consequences 10 June 2013
It’s interesting to ponder how our lives can create chaos elsewhere from what seems the most innocuous of acts. For instance, I am currently filming FATHER FIGURE (the new Jason Byrne sit-com for BBC1) and I certainly hope that will impact on other lives by making people laugh out loud and feel happier = a very positive action/reaction scenario. At one point I get dragged through a garden and in order to be able to show my costume before and after the event, a number of pairs of trousers and several identical cardigans had to be bought. As a result I imagine that stock control has been totally skewed in the local Marks and Spencer in North London where we’re recording. The buyer will probably think they have a real winner in the size 12 oatmeal viscose cardi and the oatmeal polyester, easi-wash trouser, not realizing they were for a fictional character. The shop has probably re-stocked those items, ordering plenty of them too. The local economy has been warped. (Oh, and I may have been kind calling it oatmeal, it’s more a textured beige…)
bad 13 May 2013
well now, we all have dreams, no? aspirations, yes…or nightmares during sleep from time to time. i have vivid nighttime dreams in a bunches or ‘seasons’, often reflecting what i have been reading or watching – no predicting when that might be though. sometimes i remember them, sometimes not. some are VEH good – usually don’t remember them, though = ARGH. i often wake, think ‘i’ll never forget that it was so good’ and already it is gone. and sometimes i think ‘great narrative’ and then that’s gone too. they are always great visually i must also add that, yes, i dream in color and i do taste things too throughout. but recently i have been having bad dreams – scary ones = not good. last night i got such a fright in one that i cried out and Himself woke me and v v kindly said ‘turn your pillow over and the bad dream will go’ – AND IT DID!!!! the man is a wizard (just another string to his bow!)
god squads 1 May 2013
some god or other seems to want me at the moment – and as long as it’s not in the forevermore, great hereafter way i guess that’s fine. i am a VERY lapsed type, though i do like a nice church or temple to spend a bit of contemplation time in – then again a good library can do the trick there too if generally a tiny bit lacking in iconography. i have had the parish ‘outreach’ committee call to the door wondering if i’d like to write a letter to the padre to tell him all about myself and where i live. and then, exiting the Tube in central London the Mormons were calling to me from the advertising walls by the escalators…although i sort of figured they were using the opportunity to piggy back on the fact that there’s a musical about them on in the West End? anyhow, for the moment, i am doing my worshipping at a universal and spiritual level through weeding my garden and talking to myself as i do – manifold pluses here, as the garden is getting a good old shave and tidy-up and i seem to know a lot of the correct answers to the questions i pose myself (or do i mean i know what i’d like to hear and i am the one surefire port of call for those answers)- whatever the reasons, it’s working…
Oh, and the cats are helping – brenda attacked my head at every opportunity from the top of a pergolas yesterday and alice left a hairball and some vom for me to step in. they have also generously fertilized the garden with shite…niiiiice…
paper 30 April 2013
ah, the ways of airports and their security measures are an impenetrable mystery. i am on my travels quite a bit again and therefore the joys of all that comes with said travels abound. for instance, while going through Dublin airport recently, the security man asked me, especially, to give up my boarding pass before i walked through the scanner. i was intrigued as this was a new one for me and when i asked why he said my hands needed to be empty…readers, it was a PIECE OF PAPER. on the other side, the only thing that hadn’t made it through with the bags that were x-rayed was…erm…the boarding pass. it was so flimsy and, well, MADE OF PAPER that the machine had dragged it out and so it had to be retrieved for me. le sigh…
blackout! 23 April 2013
We had a power-cut and blackout last night and that hasn’t happened for a while in my life. Took me back to Ireland in the 70s to be honest and the fact that a mirror can only double the amount of flame in front of it so if that’s one candle then you get the light of two candles but that’s really not a lot. Like any use of mirrors, I have found that you need BIG to get BIG. Anyhow, it was all very exciting here on holiday. We were in the hotel’s seaside restaurant hoping to eat some nice fresh fish but ended up eating a cold meal of salads with my mum by candlelight and it was magical. Reminded me of when my brother and sister bring my mum away with them on a weekend jaunt and they tell me they all agree it’s very romantic!
danger in paradise...? 22 April 2013
So, my Mum has taken me away for a week and we are sizzling in some Egyptian sun right now. We do NOTHING but read all day, get a bit burnt, and argue later on (about lots) while eating (lots).
The hotel is lovely and the price of the hooch is prohibitively high so I am living a clean-ish life.
We have some wildlife – a few visiting birds and some pet ants.
I don’t know what to make of the ants and I can’t figure out what they want from me. It’s hard to get along with them and I am not clear on what sort of meaningful relationship mankind has ever had with ants. They’re tough to communicate with and we certainly don’t share a common language (notwithstanding that they are Egyptian and therefore may not even understand English if we ever have a conversation). Our guys are quite big and one even joined me on the verandah by climbing a towel onto my arm a few days ago…since then NOTHING, s/he hasn’t been in touch, though I THINK it was him/her who invaded the room this morning and had to be rescued and put out on the gravel. Perhaps they are staying aloof because they know that in my Dublin house I have often left death for the invading hordes of ants who like to try an incursion once or twice a year and encounter poison and decimation when they do. We live in a global village and for all I know the ants are communicating with each other’s tribes. I may be in more trouble than I think…perhaps these are advance scouts, gathering information that will lead to my downfall…
spree 12 April 2013
i am trying to introduce a policy of No Live Imports in the house in order to stem the flow of critters being delivered. brendacat is the main culprit. alice is always very interested in whatever is presented by her sister but, as she is considerably gummier, she doesn’t go forth to attack and collect this booty herself (small mercies and, yes, i am grateful for the same). several small squeaking rodents have been brought home lately and then they disappear under fridges and behind kitchen machines sometimes never to be seen again – are they alive or dead? who knows? both, if mr schrodinger were to comment. i did intervene and capture one small thing and then i tried to throw it over the back wall only to misjudge the height and end up stunning the poor little animal…it staggered off and a few minutes later brenda fetched up with a dead version of the living thing i had stunned against the wall – i may have been the killer, not her, and i am not proud of that. mind you, is suspect it was a young wild rat and i am not partial to having them around no matter how cute they look (and they do! their little hands are adorable). this morning, a dead worm adorned the kitchen floor. see, here’s the thing, i love the work that the worms do in the soil out the back and i wish the ladies would leave them to do just that but clearly their wriggling is provocative to the felines and capture and death are the cat answer to that. if anyone has tips on how to stem the carnage i will be very happy to try them out. the killing spree must end…
all grown up 11 April 2013
sometimes being a grown up is thrust upon us – witness my own self yesterday when i attended a business breakfast – er, YES! it was one of the better and gentler ones, i suspect, as it was to meet philanthropists who are good enough to help the Dublin Theatre Festival with their generosity. it is always wonderful to spend time with people who truly want to aid some delight ‘getting out there’ and into our lives, and the scrambled egg in the Westbury Hotel in Dublin is excellent, i can report. i may have caused a slight panic amongst the more staid and mannerly members of my contingent when i opined, in a few public words to the assembled company, that being a patron of the arts was of a long and noble tradition as witnessed by the actions of, say, the Borgias. now it seems i have to try to supply some raciness later in the year to the philanthropists involved to go along with their satisfaction of having made theatre possible during the festival…
showing... 28 January 2013
i did a strange thing last week, bit of a first for me. i took part in a trade showcase. the only time i had ever even been to such a thing was while i was at college and my parents would come to the Motor Show in Dublin and i’d hook up with them. then, there were leggy lovelies on all the stands and draped across the bonnets of cars. the event last week was less so…probably for the best, as i was showing my tea cosies, the Go Ons, to the trade and the sight of me or anyone draped akimbo across them might have been inappropriate.
i quickly discovered that i could never choose the option of working in retail on a daily basis as it is v tiring being nice to everyone all day long, lovely as everyone who went by or stopped to chat or buy was/is. i made it home a twitching heap each night, ready to go straight to bed and blubbering from lack of further words/conversation to share with the world.
also, on a technical level, clothage had to be clean and ready to go for v early starts and though i covered any howlers on the visage, i still looked like a HEAP in any pictures i have seen from That Time. i need someone to help make me look plausible as a human being of a day, especially under melting lights…this happens on my other job in the acting world where we get lots of slap to aid and abet us (and even sometimes slaps to help us too, if necessary and ‘for the art’) but left to my own devices i err on the side of too little disguise and that is a mistake. my mum also helpfully tells me i featured in a ‘sack the stylist’ moment in a sunday paper last week and that i did indeed look wretched, notwithstanding the odd angle the photo was taken from (the mind boggles)…
anyhooooo, it was all v exciting and new and bewildering and i am still wondering WTF just happened there?….
the GO ONs will be ‘going in’ to shops from the end of february, by the way, so i am in business, dahleens.
oh and as for the one-offs that i sell on-line, i posted a new, fab lot on saturday (they are B numbers and at the end of the list on comedyshop.ie) and for some narky, technical reason that we cannot figure out yet the pics have appeared sideways…it is my new favorite word, though, as when i am there or thereabouts on a thing now i tell Himself i am sideways to it. i also refer to myself as the Sideways Wife. i like how it’s a bit wonky but NEARLY okay!
niff 10 January 2013
so, was sitting upstairs on a double decker bus recently with Himself and there was a strong niff of something old and damp in the air, and what does he do? he only goes and sniffs ME first to check if i am the culprit! it was the very odor of a wet brolly that had been left to dry while all closed up, NOT the smell of your nearest and dearest, no matter how hard a day they’ve been having! he’ll not do it again, i’ll venture, after my robust explanation of events…
upstairs is a MUST on double deckers, in case you were wondering – i need a panoramic view of all that is available.
knives are dangerous, that much we know. yesterday, however, careful as i was, i managed to skin my knuckles with a serrated steak knife and it was akin to grating off part of your fingers = not nice, and never to be repeated. being domestic has its dangers, so i may have to give it up.