Friday, January 14, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
Hyacinth
Hyacinths, it's not. Wait a bit longer as I suspect there is some trick cold weather round the corner.
I would like to have planted snowdrops too but they are sold in mega-packs to seed a whole woodland, not in twos and threes for a micro-garden like mine.
There are some other things emerging from the soil and I think they might be miniature daffodils; and I've got two Hellebores in pots that don't give a damn about coldest winters on record. They are constructing their escape from hibernation with folding papery fresh new shoots.
The rest looks pretty dead at the moment but I plan to grow a lot more vegetables this year, and even a Peony Bowl-of-Beauty if I can fit one in. And perhaps even a Birch tree in a pot.
There might be room for me too, if I'm lucky.
Sunday, January 09, 2011
Pause
Well, I'll be jiggered: there I was, all motivated, roaring through the typos and corrections, when I realised that the footnotes were all missing! I've had to stop as the pages will all change again. I have written to the scanner chap in emergency-style and must now wait to see how they can be retrieved.
There also appear to be spelling errors which are not in the book: I saw from his email that he had made alterations.. I am not too happy about this. Monster task made monsterer as I will have to re-check everything.
Grrr.
There also appear to be spelling errors which are not in the book: I saw from his email that he had made alterations.. I am not too happy about this. Monster task made monsterer as I will have to re-check everything.
Grrr.
Artybits
I am trying to distract myself from starting work on the book Mk II.
Firstly, there are lots of errors to correct and that's what I will start with this afternoon.
I have artyplans that are very exciting. Martin has sent some mixes of tracks for our next album. One of the songs, The Cafe of Tiny Kindnesses, is beautiful, and it has some of Martin's best ever guitar playing on it.
We also have another project in hand inspired by the week we spent in Northumberland last summer, but more of that when it's a bit further down the line. I have just sent off two new songs to Paul Eccentric, as I will be playing them and some other new material at the Camden Eye in February at the next Rrrants Collective night, backed by the house band! And another fledgling project is hatching and drying off its tiny wings in the winter sunlight....
I am expecting the Chefs material from the BBC imminently, and I have also discovered a small stash of Helen and the Horns etc CDs: please write to me at helen_mccookerybook@yahoo.co.uk if you want one (they are £10.00). They are hard to come by although the guy who released them probably has about 500 in his garage, but no amount of pleading stirs him into action. Rough Trade ask for more, but I don't have any to supply them with.
Oh bosh. Nothing to do but start the book!
Firstly, there are lots of errors to correct and that's what I will start with this afternoon.
I have artyplans that are very exciting. Martin has sent some mixes of tracks for our next album. One of the songs, The Cafe of Tiny Kindnesses, is beautiful, and it has some of Martin's best ever guitar playing on it.
We also have another project in hand inspired by the week we spent in Northumberland last summer, but more of that when it's a bit further down the line. I have just sent off two new songs to Paul Eccentric, as I will be playing them and some other new material at the Camden Eye in February at the next Rrrants Collective night, backed by the house band! And another fledgling project is hatching and drying off its tiny wings in the winter sunlight....
I am expecting the Chefs material from the BBC imminently, and I have also discovered a small stash of Helen and the Horns etc CDs: please write to me at helen_mccookerybook@yahoo.co.uk if you want one (they are £10.00). They are hard to come by although the guy who released them probably has about 500 in his garage, but no amount of pleading stirs him into action. Rough Trade ask for more, but I don't have any to supply them with.
Oh bosh. Nothing to do but start the book!
Saturday, January 08, 2011
Radio 4's Any Questions
It was much more enlightening that Question Time, because the panel were not so tied to party politics. Portillo in particular was pleasantly surprising, condemning the bankers for greedily helping themselves to our tax money in bonuses, and the Government for letting them.
We liked that!
As a single mum on a part-time wage (and no more pay rises, and no possibility of promotion or working more paid hours due to Government cuts) living in London, I bitterly resent rewarding the beasts who got us into this recession getting bonus payments for doing so. What sort of upside down world do we live in?
Portillo also berated the red-tops for bugging people.
Livingstone was similarly independent minded, and the audience thoroughly agreed with his condemnation of the Iraq War (as did the other panellists).
Parris was wise about the Eastenders storyline (the cot death/baby swap one) saying that if it had appeared in a Dickens novel, it would have been accepted, and that TV had a right and a responsiblity to create drama that explored issues such as this. Where I differed with Parris was his nasty mocking of Vivienne Westwood, which of course will not be visible to listeners of the programme.
Westwood is not an experienced broadcaster and is not able to be concise enough when she speaks. If she is interrupted or laughed at before she finishes making her point, she comes across as a batty old Dame. She is not this at all; she spoke slowly and almost timidly but made pertinent points, and often witty ones; her quip about Ken Livingstone's sartorial style being an inspiration for Ralph Lauren's coutryside-inspired 'look' was very funny.
Whenever it was her turn to speak, Parrish rolled his eyes and chortled, becoming quite flushed with self-satisfied delight whenever Dimbleby tried to hurry her along. By doing this, he betrayed his suave manner and revealed that underneath his articulate presentation is a misogynistic public schoolboy who seems to believe that his public voice entitles him to mock those who are not in his exalted position as a social and political commentator in the pay of Rupert Murdoch.
I don't like Vivienne Westwood's fashion designs any more but I do admire her a lot. She is a climate-change activist now, and she was clearly participating in this programme to raise awareness about this rather than for any other reason.
All in all, it was a really interesting experience, which made me wish that Michael Portillo had not left party politics, made me glad that Matthew Parris is not a politician, made me hope that Ken Livingstone becomes mayor again (although I would have preferred Oona King), and made me respect Vivienne Westwood again- and admire her physical beauty. I had not realised what a beautiful woman she is in the flesh, having only seen her in posed photographs before. Must be all that cycling round London!
Thursday, January 06, 2011
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
I've Got Another Gig Before This, But Here's This Anyway
Plus two brand new songs of my own.
Eadweard Muybridge at Tate Britain
In search of distraction form looming work, I tubed down to Tate Britain to have a look at Muybridge's photographs. What an excellent exhibition of work by a very weird and eccentric gentleman!
His real name was Edward Muggeridge, and although he worked mainly in the USA, he was born (and died) in the UK.
He was a technical photographer to start off with, travelling around with a tent and bottles of chemicals photographing the Yosemite National Park, and even documenting the aftermath of a war in the north western United States between Native American Indians and white men, as the Indians tried to reclaim land that had been stolen from them by the whites. He was prone to cheating- posing Indians from another tribe, when he couldn't get the real thing.
He made a lot of money early in his career and found a patron in San Francisco tycoon Leland Stanford, who commissioned him to photograph his race horses, in order to see if their four feet left the ground as they galloped. Using a set of triggered cameras and tripwires, Muybridge took his famous sequential photographs and proved this to be true. Eventually, he projected these from rotating glass discs like big LPs in order to animate them; the zoopraxiscope he invented to do this was so accurate that Stanford could actually recognise the gait of one of his horses, which had been wrongly identified in the documentation.
What I found interesting were not the lateral photographic sequences, but those that showed the subject through a 360 degree angle, foreshortening them, and apparently inspiring the film The Matrix.
Some of the pictures were funny- the naked male acrobat with flying penis, and the bucket of water being thrown, for instance. He started using grids to measure the pace of movement and there were some rather nasty photographs of disabled people crawling and limping.
I liked the photograph of Muybridge himself, heavily bearded and wielding a pickaxe.
Later in his life, he influenced the narrative by setting off explosions to frighten chickens into flying (the flying cockatoo was a particularly beautiful set of images). He also murdered his wife's lover, and got off scot free; evidently, a horrible man as well as an inventive one.
It's on till the 16th of January- get there quickly: it's fascinating and probably will be a rare collection of so many of his photographs in one place. Definitely worth seeing!
I got back and excitedly plugged in my JV1080, which has been on vacation in the loft. It hummed disgruntledly for a while before exploding. What a dramatic end to the day!
Anyone know a studio equipment mender in North London?
His real name was Edward Muggeridge, and although he worked mainly in the USA, he was born (and died) in the UK.
He was a technical photographer to start off with, travelling around with a tent and bottles of chemicals photographing the Yosemite National Park, and even documenting the aftermath of a war in the north western United States between Native American Indians and white men, as the Indians tried to reclaim land that had been stolen from them by the whites. He was prone to cheating- posing Indians from another tribe, when he couldn't get the real thing.
He made a lot of money early in his career and found a patron in San Francisco tycoon Leland Stanford, who commissioned him to photograph his race horses, in order to see if their four feet left the ground as they galloped. Using a set of triggered cameras and tripwires, Muybridge took his famous sequential photographs and proved this to be true. Eventually, he projected these from rotating glass discs like big LPs in order to animate them; the zoopraxiscope he invented to do this was so accurate that Stanford could actually recognise the gait of one of his horses, which had been wrongly identified in the documentation.
What I found interesting were not the lateral photographic sequences, but those that showed the subject through a 360 degree angle, foreshortening them, and apparently inspiring the film The Matrix.
Some of the pictures were funny- the naked male acrobat with flying penis, and the bucket of water being thrown, for instance. He started using grids to measure the pace of movement and there were some rather nasty photographs of disabled people crawling and limping.
I liked the photograph of Muybridge himself, heavily bearded and wielding a pickaxe.
Later in his life, he influenced the narrative by setting off explosions to frighten chickens into flying (the flying cockatoo was a particularly beautiful set of images). He also murdered his wife's lover, and got off scot free; evidently, a horrible man as well as an inventive one.
It's on till the 16th of January- get there quickly: it's fascinating and probably will be a rare collection of so many of his photographs in one place. Definitely worth seeing!
I got back and excitedly plugged in my JV1080, which has been on vacation in the loft. It hummed disgruntledly for a while before exploding. What a dramatic end to the day!
Anyone know a studio equipment mender in North London?
Women are Inferior to Men
Gina called, infuriated. She was marking a music student's work, and the student had declared 'Dr Helen Reddington says that women are inferior to men'; the accompanying illustrations were of Madonna and Lad Gaga in their undies. Or similar.
Well, Dr Helen Reddington has never said anything like that, ever, even ironically (although watch this space, and she will do, in 30 seconds).
It is easy to despair and to decide not to bother with this type of education, the type that encourages young people to question the world around them, a world of attitudes and 'facts' that are ladled into them through magazines such as Heat and OK, and newspapers such as The Sun and The Daily Mail.
For of course, lap-dancing is empowering!
Cazz Blaise has published her final stimulating piece about women in punk music: http://www.thefword.org.uk/features/2011/01/punk_women_writ
And the talented artist, Caroline Coon, continues to write interesting and challenging responses to the force-fed attitudes of mass culture in her blog, here: www.carolinecoon.com
Well, Dr Helen Reddington has never said anything like that, ever, even ironically (although watch this space, and she will do, in 30 seconds).
It is easy to despair and to decide not to bother with this type of education, the type that encourages young people to question the world around them, a world of attitudes and 'facts' that are ladled into them through magazines such as Heat and OK, and newspapers such as The Sun and The Daily Mail.
For of course, lap-dancing is empowering!
Cazz Blaise has published her final stimulating piece about women in punk music: http://www.thefword.org.uk/features/2011/01/punk_women_writ
And the talented artist, Caroline Coon, continues to write interesting and challenging responses to the force-fed attitudes of mass culture in her blog, here: www.carolinecoon.com
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
Goodbye Christmas Tree
Slanted in the garden, the poor tree awaits collection by the Council on Monday.
As every year, I have packed the decorations up and put them into the loft.
As every year, I have forgotten to pack some of them and will have to go up into the loft again tomorrow.
As every year, I have packed the decorations up and put them into the loft.
As every year, I have forgotten to pack some of them and will have to go up into the loft again tomorrow.
Billy Elliot
On New Years' Day Eve, I went to see Billy Elliot with Martin and his youngest daughter.
Something in my brain always chimes 'Silly Idiot'. Got to get over that!
I loved the film and was looking forward to this as my Champagne Friend said it was brilliant.
I felt that it took a while to get going: I had a lot of trouble with the Geordie accents which made the dialogue impossible to understand as the cast seemed to have mouthfuls of turf on occasion (surely there are enough good Geordie performers to have the genuine article in this show- it seemed incredibly lazy to cast Irish, Scottish and Home Counties actors and dancers!).
I didn't much like the dancing police and miners either, particularly after the violence of the 2010 Student Demonstrations: it seemed trite because these demonstrations, whether miners, printers, students, anti-war or countryside alliance, are serious and mean a lot to people.
However once the plot got going, the show acquired an exciting momentum: the little girl ballet dancers were great. Each one had their own 'dancer-personality', which was a good detail (but I felt sorry for the 'fat' one. What a horrible role to play!), and they were very well choreographed. Billy's gay and cross-dressing (or at least, confused) friend was a power-pack of showbiz energy and I can imagine him going far professionally. The brother and dad were convincing and their roles built up throughout the show.
By far the best part was the duet danced between the young Billy (who by this time has shown us that he was an extremely talented young dancer) and the older Billy, a 'proper' ballet dancer. It was oddly touching to see a grown man dance a duet with a boy child; it was not a sexual thing, it was just extremely tender and beautiful, and showed off the dancers' talents to a tee. What a rare thing to see, just a beautifully worked out passage of dance between two males, that matched the challenges of the choreography to the considerable skills of the dancers.
Wonderful.
Overall, I could see why it was so popular. The subject-matter does have a certain currency and the cast are really talented, especially as dancers of not only show-dancing but ballet and tap as well.
However, some of the dialogue was lazy: it wasn't necessary to be 'non-PC' to evoke the early eighties, for instance. There was a lot of swearing, which I didn't mind, but as a package with other aspects of the script, I thought it could have done with a bit of sharp editing.
Finally, there wasn't one memorable song. This was partly uninspired song writing (and I do understand how difficult it is to create music that can be danced to and sung), but also the fact that some of the songs were clearly out of the range of the people singing them, and did not allow them to belt them out or put emotion into them. I think this is really important! A musical that has such an interesting subject at its heart should have longevity, and that comes about through great songs that people can't resist singing, covering, you name it.
There was not one song like that in this show.
Verdict: Well, Martin's daughter absolutely loved it. She had been in a school production, and of course, she comes from the North East and it has a lot of resonance for her. She loves theatre and performs as well as going to see a lot of stuff. So my feeling is that I am too damn fussy about what I expect from a musical! People in front of us were crying unconsolably at the sad bits; I think my disappointment with the music affected what I thought of the whole thing.
Ultimately, I have never seen such good child dancers before: hats off to the Billy, the 'Billy's friend', and the little girls in tutus. Their dancing was perfect and beautiful to watch. I can recommend going to see this show on that basis alone, whether or not you have seen the film.
Something in my brain always chimes 'Silly Idiot'. Got to get over that!
I loved the film and was looking forward to this as my Champagne Friend said it was brilliant.
I felt that it took a while to get going: I had a lot of trouble with the Geordie accents which made the dialogue impossible to understand as the cast seemed to have mouthfuls of turf on occasion (surely there are enough good Geordie performers to have the genuine article in this show- it seemed incredibly lazy to cast Irish, Scottish and Home Counties actors and dancers!).
I didn't much like the dancing police and miners either, particularly after the violence of the 2010 Student Demonstrations: it seemed trite because these demonstrations, whether miners, printers, students, anti-war or countryside alliance, are serious and mean a lot to people.
However once the plot got going, the show acquired an exciting momentum: the little girl ballet dancers were great. Each one had their own 'dancer-personality', which was a good detail (but I felt sorry for the 'fat' one. What a horrible role to play!), and they were very well choreographed. Billy's gay and cross-dressing (or at least, confused) friend was a power-pack of showbiz energy and I can imagine him going far professionally. The brother and dad were convincing and their roles built up throughout the show.
By far the best part was the duet danced between the young Billy (who by this time has shown us that he was an extremely talented young dancer) and the older Billy, a 'proper' ballet dancer. It was oddly touching to see a grown man dance a duet with a boy child; it was not a sexual thing, it was just extremely tender and beautiful, and showed off the dancers' talents to a tee. What a rare thing to see, just a beautifully worked out passage of dance between two males, that matched the challenges of the choreography to the considerable skills of the dancers.
Wonderful.
Overall, I could see why it was so popular. The subject-matter does have a certain currency and the cast are really talented, especially as dancers of not only show-dancing but ballet and tap as well.
However, some of the dialogue was lazy: it wasn't necessary to be 'non-PC' to evoke the early eighties, for instance. There was a lot of swearing, which I didn't mind, but as a package with other aspects of the script, I thought it could have done with a bit of sharp editing.
Finally, there wasn't one memorable song. This was partly uninspired song writing (and I do understand how difficult it is to create music that can be danced to and sung), but also the fact that some of the songs were clearly out of the range of the people singing them, and did not allow them to belt them out or put emotion into them. I think this is really important! A musical that has such an interesting subject at its heart should have longevity, and that comes about through great songs that people can't resist singing, covering, you name it.
There was not one song like that in this show.
Verdict: Well, Martin's daughter absolutely loved it. She had been in a school production, and of course, she comes from the North East and it has a lot of resonance for her. She loves theatre and performs as well as going to see a lot of stuff. So my feeling is that I am too damn fussy about what I expect from a musical! People in front of us were crying unconsolably at the sad bits; I think my disappointment with the music affected what I thought of the whole thing.
Ultimately, I have never seen such good child dancers before: hats off to the Billy, the 'Billy's friend', and the little girls in tutus. Their dancing was perfect and beautiful to watch. I can recommend going to see this show on that basis alone, whether or not you have seen the film.
Monday, January 03, 2011
Re-starting
I keep putting it off... I made a list... tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.
The strong arms of 2011 are dragging me forward, but my heels are dug into the ground, ploughing obstinate furrows behind me.
Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.
I thought I'd be picking small tasks off the list each day, but I haven't.
Instead, I have eaten vast quantities of chocolate (although this Christmas has been so stressful that it's the first one in personal history that I have actually lost weight!)
I have written a song (first one for three months, and I had to get really angry to do it: it sounds like a Velvet Underground song).
I have re-met (?) friends from years ago, and really valued them.
I have done a lot of driving, but for good reasons.
The face looking at me in the mirror says 'More rest, please'.
The strong arms of 2011 are dragging me forward, but my heels are dug into the ground, ploughing obstinate furrows behind me.
Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.
I thought I'd be picking small tasks off the list each day, but I haven't.
Instead, I have eaten vast quantities of chocolate (although this Christmas has been so stressful that it's the first one in personal history that I have actually lost weight!)
I have written a song (first one for three months, and I had to get really angry to do it: it sounds like a Velvet Underground song).
I have re-met (?) friends from years ago, and really valued them.
I have done a lot of driving, but for good reasons.
The face looking at me in the mirror says 'More rest, please'.
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