On Dreams and poetry...

Dreams are funny things. Normal dreams are fine - upon waking up, you normally either a) forget about the whole thing, or b) think "mmmm, that was a nice dream, wish it was real" or possibly sometimes c) wake up screaming with cranberry jelly encasing your whole body. c) isn't actually too bad, as you do then get eat the yummy jelly. So those ones are ok.

The trickier ones are the ones you have sort of halfway between sleeping and waking. Or between waking and sleeping. The dozetime. Stuff dreamt of there is a bit more plausible. It's maybe cos the dreams stick more in proper memory than dream memory and so linger longer. And so you can wake with the complete uncertainty as to whether something happened or not. Which can be confusing.

But they are not as bad as the times when you have a dream within which you go to sleep and have a dream. How dull/depressed/mental must you be to have to have dreams in which you need to escape your dreams by dreaming. And it gets confusing when you wake up from one of them but you're not sure which.

And where does all the detail come from? I'm sure there have been times when I've dreamt of being in (say) a library, and I've been able to pull books off the shelf and read them like real books. In the morning the details go, so there's no way of knowing whether you made up some great book wordings, or just have a memory of the contents without ever actually having dreamt them. Same thing with songs too. If I could wake up and remember the stuff and write it down, I could have some better songs. I believe Coleridge actually (well allegedly) could do the dream poetry thing. "Kubla Khan" was apparently dreamt and ended unfinished because he was interrupted by a stranger knocking on his dooor. I think. Ok, test for me: How much of said poem can I still remember:

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan,
A stately pleasuredome decree.
With walls and ???? girdled round
and ???? measureless to man ???

Hmmm. Less than I was hoping for. I'm sure I used to have the whole thing committed to memory (for no good reason). Original version is here for anyone interested. Not making my recollection look too good... So the question you're all asking... Which poems can I still remember? Not many. "Jabberwocky" I think is stuck in there for ever. But otherwise just fragments and lines. And I can't blame my memory losses on being interupted by men from Porlock. I don't even know where that is.

Also never rule out the possibility that your mind is being messed with each night by the controllers.

Still sunny!

Went into town earlier to pick up a sandwich for lunch. Still sunny so I broke out the sunglasses and light jacket. Bought a nice sandwich and then sat in The Museum Gardens to eat it, read the paper, listen to some tunes and enjoy the unseasonal weather. Would have been better if there hadn't been a large group of schoolchildren sitting nearby scaring pigeons. I'm sure they could have occupied themselves more usefully by sitting quietly and colouring some pictures. But, no. Pigeon chasing was their pastime of choice.

Summer has arrived!

Today has been lovely and sunny. And so we spent the sunny evening in a bar in a cellar. Not outside where it was nice.

And why was it sunny? I have to put the 'blame' on Mr Daniel Wylie. His new (possibly first) album is out today, and he is someone whose songs can do nothing but evoke summer. His old band, The Cosmic Rough Riders, were brilliant summer sunny stuff. And he still is, and they have carried on without him and still are great. So it's like two for one at Budgens, but with summery bands.

Chick Lit

The Jane Austen quote I was aiming at in the pub earlier:
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife"

I was reasonably close... So how true is the statement in today's liddle world?

Doh!

Sometimes my capacity for doing and saying really stupid things surprises even me. And sometimes they are so dumb that they deserve to be shared with the world. Here are two from the wedding reception last night.

1. Two TV shows on the telly. Father Ted and Black Books. Father Ted stars Ardol O'Hanlon. Black Books stars Dylan Moran. For the past x years I have been utterly convinced that they were the same person. I hadn't quite registered that they had different names. I had noticed that they looked different, but had assumed that it was a haircut thing. So it was only a little bit embarassing that at dinner I brought up this topic and was corrected by a middle aged man who probably thought I was absolutely insane. They look very different! And have different names!

2. Little sweets called Love Hearts. Compacted sherbert with sweet nothings written on them. "You're nice", "I love you", "Text me" sort of things. We all had a mini pack of them at our dinner places. Yum! Eventually I got round to opening them and was quite happy to find the first one said "just married" on it. I figured it would make a great thing to give to the bride and groom. They weren't around at the time, but I left it with Cathy's mum. Went back to my seat, started on the rest of the sweets. They all said the same thing on them. There were about 1000 Love Hearts in the room saying "Just Married" on them. Felt a bit silly...

Today I didn't go and see the meercats

Day two of the holiday. Wedding is in about an hour, but I've nothing to do until then. Went for a little walk this morning, a couple of miles up the road to Ambleside. And back. Had a cup of tea outside a nice little cafe there, which was my seventh of the morning (!).

It's a reasonably nice weather day. Bit cloudy, but warm enough. Three things I will not be doing this evening:
1. Cake Diving
2. Swearing at motorists.
3. Laughing at the big wooden squirrel.

And there is a huge monkey puzzle tree outside the hotel. Apparently (according to Jenny), there is the largest such tree in Europe somewhere near here. It may or may not be the one outside. It's not easy to tell just by looking. Asking the tree "Hello Mr Tree. Are you the biggest tree of your kind in these parts?" will not tend to evoke an answer. Because trees can't talk.

Hello! I've gone away! Can you still hear me?

Well since I'm out in The Lake District, I'm unable to blog properly - not intending to pay the extortionate hotel phone costs. 25p a unit sounds expensive to me and I've no idea how long a "unit" is. So I'm writing this anyway and I'll post it (with backdated times if I can) once I get home. As if I'd never been away, except I'll be writing about things I wouldn't be writing about if I was at home.

The hotel seems pleasant enough. I've got two twin beds rather than a double which is a bit annoying. Even though I spent pretty much the whole of my first 21 years of life in single beds, now they just seem way too small. Like I'm going to fall out if I twitch the wrong way. My friend Jenny is in the room next door, currently I'm waiting for her to have a bath. I expect she'd thank me for letting the world know that. When she's done, I intend to head down to the bar and start getting drunk. Since it is a wedding tomorrow and all. Then head over to the other hotel (where the actual wedding is) after dinner to see the happy couple on the final day of singledom.

The train journey here went fairly well - had to stand for about 20 mins (between Manchester and Preston I think) even though I had a seat booked. I guess I could have booted the person out of my seat, but I'd have felt bad. So best to stand and sulk instead. And had to wait twenty minutes for a taxi at Windermere Station which was a pain. Stop complaining already! I'm here to have a good time, not spend the whole time moaning! Happy thoughts. And I have some happy thoughts I think.

The hangover from yesterday has pretty much gone now. I think I drank too much wine. And I think also that I mentioned that earlier. I appear to have banged my forehead somehow - it's a bit sore and there's a small red mark. No recollection of how I might have done that. Got a load of free drinks paid for by The Company, so I reckon a small bang on the head is a price worth paying. Hey - wouldn't it be great if you could always get free drinks just by hitting yourself a bit! Might be confusing cause and effect a bit there.

And now Jenny has turned up (all clean now) so I'll leave this here.

Fancy a brew?

I mentioned a while ago that this day was coming, and here it is: The final day that that the joyous duo, Mark and Lard are on Radio 1. Both are moving to new stations, Mark Radcliffe to late night Radio 2 and Marc Riley to 6Music. They've given me many happy faces during their time on the radio. The old ten til midnight slot got me through university. I think I wrote a letter to them once, but never sent it. No recollection now what it was about, but I think I'd found a funny picture in a newspaper.

And then their brief time on the breakfast show... the only word that really sums that up is "Legendary". Pixie dancing...

And then to the afternoon show - sadly at a time when I've never been able to listen on a regular basis, due to being at work. Favourite part of that one? Probably Lard's vinyl record collection. Old songs that skip all over the place in such a way so that the songs are much more offensive and funny than the original artists intended them to be. The final show today - hopefully I'll be able to listen to it on the train if the reception holds up. Nicely, I'll be reaching Manchester where the show is based, just as they finish broadcasting. I'm expecting crowds on the street.

And of course it's not only their radio show they'll be remebered for. They formed an amazing band, The Shirehorses and released two great albums - "The worst album in the world...ever...EVER!" and "Our Kid Eh". Both far too funny. Lard used to be in The Fall - an interesting and useless fact. I'd write more, but really to need to go and get that train soon.

I'll miss you guys.

Stupid wine

Head. Ache. Ow. And I need to do my packing and iron a shirt. Shouldn'd be wasting time writing this nonsense. Stupid wine. Head. Ache.

Going to a wedding

I'm off to a wedding tomorrow, which is quite exciting (Congrats Cathy + Rich) . I think it's the first wedding I'll have been to which is the wedding of one of my friends, as opposed to family, one of my sister's friends, or one of my ex-girlfriend's friends. So I need to iron some shirts this afternoon. And work out what I need to take. And make sure I've got all the chargers I need - potentially at least 4, which is just dumb. Why can't all my things use the same bloomin' charger? Or at the very least, why can't items made by the same company use the same charger??? Grrr....

So anyway, back to the wedding. One thing I can't remember - are you supposed to give the happy couple a card if you actually turn up? I know that people who don't go send cards, but what about us that do? I've bought one anyway to be on the safe side.

Presidential Bands

Here's a new game, we all like games don't we? Right - easy rules. All you have to do is name bands with US president's surnames in their names. And I'm not allowing silly ones. So, for example, "The Dead Kennedys" is allowed, because it is a band name and contains the surname of a president (Kennedy for anybody really stupid that has stumbled along to this post). But "The Clinton Boon Experience" is not allowed as it should just be Clint, not Clinton. Oh, and solo artists don't count either (special arbitrary rule)

I have eight (whooh!) so far: -
- The Dead Kennedys
- Carter, The Unstoppable Sex Machine
- Bush
- The Kennedy Soundtrack
- Lincoln
- Grant Lee Buffalo
- Madison Avenue
- Wilson Pickett

Any more anyone? Alternatively, can you do the same with UK Prime Ministers (bit harder...)

Reader Survey Results!

The results of the reader survey are now in. Let's get to know one another...

Q1: Hello! Who and how are you?
50% of you are fine. That's nice. And 17% of you are drunk. The rest are doing ok too, in less specific ways. Oh, and I'm fine too, thanks for asking. Isn't this fun?

Q2: Do you like the colours displayed on this page? Would you prefer something bluer?
Interesting answers here. Most popular was along the lines of "Pink's a bit gay". The only specific answer to the second question was quite anti-blue.

Q3: Have you or a friend ever been offended by anything written on these pages?
I'm not someone who normally sets out to cause offense, so it was sad to hear that I have offended 1/3 of you. I did this by mentioning the excellent band, Franz Ferdinand, who appear to be disliked by some people, and by talking about beards, or rather the removal of said items with razors. Ha! Like I care. Franz F are one of the best new bands to have emerged last year, "Darts of Pleasure" was fantastic. And beards are and always will be funny.

Q4: Are you a foxy single girl?
83% of you claim to not be foxy single girls - A surprising result? Not really. What is more surprising was that one of the people in this category claimed that although he himself was not a FSG, he had met some recently. There was no evidence provided as to the truth of this claim, so I believe it is safe to treat it as a delusion.

Q5: Do you enjoy my topics? Would you like more: a) honest critiques of my life; b) info on my (lack of) love life; c) poetry
33% of you would like more poetry! Whilst that isn't quite a majority, I'm in charge here, I make the rules, so there will be more poetry. In fact, same thing applies to a) and b). It's my blog and I'll blog what I want to :-) You don't have to read it.

Q6: I have recorded several cover versions of songs into mp3. Would you like to be able to hear them?
A unanimous "yes" here! You are all suffering from insania! Ok, just wait for me to get something set up. And of course you now also have my original songs to look forward to too!

Q7: Do you have a blog or website?
Some of you do, some of you don't. Ones that work I am linking to on the left. Bert, you could try writing something longer than a line one day?

Q8: Who killed Laura Palmer?
One correct answer to this one. Well done respondent no. 5. I shan't reveal the killer here, as I don't want to spoil it for those of you who never saw Twin Peaks. But to the person who thought Cock Robin killed Laura, I must sadly disillusion you. Cock Robin did not kill anyone, and was in fact himself killed by the sparrow. If you click here, you can see the whole story along with some charming pictures. Incidentally - I was quite dubious about what I'd find when I typed "Cock Robin" into Google...

Q9: If you are someone who knows me, what should I do differently in life in order to be more successful?
Too lazy to recount the various answers here, but suffice to say, I have listened to each and every one of you.

Q10: If you answered "Yes" to Q4, where have you been all my life?
USA, Australia and Tokyo apparently. Given the answers to Q4, I find these answers slightly surprising.

Thanks again to everyone who took time to answer this. What was the point of it again...?

This is not a song about politics...

Watch out world. I've now written and recorded my first ever song. Not the happiest song I've ever heard (though it is the happiest song I've ever written!). And I think I've got more in me.

Results of the reader survey should be out later. Bet you're all really excited by that prospect.

From the East Coast of Yorkshire to the South Pacific

I was out on a walk in the countryside yesterday, over at Robin Hood's Bay. The pictures on the village website have somehow managed to make the village look quite flat. This is odd as I distinctly remember the place having a really steep long hill which a large part of the village was on. Never trust a photograph...

Quite a pleasant walk, the rain held off, and we only hit a few snags. After a couple of miles we came to a farm. The book that was guiding us around the paths of North Yorkshire indicated that we should go through the farm. Our eyes indicated that this would not be possible. Unless we actually went inside and through the farmhouse ("Hello Mrs Farmer! Yes, thank you, we'd love a glass of homemade ginger beer!"), or climbed over a digger that was thoroughly blocking the only other possible egress. Hmmm, what to do... Luckily a farmhand appeared and gestured to us, in his own yokel fashion, that we should climb over the digger. What fun. So then onwards.

The other main danger was the countryside itself. The clifftop walk is falling slowly but steadily into the sea. Not with us on it (this time at least), but there were a few bits where the landslips had been obviously fairly recent. We survived. Which suited me as plummeting 80m to my splatty death on jagged rocks is not my idea of a perfect Sunday afternoon. I don't recall Lou Reed singing "It's such a perfect day, I'm glad I fell to my doom". On a (vaguely) related topic, I was reading today about the origins of bungee jumping. Apparently it originated on Pentecost Island in the South Pacific. The natives there used to find a big tree, strip the surrounding area, and till the soil below the tree until it was all soft. The menfolk (isn't it always the men that do this sort of thing?) would then, as part of some kind of rite or ritual, climb one by one to the top of the tree, tie vines to their ankles, make a speech, and jump off, headfirst. Note that they were diving onto what was effectively the floor, rather than a wussy river or lake as people tend to do today. Most of the time they survived.

The reason why they do this? Apprently several thousand years ago, a man there had been beating his wife, and she ran away. Sensible girl. She ran into the forest, but the man chased her, presumbaly because he hadn't quite finished his beating. She climbed a tree to get away, but the husband followed, so in desperation, she tied vines to her ankles and jumped off. The husband followed but neglected to use vines. She survived, he didn't. So now the men practice jumping off trees with vines attached to them, so that should they have occasion to beat a wife all the way up a tree in future, they'll not make the same mistake as their ancestor. A lesson for us all there.

So then onwards to Whitby (that's me travelling onwards, not the inhabitants of Pentecost Island. I've finished that little story now) for Fish and Chips. I think we may have eaten in Whitby's top nitespot. Really. The party hadn't really kicked off yet (or indeed started), but the food was certainly better than expected given the quality of the venue. I think I shall not visit in the evening though. It looked grim.

International Terrorism - A Survival Guide

The people in the news and government etc seem to be warning us of a potential Al Qaeda attack here in the UK. Scary stuff. So I've been thinking about ways that we can help mitigate any adverse effects from such a strike. Here are Lint's top 10 ways of avoiding harm from terrorists:

1. Chemical and biological attacks can potentially be quite nasty. They may cause skin irritation or lead to a mild cough. However, extensive research has led me to believe that there is a simple potential solution: the damp cloth hankerchief. Simply placing said item over your nose and mouth guarantees to stop all known small scale items entering your system. I am yet to determine whether monographed hankies have additional helpful properties - watch this space.

2. Terrorists sometimes use disguises in order to pass unnoticed in our society. This means that anyone could be a bad person. The man who sold you the newspaper this morning. The woman who checked your ticket on the train. The guy jogging by the lake earlier. The small boy stood 4 ft behind you at the moment (no! don't look, it'll alert him!). Hence you need a foolproof method of terrorist detection. Here's the one I recommend: If you suspect someone of being a terrorist, Shoot Them Dead with your crossbow. Then there is no way they will commit an heinous act, even if they had no intention of doing so in the first place (this tip sponsored by George and Tony).

3. Avoid dark places. I've seen a lot of films and often bad stuff happens to people in dark places (caves, attics, cinemas, KFC etc). Terrorists do bad stuff. Hence you will maximise your chances of survival by staying out of the dark. Thinking about this more closely, you may lengthen your life by staying out of KFC full stop.

4. Live in a quiet hamlet miles from any likely targets. You'll be safe from terrorism. Sadly though, if English crime novels are to believed, this will give you maybe a 90% chance of being murdered by somebody that nobody suspected until page 254. A similar thing happens on TV crime dramas, but you need to replace "page 254" with "the 84th minute".

5. Practice running away from loud noises really quickly.

6. It's common knowledge that 86.3% of terrorists have beards. If you see a bearded gentleman or lady near you, it is therefore your responsibility to alert all people near you to this fact. Recommended phrases are "Excuse me - there's a man over there with facial hair! Be on your guard!", "Watch out everyone, we may have a beard situation" and "Arrrggghhhh! I have the fear! Help! Beard! Help!".

7. To avoid being caught in a terrorist incident, simply avoid all likely places that could be targeted. And also avoid all other people - they might be suicide bombers, or smelly. I make no promises that this is easy, but a couple of good safe hang outs spring to mind - Lincolnshire is an obvious one, as nothing interesting ever has or ever will happen there. Also The Moon should be reasonably safe for a few years, but you will need to provide your own Human-suitable environment, and watch out for the Monolith. They are already 3 years late discovering it, but we all know it's there...

8. Keep practising the running away - really, it's important! Run!

9. Stay away from bins. These are apparently great places to put explosive devices which is why they were all removed from our train stations years and years ago. There are still bins elsewhere however, and they could be dangerous so try and stay as far away from them as possible. If you need to dispose of rubbish, either practise throwing it into a bin from a safe distance (ie approximately 4 miles), or work on becoming one of those people who can eat anything - paper, cardboard, metal, plastic etc. Also, this skill will impress your friends at parties! (Do you go to parties much? Can I come please?).

10. Persuade your governments and all the other governments and all the people everywhere to just try being nice to each other all the time. Radical, I know.

These 10 simple tips should help to make the UK a safer place. Play nicely everyone!

Damp Legs

My what bally horrible weather! Yes, the wind and rain are back in full force (though currently it's not actually raining and is actually quite sunny). Looking out of my window earlier it occasionally looked like the rain had stopped as the splashes in the puddles went away. But in fact all that was happening was the rain was being blown pretty much horizontally. And into this I had to go to find a haircut, some nice wine and some crisps. It's the first time I can remember them having to blow dry my hair before cutting it. I'm back home now and my trousers are very damp. Ick.

Last day!

It'll be my last day at work for a couple of weeks today. I'm not actually going away sadly (apart from for a couple of days), and in fact I have no real idea what I'm going to do. I'm only really taking the time off as I have loads of unused holiday that I need to use before my birthday, or I lose it. I asked my boss yesterday if, seeing as how it would be my last day today, if I could bring in games like we used to in school. He said no.

I can't believe how lazy my friends are

Sorry guys, but I can't let this one go. I've just been out in town for a bit of food and some drinks with (amongst others) a couple of friends who currently live in London. For the purposes of this, I'll call them W and A. Not their real names, their real names have more letters. It'd have to be a pretty psychotic parent that called their son (or daughter) W. (Or possibly even gave them that as a middle name. Hmm almost approaching satire. Not quite, maybe give me a few more weeks and I'll get the hang of it). We were approx 15 minutes walk from both my flat, and the place they were staying. And they made us all get a taxi! Lazy B**t**ds! "I've got a big heavy bag". No you haven't! It's teeny tiny bag! About the size of a cereal box! Now I could have protested more and refused to get in the taxi and just walked home myself, but that would have achieved nothing. By joining the taxi, I have saved maybe 10 minutes of my life, which I have decided to use to type this. I repeat: Walk! It's what God/Evolution/Cybernetics (delete according to personal beliefs) gave you legs for. Help save what little of the planet we can...

List time

I feel like doing a list today. Here we go:

1. A girl in my year at University who was in my college now presents the childrens news programme on the BBC. Don't think I ever spoke to her.
2. I need a hair cut. Meant to go last Saturday but was too lazy.
3. I'm heading into town in a while and it's absolutely pissing it down outside. Hopefully it won't last all night. Was that thunder just then?
4. Pay rise and bonus today - wahey. Maybe I'll start off my car-fund.
5. Managed to get a grade 'A' on "Size of a cow". My dancing is on fire! (or so the game tells me).
6. Note to self: Avoid Irish pubs on St Patrick's Day.
7. Ground Control to Major Tom: Take your protein pills and put your helmet on.
8. I bought some fennel tea. It's quite nice if you like things to taste of aniseed.
9. The day before yesterday I disappointed myself. I bought a nice bit of lamb and some potatoes, but couldn't be arsed to cook the potatoes so had (cooked) frozen potato waffles instead.
10. Ground Control to Major Tom: Your circuit's dead, there's something wrong.
11. Time for a quick play on the gee-tar before going out? Yes: I think there might be. As long as this list doesn't go on much longer.
12. This is a rubbish list.
13. It's stopped raining now.

( :-) )

When I'm writing I tend to use parentheses quite a lot (possibly a sign of bad sentence structure) and have found a problem to which I'm sure there must be a standard solution. The question is: How do you put a smiley at the end of some bracketed words without it looking stupid. For example: (Here are some words in brackets :-) ) just looks a bit silly to me. My eyes keep telling me there's a bracket missing at the start. Is it just me? Maybe it's fine...