Wednesday 25 June 2008

Not Sex and the City or 'Point of View – What’s the Fucking Point?'

I’m still supposed to be writing my Critical Study. It is now entitled ‘Point of View – What’s the Fucking Point?’ The answer, it turned out, quite fortuitously, was on Sky Everything.

I’ve been watching Sex and the City. It’s a program with multiple limited third person limited multiple perspectives. As well as a first person narrative point of view . This tends to put the whole idea of Sex in perspective, or at least from my point of view.

And I noticed something. Wherever the characters go they meet someone to shag. And they live in New York.

It’s a well known fact that Cardiff has all New York has to offer except without the wide pavements, wide sidewalks, Americans and lack of discourse about rugby. So, therefore, logically, wherever I go I should meet someone to shag.

Logic is a flawed logic I find. For this hasn’t happened to me. As someone wise once said – ‘Some are born celibate, some achieve celibacy and some have celibacy thrust upon them’. I have accomplished all three. Without the thrusting bit.

But I’m not going to be outdone by New York. I have briefly given up living in a musical and being Mary Poppins in favour of (sorry in favor of) living in a Welsh version of Sex and the City. Entitled Sex and the City. Interesting how the title works for both places.

Episode 1:
I get splashed by a bus.
I write on my computer a telling question: ‘Are New Yorkers sexier than Cardiffians?’
Friend 1 tells me about her sex life – it doesn’t exist.
Friend 2 asks me how to tell if a man fancies her – I explain about quantum physics.
Friend 3 doesn’t exist.
I go out to the greater metropolis to get chatted up and taken home by a sexy man. This doesn’t happen. I buy shoes.
I write on my computer – ‘Yes. And we buy shoes too. Albeit shoes from Clarks with flat heels and orthotic inserts. But they are red.’

I write on my computer - ‘The problem is that Welsh men don’t watch Sex and the City. They watch rugby. So they don’t understand multiple perspectives. Or that when a sexy woman in flat red shoes with orthotic insoles gently nudges their car in a multi-story car park that means she wants to be propositioned. They think that propositioning is something to do with rugby.’

So, thus I found out – the point of point of view is fucking. Or not. As the case may be.

I’m going back to being Mary Poppins now. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

Friday 20 June 2008

What I Probably Shouldn’t Have Done

A letter came today. You may never see me or hear from me again. I thought I’d better warn you.

Other consequences may include:
Obesity and/or starvation.
Out and out war between rival factions of Physicist, Lawyer and Writer.
Sore bottoms.
A greater knowledge of all things.
Not getting my critical study finished.
Learning how to cook but not actually doing it.
Not writing that novel.
A greater degree of culture (not in the yogurt sense).
Not ever finding Mr Right.
Never having sex again.
A beautiful hand-sewn quilt.
Complete and total social isolation.
And
Possibly
Death.

This is what the letter said:

Get three months Sky subscription free. That’s all the Sky channels. Which is about a zillion. Call this number.

I called. I have free Sky subscription. Now. Already.

It’s better than Mr Right, it’s better than sex (ok, not better than sex but no one sent me a letter saying ‘free sex for three months just call this number’).

It’s on until Sept 20th.

Help! Please bring food, drink, spare AA batteries, After Eights, Before Eights and a change of clothing (for me and children, I expect you to arrive in clean clothing as is appropriate for a guest who may end up staying until the autumn). No we can’t watch the sports channel. I cancelled that one.

Sunday 15 June 2008

How Not to Live in a Fairy Tale

Yesterday I went to get the Physicist and all her worldly goods from her seat of learning for what’s known in the trade as the long vac. Nothing to do with hoovers. We had a number of fairy-tale encounters. This is what happened:

Once upon a time there was a mother whose daughter, after being in a far away land of academia for many months and weeks, was finally allowed home. The mother got in her silver chariot (or small car) to go collect the daughter but had no fuel. And the fuel-deliverers were on strike. After searching high and low, in dell and out of them, she finally found, hidden away in a mysterious woods, a petrol station that actually had some petrol. It was very expensive petrol. When the mother asked the curiously twisted and wizened old man selling the fuel why it was just so very costly he replied ‘It is magic petrol. For from this moment hence your fuel gauge remained steadfastly on full’.

‘Bollocks’ said the mother but paid the old man the money and went on her way.

When she got to the land of academia she discovered that the Physicist hadn’t packed all her worldly goods and chattels. For she had been to a ball and lost her slipper, or at least a silvery kind of shoe. They knew what had happened of course. Anyone would.

In the end they left a note for Prince Charming re the slipper:

‘Please return shoe you evil stealing bastard and if you have let the entire population of Oxford maidens try on this shoe and if it has been damaged or infected in any way due to this I expect appropriate compensation.’

Physicists are not interested in romance.

Eventually, the mother and daughter drove merrily down the road laden with the worldly goods minus one shoe and slip of notepaper.

Then there came an evil smell.

‘I hope that’s not our car that is making that smell.’ The mother said.
The car veered in agreement.
‘I hope that’s not our car veering dangerously about the place.’ The mother said.
And then the car showed them a cheerful warning light of the brightest orange imaginable.
‘I wonder what that means.’ The mother said.
The car stopped and, as if to answer the question, emitted a deal of evil smoke from the wheel.

The mother, luckily enough, belonged to the RAC (Rent A Charming-man-to-come-and-rescue-damsels-and-physicists-in-distress). In due course a Knight arrived in his van of the brightest orange imaginable.

‘Your car is knackered.’ Said the Knight, ‘climb on the back of my van and I will carry you home. Or at least to Leigh Delemare, in the land of the rip-off coffee. For I cannot cross the border. But there will be another Knight just as charming as me, of even greater power than me who will carry you to Wales, the land of the rugby, and there deliver you to your home under the smallest mountain in the world.’

And so, after many hours and minutes of travelling in vans of the brightest orange imaginable with lights of flashing yellow and Knights of the utmost charmingness the mother and the daughter arrived at their home under the smallest mountain in the world.

The mother wanted to kiss the Knight but the daughter thought it would be better just to fill in the form and sign it.

And so it came to pass that the curiously twisted and wizened old man in the petrol station was right, for the fuel gauge was still on full.

‘This petrol really is magic.’ The mother said.

And from that day hence they never used another drop of petrol. Nor did the car ever move again.

Friday 13 June 2008

How Not to Write a Critical Study or Grow Tomatoes

Today I was supposed to be writing my critical study. A jolly 8,000 words of a vaguely academic nature with references, bibliographies, long words that sound impressive but are simply substitutes for shorter words that people actually understand, and thoughts of a meaningful nature.

This is what happened:
I wrote ‘What’s the point of multiple points of views?’ That’s the title or thereabouts. And then I thought I might take a break.
I went outside. My neighbour gave me some tomato plants and informed me they were best grown in the greenhouse. I have one of those. But there was a problem. I had not ventured into the aforementioned structure since the departure of the ex-Beloved. The aforementioned ex-Beloved loved the aforementioned structure. So much that he verily filled it. With stuff.

So, with a quick word of reassurance to the tomato plants, I embarked on Clearing the Greenhouse.

Some eight hours later I had:
Thrown out five bin-bags of rubbish.
Taken four wheelbarrow loads of dead stuff to the compost heaps.
Removed the twelve cats that had taken up residence.
Taken a shatter (that’s the collective noun) of broken glass to the tip.
Washed inches of green unknowable stuff off the glass.
Removed the several homeless persons that had taken up residence.
Cleaned a thousand empty pots, ex-margarine cartons and devices for seed germination.
Removed the seventeen dead bodies of creatures that the twelve cats had dragged in.
Arranged a thousand empty pots in order of size, colour and literary preference.
Had a little swim in the water butt to discover why it wasn’t butting.
Did a nifty repair job to enable butting.
Applied a sledge hammer to the surrounding steps.
Cemented the surrounding paving.
Done a cheeky laminate flooring job to revive the sagging shelving
And
Written a list on my blog to annoy my brother.

But moreover I had come up with the answer – The point of multiple points of view is to come to a better understanding of the characters. And I did. I finally understood that I’d been looking at my life from the wrong point of view all along. My quest for Mr Right is over. I am Mr Right. I’m going to make someone a wonderful husband.

Sunday 8 June 2008

Why Ceilings aren’t Clouds and Bathrooms aren’t Heaven

Today it rained in the kitchen. Not the usual course of events.

This is what happened:

I came downstairs expecting to make a fulfilling cup of coffee. It was raining in the kitchen. From the ceiling. I wondered if the ceiling might have become a cloud overnight. Indeed it had a bulbous appearance and the drops were definitely emanating from it. In a minor rainy-day sort of way. Splashing merrily onto the floor. Dripily-dropily.

At first having a cloud for a ceiling didn’t seem like a very sound idea. Most builders, architects and DIY impresarios like myself tend to eschew the whole cloud-ceiling idea as impractical, technically tricky and a little overcast. Yet, I thought, as I watched the gentle rain falling gently on the floor, dripily-dropily, maybe it’s not so bad. It might certainly further my ambitions to live with my head in the clouds especially since my house is a small cottage designed for dwarf-like Welsh minors, no, miners, and therefore the ceiling is extremely adjacent to the floor. And, after all, a cloud for a ceiling implies that upstairs, in the bathroom, there is probably a cloud for a floor. I might walk on Cloud Nine (except my house is number eight but that’s a trivial incongruity), or roll cherub-like amongst the fluffy whiteness, or discover that in fact my bathroom is heaven.

And so I went upstairs putting on my best cherubic expression, trying to look plump-of-limb and prepared for heaven. I was disappointed. The floor was much as it had been aside from a tad damper. The carpet resembled a beige quagmire and made delightful squishy-squashy noises when trod upon. There was also a similar dripily-dropily thing going on. This time not from the ceiling but from the cistern.

The gods of toilets love me not.

After removing the 22 pieces of tongue and groove panelling attached by 66 screws I wrapped the cistern in a towel. The dripily-dropily stopped. The cistern felt cosy.

I went back downstairs to inspect the kitchen ceiling. It bulged some more. The dripily-dropily had become more of a dripliy-plopily. Knowing a thing or two about how bad-tempered plasterboard can be when asked to hold up a lot of water I poked it with a screwdriver. It pissed on me.

The gods of ceilings love me not.

Now I am likely to fall through the cloud as I’ve had to lift all the floorboards to dry it out. I am also in need of some sort of gangplank to access the toilet. And more towels as the cistern has wet the ones already provided. In fact a new bathroom/kitchen/house might come in handy.

But strangely I miss the gentle dripily-dropily squishy-squashy not-heaven.

Saturday 7 June 2008

How Not to Write a Script for the BBC

I have been trying to write a script for the BBC. Not that they actually asked me to. They generally asked the world to. So, seeing as I am in and of the world I thought ‘I can do that.’

I appear to be somewhat wrong. It’s going to be 36 pages long. I’ve written 30 pages. Page 31 is tricky. I thought of jumping straight to page 36 but a leap of six pages seems dangerous to body and possibly sanity.

It’s called writer’s block I think. I’m attempting to cure it by some serious research. This is what I’m doing:

Checking my emails to see if anyone has emailed me pages 31-36.

Reading my google iPage to see if Wikihow offers pages 31-36 or my horoscope predicts that I will soon write the aforementioned pages.

Looking at the Radio Times page to see if there’s anything good on the TV that I could be watching that might tell me about pages 31-36.

Checking my emails to see if anyone has emailed me pages 31-36.

Seeing the random ways people have found my blog. This turns out quite interesting. Most people, as usual, want to know how to tell if a man fancies them. Others have wondered about shoes, g-spots (I wonder about those too), sausages (I’m sure I never mentioned them), tents, grey, and how to stop someone fancying you. I actually know the answer to that – fancy them.

Checking my emails to see if anyone has emailed me pages 31-36.

Looking on Facebook to see if anyone knows what’s on pages 31-36.

Writing a blog post about why I haven’t written pages 31-36.

Googling ‘pages 31-36’. I’ve found:
Dancewear,
Preventative Cardiology (I assume that’s like not fancying anyone ever),
Stimulus-driven Attentional Capture (I guess that’s trying to make someone fancy you by prodding them with electricity),
Cornelius C. Platter’s diary (anyone with a name like that should have their diaries eaten alive),
Resonant Tunneling and Coulomb Oscillations (probably what to do once someone does actually fancy you)
and
The Final Report on the Durability of Precast Segmental Bridges (more than likely a straightforward guide to keeping a man fancying you).

But essentially what I’ve discovered is that everyone else has managed to get way past page 31. It’s just me.

I’m thinking now that if instead of having writer’s block I had some other condition like writer’s bloke then I wouldn’t be spending Saturday evening not writing pages 31-36 but could be having an interesting conversation, sex, or bickering.

So please, would someone email me either pages 31-36 or a writer’s bloke.

Oh, the script is called ‘The Tomatoes of Forgetfulness’. This probably explains the problem.

Friday 6 June 2008

How I didn’t Meet my Guardian Soulmate

I have retired from internet dating. For the time being anyway. Not because I’ve met my one true love (or perchance I have) (more of that later) but because they wanted money. The dating site, not the men. Although sometimes I might have been tempted to pay the men. Services rendered and all that. If only any of them had. But I wouldn’t have been able to anyway. I have a lot of wonderful things, cats, daughters, (sorry the other way round), a rural idyll, dandelions and a small widget to make coffee akin to amphetamines. Money, being the root of all evil, not buying you love, and being hard to come across, I don’t have.

I could have just left my profile up but I worried that some poor fellow would see it, fall deeply and irrevocably in love with me and then find that, due to lack of funds, I could never speak to him, and that he would become deeply embittered, kill himself by throwing himself off a motorway bridge, cause a massive pile-up that included various world leaders on their way to a peace summit and so miss their chance to save the world from war, destruction, pestilence and coffee akin to amphetamines, and so we would all die of war, destruction, pestilence and coffee akin to amphetamines. Thus rendering internet dating obsolete.

Internet dating turned out to be a lot like shopping. I go into town and in the very first shop I find some shoes that are really nice. But then it’s the first shop, maybe there are better, redder, sexier more shoey shoes in the other shops. I spend a tiring day/week/year/lifetime trawling, inspecting, smelling, trying on other shoes only to decide that the very first pair of shoes was actually very nice.

And so I seem to be dating the first pair of shoes. The shoes may or may not think this is the case, as shoes are unfathomable creatures. This pair particularly so. It may be that the shoes have in fact wandered off. For how can any of us tell if shoes fancy us? I certainly can’t.

I feel for the sake of utter corniness I should make some joke here re shoes and soles and souls and soulmates. But I’ll save you from that.

PS – Shoes - if you read this the whole shoe metaphor thing was purely accidental. I do not now, nor never have, think of you as a pair of shoes. Although if you’d like me to…

Monday 2 June 2008

My Birthday Email or Zipadeedodah

It’s my birthday. I got an email.
It said
‘Here's wishing you a very happy birthday! Let's hope that this is the
year when you find that someone special at Guardian Soulmates. Warmest regards,
The Guardian Soulmates Support Team’

This, I believe was a cruel and heartless thing to do. After all, it stands to reason that if one is a member (albeit lapsed) of Guardian Soulmates (other dating sites are available) then there is a stongish likelihood that one is spending one’s birthday alone. Without one’s soulmate. So rubbing it in and being the only birthday email one might receive is just a tad insensitive.

I am, however, not downhearted, grey, drab, gray (that’s for my US audience) or slightly cheerless. For I have discovered many truths of being single, things that only single people can do just because they are single.

Here are some of them:

Burst into loud and tuneless song any time of the day or night.
Dance naked in the kitchen without giving the impression one wants sex.
Talk to friendly inanimate objects.
Kiss friendly inanimate objects.
Shout at not friendly inanimate objects.
Dance clothed in the kitchen without giving the impression one wants sex.
Give the impression one wants sex without the danger of offending.
See the world through rose-tinted glasses.
Fantasise about Prince charming.
Wear glass slippers.
Use words like ‘itsy, didums and zipadeedodah’.
Be happy without anyone thinking one is crazy.
Be crazy without anyone thinking one is crazy.
Be without anyone wondering why.
Wonder about being without anyone wondering where their clean pants are.
Not wash pants.
Not wear knickers.
Sleep in trees.

So, to The Guardian Soulmates Support Team I’d like to say ‘fuck off’. Because, and this is a fact, only single people live can live their lives as stars in musicals, when they marry they have to leave immediately. Or the musical ends.

Zipadeedodah!


P.S. now I’m going to see Sex in the City with the Lawyer because only single girls can really enjoy a film like that.

P.P.S. of course it wasn’t the only email, text, card, present etc – thank you all my friends, family, Beloveds, ex-Beloveds, cats and Beloveds-to-Be. Except the Beloveds, ex-Beloveds, cats and Beloveds-to-Be who completely forgot.