animals stuck to the wall

Stretching

2012-01-28T22:18:00.004+01:00

The scene: An English-language bookshop, somewhere in Prague.

The players:

The bookshop salesperson, earnestly pretty

A well-spoken customer, elegantly dressed

A new customer enters. She appears to be constructed entirely from wool.

Salesperson: Hello, can I help you?

Woolly customer: No, no thanks. Just looking.

Removes enormous fuzzy hat and begins to unwind two layers of scarves. A nose emerges.

Salesperson: Ok, just let me know if you need some help.

Woolly customer: Yes, thanks.

Leans casually against a bookcase in an effort to push her right arm towards her coat buttons. Attempts to look nonchalant.

Well-spoken customer: So anyhow, I was saying to P. that next time I came we simply had to review this. It's quite extraordinary, and so very moving.

Salesperson: Yes, of course.

Well-spoken customer: But of course, I really should have come on Friday not on the Saturday, so I'm very sorry about that.

Salesperson: Really, it's no trouble at all.

Well-spoken customer: Well thank you, dear. And heavens isn't it cold? We've had eleven metres in Bucharest, if you can believe it, and it's been minus 16.

Meanwhile, the woolly customer catches sight of her hair in the glass and discovers that the removal of her hat has back-combed random sections of hair into three poorly-executed fuzzy quiffs.

Tries to smooth hair down. Removes gloves. Tries to smooth hair down again. Realizes she has a choice between looking mad because of mad hair, or looking mad because of her attempts to de-madden her mad hair. Decides to remove all her outer layers and leave her hat on.

Pauses in satisfaction at clever resolution of seeming insoluble dilemma.

Salesperson: It's been very cold in Slovakia too. Minus twenty or twenty-one I think.

Well-spoken customer: Heavens, that's terrible. It's supposed to be moving here too.

Salesperson: Yes, it's already getting quite cold.

Well-spoken customer: And later, moving towards England.

Salesperson: Next month I hear.

Woolly-hatted customer worries that the wearing of a solo outdoor hat indoors might appear vaguely trendy and hipster-esque. Wonders if the armload of woolens is sufficient to counter this impression. Remembers that anyhow she is now closer to the mad cat lady age anyhow. Wonders if she should get a cat.

Well-spoken customer: Anyhow, dear, I really must be off now. Thank you again very much for your help.

Salesperson: It's not trouble at all, thank you. Here are your things.

Well-spoken customer: Goodbye dear.

Salesperson: Goodbye.

Well-spoken customer leaves in a blast of cold air. Woolly-hatted customer wanders over to the cookbooks and thinks about stew. Somewhere, an espresso machine grinds on.

Sweeping up

2011-03-27T15:43:00.003+02:00

So, now that we have that dreaded catch-up question post out of the way, what else is new?

Well, there’s all the various scandals, storms and tempests that have been going on in the corners of blogland that I used to frequent, and occasionally lurk in. Here is a totally scientific and accurate statistical assessment.

1. 1,394 internet squabbles over who has the right to review books.

2. 2,587.6 arguments about the fairness of “mean” reviews, and whether the only criticism permitted should be constructive, helpful, and gently eased by the presence of fluffy chubby cupids and rainbow unicorns.

3. 982.92 monologues about why Bad Reviews Are Good For You and should be swallowed by authors, preferably whole and before breakfast, rather like castor oil.

4. 1,187.3 monologues about why Bad Reviews Are Not Your Business If You Are An Author. If Bad Reviews did not exist, tender, delicate and easily-led readers would otherwise fall for the seductive wiles of Harriet Klausner & co. These fiendish producers of uniformly sunshiny reviews have but one foul aim. They are trying to convince Poor Innocent Readers that Every Book in the World is Brilliant, Wonderful and Amazing.

This is of course, all part of a plot to ensure that Poor Innocent Readers lose significant chunks of their lives lurching from one ill-penned book to the next, constantly lured on by yet another review promising, “The greatest Secret Virgin Doctor Billionaire’s Sheikh’s Secretary’s Love Child in the Magically-Endowed Camper Van novel to ever exist, both now and in the hereafter.” The sunshiny review producers are doing this because

a) they lack critical faculties

b) they aren't actually reading the books they review

c) they are in it for the free books, even if they are crap

d) they are succumbing to the dominating cultural norms inculcated by the patriarchy that women must always be kind, sweet and nice and never say anything nasty to anyone.

e) they are a bit odd

f) all of the above

5. Some stuff that I mainly skimmed about why ebooks rule. See 2 posts below for the why of the skimming. Anyhow, death to paper. Death to paper publishers. Death to the old model of publishing. Oh, but it must be CHEAPER. Blabla long tail, blabla wisdom of crowds. And stuff.

6. A frustrating number of competitions, largely useless to me as I live outside shipping distances. That said, I tend to regard said competitions with a largely unbothered eye, since I don’t particularly worry if the book I’m reading carries the signature of the author (unless maybe the author is Eric Hobsbawm). The frustrating part is more the way the frenzied posts clutter up the more entertaining blogs.

7. Breath by breathless tweeting and live-blogging from assorted conferences and whatnot. Again, geography.

8. 35,843 arguments about what constitutes either acceptable romance, or acceptable tools of romance marketing. They kind of blur after a while, presumably due to shock value.

9. Some people who write blogs now have published, or will be publishing books (paper or otherwise). Good on them. More importantly, does this mean they are allowed to blog any more? Or only on certain posts? Discuss, or just pull it out as an ad hominem argument in the middle of any of the kerfuffles of your choice.

10. The thrills and excitement about a hot new YA author making the rounds and everyone writing about how they are so much MORE than just YA, and why YA is the bestest ever and we should not be ashamed to read YA because really it’s better than some of the other things that are published. It probably is, but I don’t see how this becomes a moral question.

11. Jean M. Auel has published a new Clan of the Cave Bear Book. Suppressing my suspicion that we have another Virginia Andrews on our hands, I am compelled to cry out with unmitigated prehistoric pleasure. Long Live Ayla, the Mother of All, the Creator of Everything, the Inventor of the Bra! She who will invent the internet and dining-table centerpieces of ochre-glazed pinecones! After she tames the dinosaurs and turns them into ostriches! Long Live Dongelar! Long Live his most significant asset! Long live the improbably-named cave lion, Baby!

12. Fan Fiction. Le Scandal. Le Kerfuffle. Le Distress. Les up-mixeds wacky relationships that ruin your reading of the original text forEVAH. Never more can I read the Big Book of Dinosaurs. I am forever plagued by the memory of that disturbing piece of fanfic involving the pachycephalosaurus and the procompsognathus. And the velociraptors. Oh the humanity.

Enter, pursued by a bear

2011-03-20T19:59:00.002+01:00

Once upon a time there was an evil auntie who had a blog. First, she was a fake auntie, then a real auntie, but always there was the blog.

Sadly, the evil auntie had a job, and as the years progressed the job sucked up more time and energy. And so the blog withered and dwindled.

However, it had not been wholly forgotten by the evil auntie, who would occasionally drop by to see if it had been infested by spambots, or turn around post ideas in her mind. But the actual writing of the actual post, well, that was always going to be trickier.

However, as is the wont of evil aunties everywhere, this evil auntie was somewhat bloody-minded and couldn’t quite give up the idea of the blog. And so she eventually returned. And thus, the most evil entry to date came about. The dreaded, fearsome and horrific catch up question post.

1. Where have you been?

A. Busy. Stuff. Slow internet. Work. More work.

2. But geographically, where have you been?

A. Prague. Still Prague, more Prague. Some holidays.

3. Gosh, you must be older now.

A. Yes.

4. And that monkey? You know, the one that, er…

A. Monkey? What monkey?

5. Umm… that monkey? You know, the one that got bored with writing Shakespeare sonnets, and… er…

A. …awkward pause… I think you may be confusing me with someone else.

6. Yes, yes of course. No monkey. So Prague? Still? Wow, you must really like it? Job going well, that sort of thing?

A. There has been that world economic crisis.

7. Ah, yes. Haha. So, um… what have you been reading?

A. Cookbooks.

8. Oh, FF’s sake. Now you’re really being bloody-minded.

A. I’m interviewing myself in a virtual vacuum, and vaguely annoyed by the fact that I felt the need to euphemize my language. Of course I’m bloody-minded.

Next time: the dreaded what-have-I-missed post.

The story of last month (mostly)

2009-09-27T16:33:00.004+02:00

Look! Ebook
Look! Ebook
Ebook! look!

This nice e-book!
This nice e-book!
I cannot read
This nice e-book!

Do you like,
E-ink displays?

I do not like this,
Ebook haze!
I do not like
This ebook maze!

Would you like it
PDF?

I would not like it
PDF.
I’ve said this to you,
Are you deaf?
I do not like
This ebook maze
Although I like
E-ink displays.

You can buy A
or PM.
Would you like it
DRM?

I cannot shop A
And PM
I do not like this
DRM
I do not want it
PDF
I’ve said this to you
Are you deaf?
I do not like this ebook maze
Despite their nice e-ink displays.

Please download our
Free software.
A table here lets
You compare.

No free software.
No questionnaire.
A or P M
No DRM
I do not want it PDF
I said before, are you quite deaf?
I do not like this ebook maze
Despite their nice e-ink displays.

Would you? Could you?
On a MAC?
Encrypted files,
Ever hack?

I would not
Could not,
On a MAC.

You must find your
PID.
Then plug in the
USB.

I cannot find my USB!
Nor anywhere my PID!

I clicked the link for free software
But these devices cannot share.
Why can’t it read acsm?
Sod this bloody DRM.
I’ve lost all these old PDFs
Why did I change IP address?
I’m lost inside an ebook maze
Seduced by nice e-ink displays.

A Palm! A Palm!
A Palm! A Palm!
Could you, would you,
On a Palm?

Not on a Palm! I cannot see!
Not on a MAC! No! Not for me!

I downloaded the new firmware
No memory! None left to spare!
I like to read things now and then -
Reboot connection, yet again.
The plastic case does not impress -
I click and wait for its refresh.
I fear how fast my temper frays,
Sharp shocks can harm e-ink displays.

Hey!
In this shop!
Here in this shop!
Would you, could you, in this shop?

I would not, could not,
In this shop.

Would you, could you,
Amazon?

I can not, CAN not Amazon!
Geography bars tech’s new dawn.
Interest here may start to dwindle
In the distant light of Kindle.
Not in this state. Not with this card.
Two years to wait. Why is this hard?
E-hopes have turned to e-dismay
Dust forms on my e-ink display.

You do not like
This nice ebook?

I do not
Want this
Ebook pain.

Could you, would you
Join th’e-club?

I would not
Could not
Join your club.

Why not try out
With ePub?

I will not, still not, join th’e-club
I want to read books in the tub.
My favourite books I pass along
In ebook world, this would be wrong.
I’m geographically constrained
The books I want, I can’t obtain.
I do not want to tweak software
Converting files makes me despair.
I do not have a shiny MAC
Encrypted files, refuse to hack.
I do not like this ebook maze
No love left for e-ink displays.

I do not like
This strain.
Ebook.

I will no longer
Take a look.

You do not like them
So you say
Read here! Click there!
And you may.
Click here and you may, I say.

Look!
If you will let me be
Once more I’ll try
You will see.

…
…
…
Beep
…
…
Whirr
Whirr
…
…
Boop.
...
...
Grrreee-
-oop
…
…
Bing!

Hey!
The download worked. Take a look!
I’ve found and filed my first ebook!
And I can read it in my bed
And it can bookmark what I’ve read.

And I can read it on the train
And in the dark, but not the rain.
And I can buy, A or PM
Although I still hate DRM.

So I will read it in my flat
And I must stick to this format
And I must read on my PC
Until I find my PID
And I still hope one of these days
Won’t just admire e-ink displays

At last I've read
My nice e-book!
IT
Degree
I should’ve took.

(with apologies to Dr. Seuss)

Strangely wistful

2009-08-18T21:56:00.003+02:00

"Hello."
"Hello, Evil Auntie Peril. This is AYSAVMCL speaking."
"Hello, Attractive-yet-shy-and-very-married-Czech-landlord. Why are you calling apart from a strangely unsettling attempt to freak me out by introducing what seems to be a chick-lit-like element to my unsuspecting blog?"
"I do not understand."
"Oh yes, I forgot that you are very literal, which leads to some very awkward silences if I don't concentrate on the meaning of the actual words I am saying."
"Maybe it is bad connection?"
"No, it's okay, AYSAVMCL. How can I help you?"
"I am outside your flat. Can I please enter to read gas meter?"
"Sure, no problem."
"I will only go just inside to look at gas meter."
"Yes, that's fine."
"I need to check it today, but I will only look at gas meter."
"That's okay."
"So I will go now into your flat, and just look at gas meter in toilet."
"Of cou-- No. Wait!"
"I am entering your flat now."
"No! AYSAVMCL! Stop!"
"I am sorry, I could not hear what you have said because of noise of the key."
"AYSAVMCL! I forgot to say! There is a spider!"
"I don't understand."
"There is a spider in the toilet! You must be careful!"
"It is okay. I will only check gas meter."
"No. You don't understand! A big spider!"
"Yes, yes. This is fine. I am checking gas meter no-- arrrrgggghhhh!!!"
Crunch. Crunch. Sinister laughter.

...or, in a Clue: The Movie-style alternate ending:

"Yes, yes. This is fine. I am checking gas meter now."
Crunch. Crunch. Rustle.
"The number is 6945833002. This is very good. Thank you for respecting my request about control of the thermostat in colder weather. I have killed the spider for you. Goodbye."
"Goodbye."

Back again

2009-06-28T20:58:00.004+02:00

It was a dark and stormy night. The sound of footsteps shuffling across the kitchen floor could scarcely be heard above the swish of the rain. The click of the bathroom light was hardly heard above the monotonous whoosh of the wind. A thick silence filled the flat.

“AAAARGGHHH!!!”
Waggle.
“AAARRGGHHH!!!”
More waggling.
“AAARRRGHHH!! You’re back! You were gone!”
Bounce, bounce.
“Go! Leave! Begone!”
Bounce. Waggle. Bounce. Pause. „Nerozumím.” A slightly cynical bounce.
“I banished you! I made the typhoon winds of death with the floppy bottoms of my pyjama trousers at you and you scuttled away. Then I hoovered up your web. Several times. And mopped the floor to remove scent trails and spider germs. In case you use scent trails. You were gone!”
„Nerozumím.” Defiant bounce.
“What do you mean you don’t understand? Of course you understand. I will make the typhoon winds of death again. Understand this, you eight-legged freak!”
Wwwhhhhhffffff. Flap. Flap.
Bounce. Bounce. Snicker.
“Damn. Wrong pyjama bottoms. Can we talk about this?”
„Mluvte česky.”
“What do you mean, ‘Speak Czech’? Have you been talking to Mrs. Jana? You’re a spider. Spiders don’t get to be picky about language choice, especially when they invade my loo.”
„Mluvte česky.”
“No. I refuse. And stop with the Czech speech marks. It's annoying. Like your legs. Get out.”
„Mluvte česky. Or I will crawl on your pathetically exposed big toe.”
“AAARGGHH! No! Gerroff!”
„Chachá!”
“Now you’re being weird. Just because ballroom dancing is strangely popular here, and still an extracurricular activity pursued by many teenagers as part of a well-rounded education is no reason to be making laughing noises in a knowing dance-referenced way.”
„‘Ch’ is like loch. This is how Czechs laugh. Stupid foreigner.”
“I know that. I am trying to distract you while I reach for the loo brush. Stupid spider.”
„Co? Co že?”
Swish. Splat.
„Áááááá!”
(slightly muffled by the wooden door lintel) „At last, my revenge is complete! This door corner is forever mine! Never again will you be able to blithely visit the toilet in the middle of the night, with carefree unshod feet! Know this, stupid toilet-brush-wielding speaker of inferior Czech! I Vill Be Back! Chachachachachá!!!”

Oh crap.

Hunk mail

2009-06-15T00:35:00.007+02:00

I found this letter while I was clearing out the recycling. Could have sworn I asked these guys to take me off their mailing list.

Dear Beautiful, Wonderful Ladies

Outside today the sun is shining, the flowers are blooming, and the birds are singing. It’s a beautiful day, and one that we treasure, just like we treasure all of you. We treasure your beautiful souls and your beautiful womanly natures, just like we know you treasure our souls and our beautiful manly natures.

This treasuring of each other is especially important in these difficult times. The world is experiencing a global economic crisis. Times are hard for everyone, even those gifted with natural panther-like grace and hard-edged masculine lines.

And because we are deep, and our hearts are as big as our manly chests (they would be bigger, probably, except that because of biology our hearts have to be inside our chests), we feel. We feel with every sinewy fibre of our beings the feelings of others. This is called empathy, and it’s a beautiful, wonderful gift because it means we share your joys, we share your laughter, and we share your beautiful sparkling tears.

But this gift, like the six-foot bejewelled sword that Loynz wields as he strides manfully through the lush grass, has two edges. It can cut us, and when it does, we bleed.

We feel so deeply the deep pain and anguish of anyone who is not blessed with the personal resources we are blessed with. We are choked with unspoken, yet deeply-felt, emotion when we hear of beautiful, wonderful ladies forced to downgrade their habitual choice of personal grooming aids. We clench our fists with barely concealed rage at the thought that out there, there are ladies, some already sadly cursed with a taste for ill-fitting leisurewear, who must compromise themselves (but never their shining integrity) in order to finance their dry-cleaning bills.

Remember, dear beautiful wonderful ladies, WE CARE.

One of the deepest griefs we feel is that there are so few of us, and so very many of you. If we could, we would reach out and personally help every single one of you at this difficult time. But to do this, we would have to be many more than we are now. And that would make us less unique and special, which would mean that somehow, the magic would be gone. And that would be a great tragedy, because as Abz said only the other day, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love,” and our love is the greatest gift we can give to the world.

But it’s so hard for us because we know how much you need us at this difficult time. And because we love you all, and want to show you our love, we have decided to help by sharing with you knowledge from the immense store of wisdom we have learned over the years. Wisdom that will help you to weather the storms of life. And this way, with every step you take in this magical journey called life, you will think of us, and how much we love you, and this will make your life better, too, in strange and beautiful ways.

To begin our journey of knowledge, it seemed right, at this difficult time, to share with you some of the secret wisdom that we have learned over the years spent as millionaires, billionaires, magnates, tycoons and otherwise extremely wealthy individuals.

1. Acquiring start-up capital is difficult. A good option is to force your irresponsible (step)mother with the gambling problem that led to your current financial predicament to donate the jewels that she acquired in an ill-advised affaire with a French marquis.

2. When these turn out to be fake, acquire a run-down gambling hell in a high stakes card game and turn it into a fashionable venue by playing on its (and your) seedy reputation.

3. Alternatively you may choose to find your fortune in India or another exotic locale. Once acquired, it is acceptable to refrain from any mention of the exploitation of the local population as the basis of your wealth. “Trade” is nicely vague.

4. If you are a vampire, the fine print of your contract with the Lords of Hell contains a clause that requires you to open a Goth-themed nightclub or casino.

5. Do not worry. Your innate sense of style will ensure that it never becomes tacky or unfashionable. Black is always in.

6. It is also worthwhile spending some time trying to understand compound interest. But not all your time. Accountancy is not for those staring down the barrel of immortality.

7. Do not worry too much about reading books on management theory. Not only do they lack attractive covers, but they will have no bearing on your success. “Lean” is only ever relevant if it is associated with the words “whipcord” and refers to your physique.

8. Do not worry about a slightly shady background if it gives you an air of ruthlessness and danger. By now, however, you should be rich enough to refrain from stealing toilet rolls from motorway service stations unless it serves a higher justice.

9. Accents are sexy. And an excellent way to avoid awkward explanations.

10. All of this advice relates to heroes only. But it should help you dear beautiful ladies in your quest to find your own hero. It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that a single woman in possession of a good fortune and a high-powered job must be concealing her desperate longing for babies and an alpha male beneath either her icy or adorably ditsy exterior and the excessive consumption of dessert. Check out the way her eyes shine with unshed tears at "baby panda bear" screensavers if you don't believe us.

Until next time, dear ladies, we send you all of our deepest, sincerest love…

Sitchuashun normal

2009-06-11T00:11:00.003+02:00

Feh. Still have the blahs bookwise. Have been trawling the internets looking for things to add to my shopping list and mainly thinking, "Meh," at any fiction.

But in better news, it seems as if my long-awaited ebook reader may potentially arrive in the next few weeks in someone's suitcase (it's been sitting in its box on someone's hall table for the last 8 weeks, and I simply don't trust it in the post). Woohoo.

And better, yet, Tanya Gold was on most excellent form today in the Guardian. In my case it was the incessant demands for fish knives that drove me to a similar level of despair and rage that although banked, still burns. The fish knives and an £85 cotton bathmat. And this was over 4 years ago, when pounds were actually worth something. It's probably a £150 cotton bathmat by now. What in the hell would anyone want to do with an EIGHTY-FIVE POUND bathmat? Frame it?

I want to marry her, and then we can both get all the spoons.

It’s like buses. Part 1: The bit about the book.

2009-06-07T22:35:00.007+02:00

Nothing for aaaaages, and then four come along at once.

(A brief explanation: This was originally intended to be a single post, but rapidly veered into frighteningly long territory. So I’ve separated it into chunks, which hopefully make sense on their own, but are all part of a beautiful whole. For one thing, it gives me four posts out of one, and consequently a warm glow of satisfaction. Btw, I’m posting in reverse order so that it’s easier to read them in sequence, which is why they’re all appearing at once. Who knows? If this works, maybe next time, I’ll post sentence by sentence…)

So onto the book I just finished: Paul Lawrence’s The Sweet Smell of Decay, a whodunit set in Restoration London. Which does what it says on the tin. If the title doesn’t give enough of a hint, the first paragraph pretty much nails it for the casual browser.

"As I gazed upon her face a small black beetle emerged from the ruins of her right eye. It stood uncertainly upon the crest of her cheekbone as if suddenly reluctant to step out further. Though I looked upon the beetle as if it was something unutterably revolting – still I felt like we two had something in common. The butcher reached over, picked it up gently between his thumb and stubby forefinger then crushed it. I could hardly protest. He wiped its remains upon his shirt.”

In short, not for the squeamish. I could go on about imagery and metaphor, the plot and machinations uncovered by the narrator, but I don’t really feel like dissecting the book like this. For one thing, I don’t know if it’s robust enough to take it. Suffice it to say that the book doth wallow in the muckety muckmuck mire. Mud splashes, corpses are disinterred, people are killed horribly and putrefy even more horribly, rats eat unmentionably horrible things chopped off people, and everything rots.

Kind of reminiscent of Perfume. Although the latter is a much better book. But this one’s not bad – my biggest issue is that the human characters are a bit thin or self-consciously weird, (aka. “wyrd”) crude or twisted. The most well-rounded character, if you will, is the squalor.

ETA: sorry, blockquote went really screwy...

It's like buses. Part 2: Add another book...

2009-06-07T22:34:00.011+02:00

...and then some more books

The Sweet Smell of Decay’s unbridled revelling in the sheer ickiness of 17th century life is interesting for me, since it makes two connections with other recent reading. Connection the first: innumerable romance-novels-with-history-scrubuffed-trimmed-and-in-possession-of-their-very-own-olde-worlde-hande-sanityzer-bretthe-ffreshyner-and-rustick-yet-effectivve-plumbingge.

And connection the second: Clean: An Unsanitised History of Washing, by Katherine Ashenburg*, which I read a couple of months ago, and which also does what it says on the tin, and very entertainingly too.

There is a certain rather pungent side-branch of historical novels which takes the question, “But weren’t they quite dirty in those days?” and runs with it - mainly literature and crime/thrillers, probably because the theme provides a wealth of atmospheric tropes that suit these genres’ darker world-views.

By contrast, my experience of the majority of (modern) romantic fiction is that this particular seam of seaminess** is not one that is well-mined. There are generally three possible takes on the thorny issue of historical hygiene in romance novels.

Take the first:
The “If I don’t mention it, it’s because no one would have noticed it at the time” line that allows both writer and reader to gloss over all manner of historical sordidness.

Take the next:
It’s dirty, but over there, in that squalid tavern/dark alley/dockside slum where the heroine ventures (possibly disguised as a boy, possibly as a tavern wench, possibly as both in certain sub-sub-genres) to:
a) Track down the MacGuffin.
b) Create a Big Misunderstanding.
c) Stage a rescue (her own or some other worthy victim’s, possibly leading to b).
d) Kick off a subtly saucy scene intended to either 1) set the sensual suspense between h/h on simmer with a bit of playful badinage and body contact in low-cut and/or snug-fitting tops, or 2) lead to everyone all ending up back at the (remarkably clean) pirate’s lair for a spot of hide the yardarm in the yo-ho-ho. It all depends on what chapter and who’s publishing.
e) All of the above. Sometimes behaviour in Romanceland can be remarkably confusing.

Take the last:
The “If it’s a fantasy, I don’t want to be put off by my vague recall about all that authentick historical dirt and once-upon-an-icky-time stuff,” line. This usually leads to some convoluted explanation of why the heroine is defiantly battling the odds and surly retainers to have her daily hot bath, shave her legs, and squirt the rim of her chamberpot with bleach made from special herbs. Usually she’s a healer.

*A sidenote for anyone who enjoys those "divided by a common language" stories. In the News section of her website, Ashenburg notes that "'Clean', as 'The Dirt on Clean' is called in Britain, has just been released in paperback with a charming new cover of a flapper drying her fanny." *koff.*

Must confess that after reading this, I had to double-check the cover of my own copy, in case I'd missed something rather startling. If you're not aware of this particular bit of lexical divergence, let's just say that in my dialect of English, the word "fanny"*** is used (especially by children, or with a sort of childish undertone) to refer to a part of the body slightly further forward than the one Ashenburg means...

**apologies – couldn’t resist it

***cannot believe I've just written this word twice in a single post. I feel about 3 years old. teehee.

It's like buses. Part 3: A pondery bit...

2009-06-07T22:31:00.008+02:00

...with some context, a list of books and a MEGA largely irrelevent, but quite interesting footnote

The thing is, I’m perpetually intrigued by what is justified in historical romance novels on the grounds of historical “authenticity” (eg. rape, abuse, swordsticks, Fabio in a Viking helmet) and what is extracted on grounds that it would put off the sensitive reader (eg. slavery, blatant racism, poor oral health, body hair). It’s not the removal of all ick. It’s selective historical sanitisation – and it’s not only in ye olde Romancelande that this takes place.

This isn’t a cry for more historical accuracy on the hygiene front in romance novels either. The way that grime can be fetishised in other genres is something I think is equally worth digging into. It’s another side of the phenomenon. But there’s not enough room to go into that here, and I wanted to write about this topic in relation to romance novels in particular.

It’s a truism that historical novels (or indeed almost any writing) reflect more about the time of writing than the time being written about. So in my view, claims of “historical authenticity” (or claims of a lack thereof) are often more of a figleaf than a valid line of argument. I’d argue that it’s more a question of, “Yes, this did or didn’t happen then, but I want to think about why this is included, but not that, and what does it say about us/our society now?”

Ashenburg discusses the modern obsession with hygiene: the way we erase all traces of our own bodily odour and try to smell “like an exotic fruit…or a cookie” (p.8) instead. She links this to a “confluence of reasons” (p.201) including: distrust of our bodies and the need to control them (p.283); the modern concern for privacy (p.282); and the connection of hygiene with morality** (p.190), civility and advancement (p.201).

(Just a bit more on theoretical background – can be skipped. In the context of historical novels, I'm also intrigued by some of the ideas brought up in studies of the relationship between colonialism and hygiene. There are quite a few recent books on this – the one that introduced me to the topic is Kristin Ross’ Fast Cars, Clean Bodies, but since it was published I’ve also come across a few others: Bashford’s Imperial Hygiene, Jennings’ Curing the Colonizers, and Anderson’s, Colonial Pathologies.)

The inherently optimistic outlook of modern romantic fiction (I'd say that most readers insist that a happy ending is a fundamental requirement of any book in this genre) means that they are often tagged as fantasies, which can be either a pejorative or a positive label depending on the position of the labeller. As fantasies, they are separated from real life and can therefore discard aspects of “real life” as required to meet the needs of the fantasy.

That said, I think this distance from reality is a mark of all writing. Writing is in part a selective process – a writer chooses to dispense with, include or exaggerate aspects of reality. Writing guides the reader’s imagination along a particular path, and to be most effective when dealing with the messiness of reality, it filters things out, just as our perception filters out much of the world around us so that our brains don’t explode. But I don't think it's just the writer in isolation doing all the choosing, all the time, either.

**Ashenburg also argues that one of the reasons for the odoriferousness that permeates European history was that in contrast to the Jewish and Muslim faiths, where sanitary laws are part of doctrine, the Christian faith has no such teaching (p.49-55).

So for medieval Christians, dirtiness was often seen as next to godliness since it meant that the dirty individual was a) above such trivial earthly matters as soap and water and prepared to suffer lice, itchiness and scabs for good of his or her immortal soul (p.58-63), and b) clearly not Jewish or Muslim (p.54, 69-72), whose sanitary laws were viewed with deep suspicion by the majority of medieval Christians (p.71-2, 103, 111).

This was also why the Inquisition took an interest in the bathing habits of any individual unfortunate enough to attract their attention. And yes, being “known to bathe” was enough to damn a person in their eyes. (p.111)

It's like buses. Part 4: A bit more pondering...

2009-06-07T22:27:00.015+02:00

...but unfortunately, not very much concluding.

So I guess the question of hygiene in historical romance seems to come down to this messy intersection between a) empathy with the hero and heroine (h/h) which is usually seen as grounded in some level of identification with the characters, b) the conflict between the way that we view the past either in evolutionary terms or as a mirror, and c) the big pay-off of romance: the HEA. And the area of debate centres on the question of personal happiness.

After all, how can h/h be happy if they live in what seems like uncomfortable, unsanitary conditions? The argument goes: a modern reader (this means me) would find it harder to empathise, because they personally wouldn’t be comfortable in these conditions. And readers have to believe the HEA, or the satisfaction they get from the book is diminished.

So the h/h must face a clean and hygienic future for the HEA to be believed because:

Cleanliness = healthiness. Readers need to believe that h/h won’t be struck down by cholera or galloping typhus immediately after the book finishes, or the HEA doesn't pack enough punch.

Cleanliness = morality. H/H are good people. Disease, dirt and bad breath only happens to deserving villains or ex-partners (possibly tragically if its backstory, possibly because they are villains).

Cleanliness = civility, and in the modern world, personal cleanliness is a mark of personal status. These days, instead of finding more expensive ways to smell awful (Ashenburg’s book has some great stuff about this, btw), rich, cultured people don’t smell of anything unless they choose to.

Cleanliness = wealth. Wealthy, or even well-to-do people can afford to be clean, and wealth itself, while not guaranteeing happiness, probably helps – at least in the mind.

Cleanliness = comfort. Dirt isn’t glamorous, it’s itchy.

Cleanliness = neutral. Dirt is a distraction – if it’s mentioned, people think about it, so it distracts from the story unless it’s part of it.

And I could just leave it at that, and go away whistling songs from South Pacific except it doesn’t really deal with one question, and one thorny issue. The question is simply this: how do I know unless I've tried it? After all, I can accept all manner of grubbiness in other genres, so why not romance? And wouldn't a reaaally good writer be able to make it work?

The thorny issue is more worrying to me, though, and it seems to take me right back to my starting point. Although historical dirt only shows up in ye olde Romancelande in controlled conditions, if at all; all manner of other historickiness* is either selectively included in, or selectively removed from the landscape. And what does this say about readers/perceptions of readers? But this is probably a post (or six) for another day.

*thanks (probably should be apologies) to Stephen Colbert for the inspiration.

ETA: Hey, cool. I forgot I could do bullets.

That spider?

2009-06-04T00:16:00.005+02:00

...it is gone.

While a better, nobler person would admit *to some feelings of guilt and concern over its homelessness, I am afraid that I am not that person. I am dancing the dance of a thousand empty toilet rolls. In bare feet.

That said, I should probably clarify that no spiders were harmed during the typing of this blog. In fact, the photo is not a crudely exploitational shot of the rather less audacious spider that previously nestled in the corner of my loo door. It is actually a (bad) picture of a 2-year-old stunt spider (this is mature and responsible in spider terms) of sound mind and limb who was paid above-union rates for its participation in this shoot.

But y'know, in the middle of the night, I think my spider got this big and webtastic. Really.

*ETA: "to" not "of". Aaarrrggghhh.

This business of not speaking Czech

2009-05-29T21:46:00.007+02:00

Naturally, Mrs. Jana would say that I am entirely to blame for my problems in this respect. But secretly, I grow ever more convinced that she is in fact teaching me a language that is entirely the product of her devious and corkscrew-twisty mind. I'm not even sure that she's really Czech anymore.

She's very convincing, I'll grant you that, what with her "Ahoj!"s, and her "Dobry den!"s, and her friendly chit-chat with the receptionist (who has been persuaded to supply not one but TWO little pots of creamer for Mrs. Jana's coffee).

But there's a suspiciously wide gap between the "standard" Czech she is teaching me, and the Czech I hear around me daily.

Mrs. Jana, being nothing if not wily to the point of paranoia, may suspect that I'm onto her cunning ruse. In a recent transparent effort at a double bluff, she's been giving me "Colloquial Czech" lessons, where she explains the differences between her so-called "Standard Czech" and the local Praguish dialect.

Except, it's all too perfect, somehow... Yes... Too different. Too odd...

For example:

„What is the correct Czech word for window?“
(Note how she even speaks with proper Czech speech marks in her attempt to convince me of the authenticity of this language of hers. She truly is Machiavellian in her genius.)
"Okno."
„Good. This is correct Czech. But if you are speaking to SOME people from Prague who do not speak proper Czech, they will say it differently.“
Thinks: "Erkna? Akno? Ooknoo? How bad can it be?"
„Yes. In Prague – and this is an absolutely TERRIBLE way of speaking – SOME people will say…“
Thinks: "Nooo... the suspense. It is unbearable."
„...these people will say... «Vokno»!“
"Isn't that like saying, 'in the window' but with the wrong ending?"
„Yes. You are correct. This is what it sounds like. But actually, in this TERRIBLE Prague way of speaking, it is just the word for 'window'.“
"So what do you say if you are really talking about in the window?"
„Do not be ridiculous. You know it is not possible in the Czech language to be 'in the window' like this. You should instead say «through the window», or «by the window», or «slightly below the window.» With the correct declension, of course.“
"Of course."
„Good. So if, while you are in the street in Prague, you hear someone speaking in this TERRIBLE Prague way of speaking, you will always hear them put a «v» before any word that starts with an «o».“
"Really?"
„Yes. But with some exceptions. I will tell you them next week.“
"Vooknoo. Vootevrenoo. Voven. Except for next week. Got it, thank you."
„This is correct. But you should never speak like this in public. It is a TERRIBLE Prague way of speaking.“
"V... okay."
„Good. When my daughters leave voicemail for me in this TERRIBLE Prague way of speaking, I phone them and make them leave messages in the correct way.“
"Ah."
„Fine. This part of the lesson is finished. We will now discuss the grammatically correct way to point at things.“

Did I mention I forgot my password?

2009-05-25T22:24:00.004+02:00

I did. Also my log-in ID. Most embarrassing.

Especially the bit where I cursed, swore, frothed at the mouth and generally spent an unpleasant almost-hour wrestling with Google and Blogger in Czechish, since they seem to only communicate with users in the language of their IP address, only to discover the teeeny, tiny link marked "English" at the bottom of one of the screens.

Oh yes. I still can't speak Czech. Also embarrassing.

Down the spout

2009-05-25T00:24:00.004+02:00

I have almost nothing to say after such a long absence except that a spider has taken up residence in a crack at the bottom of the loo door. It is getting bigger.

I have no idea which of the native Czech 773 species (and 2 subspecies) it may be, but despite energetic hoovering of webs, mopping of floors and making of hungry frog noises it inevitably returns.

Of course, I am truly grateful that I am not next-door in Slovakia where apparently my chances of death by spider would treble. But still… 12th in the world? Why wasn’t I told?

The question now is how to persuade this non-paying, eight-legged (I have counted) flatmate to leave. A trail of breadcrumbs doesn’t seem quite right. Discussions have foundered over the colour of the toilet rolls and petitions have been submitted about the quality of accommodation in the downstairs bins, although an independent subcommittee has ruled that the staircase would appear to offer ample opportunity for web-spinning.

Perhaps I should be more philosophical about things and focus on the positive. And yet, while I loved, loved, loved Charlotte’s Web when I was younger, the ending now seems a touch… ominous?

Wah? Over 3 months?

2009-01-19T20:37:00.004+01:00

Shurely not... Anyhow, must do something to fend off evil spambot invasion.

Oooh, look. I've just been on holiday. And it was insanely cold, although since I've returned, all the Poles at work have been going about saying that their -29 back home trumps my -16... Except they've been all toasty warm at -3 here in Prahahahaha while I was in the wilds of South Bohemia freezing off vital parts and hollering for more wood for the fire.

Have a photo of a tree:

And a snow angel:
(Photos not mine, but a compadre's, but the snow angel was indeed mine, all thanks to bargain ski trousers and a jacket. Weirdly, no one I was with had ever even heard of them (snow angels, not skiwear sales. I blame the communists.)

Bugger structure. I never really liked the idea of it anyway

2008-09-27T21:45:00.004+02:00

So… blah. Blah, blah, blah...

(alert: fearful navel-gazing of blogger with existentialist crisis ahead)

For the first time in absolutely ages, I’ve got working internet, laptop, and nothing pressing to do apart from creatively dodge the guilt-driven instinct to alphabetise my books or something. What better time to catch up on all those must-visit websites? The ones I used to go by every day. The ones I would post at. Or (shock! horror!) perhaps even write a post or two here, to stiffen the sinews of this rather weedy-looking blog.

Except I can’t. Somehow, the vim has gone. It left months ago, slamming the door and leaving behind nothing but a lump of wet laundry in the washing machine.

Since this blog and my old internetovating haunts have or had a lot to do with books, perhaps it’s not surprising. Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve come to the hardly earth-shattering realisation that it has been absolutely bloody ages since I last read a book that got me really excited. They’re all, sort of… blah. Neither dreadful, suck-your-brains out, pound-your-eyeballs into mush crap that forces me to keep reading just to stagger, reeling at its sheer awfulness, nor oh-my-god-i-love-this-oh-my-god-yeeeesss wonderfulness that leaves me blissed out and re-reading my favourite bits for days on end.

Nope. They just sort of all hover in this middle ground of bland, boring, blah. Okay to pass the time between metro stops, but instantly forgettable to the extent that TWICE now this year, I’ve bought a second copy of a book because I forgot that I had already read it.

Anyhow, I know it’s time to worry now, because after pretty much a day of on-and-off surfing through romance etc., websites, blogs and so on, the book reviews that have me most fired up (at least to the extent of looking up the delivery charges on Amazon) are two from the Fortean Times: Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction, and an anthropological study of the history of cannibalism written by the daughter of a paleoanthropologist and a master chef.

I think if I had to put my finger on what’s made the books I’ve read recently so unexciting, it’s perhaps that they take themselves too seriously. They’re just not as much fun as they used to be. Same thing for a lot of the sites I used to frequent. The humour seems just a tad forced, the reactions and posts a tad predictable. The joins seem to show. It’s like there’s less joy in it now. And I don't feel like writing because I can't help worrying that the same applies here. Sigh.

Is this a consequence of the last few years of looming doom and gloom? Or even that I'm realising this now because of the current doom and gloom? Or is the change in my own attitude and outlook? Are these the first symptoms of conservatism-with-a-small-c that strikes so many as middle age approaches? As the new austerity creeps in this deadly pace, will I develop preferences in reading and blogging that are serious, earnest and meaningful? Okay, maybe not the cannibals. But they could be leading me in a merry dance towards an inclination to seriousness. Who knows where this could all lead to? Discussing oven cleaning? grammar? central heating? (patience, my lovelies) *blushes*

I should never have done that course in economics.

More structure...kinda

2008-09-08T22:19:00.003+02:00

And now, for the next exciting, czechtastic piece of vocabulary...

únor

(ta-daaa!)

aka

February.

Which
comes
very
obscurely
very
obscurely
indeed
from
some
word
that
means
the
dripping
of
ice.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Dri-
-
-
-ip

There is no other similar word alas. Unless you count "Februaryish". But this particular bit of vocab does start us down the long and winding road of Czech diacritics, with its extra-special "ú". meaning a long "u". Or ooooooooo.

Sometimes you can see the long "u" written with a little circle above it, like this: "ů". It sounds the same, but harkens back to a dim and distant past, in which the letter "o" was mysteriously involved in the word, before something, possibly angry diacritics or vengeful graphemes, ate it. Or maybe just the top bit.

Drip

Sometimes... sometimes... the "o" comes back.

Drip

But not in ůnor, because it's not spelled with the little "o", but with an acute and rather dashing accent, as in únor. How can you tell when to make your ooooo with dash not dot? Well, the dash happens when "u" comes at the beginning of the word.

In 1848 (count 'em, baby) some madmen decided that no Czech national renaissance could possibly be complete without an orthographical overhaul and decided that the "ou" (oh-ooo) dipthong at the beginning of the roots of words should be changed to "ú". Because that's how it was pronounced.

But somewhen around the same time, the long "o" ("ó") was being pronounced, "uo" (ooo-ohh - I like it when the beat goes -), and so to save paper in a time of wood-pulp and vellum scarcity, they decided to write the "o" part of the dipthong (-thong, -thong, -thong, -thong) much, much smaller above the "u". And then, the pronounciation changed, and the rest is history... er... orthography.

Trying for structure

2008-08-25T20:55:00.005+02:00

Ahhh.... structure. Very important thing. Number one in the top tip of being a better, stronger blogger. A more noble blogger. A finer blogger who blogs on more beautiful things in a more beautiful way. So I hereby give myself the gift of structure. From now on, Monday will be Czech word of the week day. "See how easy it is?" they cry.

Well, to be frank it's also a bit of a cheat, because this way, I get to revise my vocabulary and thus perhaps decrease Mrs. Jana's agonised looks as I plow my way through the wild and crazy range of practice sentences using "If..." Besides, who wouldn't want to learn Czech?

I'm cheating even more, because I've got the 1st twelve sorted out already. Here goes number one.

"Leden". Say it like "leaden". Exactly like "leaden", in fact. Which is a very good thing because what it really means is "January", and that's pretty much the colour of the sky that time of year (when it's not night, of course. Or one of those glorious, piercingly bright winter days where the cold and the sky threaten to strip the colour out of your eyeballs. In a good way.)

If you're into your Czech etymology (not entomology - do I detect the stirrings of another theme?) then of course, you probably already know that the root of "Leden" is "led" which means "ice" or "cold" or gets shoved into all kinds of words to send chills down the spine and raise mental goosebumps.

By this, I mean words which refer to all things icy (ledovy), cold (led, but also zima - don't go that way, it's dark and scary and seasonal) and glacial (ledovcovy), like fridges (lednicka), freezers (lednicka, yawn), ice-breakers (ledoborec) and icebergs or glaciers (ledovec). Or to put it into real terms, right now I am drinking a lot of "ledová káva" which can only be a good thing, because this month is pretty much the opposite of Leden. At least as the temperature goes.

I will blog more often.

2008-07-04T19:57:00.002+02:00

I will blog more often.
I will blog more often.
I will blog more often.
I will blog more often.
I will blog more orphans.
I will blog meer ooftans.
I vill bleurg moo raftans.

Oh soddit. Or is this just the death rattle of this blog, aka its râles d'agonie? This, by the way is neither big nor clever, but just an indication of too much Zola at an impressionable age.

Possibly it is merely ras-le-blog. Ouch.

Actually, come to think of it, I do have an idea... Hmm...

Once upon a time, in a blogiverse far far away...

2008-06-23T19:32:00.002+02:00

There was a person who regularly posted. That was about a year ago.

Then the ebhil curse of the drinking classes (or even glasses, I assume) got in the way.

Then she got her library shipped from home and trapped herself in her front room with some over-ambitious Ikea self-assemblage. After devouring three packets of rye crackers with only mustard ease things down, suddenly MDF looked rather tasty, and she managed to nibble herself free through a week spot in the backboard...

Only to decide that a holiday was the solution to all ills. So off she went (by train, metro, foot and ferry) to a remote mountain hamlet in Crete where she fulfilled a life's ambition and learned to milk a goat. There are pictures. She wasn't very good at it. It was cool. There was no electricity. Unfortunately, she had to come back by plane and is now scarred for life by the "complimentary" meal served to console her for missing her connection in Athens. To say nothing of the hotel room and its lovely view of one of the city's finest roundabouts.

It's been so long that I almost forgot my password...

2008-05-14T20:38:00.002+02:00

...perhaps, this should become the greatest ever blog of excuses for not writing blogs?

Except I don't think I have the stamina and determination for that either. Or else, those trivial minor details of life get in the way. Like work... and the other stuff. What was it again? Oh yes. More work.

Anyhow, this is probably not the best place to go into detail about the truly disgusting ex-summer-cold-now-officially-diagnosed-hay-fever that I have managed to develop. My doctor knows that it is hay fever owing to the subtle nuances of my mucus coloration. I know it is hay fever because a) it won't go away and b) no one else is as miserable as I. Oh woe.

But of course, along with hay fever comes hay fever remedies. Teeny tiny pills. Counsel that I should cycle more in open fields. Advice that I should cycle less in open fields. Recommendations that I should source local Praguish honey and ingest it for its local pollen qualities. Earnest discussion about the healing properties of natural yoghurt, dried figs and industrial-strength quantities of vitamin C. Lavender pills. Horsefly tincture. Snorting of fresh water. Of salt water. Cold team.

But will anyone shut the ****y window?

Still not ded yet...

2008-04-15T21:24:00.004+02:00

...just continuing to be a little preoccupied with learning a long list of names of animals in Czech. And some other stuff

This is of course, very handy since I now get to have really good conversations with Mrs. Jana:

"This vikend I wented to the zooooological park-u."
(This account of my extra-curricular activities is in fact a tissue of lies, constructed purely for the express purposes of showing off my animal-naming skills. Alas. I feel that Mrs. Jana and I will never have a true meeting of souls until the day arrives when I can describe my real freetime activities in Czech lessons.)
"Good. Did you see any animals?"
"Yes. I saw a giirraffe."
"No."
"Excuse me?"
"No."
"I saw a giraf-?" Her head shakes slowly.
"Girraph-?" More shaking.
"It's not giraffe?"
"No. You did not see a giraffe."
"I didn't?" Hang on... wasn't this my fictitious account of my artistically-enhanced-for-language-lesson-purposes weekend?
"No. You saw another animal."
"I did?" But they have giraffes in Prague zoo. I have seen them on posters.
"Yes. Another animal."
"Ummm... I saw a tygre?"
"No."
"No?"
"No. You also did not see a tiger."
I am beginning to feel stalked.
"Really?"
"Yes. The tiger is too easy. The giraffe is also to easy. You saw another animal."
"Ohh..." My mental lightbulb goes "ding!". Giraffe in Czech is žirafa. The "ž" is pronounced like a French "j". Tiger is an even greater cop-out since it's tygr.
"I saw a rheeenouserousooos."
"Rhinocerous."
"Rhynouceros."
"Good. Talk about the rhinocerous."
"Um... it is big."
"More."
"It is more big."
"Bigger."
"Yes. The rhynouceroos is bigger."
"Bigger than?"
"Umm... the rhynouceroos is bigger than... than... a cat?"
"No."
"No?"
"No. Cat is too easy. What else?"
"Umm... the rhynouceroos is bigger than a moose. Mouse."
"Good. What else?"
"It is bigger..."
"No. Not bigger."
"It is not bigger..."
"No. It is something else. It is more dange..."

(The discerning reader might have noticed some time around the second "bigger" that we are also reviewing the comparative and superlative of adjectives. Sadly, I didn't catch on until about now. It's tricky. They get prefixed and suffixed. If those are words.)

"Dange... Dange... Oh! I know! It is more dangeroose... It is more dangerooose... thaaann... aaaa... pig!"
"Good."
"It is also more expensive than a pig."*
"Excellent. Now. Tell me about the pig."

ad infinitum, or at least ad fortyfiveminutum

*This is, in fact, a cunning linguistic joke based on a well-known, hardcore Czech saying about something being "as expensive as a pig". My colleagues who taught it to me find it hilarious when I say it. Especially when I preface it with the classic and extremely pervasive Czech expression of astonishment/shock/disgust, "ty vole!"**. Taxi drivers find it it less amusing at about 1 in the morning.

**"Ty vole!" is probably worth a whole post of its own. Learning it opens whole new worlds of expressiveness. Well, at some point. Maybe.

Under here?

2008-03-26T20:26:00.006+01:00

I'm sure there's a subtle meaning here that escapes me...

Underwear. Genuinely a cause for astonishment. Particularly for wearers of the ladies' brand, "LovelyGirl", it would seem.

But perhaps some translation is in order. The debonair (you can tell by the scooter) gentleman to the left has doffed his mohair cardigan and matching driving gloves to casually enquire of his charming companion, "Ty nosíš lovelygirl?". This is Czech for "Are you wearing lovelygirl?"

To which insightful query, she shyly responds, "Ano!!!" or, "Yes!!!"

But I'm sure that the many dedicated followers of fashion who patronise this blog are anxious for a closer view of the tattoo on the gentleman's stomach, in order to more closely inspect such a tasteful and aesthetic example of body-art.

(Apologies for photo quality - I had to take the picture through a shop window)

That weather? It's a cultural thing, see...?

2008-03-19T22:02:00.004+01:00

So spring has unsprung, to put it mildly. We've gone from balmy, sunny 15-degrees-and-a-light-breeze T-shirt weather to freezing and snowstorms in about 2 days.

This is all the more bizarre because the Easter markets are out in full force, with bunting, decorated eggs and ribbons a-go-go, all now covered in slushy yuck and a fine dusting of snow at higher altitudes. Sigh.

Thought for the day

2008-03-03T18:51:00.001+01:00

When scheduling rather pleasurable activities such as a trip to see the latest big, showy, blockbusting musical at the cinema and a visit to the hairdresser's for a much-needed trim, on the whole, it is perhaps preferable to ensure that these happen in the reverse order to that given above.

Particularly when the the film is Sweeney Todd and the stylist likes to talk about how much she "loves the cutting"...

Catch-up photo, the first.

2008-02-21T21:15:00.004+01:00

pre-Christmas, but not by much, and not in Prague

Once upon a time in Birmingham*, they built a new shopping centre on and around the site of an old marketplace. And both the old marketplace and the new shopping centre, and a shopping centre created in the 1970s that no one likes to talk about much, were called the Bullring. And outside the new shiny mall, part of which looked like a giant silver alien beehive hairdryer, they placed an 8-foot bronze statue of a bull.

And to this shopping centre, the mighty Selfridges came from far-off London to open a new department store so that humble folk from far and wide (or at least the ones in Midlandcestershire) could obtain those sturdy, shiny yellow plastic carrier bags with dramatic black writing and thereby declare (in a not-terribly-subliminal-way) "Behold! I have (expensive) style!"

And to the basement floor of this department store of marvels, came an American sweet company. And they opened their only European store with much fanfare and rejoicing for they were able to help the inhabitants of Midlandcestershire, and their visiting relatives, to fulfill their ultimate destiny. And their destiny was, of course, to obtain limited edition Hershey's Kisses and gobstoppers the size of tennis balls. And the crowning glory of this marvellous achievement was an 8-foot statue of the bronze bull made out of jelly beans, and priced at £20,000.

*not the one in Alabama, more the Midlandcestershire area of the UK...

Blushing...

2008-02-18T19:23:00.003+01:00

List of shamefully pathetic blog avoidance excuses:

1. The (mythic) dog ate my blog.
2. I forgot my password.
3. The (mythic) dog ate my password.
4. Mrs. Jana has become crazed with power, and the consequent outpouring of homework has burned out what little of my brain cells remain after their usual daily abuse.
5. Mrs. Jana ate the (mythic) dog.
6. Fried cheese. In fact, it really should be held accountable for more of the world's problems, in particular the weirdly chewy plastic stuff rolled in orange breadcrumbs that is sold as the veggie alternative to the dodgy-sausage-in-a-bun post-evening's-entertainment snackerel from stalls in Wenceslas Square. Actually, the stalls are also open in the daytime, but I suspect that only crazed tourists, blinded by the lust for cobbles and driven mad by over-exposure to the bong-bong-bongs of that clock, think this is a good idea in broad daylight.
7. It's too cold.
8. It's too hot. (weather is v odd at the moment)
9. (Mythic) aliens ate the (mythic) dog, cold with some (mythic) pickled onions.
10. Oh dear... ten. Nope. Just not happening.

Sadly, none of these are actually true except the last one, and I suspect that things will remain erratic for a wee while. But will try catch up with some photos.

The Return of Mrs. Jana. v.2.0 (The ReWenge)

2008-01-28T22:42:00.000+01:00

Due to various complicated reasons, the most complicated of which was probably laziness on my part, and not much helped by the inherent difficulties of the conditional mood, I haven't had Czech lessons with Mrs. Jana for over a year now. (my very, very, very bad).

All that changed one rainy day a couple of weeks ago, when, propelled by one of my more feeble-minded and naïve New Year's resolutions, she relaunched herself and exploded smack-bang in the middle of my normally innocent weekly round of activities. Thunder would have probably rolled quite ominously, if I had not forgotten my words-for-discussing-the-weather in Czech and so pretended not to notice. Besides, I was mesmerised by her steely will (not steely wool - that's still in a cupboard under the sink for cleaning the oven) and savage glint in her eye.

The first lessons have concentrated on revision. They went a bit like this:

Mrs J.: (in Czech) "Today we are discussing nouns and adjectives. What are the 3 genders and how do they decline?"
Me: (in Czech) "Huh?"
Mrs. J.: (in Czech, but more slowly) "Today… we… talk… about… nouns… What… are… types… of… nouns?"
Draws three columns on a blank sheet of paper
Me: (in English, but with a fake Czech accent) "Ummm… Maskulin*? Feminin*? a Neutr-- Neutr-a-..."
Mrs. J. shakes head, ominously.
Me: "Neutraa--- uum??"
Mrs. J: "Good. Now, what are the endings of these nouns?"
Me: "Uhhh… Feminin* je (Czech for "he/she/it is") '-a'"

Bets firmly hedged at this point, on the grounds that many languages that have genders tend to consider words ending in '-a' to be feminine. Except those Italian Andreas, of course, on whose situation we shall briefly touch later, although probably not when their over-protective signifcant others and loved ones are looking.

Mrs. J.: "Good. Now, what are some other feminine endings?"
Me (weakly covering frantic thinking with awkward smile): "Ummm… -ka?"
Mrs. J.: "Yes. But this is like -a. What other endings?"
Ping!
Me: "Wait! Wait! I know this! -kyně!" (It's pronounced -keenyeh. Or somehow like a reverse "quinoa", but less posh, and not so much of the Karen Blixens/Happy Valley set.)
Mrs. J.: "Good."
Birdsong. The sun comes out.
Me: (now on a roll) "And maskulin* je… without "-a" and without vowel! Je konsonant*"
Angel choirs (theologically speaking, neutrum, I believe) bellow with joy.
Mrs. J.: "Except for?"
Me: "Errr.. Honza?"
Mrs. J.: "Yes. Honza je logicky maskulin. Logically masculine**."

Delirious cheers and rapturous applause all 'round. Big bunches of flowers in gratitude to the angel chorus, with regard to whom I refuse to embroil myself in a debate vis-a-vis masculinity, logical or otherwise. That is clearly a job for those men with beards, tonsures and well-polished pins.

Mrs. J. (cont'd): "Also maskulin are some words that end with -ska." (She writes this down with some emphasis.) "And for neutrum?"
Me: "Words with -e… and -o."
Angels faint with delight.
Mrs. J.: "Good. And what about adjectives?"
sccrreeechh… angels exit, genderstruck

And so the lesson rolls on…

Mrs. J's verdict at the end of my ordeal by revision? "You have remembered a lot. This is good. But it is nothing to do with you, of course. It is only because of my teaching that you have remembered well."

She's right of course. Mrs. Jana is always right.

PS. Other Mrs. Janas are also available. But that is another story, for another time.

*Note. These are not real Czech words, but they are real Czech endings. Handle with Care. Do not attempt to use in the comfort of your own home without the assistance of a specialist.

**Other note. Still making these grammatical words up. But Honza is quietly confident that he is far more than logically masculine, although of course this is always a rather nice option to exercise on alternate Tuesdays in the Fitness Centrum whirlpool.

ETA: another few words.

And now featuring one of my absolutest favoritest book series that I read last year

2008-01-12T16:28:00.000+01:00

Don’t mind me – I’m just warming up my blogging muscles - such as they are.

I’m not the sort of person who deliberately catalogues what I read in any particular way. It’s more that the vast and growing-ever-more-mountainous-yet accretion of books in my room has a life (and a structure) of it's own. Regarding the first, flatmates have speculated on the leporine breeding habits of the common or garden liber fictionalis (sic[k] - and sorry to any latinists). At least in such close quarters. And doesn't all the noise keep me awake at nights?

But as regards the second, on the Great Paperback Mountain, if you know how to read the topology, patterns emerge... Duly extracted from the third pile of paperbacks in from the left (spines out) at the back on the top shelf of the Bower of Bliss that is my incarnation of A Well-Known-Swedish-Modular-Furniture-Flatpak-Company's birch-effect "Mötesplats"* model I offer for consideration Laurie R. King’s "Mary Russell" series.

Except anything that follows is going to be crap, because whenever I try to explain my adoration for this series, I am woefully ineloquent. I end up talking like this, “They're really, really good. Promise. Seriously. They're soooo goooood. Wait - please don’t read the back cover. It's much better than that, really. You’ll like it. You might love it. Please stop reading the back cover. It's not like that. I promise. Well, okay a little. Yes, it is Sherlock Holmes and yes, he is married. I've just made that sound really weird. But it’s not. Well, okay, he is a lot older than her, but I just sort of channel Sean Connery and it helps. But it's like all about their meeting of minds...

"Wait, wait a sec before you put it down. Please? Yes, that one has Kipling’s Kim in it. But he’s a great character she really makes him her own. Anyhow, they're all sort of inter-textual and each book is like a homage to these classic genres of popular fiction. You know the Gothic mystery, and the Locked Room mystery… And they’re really cool, because she’s a feminist, and there are these ideas about the outsider the observer and how she makes her own place, because she’s half English and half American and Jewish. And she’s a theologian. So she questions everything and doesn't accept the way society would try to limit her. Oh. Okay. Not really your thing. Try this Meg Cabot. A cheerleader has her head chopped off and put in a saucepan.”

But secretly? Secretly, I want to be Mary Russell when I grow up. Just like I want to be Harriet Vane when I grow up. Not for the events or the mysteries or the men in their lives, but for the thoughtful and even (ungrammatically) thinking way they live their lives.

Actually, I owe a huge thank you to Marianne McA who recommended this series to me, and hooked me by way of an extract from the first of the books, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice. I can do no more, it seems. Alas. So don’t pay attention to my witterings – go read the extract.

*(koff) not a the name of the real product - their word means "shop assistant". This word doesn't and I like it better.

Edited to update links. My bad. Thanks Suisan for spotting this.

brrrrr

2007-12-17T20:40:00.000+01:00

If it's blurry, it's only because my hands were shaking and my legs were numb. Does anyone know if they make flannel-lined jeans?

J., who is visiting from warmer climes, is looking rather chilled, but bearing up well, and appreciating the excuse to drink warming grog, warming hot honey liqueur, warming hot cider, warming hot wine and eat warming hot trdlo, warming assorted cookies and warming fried cheese. Now we're looking forward to the pre-Christmas Open Air Slaughter of the Carp.

Czech informants have also confirmed that some families still take home said carp and keep them in the bath for a few days as an alternative (something to do with filtering out the muddy water). Fortunately, we only have a shower, and I have laid down strict rules about the acceptable use of the washing machine after Ye Grate Fludes, I II and III, and Ye Majorre Delyuge IV.

CleaR! Bzzzp! Bzzzp!

2007-12-07T21:12:00.000+01:00

"Hey, so have you got done your Christmas present shopping yet?"
"No."
"Oh."
"And it's already too late for some. Unless I order online locally."
"That's okay. Look, you can order the Philips HeartStart Home Defibrillator with Slim Carrying Case from Amazon.com. only $1,275.00. Free shipping within the contiguous US."
"Not bad. They were saying the paper the other week how the exchange rate was getting more favorable."
"Yeah. You could probably get the storage cabinet as well."
"Nice. It's very clearly labelled."
"Only 4 in stock, mind you. Better get one soon."
"But if I order the HeartStart Defibrillator without the Slim Carrying Case for only $1,249.00 I can get the Free Philips HeartStart Home Automated External Defibrillator Adult Training Pads Kit instead."
"What a dilemma."
"Yeah. Maybe I'll just send those biscuits instead. The ones with vanilla filling."

Updates

2007-11-30T21:01:00.000+01:00

Flatmate update:

She came, she collected, she went.

Have a new one now and am focussed on lowering my expectations mightily. I'm anticipating achieving suspicious serial killer behaviour by Wednesday (insert joke about muesli here).

Weather update:

Snooooolluussshh. But cold. The hat with the earflaps has come out of storage, and I am monitoring the incremental plummet of the temperature on the way into work via the digital display in front of the pet supplies store.

Edited to add: except for today, when it went up again. But there's snow in the mountains this year, and people keep sneaking off for mid-week skiing sessions

24 hours in Berlin update:

The only thing that it is possible to obtain in the big shopping mall atop Berlin Hauptbahnhof (I now call it Hbf for that air of Teutonic coolness) that I cannot buy here are fist-sized Dunkin' Doughnuts and fragments of The Wall. Instead, enterprising urchins supply the souvenir-hungry tourist with historic cobbles "from the streets of Old Prague", and we have endless variations on the twisty-sweet-bread theme, but while many are filled, none are fried.

Weird to think that only twenty years ago the sight of a Coke bottle was a novelty, and that a lot of the people I know here can still vividly remember the arrival of the first MacDonald's in Prague. But they did have little brown plastic hand-held video games of a fox/wolf and a duck. It seems a little like a parallel universe where the playmobil figures were machinists and miners, rather than doctors and firemen.

Back in Berlin, luckily for me, B. showed stunning resourcefulness in eventually locating me so I didn't have to take the last train back on Saturday and instead got my 24 hours in Kreuzberg.

DVD addiction update:

Six Feet Under. Blimey it's good. And I think I have a whole 6 seasons to catch up on. Woohoo.

Blogger language update:

It's gone back to Czech.

Mrs. Jana update:

It seems a second Mrs. Jana is hoving into view on the horizon. I will know more the weekend after this one.

Date update

I ate dates in Berlin. Also a persimmon.

SpiegelimspiegellegeipsmilegeipS

2007-11-21T20:52:00.000+01:00

Might be better to pretend that I published this about two days ago - it will be easier all round, and make me appear organised and consistent. Ahem

The Athenian Murders - Jose Carlos Somoza

I find it hard to believe that I have never unleashed the chains on my abiding and unspeakable desire for this book here before. But that's what the mighty power of the search engine shows. Shock. Horror. Smothered yawn. Be afraid. However, I re-read it recently, which makes it count in this mini festival of bookstravaganzic delights, allowing it (the mini-fest, that is) to live another day.

But enough of this introductory flimflam, I hear my inner ~~monkey~~ editor cry, speak more of this unspeakable love. For yes, this book contains innumerable shades of the love that dare not speak its name. Inter-textual love. Academic twistiness and japery of the driest kind. Philosophical shadow puppetry. Flagrant abuse of literary meta-jiggery. Tricksiness a go-go. I love it all with the unholy passion of a thousand geeky monkeys. The ones that are otherwise busily making rude shadow animals, sun-bathing and short-sheeting the Platonic bed.

For verily, these are Ancient Greeks of whom I write, or rather of whom the author writes and from whom I steal jokes. Smart koulourakia to a man, right down to their dusty ankles (except the one in the bath).

Well, actually, it is more that these are Ancient Greeks upon whom the author uses the character of the Translator to write or comment. Or their ideas. Except these might be copies of the original copy of the ideal first idea. And anyhow, what about those lions? See what I mean? This is book which defies anyone, least of all a lowly blogger armed only with the dubious merits of the English relative clause to shove its translated-from-the-original-Spanish-self into a halfway decent summary. It's a tricksy book about Ideas, lightly glazed with a few corpses, a sinister subplot (or is it?) and finished off with an anti-sleuth. I think the Salon article explained it best, and the Guardian review is more entertaining, which leaves me to only do my worst.

Basically it features:
Death
Murder
Poison
Bodies
Wolves (or lions)
Greeks (ancient)
Academics (ancient and modern)
Philosophy (mostly Greek and ancient)
Ideas-with-a-big-I. Bigger I. No, a really big I.
Texts. (not the SMS kind)
Budding insanity
Reality. (Jim)
Footnotes. Le sigh. Les bambi eyes. Le sigh.

A quick scan of the Amazon and Salon reviews, which are proper reviews with plot synopses and everything a prospective reader could desire, indicates that this book is of the love-it-or-hate-it Marmite type. I'd agree, although I'd add to my review overview that despite the inclusion of footnotes and such it's closer to Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next (not Nursery Crimes) books than Terry Pratchett, but not at all as cheerfully bonkers and far more menacing and introverted. Thursday Next's rather disturbing great-uncle professor who lost tenure under the darkest of clouds as written by Borges (he comes back later), perhaps.

A scan of the the reviews of the "urrggh, Marmite, blech"-type shows that this isn't the book for readers who just can't abide Umberto Eco and writers of his ilk. But I think that if it's just Eco's prose style that puts you off, rather than his content, it's worth looking at this book, purely on the grounds that Eco can leave the unwary reader feeling trapped in the coils of his rococco prose. Somoza's style (and oh, how I long to write Samosa's style) is less elaborated than Eco's and more lucid. The disorientating, clever twistiness remains, but I didn't feel as if I were also being showered with the shredded contents of a gilded thesaurus by a million pudgy putti.

The other thing to add to the review overview is that I wouldn't read this book looking for the next historical whodunnit à la grecque. Thither lies disappointment. There's a murder, but that's not really the whole point, and the ending isn't exactly Christie.

On the other hand if deep-down, you secretly rather enjoy following digs and snide asides as academics wrangle over obscure points and interpretations via cross-references and footnotes, even though you know this means you are turning into your father (hairy ears and all) you will probably enjoy this. Besides, it's a book about books, playing with other books.* If you like it when an author constantly pulls the rug out from under your feet, even if it's technically cheating (or at least, making up the rules as he goes along) read on.

For me, the best part of the book is sitting back, relaxing and letting the the author, or narrator, or translator or whoever mess with my mind. He or she or it or whoever might make things up. He might even take the piss a few times. But even though I've read it a few times now, this book invariably leaves me with the oddest combination of two very distinct, and yet long-winded feelings:

1.I get the buzz that normally happens when the stars align and somehow I'm able to work out a series of clues for a cryptic crossword.
2.But at the same time, it leaves me genuinely unsettled. Not in the the "AAa! Whatwasthatnoise? AAAaa!" way, though. Instead, it's in the "But what if I go to sleep and it turns out that this life is really something/one dreaming and then who/whatever is dreaming wakes up while I'm asleep and what happens then????aaaahhhh!!! No wait! What about what we see in the mirrors!!! aaah!!!!" kind of way.

Best to put it like this - it's one of the few books that actually made me think it might be a good idea to read some more Borges. One of these days. As long as there's enough coffee.

*Except they didn't really have books in those days. Or novels, as Salon points out. Probably they didn't have philosopher-detectives too, but at least there were libraries ~~and monkeys~~. There were no monk-~~how do you know? you were too busy contemplating the exercise non-outfits of those ancient greek athletes.~~ I WAS NO-- ~~And anyhow,~~ My mind was SO COMPLETELY on higher thin- do you know what people think when you stick a footnote like this at the end of this kind of review? Especially one where you name-drop Borges, TWICE. I'll tell you what they think. They think, "What a pretentious tw--"

Bishbashbosh

2007-11-13T19:04:00.000+01:00

…aka brief impressionist sketches of some recent (in the last year) book encounters. Still not reviewing them properly, I might add, and will likely be annoyingly nonspecific or focus on minutiae to the exclusion of all else.

The Privilege of the Sword - Ellen Kushner

I almost don't want to write anything about this book and why I love it with the unholy passion of thousand raging monkeys. Partly because I'd never heard of the writer or the book, and picked it up at random, unhyped, undusted and lonely off a "recent releases" bookshelf in a sci-fi/fantasy bookstore. Then I forgot about it completely for 6 months. So I started it with no expectations.

The course of true love went something along these lines: p.1, "ehh?" p.2, "er… not…so...su..." p.3 "re?...about thisoneohmygodmustkeepreadingohwowohwowAndAMadDuke!ooohwowohwowiloovveeyooouuboookyoulovelyboookdon'tennddmustn'tfinishnevereverenddddoohnnooopleeeaaassse! Swoon."

In other (real) words, it's the sort of YA fantasy novel that gets it somehow perfect. Perfect in that impossible, magical way that adult books simply cannot manage. I just want to hug it to myself and read it over and over. Talking might spoil it. The thought of breaking up the magic into digestible chunks of detail and peeling away at plot and character analysis makes me want to cry. That's how my Grade 5 English teacher killed My Family and Other Animals.

So I don't want to hype or vaunt or trumpet the praises of this book at all. I just want to leave it lying battered and well-loved in the corner of a bookcase at a friend's house so that you can pick it up at random on a rainy day. So that you can curl up with it in a warm, quiet corner at the top of the house. So that your flannel-clad and fuzzy-socked self can look out the window and see the rain-washed day outside when the world taking shape in your head becomes too bright to bear. So that you end up eating all the stale nuts and the squashed half-packet of digestives that were left out from yesterday's tea because absolutely the last thing you want to do is stop reading, get up, prepare and eat a proper meal. So that you can fall in love, too.

If you want to know what it's really about, there are proper reviews to read at Amazon, and also chez ames. As for me, I've managed to track down and acquire two other books by the same author. The only problem is that I can't yet bring myself to read them because I'm so worried that they won't have the same effect as this one.

Too embarrassed to call it anything but number seven

2007-11-11T18:01:00.000+01:00

The thing is, someone else recently told me about one of their former flatmates, the pinnacle of whose appalling behaviour was his attempt to drive out P. from his council-provided splendour with twin offensives in the form of poor personal hygiene and flamboyantly noisy live-in lovers squatting on the sofa. This was followed up by a pathetic attempt to steal P.'s identity and thereby claim his benefits.

The plot was foiled by the aforementioned vociferous and as it turned out, spurned and vengeful lover Revealing All, and I mean All in the menswear department of Dickens and Jones. But it was the seventies, it might have worked.

I am now a little embarrassed at my previous description of my erstwhile flatmate's behaviour as "appalling". A trifle annoying perhaps. A mild social solecism. And of course, now that my own level of righteous anger has faded to mildly pissed off, I feel guilt and ashamedly petty about my own actions.

To sum up, I returned home after a week away to find a message that read, "I have decided I hate it here. I have left work and moved back home. I need to know what to do with the keys. Don't worry about paying me back for the rest of this month's rent."

This would be the person who had agreed that because of her lack of deposit and general uncertainty about life, the universe and tram times she would give me a definite 4 weeks notice of her plans to vacate or pay the difference. The one who had organised her entire life here (including a fall-back career and alternative Friday job) in advance from the other side of the world before arriving. The one who had never lifted a finger to do any cleaning and kept her own store of toilet paper in her room, since it seems that short lets do not dust or have a communal attitude to personal hygiene products (although other people's DVDs are another matter). The one who left only three days before next month's rent was due, which would make it a three days rent-but-no-tenant-bonus. Ice creams are on me.

A few weeks later, no sign of the keys in the post, but a further message, "My friends are coming to stay in Hotel XYZ for the weekend. Please take the things I left behind around to their hotel for me so they can bring them back for me. Don't bother about the food or anything, just the clothes, shoes and bags."

These would be the clothes that had been left in dirty piles on the floor (now laundered) or mildewing gently in the washing machine on my return. With shoes and everything, the enormous canvas holdall allocated to the task weighed about 20 kilos (44 lbs.) and would have required a taxi to deliver.

Gentle readers, I said no.

Today falls on the last day of the weekend of the visitation and I have not taken the items around. The weather is bad, the taxi drivers are angry, the hotel has steps. Twenty navy-blue, canvas kilos of guilt are weighing on my conscience with fraying straps.

Im Not Dedd Yet.

2007-10-29T19:41:00.000+01:00

But I'm in some kind of doldrums, where I'm paddling furiously but don't seem to be getting anywhere fast.

Anyhow, in my "to blog" list appears the following:
1. Extended posting extravaganza on "The Colour Purple", including why I spell it wrong.
2. Some really good series books I've read lately (like, in the past year).
3. Spreading book love to a bunch of standalones too.
4. Kyrse of the Whamphyre Pt. 3278, rev.7a, or "If I skim read the LKH releases in hardback in Borders instead of buying them, it's a) not tight and mean, and b) doesn't count in the rotting of grey matter stakes (like calories from food you don't like, or eat standing up. Pun unintentional.).
5. Sausages.
6. Things that people miss in the Czech Rep. with a very long digression by a French person on seafood.
7. The Appalling Behaviour Of My New Ex-Flatmate Who Has Done A Runner. And she seemed so normal, too.
8. Should I get flying lessons?
9. Does anyone else always look to see who's listed in the copyright of a book?
10. House. Better in small chunks as otherwise, you see the joins.
11. Hair. Tralalala.
12. Greetings (not Hallmark).
13. Burčak. Drink it before it brews. It's cultural.

14. I'm hungry.

Problem is of course, that the more I don't write about them, the more I don't want to write about them. So I think I might jettison some of the trivia, and when someone takes this bloody grindstone off my neck (nose has slipped) I'll just do number 1.

Oooohhhh, ye'll take the high road...

2007-10-14T22:55:00.000+02:00

Warning: This post is also going to be another one of those definitely-not-a-book-review-picky-harridan-spouting-bad-puns rants. Not a review, 'cos then I'd be adding my 2p/80 hellers to Amazon instead, and talking about characterisation and plot and whatnot, but 42 others have done this, with the average rating coming out pretty… average. Which would be my opinion, except for, well, what follows. Bear (hurhur) with me.

There's an episode in one of the Paddington Bear books (and I googled until I was getting very red-faced from some of the sites that did appear, but couldn't find the name) where the marmalade-munching bundle of good-yet-furry intentions goes to Scotland Yard to report a crime. Confusion, mishaps and hard stares ensue, followed by a swift resolution and a warming mug of hot cocoa. Awww...

But there's a clue to my dismay at my latest commute book here, because Paddington Bear lives with the Greens at 32 Windsor Gardens. This is located in Notting Hill. That would be Notting Hill, London, England. Like the film and the carnival. It's quite posh, actually. But the key point? Is the "England" bit. Note how it's not "Scotland". Scotland is a long way on paws (although not as far as Peru).

But of course, Paddington is anthropomorphosized bear, so perhaps we shouldn't rely on his sense of orientation. After all, who knows what kind of funny practices he might have picked up in Darkest Peru? That supra-cranial stash marmalade sandwiches is definitely suspicious.

So take the case of the most famous dope-addled detective of them all, Sherlock Holmes, who famously puffed on his pipe at 221b Baker Street. Again, in London, England. Where he would periodically show up his rival in detecting, Inspector Lestrade, who worked for Scotland Yard. Presumably also in London unless he had a very fast horse.

But shockingly (perhaps it's a cunning ruse to lull local criminal masterminds into a false sense of security by convincing them that the police have moved and are busy looking for nefarious deeds elsewhere) the Metropolitan Police Force, who police Greater London, have an HQ called, "New Scotland Yard". In England. Not Scotland. There's a big triangular sign in front that goes round and round and round and round... I've gone past it on the bus (yes, a red double-decker one).

Or perhaps it's just that 180 years ago, the public entrance of the police HQ was in Great Scotland Yard, and London being London, the name stuck, even after it moved few times (but only within London). What this says about Londoners, I'm not sure. It's probably not flattering. At least they stuck the "New" on at the beginning. Anyhow, keeping the name wasn't so much about foiling dastardly villains, but dastardly villainous filing. (oh help)

So if, say, a writer of contemporary romantic suspense were to feature a psychotic serial killer going on a mad rampage through the modern-day Highlands, I'm pretty damn sure that the local laird (uuurrgggh) wouldn't be calling for and/or dodging the attention of Inspector MacTypecast from Scotland Yard. There's that whole 12-plus hours journey on a very dull motorway with nothing but boiled sweets and local radio for sustenance for one.

Instead, Laird MacTitebreeks o' Leathern (uuuurrggh) would be enjoying a visit by representatives of the Northern Constabulary CID. Probably a whole bunch of them with forensic investigators and everything. Maybe a task force in fluorescent vests. Maybe even a secret subdivision of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency staffed by a brotherhood of vampires. Ian Rankin probably knows best.

Someone, somewhere is very glad I dumped that business about UK police ranks and how they're referred to in the vernacular.

In case anyone was looking to for the terrifyingly-long first draft mentioned elsewhere...

2007-10-14T22:51:00.000+02:00

I have to apologise because I did promise elsewhere that I would attempt to tame the unfeasibly long first draft of my commentary-thing on The Color Purple and present it, nicely trimmed (possibly with lavender ribbons) in manageable chunks here this weekend. And I really did mean to. Had it all planned in my head and everything.

Problem is that I'm over HERE. And the laptop is over THERE. And the back-up server with all these personal doodads and mumblings is JUST A BIT TO THE RIGHT, NO WAIT, UP A BIT… LEFT… LEFT… NO! RIGHT! RIGHT! But the whole thing was just too huge for me to reconstruct over the weekend, so guess what this week's filling-in-the-gaps project will be? By next Sunday, there will be something along these lines, 'kay?

Pause.

Then I started an entirely different rant, but that's another post for another time. Probably about 5 minutes from now.

Crrrracked.

2007-10-09T20:41:00.000+02:00

So last weekend, still in the grip of my emotional maelstrom, and made reckless by a clutch of last month's unused food vouchers* I went a little wild and experimental in the bio-food emporium owned by the 7th Day Adventists (closed on Saturdays - it's very disconcerting. No trading on Sundays is still the norm here for smaller shops).

I should probably add that as a tree-hugging, muesli-crunching, hemp-sandal-wearing herbivore I am a regular patron of this and other bio-shops. It's just that I normally confine my purchases to things I recognise and know how to cook. You know where you are with tofu - it's not usually going to do anything more vicious than wobble alarmingly and take on lurid hues when it's past the sell-by date. And green leafy stuff is pretty much universally manageable.

But all those little bags of dried things can be a little intimidating, and most of the powdered stuff comes hand-labelled with vocabulary that doesn't feature in my "Czech Step-by-Step". They frown on the sniff test in there, too.

However, novelty is a many-splendoured thing, and last Sunday the "novinky" section was filled to the bursting with little (recycled) plastic pots of crackery-biscuitty type things. So after much deliberation I picked up box of "orange-lemon-ginger flax rolls". Sounds yummy. Mmmmm…

Luckily, as a small child I used to eat paper, so the principal texture and flavour didn't come as a total shock. And then, the flax seeds added a certain je ne sais quoi to the whole chewing experience which can only be described as "mucilage". (Is that a word? I have done that thing with soaked flaxseeds as a substitute for egg whites but was never very convinced by it.)

But I did learn the Czech for "Slowly dehydrated at 48 degrees centigrade for several hours to preserve health and vitality." And this made me realise that rather than delighting in biscuitty-goodness itself, I was basically eating the mummified husks of biscuits. The only thing is that I'm not sure if they're meant to reincarnate of their own accord or if I need to stand under a pyramid holding a razor and a dead mouse first. Pass the natron.

*Is this a Czech thing? Because pretty much every company here seems to pay a small fraction of your salary in food vouchers. Just like luncheon vouchers, but they're far more widely accepted, and you can use them in most restaurants, cafés and even supermarkets… Rules and checkout ladies permitting

Gone through the wringer have I...yes...

2007-10-07T19:43:00.000+02:00

So... as of ten o'clock this morning, I am a real, genuine Evil Auntie. Words cannot describe (although I'm sure I'll recover shortly).

I've also just finished re-reading The Color Purple for banned books week at Smart Bitches'.

I have snot down my face and my favorite bookshop just gave me free promotional mug.

All in all, I'm an emotional yo-yo. Or is that Yoda? Yogurt?

There's a theme here... if I can just put my finger on it...

2007-10-01T20:22:00.000+02:00

Obviously, I would be the one with wings.

I suppose it's one of those millenial things, but like a lot of people I know, the title used to describe what I do to keep the weresturgeon from the door doesn't really convey the vivid actuality my day-to-day existence.

Luckily, I've found a photo.

Afterthought: Is it just me, or does horror seem more horrible when spelled "horor"?

Have now reached chapter 13

2007-09-28T20:09:00.000+02:00

In the below?

I was wrong. First of all, I've worked out that it's not a book. It's a character spec and storyboard for an RPG.

Secondly, my comparison with Boney M was a terrible injustice to one of the most notable jangly-pop-reggae collectives of the last century. They rhymed better, and had fewer annoying hobbies.

Finally, in a last-ditch attempt to lift the cloud of vwamphyrric gloom that was yesterday's post, and in the interests of fairness, some points of sweetness and light.:
1.The words are generally spelled correctly.
2.None of the character's names or hair colours (apart from a certain vagueness about the eyes) have changed midstream. I am very clear on the details of their physique. Man, big. Lady, small. Got it.
3.Same for the horses. Except there aren't any yet (werelynx, yes. horses, no) which is probably a relief.

Dilemma

2007-09-27T21:41:00.000+02:00

Once again, I have fallen for the Kyrse of the Vwampyr (mwhahaha)™. Alas, all down to Robin McKinley's Sunshine, which I finally got around to reading. Hooray! A book that lived up to the hype that I have been oh-so-studiously avoiding. For once, the Buffy comparison was not unwarranted. It filled me with yeasty confidence in the possibility of other interesting-yet-unlikely-sounding books from the sub-genre in question.

Oh how wrong I was.

How wrong.

How very very very wrong.

Dufdufdufdufdufduf. Duf.

Mr. Lestat and J-C, (famed artistic creations of the vwamphyrrically bonkers kind, somewhat long-in-the-tooth, but that's muses for you) have a hell of a lot to answer for. Oh those… Carpathians, to paraphrase Boney M.

In fact, this latest book (for want of a better word, I mean, there are pages and a cover and actual printed words and such) reads to me like a Boney M version of "The Funky History of Drakula with lots of Russky-type-boinking and guns", sometimes set in Romania. Only with Italian subtitles. Featuring a nubile chorus of Egyptian gods wearing sparkly eyeliner and a ghostly, well let's call it a "tambourine", although that would be the wrong shape.

The only problem with that comparison is that I don't think Boney M took themselves quite as seriously as this book (or its heroine) does. No campy fun for us in our flowing pantaloons, oh no.

Still, there is hope. I'm only on chapter 7 (pages are turning quite slowly) and it's entirely possible that the heroine may smack her head against a convenient low-hanging tree branch, get amnesia and forget all the info she must dump along the way. Not sure what to do about every other character's single-minded determination to adore and worship every single fibre of her being, though.

Inadequately-researched digression into Romanian taste in popular music.

It was the chorus of happy Romanian peasants singing Peter, Paul and Mary songs in the pub, accompanied by the heroine on the guitar that pushed me to my current underpants-on-the-head level of despair and befuddlement. Actually, I asked the Romanians in the other office how they felt about Peter, Paul and Mary, or possibly, Petru, Pawel and Maria songs. But apparently, they like Shakira better. Hips don't lie.

End digression.

Since I'm now adament that I will finish this bloody book, I can only hope that there may be a cunning twist in the tail. Perhaps the heroine will whip out (maybe skip the whipping, though, because my imagination has enough to cope with, thankyouverymuch) the trusty, "main-character-as-evil-machinator" plot device (thank you, Dame Aggie).

She can then reveal that the entire preceding storyline is the result of a nefarious plot on her part to lobotomise every character with whom she comes into contact, turning them into brainless lumps of hunky man-jelly, who will be hers… (assume Truman Capote voice here) hers... to toy with... (a loony hand-washing gesture would not go amiss at this point).

Sigh.

Anyone else notice the dearth of decent female secondary characters when a heroine like this flounces, bitches and ~~sweats~~ ~~perspires~~ ahem, glows, her way across a few hundred pages of print?

Ddduf.

Lazy list

2007-09-15T16:13:00.000+02:00

Ten things you can see/do in Prague that aren't mentioned in my very extensive collection of guidebooks (even the one that has reviews of, erm, houses of ill-repute).

1. Eat dumplings filled with smoked meat and served from a small brass cannon onto a wooden cheeseboard piled high with sauerkraut. (I've mentioned this before, but it's worth mentioning again).

2. See six German ladies of a certain age touring Prague in a seventy-seven year old, bright yellow, open-topped car with six wheels.

3. Have an excellent Thai massage.

4. Visit a museum dedicated to the most famous Czech who never lived, Jara Cimrman, including replicas of his most famous inventions, such as the triple-headed hammer, ladies' mugger-defense glove with retractable claws, or the gentleman's travelling chamberpot.

5. Drink an excellent cappuccino accompanied by a carrot "sandwich" (a slice of loaf that tastes a lot like a nutty carrot cake).

6. Not admire the statue of Jan Hus in Old Town Square because it's completely surrounded by hoardings for Skoda cars which are paying for its repairs, and beds of seasonal flowers, which aren't but make it look nicer.

7. Cruise the Vltava in pedalos (tide permitting).

8. Go roller-blading in one of the big parks outside the centre and play spot-the-most-obscure-yet-obscene piece of graffiti.

9. Wonder at the seemingly unstoppable flood of "Herna Non-Stop", 24 hour gambling shops (places too small and croupier-free to be called casinos) filled with flashing, ringing slot machines, a perpetual cloud of cigarette smoke and free drinks and snacks to playing punters.

10. Go(-)karting in Radotín, Europe's largest indoor karting track and finally understand where all the airport taxi drivers get their training.

(i can has breef postz)

2007-09-08T19:29:00.000+02:00

The short version of the post below?

Escalators in the Prague metro are rather long and slow.

The end.

Moving stairway to nefilim

2007-09-08T18:42:00.000+02:00

Somehow, while I have had enough time to stumble across ideas for blog posts and even managed to worry them around enough to find some of the rough edges, I haven't really had the time to bash them into shape. Consequently, when I do sit down at a keyboard for bloggish purposes, I don't even know where to start. It feels as if all these whirling fragments of posts have clogged up my back brain and it takes enormous concentration to get anything down - even a hopeful list of topics.

Personally, I blame the escalators. Escalator-based differences are one of those things that I noticed when I first arrived here, but which rapidly became part of the day-to-day pattern of my life. When I was first getting to know the glories of the Prague metro system, my thoughts when escalator-bound would go something like this:

"Ticket stamping machine… where's my ticket? Oh yes, here. No that's used, okay, yes, here it is."

Silent squishing noise (yes, it is possible) as ticket collapses in ticket stamping machine. Squish again. Squish again.

"Okay… not the ticket. Different machine."

Whirrrrr. Bzzpp. (electronic date-stamping noise). Walk to escalator. Stand. Stare at the back of people's heads, trapped by the lack of appropriate Czech verbiage. Stand some more. Brain flips into the same semi-meditative trance of resigned boredom that causes me to read the ingredients listing on cereal boxes at breakfast and starts looking for escalator equivalent of a nutrition label.

"Ohhhh. Strange-looking Czech words on posters. I recognise that brand. And that one too. But not that one. Hey, I know that word. I think that one is advertising a language school. Yes, "jazyky". I know that word. And "anglic-with-a-hacek-tina" too. Wow. I can read some Czech. So I wonder what that is? Oh "divadlo". That's theatre. So maybe a play? Or seasons? It's a black and white picture of two people with angst in their eyes. With an owl. Must be a play. What's the owl for? How far? What? I'm not even half-way down this thing yet. Bloody hell, this is taking for-ee-vaaahh. Borrreeed.

"What play has an owl? This is a long escalator. I wish that man would move to the right. I wonder what Czech for "please stand on the right is?" Hmmmm… trees of the year. The June one is nice. In London, there are signs and announcements. Very leafy, that May tree. Tree of May. Whatever. Why aren't there signs and announcements? Or is it moving very slowly? In London, heavy breathing makes people move. Don't Praguers understand the meaning of heavy-breathing-at-the-neck? Damn. I think that was my train.

"Yes, look, people are getting on the escalator from that side of the platform. Isn't this light a strange yellowy colour? And the ticket machines are yellow too. This is a really long escalator. I wish I could walk. Or speak enough Czech to ask them to move. Maybe they're tourists. Tourists in London don't always understand the heavy-breathing-at-the-neck thing. Even though they have pictures with big red "X"s. And announcements. But the announcements are only in English. Which is pretty idiotic.

"And there's that whole slow time thing too. Maybe they don't get the need to rush. That's nice. It probably means fewer heart attacks. I'm sure I read somewhere that the faster people walked in cities, the unhealthier they were. These people are probably keeping me healthy. Which is good. Really. But also annoying. Hey, so that's what Bourne Ultimatum is in Czech. Could I get a tree of the year? I would probably feel healthier about the not rushing if I wasn’t breathing in this incredibly unpleasant smell. Especially through warm air. How do people do things like that in ventilation?" Ad nauseam (ahem, big klew about smell there).

Three hours later (okay, actually 2 and a half minutes. E timed one once. But it's a veeerrryy sloooowwwww 2 and a half minutes), I am at last able to admire the unique platform architecture and dulcet tones of the (occasionally) trilingual announcements, where the Czech takes twice as long as the German or English versions, leaving me in a permanent state of anxiety about what important travel-related information I might be missing.

"Bing-bing. Dear passengers, for your safety, you are please asked to remain standing behind the white line." Well, it's white and black. And more grey than white, actually. "Bing-bing. Dear passengers. Already this Saturday Prague will become the venue of the Mattoni Night Grand Prix. The night run in the streets of Prague will affect the city transportation in the centre of Prague between nineteen thirty hours and twenty-two thirty hours. There will be tram service disruption in the section…"

But these days, everything just blurs into the getting-to-another-place zone of empty-headedness. It takes something spectacular along the lines of battling clowns to shake me out of auto-pilot. Familiarity breeds contemptplation (hurhur). So as my daily two to four escalators become the only point in the day where I can actually go into slow time, they give me just enough time to get irritated by a bit of mental grit, but no more. Actual coherent structures would require a bit more of, well, everything.

Fancy a brew?

2007-09-03T18:53:00.000+02:00

There's plunder, and there's, well, I don't quite know what to call it now.

Naïve fool that I am, I had always assumed that the reason I was hauling back crates of Brand Y. Tea for myself and assorted other expats was one of those home-away-from-home things. Some adjustments are harder to make than others, especially bleary-eyed, early morning ones.

While good coffee is possible to achieve by dint of much banging of the supersonic coffee machine and the stealthy substitution of some Lavazza or other decent beans (kept under lock & key), the concept of a nice brew is light years away from the paper bags of fruit-flavoured wood shavings that usually appear under the the label here. Then there's the whole issue of preparation. The boiling of water first and the right sort of milk.

And I love tea. Proper tea I mean. Thick builder's tea that turns the milk a robust shade of mahogany. Tea you can stand spoon up in. Coffee just doesn't quite have the same effect in the mornings, it's too edgy, too acid. I need a big mug of tea that's almost a meal on its own to strip the flannel from my tastebuds. And then I need a few more to fuel me through the day. Somehow, I always thought that my fellow-drinkers out here needed their imports for the same sort of reason. It's what we're used to, and things don't feel quite the same without it.

Except I was wrong. It's not just that.

The other day, the undercover musician (80 bags, hard water blend) revealed that his particular brand is more than just a pick-me-up. It's a pick-them-up too. "Them" being his series of outstandingly attractive girlfriends. Nothing to do with the jazz cool, the sunglasses, the ability to riff for 2 hours solid and jam with gypsy punk trumpeters from the former Yugoslavia until his fingers bleed. Apparently it's all in the tea. Drop-dead gorgeous supermodel-types from the Czech Rep., Serbia and points east love it. Having never encountered a good cuppa (strong, milky and a good slug of sugar) they think it tastes amazing. And more importantly, because he drinks tea rather than beer, wine or slivovice for refreshment during the day, he's considered more stable and less likely to be plagued by an over-fondness for adult beverages, instantly moving him several points above his peers in the dating stakes.

Never the twains

2007-08-29T19:14:00.000+02:00

…and then the wireless vanished, and we were left alone with nothing to do as night fell but sing to the sea and the sheep.

Unfortunately, we couldn't remember the words of many trad. songs about the sea, or sheep for that matter, so our choice of ditties was perhaps a little light. We stood with our trousers rolled up to our knees in the surf and ended up bellowing out a few choruses of Drunken Sailor and Yellow Submarine before we stubbed our gritty toes back up the beach. It was nice.

But the best bit was getting there.

Not sure if I've mentioned it before, but I love trains. Not overwhelmingly or obsessively, you understand, but I think they are about my favorite means of transport. Somehow, going on holiday by train feels right. Going off for a weekend at the seaside by train is even more right.

This weekend, after the hard-core commuter line from Euston, followed by the usual hideous bank holiday mess around the Midlands there was the utter glory of a local service that ambled through North Wales, lurching between scenic splendours and industrial car parks. Periodically, after a flurry of engine shunting and frantic racing by confused passengers to the front or back two cars (as appropriate), carriage segments would break off to escape along branch lines to the sea.

My own fun-filled journey went something like this:

Euston. Fellow traveller missed train. Angry commuter line in shiny, yet souless Pendolino service to Wolverhampton. Had seat. Meanwhile, fellow traveller gets on another train. Goes wrong way.

Hellish bank holiday confusion/cancellation/delays at Birmingham New St. information desk. No seat, much waving of small pieces of paper.

Depressed local commuter line from Birmingham to Liverpool Lime St., descending at Wolverhampton. Had seat. Pieces of paper jettisoned.

Sit on Wolverhampton platform, looking anxiously at delay updates for train from Birmingham New St. that might-or-might-not be cancelled. Check clock. Fellow traveller has turned around and arrived in Telford by mysterious means. Check clock. An hour passes.

Train for Aberystwyth. It's the only one going anywhere Welsh-wards. Everyone else in Wolverhampton agrees and gets on the train. No seat. No carriage. Stand in loo. DUE TO THE CANCELLATION OF THE 18:42 SERVICE FROM BIRMINGHAM NEW STREET, PASSENGERS FOR ALL STATION**FRSTZZ** TO LL**-DDY*-*AOWFRSPZZ**DR SHOULD NOT CHANGE AT DOVEY JUNCTION BUT REMAIN ON THE SAME TRAIN AND F**PSS*8RR**--**RSTZ UP THE PLATFORM.

Move to behind the buffet car for the line to Pwllheli. PASSENGERS FOR ALL DESTINATIONS ON THE 19:27 TRAIN TO YSF*--ZZST--** SHOULD IMMEDIATELY BR::RSF**ARRGGHH--YZSZ--SZT***ting*** FOR THE LAST TRAIN TO LLF**R--SZZ_SHUN*GGK.

Train pulls out of the station the same way it came in. Seat is now backwards and disconcerts me. Night falls. Man from Birmingham with tent and beer produces map of North Wales and attempts to chart the course of his journey. THERE IS A TROLLEY SERVICE ON THIS TRAIN UNTIL BZZZST** Pencil line drawn by man from Birmingham with tent and beer falls into the Irish sea.

PASSENGERS ARE NOT PERMITTED TO MOVE BETWEEN CARRIAGES WHILE THEY ARE BEING DETATCHED. Run up the platform to the front two carriages at Machynlleth. Curse book-buying spree. Crash into fellow commuter, who has lost phone. Train turns around.THE TROLLEY SERVICE HAS NOW ENDED.

Train carriage is now devoid of life apart from selves, sleeping man from Birmingham with tent and no beer, and a family all speaking in Welsh. They wear shirts saying, "I support Wales and everyone playing the English." I hide behind book and fellow traveller tries to look Australian.

PASSENGERS ARE REQUESTED TO ADVISE THE CONDUCTOR IMMEDIATELY OF THEIR REQUIRED DESTINATION. THIS IS A REQUEST STOP SERVICE CALLING AT STATIONS TO F%RSZ*-*KKZT-WYD. THERE IS NO TROLLEY SERVICE ON THIS TRAIN. I advise conductor of our requested destination and she writes it on a little notepad.

Phone rings. Friend with car who is picking us up asks that we get off at another station, which is the second-stop-with-the-same-name-on-the-line. Tells us this three times. I advise conductor of our revised destination only once.

Once is enough. She sniffs. "You'll need to get off from the middle doors here." THERE IS NO TROLLEY SERV-- I am too afraid to confirm if she has decided to drop us at the first or second-station-with-the-same-name-on-the-line.

The platform is the size of a bus shelter, and we have to go through a cattle gate to leave the station. According to the rail timetable footnotes, at request stops marked with "x" , passengers desiring to join the train are advised to make themselves clearly visible to the train driver from the platform. Shades of "The Railway Children", methinks.

Noswaith dda

2007-08-25T01:41:00.000+02:00

So here I am on the official edge of nowhere, very far in the remotest bit of North Wales, behind a mountain and two miles from the nearest village, Ll--y-aedw-ch--dd-w-w-ll-dd or something like that. And yet, inexplicably I have better and faster wireless internet than I did in the centre of freaking London all week.

Gotta love the wonders of the modern age...

Alas, I still have no time for anything in depth, but getting here I realised that the Welsh and the Czech languages both share an extreme antipathy for anything that looks like a vowel. And the "ch" noise too.

Flash freeze

2007-08-20T18:20:00.000+02:00

The Czech word for "ice cream" is "zmrzlina."

The Czech word for "ice cream cone" is "kornoutek."

The Czech word for "ice lolly" is "nanuk."

It's all good.

Plus ça change

2007-08-18T22:44:00.000+02:00

The real trick here will be avoiding use of any of those words that attract the wrong kind of attention...

Now where was I? Oh yes, gyms. Well, one gym at a time - I'm not raving, after all - but more than one in total, if you see what I mean. So yes, gyms. Or more precisely, gym changing rooms and cultural differences thereof.

Because the people of that “island nation” that Coast was going on about? Well, they are rather on the shy side. So back in Londinium, every visit to the changing room was a complex exercise in advanced towel technique. Even the nature-loving, people-embracing, sandal-wearing patrons of the yoga place with open shower stalls would immediately wrap themselves in yards of cloth to cover the ten feet to the lockers once out of the magic circle of water. And unless they were examining the floor tiles, no one ever, ever looked below shoulder level.

So there were days when the sheer effort of managing to achieve the socially correct degree of coverage with the regulation two smallish terry rectangles while putting on a dry-clean only wool suit and insta-crease cotton shirt would all become too much. I would long to fling all coverings aside and prance about the place in my altogether, or at least not descend into hideous spasms of embarrassment if the bottom towel dropped at an awkward moment.

Of course, this means that I have turned into a prude. And here, in glorious Prahahaha, women (in keeping with my ingrained prudishness, my gym behaviour is strictly orthodox, so I know nothing about the habits of the other gender(s)) have a more, shall we say, “European” approach. Which is much more sensible, of course, but it is taking me time to get used to it. In my case it seems that personal prudishness, once acquired, is quite hard to drop, much like my bottom towel.

Unlike the hirsute, rather burly gentleman who checked in behind me the other day. When offered his allocated two towels, he loudly advised all and sundry that he only needed “the small one”.

Deep Cake Time

2007-08-17T21:56:00.000+02:00

I've been sadly neglectful of the blog to date, for various reasons, most of them quite dull - even the one involving the cabbage. Actually, especially the one about the cabbage.To get some momentum, I hereby resolve to take a more splatter-gun approach to the the process. It means less planning, mainly, and probably more drivel. Oh well.

In the home-grown spirit that reflects the blog's latest direction, I wanted to mention a new-found reason to love Open University/BBC telly programmes. I've been watching the series, "Coast" (a tour around the coast of the UK in 12 episodes delivered by a mixed bag of academics). There's a bit in the one where one of the experts gives a basic explanation the creation of the Jurassic coast down Dorset & Devon way.

Picture the scene: the anthropologist (and I don't know why she's talking about geology, but as will soon become clear, this is more of an introductory session than an in-depth discussion that flings around words like "igneous" and "lithostratigraphic" with wild abandon) has hair dyed crayon-red and arranged in windblown plaits that clash with her maroon anorak. She is sitting on a flimsy aluminium table outside a seaside caff somewhere like Lyme Regis. It's windy, grey and looks like rain. A waiter brings her three slices of cake on a ~~paper~~(edited to add) blue-edged, china plate. (Sorry, but I wouldn't want to give anyone the wrong impression, since apparently plates are quite important to geologists.)

Using the cake, the helpful academic piles up the Triassic (ginger) Jurassic (Victoria sponge) and Cretaceous (Madeira with extra peel) layers horizontally. Tilting the three-layer cake on its bottom corner to illustrate the way the strata sank to the east during the Cretaceous period, she then represented the coastal erosion that exposed all three layers with a plastic knife used to slice off the upper corner.

Cake, geology and probably a nice cup of tea at the end. Lovely.

Walks with sticks

2007-08-09T22:20:00.000+02:00

Maybe I'm a bit odd but I've always felt pretty confident on the walking front. After all, I've been doing it for *koff*-ty-odd years. And it's not like I fall over or run into things a lot. People don't usually stare and point as I make my way around locations of interest. Nose in the direction of travel. Left foot, right foot, repeat. That about covers it. At least, that's what I thought until my perambulatory orbit collided (awkwardly) on holiday with The Walking Specialist. Woe for my ignorance.

Apparently I walk ALL WRONG. I'm a walking disaster. My hips lean at the wrong angle. My pelvis wobbles precariously over two thigh bones that twvIST. My big toes are not sufficiently grounded, while my knees drag. My ankles are like mush. My right arm swings erratically while my left arm swings not at all. My shoulders are poised as if to take flight while my head… oh dear… my head lies smashed in the chipped egg cup that is my neck.

Such was the verdict of the Nordic walking coach who examined my stride minutely and in slow motion (curse you modern, easy-to-use digital videography). In a clear example of my shallow wrong-headedness, I was more concerned about the unattractive wobbling of parts, particularly viewed from behind while walking up some stairs, but apparently this was the least of my worries.

After he had revealed my numerous ambulatory flaws, dwelling with enthusiasm upon my flailing calves as they cycled through a bizarre up-and-down motion that would likely leave me in traction after six months, the coach revealed that he had the solution to all my problems: Nordic walking. The walking of champions! (Well, off-season cross-country skiing champions.)

Nordic walking would re-educate my posture, lengthen my stride, burn fuel like a clapped-out, uninsulated boiler on "high" and give me good healthy lungs and moral fibre. I examined the coach closely and attempted to discern the level of health that might potentially lurk beneath his gently rounded belly. Was it possible his exemplary moral fibre was giving him bloat that morning?

Since the alternative was clearly to wheel away slowly in an invalid chair, covered in shame, I betook myself and my shambolic gait to a back field, clutching desperately at a pair of funny-looking sticks with pointy ends and sweaty leather wrist-straps. And there began the lesson.

"So the first thing you need to know about Nordic walking, right, is that it's not like ordinary walking, right?"
The class fiddled with their straps in expectant silence.

"The poles come here. At the sides, right? To start with just hold them loosely. Nothing to be afraid of, that's right. Just by your sides. Now walk."
We walked obediently, dragging our poles behind us.

"Now that noise, right? That noise is your friend. That noise tells you what your poles are doing, right?"
Scrape. Scrape.

"So what you have to do is grasp the pole and let your natural arm swing bring it forward. Then release. The noise, right? for the experts, it's a whisper."
Scrape. Scrape.
"Now go. Grasp. Release. Grasp. Swing. Release. Grasp. Like that."

I grasped, swung and released.

"No. Right, you need to keep the natural motion of walking. Opposite arm and leg."
I swung, grasped and released.
"Not quite. Right, try not to think about it."

I released, grasped and swung my pole between his specially-constructed lightweight Nordic walking shoes with greater forefoot flexibility.
"Oh. Shit. Sorry - I didn't mean for my stick to do that."
"It's not a stick."
"Sorry."
"It's a pole, right? A co-wound carbon composite antishock Nordic walking pole that I have carefully matched to your height."
"Ah. Sorry."
"It's not a stick. It's an important fitness piece of fitness technology. It will change your walking, right? Your life will change."
"Pole. Got it."
"If you don't respect your pole, how can you respect your posture?"
"Absolutely. I absolutely respect my posture."
"Right."

"It's just that the spike bit has caught on my jumper*."
"What?"
"The pointy bit on the end of the stick, sorry, pole. It's caught in my jumper and you're standing on the sleeve."
"That shouldn't happen with the correct technique."
"Yes. Probably. But my physical coordination thing, you know... and it did."
"Nordic walking will improve your physical coordination. But you have to give your equipment the respect it deserves. Right?"
"Yes. Right. But right now, I mean, at the moment, my jumper?"
"And it's not pointy, right? It's an angled spike tip."
"Oh yes, I see. It's quite spiky."
"Right. A spike."

The off-season cross-country skiing champions do it on inline skates, apparently.

*also known as a sweater in other Englishes.

There are some horns.

2007-08-06T21:20:00.000+02:00

Alas, and woe is me, for I am in a bit of a (garlic) pickle. On the one hand, I am doing (metaphorical – sorry, I never really got the hang of gymnastics) handsprings of potentially odorific delight. On the other hand, there is one of my nearest-and-dearest’s six month’s of collapsed-rail-tunnel commuting hell, and a presumed nefarious plot ~~(not mine)~~ to take over the world.

It’s all about supermarkets, kids.

Although Prague is lovely, and offers bountiful dumplings to the discerning palate, the food situation in this particular corner of the world is perhaps not as idyllic as other, more epicurean climes. Say the ones where vegetable sections are less focussed on novelty root vegetables.

In the interests of fairness, it’s not quite that bad (except maybe in the dead of winter). In fact, other places have been trickier. But my weekly shop occasionally involves some very energetic hunting and gathering over an entire weekend. And it’s not as if I’m compiling detailed lists from the ingredients sections of glossy food-pr0n-books. There are days when the thought of a decent ready-meal makes me weep with longing into my greasy takeaway pizza painted with barbecue sauce.

I admit I have been spoiled in the past, but in the face of uneven levels of freshness, it’s mainly the variety I miss. There are rumours about a mythical Thai vegetable store somewhere in darkest Vršovice that features untold herbivorous delights. And more rumours about a mysterious collective that arranges for deliveries of organic produce to an anonymous apartment block every third week after the full moon. But for me, it’s usually the local Albert. Because the other option is the supermarket that is eating the world. And I can't patronise this place without squirmy moral defeat and great risk to intra-familial relations.

So far, I have resisted the temptations of cheddar, proper tea and convenient late-night opening hours. Have suitcase, will import (*koffairmileskoff*). But now, weep for me. The mezinárodní nákupy* section of the Ebhil Giant has spread itself to the furthest corners of the mezinárod on a flying carpet of exotic sauces and stuffed vine leaves. And glorious, glorious garlic pickle

Yes, glorious, stinkalicious, pungent garlic pickle. The kind of bottled condiment I don't bring back because I am afraid of the ministrations of an overly enthusiastic baggage-mangler. The consequences of which would likely cause it to shatter in my luggage, leaving all of my belongings to marinate in garlic-scented deliciousness for however long it takes for easyjet to get off the runway plus flight time.

Sob.

*international groceries

Hooolliiiiddaaayyy!!!!

2007-07-21T18:33:00.000+02:00

...gone to the Motherland via a rather old-skool style residential course in Bath, complete with extremely uncomfortable mattress and endearingly eccentric tutor. (Done, hence earlier quietness).

Mainly I will be avoiding things electronic, although not quite to the point of sporting tinfoil headgear, I hope. I will probably also eat some strawberries.

In the meantime, something to consider may be sub-genre, or even genre hopping writers (I've taken Kelley Armstrong's new book with me). Or tango singing.

2007-07-08T20:34:00.000+02:00

In which things take a sinister turn… (including Blogger's inexplicable refusal to let me add a title. Which would be - if I could add it - Part Secundex)

Reader, I bought the book. Gripped by a fatal combination of nostalgia and pity, I shelled out 40 (£1/US $2) crowns for the x-actoed x-Lindsey. I couldn't help but think that almost any prospective buyer flicking through the mangled pages would have likely immediately returned it to the shelf. And then? Landfill.

Having bought it, it seemed only fair (and economical) to take it for a trip down memory lane. Which was when I discovered the full horror of the situation. Not the "of its time thing, either", although yes, I blush. (See below for details).

Anyhow, all that neatly excised early-80s "preliminaries-to-the-dance-as-old-as-time" malarkey? All those heaving, swelling metaphors sliced off and scattered to the (wild) wind? All those prurient gazes forever poked out with a big stick? All gone? Not ezackly. The unseen wielder of the blade missed a bit.

Quite a big bit actually. In fact something like 3 and a bit pages. And then another 2 page chunk. There are probably another few lurking to stumble up the unwary (somehow, nostalgia could only take me so far). The only difference between these scenes and the expurgated ones before and after were that the intact ones involved the heroine and her (eventual) wun twue wuv. Not the heroine and the villain most eeeeevillle. Or the heroine and admirers A, B or C. That's a Boolean "OR" by the way. It's not that kind of book.

But, yeah. Heroine, hewo and surprised-while-bathing-in-the-stream-leading-to-the-obvious scene? Well, that's okay, it appears.

Whaaaaaaat???

Yep. It seems the mad axe editor had more nuanced views than I expected. It's not so much a blanket ban on smut, as a crocheted (matrimonial?) shawl. With some FLIPPING BIG HOLES in it. For the unseen hands that wielded the x-acto knife, it ain’t what you do, it’s who you do it with.

I repeat. Whaaaaattt???

And let me just point out for the record, that in certain cases, only a few words were chopped out. As in:

The first time she met him, even while he was demanding payment on the note he had won from her father, rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb Jessie’s body. ("Him" = unwashed mass of filthy-minded eeeeviiilllle villain. Jessie is the feisty rancher-girl heroine with a nice line in frocks. Hairoine too, looking at the cover. But seriously, how offensive can a master of eeeevilll be in roughly half a line? In her father's presence? When she has all that hair?)

Or: …Rodrigo, (not the hairo, as discerning readers will immediately realise on account of - Look! Cowboyspeak! - the slightly deflated nature of his mullete d'amor. Except I think Rodrigo's hair preceded his entry. Sorry.)

Rodrigo, standing at the window overlooking the courtyard, turned and saw her (or hair). The (dunno, but context dictates that it be about four words of window-based dodginess. Even in Amsterdam this takes longer. Maybe the pelmets cast shadows that looked like amusingly-shaped root vegetables on the hacienda floor.) but there was only one light, across the room, and it was impossible to see inside the curtains. (Wow. Impossible to see. As if he were night blind. That's almost as if he were actually blind. BLIND, I tell you. And EVERYone knows what makes people go BLIND. Cataracts.)

Or the missing 2 1/2 words (the first starts with "o", but it's a tricky one) and then second line when Jessie is chit-chatting to a wandering brave (not in the wild wind, it would seem, given the rather dull and stationary nature of their hair) who approaches her starlit campsite.:

"No o(oohhh? oooouuu? oowwwwu? oooobuggerit) the Cheyenne tongue?"
(Do NOT think that. Jessie is pure. She is good. She is innocent. She is...err...)
”I am Looks Like Woman, friend of the Cheyenne. I have a fire to share and food…”
(She is dumb. Sigh.)

And yes, I blush.

Would you? Could you?

2007-07-05T21:42:00.000+02:00

I am somewhat perturbed…

Possibly even disturbed. Nay, even distrubed. And distroubled too. All of them. Because some unknown person, possibly not a million miles away from me may be all of this and more. Some individual who not inconceivably shares this city with me, who tromps over the same cobbles, rides in the same trams and patronises the same bookshops as me is a mutilater of book(s).

Last weekend I discovered a second-hand Johanna Lindsay novel with a full smutectomy. A surgical boob-removal of the printed kind.

Ladies (and gentlefolk who haven't turned away at the signs of an impending girlie froufrou rant) I am speaking of Brave the Wild Wind here. By Johanna Lindsay. Published in 1984. I read this book when I was fourteen. I may have ended up with some slightly peculiar ideas about ranching in late 19th century Wyoming, but I was not scarred for life. I knew breasts existed by then, even if they were but a distant dream. Heaving or not, they didn't do much sullying that I noticed. I still offer my seat to old people and pregnant women in crowded buses. I floss and eat a fibre-rich diet.

But the copy of this book that I picked up over the weekend to flick through in a wavelet of aqua-and-tangerine-tinged nostalgia has been altered by nameless hands. A knife has been used to carefully cut out lines of thund'rous passion. Or even just the odd thund'rously passionate word or two on certain pages.

Now these days, I might take issue with some aspects of the book that didn't particularly bother me when I first unearthed it in the stacks of a local library many, many moons ago. Lets just say it's "of its time". And in certain ways this actually makes it kind of interesting to revisit 20-odd years later.

But as for the slice and dice operation? A couple of possibilities occur to me.

1. ~~Censorship (boo!hiss!).~~ I can't imagine someone making lace from lasciviousness like this for their own personal reading pleasure. It makes the pages too hard to turn. It is far, far easier to just skim over the bothersome parts or even grab a handy marker pen if motes offend the eye to the point of blurred vision. At least this has the advantage of leaving the non-trashy, possibly plot-related passages on the reverse side intact.

I can't help but think that if gaps are the aim of the exercise, then this level of effort to excise squidgy bits from reading material indicates the determination to Make A Point. Look! Look at the gaps! Look at the emptiness where once was badness! Gentle readers, see how you too can save your fragile minds from this pollution! Seize your x-acto knives and free yourselves from the chains of overly-wrought passion!

So this leaves me with at least one possible alternative.

2. You know those notes created by cutting words out of printed material favoured by many old-skool whodunnits? After enough coffee I can imagine at least a few occasions when life in Prahahaha would require that someone communicate anonymously and yet amateurishly the need to press mounds, skim curves, and pebble all manner of things. It's that kinda place. Sticky glue, print-stained fingers and all.

But I do worry about what they did to the mule.

Still rainin...

2007-06-28T18:49:00.000+02:00

...albeit with the odd break of sunniness. The staircase at home smells very peculiar, but the lights at work have stopped fizzing and flickering.

But I have to wonder if the friends of the Židovské muzeum v Praze, aka the Jewish Museum in Prague know something I don't. They appear to be building what looks like either an ark or a greenhouse around the back of the Pinkas Synagogue.

It's raining...

2007-06-21T20:50:00.000+02:00

...rain, mostly.

We are flooded downstairs. This is fun. Lucky I bought that new mop, eh?

Some like it...

2007-06-18T21:33:00.000+02:00

Prague is still here, but it is hot, thundery and I am using a Czech keyboard which frustrates me far too much to type for very long.

For one thing, I cannot find the apostrophe key and hunting for it using combinations of Alt+letter has only produced a string of Polish letters and made me post this unfinished by accident. Three times. Besides, the novelty of typing đ, Ł, ř, ý ś & co. rapidly wears thin, to saz nothing of the annozance caused bz the waz that the "y" and "z" kezs are swapped around.

To fill in a very necessary gap which would otherwise be postless, here is a list of reasons why I picked up and bought or cruelly spurned certain books in a recent fleeting visit to Charing Cross Rd. It is of course absolutely nothing like a list I did a while back which may at first glance bear a striking resemblance to this list. It's a different bookstore. They are different books. In the interest of discretion, some of these are lies. And of course it's written on a Czech keyboard. Aka a Cyech kezboard. Backwards.

1. Back blurb refers to "magick". I have an unreasonable prejudice against this sort of spelling. It gives me hives.

2. Front blurb states perkily, "Fans of Laurell K. Hamilton and Jim Butcher will enjoy this fascinating tale..." I am conflicted, but eventually the other bit of blurb which mentions "biting wit" persuades me to take the glass half-full approach. I decide that the reviewer in question has probably not read an LKH book since Circus of the Damned.

(Upon reflection, a small quaking part of my mind now wonders whether the reviewer perhaps saw the more recent LKH efforts as mining an ironic vein of hitherto unsuspected profundity. And that "biting" pun? On a book with a vampire in it? That scares me witless.)

3. Front blurb states proto-perkily, "I adored this wonderful book! - Connie Mason." Eeek.

4. Hardcover copy of All Together Dead. Half-price because some of the pages are a bit damaged. I'm not picky. Woohoo!

5. Blurb states, "Fans of..." This means that the reviewer hated the book, and is desperately seeking a sub-genre to despise. (see 2)

6. No reviews, but 4 pages of extracts from gushing fans' letters. The more generous view might be that a cult is forming. I look terrible in robes.

7. Author was tragically eaten by crocodiles while researching/writing this book. It has been pieced together from bits of paper found in the dissected animals' digestive tracts. I wish.

8. How does author X find time to review all these books by authors A - Z? Ambivalence about author X teeters a bit more towards the maybe.

9. Cover. Aaak. Nobly, I rise above this, because the writer? She is da bomb.

10. Tom Waits.

Le portable est mort! Vive le portable!

2007-06-15T21:14:00.000+02:00

Big. Heavy. Grey. Metal. Smelling faintly of those cinammon-candied almonds from the sandwich shop 'round the corner from work. These are just a few of the words people used to describe Della, my long-time laptop and dare I say it? Friend.

Yes, friend. For Della was always there for me through long hours of mortal toil. Through untold explorations of the wilds of the internet. Through sleepless nights tapping away to unravel the dark secrets of an essay-setter's heart. Spurned by burglars for her unwieldy size and loathed by baggage handlers for the same.

Very early she developed that endearing quirk of typing multiple letters in random order when her battery charge dropped below 60%, locking me out of any password-protected accounts. It started with the odd repeated comma, then a trickle of extra "V"s and "f"s became a flood of "£${{mTb99q]]"s. The half-bowl of butternut squash soup that was tipped over the keyboard in offering did little to appease her wrath.

Almost immediately after that, the mouse would stop working at the worst possible moment. The pointer would hover, frozen on the mysteriously-streaked screen while I frantically rolled the mouse over surfaces with varying degrees of roughness, and people commented helpfully on the smell of cinammon and almonds. Desperate banging-on-the-desk attempts to shake the pointer loose and free the fifteen-page unsaved document hidden by a randomly-opened folder directory were met with implacable disdain and sneering references to dog slobber on the power leads.

Then the USB port software began to reject all but the most carefully honed requests for retrievable disk access. The CD drive began to make horrible grinding noises when activated. My email began to freeze when opening anything above a certain size, or any attachments. And after the long three years that Della and I were together, she began to look worn. Bits of plastic and rubber would drop off, seemingly unimportant until she wobbled to a new equilibrium on the next flat surface. Small pits and dents appeared from nowhere, and the hinges were never quite the same after she fell out of a first- (ie. second in North America) floor window onto a passing café table.

And finally, Della is no more. She has gone to the gigantic computer superstore in the sky. There at last freed from earthly pain and flying condiments, she is one with the stars, her hard drive lobotomised by a great big mallet.

Requiescat in parts, Della. I'm sorry I had to hit you with a hammer.

It's either this, or a review of property hotspots in the Balearics.

2007-06-12T20:55:00.000+02:00

The other night I was trapped on the runway at Heathrow for about 2 hours in a tiny plane behind a male model (allegedly) while thunderstorms raged above Belgium (apparently). He had very nice arms, but wasn't much for talking.

Anyhow, I ended up messing around with ideas for SBTB's competition to write a Hoff-poem, (check out the links, especially the comments because some of the poems are bluddy brilliant) which probably didn't help with the conversation, since I ended up muttering a mantra along the lines of "Hoff?, Cough? Doff? Fer-goff? umm... Proff?" I think at this point he pretended to fall asleep.

Alas, I left it too late to enter, and then posted it in the wrong comments section (I think - I'm easily confused at the moment). Being lazy, I thought I'd just dump it here as well. Basically, it's either that or well... male models. Without the pictures. And besides, I need to go get dinner.

Haff a Hoff! Haff a Hoff!
Hoff a haff-hass-ter!
Hoffnapped by villains in vests,
Forced to eat pasta!
"Eat refined carbs!" they cried,
"Or fluffy bunnies die!
"You won’t be so stallionesque,
"Puffed-up by pasta."

"More refined carbs!" they said.
Mac and cheese was he fed.
"Deep-fried white eggy bread
"Makes waistlines vaster!"
Carb load was their vicious plot.
Carb load that in vain Hoff fought.
Carb bloat gave him Hoffin-top.
Not quite so stallionesque,
Now needs a basque...(er...)

Hoffin bulged o’er speedo trunks,
Hoffin’s not for Hoffly hunks,
Hoffin shades the Hoffly junk,
Damn all that pasta!
Faded the perma-tan,
Wobbles like custard flan,
Vision of Hoffliness,
Ruined by evil plan.
Who is this b-*bleep* it’s a kid’s show, dammit-astard?

Hoff knew those eyes that flashed,
Knew those veneers that gnashed
‘Neath caterpillar ‘tache
Sneered Hoffelganger, the
Evil Hoff-master.
"See my thick, chestly hair,
"Gold chains do nestle there,
"Mine is Hoff-power!
"Oiled leather pants I wear
"Tighter than plaster!"
Then he strode out and left --
Left Baked Alaska.

Hoffin speedo’s seams divide
Hoffins' awkward cracks cloth rides
Who runs with Hoffins, wedgified.
How to move faster?
Stolen stretch lamé thong,
Morally may be wrong
But thigh constriction’s gone.
Thus minimally dressed
He hoffled-poffed through dawn.
Hoff-power not denied,
Even by pasta.

Honour the Hoffliness!
Greater than any threats
That villains venture.
All evil plans foiled best,
Same time each week, an ex-
-citing Hoffenture.

Going, going, gong.

2007-06-07T20:24:00.000+02:00

Last week, I went to several concerts as part of the tail end of the Prague Spring music festival As is the case with most things, there are many people out there far more qualified to review such events than yours truly, including the Visiting Music Teacher On A Half-Term Holiday (VMTOAHT - 'tis catchy, n'est ce pas?) who went with me. So what follows is definitely not a review of the concerts. Critics who have a better grip on their contrabassoon fingering technique than me can wrestle with the tricky nuances of mezzo-soprano soloist's coloratura passages.

An important thing to consider when arranging any concert is the whole ugly business of spectacle. After all, if there isn't something to look at, the more cynical members of the audience may wander off at the interval, grumbling about the price of tickets and beer before they can buy any of those commemorative T-shirts and limited edition socket sets. More performers in the world of pop/rock than you can chuck a scale model of Stonehenge and malfunctioning wardrobe at(,) know this to be true.

In the world of classical music, things are a tad more muted, spectacle-wise. That's how any fule know it's posh. Kinda like the way tastefully abstract visual metaphors rather than flowing tresses, lasers, pouffy gowns, muscular definition and elves with blue skin indicate respectable literature. (Note to self: Is it possible for a scantily-shirted humanoid with a well-defined chest, blue or not, to be an acceptable visual metaphor for a Great Narrative Theme, or does cleavage immediately sound the death knell of Great Art? Unless you're Richardson, of course, exploiting said bounteaous cleavage for your own nefarious purposes. Pamela Shmamela, apparently.)

Anyhow, a dearth of revolving stages and sparkly replica helicopters (although oddly enough, not necessarily straining bosoms) is usually a giveaway for the sort of concert where the audience is expected to assume either an earnest expression of restrained rapture (eyes-gently-shut-with-periodic-appreciative-inhalations-through-the-nose-during-emotional-passages) or intense concentration (eyes-gently-shut-with-a-slight-frown-and-periodic-small-yet-vigorous-nods-of-approval-of-that-rather-eloquent-rubato-leading-into-the-andante-passage). Tapping along is optional and should always be discreet. No one is allowed to wave their arms vigorously but the person with the stick at the front of the orchestra, or the occasional trombonist with sinus troubles. If there is no one with a stick, the person who most looks like they ought to have one usually wins the conducting free-for-all. Iron-grey hair and a dark suit help in this case.

Luckily for me, all the venues that featured as part of last week's whirl of concert attendance were equipped with bling in spades. Even at the gig where my view of the performers from the cheap seats was entirely blocked by a pillar, the obstructive column was liberally bedecked with ecclesiastical roccoco-a-go-go and a big picture of the Pope. Better yet was the view from the back of the rather stupendous bobbing combover we had when sitting underneath a big flag in the organ balcony at another gig.

But the most memorable was the music-from-the-kitchen-sink concert, which featured most of the instruments and orthodox novelty techniques from the western canon (but no canons or other light artillery, although there were some fugal passages). Audience members could happily debate the Hammond organ and flute duet during the interval, as well as thorny issues such as, "Was that a vibraphone in the last bit, or were they just happy to see us?"

Me? I was just waiting for someone to take advantage of the enormous gong propped up at the back of the percussion section. Something so large, brass and circular clearly was crying out for loud crash at a moment of high drama. Except it didn't. I don't know if it was a cunning ruse to maintain a thread of suspense through the event, or if I failed to appreciate the way some composer had counter-intuitively written a passage of extreme suspense where the instrument was stroked lightly with a paintbrush. But as the final note of the concert sounded, there was still nary a big bong to show for the whole two-hour musical extravaganza. And somehow, I still feel the lack.

Howl's moving

2007-06-01T18:49:00.000+02:00

Aaaaaaaarrrrrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhhhhh

The curse of the drinking classes has cursed me bigtime. Something involving lead tablets in the walls of a cemetary probably.

aaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrgggggggghhhhhhh

Visitors with PLANS. They looom.

AAAAAAaaareeaghwwwwwwwwfoooooo

Essays due. Immediately.

GGGGGGrrrrrrrrrewwwwwwwwwwwwwggggggggwwwwwwwwwoooooooffff

(New) flatmates to find. Slightly less immediately. But I fear the cupboard-opening madness.

Yyyyyeeeeeeeaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrraagggggggghhhh

And the bathroom tap still squirts water in wholly unexpected directions when left unsupervised.

Probably the coffee isn't helping. And I really wanted to think about that poem too.

Gotta go.

Beehive behind the bonnet

2007-05-30T22:13:00.000+02:00

Before the year is out, I will be a biological evil Auntie, rather than the "ties-of-friendship-rather-than-blude" evil Auntie I have been so far. The parents of the future be-evilled niece or nephew have been practising their parenting skills on the dog, so I am generally optimistic about the whole business of keeping the infant off the sofa and training him/her not to climb up the stairs, chew the bottom step to matchsticks or make messes on the living room carpet.

The dog has also been generous enough to allow me to practise my own evil aunting skills, which in her view generally involves letting her sprawl with pr0n-star abandon all over the older bro's fatboy (posh beanbag) revealing all sorts of Overly Frank Truths (it's a girl! it's a boy! later this year - it's a filled nappy!) to the world and shedding a good quarter of her body hair. Meanwhile I watch DVDs.

But while in the car on the way to the mouth of Wey this weekend with tricky, we were chatting about this and decided that in honour of the occasion I should probably up the evil quotient somewhat. We idly debated the possibilities of motorbikes, red leather, tattoos and a mysteriously untraceable smell, but in the end came round to the idea that the crowning glory could only be provided by my er... crowning glory.

Maybe it was the giddiness brought on by the pending weekend at the Great British Seaside. Maybe it was the prospect of greasy, paper-wrapped heaven in the form of the best fish and chips on the south coast. Maybe it was the Annual Trawler Race. Maybe it was the monotony and dull back pain induced by the Great British Bank Holiday Series of Traffic Jams. Maybe it was the ipod-wielding genius of tricky himself, and his selection of finest tunes. A combination of nostalgia and pop is a deadly thing.

But five and a half hours later, we poured ourselves onto the grey and windy beach utterly convinced that the ultimate badge of evil auntieness, the towering edifice that is the iron badge of the truly Great Aunt is the rock-solid, weatherproof, waterproof, wellie-proof beehive.

I'm off to find the lacquer and half a country cob.

Whitsun Bank Holiday report

2007-05-28T19:41:00.000+02:00

Went to England. Got rained on. Saw many cute small children belonging to friends. Got sand in mouth. Came back. Got roasted. Changed trousers. Got rained on. Lost my will to grammarcate. Got thundered on. Ion activity in atmosphere stimulated plans for wholly new additions to English lexicon. Got lightninged on. Thought about hiding under the bed. Frame broke. Ate a sandwich.

And yes, it was/is a working day in the Ceska Republika. Despite their wild enthusiasm for Easter and May Day traditions, it seems that Pentecost/Whitsun is viewed with a more take-it-or-leave-it attitude.

On the upside, I have 22 kilos of new books to read. Just no time.
I have 3 lbs. of really lovely new tea to drink. But no milk.
The sunburn on the backs of my hands is fading. And also peeling.
I wrote a poem on the plane for SBs. Am unsure of the scanning and left it at home.
Friend is coming to visit for the Prague Spring Music Festival (& Fringe). Haven't bought any tickets yet.

So it's all a bit of a glass half-full, glass half-empty kinda day, which leaves me with no alternative but to go home and do impressionistic dance in my pyjamas to appease the broken mesh-like thingy from the tap in the bathroom basin which has fallen off, causing water to shoot out in wild and unexpected directions whenever it is operated.

Whatever else, at least there will be chocolate.

Canoe, canoe, canoe, canoe, canoe.

2007-05-23T18:43:00.000+02:00

There were three of us in the boat that day - myself, F and the absent dog. Collectively, we were feeling rather liverish, the early morning start and preceding late night having dampened our normally ebulliant natures. Even the absent dog was inclined to tackle the situation with a marked lack of gusto. Indeed, if unevoked he seemed inclined to nod off and fade away.

Fortunately, the giant plastic tropical fruit replica in which we intended to descend the gleaming Sázava appeared both commodious enough to contain any volume of thunderous yawning, and stable enough to remain buoyant during even the greatest of ill winds and foul-blown tempers. As we launched our canoe and dipped our paddles in the crystalline waters beneath the prow, our slow retreat from the hurly-burly of the rental station eased our furrowed brows. A gentle breeze seemed to waft a sweet melody towards us.

"This is kind of fun."
"Yeah. It's nice. Does the absent-dog-with-the-cutsy-name like water?"
"No. He hates getting wet. But I think he might like this."
"Maybe when you follow the absent-dog-with-the-cutsy-name on his trip to the country-with-a-famously-big river you can go on a boat trip together."
"He might like that."

Silence fell. Birds chirped.

"Ahoj!"

We exchanged waves of mutual geniality with passing Czech boatmen whose bonhomie was as huge and fizzy as the tins of Staropramen lager they brandished as a sign of friendship. As they passed us, still waving lit cigarettes daringly close to the sides of their inflated rubber raft, we fell silent as a mark of respect for their heroic drinking abilities.

A few miles passed with a rippled effect for added dreamy quality. But as the sun rose higher in the sky, it melted away the morning-glazed euphoria that had dulled our sharper edges and smoothed over the lack of sunscreen and insect repellent.

"Stop humming."
"Sorry?"
"Stop humming. It's annoying."
"Ok. Lets just make our way out of this flotilla of seventy-two identical bright yellow canoes. Their spinning is making me feel rather bilious."
"Fine. Oh, wait. Paddle left."
"Left?"
"Yes. Turn left."
"Turn left or paddle left?"
"Left! Left!"
"Which. LEFT??"
"The OTHER Left!"

Splish. Thud. Scrape.

"Okay. I'll just push against this rock and try to move us backwards. Can you see anything in our way?"
"There's a rock!"
"Where?"
"There! There's a rock!"
"What rock? Where? I can't see dammit."
"There! Theeerre!"
"Where's the bloody rock??"
"Rock! Rock! Rooooocccck!"

Crash. Thud. Flip.

"Paddles! Paddles!"
"Ahhhhh!"
"Shit. Paddles!"
"My flip-floooop! Noooo!"
"Buggeryourflipflop. PADDLES!!!"
Lunge. Splash.
"Ow."
Silence.

The genial laughter from some more passing Czech boatman did very little to improve the gloomy cloud which had settled approximately two feet from the left bank and half-submerged itself in some springtime rapids.

"Can you help me turn this thing over?"
"I've lost my shooooeee."
"It's landed on my foot."
"I can't walk. The rocks are too slippery."
"Shit."
"I don't like this."
"Ow."
"The absent dog wouldn't like this AT ALL."
"We. Need. To. Turn. This. Thing. Over."
"My clothes are completely drenched!"
"It's. Too. Heavy."
"I'm standing on algae! Algae!"
"For. Me. To."
"In bare feeeet!!!"
Lift. Alone."
"It was my faaavvvvooooooorriiiite!!!"
"AAAarrggghhh." Splash.
"It had floooowweerrs!"
"Wwwrreeeuuggh!"
"I caaaaan'tt seeeee!!!"

SPLASH!!

Sloshslosh. Splish. Splosh. Glug-glug.

I just called to say...

2007-05-21T20:13:00.000+02:00

I haven't capsized and bumped my head on a rock while escaping from a team of crazed mad-axe murderers in a canoe, and then washed up in my artistically-dripping state and fetchingly-bedraggled (maybe some discreet skin showing) state on some exotic shore.

Nor has my charmingly amnesiac self then been discovered by a brooding, darkly handsome hero with a tortured past and secrets of his own which may uncannily eventually be revealed to bear some relation to my own problems, either directly, in the form of a common link with my own slavering mad-axe murderers (they killed his hamster) or in a burst of artistic inspiration, something on a more emotional-healing-type plane. For example, a dread fear of two-man canoes originally caused by a tragic accident which was by no means his fault, but for which he blames himself, and a consequent hatred and poor opinion of women who associate with canoes (the hussies).

In any case, said hero has not been mesmerized by my unearthly beauty, and carried me to his secret island paradise, far from from the madding-axe-murderer crowd. I have not looked adorably feminine in his only dress shirt and bare feet, nor have I warmed his tortured soul with a fantastic meal concoted from a packet of instant minestrone, some stale prunes and two tins of cheap lager. Alternatively, I have not been sweetly incompetent in the kitchen either: accidentally burning his only saucepan and thus forcing him to cook freshly-caught fish on a rock which I then refuse to eat on the grounds that I can't bear to eat the sweet iddle fishy-wishies.

I did knock over the sausage of a man of mature years in army surplus and a cowboy hat with a very long tail of some furry animal, though.

Life is hard.

Dancing on the head of a pun

2007-05-16T22:28:00.000+02:00

Besides being owning one of those surnames that just cries out for an application of the finest punmanship, which I will resist, weakly, ardent 19th-century pan-Slavist Vaclav Hanka, occasional translator of Serbian poetry and professor of Slavonic languages was something of an artful forger. Allegedly.

Back in 1817, while rooting among big piles of Very Old Stuff in the church tower of Dvůr Králové nad Labem, Mr. Hanka (aka. pan Hanka. Not Hanka panka. Oh no. Because "-ka" is the diminuative suffix in Czech. That would make him "little Mr." If this particular noun-tweaking is even allowed because I'm pretty sure Czech only uses this as a casual feminine form. Or a declension of the name "Pánek", which is a completely different kettle of carp. And besides, even though Czechs take a more relaxed approach to word order, they still tend to put the titles before the name. Just like they don't capitalise them either. So pan Hanka he is and shall remain.) discovered some dusty old manuscripts. Big woo. After all, a manuscript is better any day than a tin of bell-polisher and a dead spider.

Pan Hanka (allowed to capitalise on his title, since I'm starting the sentence) was even happier with his discovery since he was one of the pan-Slavists (this time not one of those Mr. Slavists, but using the Greek-derived prefix that comes in handy in English when you want to talk about people sticking to an idea) who littered the early nineteenth century Central and Eastern European intellectual scene and didn't much care for the Austro-Hungarian Empire's assumptions of Teutonic cultural and political superiority.

Pan-Slavists also didn't favour the Ottomans much either, but the House of Osman were doing their wobbly imperial thing a little further east and so loomed less immediately on the particular corner of Europe where pan Hanka and his cronies hung out wandering along ancient folkways. I'll also leave the sticky Russian/pan-Slavic issue well alone.

Being something of a poetry buff (he'd published Hankowy Pjsne a couple of years previously) after Vacky Vaclav dusted off the papers and squinted a bit at the faded and Very Old Czechish Writing he doubtless did a traditional Slavic dance that hearkened back to his primordial Bohemian ancestors and just like his own language, stressed the first beat of every bar. It seemed he had discovered fragments of medieval Czech poetry, which would later be immortalised as the Manuscript of Dvůr Králové, or Rukopis královédvorský.

Only a year later Josef Kovář was doing some similar rummaging in the attics of Chateau Green Mountain when he came across some manuscripts of a similar ilk and age. These became known as the Manuscript of Zelená Hora, aka Rukopis zelenohorský, aka the rather swingingly-titled The Judgement of Libuše. Eventually these two sets of medieval manuscripts dropped the extra "R" and became the conjoined literary twin and snappily-named, "RKZ". Along the way, they inspired a welter of nationalist feeling, as well as yet more poetry, and all sorts of other cultural and literary homage along the way.

The tricky bit for the Slavic medievalists, Czech nationalists and general admirers of very old fragments of poetry that feature battles, birds of prey and very dark and stormy woods is that they probably weren't exactly really genuine actual medieval poems. Allegedly. But no less a person than Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, first president of Czechoslovakia and ardent nationalist did some of this alleging.

Meanwhile although the consensus in most of the published material I've come across similarly alleges, others continue to fight the good, albeit ink-splattered fight.

More thoughts later, promise. This was in the nature of scene-setting.

References:

LookSmart's FindArticles - The language of nationality and the nationality of language: Prague 1780-1920 - Czech Republic history

Past & Present, Nov, 1996, by Derek Sayer

Something in the air

2007-05-14T21:45:00.000+02:00

Right now, this very minute as I type these words, I have been in the glorious republic of Czechland for one year. Blimey.

When I first packed up my flat at about two weeks' notice, shovelled 20 kilos of essential books in my rucksack and headed off into the wilds of central Bohemia by the first easyjet flight available, the plan was to stay for a few months. But then things got all tangled up, what with that old Chinese saying, and something a Scottish bloke once said. Except I'm fighting the desperate urge to overwhelm this entire post with cliches. So I've gone agly. 'Tis all

Of course, if I'd have known, I'd have distributed books between the checked and hand luggage more evenly rather than doing it while at the front of a queue of sweaty, annoyed passengers off for their week in Tenerife. I possibly would have also revised my choice of storage companies. I would have definitely bought an annual metro pass at the first possible opportunity. And I would have absolutely picked an internet cafe that wasn't closing in about 2 minutes' time to write this post.

But that's the way the koláč crumbles.

Everything's bigger in Budapest...

2007-05-10T20:52:00.000+02:00

The country...

The radishes...
The piles of smoked lard...

...and the rain.

...but at least it gave me a good excuse to play with the newly-discovered black & white function on my camera. I fear for the future - it's probably in sepia.

The Clue in the Capering Caper

2007-05-09T20:05:00.000+02:00

When I was a young, goggle-eyed stripling, brainwashed by the works of Carolyn Keene, I became slightly obsessed with mystery books. I probably spent a good three weeks one summer scouring my neighbourhood for signs of a shifty-eyed man in a trenchcoat, or peculiar old box in an antique shop which the owner refused to sell.

Sadly, the closest I ever got to genuine pre-teen mysterydom was pretending that some secret hollow in the tree stump in the back garden contained a clue to hidden treasure. Unfortunately, it rained overnight and the watch I cunningly concealed in order to "discover" it the next morning was covered in mysterious grubslime that seized up the works and gave the strap an unwearable gloopy texture.

A few days later, I discovered a taste for Sherlock Holmes and gave up my patient scouring of border of the living room carpet to discover a "clue" in the "mysteriously"-knotted fringe (forever after hopelessly tangled) in favour of stealing my father's magnifying glass to look for telltale traces of Turkish ash and raspberry jam smears left on the back fence by an eagle-eyed detective dressed as a simple-minded clergyman disguised as a costermonger. Not that I knew what a costermonger was, but I was convinced that if I looked hard enough I would find evidence of costers thoroughly mongered at 5 times magnification.

But in all of the mystery books I read during the glorious haze of childhood, explanatory chunks were always dumped wholesale into the first few chapters. As a consequence, the phrases "titian-haired girl sleuth" and "motherly housekeeper" are forever emblazoned on my memory. I know how many steps go up to 221B, and the meaning of "???" on a business card.

Anyhow, since I assumed that this sort of thing was meant as a quick catch-up for readers, I tended to skim those bits and just jump into the story. But what on earth does it mean when the same unvarying information about a character is littered through all the chapters of a book? I mean, I read more than one chapter at a time. I can retain simple information in the rapid-access bit of my memory for a good... oh...

Gone to Budapest...

2007-05-04T12:43:00.000+02:00

...in a train and everything. Back soon.

I think I need intensive hydrotherapy of a Hungarian kind. The almost uncontrollable urge to write something that while definitely not a book review,* might contain an actual opinion about something related to the contents of said book is just about killing me.

In the meantime, sitting on my hands while my mind does the boggling thing and my mouse does the link-surfing thing seems the safest option, since I have no time. Dammit.

*As opposed to yet another nail in the cherub-bedecked coffin of civilized discourse and a crushing blow with an unflatteringly large, spiked mace to the spiritual welfare of the world as we know it. Probably it also eats grubs, wears a smelly dressing-gown all day long and neglects its monthly waxing appointment.

Brief with pictures

2007-05-01T19:13:00.000+02:00

Ahhhh… spring. In the immortal words of the bookseller who flogged me a less-than-fragrant bouquet of second-hand paperbacks last weekend, "Now that the weather's nice, there's lots of beautiful, sunny places in this town to hang out for a few hours reading a good book."

Of course, that loud-voiced and defiant tweaker-of-the-noses-of-the-stern-and-unyielding-lords-of-literary-irony thereby trigged the immediate execution of sod's law. The git. Probably worked out that it's an easy way to bump up sales.

But at least the weather's still hanging in there. *touchwood*

Run for your lives! The Mercians are coming!

2007-04-26T20:26:00.000+02:00

I no longer believe in the Saxon invasions.

Okay, it's hardly something that has reduced the bedrock of my life to fine powder, or will bring about the downfall of civilization as we know it. But it is one of those beliefs that I picked up as a child and never really questioned. I've studied history a fair bit, but not that particular time and place, and the books I read tended to take Bede's line. Never underestimate the power of an ecclesiastical-sounding title, wise-looking beard and funny hat.

Then archaeological evidence (in book form) came along last week and wobbled a tiny corner of my worldview. It reminded me that histories are written by people who are ultimately fallible and biased, especially a hundred or so years after the events.

I wouldn't go so far as to call the Venerable Bede a propagandist (if I did, a certain relative would probably take me out in the dead of night, and that would be that), but let's just say that he had an Angle (heheh). Of course, archeaological evidence is itself subject to interpretation by similarly flawed humans. But for the moment, I'm quite enjoying trying on their reconstructed early Briton shoes, despite the blisters from the centre seam and undressed oxhide.

It also reminded me that writing always leaves out more than it keeps in. Even the most real-seeming, detailed book in the world is more like a map than reality. It leaves spaces for the imagination to fill - this is where the book comes alive in the reader's mind. These fragments of emptiness create places for interaction and dialogue between the reader and writer, uncluttered by words and filled with imagination. Maybe a writer's skill lies not only in her writing, but her not-writing - the way she carves out space in her work.

Zen and the art of olfactory maintenance

2007-04-24T19:07:00.000+02:00

From Star Scents' promotional website, a celebrity endorsement for Cliff Richard's perfumes:

I bought it especially for my Mother, and I can't wait for the Scented Candle for me.
- Christopher "He came, he saw, he damned with faint praise" Biggins

In fact, Sir Cliff and that sensitive-nosed mistress of the balmy arts, Sheila Pickles, have managed to capture in scent the essence of not one, but three of his pop hits: "Dream Maker", "Miss You Nights" and the latest release, out for Christmas 2006, "Devil Woman". The target audience for this new scent are the legions of Cliff fans who know that smelling like Cliff is the next best thing to being with Cliff, and some other women who want a warm, musky fragrance.

Why buy Danielle Steele perfume and exude the odour of overblown emotional drama, when you can smell of clean-cut 60s pop songs (except for the sultry, moody one in the corner)? In the company of such nice people too. To help you choose from the wider range of scented products, a sample Eau de Toilette set of all three perfumes is now available. As Sir C. himself reminds us, "The different scents in these beautiful perfumes evoke memories of each of my homes."

On the "Cliff-Guaranteed" fansite, the man bares his odourous soul and reveals that he shares Olivia Newton John's love for the fruity, musky scent, "Devil Woman". He describes its topnotes of grapefruit and bergamot; its delicious cassis heart. For him, the heady and alluring evening fragrance evokes "...exotic and distant lands - places where I may well have performed the song on some far-away tour." Oh, for the scents and sounds of those far-away tours. Those far, far-away tours.

But perhaps Joan Collins sums it up best in her inimitable style, "Like everything Cliff does, this will go straight to Number One."

No, we are not being served.

2007-04-23T19:06:00.000+02:00

Resist the urge...

Something I always struggle with is the whole loggorhea thing. It's my dream to write the perfect, pithy sentence, full of wisdom and meaning. Something zen, like a single, perfectly-placed stone in an expanse of purest white sand. Or the total emptiness of the space where a possibility once existed... ~~...like the one between your ears. You know, there is a reason we hide those vanished possiblities in the cupboard.~~

So while I don my nifty grasshopper costume (after wrestling to get the zip over the wings) and continue to study the art of saying a great deal with very few words at the hairy-toed feet of my masters, let us take a moment of quiet inspiration and contemplate what might be my very favorite JD Robb cover* translated into Czechish. If you don't know the author, she's written a series of cracking thrillers set in the near future which feature a fully-clothed female detective.

The cover artist in this case seems to have taken less-is-more to hitherto unimagined levels. For us, it's a lesson in worthy restraint. Be noble, be strong. Snicker ye not. I dare you.

*ting* of meditation bell

Just goes to show what a misunderstood genius can do with an old magazine and a pair those safety scissors with the rounded ends.

Disclaimer: SBTB did have first dibs on this, (For all your cover snark needs - visit SmartBitchesTrashyBooks. Professional, reliable service with a snarl. No back-combed mullet too big or small. Bonus mantitty with your tenth visit. Now with added fibre and leather-trousered vitamins.) but it's been a while. Candy or Sarah may apply a delicate boot to my posterior if they feel I've breached netiquette.

Like Frankenstein, I did it my way

2007-04-18T19:53:00.000+02:00

In some circles, they call me Typhoid Marika

Late last week, I decided to beat this head cold into submission. Well, either that or at the least assuage my fears that the strange goings-on in an auricular direction weren't signs of some incipient horrible secondary infection that would leave me defeated; a broken woman in neon wraparound visors, weakly humming stadium rock riffs. So off I hied myself, my Czech Health Insurance Card and my fug of rhinoviruses to the clinic with the English-speaking doctors recommended by a friend (it seems illness withers up my Czech language gland).

Two stops across and four stops down on Prague's rather crowded metro, I arrived and battled with the very complicated entry system to greet the doctor himself.

For 'twas indeed a male doctor and one quite attractive in a grey-blond sort of way. Things began to appear rosier. The tiny part of my mind not wholly occupied on working out precisely when I have felt more miserably ill before in my entire life perked up and started to take an interest. It glowed with approval as I explained my symptoms, deftly skirting around the whole Pink Floyd issue.

"Hmmmm…" he frowned, just like every other doctor in the universe. "Do you have fever?"
"Umm… no. I don't think so."
For a brief moment, I wondered if now would be a good time to bring up overstated twin reverb and dry ice. The tiny non-illness-obsessed part of my brain moved with the speed of (laser) light to stifle this urge with a barrage of sneezing. There was a pause while I mopped up with a scrap of tissue. Bit of an own goal for the mucus-brained one.

After a brief hand movement reminiscent of an amateur (pre-bunny) magician's, the still-attractive but more elusive he-doctor lunged forward and grabbed my forehead. Paralysed by shock and a strong Czech accent from a man in a white coat, visions of brain-sucking machines danced through my head.

"No. You don't have fever."
"Oh, well, that's good." Did brain-sucking really require complete cranial rigidity? "But it's really my ears that I'm worried about." I pointed at my ears. They stick out a bit, but are not unattractive.

His hands shifted and his thumbs pressed down very hard on the bumpy bit of skull behind my ears. "Does this hurt?"

Strong hands or not, torn by the brain-sucking issue, it was something of a relief to find him less attractive from this perspective. "Well, you are pressing quite hard."

"No. But do you have pain here?" More pressing.
"Not really. It's more sort of here." I did my own pressing, this time on the squishy bit behind my jaw where the crackling noises seemed to originate.

"Then you do not have ear infection."
"Well, that's a relief."
"You have a cold."
"Yes, I knew that. It's just my ears…"
"There is no medicine for a cold. You must rest. You must drink water."
"Okay."
"And if you still have the hearing problems after the cold is gone, you must see an otologist to clean your ears."
"Okay."
"Now, goodbye."
"Goodbye."

And so, suitably chastened, I took my dirty ears home to tune the air guitar.

Division ding-dong.

2007-04-16T18:40:00.000+02:00

It's slightly less obvious than "The Wall".

With the usual seasonal irony, it's been absolutely beautiful and warm for the last few days while I wrestle with a filthy cold. The evil germ has done weird things to my ears that make me feel as if I'm listening to a Pink Floyd album in a submarine. In other words, I have very blocked ears because of sinus inflammation, can hear sloshing and crackling when I move my jaw, and my left ear generates a peculiar tinny echo for all but the lowest-frequency noise.

Given my age, the Pink Floyd reference is a good indicator for the extreme noncool level of my de rigeur "I'm-miserable-and-ill-now-go-away-you-bastards-and-stop-hassling-me-about-borrowing-the-ironing-board" flannel pyjamas, striped socks and bad hair. I'm too old for it to be ironic and/or retro (the fact that I don't really have a clear idea of which it's supposed to be probably speaks volumes), and too young to be a first-time hard-core fan with original vintage concert T-shirt, who can sneer at the wannabe pj's in their pastel-snowflake-printed sadness.

Worse still, I've been this way for a very long time. But illness tends to bring out the dark side of my stadium rock/big album secret vice. One of the reasons that I avoid medication for the average cold-type bug is a sneaking fear that one too many decongestant tablets will find me in head-to-toe denim, and BIG hair, waving a zippo lighter with enthusiasm at a Status Quo gig. It could happen. I once bought a tape of the best of Bon Jovi while under the influence of one too many medicated throat sweets/cough drops and ten years later, not only can I still sing all the words, but I even know the track order.

So somehow it all made sense to my mucus-addled brain to go trawling through the archives and dig out this photo from an excursion up to the castle last summer. At least it might help to illustrate why I'm anticipating the coming summer with not a little dread. While last year, leopard-print ruled, I think gold and "brights" are supposed to be in this summer.

Sometimes, it's just like the Sound of Music

2007-04-11T19:06:00.000+02:00

This is what guys living in Czech-land chat about 'round the supersonic coffee machine on the Tuesday after Easter Monday.

"Hey, so did you beat your wife on the legs with ribbon covered twigs yesterday?"
"Yep. Well, she was quite insistent. What about yours?"
"Yeah. Our family is pretty traditional. I sang the carols and everything while I was doing it. Did you make the whip yourself?"
"Nah. Her father made it for me - I've never been able to braid the pussywillows properly. Guess you need to be born here to get the knack."
"Nice of him. This year, I forgot to buy one and ended up using a wooden spoon. Didn't get a whiff of slivovice* afterwards, let alone a proper egg. She just hung them all on the tree for the kids. I'll never hear the end of it now. She reckons a wooden spoon wasn't enough to get rid of the really bad spirits - let alone the fertility thing. She thought it was a total cop-out, without the ribbons.""Yeah… I know what you mean. My wife never lets me forget the Easter I doused her in water instead of flogging her legs. It ruined her favorite shoes. I didn't get any of the gingerbread lamb that year."
"Your wife makes gingerbread lambs?"
"Uh-huh. Hearts and rabbits too, but I like the lambs best."

"I think lambs are supposed to be just as good for fertility as the water thing."
"Probably. They're pretty tasty anyhow."

*plum brandy

…tastes just like cherry coh-lah...

2007-04-06T19:37:00.000+02:00

(stripped of branding to make it acceptable for public blogcast)

But first, a quick, polenta-fuelled, trip up a mountain to see the natural sculptures in the Valle di Sella in the snow. Up where the air is thin and the snow doth fall in late March, artists are ferried in during the summer (less snow then) to make sculptures out of natural material which are left to weather the effects of the elements.

Top of the list is the work-in-progress tree cathedral. In theory, after 25 years, the trees inside the wooden framework will have grown into the desired shape, and the framework itself will have rotted away, leaving a living, leafy building.

Among the other bits and pieces (including an amphiteatre made of woven twigs) that are scattered through the forest is this one, which as far as I recall is called "Pieces of Stripped Pine" or something.

Then off we went to Trento to dry off our trouser legs and practice looking more glamorous while wandering through streets where the walls looked like this… …and the sky looked like this… But, whither Lola? Luckily, Trento isn't all about miniscule gelati and elegant little cups of espresso. All that fresh mountain air means they take their food seriously south of the Dolomites, and on the day we visited, a cheese fair had plonked its ripe and oozing self in a square right by the main underground parking lot. Imagine my delight! Italian cheese piled high in stinky piles of beautiful ripeness! Oh unspeakable joy! Oh unbounded rapture! Oh momentary anxiety over the transport of dairy products by plane! Giddy with various edible fungus fumes, I bought:

1. A wedge from a wheel that smelled of old socks and looked as if it had been buried in a burlap bag and left to rot for several months.
2. A slab of gorgonzola so gloopy, blue and melty that it was sliding off the display board and slowly dripping its way to freedom.
3. A small roundel (I think I just made up that use of the word, but it fits) of very stinky goat cheese infused with the juice of a head of garlic, in its own special straw nest.

I did not buy:

1. A chunk of bright yellow Sicilian cheese studded with peppercorns and made with saffron flour, mainly because the stallholder was quite annoyingly insistent on flirting with us and sang very bad Italian pop songs.
2. Some strange stringy stuff with a faint plastic aftertaste.
3. Something with an unpronounceable name, rolled in dead leaves and ashes, because the guy wouldn't let us taste it first.

And then there was the highlight of the Trento Regional Cheese Fair (probably not its real name). That fine spring day, we had the honour of being graced by the presence of none other than Lola, the prize-winning cow. According to her nicely hand-lettered sign this fine speciman of bovinehood had presented her proud owners with 14 calves (ooof) and vast quantities of milk, as a consequence of which said owners were forever grateful and prepared to say it in painting on a wooden board decorated with flowers.

Not only that, but Lola's supreme conformation and top quality milk production had endeared her so much to some judges not a million miles away from the secret alpine headquarters of the Federazione Provinciale Allevatori di Trento, that she was designated "Queen of the Mountains" and given a very large shiny bell to prove it. Lucky, lucky Lola.

Tra-la-la-la-splish

2007-04-05T18:17:00.000+02:00

It may have been raining in Bolzano...

...but there was sunshine in my heart.

Ahhhh...

Personally, I blame an overdose of the free samples at the Trento regional cheese fair for that brief moment of insanity.

Since the mutual friend lives in the wilds of northern Italy, one of the many edumacational opportunities offered by a fleeting visit in her direction is a quick trip to Bolzano, which by virtue of the multiple "o"s is very satisfying to say. The Alto Adige region is but a hop, skip and jump to Austria which means that not only is it a nice place to eat pasta and look at mountains, but also sausage means more than mere salami and can come curry flavoured with mustard, almost everyone speaks German of a kind and most events can be rounded off with a nice piece of strudel/struedel/struedl/strooooodol (mmmm...).

On the downside, the weather was springlike only in the sense that torrential rain, sleet, fog and snow also can happen in March too. But that's quite a handy excuse for eating enormous helpings of polenta swimming in melted cheese, fried mushrooms, meringue-y things, heaps of risotto, yet more strudel, Sachertorte and chocolate Easter bunnies. Have a food picture.

I usually go for the ears first.

Tomorrow: Lola the prize-winning cow and her very big bell.

Mysterious Dimensionless Points

2007-04-02T20:22:00.000+02:00

Polyps update: mysterious brooding.

Mysterious cause of camera refusal to download photos to laptop: assumed mysterious battery.

Imagine some pictures of snow here - I was in the mountains when I wasn't stuck in the portakabin or the smallest hotel room in the world (very clean, but mysteriously kettle-, drawer- night-table- and electric-socket-less).

The most mysterious thing, however, about the recent jaunts abroad is what has happened to my default foreign leungwidge. The DFL is the massacred version of an otherwise innocent and inoffensive foreign-to-the-speaker language that pops out in the absence of any decent command of whatever local language might be. It often bears absolutely no resemblence to the actual language you should be speaking, unless by doing so it can cause insult to the local person with whom you are attempting to converse (badly).

The DFL may be accentuated by the atrocious and yet irresistable urge to mime if doing so will cause acute humiliation. These days, however, it is only rarely the speaker's own native language spoken Clearly. And. Distinctly. In. A. Loud. Voice. With. Odd. Em.Pha.Sis. Or. A. Funny. Accent. Normally, it's whatever language you studied least and worst or most recently quite badly. It should not be confused with those foreign languages which a person speaks with any degree of fluency. Oh no. Far be it that you should be confused with a reasonably articulate speaker of anything apart from helpless grunting noises that never quite sound the same no matter how hard you try.

Nor, however should the DFL should be confused with those bits of language you pick up while abroad ("Do not flush/use the toilet while the train is standing in the station", "Do not feed the monkeys children - they bite"), watching films in smoky arts cinemas, or reading those books where the mysterious, foreign, tycoon hero peppers his speech with exotic endearments, curses and the odd (ungrammatical/mispelled/or both) sentence in his mother tongue. ("Efharisto!", "Querida!", "Avec les roberts comme ça, ta rhumba est exceptionnelle" and, "Non credevo che 'impotente' volesse dire 'non può divertirsi'", my darling.)

Anyhow, over the last few months, my default foreign longwidge has now become Czech. Heaven and Mrs. Jana both know I can barely manage a word or two in Czechland, but it seems that distance has an effect rather like that of half-a-bottle of Becherovka. My Czech actually gets more fluent the further away I am from the country where my mangled efforts would be most useful.

Those poor Italians hardly knew what hit them, what with my volley of "Prosím"s and "Promiňte"s as I hurdled through the Milan metro and fervently embraced the whole of the south-Tyrolean train network with a deathless passion.

Of course, now that I'm back in Czechland, 3 whole days of being indoctrinated into the vagaries of Italian (can't speak it, can follow some, thanks to french, music and a whiff of distant latin) by Our Mutual Friend and boyfriend, means that I'm now apologising and thanking people in dreadful Italian. Probably just long enough to annoy the bilingual flatmate of Sicilian extraction.

Bring out your... bread?

2007-03-28T13:31:00.000+02:00

The polyps did try to stage a rearguard action from the lower right quadrant beneath the kneecap, but so far haven't succeeded. Czech hydrogen peroxide is clearly good stuff.

So I'm not incapacitated, just in Italy. And these aren't necessarily the same thing. For one thing, the coffee's better, even on the trains. The little I can see of the place from the window of our glamorous 70s portakabin is quite attractive, albeit rainy.

Brief little Wednesday something-like-a-thirteen for the purposes of comparison with Cancun.
1. Blogger speaks Italian.
2. Pasta is a starter.
3. Mmmmm... coffee.
4. Less weirdness, generally.
5. Peas? Why peas?
6. Hooray for new no-smoking legislation. At last I can wear dry-clean-only trousers to restaurants.
7. One of these restaurants may have been run by a man who gave me an autographed volume of his own poetry.
8. The power of the blonde is magnified here.
9. This is a bit weird.
10. Gotta go get trained.
11. No toga.
12. No toga.
13. No toga.

Knee of the non-Vampyre

2007-03-22T20:06:00.000+01:00

Gross coral scrape update: inflamation down about 35%, madly itchy in unlined wool trousers and surface area about 1 1/2 inches across. The world needs to know these things.

In other news, I've fallen off the wagon. Last weekend, while in the throes of the sort of giddy ecstasy that can only accompany an all-to-rare visit to my favorite bookshop, I bought another vampire book. Well actually, a few of them. I am weak. I am also an idiot. Why do I do this to myself?

Normal people would think, "No. That's it. I have vowed no more angsty wounded creatures of the night and their terminally drippy soulmates. Enough fang jokes. Enough use of the word "feeding" in any context except those which involve fresh hay and domesticated animals. Or maybe situations supervised by animal nutritionists in zoos at a pinch. But no more of this cod-gothic twaddle that makes me feel vaguely bilious. All that black leather will probably give me sweat rash. Sunshine is good. Daylight is your friend. Now settle down and glom a few nice historicals set in ancient Rome."

And I tried, I really did. But on Saturday afternoon, my pathetic excuse for a subconscious signed a pact of mutual alliance with the billions of polyps in my kneecap, took advantage of my weakened, jet-lagged state and decided to work its wicked wiles on my pocketbook. Legless and brainless, that's the goal.

"Ooohh, shiny orange cover in reasonable taste. And hey, it's okay if there are werewolves too, like in this one. Besides, lookee, this is the one that looks as if it may turn things on their head. It had good reviews. I think SmartBitches liked it. Oh, and in this one, it's not as if she's a vampire hunter. I mean, she hunts bad creatures of the night with fangs that drink blood. But they're not vampires. So that's okay. And hey, this is a book by she-who-usually-writes-about-vampires, but it looks as if this one doesn't have any of them in it at all. Must. Add. To. Pile."

Then I had to lug them back here. Only to discover that the one that isn't remotely about vampires and the one that isn't-about-creatures-called-vampires-this-time-but-they're-probably-lurking-somewhere-close-by both contain stupid mistakes about something I'm familiar with.

Polishes halo. Shows restraint.

Oh soddit. It's stupid scuba stuff.

Bites through restraints with vampire-sharp teeth

Normally if I'm enjoying a book, I tend to gloss over minor niggles. After all I'm no expert anything. There could be exceptions or variations. I might have remembered wrongly. But in the here and now of the splish-splash subaqua fun that is scuba diving, I've just finished a refresher course and buddied a novice, so all the safety stuff and basics are swirling around in my head. When clashed with a fly-by-night mistake or three, they turn me into one of those angry know-all nit-picking pedants who writes letters to newspapers in posh ink that start, "Dear Sir. Imagine my mortification and appalled intellect upon reading in line twenty-seven, page one hundred and seventy-six of the newly-published novel, "BlahBlahBlah"…" Aarrrgghh. Aarrggh. Aaarrgggh.

So I need to get a couple of things off my chest somewhere reasonably safe, where hopefully no one will ever know of my shame, or consider me a total nut job since they've given up reading this post around paragraph two due to the incomparable grossness of my knee scab.

First of all, aarrrggghhhandsignalsaaaarrggghh pleeaaase not thumbs-up for "ok" pleeeaasse. Just get one of those cards, or look it up. Pleeeaaasseee. Secondly it's air, dammit, AIR in the tanks. NEVER OXYGEN (okay, maybe for some shallow decompression stops but they were going DOWN heheh).

You thought that was bad? Incoming pedant alert

Oxygen gets toxic at depth. Even the 21% in normal air is bad for you if you go deep enough (instead people use kinds of funky stuff like trimix that I've never tried, because it's also cold down there, and I'm a wimpy-arse diver with nerves of jelly who likes being warm and looking at pretty fish). Oxygen toxicity makes you nauseous. It makes you twitch. It makes you spit out your regulator. Its effects can very easily kill you. It's a very very bad thing.

But in this book, h/h filled up their tanks with *shudder* oxygen, leapt blithely into the water (without checking their spare regulators, sigh) and immediately plunged to their horrible convulsive watery deaths. Maybe. That's when I stopped reading.

It's like the ceti eel. But worse.

2007-03-21T20:17:00.000+01:00

There's what you might either consider a really gross or really cool looking scrape on my knee where I bumped it against some coral last week. The offending coral was the type that resembles a brain, (and after a spot of quick googling, I have just discovered I'm not the only one to have this genius idea, because - surprise, surprise - it's actually called brain coral. Who'd a thunk it?). Consequently last week my right kneecap sported a raised red pattern that looked a bit like a clutch of alien worms doing a bit of synchronised twisting around on their way to resemble some kind of mystic celtic knot pattern.

I accepted this as my punishment for being stupidly careless, and watched it slowly fade away over the following few days (although I did take a picture, just to check that it wasn't progressing up my leg in a really creepy parasitic way). But yesterday morning, it spookily reappeared, bigger and redder than ever.

I panicked, convinced that billions of tiny coral polyps had been aggravated by my wool trousers and staged a revolt. Having marshalled their forces, I could see this but leading swiftly to virulant septicimea and the doomed march of my leg to the guillotine to liberate my patella from the rest of my body, while the little bastards knitted away, chuckling with glee. Of course, it was possible that they would have instead promoted agrarian land reform and the collectivisation of industry, but I was convinced these polyps had nefarious intent.

So off I limped last night (and scratched when it could be managed with discretion) to the nearest chemist's (pharmacy) for a bottle of industrial-strength disinfectant, armed only with a couple of scribbled phrases from one of my colleagues. Except that I got there too late. The chemist's/pharmacy/lekarna was closed. The polyps snickered. The cold wind sucked away my extremely unpoetic wails. The sleet fell in a particularly miserable way.

And then… then... a ray of hope shone through the circular series of holes in the front door. A ray of light too, which from a practical point of view was even better. A flap opened, and a woman in a white coat appeared. Before she could tell me to go away, I rattled out my new Czech phrase: "Yeeuurgh haff some dizinfektant fur skeen?"

"What?"

"Furr skeeen. Skiin. Skan." I rubbed the skin of arm, and contemplated pulling up my trouser leg to show her the disgusting wormy scar on knee.

"Oh. Like Hydrogen Peroxide?" (actually, it sounded more like "Peroxided Watery" to me, but I got the drift)

"Yes. Yes." Frantic bobbing of head.

The slide shut and I strained frantically to hear any noise from the inside. Preferably fizzing.

Two minutes later, the slide opened, and the woman's head appeared, along with a hand brandishing a small brown bottle.

More nodding and frantic "Yes. Yes's", as I did my best to impersonate an adorable stray puppy begging for shelter and scraps.

The woman was unimpressed by my pathetic attempt to tug at her heartstrings. "Twenty-four fifty. There is no change."

"Oh. Okay. Wahn minutee."

I rummaged through purse and pockets frantically, scattering metro tickets, pens and old bits of paper into the puddle at my feet. Arrrghh... Arrgghhh… Panicked… Made sobbing noises…

But reader, I gave her the exact change.

On a clear day

2007-03-19T18:34:00.000+01:00

I'm jet-lagged, sleep-deprived and mourning the loss of my flip-flop led freedom from the constraints of shoes and woolly clothes. It's also cold and sleeting back in Praha. Sniff.

Have some pictures.
Jump where?

Oh. Here:

Add a bit of colour.

I can't take credit for this bit of underwater photography - my efforts always come out as funny blurred blobs. Anyhow, I was so busy looking at the reef to try to figure out what everyone else was frantically pointing at, that I nearly sat down on this guy, and had my own Steve Irwin moment. The dog in a mansuit in a wetsuit thought it was hilarious.

Waaaaaahhhh!!!!

Duuuuuudde...

2007-03-12T09:30:00.000+01:00

The very early Monday Thirteen from Cancun.

1. It is VERY WEIRD here.
2. I'm beginning to gain an appreciation of the subtle imagery of some of the RnB that doesn't make it onto Radio2.
3. Dooff. Dooff. Dooff. Dooff. Dooff.
4. How many words can possibly rhyme with arse? Sorry. Ass.
5. Grass. Mass. Blast. Fast. Chast?
6. See 1.
7. Diving is muy bien.
8. There are very tiny ants crawling all over my laptop. Yep.
9. Blogger speaks Spanish now.
10. Fishizzle. I think.
11. Toga.
12. Toga.
13. Toga.

Sprung

2007-03-07T21:22:00.000+01:00

The curse of the drinking classes has unexpectedly pulled a few extremely rare rabbits out of my sweat-stained and rather grimy cap this month. Like buses, the ineffable rabbits of "off-site" trips all seem to come at once. The last of these is a week in Italy at the end of March, with the opportunity to extend through the weekends either side. So hooray for a total of 5 days to visit the electronically elusive but gorgeous I. and shop for big bags of coffee and beautifully-preserved foodstuffs in glass jars.

In a slightly more peculiar but very cool vein, I'm also hot-foot off to Mexico at the end of this week. Cancun, to be precise, which is the surreal bit. Apparently there's this bizarre cultural phenomenon known as "Spring Break" going on right now which turns the whole place into a madhouse heaving with scantily-clad American college kids.

My (middle-aged, male) colleagues find this notion somewhat exhilerating. I am a tad unenthusiastic about seeing these gentleman embrace the phenomenon wholeheartedly and halfclothedly. I'm also beginning to wonder if I should be packing a toga for both trips, or just hide my shame under the world's biggest sombrero.

Extra! Exteerraa! A-Peel! Extra!

2007-03-03T21:41:00.000+01:00

Holy publisherific, Batman! Exciting new from the world of ground-breaking, "reach-out-and-touch-a-consumer" technomarketing wizardry! They brought you DIY cover art. Now, Penguin bring you the DIY novel!

~~Yawn.~~

Well, perhaps less of the "now", more of the "mid-January" and a bit of a flirtation with the past tense would have made the introductory sentence more accurate. In fact, the whole project it due to close in less than a week. But the DIY comment stands. Some bright sparks at said publisher's have clubbed together with some other clever folks from De Montfort Uni and through the modern miracle of software-enabled collective authorship, have come up with a wikinovel project.

To slightly deflate the party balloons, it's not exactly the first wikinovel in the world. But it's probably the first one run by a major publisher of Serious Literary Work. Oeuvres even. Ones with classy covers featuring Art and nary a bemulleted Viking or exploding spaceship in sight.

Their site terms the whole project an "experiment" to see if such a collective adventure can really come up with the goods. It also raises a few interesting questions about the notion of collaboration in art and authorial ego and so on, which are always fun things to think about.

In a bit of a hat-tip to that well-known theory about an infinite number of animals inclined to put ~~evil monkey~~ paw to keyboard and churn out works of literary greatness ~~creative genius is the more appropriate term~~, they've called it "A Million Penguins." *snort.* stupid flightless waterfowl. we are legion. and unopposable thumbs or not, we can type faster and better than any flipper-bound bird. so stuff that in your beak and regurgitate it.

So far, the penguins in question have been working mighty hard to duck ~~what is it with you and the waterfowl today?~~ the whole boring coherent narrative angle. Which makes reading a bit of a challenge. When approaching it very early in the morning without benefit of caffeine, my tiny brain ~~heheh... many a truth spoken in jest...~~ tends to quail Quail? QUAIL? this stops right now, you bird-brained freak. or do you actually want to be painting that big-winged toff's horn until he gets round to blowing it? in the face of what seems to be an impossible creation by the most bloody-minded of committees - the ultimate camel novel. Camels? Now camels are jumping on the writing bandwagon? Or is this some kind of weird sub-genre from one of the more "specialist" epublishers? Isn't it enough that Posh Spice has a blog? Oh. You're doing that dodgy metaphor-as-cliché thing again. That one has always been pretty dire, you know.

On good days, it feels like reading a Choose You Own Adventure novel straight through, with no brakes and a blatant disregard for the instructions to "Turn to page 67 if you disguise yourself as a shrub and follow the Wild-Eyed Chanting Monks into the Cave of Sacrifice." Just like then, you can even scribble alternate endings on the back flap if you like, as well as crossing out and replacing all the page numbers. Ahh... the heady joys of summer holidays and unlimited time at the library. The big difference in this pool of creative anarchy is that some other jolly comrade-in-flippers will probably come along and delete all your work two hours later. But at least you can then do the same to them.

Actually, there's one alternative version of the novel where someone has attempted to impose a conceptual unity by introducing a banana theme ~~heheh~~. But so far I think the discussion pages have been the most interesting aspect of the project: the despair and the randomness, the frustrations and the delights, the plotting and the conspiring - it's all in there. ~~you mean they're not just happy writing? they have to talk about it too?~~

The novel does seem to be settling into some kind of shape as the end of the project draws ever closer. no staying power. told you so... but at least those daft hordes of shuffling leopard-seal bait will soon get back to huddling in the snow looking cute but dumb while posing for artistically frostbitten french cameramen... Well, more of a roughly-woven mobius comic strip really, but it's been an interesting read so far, and I'm pretty glad that it seems to show we're still a long way from becoming the borg.

Away an bile yer heid

2007-03-01T21:48:00.000+01:00

Oh, thank heavens... no way was I going to be able to edit down my week's mixed back of rants into anything digestible or even coherent. Luckily, the Wandering Scotsman sent me this, and it's made me feel all teary-eyed and nostalgic. Sniff.

Anyhow, this is dedicated to Mrs.B and D'Eath who between them and their ancestral roots taught me how to strip the willow, eat "proper" chips, read Irvine Welsh and most importantly, the correct way to incapacitate innocent bystanders with a cannily-flung shoe while reeling. And here's to Maili (hope all's well with you).

In a typically pathetic effort to shoehorn this into the blog while maintaining a purely fraudulent sense of an overall thematic arc here's a bit of blurb. (You may want to skip this and just go to the bit at the bottom.)

Some might note that the list below doesn't exactly evoke the same image of Scotland as say, Christophe(r) Lambert (a Frenchman - snerk) in a skirt, Mel Gibson (an Australian) in blue paint, Liam Neeson (an Irishman) in a swarm of midges, or Sean Connery in anything, but especially a pair of "Mr. Universe" bathing trunks. To say nothing of those millions o' Hieland lairds frolickin' bare-chested amang t'rannoch an t'yowes.

Brief rant: I wish popular Scottish history of this type delved a bit more into the very strong historical Scottish-French connections and political machinations within the Scottish royalty in general. Not only is it damned interesting, but I think it gives a greater sense of genuine history than the trope of a rabid pack of weedy and effeminate Sassenaches laying waste to mystic and ancient tribes of barely-~~dressed~~ tamed calendar models.

Actually, I think this sort of silliness denigrates vast tracts of Scottish history and gives the English way too much credit. I mean, take the Scottish Enlightenment - it played a critical part in the development of modern western thought: all that lovely stuff on political economy, history, humanism, philosophy, scientific method and dancing frogs. Ideas that changed the world, she shouts, waving an invisible hand or two. And then a few hundred years later there's the whole take on Burns as a Soviet literary icon. Aarrrghhh. Must. Stop. Ranting. No. Time.

Anyhow, one of these days, I swear I'm going to write an essay on approaches to Scotland in popular culture. With a splash of amnesiac Orientalism and a post-modern secret baby.

All of which is a roundabout way of saying that just like the above examples, the list below represents facets of "a" Scotland(s) rather than "the" Scotland. Neither is more "right" than the other (regardless of accuracy), but trying to believe in the absolute truth of one vision feels to me like being in a mental straitjacket. Besides, since everyone has their own vision of a place, one way to wander through that person's head (dammit, I just knew that Zadie Smith thing was going to make its presence felt) is to try to see a place as they do.

In the case of Scotland, after versions like the ones given above, or even below, it's lovely to have a dose of Alexander MacCall Smith. Or go down the gritty 'tec route via Ian Rankin to end up in darker places of the Iain Banks type. Or maybe others (open to carefully-worded suggestions at this point).

But I think this nonsense about spending evenings spent studying is showing neon-yellow at the seams. I'll try and do some rhythmic breathing at the weekend to see if I calm down a bit. Or maybe I'll dig oot the poem I posted on SB's once, for the sake of posterity. Onwards.

You know you are a true Scot if...........
1. Ye can properly pronounce McConnochie, Ecclefechan, Milngavie,Sauchiehall St, St Enoch, Auchtermuchty and Aufurfuksake.
2. Ye actually like deep fried battered pizza fae the chippie.
3. Yer used tae four seasons in wan day.
4. Ye canna pass a chip/kebab shop withoot sleverin when yer blootert.
5. Ye kin fall about pished withoot spilling yer drink.
6. Ye see people wearin shell suits with burberry accessories pure class!
7. Ye measure distance in minutes.
8. Ye kin understaun Rab C Nesbitt and know characters just like him, inyer ain family.
9. Ye go tae North Berwick cos ye think it is like gaun tae the ocean.
10. Ye kin make hael sentences jist wae sweer wurds.
11. Ye know whit haggis is made ae and stull like eating it.
12. Somedy ye know his used a fitba schedule tae plan thur wedding daydate.
13. You've been at a wedding and fitba scores are announced in theChurch/Chapel.
14. Ye urny surprised tae find curries, pizzas, kebabs, fish n chips,irn-bru, fags and nappies all in the wan shop.
15. Yer holiday home at the seaside has calor gas under it.
16. Ye know irn-bru is a hangover cure.
17. Ye learnt tae sweer afore ye learnt tae dae sums.
18. Ye actually understand this and yurr gonnae send it tae yer pals .
19. Finally, ye are 100% Scot if ye ha' e'er said/heard these words;
How's it hingin
Clatty
Boggin
Cludgie
Pished
Get it up ye
Wee beasties
Erse bandit
Amurny
Away an bile yer heid
Peely-wally
Humphey backit
Ba'-heid
Baw bag
Dubble nugget

Da books! Da books!

2007-02-24T22:49:00.000+01:00

In order to improve my general quality of life and the fatness of my bank balance, I set out last weekend to register for not one, but two libraries. The kind folks at the City Library puzzled their way through my non-existent Czech to confirm that I actually need a real, live Czech person to act as a referee. And pay a substantial deposit. So will be back next weekend after the blackmail kicks in.

To be fair, for the privilage I get to borrow from their extensive English-language selection, kindly donated by the British Council some years back. Although perhaps not all 8000 books at once. They also have a giant sculpture in their entrance hall in which thousands of books are bricked up to make a giant hollow tube. Through a split in the side, you can look in and get mild headrush from the mirrors placed at the top and bottom. I panicked, checked to see most of the books were in Czech and breathed a sigh of relief.

Then I popped across the square to sign on at the National Library. After a fairly extensive inquisition and some complicated manoeuvres with a black felt-tip pen and the coat-check lady I managed to acquire not one, but two identical cards. I think one must be a spare. Sadly, neither of them can be used to borrow books, but I do get to use the reading room and flit through the stacks like a giant-stack-flitting animal in a coat and glasses.

To make the place even better, the whole library has that wonderful shabbiness caused by endless rows of handwritten card catalogues, large potted plants with big dusty leaves and antiquated computers and those huge microfilm readers bought in a fit of wide-eyed technological enthusiasm back when a very different bunch were exporting technology to this corner of the world. Haha! Yes, meeztress perille... Ve haff ze mikrofeelm! And a way to read it... Now crank zat hendle harder! Harder I tell you! haha!

But the reading room is the best of all. Huge and high-ceilinged, with desks that creak and snap as the unwary brush past, brass-shaded lamps connected by electric flex covered in brown cloth, floorboards that groan under hard wooden chairs, and strange chilly drafts of undetectable origin.

At the far end, the wall above the main entrance is covered by an enormous mural in shades of grey. Doubtless its subject matter is meant to elevate and improve the moral and intellectual fibre of the hundreds of thousands of students who use it to practise critical eye-focussing exercises in those all-important and infrequent mental breaks.

Unfortunately, it is all too easy to be distracted by the 30-foot, black iron, eighteenth-century roccoco stove that looms up against this same wall blocking half the mural, and thereby reducing the edification factor by as much again. Enormous, big enough in the belly to cook thirty skinny students and presumably once used to heat the vast room during the sort of freezing winter that passed us by this year. It is my new favorite thing.

Raiddrops keep falling on my head

2007-02-21T19:43:00.000+01:00

Today, the sympathetic weather is working overtime. The skies above this little corner of the Czech Rep. have generated the kind of overcast cloudiness that reflects my general muzzy headedness that not even floor-varnish-dissolving coffee can cut through. And thus the randomiser is born: a collection of those small wisps of thought that on a good day might have been quashed 'neath the weight of more sensible matters. Or thoughts of manatees.

First to walk the plank is the "Special Edition" washing-up liquid. It honours our kitchen sink with its noble presence. After the supply flatmate's wild flirtation with the dark side of grapefruit-scented detergent, her departure to Frenchishier shores and the inevitability of time's effect on supply means we're now back to a more normal green.

Of course, as the lovely D'Eath is sure to remind me if she can put down the Daughter Of D'Eath quickly enough, by using the qualifier "normal", I am imposing my own version of "normality" upon dish-washing Others in the form of liquid detergent stereotypes. In fact, even the term "liquid" is deeply suspect, redolent as it is of westernized industrial manufacturing practices and dismissive of the paste-based substance widely used in the South and other parts of the world.

Furthermore, to essentialise this product based on its most narrow purpose within the domestic sphere ignores the potential for its change and growth beyond the narrow confines of the kitchen and its consequent reinforcement of gendered relationships. After all, is it not also a useful de-fogger for diving masks? Although the debate between the relative merits of this substance and saliva in this arena should probably seek to avoid a focus upon loaded Western conceptualizations of "health" and "gentility".

In any case, before venturing further into this territory, I must acknowledge that my own culturally-biased view of washing-up liquid is probably a form of cultural imperialism, situated awkwardly upon the false dichotomy of "normal"/"grapefruit".

In an effort to move from this central focus upon "green"-ness at the centre of my personal cultural universe, I must therefore also acknowledge that while green, the substance in question rather than being lemon or pine-scented, in fact has the more peripheral odour of apples, I think. Not speaking Czech, I am basing this assumption on the pictures of fruits which strongly resemble (to my mind) green apples on the bottle.

Of course the individual who has never seen an apple, may perceive this image as one representing another fruit or even another object altogether. Such as a tennis ball. And their perception of tennis-ball-scented detergent is of course equally valid, given the filtering experiences of our own lives.

However, since the more novel (to my culturally-limited viewpoint) grapefruit-scented detergent does not merit the label, "special edition", and the colour green predominates in the supermarket shelves (except for deuteranopic individuals), it may in fact be the dispensing pump that is the basis for such an attribution.

For there is no squeezing of bottle in the domestic sphere of Peril & co. Instead, use of this "Special Edition" dispensing system subverts those attributes deemed masculine within the dominant western idiom that governs our ritual hygiene practices, by the enhancement of a simple task with the application of technology.

Of course, this consumption of technology is in fact more ambiguous than it appears at the outset, since while the appropriation of technology subverts certain masculinized traits, the role of the consumer is considerably more nuanced. Furthermore, the label "special edition" itself signals the uniqueness of this particular act and thereby underlines and reinforces the association of masculinity and westernization with the novel and the progressive. Perhaps we are collaborators, merely confirming entrenched practices and biases.

Perhaps this is why I am feeling slightly underwhelmed by the "specialness" of this "edition". And yet this may also help me to place into context my annoyance at the way flatmate XYZ uses three WHOLE pumps when cleaning a few plates. It must be due to subconscious anxiety about social roles and the suppressed urge to reinforce "traditional" feminities within the domestic sphere. Perhaps we should be adopting entirely new ways of doing the washing-up.

(Is it very obvious that this studying thing has kicked off again? But I'm still using that bourgeois punctuation nonsense. Must try harder.)

Penguin! My Penguin!

2007-02-19T19:25:00.000+01:00

Or, I'm Going to Take a Heroine For Whom No One has Provided a Jacket

The real evil, some might say, of an author's situation is their having rather too little power over the marketing and presentation of their work. The unfortunate choice of cover art or artiste can threaten to alloy her enjoyment of sales beyond a particular niche and create a disagreeable consciousness of the most unfavourable perception of the quality of her writing.

The same might be said of the gentle reader, whose choice of material may do a great deal to distress or vex her. With none of the inducements of an offering more attuned to the artistic sensibilities, there remains little beyond obvious cliché for defence when affronted by the prejudices of others. Rare indeed is the cover which unites some of the best blessings of a book's existence; more frequent, those covers which bring grief to the unlucky reader in the form of pointed commentary upon one's state of mind and possession of more hair than wit.

Those who suffer thus may therefore count ourselves extremely fortunate that Penguin have released editions of six classic works whose pristine covers the happy reader may embellish at will, and upon whose blank canvas one may depict as attractive an image as one might wish to present to the idle observer. For the sum of five pounds, your humble blogger has thus secured the purchase of Miss. Austen's fine volume, Emma, and will doubtless present her own raw efforts in the usual haphazard fashion upon their completion and her acquisition of log-in rights to the scanner.

Postscript: On the subject of my last entry, it has occurred to me that this post may be a fitting submission for Beth's own SB Day. However verification of her site reveals that the weekly announcement has yet to appear. Perhaps later.

How do I dub thee?

2007-02-14T21:08:00.000+01:00

...cheesiest of days?

For some today is a festival of the highest squidgy-wuv-bunny-wunniest degree. A time when women are not ashamed to out-ruffle the pink chiffon whiffliness of la Cartlande, and men dress in tights and floppy hats to serenade their inamoratae 'neath a honeysuckle-scented arbour. A time to shout your love to the heavens and not fear the next morning's sore throat.

It is also time of expensive and scratchy underwear that you secretly feel will look faintly ridiculous at a later date. A time to venture into the hostile territory of fiercely-regimented public dining, expensive meals that do not become inspiring by virtue of being in the shape of a heart, or worse, cupids performing unmentionable acts. A time of embarrassing public gaffes, dry cleaning bills and a "rose for the lady." For others it's worse.

And so, here is the anti-valentine. It's dull, obvious and actually written on corporate email while doing a poor impression of writing an unpleasantly tactful memo about the people who remove their shoes in the office. It has then been printed out on featureless stationary and typed up in a badly-lit late-night airport waiting lounge where all the shops are closed apart from the one that sells bad overpriced coffee. The closest it comes to romance is the 25-crown-for-5-minute-leatherette massage chairs that look like someone's stuck a motor on the cast-offs from a garage sale.

Note the lack of hearts and sentimentality. Note the lack of pictures, even from a corporate logo (although the one with the dead turtle might have been appropriate, come to think). Worst of all is the fact that I have extracted this whole thing from an email to a friend and then re-worked it into a blog post in order to completely de-personalise the whole experience and ensure it thereby loses all meaning.

And to round things off nicely, I slept poorly, my breakfast banana was bruised, the milk in my tea tastes funny and I'm flying east-west so the whole day is actually 25 hours long. Happy Valentine's Day.

Nearly accidentally deleted this...

2007-02-12T18:22:00.000+01:00

...better publish and be spammed.

Bookwormom hath spoken and thus for Monday's post, there is a meme... This is a) a relief because it gets me off the hook thinking up ideas on a busy Monday, and b) rather terrifying since I have absolutely no idea what to say. It's supposed to be ten weird things about me. This is hard, because anything about me that causes other people to give me that squinty-eyed, funny look with a puzzled shake of the head (like that multiple-book a week habit which leaves the newer, book-every-few-months, flatmate astounded) seem pretty normal from this end of things. Even the monkey.

Luckily, for those fearful of angering the gods of meme, the February edition of the Fortean Times has hovered to the rescue like a UFO filled with silver-clad inspirational aliens on white horse-like creatures. It specialises in the weird. So I am in a position to present 10 weird things very tenuously related to me.

1. One of the most destructive tornadoes to ever hit the UK was recorded in Birmingham two years ago in July. I used to live in Birmingham nowhere near the place it happened, but had moved by then.

2. There was also a tornado last December in London. Eerily, I also used to live in London several miles from where this tornado touched down, but had also moved months before it happened.

3. Erich von Däniken, the Swiss writer most well-known for his "ancient astronaut" theory of alien intervention in the prehistoric development of humans opened "Mystery Park" in Interlaken, Switzerland, in May 2003 to showcase his theories. It closed last year. I have been to Switzerland and admired the punctuality of their trains and dust-free plants, but have never been to Interlaken, nor visited "Mystery Park".

4.In November, 2005, China's first restaurant to specialise in dishes featuring the, uh, male organ, (gulp) opened in Beijing. I have never been to China, and since reading about this restaurant, am more herbivorous than before so unlikely to sample food in this restaurant.

5. When a Swiss driver was caught by Canadian police driving 100 mph (160 kph) in a 62 mph (100 kph) zone on the highway between Montreal and Toronto, his excuse was that he was caught up in the delight of being able to drive quickly without the risk of hitting goats. I hate goats.

6. On Bonfire Night last year in Monkwearmouth, Sunderland, a 22-year old soldier inserted a Black Cat Thunderbolt Rocket into his, uh, hindquarters, and then proceeded to ignite it. I have attended several Bonfire Night parties and once drove through Sunderland in a car. Not a rocket.

7. A woman in Croatia was struck by lightning when brushing her teeth last year, after putting her mouth under the tap to rinse. The lightning travelled through her body and exited out of her, uh, rear exit. Doctors say her life was saved by her rubber-soled bathroom shoes. I also brush my teeth, although I have not yet had the opportunity to do so in Croatia. I do not own rubber-soled bathroom shoes, but am considering the investment.

8. A palæontologist has concluded that the osteology of the plesiosaur, Murænosaurus would make it unable to lift its head and neck above water swan-style. Instead would have acted like a feeding-tube, used to pull up soft-bodied prey from the seabed. This makes a living fossil of this species to be an unlikely candidate for Nessie's secret identity. I have been to Loch Ness and really liked typing the "æ" in those words.

9. A Romanian man who was jilted by his finacée just a few days before the wedding offered to marry the first woman who could fit into her erstwhile wedding dress. Dozens of candidates applied with the (presumably lovely) Ana Maria out-Cinderella-ing the lot, leading to accusations of "love at first sight".

It took three fittings and the most wire-pokingly, chicken-filleted, strapless doohicky for my last bridesmaid dress to behave as it ought. I spent most of the wedding and reception absolutely paranoid that any stray breeze or overly enthusiastic handshake would upset the whole arrangement and lead to one of those "wardrobe malfunctions" without the Timberlake to hide my shame. Luckily, my 'do, which contained 2 cans of "product", 43 bobby pins and 3 elastics would have maintained its rock-like solidity even in the face of one of the aforementioned tornadoes, although crashing into the main marquee pole may have shattered it.

10. Rohan Kriwaczek wrote The Incomplete History of the Art of Funerary Violin (Duckworth), which describes the history of this musical style from its emergence in the Reformation to its wholesale destruction under the aegis of Pope Gregory XVI in the first half of the 19th century. In October, after a New York Times article suggesting it was a hoax, Mr. Kriwaczek admitted that the whole thing was a carefully-researched fake.

When I was younger I played the violin at a funeral or two, sometimes in ensembles, sometimes not. I also used to write book reviews for school assignments about books that hadn't actually been written by authors who didn't exist. If my teachers ever suspected this, they never said a word.

I am now too exhausted to nominate candidates, so if you like it, you can have it. If you don't, no worries.

Street and a few veg

2007-02-08T21:28:00.000+01:00

In an increasingly pathetic last-ditch attempt to keep this blog thematic, I can now reveal that last week while in London I walked right past the entrance to Peckham train station, completely oblivious. And it was all because of those pesky vegetables. Not a potato or a talking dog in sight, mind you. Instead, the cunning greengrocer had to make do with:

boxes of crinkly red scotch bonnets
shiny white globe aubergines
piles of the green bumpy cucumbers that are bitter melon
the stinky durian fruit beloved by bats
long white daikon
leaves, many, many leaves
bitter gourd
bottle gourd
snake gourd
calabash (isn't it a gourd, too?)
cassava
plantain
purple mangosteen (note to self - this would be a really good name for a Victorian-era disease: Galloping Purple Mangosteen. Cured only by Dr. Proctor's Patent Syrup of Centrifuged Worm Fungus and peat baths.)

I should probably point out (if it wasn't already obvious) that the selection of fruit & veg in Prague has been rather limited of late. Apparently, now all someone has to do to lure me off the straight and narrow is to leave a trail of okra for me to follow. I'm so weak-willed that all this vegetable glory, which included the humble carrot looking a bit perkier than I've seen lately, made me late for work.

The wrong vegetables

2007-02-07T20:09:00.000+01:00

The reason I haven't blogged for a while is that conversations like the following are beginning to make me lose my already tenuous grasp on sanity, reality and most of the social graces.

The scene: an anonymous kitchen furnished in Ikea and early discount paper towel rails which is absolutely not anywhere near any office. A professional coffee machine gleams like a french-roasted beacon of hope amidst the UHT milk and mismatched crockery.

An anonymous person, possibly exuding a discreet air of peril, is eating homemade vegetable harira (skip the beef, add marmite to the stock and extra chickpeas) with rosemary flavoured crackers and reading The Singing Neanderthals (the bit about vervet monkey alarm calls).

Enter The Current Rather Podgy Bane Of Her Life in a pumpkin-coloured shirt, Simon-Cowell-high-waisted trousers and foreshortened tie with its tip snugly tucked into a black leatherette belt. The voice is oddly high-pitched and squeezed through the throat, with an extremely peculiar accent that takes an experimental approach to the use of vowels.

"Are you ea(r)ting soup?"

"Yes." Slurp.

"Oh. What kind of soup are you ea(r)ting?"

"Vegetable."

"Oh. How int-er-e-sting!"

Pause to consider the most logical response. "Thank you".

"By times, do you ea(r)t the(r) potato soup?"

"Sometimes, yes."

"Oh. That is also very int-er-e-sting!"

Slurp. Bemused silence.

"Is there any potato in your soup right now?"

Slurp. "Uh… no."

Pause. Brief moment of hope, rapidly dashed (mashed?).

"So now... now I have some que(r)stion for you."

Slurpslurp.

"In E(r)ngland. The(r) people… are they ea(r)ting the ye(r)llow potatoes or the white potatoes?"

Blank look. Puzzled slurp. "Umm… I guess it depends. I tend to use yellow potatoes in cold food like salads and white ones for things that need to be fluffy, like mash."

"Reeeaally? That is so VERy int-er-e-sting!"

Slurpslurp with quiet desperation.

"Yes. It is VERy int-er-e-sting be(r)cause in the EAST of Poland the people only eat the white potatoes be(r)cause the ye(r)llow potatoes are only for the animal food."*

Slurpslurp with slightly louder desperation in the hope that soup noises will drown out this flood of information.

"But you know, ha-ha, in the WEST of Poland it is comPLETEly the opposite. ComPLETEly. In the WEST of Poland, ha-ha, they eat the ye(r)llow potatoes. I have ABsolutely NO idea(r) what they are doing with the white potatoes." Chuckles.

Careful examination of soup to see if any remaining carrot is of suitable dimension to lodge in a passing windpipe.

"Ye(r)s. Ha-ha. It was VERy funny when I went to the WEST of Poland to the university and I could not find the white potatoes aNYwhere!"

Upon reflection, carrots are too small. Curse my blind adherence to recipe dimensions that call for half-inch cubes.

"It was simply crazy. No white potatoes in ANY shop! Ha-ha." Shakes head ruefully at this clear example of Western Polish willful insanity. "VERy funny."

Pieces of tomato appear too mushy or not hot enough for the desired result.

"And so that… this is why it is so VERy int-er-e-sting to hear that in E(r)ngland you are eating the white potatoes AND the ye(r)llow potatoes."

"Well, we have other kinds of potato too." (Oh gods, stop the madness.)

"Ye(r)s. But it is the white potato and the ye(r)llow potato that are so important in this thing."

"Mm-hmm". (Silence is golden. Like a perfectly-crisped potato.)

"Ha-ha. You British people are so VERy funny. Eating the ye(r)llow and the white potatoes. In Poland we do not ea(r)t the cold potatoes. Ha-ha. Potatoes in the(r) salad. Ha-ha."

Pumpkin appears to be reaching bursting point as a consequence of the unintentional hilarity of the tuber consumption habits of the British nation.

"Yup." Considers the rosemary-cracker-to-watery-eyeball trajectory. It could be done.

"The(r) white potatoes AND the ye(r)llow potatoes. Ha-ha."

"You'll have to tell your wife."

"Oh ye(r)s. I must tell her straightaway. She will find this so VERy int-er-e-sting. And funny too. Ha-ha."

"Always happy to oblige."

"Ha-ha." Leaves in haste to presumably flash mail all of Poland with the wacky gastronomic habits of Perfidious Albion.
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Aren't raw potatoes poisonous?

*note, the shades of potato may be the wrong way around. I am no Polish potato authority - traumatic amnesia is nasty stuff.