  No stripper heels, no silicone tits, no hair extensions.  No being saved.  Hooray. 


Because this is such a necessary step in recalibrating the way women are represented.  And in turn, how young women then choose to represent themselves.  And how society views them.  I saw some footage of Bananarama recently - I remember them as silly and poppy, but from the vantage point of 2012 they seem like assertive feminists, confident and answerable to nobody in their baggy trousers and stompy DMs.  I am deeply grateful that I was a teenager when it was OK to wear charity shop coats and old man trousers. 

The packaging doesn't matter - it's what's inside that counts.  But if the packaging says 'objectify me', then it's always going to be hard to seen and valued as you really are. 

It's such a relief to see popular culture moving in a direction that actually supports women. 

Day 139: Belgian Chocolate

Dung Beetle

For the last two days, St Albans has smelt manure-ish.  This has happened before, and it's not (sadly) a camp of Civil War re-enacters throwing dung around.  It's Europe.  Farmers in France and Belgium and Germany fertilising their fields. 

Belgian Chocolate Truffles

In certain weather conditions, the smell drifts over the Channel to the southeast of England.  Including London - although I've never been aware of it there.  I think London does a pretty good job of creating its own special pomander, drowning out any incoming smells.

There was a big fuss about it in 2008, when the smell was particularly potent.   A spokesman for the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium said: "There is a lot of wind coming into England from Belgium."  Incisive. 

I quite like it.  It feels like at any moment a herd of cows is going to mooch past.  Few days cannot be improved by a herd of cows.  The school I went to in Cranbrook was next to a field full of cows.  Every so often, for no apparent reason, they would stampede.  Thundering wildly around the perimeter of the fence.  Nobody paid any attention to the lesson.  Then as suddenly as they started, they'd stop.  No cool down.  Abruptly back to standing still and staring and chewing. 

As I say, few days cannot be improved by a herd of cows.  Even just the smell of one.

Day 138: Five a Day

Back from Cornwall.  Only been away four days, but it feels longer. 

Abrupt transition into normality as I leave the house at six-thirty to drive to Cambridgeshire.  To share the joy of the creative process with some dour-faced vegetable producers. 

We play a word association game as a warm up.  I start, with 'Table'.  (They take over.)  'Top.'  'Carrot.'  Potato.'  'Tomato'.  'Lettuce'.  'Cabbage'. 'Onion'... 

We do a second round.  I start them off with a new word.  'Book'.  (Over to them.)  'Worm'.  'Soil'.  'Potato'.  'Tomato'.  'Lettuce'.  'Cabbage'.  'Onion'... 

The vegetable mantra seems to soothe them.  Some even crack a smile.  We move on to another warm up game - unusual uses for a house brick.

There's a panicky pause.  Then Olivier shouts 'SEED TRAY!' 

Everyone relaxes visibly.  They know what to do now.

'Seed tray for carrots'.  'Seed tray for tomatoes'.  'Seed tray for lettuce'.  'Seed tray for cabbages.'  'Seed tray for onions.'

I find myself talking about 'the seeds of creativity', and how the right conditions (the fertile soil of an open mind, space and nourishment) can allow an idea to grow and flourish. 

My tongue is firmly in my cheek, but they take all this quite seriously.  They nod a lot.  I feel a bit bad. 

As long as the seed grows, does it matter if it was planted by a charlatan?   

  

Day 137: Shit Diver

Breakfast bangers

A lesiurely final breakfast in the King of Prussia, looking out over the river.  There's much activity on the quay.  A knot of men in high-vis vests and hard hats are clustered round a small crane, from which dangles a rudimentary cage.  A man wearing a dry suit emerges from a changing-shed.  He is clearly the star of the show.  Middle-aged, bulky, shaved head - he moves slowly and with gravitas.  The cage disappears from view, a breathing tube the only clue to let you know a man is submerged in the depths.  It all looks very exciting - what is he doing on the river bed? 

Time to quiz the man who serves breakfast - what's going on?  He smirks grimly.  'Have you finished eating?  Good.  Because that man's not diving in the river...'

The cage slowly emerges - the dry-suit man is looking a little grubby now.  As well he might, having been submerged in Fowey's backed-up sewer. 

'Dirty' Harry

A shit diver.  A man who is literally dobbed in it.  In the shit.  Having a shitty day. 

He wears it well.  Very self-possessed and still.  Like a fat Clint Eastwood.  You'd need a cool head down there.  One wrong move, and it would be a very unpleasant end.         

My godmother's second marriage was to a man who was a Church of England bishop.  He was calm, and quiet and gentle.  As a child I remember the dog collar atop his purple shirt and the big ring on his finger.  He was in his eighties and doddery when he took a walk to the end of the garden, forgetful of the fact that the cess pit had been opened for maintenance.  He fell in and drowned.  I was about sixteen at the time, thinking in black and white, and took it as hard evidence that organised religion was BAD.  I still subscribe to this point of view, but without the attribution.  I don't think the cess-drowning represents the wages of religious devotion.  Just a very unpleasant and sad fluke.     

Of course, the fat Clint Eastwood has a breathing tube.  As long as you've got one of those, you're alright.  Even in deep shit.   

(This picture shows the real Clint Eastwood, with his very own 'breathing tube'.  Whatever works for you.)

Day 136: The Best Stories in the World

The Eden Project.  It's expensive, but impressive.  Not only do you get to experience a rainforest (steamy and slightly foetid, like a damp canvas tent on a hot day, full of ancient, decomposing espadrilles), but you also get a trust cafe experience. 

Groovily help yourself to whatever you want (no uptight china plates - freestyle wooden boards), commune on the long refectory tables (shared milk!  Jugs of tap water!) and remember what you had so you can pay at the end.  It is very tempting to pretend benevolent amnesia, approaching the till with baffled good humour.  'I really WANT to remember, but it's just gone!  I suspect I MAY have had a coffee. A bun COULD also have been involved. But I'm not SURE.  Perhaps I just had tap water?'. 

But I don't.  Because I like the system.  It is very efficient and very clever.  Things move quickly, without any wait for service.  The customer is empowered.  And the money saved on staffing would more than compensate for any runners or amnesiacs. 

But the highlight of the day doesn't have ticketted admission, a biome or a trust cafe.  The Hall Walk.  A graceful circular route around the creeks, coves and deep woodland of Fowey, Polruan and Bodinnick.  The inspiration for much of Kenneth Grahame's 'Wind In The Willows'.  I can see why. 





"The Mole was bewitched, entranced, fascinated. By the side of the river he trotted as one trots, when very small, by the side of a man who holds one spell-bound by exciting stories; and when tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea."

And then to a tea shop in Fowey.  I suspect I MAY have had a scone with jam and clotted cream.  But I'm not SURE...

Day 135: Brass Balls

No fear

The Lost Gardens of Heligan.  Beautiful old trees, spring flowers, and fearless birds.  This robin came within two feet, and stayed there.  Balls of brass. 

No fish

In other news, Mevagissey needs exhibits for its aquarium. 

'We are very short of exhibits and desperately need:- conger, gurnard, bullhuss, wrasse, crawfish, red mullet, bream, dory, starfish, large spider crabs, cock crabs - in fact just about anything interesting.' 

You heard it here.  'Anything interesting.'  Probably not even fish.  Just anything. 


Then I had a cheese and chutney sandwich that came without the chutney.  It was not interesting (and therefore unsuitable for the Mevagissey Aquarium). 

No chutney

Me: 'Excuse me, there's no chutney in this sandwich.'

Waitress: 'Ah, yes.  I didn't think there was.  Because, you see, we've run out.'

Yup.  That would explain the absence.

Day 134: A World Away

All it takes is four hours in the car, but Fowey feels a world away.  A room in the pink-washed King of Prussia, with a huge sash window looking right out over the river estuary.  No internet signal and water so soft that tea brews clear amber.  A little orange boat chugs sturdily across the water, ferrying handfuls of people to Polruan and back.  It smells of diesel and rope.  At Polruan a path climbs high onto the headland.  Sun hot on my head, blue sky and banks liberally scattered with primroses and violets. 

Back in Fowey, the light fades and jackdaws mess about on the ridge tiles of the British Legion.

Day 133: Peas and Sitting

Killing time in the Museum of London.  The galleries dedicated to early London are rammed with school children clutching questionnaires, and looking underwhelmed by the pottery fragments.  Things get more exciting further along the timeline, and the small cubby hole housing a looped film about the Black Death is crammed.  'Black pustules' intones the narrator with relish, invoking a frisson of excitement.

My standout fact is that Julius Caesar described Ancient Brit males as having long hair, and moustaches.  Classic 1970s.  Very happy to think that the ancestors were running around like Ron Jeremy.   

Downstairs in the modern London galleries, I am delighted to see this (left).  I remember the Less Protein man - he was often around Leicester Square tube station.  I engaged him in conversation once (actually less a conversation, more a one-on-one rant).  That day he was particularly vocal about peas and sitting, in addition to the more obvious protein-based targets (meat, eggs etc).  He died in 1993, fortunately well before the mass popularity of Atkins.

He had limited success with his twenty-five year campaign.  Probably because there's a basic problem with his message.  Most people want more passion, not less.

I bet Ron Jeremy isn't scared of protein. 

Off for some peas and sitting. 

 

  

Day 132: Catching Clarkson

Today takes me to Stafford.  There is the choice of normal M6 or special M6 (with toll attached).  Although, of course, both routes come with a price tag.  One is financial, the other is emotional.  I choose to pay the emotional toll, and am stuck behind an elephant race.  A dogged cavalcade of lorries pretending to overtake each other but actually just staying two abreast.  Probably comparing cab curtains.  Which means that everyone else is seething in the 'fast' lane behind an old man in a Honda Civic, resolutely driving just a fraction faster than the lorries. 

As always, when I make this decision, I realise that it is the wrong one.  It is absolutely worth the cash for the unalloyed joy of spanking up a deserted road like it's the 1970s. 

Oh God.  I sound like Jeremy Clarkson.  Eugh. 

I could go on to extend this whole toll shtick into a metaphor for the price you pay for things in life, but quite frankly I can't be arsed. 

Shit.  I have, haven't I?  Somewhere along the M6 I've caught Clarkson.  (Checks mirror anxiously for symptoms - eg chin enlargement and racism.)

Day 131: Wisdom of Steve

"When I was seventeen, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past thirty-three years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something." - Steve Jobs

I hear you, Steve.  Loud and clear. 

Day 130: Ghost Tits

Special sexy red

Today takes me up the A5 (not a euphemism).  Long, straight and distinctly Roman.  Skirting the Hertfordshire village of Flamstead, a fast ribbon of road with scrubby verges sparsely punctuated by a series of shabby establishments.  They unfold with a sense of narrative charm.  A couple of basic chain hotels - Premier Inn and Holiday Inn Express.  (Bed?  Check.)  A Little Chef and a dubious-looking curry house.  (Nosebag?  Check.)  And a pub.  'The Junction 9' - which offers 'Exotic Dancers' - from 1pm.  You can tell that it's a special, sexy pub, because it's been painted special, sexy red.  (Daytime tits n' beer?  Check.). 

Ferrers goes starkers

From the ridiculous to the sublime.  Past Markyate Cell - a beautiful Tudor house nestled in the Ver valley running alongside the A5.  It was home to the notorious Katherine Ferrers (aka The Wicked Lady - widely believed to be the highwaywoman who terrorised the area).  She supposedly haunts the house and grounds, and also Nomansland Common near St Albans - the scene of many of her crimes.  Her ghost is keen on swinging from trees, totally starkers.  Wicked.  Or just exotic? 

That's Hertfordshire for you.  Not only daytime tits.  Ghost tits as well.

Day 129: Ninja Dates

Stream-lined and Modern
(apparently)

I am changing the system.  The 'Day One Hundred and...' titling is getting too much, so I am going all numbery (stream-lined and modern).  Being as I am, that means I have to change EVERY post to reflect the New Look.  (And then wash my hands ten times before touching the light switch in every room.  Twice.) 

During the renumbering process I discover that there are TWO Day 53s.  Written over Christmas week - my brain befuddled with mincemeat.  Obviously I have to correct things.  Which means that my seminal Day 100, which felt like a milestone at the time, had actually already happened the day before.  Day 99 (the actual Day 100) was short and quickly-written.  I was saving my word-juice for Day 100 (aka Day 101).  

I think a lot of important days creep in quietly.  Because it's often only in retrospect that you realise they were significant.  Few come draped in bunting and balloons. 

Here's to Day 100s masquerading as 99s.  Stealth specials.  Ninja dates. 

Day 128: Slugging It Out

The sky is blue and daffodils are busting out all over.  Spring is most definitely here.  I'd like to be out in it, but I am inside.  All pale and clammy, like a slug under a rock.  A slug with a backlog of work. 

Improved mouse

And a new laptop.  I'm getting to know its idiosyncracies.  I like the keyboard - the keys are weighted perfectly and click in a very satisfactory manner.  It sounds like I'm knitting very fast.  The mouse is an improvement on its predecessor - which required an ridiculous of pressure before it would respond.  Double-clicking burnt signficant calories.       

On the minus side, the sound quality is worse.  The start-up page (which I don't seem to be allowed to change) is horrible, informing me that it is 'delivering innovation'.  I may start using this as a euphemism for taking a shit.  The operating system is needy - constantly offering updates, and unnecessary bells and whistles that I don't want.  Like an exhaustingly over-attentive host.

Breakfast drink

I used to have a Greek Cypriot landlady who was big on hospitality.  I'd go round to pay my rent in the morning, and she'd ply me with everything in her cuboards.  Cake, biscuits, wine, fruit.  I'd string her along with 'no, thank yous' just to see how far she'd go.  (Normally as far as Metaxa - offered with the desperate grin of the knowingly-beaten.)  It was fun - we both knew it was a game.  It's less fun with my laptop - very earnest and humourless. 

I get the chance for a brief foray outside.  The printer runs out of ink - I make it to Rymans just in time.  I buy the right cartridge.  It loads without complaining (unusual). 

I suspect that if I'd been in this situation last week, I'd have either set fire to Rymans or broken the printer in my attempts to change the cartridge.  Am I transitioning from klutzdom to grace? 

Maybe next week I'll discover hidden dance skills.  Watch this space.