areyoutired

And so Merry Christmas, I hope you have fun...

Fri, 25 Dec 2009 02:22:48 GMT

Dear everyone,

It's 2am on Christmas morning, santa (such as he is in our house) is snoring on the sofa and I have just one more present to wrap before tomorrow. (I also have ironing, washing up and I was going to do my hair, but I think I might just opt for sleep instead for a change.) I hope you're all enjoying your Christmas lunches on the beach, by the pool, or wherever, while we wonder whether we should pack blankets in the car just in case we get stranded by ice. At least we're not travelling by Eurostar or Globespan.

You will all get your Christmas cards, but they will be late, as in most cases they haven't been written yet. When I realised how fast time was going, I thought it would be better to employ my time off writing you all relaxed messages than bundling a carbon-copy set of generic wishes into the nearest red box just so I could say that the reason you didn't get them by Christmas Day was the Post Office strike and not my own fault.

Em, you put me to shame, as I got yours two days ago, so thank you very much. Daasy, I have major grovelling to do to you. I went into my Sent items to check whether I mentioned something in the long reply I wrote to your last two messages, and it wasn't there. I spent two hours writing that and now I think I must have closed down without sending it. T-P, I'm sorry not to have replied sooner, but thanks for the address - there will be something winging its way to you soon. Everyone else, I have been remiss and I apologise. I wish you all a very merry Christmas and an even merrier new year. May 2010 heal rifts and bring you all prosperity, happiness and success wherever you seek it.

Lots of love, f.

OK, so I show up, complain and then bugger off again

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:26:59 GMT

I apologise. Fact is, I was dragged away for my first holiday since I took over this new job in March, possibly my first since Christmas - I don't know any more. Three and a half days away from the University after months of overtime and the stress of a new term!. Of course, I had to do extra stuff to make sure I could get away and I've spent the last week catching up, but still three and a half days without any contact with academics or students (apart from the times I had to find an internet cafe and deal with my mail, of course). It was brilliant.

I will post about it in more detail shortly, but, for now, as I dash to get ready to take my long-suffering sprog out to the footie, I just wanted to wish you all Happy Hallowe'en while it still is in your part of the world and post this:

Don't get caught by the ghoulies, or ghosties, for that matter. (With apologies to Daasy, for a) violating her copyright and b) doing such a crap job of it.)

Somebody over there hates me.

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 16:29:20 GMT

OK, so I haven't had a minute to brood on this lately, but that doesn't mean it has escaped my attention. Somebody at Channel Ten, or at GNWTV, I don't know which, hates me. I've been a good fangirl, honest. I haven't sent endless complaints when things haven't worked, I haven't gone looking for illegal downloads. I've been patient since June, relying on crumbs from the reaction posts and little tidbits on YouTube, knowing that forbearance would win out in the end. But it hasn't. I am but one packet of shortbread away from rushing out into the street, rending my clothes, crying out, "Paul, Paul, why hast thou forsaken me?" Yes, I've been on to iTunes.

It was bad enough when I couldn't see the extras on the website any more, worse when they stopped the full episodes from playing, but at least there were the podcasts. Usually I was able to watch the show a day or two after you were all talking about it - once or twice I even got to watch it at the same time, my time, as it aired in yours. Then they started to lag behind and it was often nearly a week before I could understand why you were all rofling and wtfing. By the end, when the podcasts did come, they were shrivelled, truncated things with mismatched sound and often they were not what they claimed to be. But there was hope. "You can buy them now," it was said, but the offer was removed as fast as it had appeared. Some had seen it; none could find it again. The forums buzzed with rumour, then stopped. The occasional closing monologue on YouTube showed that Paul was still urging viewers to visit the website to download the podcast, but it was a cruel joke.

Then came the day, a week ago, when I went onto iTunes and there it was, where I least expected to find it, just after I'd clicked to update the software. The Holy Grail. One update away from being mine, the Season Pass gleamed from the iTunes Store page, promising comic relief for a really quite reasonable sum. I squee'd. I freely admit it. At last they would be mine, all those longed-for episodes, all the missing pieces of the puzzle. All my blanks were about to be filled. The cost didn't matter. As someone once sang, "to own her for an hour, you only had to give her money." I nearly broke my plastic, whipping it out of my pocket.

You can tell how it ends, can't you? Yes, the update finished, I called up the store and typed it in "Good News Week." There was the link that didn't work, but there, underneath, THERE was the Season Pass. I clicked and logged in to pay. "Your account is not authorised to purchase anything from the Australian store." it said, "Click here to be returned to the UK store." Guess what? "This item is not available from the UK store."

What did I do? I emailed iTunes customer support. They, very kindly, very helpfully and very patiently explained that I was in a different country. They did throw me a lifeline by way of the feedback form, whereby you can request something be made available that isn't, but I haven't heard and I don't expect to.

What else is there for me to do? I mean, I'm too old to emigrate, it's a bit far by boat and I'm no sailor. Besides, my son is a bit big for me to push overboard.

Some fireworks and then some fireworks and then no spark at all

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 01:15:41 GMT

So the week following the end of the Fringe is when things start to get crazy at work. Time was we the start of term was in October - now we have semesters and that means a September start. Later today, in fact, though, as always we start with a public holiday (go figure).

So all our tension over our jobs is coming to a head. We were left to 'muddle through until September' so surely someone will tell us something soon. But no, our staff are all coming back and asking us what's going on and we can't tell them. Plus, because I took over the undergraduates back in March, I now have to gear up to welcome all the language and literature students in a few weeks. I've been working hard for ages, cleaning, moving furniture into rooms, cobbling together computers. I've also been struggling with compiling an entire year's worth of language exercises on a piece of software I'm still not too familiar with. Some of it's changing things that are already there; about half as much again is completely new and more sophisticated. I started at the beginning of the summer, but then had to clear out my old rooms, not to mention say goodbye to half the department. So I've been doing bits and pieces when I can, but I'm realising that the later things are taking a lot of time and I'm going to have to work late to get them ready. That's when I find out how flaky the test server I'm doing this on is. It shuts me out for no reason and I lose work, or I have to constantly come out and reboot my own machine. Eventually I iron out a work-round for most of the problems and start working late in earnest. Except now the server's going down every night at 8 and, at the weekend, once it goes down there's no-one to bring it back up.

That's what's behind the big domestic we have the next weekend. The tension simmers like hot fat all Saturday until on Sunday I say the wrong thing and A. storms out because I'm less than 100% enthusiastic about spending all day in Edinburgh trailing behind him while he takes pictures of the 200-odd horses performing a the first common riding in Edinburgh for 60+ years. I mean, yes, it's something I wouldn't mind seeing, but there's lots of other stuff to do in the house I haven't been able to do and haven't been getting any help with. So I.'s really worried, because his dad isn't given to temper flare-ups (that's my job) and I'm thinking that maybe this is it. Again.

But he comes back a few hours later, and we all breathe again, although they're shallow breaths. Nothing is said, nothing apologised for, no making up happens. Instead he asks if we still want to go and see the fireworks. The son says yes, surprisingly, because he never likes that sort of thing. We had to take him away one year because he hated it and we haven't seen them live since, except for what we can make out from the house. So off we go. Too late to make our way into town, we find a place near the sea from where we can get a good, though quite distant, view of the castle. A. sets up his tripod a little way down this path with an open gate and I. claiming it's too cold, opts to stay in the car with the radio on to hear the music. It's Handel. I tend to prefer the fireworks when it's not such a traditional programme, but it's an important anniversary, so Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks etc it has to be. (They commissioned a piece based on Burns' Green Grow the Rashes, O' to which they always throw up green and purple fireworks to make great bursting thistles in the sky, which I love.) However, they're debuting a brand-new colour (pinkish-gold) so that's something. Our view is quite good and the music is, I admit, rousing. The only disappointment is that they do the waterfall off the battlements of the Castle and that's the bit we can't see from where we are. The last few times I've seen it (on the telly), they haven't done it, or they've done a cut-down version, so I'm miffed.

But it's spectacular and the night is balmy, so it's OK being out there at 10pm watching a tonne and a half of explosives being shot into the sky, and then it's over and that means the Festival is finally over and we can get back to normal. But not quite yet. As we're packing up, this jobsworth in a council van comes and starts reading us the riot act about trespassing on the path of the Recycling Centre. We're 10ft inside a wide-open gate, folding up a tripod 5minutes after the bangs have stopped. It's not as if we plan to rob the old sofa they've left at the side of the road. He starts saying that we're on CCTV and that the bloke on duty, who should have closed the gate (and is either asleep or playing Freecell on his computer), will have probably called the police by now. So we scarper back to the car, a few feet away, where the sprog is watching all this in some alarm. This is not a good time to find out that he has had the heating on for the last hour and hence we have no battery.

A couple of failed attempts at bump starting on a flat road later, it falls to me to call directory enquiries for some help, my belief that we belonged to one of the major motoring organisations having been erroneous apparently since we sold the last car. Our evening ends with me chatting to some girl on the sub-continent who manages to put us in touch with a really nice bloke who comes out to us for a mere £45 ($90AU or so) and jump starts us.

Fair to say, this years Fest hasn't lived up to last year's. But it's only 11 months and 1 week till next year's.

This will probably be my last big blog for a bit, as all Hell's about to let loose and I'm still working late and weekends, including this one just past and tomorrow. But it will calm down, I hope and then I will be back.

A-tishoo, a-tishoo , all fall down

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:35:11 GMT

What was a slight tickle in the throat at Frank's show turned into full-fledged summer cold/swine flu/August phlegmfest.

By 11am on the next day, I had to go home from work and that was me for the rest of the week. Add that to the fact that there are now only three in our department where five months ago there were six and that my new job is even more August-intensive than my old one was (our term is just about to start and now I have all the undergraduates to get ready for as well as the postgraduates to help finalise their theses, this is not a good time to get sick. But sick I get. Then my partner gets sick, but he can't take time off because he's in a worse situation than me (we work together, but he and another bloke run the other bit and other bloke had decided to take a fortnight off). Then the sprog gets sick and, while I can't (and don't really need to) stay off to look after him, it means I can hardly go gallivanting off after work to do Festival stuff.

I'm really upset when we miss Amanda Palmer at the weekend. We can't even give the tickets to anyone else. What a waste.

The second and then the last week of the Fringe drags by, as I'm single-handedly lugging furniture around rooms to get them ready for my postgrads who are migrating from my old computing labs. I'm coughing my guts up, but there's no help available and it has to be done. Eventually, though, enough is enough. The last day is the 31st, a Monday and I. is back at school. I take a half-day and vow to do as much as I can from 3pm onwards by myself.

This is how I ended up at School for Scandal. It's becoming a Fringe tradition that there's one play put on by comedians - two years ago it was Breaker Morant with Hillsy, Sammy J., Brendan Burns et al. They're generally people who have their own shows, but they do this 'serious' play in addition. This year's was Sheridan's comedy of gossip and character assassination, starring Stephen K. Amos as a fashionable poetaster, Marcus Brigstocke as a dissolute fop and Lionel Blair as the old husband with a new much younger wife, plus lots of other comics whose names will be less familiar, but whose faces are often on the telly. The play is a farce anyway, but I knew the last performance would be hysterical and I was not disappointed. Stephen K. camping it up in brocade and breeches and a Regency wig was worth the ticket price alone. I left clutching flyers for some of the principal characters, hoping I'd be able to catch at least one of their shows later.

I still felt bad I hadn't been able to go back to see Daliso. The night we saw him, he seemed pretty desperate for an audience and I'd said I 'd try to come back. So that's where I went , not knowing what to expect of the small venue that once was a church and is now a bistro with an upstairs bit. I half-expected it to be just him and me, but no. The place was bigger on the inside than it looked and it was pretty near to full. He looked quite chuffed as he recounted that the other show he'd hosted that afternoon had played to six people. Maybe it was the Clean in the Clean Comedy Show that put people off. He was really good, quite sweet, mostly doing autobiographical stuff about ex-girlfriends who were psychologists and his father who's the Education Minister back in Malawi, plus being thrown out of Canada. Made some good points about the trend towards panic in the West and the economic 'crisis.' "It's not a crisis until UNICEF gets involved. Until you see UN helicopters dropping fish and chips over Edinburgh." Similar theme to Wil's show, but with the added perspective of the African experience. Turns out he's actually settled in the UK now. Some comedic impresario tracked him down in South Africa after seeing some of his stuff on YouTube and invited him over to do a few things and he ended up staying. Canada's loss is definitely our gain.

I was at a bit of a loose end after that, so found myself outside the Gilded Balloon finding it hard to choose my next show as I'd no idea of the time (can't wear watches). So this girl comes up to me and asks how I'm doing. She's Australian (I seem to attract them). I ask her the time, she tells me, then gives me the spiel about her show. She seems nice. I promise to consider it. She offers me free tickets. I say no, it's OK, I'll pay for my ticket. So, of course I do. She reminds me of someone. A friend that I had here who went back to Sydney last year, who I miss. There's some time to kill, so I go back to my workplace, where I happen to have brought in a basket of apples from the tree in our garden, it being that time of year. My Sydney friend used to love those apples and every year I'd bring in a basket for her. Guess I still had the habit. I decide to take some with me to the show. If I enjoy it, I'll find a way to give them to her and it'll be like giving them to my friend by proxy. Think the brain's still soft from the cold, or the cold remedies.

Anyway, it's a very intense show, about growing up in coastal NSW in poverty and awkwardness. Very funny, a lot of herself in it, down to the photographs and report cards strewn over the floor and tacked to the backdrop. She's bright and self-deprecating and random and quirky. Her finale is a strange True/False quiz about her life, for which she needs a volunteer from the audience. There are two robots on the floor connected to handsets capable of giving, hopefully mild, electric shocks to the loser, although she does warn that the volunteer should not have a weak bladder. Not like last time. He gets it right, he zaps her; wrong, she zaps him. They end up on full power, of course. The volunteer turns out to be one of the Dead Cat Bounce guys we saw last year, who have been playing here up till the night before and playing practical jokes on her every night. They've all snuck into the back row and are egging her on. All in all, the show ends on some very good vibes.

I decide yes to the apples. But I've been holding in my coughing for an hour and think I can just hand them to one of the guys and make a quick escape, but no, they insist she won't mind if I take them myself and show me where she went. I knock on the door, she answers. I say thanks for the show and would she like these because of the friend thing, blah, blah. She seems touched. I suddenly come over a bit more emotional than I expect and realise I'm going to have a massive coughing fit, so I sort of chuck them at her and say bye. It's only when I'm outside, coughing my lungs out against the wall of the Co-op that I realise I never told her they were from the garden, so she probably thinks I got them out of Tesco or something. I'd better not go to next year's show in case there's a routine about the strange woman who foisted a bag of apples on her for no apparent reason.

Having literally coughed myself sick, not to mention made a fool of myself big time, I realise that trying to make another show would be foolhardy in the extreme, so my Fringe ends prematurely on a bus bound for Dalkeith. There's just the Fireworks to end the Festival proper, but that's not till the next weekend. And it's another story altogether.

Oh, and the girl? Felicity Ward. Am I imagining things, KT, or did we have a conversation about her on MSN a while ago? Didn't ring any bells at the time, but the name sounds so familiar and I don't know why.

Now, where was I?

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 04:51:02 GMT

Oh, I know, Paul Zerdin on Saturday night. (I think it's best that I just pretend it hasn't been a month since I should have posted this.)

My son and I have been at the football in the afternoon, while A. has been in town with the photography buddies, taking pics of nearly nude women, apparently. They're part of one of the various Faustus productions, or so he says :). Our team won and, as we walk up from the stadium, everyone asks us what the scores are.At first it's, "D'you know who won?" Then it's, "Who scored the goals?" Pretty soon it's, "What were all the other scores in today's matches?" Like we knew. (My fave moment was the young dad taking his four or five year old to his first footie match, sitting just beside us. He's explaining things all the way through, obviously a seasoned supporter, very keen his son should be brought up in the proper tradition. Well, he couldn't help himself, could he? At one point, he looks towards the stand with the other team's supporters and flicks them a V. Wee boy sees and questions him, at which point he says he was doing a victory sign. So of course the little fella starts doing it too and dad has to stop him. Actually, I felt for him a little bit. Come the second half, the boy's lost all interest and is constantly asking how much longer it was going to go on for, so he's reduced to negotiating McDonalds in order to see the rest of the game. I know how the litttl'un feels. It's a question I need answered as well. I'm so not a football fan.

After embarrassing my son completely by talking some kids down out of a tree in Princes Street (I had to, they were jumping about on a small, not particulary sturdy tree above some very pointy railings), we get up to the Assembly Hall where I nip in to get tickets for Adam and Jason's show later on. This was my negotiation for the football. Don't know how you'd have felt at 15 being taken to a world-class comedy show at midnight, but it's not the treat I would have considered it and must be haggled over.

Eventually we meet up with father and fail to get some food before the ventriloquist. Yay, you stuck with me to the point. (For randomosity666he's in one of the bigger caverns in the same venue as we saw Sammy J.) Ventriloquism has certainly come a long way. He's hilarious and very accomplished. He also picks on a guy called Alan, which amuses the boy no end, being his dad's name.
Here's a YouTube clip of the man. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfNCoSE61w8 We saw all those characters and more (quite risque, some of them) and spent the full hour laughing our heads off.

Here's where it goes pear-shaped. We've all spent a lot of today walking about. We've over three hours to kill before Adam and Jason. I'm the only one who really wants to see them (I'm also the one who just spent about 90$ on the tickets.) My idea, to find another show; theirs to find something to eat and gripe about how late it was getting. We end up traipsing around again, only now it's dark. Earlier, we got flyered by this short bloke with an extremely recogniseable voice. It was Daliso Chapondo, the Malawian comic they had sing Big Butts on Strange but True. I go into 'saw you on GNW, have you on my iPod' mode and he seems pleased, though we can't go to his show or we'll miss the ventricolé (you should have watched the clip).

Anyway, after wandering around all the major venues until there are no shows which would be finished in time, we end up back at work with some snack-y stuff, while A. sniffles and I. complains about not being allowed to go home to bed. Not the best frame of mind to tackle late-night comedy.

So it's just me who's excited when we get to the show. Adam and Jason are good, but I think it's fair to say that they're not as on fire as last year. Someone's got their feet up on the stage, so of course Adam has to go one better, doesn't he? He's feeling under the weather, so the first thing Jason does is bum some paracetamol off someone in the audience, which leads improbably to an impromptu moonwalk and then to a re-enactment of Michael Jackson's death. This gives them their theme for the evening and before it's over, Jason has died on the toilet as Elvis and invited someone up from the audience to choke him with a bit of rope for Michael Hutchence's last moments - moments which included some last-minute frantic masturbation, apparently. I'm such a bad mother.

Their first guest was a beat-boxer whose girlfriend had apparently just been rushed to hospital, but he'd come anyway. He was really good at what he did, but I'd have got him a taxi to the hospital after the first one. His second was a duel between two different styles, which would have been more impressive if I could have told them apart. Second on was a gentle Irish comedian we saw last year, Jarlath Regan. He's done well since we saw him, but it's a quiet, contemplative set when we could have been doing with something a bit more rumbustious. His finale is a routine showing us some of the greetings cards he's designed (http://www.jigser.com/cards.html). Last guest, though, is John Bishop, so funny in Liverpool last year and on my To See list this year. His observations on bringing up his mates to Edinburgh when one of them hit 40 were funny, centring on the twin ideas that groups of 40-something men are pretty pathetic and that Edinburgh in February is not the same place as Edinburgh in August. Both givens. Then he launched into some very, very detailed stuff about his vasectomy and, in particular, how one testicle had been done by the 'good surgeon' and one by a female trainee. I could feel the scrotums to either side of me tighten as he played it for all the squeamish uncomfortable giggles he could get. I never do get to see him, but that's another story.

I can't remember Sunday, but there wasn't any Festival stuff, so let's gloss over that.

Monday night is Frank Woodley night. My mum comes over and we take in the motley assortment of street theatre on the Royal Mile before having something to eat in the Grassmarket and heading over to the Lyceum. Immediately, we can tell we're in International Festival territory. The 'real' festival, around which the Fringe grew up. The audience is older, many of them academics lured by the twin attractrions of 'propah theatah' and Enlightenment French literature. The play is 'Optimism,' based on Voltaire's Candide, which basically tells the story of a servant who believes the teaching of his rich family's tutor, that 'all happens for the best in this, the best of all possible worlds.' It's a philosophy tested to the point of destruction as our hero and the previously-pampered people he lived with are subject to the most appalling reverses of fortune. This production is an interesting reworking of the text, which was pretty 'out there' for its day. I wasn't sure about it for the first act - I've read the book, not recently, but still, was fairly familiar, and I think people who hadn't would have been at a loss to know what was going on, while trying to get their heads round some of the more inspired yet initially puzzling production decisions (much of the travelling sequences involve sections of airplanes, stewardesses and cellophane, for example). The second half won me over, though, with some great musical numbers and, by this time, the conventions had been set, so it was easier to understand. Frank was an inspired choice for Candide - his innocent, trusting persona exactly right. They had left some spaces in the script for improvisation too, so there were some trademark Frank bits, breaking down the fourth wall. All in all, a very interesting, often brilliant production, though, as I said to my mum later, I'm sure many of the murmuring voices in the stairwell would have been dying to say it was a load of twaddle. It wasn't, by any means, but I can't imagine it appealed to everyone in that particular audience. She enjoyed it and I'd recommend it to any of you who are in Sydney when it comes back. But read the book before you go. Here's an interview:

http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/sos-review/Interview-Frank-Woodley--Candide.5536710.jp.

Little did I know then, one week into the Festival, that that would almost be the last thing I saw this year.

Edinburgh 2009 The start of something big

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 07:13:14 GMT

It's all part of my cunning plan. Seduce them with something they'll love and maybe they won't object too much when it comes to seeing stuff I like.

This is why I spend my Monday lunchbreak tracking down tickets for the Boys from Brazil. It's a show based on Capoeira - the martial art cum dance style which grew up in the favelas in Rio. A's into all those street-punks-make-good-through-the-medium-of-dance films, so I know he'll love this. My son might appreciate the power and spectacle. Whether or not he deigns to show it is another matter.

We turn up at the venue, which is a church at the West End (a fact I wish I knew earlier on when I went to the other St George). This venue specialises in world events - another of their productions involves a musical based on whether or not Madonna should be allowed to buy babies. (It looks a hoot - we saw the African cast play on Royal Mile and A. took a lot of photos of them, including the guy in the wig with the starry sunglasses who was playing Madonna.) It's warm and the show is late in starting, so we're not off to a good start by the time we take our pew. However, after a few words of introduction by Brian Cox (Dundee actor you may know from the Bourne films among others), the show starts. And what a show.

Six very fit guys stage a mock face-off with guns, as their very pretty male narrator explains how capoeira is transforming the lives of poor Brazilian kids in the ghettos of Rio. They then stage a breath-taking display of the dance/fight to some suitably fierce modern drumming. It's a great start to the show. Over an hour or so, they intercut various scenarios with some great salsa music, a fantastic female singer, a rapper and a magnificent band, as they show how the form was developed by African slaves, right up to the different styles demonstrated in modern times. It's like ballet mixed with salsa. Then they all come on in Brazil tops and do a routine based around footie skills. The boy has been quietly enjoying himself so far; now he's definitely into it. It ends with everyone samba-ing in the aisles, including A, which is not a pretty sight. I. is suitably mortified.

Tuesday. We are being encouraged to Twitter about the Fringe, at least those who tweet. The press have cut back the number of reviewers this year and this is supposed to make us all into critics and promoters. Some Edinburgh developers have designed a system for trawling for Fringe-related comments and can rank them by noise (number) and karma (positivity/negativity). Clever stuff. I think this is an off-shoot of something called Cybraphon, also unveiled today. This is an orchestra in a wardrobe, designed and built out of old instruments by colleagues of ours in Linguistics who have a band. It's a cyber-diva, programmed to listen out for web traffic about itself, which affects how it feels and what it plays. It has its own Twitter account. When it has lots of mentions, it is happy and plays happy music; when it's less popular, it gets depressed and sulks. Check out the review in the Scotsman, if you're intrigued http://living.scotsman.com/edinburghvisualartsfestival/Cybraphon-39It39s-a-total-moody.5544067.jp or go straight to its website http://cybraphon.com/ if you'd like to make a robotic rockstar happy. (He/she is currently experiencing gloom as I write this.)

Wednesday is Wil Anderson day. Since we didn't do anything last night (at least, nothing I can remember), the idea is to leave work and see what's out there. A. has been collecting photos of women dressed as Disney princesses and is now committed to going to see their show, heehee (Sooo not his thing, KT). However, I have a wardrobe malfunction and we don't get back until after they're finished. Another night, definitely. So we're at the purple cow deciding what to go to (I've already decided we're going to see Wil, but I need to make it look like it's his idea) when we're flyered by Axis of Awesome guy as he finishes his conversation with, yes, Wil, who has just turned away to talk to someone else. I go back, "I saw you on Good News Week" says me (not the last time I will be saying that, as they're all over the place). He seems pleased. Another show on the list but he clashes with Wil, so it won't be tonight. Waiting in the outdoor bar, I notice Wil again, rocking up to the stage door, literally 5 minutes before he's on. Cool customer. Turns out he's been doing his own flyering too.

Now, I don't know if I've admitted it to you lot, but I've never been 100% a fan of Wil's. I realise that sounds odd, since I was listening to Wil and Lehmo up until they got taken off-air and I do enjoy his ABC Gruen Transfer show, but truth is, I always found him a bit shouty, a bit over-eager and, as a guest on GNW, thought he was trying out for Claire's job. I've liked him and laughed at him, sure, but... All that has changed now. He was relaxed and at ease, as self-effacing as someone can be who's on stage making you laugh out loud all by himself. And I am now won over. Even A. was laughing all the way through. We weren't the only ones. I reckon the hall was half to two-thirds full but we were giggling enough to fill the empty seats. His routine was well-crafted without the construction being obvious, like a good song. We loved his suggestion about cutting down childhood obesity by abolishing the 20mph speed limit round schools. And he's given me an idea for pitching Scottish tourism to Australians in the throes of drought. 'Come to Scotland and wet yourself.' Think it could work? I still can't believe he was doing his own flyers (he was doing it today, Saturday, as well).

He's having to work hard, despite lots of excellent reviews, including one from me.Later, we're in the queue for a crepe in the outdoor food garden attached to our student union (all inflatable pineapples and popcorn machines) and Janeanne Garofolo (Great Debate) is right behind us. We mill about for a bit, soaking up the atmosphere in Hullabaloo, which is what they're calling the garden they usually have the Spiegeltent in this year. It's very pretty, with coloured chinese lanterns and little wooden pagoda seats. We thought it was going to have an Indian theme, but apparently not.

Thursday. A's been out and got us tickets to 'Randy's Postcards from Purgatory,' Heath McIvor's one-puppet show in one of the Underbelly's darker venues ( randomosity666 will remember we saw Forest of Dreams in one like this). It was very funny, the decline of a children's entertainer told in flashback through the break-up of his relationship with his financial backer's daughter. I really admire a man who can keep his arm above his head for an hour, never mind be uproariously funny at the same time. When I'm painting the ceiling, I have to keep stopping after a minute or two. He had a slight problem with sound during some of the (I think) pre-recorded songs, so it was difficult to make out some of the words. A pity, since the writing in the rest of the show was quite tight. Also, considering that he had us all convinced that the plush-covered pink muppet in a t-shirt was looking at us, he didn't really need to use a couple of his devices to persuade us he was real. However, he deserved his sell-out audience and I would be, and have been, happy to recommend the show to anyone. Touchingly, he plugged Sammy J's solo show at the end of his. (I noticed Wil did the same for Sam Simmons - nice to see them sticking together.) They are doing a few performances of Forest of Dreams this year again, since it was a complete sell-out last year.

When we came out, we had a saunter through the Grassmarket and up some stairs to the back of the Castle, where A. was once more snapping some of the buildings you don't normally see from that angle. I became aware of noise behind us, belatedly realising it was the Tattoo starting up. The camera changed direction and it wasn't long before A. was entranced by the colour changing on the walls of the castle. One ill-considered remark of mine and that was us for the whole two hours of the Tattoo, Pipe bands, singing, bands from Tonga and Switzerland, dancers from Australia, Chinese display teams, the obligatory Burns tribute, a demonstration of airlifting casualties from the front line, all of it. They kept projecting different things onto the walls and he kept photographing it, so we were there from the RAF Tornado flypast at the start to the fireworks at the end. Then, since we were on the street the performers' buses were on, we were another half an hour taking pictures of men in bearskins and unfeasibly large musical instruments. (Quote of the night, heard from one young Englishwoman looking up at the Castle with its temporary seating filling the castle esplanade - "What's that? Is it a stadium?"

On the way back to the car, we nip into our Old College quad, which usually has something spectacular going on, but this year's an indoors event. A. sets up for some long-exposure shots of the stunning Playfair building when, luckily for us, one of our security bods notices we're there as he's locking up. That would have been a cold night, though we'd have been early for work the next day.

I'll leave it there for now, if nobody minds, and go and grab a couple of hours' snooze. It's nearly 8am and I've been doing this for almost as long as listening to the Tattoo (I'm almost as cold too. We didn't do anything on Friday anyway, as that was the return of the sprog. Future episodes will include foam ventriloquists, Adam Hills and Jason Byrne, plus Frank Woodley on Monday night.

Knackered but happy hugs to all, f.

Edinburgh 2009 Before the beginning

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 12:38:09 GMT

It's finally happened. The swarm emerges from every inch of the city, buzzing on iridescent wings, stirring the air into something intoxicating. The streets are full of it, the annual mass mating; the colourful displays and exotic rituals of individuals intent on disseminating their ideas among open, receptive minds. And I'm right in the middle of it.

A disclaimer before I continue. I may not be going to as many shows as last year, so there might not be so much to blog about. Unless I make good on my threat to kidnap an Aussie backpacker, I will be having to rely on my partner and family for company. Given that my SO is more into photographing than watching at the moment and that my son is 15 going on 75 and going back to school this week, that could be tricky. However, I shall do my best to persuade you that there really is no other place to be during August. There will also be pics, once he stops taking them long enough to download them onto the PC. Some of them are on his Flickr page, here http://www.flickr.com/photos/alan_whyte/

Wil Anderson has some dedicated fans, has he not? Before even the previews of the previews I am deluged by requests (well, 3) to help him put bums on seats in our University concert hall, culminating in a review on the Fringe website before his show even starts (legitimate though, as it is by someone who has actually seen it). More on Wil to follow.

The previews proper start for some shows on Thursday, though the Fringe doesn't open until the parade (we weren't going to have) on the Fringe Sunday (we weren't going to have). They rope off the street outside where I work and start filling it with piles of barriers. Hmm. They turn out to be for the parade. Yay. We even have good weather. Can this be happening?

My man is out with the camera whenever he can - I'm testing out our new Fringe Box Office. (After the fiasco last year, it's a breeze). I've decided to treat him to some things I hope he'll like, so I can persuade him to come to things I'd like. But at the moment all he wants to do is wander about taking pictures of the strange people you see at this time of year. So, we've already clocked a fair number of hours on the Royal Mile by Friday, when I've booked us to see Camille O'Sullivan at 10pm.

We have 5 hours to kill after work and so I'm hoping we can see something else, maybe go for a bite to eat, but no. Luckily I enjoy strolling about soaking up the atmosphere, but i'm feeling a bit of a wally at times, standing at the back of another street performer's crowd while he's up front sticking his unfeasibly long lens in their face. So I do what I like to do and buy a bag of sweets to hand out when anyone gives me a flyer. (This is more fun later in the festival, when they're that bit more tired and hungry and dehydrated from when the blisters on their feet burst and they've just realised that out of 500 flyers pressed into sweaty palms, only 5 people made it to the show and even they were just looking for a toilet.) There's this great band with no name we're watching and after they finish and A's getting their email address so he can send them some pics, I hand round the sweets. They're surprised and a little touched. Later, I hear them trying to answer questions from some prospective fans and think maybe next time I shouldn't get toffees. (I give up later when this stick-thin female performer in desperate need of a sugar rush looks at me as if I'd offered her a dirty needle full of heroin.)

My worst experience of the night should have been one of the best. We'd seen that the Space Cowboy had a spot outside our cathedral and made sure we were there as he started building up his audience with all the usual tricks. I was swiftly abandoned for a better vantage point, as I've come to expect, but was reasonably close behind a couple of rows of seated kids. Then he asked those of us near the front to sit down. Well, I don't know if you've ever knelt on cobbles in sandals basically made out of rubber bands for half an hour, but I don't recommend it. Most of the time I was wedged between the kids in front and another photographer (damn them) taking pictures from my shoulder. By the time someone moved enough for me to have stretched even a little, my knees had locked up and no blood had reached my toes for the full 15 mins Shane had been stretching the finale out for. By the (admittedly impressive) climax, I was muttering obscenities probably not quite under my breath. 'Just get the f*** on with it', being more or less the gist, as I had hopes of not ending up in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. All the same, once I had been assisted into a upright position, I was eventually able to stand for long enough to be able to remind him of his fans at home. (I didn't offer him a sweet, though, in case he did something distressing with it.)

We repair to the Assembly Hall, where it turns out that sultry divas with long, dark hair, red lips, a dress you couldn't see for thighs and bosoms spilling over her corset like two cups of well-frothed cappucino don't do anything for my better half. He sat stonily (and I don't mean in a good way) while she belted out Brel songs and strutted about in boots and sparkly high heels, getting a rise out of at least two-thirds of the audience, It was only when she messed up her makeup and started singing the slow, tragic songs that he warmed to her, but that was when he realised her saxophonist was someone he was a fan of, so it could have been that. I thought she put fantastic fun and passion into all her singing, but have to admit Nick Cave's "Little Water Song" and "Ships" were my favourites too. I'm sorry to say I've never really noticed his writing, because I don't like his voice. (I don't know if that's sacrilege, or indeed treason, over there, but...) That will certainly change.

If A. was a bit meh about Camille, God knows what he's going to make of Amanda Palmer next week.

Saturday was a bit of a washout. We go over to my mum's with the intention of taking her out for her birthday, but my dad's not feeling great and my son doesn't want to come, so we take a car trip round most of Fife in order to have tea at this place 15 miles away. Because we've gone the long way round, it's shut when we get there, and, to cap it all, the rain starts as soon as we park the car.

FringeSundayFestivalParadeDay!

Princes Street is closed by tramworks so we weren't going to have a parade and they couldn't find anyone to fork out for Fringe Sunday this year so we weren't going to have that either. (It's usually brilliant, packed with free entertainment the whole day, a showcase for many of the performers and a great day out. Those of you who read my blog last year, or who were actually there, might remember that it was somewhat wet. In fact, if anyone had had an accident, it would have been a toss-up whether you called for an ambulance or Air Sea Rescue.)

Today's all a bit last-minute and nobody's really sure of the timing or route or what will be there, plus I have a boy who really just wants to be home on the Playstation, but somehow we get there and haven't missed it. In fact, we haven't missed it by several hours. It's billed from 12 to 4 in Holyrood Park, where Fringe Sunday was in DAAS' day. So, we're there at 12 and naturally the parade itself doesn't start till 2. The park is empty apart from a lot of barriers, security staff, some food vans and a roped-off area where a bunch of people in white pjs are doing what looks like tai chi. Oh and an entirely unrelated dog show is going on at the far end of the park. And that's as much as I see. Son has been complaining of stomach pains all the way down and is beginning to look quite sick, so I do the decent motherly thing and take him home on the bus. (Several buses and a taxi) I've never seen the parade yet and this year's no different. The cameraman stays behind and catches some nice snaps. It seems like there never really was that much more going on in the park, so I hope people don't think that's what it's usually like. Still, that's the Fringe started now.

Part 2, complete with robotic pop divas, twittering, bad boys from Brazil and Wil, yes, Wil Anderson, coming up next.

It's August- how did that happen?

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 22:23:19 GMT

OK, so I've been meaning to do a catch-up post for over a month now, but it's been hard getting a seat by the PC again. My other half is out tonight, up Arthur's Seat, photographing some guy who impersonates Robert Burns for a living, so I'm getting to hijack it for a bit.

Luckily for you, I've forgotten most of what I was going to say, but less luckily, there has been quite a lot, so here goes:

I finally got my little laptop back working, no thanks to the company that my retailer pays to do their tech support. If any of you ever have dealings with The Tech Guys, I wish you the best of luck. My boss bites the early retirement carrot and announces he's leaving in three weeks (the carrot having a very short shelf-life). Cue much trepidation about the future as he won't be replaced and we're left feeling very vulnerable. People who may, or may not know, are shaking their heads sadly at us, but no-one's telling us anything.

So here I am, organising my second retiral do in three months. Most people are away already, or going off before he leaves, so it's tricky. He's been there since 1968, basically built the place, and deserves a decent send-off, but the high heid yins are giving him a wide berth, unavoidably, as it happens, but still, there were some that could have given him the nod that didn't. Another close co-worker decides to test the water and is shocked to be offered a deal. She's going away but is told to get the paperwork started and she can still make the decision when she gets back.

I have a birthday. My significant other is very sweet and has scoured Amazon for appropriate DVDs. I now own The Castle, The Complete Adventures of Lano & Woodley (I can't watch it yet because it's the wrong region), Summer Heights High and Flight of the Conchords. He's also bought us tickets to see Russell Howard (Mock the Week) who turns out to have as much to say about his willy as Josh Thomas does, though he's a little more experienced. Surprisingly, we are not the oldest members of the audience, but we are close. I've never seen so much Twittering going on from the balcony of the theatre.

My Paul's Glory flowers and they are the most beautiful little pixie hats, with stamens that turn up like a model's eyelashes. They don't last long, though. Each flower is perfect for a day, then begins to fold so the next one up the stem can bloom. This doesn't do it justice, but it's the best we got.
Click to see bigger. Strawberries are delicious, tomatoes begin to swell.

Retiral day comes. I've baked a cake in the shape of the language lab as it was when I came to work there (the same room as we're meeting in) and there are plenty of people there to see me go bright red as I deliver my first ever farewell speech. I've managed to source some people from way back, so I think he enjoys that. A few days later, my other colleague drops the bombshell that she, too, is going. Somehow, we didn't expect it. She has 4 days to clear her desk. That was last week. Today is the first day she should have been there but wasn't. My department has now gone from 6 to 3 and they still haven't told us what's going to happen. We hear all sorts of rumours, but my two remaining colleagues, both too young to retire, were given the chance to apply for voluntary redundancy if they want it. One is my partner.

With a photographer in the house, weekends can be quite hectic. Apart from ushering the sprog back and forward to my folks' house, this month we've been to a jousting tournament at Linlithgow Palace, Edinburgh's festival of all things woody (yes, really), Treefest, and last weekend we were at The Gathering, the biggest Highland Games held in Edinburgh since, well, forever. It's all part of Homecoming Year, ~~the marketing ploy~~ the celebration of 250 years of Burns which has seen anyone with a drop of whisky in their blood fork out for their passage back to their Granny's Hielan' Hame (only to find that she's not in). It was a spectacular array of tartania with every form of costume, real or imagined, represented. Including what looked like a full-blood Navajo princess clad all in fringed buckskin wearing a tiara with the St Andrew's Cross on it. Prince Charles opened the games, much to the disgust of my offspring, who was loudly heard to declare that they should have got someone Scottish instead, like the Duke of Edinburgh (who's Greek). For those of you who know the Edinburgh Years, the whole thing took place on the site of Fringe Sunday, where the DAAS boys met the Mona Lisa and listened to the Milton Keynes Youth Choir under the baleful gaze of the ruined 'castle' that Paul's Spanish ancestors were wont to entertain in.

A small montage of Gathering photos:

I could be wrong about the last one, but I think he might be Australian. Daasy, I'm afraid the second one is the closest I got to the caber tossers.

And now, apropos of nothing except that himself discovered this photo of him that I took back in the days when his bum was worth snapping. The puss is Smudge (never knowingly uncomfortable), the first cat I got myself. She was later joined by Mia and Clara, all of whom are now long gone. Sadly, I don't think those jeans are.

Well, I think I've unburdened myself enough for now. My next post will be into Festival proper mode. It starts on Friday (officially Sunday) and the city's filling up with teams of people in identical t-shirts. I got my first flyer today. For Jerry Springer: The Musical. I just might go. You've got to reward the effort, haven't you?

A mini-post, for those of you who like cute young Scots guys

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:58:19 GMT

(Not me, obviously. Actually, hubby was more smitten at first.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsqxR6FZpu0

and to assure you that I'm still alive and will post and reply to stuff soon. We saw this one in a tent at the weekend, at a huge Highland Games held on the hallowed turf trod by the DAAS boys at Fringe Sunday all those years ago. Never heard of him before then.

So, how is everybody?

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 22:05:51 GMT

I know I haven't been all that visible lately, but I am still here, just busy, knackered and unable to get to a computer at any time I can write freely/with my eyes open.

The sprog is back from France and we have been trying to get his new bedroom organised. Today I ordered the carpet. It's black! A real teenage choice at last. Everything else he's wanted is beige. So now we're painting, laying underlay ready for the fitters, putting up the new curtain rail (blackened chrome), hopefully in time for the bed being delivered.

Work is infinitely depressing because of a whole lot of uncertainty about our jobs, so I'm concentrating on trying to brighten up our new place for the students. It's basically a set of computer rooms in an old Georgian building, plus a newly-fitted teaching lab out the back. It's all blank walls, barred windows and concrete, so I'm trying to green it up a bit. Pics under the cut:

The back is nice and sunny, so I can grow these...

...but the front is dull and dingy,

though it's soon going to be brightened up with my prize hosta...

...Paul's Glory. With that name, I just had to buy it, didn't I? And it's flowering.

Since I spoke to you last, hubby's had a birthday. He got new flash equipment, so he's been taking a lot of photos, much, much better than mine. Obviously. He's got a bigger lens.

We're now well into summer, so naturally there's a festival on, and yes, it is raining. The one we were at today (Leith) had a great parade, which A. wanted to take pics of. So we were at the gate until the last person entered the links, at which point the heavens opened. Everyone got immediately drenched and, once the rain went off a little bit, squelched off home to get dry. Such a shame for all the bands and stall-holders, highland dancers and particularly for the group of women wearing nothing but basques, fishnets and feathers (not sure who they were representing, but we were just up the road from the street the hookers used to stand on). Don't know if you'll see this but: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alan_whyte/3622228739/

I also just got my Fringe brochure. randomosity666 , if you're around, I got one for you. I haven't had a chance to look at it yet. There's a viral thing going round at the moment, concerning a mysterious egg apparently found during excavation of the road for the tram works. Reminiscent of the Sultan's Elephant and the spider, although there isn't anything actually in the street except the roadworks. A Prof Ed Hegg is conducting experiments at this site: http://thefringething.com/ if you're interested.

Think that's about it. I have missed you all.

Still slightly waterlogged hugs, f.

Is it just me, or does anyone else think these guys saw the Dougs at a formative age?

Sun, 24 May 2009 18:09:39 GMT

Temporary empty nest syndrome

Sat, 23 May 2009 19:53:01 GMT

starts here. The sprog will be embarking on the ferry to Calais as I write, and in another 15 hours of so will be ensconced safely at the foot of an Alp, having left us just over 12 hours ago. Whatever will we do with ourselves? (No, seriously, suggestions would be most welcome.)

Actually, we may not have to look far for something to worry about. There's our jobs, for a start, since our part of the University has got a bit of a funding crisis going on. And then there's Cosmo, our one remaining moggie, who seems to have sustained an injury to his tail. He was carrying it slightly oddly yesterday, but it's only just now that I've managed to feel a wound of some sort. Of course, now all the vets are shut. He's either been bitten or had a bike run over it, I think.

It's been a strange week. Monday and Tuesday we were on holiday, but the schools weren't, so it was a bit like bunking off. We'd had the news about work on Friday, which was a bit of a shock, but we hadn't had time to dwell on it as there was a lot of last-minute stuff to do for Iain going away. So on Monday we pottered about and ended up at our favourite garden centre, where I bought myself a bottle-brush for the other end of the bed that is now where Clara's ashes are. So it's gone from being a little Japanese to being a little Australasian. Tuesday, we spent the whole day at the zoo looking at all the new babies (mostly monkeys and penguins), with Alan taking some lovely pictures. Our new, state-of-the-art chimp house made me cry, but then the chimps usually do. At least this time it was because they seemed a lot happier.

When I got back to work, it was straight into the last week of exams, at least as far as our students were concerned. A couple of weeks before, I'd put up a notice asking what people thought of having a Survivors' Lunch (we inherited a coffee room at our new place). Before I left, there was hardly any interest. By Wednesday, there was a lot more, so it was all go to get it organised for Friday, yesterday. I decked the place out with balloons, Linda, the woman I took over from in March, came up and we put on quite a spread between us, if I do say so myself. I made sangria for the first time. (It won't be the last time though, as it was rather nice.) The students gave me a really lovely card. I'll see some of them again next year, but others will be off home by now. Maybe they'll pop in on graduation day. I've only had a couple of months with them, so we haven't really had time to get close, but I think I'm going to love that part of the job. I used to have that with the postgrads, but then the job drifted away towards other aspects, so I've missed that the last few years. And then it was home to finish packing and do all those time-consuming little things, like download CDs into iTunes, sync the iPod, reorganise backpacks and dole out motherly reassurance late into the small hours.

Now it's just us and a cat with a base clef for a tail.

Writer's Block: Apology Not Accepted

Wed, 20 May 2009 19:49:31 GMT

Have you ever refused to accept someone's apology, or had your own apology rejected?

View 500 Answers

I don't know. Let's see.

I apologise on behalf of everyone (especially on behalf of those who don't think they need to apologise for anything), to everyone, for everything.

It was my fault.
Mea culpa.
I won't do it again.
Well, I might, but I won't mean to.
There.
I've said it.
I'm sorry.

Now, can we all get back to being friends?
Hugs, f.

Writer's Block: BFF

Sat, 16 May 2009 04:31:35 GMT

spaciireth (76 weeks ago), closely followed by babyzblueze and randomosity666 were the first people to friend me on LJ (or anywhere in cyberspace) and I'm happy and proud to say that they're still around.

I'm really chuffed to have all the people on my flist that I do. Each of them brings something unique into my life and a day which includes a message or a comment from any one of them is never a day wasted, no matter how crap the rest of it may be. At the risk of being cheesy (Hell, why stop now?) , I'd like to envelope all of you in a massive group hug.

Writer's Block: There Once Was a Girl from Nantucket

Wed, 13 May 2009 11:41:53 GMT

A TV producer from Sydney
got a list of complaints, nay, a litany,
that his host, while onscreen,
had said something obscene
and replied, 'You mean Paul? So when didn' he?'

Happy birthday.

It's done.

Sat, 02 May 2009 04:14:39 GMT

Clara, our kitten of nearly 18, is gone.

Almost as many months ago, she was attacked by something called a squamous cell carcinoma, which is as nasty as it sounds. On Thursday night, after months of treatment and two major operations, I had to take her to the vet to be put to sleep. We've known it would have to happen, ever since we noticed the lump growing back again a couple of months after her second ear surgery. She floored the vet with her resilience - at her age, they weren't sure she would wake up, never mind wake up demanding to be fed and let home.

You don't need to read this bit.

For the last few weeks it's been pretty bad. Her ear opened up again, so it's been a constant case of keeping her clean and comfortable. We should have taken her before, but she was still eating well and still relishing cuddles and being stroked. She wasn't averse to putting Cosmo in his place, although latterly she hadn't minded him sleeping beside her at night. Most importantly, she didn't seem to be in pain and when the good weather started to peek through she even managed into the garden to doze among the flowers. But it was getting worse, the lump was growing under her ear into her neck and she was beginning to be unsteady when she first got up. There was blood. She started to pee in her sleep, although she did try to make it to the box or outside if she was awake. On Thursday night, we came home a little early, fed both cats some wild Alaskan salmon and I sat down with her to groom her. If you didn't see one side of her head, you'd have thought there was nothing wrong with her, lying in my lap, purring away. Then I took her for a carry around the garden - she didn't make any effort to get down, but looked at everything as if she knew she was saying goodbye.

It was mercifully quick. No struggles, just a slight pull at the sting of the needle and a gentle "she's gone" from the vet. I didn't need her to tell me that - her beautiful, bright eyes were already empty.

Her death was easy. Making the decision was so hard. I made it more than once, but then I'd come home and she was better than she had been, or there was something immediate that had to be done that stopped me. One more evening in the sun. One night without being annoyed with her because she'd messed something up. Her quilt needing washed again, the basket not ready. Iain's homework not done.

Thing is, I thought I was alone. I saw my son recoil from her whenever she went near him and thought he just wanted rid of her. I thought my partner was fed up steam-cleaning the couch and the carpet, but leaving it up to me to make the hard decisions. He didn't like her jumping up on him,and when she did I had to take her off. He wouldn't let me bury her in the garden. Understandable, there are two cats there already, plus innumerable smaller creatures. We didn't have the room. But she was the one cat who had a right to be there. He bought her for me not long after we moved here (19 years ago. Today, in fact. It's what we count as our anniversary.) She's never been anywhere else. He left it up to me to hunt for a cremation service, to make contact, to find out what needed to be done. Last weekend he helped me choose a plant for the garden to remember her by, but it was me who had to make the move, start the process. I felt aggrieved that they were leaving it all up to me and at the same time making me feel guilty about putting it off. I thought it was because they didn't care as much. I was wrong.

That's all for now. Sorry I haven't been around lately. I've kept up with pretty much everything, but, between this and trashing my laptop, I've not been able to sit down and reply properly. I hope you are all well and happy.

No thank you, Mr T, I've no wish to 'go nuts' as you put it.

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:43:46 GMT

My workplace has finally descended into the madness I daily imagine it to be.

It's a University, right? I work at the bottom of a tall building full of academics and students in what is called a basement, but which is really just a different level of ground. We have a refectory (recently re-christened Senses Cafe because no-one knows what a refectory is any more) and a shop. Above us there are Lecture Theatres and staff offices/tutorial rooms and teaching rooms.

A couple of weeks ago, the powers that be decided we needed a machine to dispense confectionery at twice the price to be paid in either the shop or the caff. Said machine is roughly 20 yards from each place. OK, I believe the rationale is that, when the other places are closed, people can still get a Mars Bar without leaving the building. That's fine. I know what these urges are like. But is it just me that thinks it a bit lazy, not to mention, profligate, to feed the beast with double coin rather than walk the extra few paces when the shop's open?

Tonight, when I walked past the machine, I'd swear it whispered to me. They often do, if truth be told. But this time, it was a 3/4 size cardboard cutout of Mr T, trying to make me splurge out on a Snickers Bar. Motion-activated, it might have made more of an advertising impact if he was loud enough to hear and not pitched at the same level as the voices in my head.

Now, I don't know about anyone else, but I don't really need cardboard figures hiding behind vending machines to make me feel the need for sweets. It would be infinitely more helpful if, when it caught me loitering longingly at the glass case, Mr T. would bark, "Put the purse down, sucker, and step away from the chocolate."

They say we're getting a drinks machine next. I hope it serves vodka.

Writer's Block: Fearsome

Sat, 07 Feb 2009 08:09:55 GMT

The boogeyman, global thermonuclear war, being forced to eat broccoli—there's a lot to be afraid of when you're a kid. What was your biggest childhood fear?

View 501 Answers

Man-eating plastic armchairs. That was an early Dr Who. We just got a plastic (faux-leather) suite, when they ran a storyline (can't remember which Doc) that the seats just folded over on the people who sat in them and gobbled them up. Can't even remember why or what happened.

Not sure quite what they're getting at, but they sure is pretty...

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 20:49:30 GMT

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=jQZ2p_Ta9fA

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=jQZ2p_Ta9fA&feature=related

OK. I'll buy it

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:06:30 GMT

<a href="http://onnachance.com/quiz/fae.htm" target="new">
<img src="http://onnachance.com/quiz/fae1.gif" border=0>
</a><br />
<a href="http://onnachance.com/quiz/fae.htm" target="new">What type of Fae are you?</a>

It's been a while since anyone used this word, or any word deriving from it, to describe me, but I guess it's not far from the truth, if you're talking about the kind of nymph that wriggles about in stagnant ponds.

16 things and whaddaya get, another year older and deeper in debt

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:35:17 GMT

16 things I don't think I've told any of you about me. This could be hard.

1. I adore honeycomb and love to let the honey drip out of the bottom of the wax so that I can chew the wax into a ball.

2. I once passed out from sunstroke after spending a weekend topless at Glastonbury Rock Festival. For weeks my boobs looked like strawberry iced muffins.

3. I used to be a Scottish highland dancer and competed in Highland shows with the full kilt outfit, ruffled shirt and all. I also did ballet till I was 12, but I think I may have mentioned that. (You'd not believe it to see me now, that's for sure.)

4. My cousin, who emigrated to New Zealand from Stirling a couple of years ago, is now fourth in the national darts league there.

5. I believe anything can be fixed, modelled out of or adorned with Blu-tack.

6. I still love to cover my hands with wood glue, let it partially set and then peel it off.

7. When I clean out the grill pan, I sometimes fill it with hot water and watch the grease form little lava-lamp-like extrusions. Then I drip washing-up liquid in and watch how the fat on the surface is repelled. I'm not real fast at housework.

8. When I go up or down on an escalator, I usually hold my feet under the brushes at the side and let them polish the front of my shoes.

9. When I was a lodger in someone else's flat, I was cleaning out my fish tank, which at the time sat on the top of my chest of drawers. I left it unattended while siphoning some of the water into a bucket. When I got back, the tube had come out and was cascading dirty fish water into my underwear drawer and all the way down from there.

10. When I was about 16 and walking home late one night, I talked a would-be rapist out of attacking me. Unfortunately, I wasn't such a good conversationalist a few years later when I was hitch-hiking home from the South of England after a major falling out with my newly ex-boyfriend.

11. Being pregnant was the happiest time of my life, when I was comfortable with my body finally doing what it was designed to do. Unfortunately, a 40-odd hour labour followed by a Caesarian plunged me into post-partum depression and made me hate it again. I remember thinking it couldn't even do that right and that, left up to me, my baby would have died. Coupled with a week in hospital when my son wouldn't feed, I felt completely useless. Happily, once we got home, the feeding clicked and I loved doing it.

12. Misplaced apostrophes (the so-called 'grocer's apostrophe' - fresh tomatoe's 20p a pound, etc) drive me up the wall and I have been known to refuse to buy frozen food or other items if there are spelling or grammatical mistakes on the packaging. I don't mind it so much in informal places like this, but when I see it on signs, or printed things like greetings cards, it drives me mental. I think, you've only got six words to print and you get a basic one wrong - aaaargh.

13. I once bought a live lobster when I lived in the city and took it, in a carrier bag, 10 miles up the coast in the bus to Seton Sands, where I released it on the flattest bit of sand for miles. It would have had a damned long walk home from there. I cried when I snipped the elastic bands round its claws. It walked a foot or so into the sea and then just sat there, facing me, for ages, then it turned and carried on out to sea. As soon as the water touched it, the colour changed, like a dull pebble takes on the most marvellous tones when wet.

14. If I'm pigging out on Smarties, I like to sort them into colours, work out which colour has the fewest and then eat one each of the 'extras' until I have the same number in each pile. (When I had a fad for eating All-Bran dry out of the packet, I used to sort the strands by length.)

15. I once had a relationship with a man who had served 12 years for murder.

16. When I do jigsaws, I never look at the picture.

There you go. Still want to be friends with me now?

Echoing the others who have done this meme, I don't have 16 people I can tag and most of those I might have, have been done already. Can we just leave it that, if anyone reads this and feels that they would like to have been tagged, they can consider themselves so?

Cake recipes for BB

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 02:52:49 GMT

OK. Easy one first. Cake comes out very moist, dense and rich - you only need a tiny slice. A real high-impact flavour and looks fabulous with the edible gold dusting powder on the top. There's no flour, in case you think I made a mistake.

Dark chocolate mousse cake (Green & Black's recipe book)

Need:
Round cake tin 8in or 9in (9in will give quite a flat cake), with removable base if poss
Heatproof bowl (pref metal or pyrex) for melting ingredients over a saucepan of water
Saucepan of water.

1 tablespoon ground almonds, plus extra for dusting the tin
300g good dark chocolate (min 60% cocoa) or 200g dark choc + 100g G&B Mayan Gold or other orange chcolate (the Mayan Gold gives it a slightly spicy flavour - very grown-up), broken into pieces
275g caster sugar
165g unsalted butter (+ a little extra for coating the tin)
pinch of sea salt (or ordinary, but not as big a pinch)
5 large eggs
gold dust or icing sugar for painting/dredging the top.

Method:
Preheat oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4*.
Brush tin with a little melted butter, dust with extra ground almonds. Shake off any excess.
Melt the chocolate, caster sugar, butter and salt in the bowl suspended over a saucepan of barely -simmering water. Remove from heat once melted.
Whisk the eggs with the ground almonds. Fold into the chocolate mixture. It will thicken after a few minutes.
Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 35-40 mins.
Remove the side of the tin and leave cake to cool on base. If your tin doesn't have a loose bottom, leave the whole thing on a wire rack to cool. (You might want to ease a knife around the edges just to make sure it won't stick.
Remove from tin, dredge with icing sugar in a small sieve, or brush with gold.

This cake doesn't rise much. If chilled overnight it will be dense, fudgey and wicked. (It's pretty much there if not chilled, I can tell you.) Serves 10.

----Cake, take 2----

For a more traditional (but still great-tasting) chocolate cake which is suitable for carving into shapes or supporting lots of modelling icing (sugarpaste) if required, this one by Linda Price is my tried and tested and I have precise measurements for round and square tins 6in to 12in. (As a rule, any mix will make a round cake of a given size or a square cake of an inch smaller, ie the 8in round would do a 7in sq; the 10in sq would do an 11in round and so on.)

If I'm doing a shaped cake, I generally do two 10in squares. This gives me enough to chop up and play with, or gives me a reasonable surface area to set up a scenario on. (Eg my mum and her 2 pals reclining on deckchairs by a pool with a bloke swimming in it who had lost his bathers, which was my mum's 70th last year.)
I'd normally sandwich them together with jam (raspberry, cherry or apricot works well), do any cutting out I need to and then cover with a layer of buttercream or chocolate buttercream, before covering some or all of it with sugarpaste, depending on what I'm doing. Gives quite a high cake and serves loads as it can be sliced thin. (If you don't need as much cake, you could do one and split it. Maybe put some buttercream in the centre just to make it a bit higher.) I'll do measurements for 8in round with 10in square in brackets - let me know if you need other sizes.

Need (for one):

Butter, softened              165g [325g]
Caster sugar                   300g [ 570g]
Vanilla extract*                 2 teaspoons [ 4 teaspoons] *extract is not as strong as essence, but has a much better flavour. If you can only get essence, use half measure.
Eggs, medium                 3 [5]
self-raising flour             65g [125g]
plain flour                        200g [350g]
bicarbonate of soda     1 teaspoon [2 1/4 teaspoons]
cocoa powder                70g [110g]
buttermilk                        250ml [500ml]

Method:
Preheat oven to 180C/350F/Gas mark 4*.
Lightly grease the tin and line the base.
Sift the flours together with the bicarb and the cocoa (I sift three times for best results). Set aside for now.
Beat the butter and sugar in an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat the eggs separately with the vanilla extract, either with a hand blender or a fork. Add this to the fluffy butter and sugar in the electric mixer in small amounts (roughly one egg's worth), beating well after each addition (I usually leave the mixer on slow and dribble the egg mixture in through the top.)
Transfer to a large bowl and fold in the sifted ingredients in small amounts alternately with the buttermilk (I do a couple of spoons dry, fold till it disappears. a splurge of buttermilk, fold till it disappears and so on until it's all combined).
Pour into the tin, smooth the surface and bake for 1hr 10mins [1hr 30mins], testing towards the end of the baking time. A skewer or knitting needle inserted into the centre will come out clean when it is done.
Leave to cool for a few minutes before turning onto a wire rack.

For a more unusual texture, I once made a beetroot chocolate cake. I wish I could find the exact recipe I used because it was fantastic. There are loads of similar ones on the web, mostly Australian, I notice. I did it with a topping which was mascarpone, icing sugar and orange juice with little flecks of finely-grated peel. Everyone loved it. The cake was moist, deep purple in colour and didn't taste of beets, though there was a depth to it, maybe a slight earthiness.

For a non-chocolate cake it's hard to beat a Victoria sponge. If you don't have a recipe for that I can do you the one I use which I've scaled up for 10in cakes.

For a light, fluffy cake that's good for dressing with fresh cream and fruit, you can't go past a genoise. I have measures for 2x8in round and 2x9in round [in brackets]

You need:

plain flour          225g [300g], plus extra for dusting tins
eggs                   6 [8]
caster sugar     165g [220g]
melted butter    75g [100g], plus extra for brushing tins

Preheat oven 180C/350F/Gas mark 4
Brush two tins with butter, line with non-stick baking paper, then grease the paper and dust lightly with flour, shaking off any excess.
Sift the flour three times onto paper.
Mix the eggs and sugar in a large heatproof bowl, place the bowl over a pan of simmering water and beat with electric beaters for 8 minutes or until thick and fluffy. Remove from the heat and beat for another 3 minutes until slightly cooled. Add the melted, cooled butter and flour. Fold in quickly and lightly with a large metal spoon until just combined. Spread between the tins and bake for 15-20 mins [25mins] or until lightly golden and shrinking slightly from the tin. Leave in the tin for 5 mins before turning onto wire rack. Eat same day, or make at night for eating next day. This cake will not keep.

*I had a fan assisted oven until recently and found that I needed to take the heat down by 10degrees and cut the cooking time by 10 mins to the hour. I also tended to double-line the tins, especially for ones that needed longer. My old one conked out just before Christmas and I haven't baked in this new oven yet.

Happy baking! f.

Two days in and two lots of 'culcha' - I'm liking this year already.

Sat, 03 Jan 2009 06:39:45 GMT

So New Year's Day wasn't shaping up much. A. went out to photograph the Triathlon in Holyrood Park, which was to be followed by husky-racing, but all the dog teams had gone off to some do in Norway, so he was stuck taking pictures of knackered wet cyclists. Meanwhile, his mum had phoned up to say she wasn't going out anywhere (code for an invite up). Then the meat I had bought to make steak pie with had gone prematurely off in the fridge. Long, frustrating story short, we ended up having a crap meal in a crap restaurant (while my lovingly made soup and trifle are still untouched), before going to this evening event in the Royal Mile A. had heard about while he was out. Didn't have enough time to leave gran and teenager at home. Bad move.

But still, what it was, was the bit of our most historic street which has our courthouses and cathedral in it was cordoned off. Inside was the Marketplace of Optimism, set out with stalls. At each end were temporary cashpoints, but, on closer inspection, they weren't ordinary cashpoints. There was a person inside, so, when you got to the front of the queue, instead of the screen there was this Flacco-like face giving you instructions and dispensing special banknotes (for free), which you could use in the stalls. The stalls were 'selling' things like heavenly estates, magical makeovers, reiki massages, stories and unusual housewares such as special dusters for your genie lamp. There were male angels wandering about dressed in white suits you could talk to if you were sad and females in hooped skirts you had to confess your sins to. The Royal Mile has many closes (passageways of various sizes, off in both directions) and a lot of things were happening in them. One had fire, one was a forest of bells you could walk through, one of the smaller ones was decked out with false perspective so that it looked like you were peering down a tiled corridor towards a tiny window, where something was going on that you couldn't quite see. There was a train of three gigantic wicker teddy-bears all lit up led through the crowd by liveried attendants, who were holding out large velvet-covered microphones shaped like huge ears to collect people's New Year's wishes, which were then replayed through speakers in the teddies' tummies. There was a steam-driven 'aquaphone,' there were people declaiming poetry from the top of ramparts, projections and tableaux being played out in the windows of various buildings. There was a woman singing a beautiful, haunting song while suspended from a crane in the middle of the street behind St Giles Cathedral. Later she sang a less haunting song about being pissed on New Year's Eve and later still her aerial acrobatics had her bouncing off buildings on both sides of the street. Apparently. I missed it because it had started to rain and I had two grumpy individuals who weren't in the slightest bit impressed who needed to be placated. I actually missed most of what went on because they just stormed through it from top to bottom and I had to get them settled in a cafe before going back to look for A. I'd only just found him when I got a phone call from my son to say Where are you? Come and get us.
Still, sulky teens and septuagenarians aside, much fun.

Tonight, we went to our version of the Witches of Eastwick, mostly because I've been listening to the Sydney one and wanted to get an idea of what was going on visually. Marti Pellow was our Van Horne. He used to be in Wet Wet Wet and I'd expected him to be good at the raw sexuality bit and the singing. However, he isn't a great actor, it must be said, and he pantomimed a little too much for my liking. They'd also screwed around with the songs a bit, I think. Some of them were changed and some replaced and the overall effect was a bit amateur and muddy. No bath scene, BB, though Fidel did flash his bare bum in the second half. Good scene-changing and effects and the three women were excellent, but I left the theatre wishing for a tardis so that I could have seen the Australian production (and you can be sure I put my iPod on as soon as I got home). I have a sudden urge to take up the cello, too. Can't think why.

Tomorrow, well today now, I think we're going back west to photograph some more rocks on beaches. Minus teen, who is at his nanna's. Was hoping to add a photo or two to this post, but A's not converted any of last night's and he's hidden the post-Christmas ones.

Two more days and back at work. Bah.

Hope you're all having fun too.

Ok, so there's a bit of a theme going on

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 02:26:33 GMT

So here's my take on 2008, which for me kind of started in November 2007, when I got involved with the Save the Sideshow campaign, and thence with you lot (you know who you are). Call it mid-life crisis, call it what you will, but I had so much fun (otherwise notable by its absence in my day-to-day existence), it made me feel like life still had possibilities in it.

I think I spent January plugged into my new iPod, when I wasn't dangling from the end of a rope 150 ft or so off the ground. Both were Christmas presents from my A., who I wasn't sure realised I was still there for most of 2007 and quite a while before that. January was a good month.

February was notable for falling out with A., but falling back in in time for Tim Minchin, in the company of one of my new friends,randomosity666 who went on to be a part of all the best bits of the year, Yay for all-night comedy watching and open-topped buses in the snow. Should really call it FebruEbay, cos that's when I started collecting DAAS in earnest.

March was when all our worst fears came to be, when our cat Clara was diagnosed with cancer and we started a round of operations and vet visits. (We thought the second op had been a success in June, but it's back now and all we can do for her is keep her clean and comfy and one day soon we'll be making one last visit.) Notebooks provided a relief, plus listening to all the plans for the handover and other MICF shenanigans.

I contained myself in April when you were at the taping and I was creating a cake for my son's birthday (which he actually enjoyed, for once). Mostly good - Clara was on the mend, lots of Book-related activity to keep my mind off things. Those of you who were at the various events did a lot to keep me connected. Thank you for that.

May was a sad month. We lost some people I knew and some I didn't, in tragic circumstances. We realised our happiness at Clara's recovery was misplaced. Frustrations bred at home, particularly about our incipient Toronto trip (not my idea) and I began to feel surplus to requirements again. I planned to break out, without telling anyone at home. Our youngest cat was relieved of his tomhood and I was sad at the loss of his little furry bollocks. It's how I feel, even though I've never had any of my own.

My escape was in June. I'd chickened out of telling them in advance (either that or I didn't want my son to worry that we were breaking up), so the first A. knew was when he got up early one Saturday morning and I was all dressed and packed and with my little letter ready to leave on the coffee table. He was Ok about it though and I had a great time for a couple of days in Liverpool, watching great comedians, being uplifted by the Festival of Hope (!) and chasing lambananas in the early hours of the morning with a rapidly-becoming very dear friend. Back home, nothing much has changed.

If it's July, it must be Toronto and I have to be simultaneously burnt to a crisp and sniffling with the cold. We meet all the relatives we should, though it's a close-run thing with the furthest-out ones. I chase a sexy reindeer in the departure lounge at Edinburgh and am nearly lost forever in the black hole that is Terminal 5 Heathrow. It's my birthday this month and A. shows me once again that he does get me (so why does he spend the rest of the time making me feel irrelevant?), plus I am showered with gifts and good wishes from overseas. Yays and thankyous.

AUGUST - month of months. I am on festival heat from the moment the first stage dressers appear. My first show is on the 1st (Frank Woodley) and my last on the 31st (Dorian Gray) and there aren't too many days I don't see anything at all. I think I've been to about 35 shows, many of whom were Australians. I've fallen in love with Paul Kelly, spoken to Sammy J. and Damian Callinan, caught the night bus home more often than not, and best of all, seen lots of things with randomosity666 and her friend Ali, who spend a few of the wettest days in town. I used to love the Festival, but somehow being a mum made it easy to ignore, until now. Even A. is bitten by the bug, though he gets over it faster than me.

September is my payback for June. I take them both down to Liverpool to see the giant mechanical spider terrorising the city. We get very wet, but it is spectacular and we have fun, the three of us. We also meet up with Claire again for the second-last night and spend a few hours watching this amazing creature coming along the street and climbing back up the office block she was discovered on. I think I am forgiven for June now. Then, of course, came the fall of the global banking system. Minor point.

October is a month of baking and putting off baking. I can't come up with ideas for my mum and dad's Golden Wedding cake, so I procrastinate until I nearly don't manage to make it. However, I do, with about 30 minutes to spare, though it's not the best I've ever done. A's started his Open University photography course, so I don't get on to the computer much.

November? I don't know what happened to November, or most of December for that matter. It all just seemed to melt away and the leisurely opportunities for shopping melted too. Any advances I've made in the past few years are undone when I suddenly realise I have a week to get almost all of the presents. Claire does me the great honour of coming up to see me once more before she goes and we share a last evening of comedy together before she flies back to Oz. It's full-circle, the muddy patches I pointed out in the Gardens back in February now covered by the skating rink and stalls that caused them. I get sick on the way home - I hope she didn't.

My Christmas cards this year include cards from several states and they are all much appreciated. As are you lot. Thanks for making 2008 bearable when bad and often great. I look forward to seeing what we can make of 2009 together.

A very happy new year to all of you, from one side of the world to the other.

*Hogmanay hugs*, f.