Boob Pencil

Alabama 3 - Manchester Academy, 26th April 2008

2008-05-13T20:46:00.006+01:00

We arrived at the Academy just as the crowd were doing that bunching-towards-the-front thing they do when the band comes on stage. There was that delicious feeling you get from a large space, excited people and thumping basslines. It’s a while since I’ve felt that. The baby appreciated it too and started dancing enthusiastically along.

Speaking of which, I’d been a bit trepidatious about my seven-months-pregnant ability to stay on my feet for a long time, and the barn-like Academy had even less seating than the last time I was there (as in, none at all). But I needn’t have worrried. The Alabama 3 have magical powers, and even hefty women with limited energy reserves can dance - have to dance - when they’re on stage.

The sound was muddy - the treble end of things, particularly the guitars, were hard to distinguish from the general sound - and I’ve never thought much of the Academy. It’s a large square box with no soul. And maybe Larry Love and D Wayne were a bit lackadaisical at times, strolling around the stage as though there were only a handful of bored people in front of them rather than a thousand or more enthusiastic fans, but those are my only criticisms. The experience would have been better - as it always is - right up at the front, but I was worried about fragile foetus eardrums, never mind sharp elbows and less-than-careful feet.

They opened with Mao Tse Tung, only one of their many outstanding tracks. Nearly every song they played - and they played a lot - was a personal favourite of mine, and even then they missed some out (Peace in the Valley for instance, or Wade in the Water). It’s astonishing. They’ve been going for ten years or more and can still draw a crowd like this, can still write good new music.

Mao Tse Tung is a good example of their sophistication, multi-dimensionality and sheer irreverence. Who else could use original samples of Reverend Jim Jones, the Christian cult leader who led hundreds of supporters to a mass suicide in Guyana in 1978, as the key motivator in a thumping techno country acid house blues anthem which stirs the audience to a frenzy and ends with everyone raising their left fist in the air, as they agree that change must come through the barrel of a gun?

Yes, they’re taking the piss. Yes, they subvert these messages. Kind of. But kind of not. As Robert Spragg (aka Larry Love) has said in interviews, they’re not anti-religion. They’re saying something about alienation, about spirituality, about a fucked-up world full of murder and injustice where sometimes religion is the only thing that keeps people going. That there’s real power in people uniting, whether through music or revolution, and fighting back.

Despite the high I felt when I first walked in, it took a while for the gig to warm up. But when they reached the climax of Up Above My Head (a more recent track from Outlaw, 2005), the whole place exploded. Proper leaping-about-with-hands-in-the-air stuff. Delicious.

Zoe Devlin, the female vocialist, was energetic and spectacular throughout and more than made up for her laid-back stage mates. And there were some great moments.

Hypo Full of Love (from Exile on Coldharbour Lane, their first record and still a top listen), contains within it a Twelve Step Plan, during which disciples are exhorted to remove all their clothing in order to become “powerless and demeaned” under the great Reverend D Wayne. At the Academy they had their very own disciple on stage in the person of Billy Morley, a man well known to hard-core A3 fans in Manchester. I could write another whole piece about Billy, but instead I’ll just tell you about his hair. It’s very long, and very dreaded, and - I’m assuming - very old, as it hasn’t changed much - just got longer - in the ten years I’ve known him. Unless prisons make you cut your hair off. Do they? I don’t know. But now Larry Love has cut it all off. During the climax of Hypo Full of Love, to raise money for St Ann's Hospice, Manchester (£1080 was given). Billy is one hell of a nice guy, and Billy’s brother has cancer.

It was moving, exciting, energizing, bizarre (and there’s a video of the whole thing here)… only with the Alabama 3.

The encores were pretty ace, too. They took a long time coming back, but as my companion and general life partner pointed out, they’d must have had to leave for a fag. They played Holy Blood first. It was a bit slow and gentle for my liking, filled as I still was with adrenalin from Billy’s stirring hair-removal strategy. But then it built to its wonderful climax, and everyone was leaping again. They followed that with Speed of the Sound of Loneliness (such a favourite that me and Him Indoors performed a cover at our friend’s wedding), and then built to another great climax with Sweet Joy. I do love a good climax.

And then the lights came up and we all got to admire each other in that strange wet post-gig place of bright lights, floors strewn with rubbish and beer and shiny people drenched in sweat, a good proportion of them eagerly congratulating me on my ginormous, and now exposed, bump. I’ve written about it elsewhere, but I did love the way they took to my bump. Life-affirming indeed. As was the gig.

They're ace. And you can buy their latest album here. Further live dates can be found here.

Addendum:
I may be a writer, but I’m a pregnant writer, which means I have an excuse for forgetting my pad and pen. To make up for this, I created a sort-of-story as the gig went on. So if you want to know (some of) the tracks played, you’ll just have to decode the contents of my head. Here you go:

According to Mao Tse Tung, the doctor woke up on Monday morning and got busted for not dancing 2 tekno any more, but was then rehabilitated by the soldiers in the army of the lord, which made Amos Moses sad, so he went and sat on a rock and drank honey, then up above his head, he heard music in the air. And lo, Johnny Cash and Billy Morley appeared, and Johnny cut Billy’s dreads off then shot him up with a hypo full of love. ‘Encore!’ said Amos, so they lit torches full of holy blood then left, at the speed of the sound of loneliness, singing sweet joy as they went.

___

Funny Time

2008-05-13T17:46:00.003+01:00

I'm supposed to be editing a review I wrote, of the Alabama 3 gig I went to the other week. But I'm putting it off because when I got it out and looked at it the other day, it looked rubbish.

So instead I've been meandering around the internet, catching up on blogs I haven't visited for a while. And I found this interesting post re genealogy, on Hydragenic's blog. And ended up writing a comment so long, it seemed worth creating a blog post all of its own.

It's fascinating to think of all those generations of blood, stretching back in the past to incomprehensible times - yet having some connection with yourself.

But it gets particularly engrossing / meaningful when you turn it on its head and think of it the other way around. Six generations from now, there will (maybe, probably) be large numbers of people who can trace their family tree back to me and my kids (amongst others). Their lives would be incomprehensible to me, and yet in some sense they'll have come from me. And then I get a bit of a jolt. I think I live in modern times. I imagine those ancestors of mine, and how confused they'd be by my life and experience, and there's a patronising edge to my thoughts. Poor unsophisticated old-fashioned folk, bamboozled by me and my future.

I imagine them living in sepia landscapes, where nothing was as colourful as now. But of course it was. They thought of themselves as modern. They will have teased the older generations, taken advantage of their slownesss. And will have seen things around them as bright and new, not faded and old.

Time travel is one of those unobtainable things, but oh how I would love it if it were possible. Both forwards and backwards, near and far, to visit ourselves and our relatives, as well as strangers. I used to fantasise about a 31-yr-old future self turning up on the doorstep when I was 16, and wonder whether I would recognise her or not.

She never came, or at least I didn't see her when she did. She's there now in fact, but she can't see herself.

Funny old thing, time.

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Tum Largum

2008-05-09T14:48:00.006+01:00

Me at that Alabama 3 gig the other week, when I got my tummy out:

Update: Hahaha, I just noticed that strange ghosty thing protruding from my stomach: At first I thought it looked like a bongo under my arm or something, and then I realised: It is the baby's idiot father, sticking his head out from behind. It does rather look as though he is some kind of mischievous genii or other spirit, who lives in my bump...

Further update: I'm not due for another eight weeks yet (on 7th July). I know! Just think how huge I'll be then!

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Hot

2008-05-08T17:49:00.002+01:00

Pregnant women don't like being hot much, have you noticed that?

Well it's true.

They don't.

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She's still there

2008-05-08T17:38:00.002+01:00

I'm having a lazy week, hence the myriad of blog posts. And it's hot. This makes it hard for me to move around much, or think much or do much either, apart from sit in front of the computer much in the same way as a potato would sit on a couch, if only potatoes had legs for sitting with.

But anyway. She asked people not to, well no, that's not quite true, but she did say she wasn't asking people to, but still I am going to, let you know that Anna of the boat of the little-reddedness is still blogging and never stopped, it's just that her rss feed thingy is broken. So, you know. Go and do the manual typing-url-into-browser thing and catch up. Or follow this link.

That is all.

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Longevity

2008-05-08T15:23:00.003+01:00

Blimey, that questionnaire made me realise, I seem to have been blogging for four years now.

How odd.

First post ever (scroll down to the bottom).

Hmmm, and now I've got all sidetracked reading ancient blog posts. I particularly like this wig idea (from here):

"Anyway. Hair. It's a pain. It's a pain because it keeps changing. It's not a skill you can learn, cos just when you find a way of doing it that make you look slightly human it goes and grows again, or the wind changes, or your period starts. And whenever you have it cut, it looks terrible, until about six weeks after the haircut, at which point it looks fantastic. For about a week. But then you can't go back to the hairdresser and say, "You know that cut you did for me last time? Well it was crap. But it was great six weeks later. So that's what I want. The crap cut, but with an extra six weeks added on."

What we need is to be able to freeze good styles and keep them somehow. What a great idea! We could be onto something here. Our fortunes are made. We'll remember this day in years to come as the day we had The Idea. Oh, hang on though, it's already been done. It's called a wig. Uh-uh, hold your horses, OK, so yes, there is such a thing as a wig. But nobody has really exploited the potential for using a wig as a way of recording a good haircut. What's needed is a hair emergency service. At the precise point at which your hair looks good, you need to be able to call the wig-makers, and they need to come round immediately. It would be no use waiting until morning, because it would have gone. They'd have to come round in an emergency wig vehicle, lights flashing, sirens blaring. The neighbours would peep out the curtains and say to each other, "Aw, bless, they've just found a new haircut at number seven. Do you remember when our bob was born?"

In fact, this is such a good idea, it could really take off. People would shave their heads as a matter of course. Everybody would wear wigs. Children would all have shaved heads, until they reached puberty, at which point they'd start to grow... and cut... and grow... everybody waiting with baited breaths to see what kind of style their hair grew into... and then at the crucial moment, flashing lights, sirens, twitching curtains... aww, a new haircut is born.

But the really brave would be those that tried again. People would start to notice that their wig wasn't fitting properly. "Are you trying for another...?" And then would come the day that the wig is removed, and the emerging haircut is brought out into the open. People would applaud you. They would stand up to make sure you had a seat on the bus.

But some people would rebel. There'd be an underground movement of anti-wiggers. Terrible people who - shock horror - don't shave their heads! Never have wigs! A whole movement of people with permanent bad hair days! But then of course, it would get more and more popular. Then it would get co-opted into popular culture. Everybody would be at it. Wigs would fall out of favour. Until an underground wig-wearing movement was started..."

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Blogging Questionnaire

2008-05-08T11:07:00.004+01:00

I just discovered a new blog: Bete de Jour.

I discovered it cos I got an email inviting me to complete his blogging questionnaire, which I did, and enjoyed the experience immensely.

I recommend, on all fronts.

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Clare Likes, Too

2008-05-07T20:54:00.003+01:00

Best line ever, from Coronation St this evening: "He'd be a typical Taurean if he wasn't a Virgo." I mean, think about it.

But anyway. That's not what this post is about. I decided to do this meme I found on Everything Katy is Electrically Newton's blog, cos I liked the look of it. And I'm s'posed to be doing other stuff.

You have to google the phrase "[your name] likes to" and see what you get. So here is what Clare, apparently, likes to do:

Clare Likes to Share (because she is of a mathematical bent, apparently) (which is true) (the second part, anyway).

Clare likes to barge the Argies off it.

Clare likes to entertain at the drop of a hat.

Clare likes to chew on her clothes.

Clare likes to accept about 8 to 10 students each year, depending on the quality of the applicants.

Clare likes to watch telly and eat chips. She is also a qualified equine massage therapist.

Clare likes to win ribbons (according to the Real Girl of the Year contest) (I guess that is the ultimate in girliness, if you are happy with a ribbon as a prize).

Clare likes to think she can draw.

Clare likes to rant.

Clare likes to work and fix things.

Oh dear, there are more and more of the buggers. I know some of them aren't exactly interesting, they're just... well, true.

Clare likes to describe herself as fast and feminine (oh no she doesn't) (but when they say "fast", do they mean, er, racy? Ah, the days of my youth...).

Clare likes to spend her time having random fun.

Clare likes to eat, she likes to share each tasty treat.

Clare likes to break into dance wherever she is (according to the "Pole Fetish Dance School").

Clare likes to crash cars for jokes.

Clare likes to spend time in her built-in wardrobe.

Clare likes to pretend it’s Bubble Tape in his back pocket.

Clare likes to shoot modern architecture.

OK, OK, I don't know when to stop, so I'll just stop there.

What fun.

Oh and, you know. If you want to do it too, then do.

___

Biggering and Biggering

2008-05-07T10:18:00.004+01:00

No, not buggering. BIGGERING.

I suspect I'm half-remembering some quote from a Dr Seuss book (have I ever told you how much I love Dr Seuss?) (well I do. I really love Dr Seuss), but I can't remember which book or exactly what the quote was so I'm going to try really hard to stop thinking about it now cos otherwise it'll drive me mad and I'll spend the next two hours hunting through my son's bedroom for Dr Seuss books (we have a lot) and getting sidetracked by tidying his bedroom instead of being sidetracked by writing blog posts, which is what I'm supposed to not be doing instead of what I'm really supposed to be supposed to be doing.

Where was I? Oh yes. I am bigger.

(biggering and biggering... oh damn it, what IS that quote?)

I can still reach the keyboard. But what happens when I can't? I only just can. I've heard people talking about balancing keyboards on bumps but frankly that's just silly, particularly at the rate and ferocity at which I type, and anyway what about my RSI? Huh?

This whole bump-getting-in-the-way thing is actually getting to be quite a pain. Not because I can't reach stuff, cos so far I can always find a way to reach stuff. No. It's literally a pain. The problem is, when you know it has a bit of give in it and you just need to stretch a liiitle bit further to reach the jam or the tea or the drill or the TV remote, then that's what you do. And if someone tries to squeeze past you in the kitchen or in the pub, you end up pushing the bump against the nearest obstacle in attempt to make yourself smaller. Which would all be well and good if it weren't for the fact that it hurts. Not at the time, but afterwards. I have a kind of permanent bruise on the tip of my bump. And sometimes it gives me nasty shooting pains. No no, I'm not in labour. It's not that kind of pain. Although I do wish constipation pains and labour pains weren't so similar. When I had the miscarriage I was convinced it was just a blockage in my tubes, and now every time my poo gets stuck I think I'm heading for premature babyville. Or worse. I do wish I hadn't watched Coronation St over the last couple of weeks (they have a character who up until last week was exactly the same amount of pregnant as me, but then her baby stopped kicking...) (mine is still kicking) (but I am keeping a very hawk-like eye on it).

Well, anyway. I am also hot. Because the weather is hot. Which is all very well, but pregnancy and hotness don't mix, and my hair needs cutting, and I hate hairdressers at the best of times, but I really don't fancy being pregnant in a hair salon. All that sitting about in unsuitable seats. All that chit-chat. Pregnancy makes me very intolerant of shit-chat. It happened last time too. Ooh, that was a typo but I like it. In the last sentence but one, I mean. Or is it but-two? Anyway, my hair is thick and makes me hot.

Of course, given that I am sitting here right now shit-chatting at you in the most brazen fashion imaginable, maybe I better shut up about that.

I'm supposed to be doing other stuff really. I'll go do that instead.

P.S. I made a key lime pie last night. On a whim, because I just happened to be passing a cupboard with a broken door and there was an ancient tin of condensed milk in there (I'm not sure why, I never use condensed milk) (what's it for, anyway?) (apart from making key lime pie, that is) (and why is it sometimes called evaporated milk?) (or are they not the same thing?) and it had a recipe on the side for key lime pie, and I liked the sound of it. So I made it last night. It is YUMMY. I had to freeze most of it though, because I also made a chocolate cake two days ago and all this biggering (oh damnit, what was that book?) makes me bruised.

P.P.S. And I made a fence and a gate and a ramp at the weekend. And they work, and are much less dilapidated than the last fence and gate I made (I have never made a ramp before though) (it is for a dog) (I am proud of it), although perhaps a little lopsided.

But I am supposed to be doing other stuff than this, and I will either go away now and do that instead or find something else to distract me from it.

[wanders off in search of Dr Seuss books]

___

Jasper and the Traveller

2008-05-06T17:24:00.009+01:00

A week or so ago I did some (amateur) storytelling at the Chopin Bar in Chorlton, Manchester. I'm still gathering new material so I try and tell a different tale(s) at each event I do, and I'm always on the lookout for some new way of doing things.

This time, I'd seen a film on television a couple of weeks previously, and had loved it. I jotted down the plot of the film, thinking it might make a good story. In the end the film was way too long and tortuous, particularly as I only had a ten-minute slot. So I stripped the plot right back. And then I changed the ending, which I didn't think was satisfying enough. And then I transposed the whole thing into a different era, as I thought the modern setting might stand in the way of your average storytelling audience's appreciation.

It's a bit cliched but to be honest, but I do love a good dollop of cliche every now and then. And it's fun to strip stories back to their bones.

Here's the result. See if you can guess what film it was.

Jasper and the Traveller

There was once a young man named Jasper, who wanted to seek his fortune. So he visited the local squire, who offered him work. He asked Jasper to take a carved wooden carriage over the hills to another county, where the squire’s daughter was to marry. The carriage was beautiful, with seats that were lined with silk, velvet curtains at the windows, and led by two white horses.

Jasper was pleased, and set off early in the morning.

After a while he saw a man at the side of the road, asking for a lift. Jasper was glad of the company, and it wasn’t until he had reached out a hand and was pulling the traveller up beside him that Jasper noticed his eyes. They were cold, and grey. The man himself said nothing but “Drive,” in a nasty splintered voice.

A little further along Jasper saw another carriage, on its side in a ditch. He could see the head and shoulders of a man, still holding the reins of two horses, one dead and one injured. The man was groaning, and Jasper slowed down in concern. But the traveller at his side grabbed hold of his reins and urged the white horses on. His shoulders were broad and his arms were strong, and Jasper couldn’t stop him.

Jasper was scared.

“What do you want?” said Jasper.

The traveller only laughed.

“What happened to that carriage?” said Jasper.

“He were in need of fresh horses,” said the traveller.

“Who was holding the reins?” said Jasper.

“Why,” said the traveller. “You worried he won’t be getting no fresh horses?”

“Yes,” said Jasper quietly.

“You’d be right there then,” said the traveller. “Because I cut his legs off.”

And at that, the traveller handed the reins back to Jasper and took a bloodied knife from his pocket. He held it up to Jasper’s cheeek, and Jasper could feel the cold of the blade and the wet of the blood.

“I’ll do anything you want,” said Jasper.

“You can say me four words,” said the traveller.

“OK.”

“Say, ‘I want to die’,” said the traveller.

“I can’t! I can’t say that!”

The traveller threw his head back and laughed, with no real mirth nor warmth but with relish enough to compensate.

Only while his head was back, Jasper saw his chance. He gave the traveller a good strong shove, and even as the traveller was falling to the ground Jasper was urging the horses on as fast as they’d go.

He drove full speed for some time, until his breath began to slow and he saw a small cottage at the side of the road, a curl of smoke rising from the chimney.

Jasper stopped and knocked at the door, which was answered by a young woman with a mole on her cheek and a crinkle to her brow. Jasper tried to speak but his breath came in coughs and nothing came out right. She sat him down and brought him some broth, until finally he was able to tell what had happened, and she sent her young brother out running, to fetch the soldiers.

The soldiers came and came quite fast, but on their way they passed the carriage in the ditch, and when they arrived and saw Jasper with blood on his cheek, they hauled him out of his chair and pushed him roughly against a wall, where they searched his pockets and found the knife. The knife which the traveller had placed there, still covered in blood.

The soldiers took Jasper away to the gaol, and locked him up in a cell. Jasper sat tired and broken on the hard stone floor, until finally he slept. And dreamed, of blood and knives and cold grey eyes.

When he woke, his cell door was open. He rose cautiously and crept out into the passageway. He could hear a drip, drip, from elsewhere in the gaol. A door opened, and a dog appeared. It glanced casually at Jasper then disappeared through another doorway. Jasper followed the dog, and found it licking at something behind a desk. It was the severed neck of one of the soldiers. Three other soldiers lay nearby, and all of them dead.

Jasper heard horses’ hooves, and looked out of the window to see more of the king’s men arriving. He didn’t hang round to take the blame. He pulled a knife from one of the soldiers’ belts, climbed through a window at the back, and ran. He ran and ran, ’til his feet were sore and his breath was scraping his throat like a rusty blade, but at least he could see a destination.

At the bottom of a valley was an inn, and that’s where Jasper went.

“What’s happened to you?” said the innkeeper.

Jasper couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything but sit at a table with his head in his hands, where he was brought a drink which sat at his elbow and remained untouched. He sat there some time, sad images flicking through his mind, until he felt a presence on the other side of the table.

He looked up, to see cold grey eyes.

And at that moment the last few hours built up in Jasper and burst from his mouth in a yell, even as he reached for the knife in his pocket.

But the traveller only laughed. “You won’t do no damage with that poor thing,” he said. “It’s old, and broken.”

And as he spoke, the knife fell apart in Jasper’s hands.

The traveller looked sympathetic. “Maybe you’d be better off dead,” he whispered, and he reached into his pockets and drew out two coins. He placed these, one on each, on Jasper’s eyelids.

Jasper didn’t move. For a long time he sat there, until he was sure that the traveller was gone.

Just as he was blinking the coins from his eyes, he heard hooves again outside the window, and this time he looked to see the young woman with the mole on her cheek, driving Jasper’s beautiful borrowed carriage.

“You left something behind,” she said simply, pulling him up beside her.

“Drive,” said Jasper.

And drive they did, as far as they dared without harming the carriage or the horses, until they reached another inn. It was perched at the edge of a high cliff, with a view stretching out over flat plains beyond.

The innkeeper assumed they were married, and gave them a room. They didn’t argue. They curled together on the bed, fully clothed, quiet and calm. After a while the woman fell asleep, and Jasper got up carefully. He went out onto the balcony and stood there looking at the view as the sun set around him.

The woman woke, and stirred. There was a strong arm around her, and a hand stroking her cheek. She lifted her own hand to stroke it in turn, but the other was gnarled and rough. She tried to pull away but it was over her mouth and the arm was dragging her off.

When Jasper turned back to the room, the woman was gone. From the other side of the inn he heard horses whinnying, and he crossed the passageway to see through the window, the carriage. And tied to the carriage, the woman’s hands. And to a nearby tree, the woman’s feet. And the carriage itself, balanced on the edge of the cliff. The horses gone. And the only thing stopping the carriage from following them was a rope, held straining in the hands of the traveller.

Jasper was terrified. The woman was screaming, and he called back through the window, said he would come to her aid. He ran down the stairs, out the back, to the yard, where he stopped suddenly at the sight of those cold grey eyes above a cold hard smile.

“Hello, Jasper. How nice to see you,” said the traveller.

He started forward, his eyes on the woman, whose own eyes in turn were pleading with him. He was desperate to help.

But the traveller moved his arm slightly, the carriage moved slightly over the cliff, the woman screamed. Jasper didn’t dare move.

“What do you want?” he said in desperation.

“I want to die,” said the traveller, his eyes glinting with amusement.

“What?”

“Look down, Jasper.”

At Jasper’s feet was a crossbow, and the traveller nodded at it. “Pick it up,” he said. “Shoot me.”

And Jasper did pick it up, and he raised it, and he aimed it, and it felt as though maybe, finally, it could all be over.

“Jasper,” called the woman. “No!” He couldn’t shoot. The traveller was the only thing stopping that carriage from pulling the girl apart.

The traveller was laughing. It was a hideous sound.

And suddenly, Jasper knew what the traveller would do. He ran forwards, but it was no use.

“You’re pathetic,” said the traveller. And he let go of the rope.

And the sounds, they were awful. Creaking, and crunching, and one last scream.

Jasper switched direction, running to the woman instead.

But he was too late. He found himself clutching at flesh and covered in blood, and when he looked up, the traveller was gone.

Jasper ran again. Through trees, across fields, down dark country paths until he found himself at the side of another carriageway.

Towards him was coming a carriage, beautiful, and driven by a smiling young man.

Jasper held his thumb out for a lift.

The young man stopped, and as he reached out and pulled Jasper up beside him, Jasper did nothing but turn those cold, grey eyes and say very quietly, “Drive.”

___

Comment is Late

2008-05-06T12:25:00.003+01:00

Hello!

I have been replying to all your comments. Some of them really old.

I know, I'm rubbish at replying to comments. I don't mean to be rude and ignorant, I always intend to pop in and say hello, but I'm always in such a rush, and the more there are of them the bigger a job it seems... which also applies to emails, and To Do lists in general...

But anyway, the sun is shining and I am having a Catching Up With Stuff Like That day. So there.

Update: For some reason I chose to write this post whilst still in the middle of answering comments, insted of waiting til the job was finished. So don't be too disappointed if I haven't answered yours yet. Or do. I may just be being incompetent. Tis a distinct possibility.

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Blogging and Copyright

2008-05-06T11:56:00.001+01:00

Just so's you know, if a newspaper or other publishing outlet takes content from your blog and prints it elsewhere (which is apparently happening surprisingly often), then not only should they let you know what they are up to, they should pay you for it!

Details here.

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Peace

2008-05-06T11:45:00.002+01:00

Him indoors works in a community centre, which is currently sporting a rather lovely Peace Tower, consisting of the word 'PEACE' created by various local residents in different ways.

We were looking at it with Felix (nearly 6), and I said to him:

"What do you think peace means, Felix?"

"Well," he said confidently. "There's the one like 'I want peace and quiet!' and then there's the one when people say 'Peace, man' and then there's the one that means not having wars."

We don't know whether he was repeating something he'd heard - but still, it was in his own words and we were impressed.

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Streeeetch!

2008-05-01T16:33:00.002+01:00

I've just noticed my maternity dungarees are made out of stretchy denim. I'm disproportionately pleased by this.

The majority of maternity wear available is just ordinary clothing with a vague nod in the direction of expanding tummies, and even when sold by Mothercare (who I -obviously mistakenly - think ought to know what they're doing), they're mostly uncomfortable and just don't really get it.

But these do the job.

And they remind me of when stretch denim was all new and exciting and trendy and all the rage, all of - er - 25 years ago (blimey).

I am enormous, by the way. I have a very big tummy indeed. I got it out at the Alabama 3 gig on Sat night and was astonished by the reaction. I had a vague feeling people might tell me off or something, but I was too hot so out it came (the bump) (nothing else). And suddenly people were beaming at me and telling me how wonderful it was and how wonderful I was and how ace that my baby would grow up to be an Alabama 3 fan, and it was all rather lovely.

A friend of mine took a photo on her mobile phone, she too being full of general happiness and impressedness on my behalf. As soon as she can get it to me I will post it here.

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Making and Shaking

2008-04-29T12:34:00.007+01:00

I'm feeling very proud of myself, cos I just installed a new hard disk and completely reinstalled Windows on the spare PC we're letting Felix use. I once built a whole PC from scratch, but that was ages ago and I haven't done anything like that for a while. So. There you go. Clever me.

I had a very bloggable weekend... did some storytelling on Fri night, went to a Novel Racers blogmeet on Sat, then an Alabama 3 gig on Sat night... but this week is a bit manic so it might take me a few days before I get round to blogging it all. I know, you're so excited you might expire. Sorry about that.

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Self Storage

2008-04-25T14:28:00.003+01:00

I passed a sign for self storage units today, and momentarily misunderstood.

I do like the idea, though, of a place you can go to store yourself. Would it be a small box, I wonder, which you folded yourself into? Or a nice comfy sitting room? Would you take yourself out every now and then, dust yourself off and reminisce for a while before putting yourself back? Maybe you'd only use the facililty temporarily, for when the builders were in and you had nowhere to keep yourself, or if you were getting in the way and people had got fed up of dusting you?

It has gone down in my list of potential ideas for short stories...

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This Life of Mine

2008-04-22T10:19:00.007+01:00

I feel the need to write something here but can't think what, so I thought I might just witter on for a bit and see what happens...

It's all been a bit bitty, my blogging of late. I'm in this strange, very transient, phase of life. The illness is more or less over (yay) but I still get nauseous occasionally (boo) and the main problem is I get really-really tired (double boo) and can't do as much as I want. My body keeps forcing me to down tools, and I have to listen cos, well, you know, there's a baby in my tummy. And even if it's a head-fuck trying to make yourself believe you have another human being squirming around in your middle, it's still there and you have to look after it, in this weird, not-being-able-to-put-your-hands-on-it kind of a way which in fact involves looking after yourself. Which doesn't always work if you also have this mad drive to accomplish the sixty-squillion things on your To-Do list before it pops out. The baby, that is, not the To-Do list. Oh God, how awful if I gave birth to a To-Do list! I don't think I'd appreciate that.

So, yes. Being pregnant is indeed a licence to be selfish. You can bagsy the best seats and get people to run around after you and generally be a fat lazy arse, but it's OK cos you're doing it for the littl'un, not for you. I still feel guilty sometimes though, like when I'm kicking Ally out of bed in the mornings to do the Daddy stuff.

So, the baby kicks loads, and often reminds me of its presence. But it's still mostly a future being, rather than a present one. I think there will be a baby, rather than there is one. And yes, when it wriggles and squirms I lift my top and gaze at my tummy in amazement - the flesh moves around and it's all very Sigourney Weaver. But it's not only there at those moments. It's there all the time. No matter what I'm doing, there is an actual live human being, existing inside me. It's easier to think that it's not alive yet than to get your head around the idea that it already exists, and technically could survive outside the womb from now on, although it would find it difficult and I'd rather it didn't.

I don't normally use "it" to describe it, cos I do know the gender. I've told everyone else, I dunno why I haven't told you lot (at least, I don't think I have - my memory is even worse than normal). But, you know, it's nice to keep back a few surprises. And who knows, maybe the radiologist got it wrong.

So, apart from playing host to a teeny-tiny person, I'm getting myself in a pother over my ginormous To-Do list. I need to stop doing that. It really doesn't matter if the front door catch doesn't get fixed or the baby's room continues to have Soot Dribbling Down The Walls as its main decorous theme. Or indeed if my next novel doesn't get writ (but have you checked out the word counter lately? I'm doing rather well - am proud of that).

And gawd, that whole novel-writing thing. Argh. Even though I have now chosen a plot and style and have jumped in and am determined to finish it... I'm not convinced I'm writing the right book. Or indeed that I can write at all. Despite having two publishing deals behind me, I don't feel like I have the faintest clue what I'm doing, or - more importantly - that I have any talent at all. All those people, writing brilliant books, and then... me.

I've been fretting over this book wot I'm writing and its chatty style. It's quite frothy and won't win any literary awards. As a sop to myself, and to discourage myself from switching genre in the middle of a book, I'm also writing another book on the side; one which is all about the words, the beautiful language, the clever stuff. And which I'll probably never finish (I've only written 350 words so far, and anyway there are only so many hours in the day), but does make me feel slightly better about the whole thing. And is probably going to be a kids' book, even though I haven't made my mind up yet, which is interesting in itself.

Climbing stairs is hard. It's like hauling a hippopotamus up behind me. So far I'm still able to get to my computer, which is up two flights in the attic, but there may come a day when all communication suddenly ceases because I am sprawled, panting, across the bottom few steps and unable to get any further. And it makes my hips hurt.

I have eleven weeks to go. Eleven weeks seems like a long time to wait before my body starts being a bit kinder to me (ha! What am I thinking? Have I forgotten how sore it all is for weeks after childbirth?). But not long to accomplish all the things on The Enormous List whilst getting steadily more hippo-like.

I'm also doing some storytelling - will be doing some this Friday in fact - but it's all strictly amateur and I've reined myself in re plans to become Tip Top Professional Storyteller. There's only so much one woman can achieve, and I'm officially on maternity leave now. I have no clue what or who I will do / be when the baby gets bigger. There are too many imponderables, and for once I've managed to stop myself making obsessive plans for the future. Something'll come along, I guess, although this whole global economy meltdown thing is worrying me slightly. But only slightly. Tranquilising pregnancy hormones. They're ace. And they keep rushing around your system as long as you're breastfeeding, so I'll hopefully live in a little contented bubble for at least the rest of this year. Well, I did after Felix was born. I s'pose I could be in for a shock, but no point worrying about that now.

We're having a home birth, so I don't need to worry about my baby getting swapped for someone else's. No, sorry, that was ambiguous. We're not having a home birth because I'm worried about swapped babies. It's just that, given we are doing the home thing anyway, I should be pretty sure it's my baby I'm bringing up. Unless some absent-minded midwife packs someone else's baby in her boot by accident and gets it out of her bag and puts it down somewhere in my house after my baby's born.

I once had a dream, before I was a mother, that I had a baby. It was a recurring dream theme, back in the childless days. These babies would just appear, and I would think, 'Oh, that's odd, I don't remember being pregnant,' and then I'd forget them or lose them or otherwise fail in my mothering duties. In this one dream, I put it in my pocket and forgot all about it. Then a few days later, I thought, 'Hang on, didn't I have a baby? What did I do with it?' and there it was, at the bottom of a deep coat pocket, covered in ancient boiled sweets and bits of fluff.

Felix loves that story. He listened intently when I told it to someone else the other day, then repeated it back to me out of the blue yesterday morning.

'And you put me in your pocket,' he said.
'Well, it wasn't you I don't think. It was before you were born.'
'It was probably Conor then, from my class at school. He's older than me.'
'I don't think it was Conor either. I didn't know him then.'
'But it could have been Conor. I like to think of it being someone.'
'Oh. OK then.'

Anyway, Emmerdale. Oh sorry, don't you watch it? It's a British soap. They have this brilliant storyline at the moment. First there was a cot death, which I thought was handled unusually well, with a lot of focus on the aftermath, rather than sweeping the whole thing under the carpet and forgetting about it, like soaps normally do with dramatic storylines, until some character makes a brief mention of it years later, and you think, 'Oh yes, you once got tied up and raped in a garage and all your family were massacred, yes, I forgot about that.'

Well, anyway. First there was a cot death, and the announcer made a special warning at the beginning of the episode, so you would know it was going to make you cry, and I had to watch all the same, and it made me cry buckets. But now, just as they're still getting to grips with their grief and all that, now they've discovered it (probably) wasn't even their baby that died! Their babies were swapped at birth! Their baby is alive and kicking and living in a caravan with the next door neighbours! Who don't have a clue what's going on!

When I've told people (people who aren't as addicted to soaps as me) about this wonderful turn of events, they've clicked their tongues and sighed and said how silly. But personally, I think it's brilliant. What a wonderful dramatic twist! Whatever will happen next??!! And why can't I have ideas like that?

Coronation St have got a swapped-baby story going on at the moment, too. I'm similarly impressed by their dramatic ingeniousness. So, there you are, you have one teenage son, an only child, his father is dead, you dote on him. And then you find out he's not your son! Some other child, who lives in a posh house and goes to a posh school on the other side of town, is your son! And he looks just like his dead dad, who you loved terribly and miss awfully! And then there's the whole thing of who thinks what, with the other mother refusing to pay any attention, and the other son desperate to become your son cos he's a spoilt brat and doesn't think his family is good enough, and your original son is getting all jealous, and his real father is desperate to get to know him cos he doesn't like his own son who isn't really his son anyway... wonderful.

It is weird though, how two of the main three British soap operas have come up with the same unlikely plot. This plot-duplication thing happens a lot in soap operas. It's a bit annoying. Do they steal each other's ideas? And if so, why? Surely it only lessens both storylines, and certainly doesn't make you choose one soap over the other, just makes you feel exasperated with both of them? Ally has a much better theory, though, about why it happens. All the soaps are under constant pressure to come up with something amazing, something new, something which hasn't been done before. That in itself will be quite a small pool, as most things have already been done. And, of course, in the same way as people only pay attention to the next door neighbours they amazingly meet in far-flung corners of the earth and never think about all the people they don't bump into, most of the time the stories don't collide. You only notice it when they do. And there was something in the news a couple of years ago about some family somewhere in Eastern Europe or somewhere, who the baby-swap thing happened to. It might have planted seeds in the heads of several independent script writers.

So. Yes. I love soap opera.

Oh, shut up. When the baby gets old enough to express a preference, I'll probably have to give up soap operas, like I did when Felix was little. Let me have my few months of soap-swallowing fun.

And now I s'pose I better get back to that list. I should probably go back and edit this post as well, or at least split it into a few smaller ones. But I can't be arsed. Sorry.

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Even Less Cool

2008-04-15T19:54:00.007+01:00

NB: don't read this post if you've only just arrived! Read this one first!

No, go away. Like I told you. Shoo. Then come back.

...

I have to own up, cos I'm rubbish at lying and anyway I know you'll all be expressing great consternation for the plight of Heavily Pregnant Lady in Playground Disaster Shock.

It didn't really end like that. I climbed back down again after perching there for ages and enjoying the view.

The rest did happen, though.

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New Kids' Book: The Secret Cake

2008-04-15T12:14:00.001+01:00

I've just published a new children's book, called The Secret Cake.

It's a simple illustrated book for young children, and was a collaboration between me and the illustrator Lynda Mangoro.

It's aimed at children aged 2-5, and would also be a great learning-to-read book for 4-, 5- and 6-yr-olds. This is the blurb:

"Katy's gran is 90 years old today. That's quite old. Katy wants to bake her a cake, but can she keep it a secret?"

You can "try before you buy", so to speak, by viewing a preview here.

Click here if you want to buy (£5 per copy).

I'm also collaborating with some other illustrators on a couple of books for slightly older children... watch this space.

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Trying to be Cool

2008-04-14T22:22:00.005+01:00

Pregnancy makes you tired. It makes you tired because you have to carry an extra couple of stone around your waist all day. It makes you tired because your body uses all its energy on baby-building and doesn't leave much over for you. It makes you tired because babies hog all the space in your middle and squish your lungs into a smaller space, leaving you out of breath all the time. It makes you tired when it gets you so ill you spend three months in a rocking chair and get really unfit and then can't get back in shape again because pregnancy makes all your body-bits vulnerable in a way which renders all but the lightest exercise inadvisable.

But despite all this, today I found myself in a playground with my son, at the top of a climbing frame and rather pleased with myself and my rediscovered monkeydom.

"You used to like being cool, didn't you?" says Felix.

"Why, am I not cool any more?" says me.

"No, you're too old!"

"Oh."

"Emma* used to like being cool, as well."

"Is she old too then?"

"Oh yes. Anyway she says she stopped trying to be cool cos every time she did, bad things happened to her."

Me: "Oh."

And then I fell off the climbing frame.

*Emma = a friend of ours, who I always think of as young, because she was only 18 when we met her. But that was 13 years ago.

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Those Holes in Your Mouth

2008-04-14T11:12:00.009+01:00

5-yr-old son Felix makes an announcement out of the blue:

Felix: "There's one hole in your mouth for water, and one hole in your mouth for food. The water goes down to your lungs, and the food goes down to your tummy."

Me: "Actually it's air that goes down to your lungs."

Felix: "Yeah and if something goes down the wrong hole, then somebody needs to tip you upside down, like this - " [holds head upside down] " - and you go Agh! Agh! Agh!"

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Pooh

2008-04-12T12:56:00.004+01:00

I was at a birthday party for a 2-yr-old the other day. The other guests were either very-small or in charge of the very-small. Then I farted. And suddenly there was an air of consternation in the room.

"Katie, come here. Katie! It's OK, I just want to check your..."

"No, I think it's Amber. Amber honey, come here a minute..."

"Well, um, actually..."

"Katie, come on. Oh no, it's not her."

"It's not Amber either."

"You see, the thing is..."

"Oh Molly, I only just changed your nappy! Come on darling, let me just..."

"I don't think it's Molly either..."

And all the time I'm clenching my cheeks and trying to contain yet another one, and wondering whether to just keep schtum about the whole thing. It's bad enough to be the purveyor of rear end stench-fests, but at least in most circumstances people politely ignore it, and you don't cause the instant eruption of half the adults in the room. Talk about stink bomb.

Of course, if I were more mischievous I would revel in it. I would seek out mother-and-toddler groups and stroll through their midst, happily emitting wilful niffs and then settling back to watch the mayhem.

It's not just my rectal emissions which smell. Pregnancy is an inherently whiffy business. My groin, for instance, is immune to all attempts at hygiene. Within minutes of a bath or shower it's at it again, gleefully manufacturing its pungent odours. What's all that about? Surely everything up there should be nicely plugged, sealed and generally held in for future use? Why the need for extra stinky stuff to be descending the birth canal so far ahead of an actual birth? And God forbid I should indulge my hormones and partake in any extra-procreationary activities. Pooeeee.

And then there's my armpits. Well actually, the main culprit is my left armpit. The right side of my body has always been the elder sibling: responsible, capable, able to write a letter. The left is playful and pays no attention to deodorant, and I live in fear of my pitiful supply of maternity wear rotting under the arm, on one side only.

But it's not only back bottom, front bottom and under-arm which let me down. My breasts have joined in too. I haven't done any pencil tests recently but I doubt there'd be enough writing implements in the house anyway, particularly not with the added bonus of large tummy-shelf to wedge them against. And that's all fine, I'm prouder than ever of My Magnificent Boobs. Although the aureoles are getting a little scary, reminding me that soon they won't much belong to me any more... but anyway. The added droopiness creates yet another bodily crevice in which pongs can gather, and the unique breast smell which I have only ever smelt during pregnancy and breastfeeding is back.

And finally, not to be outdone, my gums are joining in. According to the dentist I'm doing really well for a pregnant lady and hardly have any gingivitis at all, but my son still turns his head when I approach for the goodnight kiss.

The only small consolation is that 5-yr-old children and pregnant women have a better sense of smell than most. One of the many tricks nature plays... take a nauseous woman and multiply her olfactory abilities.

Yeah, thanks nature. Good one. I owe you.

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Ooh, I can get that one...

2008-04-11T16:52:00.003+01:00

Help, I can't stop doing this quiz! (via Rachel).

I really wish it didn't have a "Try Again" button...

And oh bloody hell, I've just discovered there are 110 damn questions! Ouch.

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Petite Anglaise, the book

2008-04-08T22:23:00.004+01:00

OK, I can't deny it, I'm a nosey parker. Being a fiction writer I can excuse myself on the grounds of collecting material. That's why I'm so intrigued by people and the things they do. That's why I'm such a gossip. And that's why I love personal blogs.

It's also why I was hooked on Petite Anglaise's blog when her life got so intriguing, around the time she started having an affair and left her partner of eight years. And why I got frustrated when she felt unable (understandably) to blog every last detail of her personal life. And, therefore, why her book is so very satisfying.

It's not the book of the blog, not at all. Very little material is taken directly or indirectly from her website. A better description would be that Petite Anglaise: In Paris. In Love. In trouble is the book behind the blog. Not only does she fill us in on the background of how she came to be in Paris in the first place, she also describes how it felt when her blog started to become the immensely popular soap opera of her life, and to what extent she started to live her life in order to colour her blog.

That in itself is fascinating, but she also fills in the details behind all those necessarily cryptic and teasing blog posts. What actually happened the week she posted her open letter to her partner? How exactly did it feel to have a passionate relationship with one of her blog readers, and how did that affair end? It's not surprising that a big-nose such as myself should have become glued to this book and unable to put it down.

But it's not just about the material. Catherine Sanderson has a real knack for describing intense experiences in a way which is compelling as well as instantly recognisable to anyone who has ever felt anything. As a francophile myself, I particularly loved the passages describing her love affair with France and the joy of visiting France for the first time as a teenager, but I could also relate to her descriptions of falling in love (both as an adolescent and an adult), and of the hard slog involved in being a working mum. And of course, having visited her in Paris I loved being able to picture the streets and parks of Belleville exactly as she describes them, not to mention her immensely cute daughter Tadpole.

Cath has a real way with words, a great ability to tell a story, and what really makes this story bite is her honesty. Her commenters have sometimes criticised her, for being a bad mother, a bad partner, a self-involved lover. But who hasn't been all of these things? If she weren't so unflinching in describing her failings, there'd be nothing for her critics to latch onto.

We all knew Cath had a talent for blog-writing, but there was no reason it should translate into book-writing - where an overall narrative, a higher standard of language and a flow which lasts longer than a blog post are all required. Well, she did all that. And now I can look forward to reading the novel she's writing next.

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Local Shop For Local People

2008-04-08T09:22:00.009+01:00

Him Indoors has written a good article on CiF about our local Netto supermarket.

But what I love about it is the comments. They quickly descend into a discussion of the merits of various supermarkets, which is entertaining in itself. But then this thing happens - which always happens when Ally writes articles for CiF - people (who have previously only seen him as the prolific CiF commenter "AllyF") start exclaiming in surprise at his gender.

Like this:

"I just thought AllyF was a poster who just happened to be able to write better than the rest of us and lived in an oddly similar situation to that of the author [of this article]. I had the whole backstory in my head as well, she was female, married, 2/3 young kids (7 and under) who kept up a blog relating to her everyday experiences, the struggles of raising a family in some of the scariest parts of Manchester and only very occasionally exposing us to her political viewpoints."

and this:

"Yes, I had done much the same as you mention. The children were very vague from my point of view - merely hazy, almost formless blobs playing in the garden, just beyond a glazed back door, leading to a small garden with a rotary washing-line.
AllyF herself was, to be honest, not much more distinct herself. She had slightly curly, blondish hair to her shoulders, but her face was very shadowy and slipped out of view when I attempted to apprehend it by anything other than peripheral (and that imaginary) vision.
What I can say for sure, however, is that I never thought she had a beard. I was most surprised and somewhat disconcerted."

...both of which made me giggle.

When I use gender-non-specific pseudonyms on the internet, people often mistake me for a man. Go figure.

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