Posts filed under 'Media'
How to keep entertained on these long winter nights? You could write long Norse sagas - and with “Beowulf” in the cinema, your time could have come here - or go for a little low-level entertainment with some cutting and sticking.
Now lots of options for what you cut and stick. I’m not advising that you have to go full scrapbook mode. I got teased at home while growing up for constantly cutting things out of magazines - recipes in particular, but other things that were of interest. Probably back to the journalism side of being keen on lots of different things. This, coupled with a good old fashioned “this could come in useful” attitude, resulted in a lot of piles of newsprint, which finally made their way into scrapbooks.
So, card making, collage, papier mache…you name it. Cutting and sticking allows you to re-read your magazines or newspapers, end up with a larger pile of paper to recycle (for high inner smugness values), stick a few of them in a scrapbook, or bung them in a useful folder, and hopefully look at them again.
Trouble with cutting and sticking: are you really going to re-read the things you keep? This was the trouble before. How many of those recipes did I use? How many articles on nice white painted houses do you need for inspiration?
You can of course do the smaller version, which is editing what you’ve already got stashed away. Less cutting, more freeing up existing scrapbook pages, or the equivalent. But I probably shouldn’t be admitting to this degree of introversion.
Perhaps the really good side is the rediscovery. Kate Muir’s ode to the bacon butty van at the top of the Rest and Be Thankful. A particular recipe that you’ve done, loved, forgotten, and your heart leaps to see it again.
We are happy to reread a book. To listen to a song, time and time again. To put on a piece of clothing that makes you smile. Why not reread an article? Partly because there are so many of them, so many angles, so many tiny snippets to consider revisiting.
Anyway, come and retrieve me when you hear the scissors hit the floor.
November 27th, 2007
A year today since we started the blog. In terms of entry material, it’s more like two, since we started the blog as an alternative to Christmas letters.
Dan pointed out that most of the entries have been a) in the first month or two (rapid posting to emulate the year in full look of the Christmas letter) and b) in the last couple of months, since getting the laptop. So it’s maybe not so true to the time periods themselves, but hey, it’s there.
I know there are plenty of people out there who hate Christmas round robins. There are even books of assorted excerpts from (we trust) genuine letters, designed to bring out anyone’s inner humbug. So on one hand, you’re let off lightly by not having them from us any more. And on the other hand…much more to read!
The difficulty with overviews is that they can’t help being a bit blow by blow, a bit exhausting, even just to contemplate writing, let alone to read. A couple of years back, I attempted a CV for my own purposes, just to see what I’d been up to, as I’d been in the same job for a while. I was tempted to have a lie down after…because however you write it, en masse, all those activities, those opportunities, become overwhelming.
A blog, with luck, is a bit more like a telegram. Or a social column. Or a shaggy dog story you can relate to someone else. Maybe even akin to a poem, if the writer’s really going for it. Certainly potential for a Speaker’s Corner type rant - we can’t all get to London for that kind of opportunity every time we want to let off steam.
Maybe a blog is also like a soap opera. Bite sized, but addictive. Designed to make you come back to see what’s new, whether any new characters have been introduced. With the big advantage that the writer is not limited to the environs of Albert Square, the Woolpack, or any of the other soap locations. More like a series of postcards from different locations, akin to the (very well) organised interrailer who’s determined to gain as many different postmarks as possible on their cards back home.
So, what can we promise you for Frydmania 07-08? A few new categories, perhaps, so that I’m not lumping work with church with relatives, all under the heading of family. But at the same time, having kept to the same set all year, it’s forced me to think differently about these groups of people, and others. And hopefully a blog is a good place to start thinking differently.
Maybe I’ll go back and retag previous stories for the new categories. That could be a little uber-geek. But a few more photos might be nice, if I can get Dan to remind me how to add them.
Perhaps the real challenge is to go back and see how much I’ve written about particular topics already, so as to avoid them in the future…or not. Like the soap opera, the postcard, there’s a certain comfort in familiarity. I promise not to include a Christmas shopping guide, a la magazines with their regularly revolving seasonal focuses. But sometimes, given that writing in cyberspace tends to make me muse about transitory and changing things, a bit of repetition, a bit of grounding in real life is no bad thing.
After all, a blog is an ideal opportunity to “stand and stare”, in words, stepping back from a “world…full of care”. Whether it’s a blink, a double take…now read on.
November 26th, 2007
Hurrah for Friday night, and some more QI. When you’ve reached the final hurdle of the end of the week, it’s nice to sit down and have some reliably (very) funny oddities of the world to learn about, and laugh about.
QI appeals for those moments when you just need a little bit of unusual (or at time, downright incomprehensible) information. Thing is, I think my need for this is higher than most. This could be why I continue to like reading columnists whose virtue is spotting thngs happening in the world, and commenting on them. It’s a bit of a goldfish mentality, probably, the “ooh what’s that?” followed by “that’s interesting” followed by “ooh what’s that?” etc.
The thing is, I planned to start this by telling you about a series of options on YouTube, whereby you can see sequences of the different sounds for the buzzers on QI (hence “Alan goes…”, as Alan’s buzzer is usually rigged for laughs). It’s probably no worse than much of what’s on YouTube, and certainly better than much. But it certainly fulfils the “ooh what’s that?” objective.
It does tie in to our shorter attention scans, these days. When Andy Warhol coined the phrase of “fifteen minutes of fame”, he wasn’t far off our current patterns, I suspect. 15 minutes is enough to see a bit of a YouTube post, look for the other variants, think you’ve learned something or seen something in full, and go off after something else.
The thing is, I can be fairly happy with a whole series of short inputs of information. It’s why I like short stories, newspaper articles, poems even. But at times, I worry that this butterfly mentality may mean I spend all my time giving you a smorgasbord of enticing, but short lived options, rather than knuckling down and giving some topics some serious attention. Even some editing eh?
Anyway, you can be sure that a Guiness Book of Records will go down well for Christmas…
November 23rd, 2007
Here I am, chugging away at the blog, and all of a sudden, there’s two comments in a couple of days. Someone, nay, two somebodies, are reading what I’ve written!
Now I know this is part of the point of a blog. You can have lovely conversations about the same things - or violently disagree - or deploy increasing amounts of punctuation to form faces, smiles, beards, polar ice caps, that kind of thing.
Probably there’s a sneaking concern about people reading what I write. Yes, this blog is probably meant to read a bit like a newspaper columnist, but really it’s a bit of a diary too. And who wants to have someone reading their diary?
I still have my teenage diaries, and I have to work out whether to keep them for historical purposes (what were people watching on TV 20 years ago?), counselling ones (can this help us work out how our kids might be feeling in the future?), or burn them before those same teenagers find out how much time I spent worrying about boys.
In the case of these two comments, the trick seems to be to write about someone important to the commenter. The only difficulty is, this could get complicated. My reasons for writing about the people in question were personal, spur of the moment celebration of them. To go round the houses, writing about people you know - yes you, person reading this! - is unlikely to keep working. I may get completely the wrong take on your auntie you’ve mentioned, your brother I met once, and so on. And having just captured you as a reader, I’m hardly going to want to let you go, let along have you run headlong from these pages.
But write a reply…go on. Even to the naff puns about Wispas. It allows me to keep my little dream that maybe, somehow, one day, someone might even pay to read what I write. And the longer you indulge me in that dream, the cheaper it remains for you, eh?
Alternatively, post your latest photos on Facebook, and I’ll be over there like a shot.
November 16th, 2007
Time for some mention of “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” - a TV show surely dedicated to people who love alliteration.
I’m probably one of the few people in the Western world who didn’t watch “Friends”, the long-running US comedy. I therefore never saw Matthew Perry in the show, and so when he turned up on Studio 60 as one of the main characters, I was seeing his work for the first time.
And he is really good. Funny, ironic, annoying, but his best turns are the serious, even anguished ones, which perhaps gives him a whole different area to play from that of “Friends”. Having been away on holiday, “Studio 60″ was probably the main thing we wanted to catch up on, given his character’s pretty serious relationship break-up just before we went away. That’s a lot more anguish waiting to spill out.
It’s not really about the anguish. Perhaps even more so than on the writer Aaron Sorkin’s previous show, “The West Wing”, the characters seem to have permission to be human - real characters, with good points, flaws, working in an industry that shows up both aspects in equally extreme ways.
Both shows have characters working in highly pressured environments. Yet in “Studio 60″, Sorkin seems to be taking even more opportunity to make different sections of American society meet head on. The characters of Matt (Perry’s part) and Harriet are perhaps overly unlikely to be together, so different are their values, their mindsets. With Harriet as the Bible believing Christian, Matt plays devil’s advocate with fair venom at times.
But still, the scenarios they face as characters, together, and apart, do help to question what makes a ‘good’ person. For all of Matt’s ability to mouth off about various sections of society, there are other areas in which he is determined to do the right thing.
As a Christian myself, it makes for interesting viewing. There are plenty of times where I’m in situations - at work, with friends, in a social setting - where it’s not always clear what is the ‘right’ thing to do. The show reminds me how everyone is facing the same complications, whether they have a faith to guide their values or not. And perhaps some of the environments which are less likely to be seen as moral - such as the entertainment industry which is the feature of “Studio 60″ - have in fact some of the most compelling dilemmas to face.
It’s perhaps even more frustrating, then, to know that “Studio 60″ was only given one season to run. So even if this is a short-term Friend, I’ll be continuing to tune in, while these debates, and story lines, continue to twist and turn.
November 15th, 2007
Most nights, no problem selecting what to write about. Tonight, I’m feeling weary, and suspecting a cold coming on.
Still, not to worry, as I’ve read enough of these journalist “oh dear, I don’t have anything to write about but I’ll spin some words” pieces.
Actually, if I’d called it “Has anyone seen my Topic?”, as I considered while typing it, that suggests whole new vistas of chocolate snack bar to explore. Not an inconsiderable subject, given that there’s been enough public interest in the UK to bring back Wispa bars.
How do people make the decision that they want to bring back a chocolate bar? I suppose you build a petition online these days, though the option of marching on the Bourneville factory dressed in large crinkly wrappers is another way to make your point.
Perhaps the other question to ask is, at what point does a company decide it’s a good PR point for them to bring something back? I’m aware of other companies which have strong customer loyalty - thinking of Lush, and Lakeland - which also herald when they are reintroducing items at readers’ demand. But to go back into production for a chocolate bar, with all the economies of scale and so on - you must need to be sure that people will buy it.
Fortunately, it’s not difficult to like a Wispa bar. It really is just chocolate. Easy. Except a little bit softer in texture, I suppose we should say. Not difficult to build up a new fan base when you have a product like that.
So, be careful of your water cooler discussions, my friends. You never know what a careless wispa could spark next.
November 14th, 2007
I planned this title on the way home. Should it be horrors of…? when in fact I am a card-carrying (well, bus pass carrying) bus user, or horrors on…? There are many of these, particularly the ones who listen to music tracks at double speed on their mobiles, at full volume.
The thing is, neither. The real bugbear at the moment is the number of horror films that are being advertised on the side of Edinburgh buses, in full view of children, and equally people like me who prefer to avoid horror films, particularly first thing in the morning and at the end of a working day, which is of course when I wait for buses, ride on buses, see the sides of other buses etc.
Saw IV has been particularly nasty, and on seemingly 1 in 3 buses before we went on holiday. Coming back, the number is fewer, but some have now been replaced by Shrooms, next in line. Yes, a picture of a skull is a bit easier to take than a picture of a head with a mantrap around it, but really, it’s not about the choice, is it? The whole issue is the lack of choice, as a pedestrian, as a commuter.
I don’t have a problem with film adverts on buses - it helps me have a vague idea of what’s going on at the cinema, and then I can find out more on Tony Pugh’s blog in due course. I do have a problem with the nature of the pictures, the excessive number of them.
There was an article in the paper - I braved a broadsheet, and actually read bits of the Herald main section today - about trying to have a ban on advertising products that are overly fatty or sugary, until after 9pm. Nothing new there, except they are trying to widen it to include programmes on after 9 that are particular popular with younger audiences. There seems to be some sense that things which could be considered harmful are on after the watershed.
Difficulty with the buses is there is no watershed. There is no choice. Except turning your head away, time and time again.
November 12th, 2007
Now for once, this post isn’t about food. Caught you there!
Sunday does seem to be a day for comfort food versions of TV though. One of the Channel 4 repeats channels had wall to wall recent Jamie Oliver episodes - everything to do with the veg you’ve just grown (so I guess food does come into the picture again, unsurprisingly). Equally, there’s this newish channel called Dave which shows lots of episodes of QI (hurray) but equally doesn’t stint on Top Gear (can do, but less what I’d choose to put in).
Nothing like Sunday night for a travel programme, and as that nice Mr Palin has done his stint in Eastern Europe, it’s over to Charlie Boorman and Ewen MacGregor to get down and dirty riding motorbikes from the north of Scotland to the tip of the African continent. More swearing than on PalinTV (though there may be a certain amount off camera, one would anticipate), but also some heart - Ewen going off camera when affected by how many children face living in areas with landmines, on the Ethiopia-Eritrea border.
Our regular comfort food TV for a Sunday - West Wing repeats - have been moved over to a Saturday slot. The things they do when they hear you’re out of the country, eh? They even mucked about with the TV format in the Saturday Times TV section, which has until now been one of the clearest to read. Lest it be said that we spend all our free time watching TV, I would note that a good TV guide makes it much easier to work out what you DO want to watch, rather than channel hopping via the selection onscreen.
Dan’s version of comfort food TV would probably have to include black and white Sunday matinees, as a result of spending time at his uncle and aunt’s while younger. Not a bad investment when you grow up and discover that knowledge of black and white films offers a certain level of trendiness…or so we are still led to believe.
For those of a certain era, surely the testcard would have to be the final option in comfort food TV (though Dan has also watched Open University programmes put on at very late/very early times, another of those store cupboard staples of programming).
Whatever your meat (or poison), hopefully such stuff allows you to be suitably soothed on a Sunday night that you can face the week ahead. So far, so good.
November 11th, 2007
We’re told that inspiration strikes in unlikely places. So today, while hanging up the washing, came up with a new pun on the former UN Secretary General. I thought it could come in useful for someone who is trying to be very diplomatic, and has big intentions, but is limited to operating in (rural?) Scotland.
Now I’m sure there aren’t lots of occasions where those options combine, although it might have been an option for my grandfather, who came from Skye, and went on to be a diplomat.
I digress. The main thing that came to me, just after feeling smug at this combination, was the sinking feeling that someone, somewhere, must have spotted this, and got there before me, probably while Perez de C himself was still in the job.
This is the trouble. There are all kinds of nice potential titles out there, with wordplay, puns even, and I have the awful suspicion that someone else has got there before me. Perhaps the best option is to keep a list as they occur to me, test them out, and perhaps do a google search to see if anyone else has used the same.
It probably says more about a) the non-phonetic nature of English writing, which allows you to have various phrases that are written differently but sound alike b) the prevalence of puns in British newspaper articles and c) my own fondness for wordplay.
Now all I need is another useful phrase to round off the post, but perhaps I’ll save it for another title…
October 23rd, 2007
This is by way of some catch up from our holiday in Poland - various ideas for blog posts at the time.
For the uninitiated, I spent two chunks of time in Poland: six months in my gap year, working on the outskirts of Warsaw in a school for the blind; then ten months teaching English in Legnica, a small town near the border with Germany, after graduating from university.
Our visit to Poland this summer was a chance to revisit some old haunts - we even went back to the school for the blind, which I hadn’t visited for twelve years - and also get a sense for how Poland is doing now it’s part of the EU etc.
One feature that struck me this time was that pavement cafes are on the up. In particular, ones with large sun umbrellas advertising one of the main beers, Zywiec.
When I was in Poland in the past, this kind of ‘cafe society’ was not much in evidence. By the time I was in Legnica, ten years ago, a cafe in town occasionally managed some green sun umbrellas for Hortex, one of the brands of fruit juice. Hortex bars - juice bars! - were kind of trendy then, and an alternative to heavy drinking in a regular bar.
The nearby city of Wroclaw had an ‘Out of Africa’ cafe, which my discerning teacher friend Beata took me to, and this seemed to be the height of aspirations. (There were also standard German cafes in Gorlitz, the split border town, where Poles from Legnica and the surroundings went to do tax free shopping, rather than pay more in Wroclaw.)
Admittedly, this time we were mostly in big cities, or with places which had tourists, so there was probably more reason for expecting the pavement cafes. But it’s part of the visual landscape I expect in other countries, even see at times in the UK, and now, it seems, in Poland too.
Poland can do hot summers. It does a good line in hanging out in the park. It’s good for pavement cafes too. With the added advantage that the beer is just as cheap as in the ’standard’ European countries I’d expect to see the cafes, but sometimes even cheaper…what’s not to like? And when we were in the mountain resort of Zakopane, with afternoon storms quite frequent on hot days, the umbrellas were just the thing for keeping out of the rain. Sorted.
October 22nd, 2007
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