Archive for February, 2008
It’s how we’re built. Danger, uncertainty, you name it, humans are driven to one of two choices quickly. We’re familiar with the phrase ‘fight or flight’ to describe how our bodies make these choices very rapidly, even where our brain is not quite tuned into what we’re doing.
When it’s a sabre tooth tiger, fair enough - and a straight forward choice. But what of the colleague at work who sets us on edge, but who we have to keep working with? What about the sudden crisis or the email that demands immediate action? And what happens when, like it or not, we have to stay, for reasons of income, prestige, and so on?
Fight is not an option sanctioned by HR - at least, not the blow to the jaw type. All flint-topped spears to be checked in at reception before proceeding into the main building. While there’s various little fights going on with our environment, whether in our heads, our emails and so on, I suspect that flight is the main alternative for many of us.
And what is flight? I thought to call this post ‘Escape’, and often that’s part of the fantasy, whether through holidays, through weekends away, or even just the late-night gig. I guess I’m interested in thinking about the level to which we’re aware of our flight away from stresses, and the way in which it becomes hidden under other motives.
We have to eat. No quibble there. We have a nice range of foodstuffs available, lots of shops and eateries prepared to cater to us round the clock. But the chocolate bar on the Friday afternoon to keep going, the swift drink on arrival home, how many of these are treats, and how many are little escape mechanisms for us?
Stone-age man had perhaps some difficulties staying in one place - what with needing to seek out food, protect himself from others who might take this from him, and so on. Flight was probably forced on him more, but there were some advantages to it to.
Mortgage holders will know that flight becomes a more limited option when you have a reason to stay put year after year. Marriage, families, all of these are built to benefit from you sticking around. Hopefully, these things also mean you have less reason to flee, or even to fight so much to secure what you need.
But what happens when these responsibilities and different ‘threats’ seem to co-exist? How, equally, do we keep the threats from spilling over into the other areas of our lives?
You can see from the length of this that I’m musing, rather than offering solutions. The more I go on, the more I discover how many little escape hatches I use - and how, in various ways, they seem to become more necessary as life goes on.
Given that the blog offers its own means of escape, at times, I’ll reengage for now…for a bit, at least. Sunday evening TV is all about escape. Perhaps it’s time to do some more research.
February 24th, 2008
I’m a little concerned by health warnings. Always drink responsibly…sounds like you shouldn’t consider stepping out of the door without a bottle in your hand.
The next issue to focus on is gambling, as mentioned by the coin machine shop by my bus stop. Hanging about, waiting for the bus home, I have plenty of time to admire not just their pictures of Elvis on repeat on the screens by the shop window, but also the injunction: “Always gamble responsible”.
This one could of course be a trap by the grammar police - adjective or adverb, punk? - but it could equally be an opportunity for the punctuation secret service. Just one comma, and it becomes the kind of suggestion you expect to come up in an arty film.
The screen flips to show “Always gamble, responsible”. I should take this as my cue to hurl my work badge into the path of an oncoming bus, before diving into a nearby charity shop for a cocktail dress, as the scene shifts to the nearest speakeasy.
Perhaps I should go back to my roots as an English teacher. Does it get any better if I substitute “Occasionally gamble responsible”? Sometimes I know when to fold, but mostly I push the chips forward with the air of a James Bond villain?
However these things get written, I can’t help but think they look more like an encouragement to go ahead with the problem behaviour, rather than to rein it in. Maybe the ad men need some people to lose at gambling, so that they can further increase their earnings on a slogan that doesn’t actually work.
Well then. That’s my “eats shoots” moment done. Next week: stray apostrophes, which I have recently learned are known as the ‘grocer’s apostrophe’. I’m sure there’s a link between fruit, and fruit machines, that I can work on.
February 23rd, 2008
That’s Valentine’s Day to you. I just fancied writing it. “Valentinky” has quite a nice ring to it too.
Why Walentynki? I don’t really subscribe to the common concept of what Valentine’s Day is about in the UK.
As a teenager, you just kind of sulk about it (though there are so many things to sulk about as a teenager, I’m not sure how much others perceive the difference on this occasion).
As a young adult, the pang increases a little. Now people possibly have some money to spend on the day. But as much as anything, it’s just a reminder that others have someone in their lives and you don’t. Which is not always a good thing to dwell on. (At this stage you dwell on things, rather than sulking, possibly because you only have one main room to hang out in, so you can’t exactly run off to your room when it gets too much.)
In this stage of life, I happened to be in Poland during Valentine’s Day. Both times were memorable, for different reasons. The first time, I received a Valentine’s fax from a family friend.
Firstly, receiving a fax made quite an impact in the boarding school/convent where I was staying, and secondly, it reminded me that a world existed beyond the one in Poland I had joined just a week before. (My family didn’t hear from me for a fortnight, the length of time it took to me first to remember and then to work out how to post my first letter from Poland. Life pre-mobile eh?)
The second time, a sudden change in circumstances. I had someone, I hadn’t been together with them the previous Valentine’s Day, and all of a sudden, this year, I was engaged. And he was in a different country. But I learned to be upbeat - particularly aided by seeing the enthusiasm with which Poles had taken to Valentine’s Day.
This was a holiday adopted after the end of Communism. The flashy thing to do was take your true love out to McDonalds. In fact, the drive-through McDonalds round the corner from where I lived had a photo montage of happy couples in McDonalds over Valentine’s Day.
From a UK perspective, it doesn’t seem very romantic. But I liked the enthusiasm, the sense of rising to the occasion. Rather than a slushfest, Valentine’s Day had become fun, cheerful even.
I didn’t take myself out for a McDonald’s that year, you may be pleased to hear. I did buy myself flowers. But I developed a liking for a sense of what a particular day could mean in a new context.
Walentynki. You can’t just buy it in the shops. But it’s what every relationship needs from time to time.
(Footnote: despite telling my colleagues that Dan and I don’t really ‘do’ Valentine’s, I returned home to a little parcel of Italian deli goodies that he had happily selected. There’s another good aspect of Walentynki - having your expectations changed. It’s a wise man that knows that a woman also appreciates the ‘way to one’s heart is through one’s stomach’.)
So, I salute Valentine perspectives with Peroni beer - and will save mention of the outcome of the other ingredients for another day.
February 14th, 2008
The home improvements continue…well, not apace, but at least they continue.
Part of the grand plan is to get more storage inside our wardrobes, and thankfully, the powers that be at IKEA foresaw that people would want to shift things around at different times, and created lots of nice holes to move new shelves into.
I wouldn’t put us as IKEA frequent flyers - it’s more like a once a year military operation, once we have secured someone’s car to make it worth our while. But I do love a good kit to put together. I do obviously let Dan have a go too, but I will even volunteer to put other people’s IKEA units together.
Why the appeal? Kits are good news for those of us who aren’t so hot on drawing, or cutting things terribly accurately, but still want to make things. It’s also quite fun to see things assemble gradually, particularly if they are a) big and b) handy for moving stuff off the floor/bottom of other wardrobes etc.
I tend to think that liking kits is also part of learned behaviour. Dad was very into model making when I was little, and I graduated to this myself in various forms: plaster of Paris moulds for various things you could then paint, peg dolls, soft toys.
Best of all was a model theatre - first you made the theatre from card, then you had a full opera and ballet with backdrops, bits to move on from the sides, fiddly characters to cut round, the works. I even learned the story of ’La Boheme’ from the synopsis they included with the kit, which comes in handy for watching ‘Moonstruck’ in later life.
Recently, makers of kits have been staging a comeback. Makers of Airfix kits - model aeroplanes and so on - decided to run an ‘experiment’ where one group of kids got to make a model, and the others got to play on their Playstations, or something similar. At the end of the time, those making models were asked if they would do it again, and if they liked it more than their usual computer game type hobbies.
I’m never too sure with tests like this how representative the findings are, but evidently a good number of the kids said yes, they’d give it another go. Besides, there are still kit cars you can make (and get a Q at the start of your number plate - a definite incentive), and even kit houses for those who want to build their own but fancy a bit of help. Onwards and upwards, see.
February 12th, 2008
Honest, ossifer, not even once. But I couldn’t resist the title.
Little by little, the Frydman decorating project moves on, and the next stage is to get some rooms replastered. This gives us the opportunity to move furniture from room to room in order to clear the rooms that need plastered…Thank goodness for a spare room at the moment, otherwise we would be struggling a bit to find space to put things into.
So far, it’s mostly the bookcases that are getting moved. I’m quite pleased to see that the study walls stay up without their usual counterweight of books. With the annual bookfair in Peebles next month, it’s also a good time to do our usual book cull, and decide what can be donated for the fair.
The biggest excitement will be getting the kitchen replastered, which should mean we can finally paint it white, and banish the last trace of terracotta paint. (Apologies if you are of a burnt umber persuasion. It’s nice and warm, sure, but in small dark spaces lit by a still pretty dark Scottish winter, the desire for more light is going to win out.) But it seemed like a good opportunity to tidy up the sitting room and the study at the same time, so we’re hoping to get all three done around the same time.
But the final aim is an even better one - get the plaster and paint done, then finally replace the carpet. If terracotta walls get me down, don’t get me started on the sitting room carpet. Hopefully we can now get something we’d like. It was good enough getting Mum to make us curtains of our choice - carpet as well will be tremendous. (You’ll be pleased to hear we aren’t forcing Mum to make the carpets as well. Talk about nose to the grindstone.)
Is it all needed? Less than the leaky bathroom project. But learning from the enjoyment we have of a bathroom that we actually chose, I think it’s well worth it, particularly for the sitting room which we spend a lot of time in.
You never know. I may even learn to upload some photos, finally, to show off the finished product. A few more bookcases to move first, though.
February 11th, 2008
The music collection is building up. Rather later than much of the rest of the population, I have also now tried acquiring some more songs via iTunes.
Recently I read a music journalist talking about converting his prized collection into digital format. Having it all neatly amassed, and no longer vinyl, or CD, to hold in his hands, he suddenly felt like the process of collecting was no longer what it had been.
What happens when it’s suddenly easy to find the items you want - even the obscure ones? Does the thrill of the chase diminish? What does it mean to collect when you just find and pay for tracks in a bundle, separated from their original ‘packaging’ as part of an album?
Others have written about the loss of the homemade tape as an initial sign of intent from a boy to a girl. We may not put together a ‘mix’ in our own way, but on the other hand, we can keep mixing and remixing our sets of favoured songs. And we can avoid buying the whole album for the sake of the one track we’re actually bothered about.
Another shift is removal of the need to do your own cataloguing. A feature of my childhood was my dad’s homemade logs of music, films and so on - the indication of careful collecting. Now the programmes for buying and assembling collections do that for you.
It does save the writings and transcribings, the noting down of tracks and times and even dates you made the recording. Perhaps some of the ’romance’ is lost, setting out and staking down your own musical territory. But the gains of arranging and rearranging playlists, and above all, listening again to treasures that were forgotten, seem to outweigh the changes.
February 7th, 2008
The tide has been stemmed. I no longer have to walk into a branch of, say, Accessorize, and feel like I’m back in my first school disco just because they’re playing Aha.
Nor have I been frequenting 80s revival discos to get a fix of high energy pop. Truth be told, I haven’t been frequenting any discos. I don’t think I was very frequent about them in the first place.
But in the comfort of your own home, it’s quite fun to look up some music from your school days. You can still have that whole ‘do you remember where you were when you heard…?’. (And then, if you’re so inclined, you can email your 80s friends on Facebook, and see if they do too.)
Part of the fun of it is also who different songs evoke. For whatever reasons, you’ll have a particular friend who liked track X, and someone else who liked something completely different. It’s like a school roll call in musical form, moving from person to person.
But another part of the fun comes from that devilishly clever Amazon-style ‘if you liked this, you’ll like…’ Or equally, ‘people who listened to the track you just picked also listened to…’
I am back onto eMusic, a service a friend told me about around Christmas time. I have already used up my free credits in a big rush, and now I am paying for my musical indulgences. They operate in this ‘recommending’ way, and so as soon as you select one thing, you get to see a few more options that are seen to be similar.
I guess it’s the online equivalent of flipping through albums in a bargain section, and suddenly having a ‘gosh I’d forgotten all about them!’ moment. In terms of the musical roll call, it’s a bit like having the class surround you, turning round in a circle blindfolded, and suddenly pointing at one of them. Then doing it again a few more times. (No, thankfully my school discos, while scary, were not that scary.)
Kindly, the service will also tell you which are the popular tracks. So if you only want the one-hit wonder, you don’t have to remember which album they are on. And of course, it helps you spend your credits that bit faster.
February 4th, 2008
The wintry onslaught continues across Britain. Alison considers a writing career for the weather section of the Beeb…but wait! There are signs of an alternative weather front looming…
Never mind fog (although many do, of course, particularly those driving). What we want at the weekend is fug.
Fug is one of those words that suggests it’s a bit hot and stuffy, but we like it that way. It’s just what we need indoors when outdoors, we and our possessions are likely to be blown away in all directions.
Now that smoking is banned in public places all across the UK, fug is less of an option for pubs, which used to be a potential locator when there was lots of smoke. You can tell that those who described it as fug in pubs rather liked it after all.
Next option is cafes that fill up when it’s raining. A great example of a cafe that had the right level of fug is one a little below Snowdon. I once attempted to climb Snowdon with someone I knew from my gap year, plus a couple of friends of hers. We didn’t get very far up when really driving rain set in, and by the time we were back down, we were all completely soaked.
Thankfully, the cafe was just the place for having a huge pot of tea and full fry ups all round. No doubt we added to the fug by steaming gently as we dried out. By the time we had drained the tea pot, we were even mostly dry. A very happy outcome - I might even suggest happier than having reached the summit, although I’m sure that’s not really the spirit.
Meanwhile, the home fug is settling in nicely - probably my favourite sort. A little light soup making (though the soup itself will probably be reasonably ribsticking), a batch of sauce, some veg to add to the oven in a sec. In a while, I can add to the fug by bringing out a roast chicken, making gravy, that kind of thing.
You could describe it as steam. Even condensation. But that defeats the point. It’s happy steam. It suggests that the world is, for a little while at least, set at rights.
February 2nd, 2008