Words and birds

Words are like caged wild birds.
Once you set them free, they can never be recaptured.
One error is all that is needed.

Releasing more will never return the first one back to the cage.

Ian

I learned a new slang word the other day, courtesy of friend Debbie.
Following on from the post on Poles the other day, the term is "Ians" - meaning East Europeans, who seem to be everywhere in service these days.

We had a coffee in the cafe on the Downs t the weekend, staffed almost entirely by Ians.

Santa Dog

Santa Dog played at Joe Public's last night. The have a good strain of jangly guitar pop or rock, with decent tunes. I can't see them ever being a great commercial success, but I hope I'm wrong. Rowena's voice is clear and forceful, and Martin's drumming keeps the whole grop together. Rob & Rob, the guitarists, are more than competent.

Joe's Public's is a cellar club or bar, with a good atmosphere, low ceilings and just the right lighting levels. And the drink's cheap. The clientele were friendly, ranging from mid-teenagers to (cough) my age with a preponderance of 20-ishs. I was there mainly because Martin's a friend, and I like the music.

Overall, I reckon that Santa Dog and their support, the Half-Rabbits, gave a better show than Amy Whinehouse, although her musicians were probably more skilled. The intimacy of a small club helps, of course, but so does a decent voice and a respect for the audience.

********

And if anyone from Paris or environs is reading this, Santa Dog will play at the Fleche d'Or in Paris on the 1st December. Entry will be free, although it's supposedly a special night for militant lesbians. So go along!

Beer

I'm not very good at drinking beer.
Last night was the first time for months when I drank more than a pint of the stuff. I didn't finish my second pint, but I still feel sick and headachey this morning. And that was the effect of lager. I don't know what ale would have done to me. My father's got the same metabolism; he also finds that when drinking beer, be gets sick before he gets drunk.

I'm better with red wine, and like it much more. The trouble is, I can drink about the same volume as with beer, feel fine the next morning, but get much too drunk. Cider is good, as well.

The Poles

Walking down the road and in the shops, I am amazed at how many languages I hear. Spanish and French are common, German and Somali and Arabic occasional, but Polish and other Slavic languages are everywhere. They say that 600,000 Poles have arrived in Britain since Poland acceded to the EU, and I believe it.

It has become accepted that Polish migrants are honest, hard-working and competent. Some of them don't speak English too well, but they try. And why are they here? I guess it's because of the money, event though they tend to be on minimum salaries. That's not always the case. Cleaners in Bristol earn about £7 / hour, or €10-11, which is four or five times what they can get at home. A cleaner I used to know, who has returned to Torun to work as a University lecturer, earns much less over there. Their money is cash-in-hand, and I presume they don't volunteer to pay taxes. The supermarket check-out girl earns about £6 an hour, which is enough to make a living for a single person, even if it's not enough to raise a family.

Amy Winehouse

We went off to see Amy Winehouse sing last night.
Both of her albums have been loud, jazzy torch-music lite. She's doing well in the charts at the moment, with her single "Rehab".

Last night, the last night of her tour, she was poor. Some of that was due to Amy's choice of dress for the evening. She wore a very short, low-cut dress that kept riding up her thighs. It looked good but obviously made her uncomfortable as she kept pulling the hem down, distracting from her singing. Her tits almost popped out of her cleavage, so she had to pull the bustier of the dress up over her nipples - and again, this interfered with her singing. For a place with good acoustics, her voice was muddied, and her rapport with the audience was mixed: it started poorly, but improved towards the end.

The backing band was superb. There were two black guys in white tailsuits, dancing & doo-wopping in time, and a baritone saxophonist producing deep rhythmic sounds that just can't be heard from a home hi-fi.

For a skinny tiny waif of a twenty-year old, she wasn't bad. I'd love to see her in fifteen years' time, when her voice has mellowed and gained depth. And preferably in a small club, rather than a large heaving venue like the Academy last night.

On the whole, I preferred the classical choral music of Beethoven & Haydn which I listened to last week. Tomorrow, with luck, I'll go to listed to my mates' band, Santa Dog.

2009

Politics in 2009 will be interesting.

The most powerful people in three western countries will be women.
In France, Ségolène Royal; in Germany, Angela Merkel will be Chancellor; and in the USA, Hilary Clinton will be President.

How will the world change?
Will it make discussions with Muslim countries more difficult, or more productive? I look forward to finding out.

Old ladies

I was really impressed by Jim's decisiveness on Sunday, when he bought a painting for his own birthday. I was even more impressed that it was one of the best in the show. I love the way that the light, the mud and the water interplay beneath the ladies' feet. It was reproduced both on the local BBC website and in Venue, and won the "Best in Exhibition" award.

But those ladies get around !

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bristol/content/image_galleries/rwa_gallery.shtml?1

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2456284,00.html

Twenty-five years

Moonface & I aren't very good at celebrating. We note special occasions, but rarely make an effort to commemorate them in any way. We're also bad at giving and choosing presents for ourselves & other people.

In September, we had spent twenty-five years in this house, and all we did to celebrate was to open a nice bottle of wine. Twenty-five years! We moved in as a young couple, taking over from a woman in her eighties, and now we are middle-aged with children almost grown and leaving.

We've changed the house, but retained as many of the original features as we could. When we moved in, the plumbing and electricity was very much of the 1930's to '50's. Now it's mainly 1980's and 90's. We ought to renovate the kitchen again; but although it is tatty everything is convenient and working. More importantly, the layout is functional: it's an easy kitchen to use.

Buying this house was one of the three best decisions of my life. (I'm having doubts about one of the others)

Too much

Last weekend shattered me: we did too much.
I shouldn't complain, I get bored when there's no company.
So what happened? On Friday evening, Moonface & I went to eat with friends using the American supper principle: everyone takes something to eat & something to drink. The result was that we all ate loads and drank more, talking until midnight. Our companions were the Hostelling crowd, and we were trying to sort out the arrangements for New Year at The Held.

On Saturday I had my usual potter around the Gloucester Road doing the shopping and talking to people in the street, which was very relaxing. In the evening I went out with Frank to listen to some choral music. It wasn't a very original programme (Beethoven, Haydn, Schubert) but it was very well sung. I love the way that I fall into a reverie when listening to classical music; it's so different from the stimulation that I receive from rock. Walking home, Frank insisted on a quick half. We found a pub that I hadn't been into for years (The Bell in Kingsdown) and had more than a half. The pub was just as it should be: not too quiet nor noisy, with plenty of seats, good beer and low lights.

On Sunday, two friends that we hadn't seen for years came over. Jim & Nicky are country solicitors, but still rabidly & refreshingly left-wing. we talked politics, visited both the Museum & the RWA Autumn Exhibition, and ate venison left over from my road-kill in the summer.

Jim bought a wonderful picture at the exhibition. More of that anon.

Le Boulot IV

Well, now the company has seceded from the parent, we need to make some money.
Where from?

The software product is half-finished, there are few immediate prospects, and in six months I haven't sold anything. I didn't expect to, and I told the boss so before I started. He thought that a typical sales cycle would be three or four months. But although the pipeline's filling, all the sales are for early next year. My colleague who has been here for over a year has sold about £15k's worth, all in all. It's dire. My telesales guy has not produced a single appointment for me.....I've been driving too much. How can we survive?

Eddie

Eddie's ill.
It's rumoured that he has emphysema, although he says that it's just a reaction to the water in Czech, where he visits most summers. The last few times that i have seen him, he has been gaunt and grey, shrunken with beady bright eyes behind his glasses.

I guess that he's sixty, now, and looks his age. He's going out with a twenty-five year old woman - god knows how he does it.

When we first knew him, thirty years ago, he was a dashing, rich young man who was courting one of Moonface's flatmates. From then onwards, his life seems to have been a downward spiral. He was born into a family with money from brewing, and briefly attended Eton. (He says. Nothing's for sure with Eddie.) In his late twenties, he ran an advertising agency, told us that he was nearly a millionaire and drove fast cars. He sailed yachts, too.

Then he lost the agency, disappeared to Taunton and lived a strange life with money from un-named sources. He married, had three children, separated.

In the early eighties Eddie was sailing a yacht in the Channel with two of his nephews, his older brother's sons. A storm blew up so they tried to anchor off the Dorset coast. Eddie jumped ashore to moor the yacht, but the offshore rip was too strong and the boat went out to sea again. The yacht was wrecked, and Eddie's two nephews drowned. Eddie survived on-shore and - I suppose - lost his mind. He's never worked properly again, nor undertaken any activity demanding responsibility.

Since then he moved to Bristol, met and lived with a Czech woman with whom he had two more children, then left her under unpleasant circumstances and moved to Somerset again. He can be wonderful company, or totally unbearable. He's a friend and a burden, difficult when he is manic. I must see him again soon.

Made you cry.

I feel like a bastard.

This lunchtime, I was walking back home from the shops, up a narrow Victorian street of terraced houses, lined with cars on both sides. Because it's narrow, it's one-way. Walking up it, I followed a small red car which was driving the wrong way. Amazingly, it got almost to the top of the road and parked without meeting any other vehicle heading down towards it.

A youngish bespectacled woman got out of the car, and walked down the pavement towards me.
"Congratulations, " I said. "You were lucky"
"Why?" she asked.
"Because you've just driven a hundred yards the wrong way up a one-way street without meeting anything"

"Oh," she replied. "I'm sorry" and she burst into tears.
"I've got flu, and I needed to get to the bank, and I shouldn't be driving, and I just want to go home, and, and,......."
"And no, you can't do anything to help, "
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to...."
More tears.

I feel like such a bastard.

It's a Tribe

At the weekend, Tom, Moonface & I visited Southampton for the 18th Birthday party for my youngest nephew, Toby. The upper picture is of Toby with his two brothers & Tom. Nearly all of Toby's extended family was there, including my parents and his other grandmother. Even my younger brother and his child bride attended, and we haven't seen them for years. The only person missing was Rio, my daughter.

When I was young it was rare to know children of divorced or single parents. Now it's very common and serial relationships are as normal as monogamy. From the age of four, one of my daughter's friends was known as "Jessie Two-mummies" since the girl had two mothers but no (current) father.

Toby's parents [my brother and his girlfriend] separated a couple of years ago but remain very close both geographicaly (?) and in friendship. The boys drift happily between their parents' houses, and both new families go away together. On Saturday night, Toby had the hired restaurant room decorated by his mother's new man; his father's new wife-to-be was there with one of her daughters.

We ate, we drank, we talked. We didn't argue - which is amazing for a set of relatives who don't see each other very often.

Spiders

En route to Southampton to meet the family for a party, Moonface Tom and I took a diversion to take a walk along the edge of the Marlborough Downs, overlooking the Vale of Pewsey. The day was crisp, clear and cold, with a low bright sun. The grass was covered with millions of strands of gossamer which glistened when it caught the sun and swung in the wind.

The dewponds which are the only source of water high on the chalky downs, were half-full. Most of them have silted up and become overgrown with weeds, after decades of neglect. They look similar to the occasional bomb-craters which also pit the short grass, souvenirs of the last war and the plethora of old air-fields in the area.

The Chapel

One hundred and fifty years ago, the Rudland area of the North York Moors was more populated than now. The farms had more workers, and the area was pitted (literally) with small coal and ironstone mines.
In that religious age, they needed somewhere to pray. So in 1875, they built a Primitive Methodist chapel at the edge of the moors. By the 1920's, the mines were closing and the farmhands were moving to the cities, so the Chapel became less and less used. By 1960, it was redundant.

In 1964, my parents bought the Chapel, just a stone shell and a couple of perches of land. It cost ( I think) about threee months' salary for my father. I loved the place, the setting for socialising, adventures and growing up. Most of the time my parents drove us there, but as I reached my mid teens, it was only a long cycle from home across the moors or around the roads. I went there with family, with friends, with girlfriends.

Most of the time, the Chapel was pretty basic inside: damp, with the minimum of comforts. However crude it was in my memory, it's still one of my favourite places in the world.

Last weekend, I visited the Chapel for the first time since my parents sold it in 2000. It was a relevation. Instead of being a shell and holiday cottage, it was lived in. The new owners had extended and re-roofed, installed more power and conveniences. They have turned the Chapel into a home. The kitchen and bathroom are modern, the floors are carpeted, and the main room now has a mezzanine. The new owners invitetd us in for coffee, and were truly hospitable. I'm so pleased that it's still a happy place.