Breakfast of Champions – Referendum, Writing, and Travel

Yesterday I finally weighed in on the Independence debate. What do you mean, last minute? There is a WHOLE DAY to go yet!

Anyway, I wrote about it on Facebook, and then on tumblr. Then, for good measure I copied it onto a site I’d not seen before, WriteHere.com which is easy to join and format free for those who can’t be bothered with the fiddlearseing you have to do on WordPress and have to do a bit on tumblr.

Apparently we will know the outcome ‘breakfast time’ on Friday.

As a Londoner for more than 25 years, clearly, I don’t get a vote. I am, however, happy that this debate has happened whatever the outcome. As Josh White puts it in his post Free of London in Souciant

“The independence of Scotland would also humiliate the Cameron government, possibly beyond repair, showing up the Conservatives as a vulnerable force. This is likely the case even if Scotland gains greater powers and remains within the UK. The Left should be asking itself, “Why haven’t we been able to undermine the Con-Dems in this way?”

Whatever the map looks like on Friday morning, the terrain is already changing.

***

Speaking of blackberries (oh come on, we all know that was the elephant in the room!) it’s been a year since I read out Pattern Recognition at Have a Word and I’ve written very little since, I’ve barely even blogged, and that is a SAD THING for me. So in the summer I started a Facebook group First Thursday Writers and The Like with the idea of holding a salon at home. This was possible to consider because my new flat is large and central, and I got the idea from having had hopes dashed of doing a course in Narrative Non Fiction at City Uni. I had to recognise that I am really not well enough to do a full time course. After I recovered from the inevitable soul crushing I looked at short courses, and I noticed that, for people who had done a short course, they were offering a monthly meet up course for people who had completed one of the term long courses. I was attracted to that but thought HANG ON because I know enough writers and creative people with writing projects to drum up a group myself and have them come to me, which, in my quest for less travel to events literally couldn’t be easier to get to. So I started a Facebook group and invited people who either lived in London or who might be likely to visit once a month, and got started. We had our first meeting this month and there was only three of us, but we had a really productive session. I read out Pattern Recognition again, and also some other snippets. First of all, it had been some time since I’d looked at it and I thought it would have sort of ‘gone off’ and would need ripping apart, but it actually hung together quite well. The other thing I got as feedback was that the other snippets I’d read out, which I’d been seeing as random beginnings of other projects also hung well with that piece. It gave me some heart to carry on, even though it will inevitably be very slowly.

Today I opened up the Facebook page to anyone anywhere who is writing and wants to get posts from the group – it’s mainly me posting in it just now, and I have been sharing stuff about writing, mainly to remind people that the group still exists, but someone commented that they liked the posts and I thought, well then, why not make the page open to anyone to follow, even if they will never make it to London for a meeting, after all, isn’t that what the internet is good for?

***

Between moving house and messing with medication I’ve not traveled further than Brighton this year. This is a pisser because I really benefitted from extra warmth last year. One way and another I haven’t been able to get a shot of warmth this year, beyond the hot spell in London, and, being unwell I’ve not wanted to travel alone. I had a shot at meeting a friend for a holiday, but for the past few months I’ve not been able to walk for more than ten minutes at a time without a river of pain down my shoulders and back, and that’s without carrying anything. I’d be miserable being abroad if it didn’t make me feel more well, and with hotels as well as flights I felt it was too much of a financial risk, too. Enter Ken with an invite to Munich! Exactly NO hotter than here, but equally, a cheap flight away, a change of scenery, and staying at his makes this a less scary prospect. We have 24/7’d before, and I know he won’t mind if I can’t manage more than a bit of dog cuddling, epic conversations and cake eating, and if I have it in me he knows all the local walks, the cultural stuff, and *whisper* if I am well enough I want to go to Weimar and see the Bauhaus museum.

IF.

 

Modern Type, a Quiet Moment, and Goodbye Pattie Poo

1916: Edward Johnston’s hand-drawn alphabet for the Underground

NINETEEN SIXTEEN this was designed in! Not even the 30s, which is what it looks like to me. So lovely. I have to say I am not overly interested in typography or signage – to the point that I very much got someone else to teach it when I was running m’course. Nevertheless, I do appreciate how very modern this lettering is – predating Bayer’s Bauhaus typeface by nine years.

Which, of course, I do like as well. I wonder if, having been brought up in London, I am predisposed to love the underground lettering and signage? I mean, I can see that the Paris metro is pretty, but I feel an actual love for the LU. While we are musing, I wonder if I would feel less attached to London if the signage was changed? Not that they’d EVER do that. There would be uproar.

When I bought a typewriter to write my dissertation (it cost the same to buy an electric typewriter as to pay someone to type it out for you, what people did in the OLDEN DAYS, YO) I chose courier but as soon as I had my first computer, a classic mac (second hand) it was helvetica for me, and then ariel after that. Sans serif looks better on a screen.

***

I have today on my own with the dogs. After a few days on my own at the beginning of the Hectorium I had to beg Ten to come back and help me, because it was all too horribly much. However, the dogs have largely settled down together, and Hector is nearly completely house trained, so it’s easier to be on my own with them. I am enjoying a quiet, non fighty spell on the bed while I write this. Soon there will be feeding time, and then a walk, and then I will be exhausted and only want to watch tv.

***

Since last we met, dear reader, my beloved auntie Pat has died. Here I am with her at my cousin’s wedding nearly three years ago.

me and patty poo

The good thing is that she wasn’t particularly ill. She was old, and quite disabled, but had just been to Spain and enjoyed herself ogling at men’s legs and drinking ‘something naughty’ in the sunshine, so there is nothing to be sad about really, except that I liked her. For a while I spent a fair bit of time with her, too. She was cared for at home, and would go into respite care every few weeks for a few days. I went to visit her there and would bring her a flask of gin & tonic or a film to watch or whatever. There was one time I found a ginko leaf on the ground on my way to see her. I gave her the leaf and told her all I know about the ginko tree – it is so old that it has no parasites, so the leaves are always pristine, it is known as the ‘memory tree’ and people take ginko to improve their memories. When I left she said ‘thank you for the leaf’ and I know she meant it. She was the sort of person who would prefer a leaf and a story to any amount of fancy flowers.

Makes me think of the Brian Patten poem ‘A blade of Grass’

You ask for a poem.
I offer you a blade of grass.
You say it is not good enough.
You ask for a poem.

I say this blade of grass will do.
It has dressed itself in frost,
It is more immediate
Than any image of my making.

You say it is not a poem,
It is a blade of grass and grass
Is not quite good enough.
I offer you a blade of grass.

You are indignant.
You say it is too easy to offer grass.
It is absurd.
Anyone can offer a blade of grass.

You ask for a poem.
And so I write you a tragedy about
How a blade of grass
Becomes more and more difficult to offer,

And about how as you grow older
A blade of grass
Becomes more difficult to accept.

Which is one way of saying that despite her chronological age – 86, I think – she was never ever old. We shared a love of the tv series The Camomile Lawn which we had both seen so many times we could quote virtually the whole script. The series was, unfortunately, taped rather than filmed, so the visual quality is awful, but the whole series is on youtube, and the sound has cleaned up nicely.

I love the soundtrack which is a variation on Ravel’s string quartet. I had it as a ring tone for ages.