patchy 23 June 2008
I had a lot of time to squander at the airport last night so I bought myself a self tanning lotion as I don’t have the time or, indeed, the weather to be getting a ‘natural’ burn. I thought I’d be grand with the chosen one as it was 1) quite expensive, even by airport standards and 2) it had a spray nozzle thingummy which, I reasoned, would save my palms for turning orange and also spread the unction better.
WRONG.
I sprayed it on this morning, in what I thought was a sweeping motion and by lunchtime I smelled like a nuclear armaments factory (or something equally vile) and was patchy like a piebald pony. IT IS A DISASTER. I look diseased. I am now sitting at home, resprayed and fearful – basically there will have been bits that got done twice and will be DARK whereas other parts will still be untouched and others pale. And now I HAVE to stick with it till it all joins up.
Tip for the manufacturers – make it like that paint that goes on pink but dries white so that a person KNOWS what bits need doing.
And top tip for me from now on is stay pale and interesting (always good to be the latter and right now I’d take the former at most prices).
The day went well other than that, I think…
dusty 22 June 2008
I am tired, dusty and delayed.
Yep, the windy weather has delayed flights and I am on a return to London. Could be worse – I am sitting in a nice lounge, watching the departure news on the screen stretch and stretch, nibbling on some cheese and regarding the wine wiht a sly eye but not much intent. It is Merlot, so entirely avoidable. I am reminded of the line in the movie SIDEWAYS, which I loved, ‘I am NOT DRINKING MERLOT!’ and this keeps me on the straight and narrow. Actually there was one fairly tortured metaphor about Pinot Noir being a cranky grape but worth growing (oh, could that be love?) that annoyed me but other than that SIDEWAYS is great and worth seeking out and Thomas Hayden Christennson* is brilliant and fully deserving of his Oscar nod (proof also that you SO can give a big performance on film and have it work).
There is a lovely view from the Aer Lingus lounge and I can see all the way to the Sugar Loaf mountain in Wicklow and across to the Dublin Hills/mountains as the day is now bright and clear. And there is the occasional majesty of an arriving Ryanair plane. Ah, yes, the high life.
I have just done a little novel writing so feel a tad smug about that, though suspect it may be no good…worth a try, however and wordage is wordage and to be encouraged.
Am dusty because I spent a few hours clearing the garage, which is about to be demolished during the week. Tomorrow is B Day (the builders arrive). Am amazed all over again how much SHITE we have stored out there. And yet still I cannot part with some of the books that have languished for years in unloved boxes, free of my curiosity or affection (discovered it’s 5 rather than 7 years, by the by, which also makes the G cat 17 now, not 19 as I thought)
Start work on the Channel 4 series tomorrow – am PETRIFIED as it’s beyond my comfort zone.
And before I forget – do all go to see THE ESCAPIST in your local cinema as soon as possible. It’s getting the most fabulous set of reviews everywhere it plays and is, by all accounts, a brilliant movie (am hoping to see it tomorrow evening in London’s glittering West End). It stars Brian Cox and MY NIECE Ellie (aka Eleanor McLynn). She has a career I’d die for, to be honest with you, and she’s all of 11 years old…
*I have, most likely, misspelled this name
oh god 21 June 2008
deadline deadlnes deadlines
and several reasons to be fearful…
i am in the process, i hope, of finishing the novel- my problem there? what if this is a longer/larger novel than usual…then i am not as near done as i think…but i think i am, so…
i just took on an actual other writing job – possibly to write an episode of a new channel 4 comedy drama…that’ll need doing…
and i am one of the judge’s on the costa novel award this year (formerly the whitbread)
but, you know what? i think they will all flatter one another…hope so…
tube 20 June 2008
I’ve been thinking a lot about the night on the Tube during the week when I gave my seat up to the lil fella. Not that, exactly, but this – when I got out at Piccadilly Circus the whole of London seemed to be trying to get in and there was a homeless young guy halfway up the steps that the WHOLE of London was trying to pretend wasn’t there – some other mother’s son, as you might say. People were all but stepping on him in their haste to get elsewhere. He was a truly sorry sight – bearded, shoeless, filthy and shaking. Like everyone else I just about stepped over him and went on my way…and then I went back, gave him a few bob and stroked his hand while I did (really, really dirt encrusted) and I bet I was the only one to touch him in a long time. Anyhow, I usually don’t give cash to the people on the streets, for whatever reason (I’m more of a structured, consistent sort of help/supporter type) and I don’t care what he used it on so long as he got a bit of comfort out of it, no matter how slight and fleeting. Goes back, I know, to a great few months when I rented my mate Trudy’s flat off Clapham Common, near the old Town, view of the Common (should have bought it – another story) and there was a young teenager living rough around the doorways nearby. I never asked him how he was or why he was there, and one day when I passed him by I suspect he was crying and I never stopped to enquire after the circumstances and I am SO ASHAMED that I did not. It haunts me, truly. Living in a fast town is no excuse for not caring. I never saw him again. I regret that hugely. I hope it won’t happen again.
flesh 19 June 2008
I make notes everywhere on the grounds that I will almost certainly forget good things, no matter how important or brilliant I think them at the time. This means I often get out of bed late at night to write a note to myself about a plot idea, and I have been known to scribble in the dark while trying not to get too awake (I am surprisingly adept at that now). Proof that this is the correct way to proceed was provided today as I put back together the script I used for Hell’s Pavement (the movie I recently worked on) and I came across a note I’d made about humans eating dead comrades in times of crisis – was there news of such a thing over the last while? can’t really think of why we’d‘ve been discussing it otherwise…the catering was good so it can’t have been prompted by that. Perhaps we were in particularly perverse mode that day. Anyhow Brig, our producer, made the point that she could only eat someone she liked and followed this up with the words ‘you’d choke on some people, wouldn’t you?’ I have no idea where this might turn up in the writings, but it’s an interesting idea. For the record, I think I’d be better at eating someone I hated, and I don’t think I’d choke too much at all while feasting on them.
flurry 18 June 2008
I had a flurry today, though not in an ‘ooh MATRON’ way. Basically, for about two hours I was cast in a pilot for tv show, then a rewrite took place and the part all but disappeared and I was stood down. It’s happened to me before – for instance, once, I had a nice part as a psychiatrist for a weekend and then it was written out of the movie as being too cliched (I have no problem with a cliche if it’s well done and delivers everything it promises – hate a lazy one…) Oh well.
Then I was chivalrous on the Tube tonight. I gave my seat up to a man. A very small man. A lil guy, about 6 years old, got on with his Mum and he looked so tired. There were no seats so they stood by the door. A few stops along, he began to sag and correct himself as he leaned against his Mum, and lean and sag and try to right himself. Basically he was falling asleep on his feet. I gave him my seat (which is the height of Women’s Lib, I’m thinking) and the whole carriage went ‘aaah’ as he sank into it (at him, not my largesse, I might add – don’t think anyone but his mother noticed that). His little feet didn’t even reach the ground. Made my, nearly retired, ovaries hop I can tell you…
shocker 17 June 2008
As you all know we are letting the builders in (still can’t locate the reason it was a good idea in the first place but hope it will turn out okay). I have been trying to pack life into boxes in order to protect some precious things and clear the way for all that has to be done (again the word HAS in that last sentence seems merely to underline yesteryears excellent notion now become todays folly). The result is that the house is in chaos. I get bored easily with chucking things and/or having to make hard decisions re same. Also the dust is a bother. So I move from room to room like a typhoon and keep assuring the Husband that all looks very much worse before it gets better – darkest hour just before the dawn type thing – and that in one fell swoop of magic in a matter of moments a splendid order and slimmed down neatness will be restored. I was in the attic shifting stuff about yesterday when I chanced to open some of the many plastic bags that moved in with us 7 years ago which haven’t been looked at since…yup, that’s SEVEN. I had been slagging Himself off something terrible about the bag of old (sorry, he likes to call them vintage and irreplaceable) t-shirts which he hasn’t asked for since and which languish above. I was sure I was about to be reintroduced to them. Imagine, then, my horror to discover that the first bag seems to be, in fact, full of my old smalls (clean, I hasten to add!). There is much to be afraid of here, not least the fact that if they no longer fit me I will have concrete proof of my middle age spread. I quickly shut up the bag again and went for a little lie down. Tomorrow at cockcrow, when it least expects it, I shall do a dawn raid and show that bag who is boss.
Yes, I KNOW – clearly I didn’t need so much underwear in my life.
Richard obviously didn’t need so many tee shirts.
I don’t need so many books, either, but I see them everyday and still can’t part with them…
Shit happens – I’m dealing with it.
thrush 16 June 2008
Comes a time in a woman’s life when the word thrush strikes fear and loathing into her, as well as covering a description for a nasty thing (though not exclusively a woman’s one). Over the last few days I have had many great thrush moments, however, as a new visitor to the garden is giving me entire delight. I know I am probably talking about a Song Thrush but looking at my bird book, I rather fancy it may be a Mistle Thrush. Whichever, it is the prettiest, spotted, little birdy and intriguing. Yesterday, for example, I saw it stay so still on the flat roof over the dining area I worried it might have been petrified to death – no, it was just amazingly Zen.
(The flat roof is going, I am happy to report – hope that won’t put the thrush out too much)
I need a new bird book as mine is very much a pocket guide with bog standard illustrations rather than photographs.
And even though I am madly packing my life into boxes and promising myself a MAJOR cull of books in general (as well as clothes, gheegaws, foldeerols etc) all I want to do is run into town (yes, actually run there) and buy a decent guide to garden birds, a fab atlas and a good dictionary. If I do this I will get no work done at all as the reading on good books like that is second to none…Still, I’d be full of usable knowledge too, eh?
Novel the Seventh continues apace and well, since you ask.
theory 15 June 2008
Here’s as good a theory as any other on why Ireland said no to the Lisbon Treaty – we were getting Europe back for spurning us at Eurovision.
I was at a great 50th birthday party last night and got a very hard time from some of the types there for being a nay sayer. People got very worked up indeed about the whole thing. I was told we were going to be thrown out of Europe. Actually, I’m not sure that would be such a bad thing because, I think, as of next year we’re supposed to start paying in to the system and we’re broke.
The party was the reason I couldn’t do a blog last night…I was a tad bendy after some (ok, lots of) really delicious wine. Great night of fun, food, politics, fun, food, wine, fun, food, music, wine, etc. and, as I am not yet 50, it was a super opportunity to mock the elderly (the birthday boy).
Mind you, I feel my 50th is not that far off in that birthdays seem to follow single years until you are 40 then they seem to go in five year jumps and after 50 in tens – and time seems to pass as quickly too.
I should point out that the copyright on the Inner Idiot belongs to Mr Connor Byrne, actor extraordinaire. He it was who first identified the mysterious and demented creature, in the manner of a botanist discovering a new fern in the Amazonian jungle, I guess. He named the Inner Idiot, although perhaps it should in some way be named after him? For example, I could refer to my Inner Connor Byrne from now on…no, perhaps not, as he is indeed knocking up a temporary plastic lid for mine so I want to keep on the right side of him till delivery.
no 13 June 2008
There used to be a sign in the Tyrone Guthrie artists’ retreat above the recycling bins which read ‘if in doubt, it’s rubbish’ – good old rule of thumb for life, really, I think. So, Ireland voted NO to the Lisbon Treaty today and I commend that decision (as someone who would have cast my vote that way had I been here to exercise my democratic right – I was in London earning a crust as youse all know). Of course I say Treaty loosely as it was and is, in fact, a series of amendments to the basic European treaty to which so many countries have signed up. There are many reasons why Ireland voted NO and, for instance, the dogs on the street could have told all of the major parties that when they band together, particularly about Europe, everyone gets VERY suspicious and nervy. Anyhow I think it was about a lot more than that and it is certainly also time that the Eurocrats began to realise that they must communicate better with the great unwashed of the Union, of which I certainly am one. Make it possible to understand what you want us to vote on and we might be able to agree on stuff.
Interestingly we are unusual as a country in that we HAVE to have a referendum about such things and I love that and will defend that right to the end.