water 18 April 2008
Water is our friend, generally, though recent reports suggest we don’t need to drink as much of it as we had previously been advised. I must say I always feel better if I am drinking lots of the stuff but it usually coincides with a bit of a health kick too so that could also be a part of the reason, I’ll warrant. I took myself off to London’s town yesterday for a little work and a clutch of parties and as I set off got a call to say the flat we rent was leaking into the printers downstairs. Water gone bad, then. A man, I was told, had been despatched to deal with the crisis. I had awful visions of a flood and had worked myself into a right tiz by the time I got here. Turns out it all happened outdoors, so hurrah for that. I have often been intrigued by the strange overflow pipe by the front door and had worked out that it comes from the loo. It drips constantly and recently some blades of grass had sprouted too (I really really don’t want to know why that is…the beginning of a new life form anywhere near one’s loo can be an upsetting thing). All around that small area had been cleared by the Man and it seemed to be less leaky. Then, even as I was there, though I heard nothing, a bucket appeared under the overflow pipe to catch any water that might leak, which it was again doing, I noticed. In other words, nothing has fixed. All that will happen, if things are left as they currently are, is that the bucket has got to be emptied when it fills and I am not here everyday to do that, so the problem is by no means solved. I feel a phonecall coming on to the maintenance department…and in the meantime I am really worried about what’s going to grow in that bucket…
equipment 16 April 2008
The London McLynns are visiting Tenerife at the moment, where the Mammy is camped out for 5 weeks (she’s loving it, no more than the Husband is loving Ukraine)*Anyhow, the one unsettling thing for my sis-in-law (the brilliant painter, Rebecca) is that there’s a cardiac arrest machine behind the bar in their hotel – and by that I mean a device that helps when it happens rather than causes it. Now, I can see how that might freak someone out BUT it’s proven that if people suffering an arrest get meaningful help at the scene they have way more chance of making it further. It’s surely no worse than seeing a fire extinguisher on site – and who wouldn’t be delighted to see one of those? I am asthmatic – it’s really mild BUT I have had 2 attacks and I can tell you that, although on those occasions I had no idea how serious they were, I now know how they could be have been terminal. If I had had a simple respirator-type** thing at home it would have all been a lot simpler and less frightening or hazardous. So hurrah for safety equipment on show – hope it all works too…but that’s a whole other can of something potentially nasty.
*am I the only one sensing a pattern? **cannot remember the name of the device but it’s standard
gok 16 April 2008
I suspect I am an addictive personality and it goes for a lot of things. At the moment I am particularly taken with Gok Wan’s new series of How To Look Good Naked on Channel 4 (UK station, don’t know if it has travelled further as yet). I found it last year and loved it. Basically, he makes women feel better about themselves through a makeover (never anything more invasive than a new hair do or elastic pants though). I find myself almost in tears at times to see the changes he helps the women make and how happy they are as a result. Also, there is a brilliant testing section each week when ordinary people try out popular products (without knowing what brands they are using) and give honest opinions of them. That alone has saved me money already. I am a hoor for a new product and I so WANT to believe it will do all it says…often it does not and then languishes on the bathroom shelf till it is well past its use-by date (anything up to 2 years) and I finally throw it out RACKED with guilt about the waste of product and packaging, and defiling the earth. He also features some fantastic structural undies and after I finish this I am going to the website to look up some of the stuff he mentioned tonight. They weren’t pretty but they looked like they’d do the job of pulling and pushing in all the right directions, ie money well spent. The only thing I am not fussed about is the being naked bit. Good for all who have done it and they have looked fab and I am sure it’s very liberating and all that but, as some of you already know, I’m for clothing at this stage of my life. And the more it covers, and the more cleverly it does, the better.
perfect day 14 April 2008
Yep, the Lou Reed song (in all its versions) is going through my head. Why? Well, check this out…today was a breakfast of granola with my favourite orange yogurt, then writing, a chat with my student husband over coffee, some time in the garden attaching newly bought geegaws* to various walls and trees, lunch of hummus and pitta, more writing, some killer sudoku, a short afternoon nap**, a little exercise (arms), writing, a shower, writing, then all topped off with a glass of red wine watching the new series of WAKING THE DEAD featuring my friend Sue Johnston. Bliss.
So, how was your day?
*purchased on the day of my shopping spree – well of course there was more that i hadn’t told you about, so great was my guilt **is there any greater pleasure?
technical 13 April 2008
I saw a bit of ER tonight and was struck again at the ease with which the actors trot out technical terms. I have not had to do that, so far. Friends of mine have played physicists in COPENHAGEN and apparently the audiences were stacked with real life types who wanted to discuss quantum physics afterwards with the actors – awkward when you are just pretending, playing a part. During a production of GALILEO in Dublin I heard of lively post show discussions involving the Flat Earth Society who absolutely refuse to believe that the earth is round. Mind you, on my 30th birthday, I agreed to take over a part that night in a Noel Coward play…in French. I went in at 2, watched the archive video of the show, learned the lines and was on stage at 8. Very exciting too. And a most unusual birthday event.
philosophy 12 April 2008
Eric of Cape Cod kindly sent me this piece of wisdom from Henry David Thoreau to assuage my conscience re the mental amount of shopping I did yesterday (again, and to reiterate clearly, it was an accident) “Commerce is unexpectedly confident and serene, alert, adventurous, and unwearied. It is very natural in its methods withal, far more so than many fantastic enterprises and sentimental experiments, and hence its singular success.”
I must admit that I had not heard of this 19th century American writer and philosopher so I searched the net and was delighted to discover he was a lifelong abolitionist and that his philosophy of non-violent resistance influenced Tolstoy, Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.
He had a great line on governments which went ‘I ask for, not at once no government, but AT ONCE a better government’. Sounds good to me.
His birth date, 12 July, put me in mind of something – my maternal grandfather always believed his birthday was July 10 and he was overexcited when my mother was expecting me, his first grandchild, as she was due then. She went a day longer and his nose was a bit out of joint. Years later, he had to get his birth certificate for a passport and when he did it turned out he’d been born on July 12th. Then, of course, he changed his tack to wondering why my mum couldn’t have waited one more day. Mind you, that was unfair as I don’t think she had much choice in the matter – I think I was the one who was in charge of that particular event.
oops 11 April 2008
I don’t know how it happened – well, I do, of course, it’s perfectly obvious how it came to pass, and yet so hard to explain. See, I just went into the shop to get a nice birthday gift for a friend who is 40 tomorrow. I thought ‘a scarf or a bag’ and then suddenly I had two bags and three scarves (all with LABELS!!!!) and a necklace and a flowy top thingy (black – WHY? like I don’t have enough black things?) and only one item – a scarf, since you ask – is going to the birthday girl. There was also a tube of moderately expensive lip balm and a pair of inexpensive shoes…which were actually essential and had been on a list of must gets for a while, but still… I had to have a little sit down after town because it had all gone so awry. Lovely things, mind you, and only one item is going back (again, a scarf). And it was all on my credit card so I don’t have to face into the bill for a wee while…and the bags are DIVINE.
But why, oh why.
imagination 11 April 2008
I went to see a play called LIFE IS A DREAM last night, and it may be that life is just that. When I was a kid I used to imagine that the world was situated in the tooth of a huge lion and that our blue sky was the roof of his mouth. On so many levels it was a mad theory but one that amused me as I lay in the grass ‘thinking’. Clearly the weather was good any time I had these ponderings and I have no answer as to why the lion’s mouth might have had rain in it. I think perhaps the whole exercise was a child coming to terms with scale. And is it any worse a theory than the idea that we are in fact on a rotating ball that orbits the sun – I mean REALLY, who could swallow that?
A lot of you out there are nail-biters and thank you for the many tips as to how to stop. I didn’t do a bad cull the other evening so I am not maimed to the point of wearing gloves and it was just the one hand that got a tiny chew done to it.
I heard a frightening thing relating to the Husband being in Ukraine, which is that the BeeGees once made a ‘concept’ album called ODESSA. I shall have to check that one out.
A friend says I will know for sure that Richard is having a midlife crisis if he comes back with a tattoo in cyrillic…
nails 9 April 2008
I have been a nailbiter in the past and once a nail biter always a nailbiter. I go through phases. Sometimes I leave well enough alone and I am really and truly pleased at how my hands look. And then, when I least expect it, I have a right go and cull all before me. Often right down to the quick. And while I am enjoying it I just know how sore and ugly the fingers will be, but still I cannot stop. None of this has anything to do with being stressed or bored, either. I will just find myself sitting in front of the television, say, and the hand goes into the mouth and that’ll be the start of it and, eventually, the end too. I am hoping that tonight is not gonna be one of those nights…but…those hands are just ASKING to be chewed. The only thing that may save them is that I know the Hubby will read this and be onto it like a hot snot – he hates when the nails are devastated. And, you know, so do I…HELP!
latin 8 April 2008
I heard a jock on the radio in London today saying Mandarin is the language to learn these days – true, in as much as more people in the world speak that rather than any other language. He also thought Arabic would be a good one to study – again, a sound idea. But THEN he went on to say ‘and still they want to teach my kids Latin’. Well, here’s the thing I studied Latin and I found it wonderful and I object to it being slagged off (especially by someone that I strongly suspect never took it at school). Yes, I know it is a ‘dead’ language. However, that means it is a language that will never change too, and that has its recommendations. Latin is a totally logical language. There are rules (yes, a few exceptions too, but even they are prescribed). It is something you work out and there is a tremendous satisfaction in that. That rigour is always something to be enjoyed or admired. Also, I learned a lot about tenses and declensions from it (useful)…and have forgotten more than I ever grasped, I am sure. It was an enormous satisfaction of a thing. But here’s another thing – there are times when I am helped in other languages simply because I am reminded of a Latin word – even if it is not the root of that word (some modern ‘living’ languages are quite based on Latin, lots of others are not). Basically, it fostered a love of language in me and a relish of trying out new words and phrases (I hasten to say that I never spoke Latin and that would be a very difficult thing, too, as the verb is at the end so it’s like waiting with all the clues until the final clincher – great on paper but tough in speech). Anyhow, does everything we study HAVE to be of immediate use – surely it matters that we LEARN and grow somehow. I say, hang on to Latin. As well as studying your Mandarin and French and German and so on.