baboon 28 October 2009
I am fairly horrified by AA Gill killing a baboon and just for the heck of it too – he says he wanted to feel what it would be like to kill another person, without actually doing that. Turns out, baboons are quiet peace-loving animals (and first cousins of ours surely) who live in a very civilised society and use encouragement to get their way rather than violence. And now there’s one less of these lovely creatures because a dick with a rifle wanted cheap thrills. He didn’t eat the creature afterwards which MIGHT have made sense of the killing. Mr Gill is a total knob, actually, now that I come to it.
grim 26 October 2009
Bleddy HELL, what a day! I got out of the cot with a big, pointy, attitude-y, cross head on me and it went downhill from there. No idea why the crossness but I had it with me from 7.15am when I decided to tackle the day and make it count, at least writingwise. After that vaguely positive thought all else conspired to make me more grumpy and mess the rest of the week around. Work changed the schedule twice, which isn’t a new or even annoying thing and almost not to be taken seriously anymore as it’s just the way it IS but because I was being all efficient (and yes still CROSS) I changed my return flight also and had to pay twice for that even though in the end of all I had to change back to the original timings – that’ll larn me to be all on top of things. But I guess the real pisser is that I appear to have put on 4 lbs over the weekend – all because of 2 nights enjoying a few glasses of wine and ONE decent, cooked meal – so unfair. I was lower than a very low thing after I threw meself above on the weighing scale and saw the awful news and am now boycotting it (well, it might be weighing ‘heavy’ at the moment…vindictive piece of shite that it so clearly is) so all self esteem and being pleased with my bit of weight loss and new exercise regime was out the window and is still rambling round the garden even as I write.
Good things? The robins have returned and a huge black and white cat that strolls by every so often stopped and had a leisurely drink of water this evening and wasn’t too frightened by the (fat) sight of me staring at him. He’s a big handsome lump AND drank from a teacup and saucer planter that the G cat favoured greatly in the latter part of her life and which I’ll probably now never plant up as the felines like it so much.
eggs 25 October 2009
My Brother, Ian, can’t be doing with the Egg much at all at all, which is something I only learned about him today. He can handle scrambled eggs but when they are fried or poached and, particularly, runny (the Snotty Egg, as I have heard those called, to great effect) he almost faints. I don’t know if it amounts to a morbid fear but it’s serious. He refused a breakfast roll yesterday, that great staple of the Irish diet (basically a heart attack in a bread roll) and he’d been looking forward to it as a hangover cure as well as ballast before his game of golf because proudly atop it was a soft fried egg and when he went to move it to the side of his plate the yolk went everywhere. He had to be helped out of the cafe with the weakness that overtook him. Reminds me of Myles na gCopaleen (or was it alter ego Flann O’Brien???) talking about The Brother, also, and pointing out that his was agin the Egg too because The Egg never dies but gets down into the bag and hangs around, perhaps in perpetuity…
chest 24 October 2009
The alarming news about my exercise regime is that my chestage is disappearing. This is not ideal. Apparently the jogging is taking its awful toll. I’ve always whinged that I wouldn’t mind slightly less in the cleavage department but I now realise that was foolish talk – a good rack can be a great distraction from other issue areas of the bod. So the jogging is getting a knock on the head as ‘twere – back to very fast walking instead (same speed anyhow, the way I go at it). Also, since the glue holding the face to my skull has vanished over the decades it’s no good bouncing up and down and agitating that either and perhaps encouraging even more saggage…it’s a science this keeping fit, losing a bit of weight (keeping it off!) and trying to preserve the few bits you might like about yourself…exhausting and fraught with pitfalls…
pauline 22 October 2009
I was walking along the road only the other day and a car full of lovely young women pulled up looking for directions. BUT as they stopped and asked the passenger in charge of asking said ‘Pauline Quirke! We thought you’d know this…’ A slip of the tongue, merely, and they were actually looking for directions to where I grew up so I knew then and now that it was a simple error…but there are times when you wonder if you are interchangeable with a lot more people than you’d like..and especially in my business (the Acting end, anyhow) you can just imagine some day a casting director simply saying the ‘wrong’ Pauline’s name and then you gotta wonder if you just MIGHT have been on a different career trajectory – stranger things have happened by all accounts…
garlic 21 October 2009
I had a night out with a great mate last night and for the first time in an age ate a meal involving garlic (there was a lot of white wine consumed too so fling that into the mix while we’re about it) and I am RANK today. I love it but am one of those people it hangs around with…for days…and I’ve studiously avoided it since I began work on SHAMELESS because I cannot press the affliction of a garlicky McLynn onto that lovely bunch. Well, I am back at work tomorrow and I fear I’ll still be honking then…so fair warning to all from this moment.
I’ve nipped back to Dublin briefly to sort a few things out and I found myself sitting at the kitchen table writing yesterday and for the first time I felt used to the house without the G cat. I actually thought I heard a little catty yowl/complaint like she wold have made before hopping up on the table and walking across the laptop. I very much miss her writerly contributions as she dug me out of a hole more than once. Anyhow, it was nice to sit and remember how great she was. Her portrait is by the big window onto the garden and she looks quite formidable in it, which is spot on, so I sneak lots of looks at that and let a glow in each time. I am a lucky creature to have had her with me for so long. I hope this book can get finished without her though….she was around for all the others so it’s a worry that she can’t see this one off too…
NOOOOOO 19 October 2009
It has happened, an ugly incident I had not anticipated for weeks yet and, I don’t mind telling you all, I am shaken – I have seen my first Christmas TV advert complete with a snoozing man in a festive paper crown and a Christmas song soundtrack. ARGH! It was for sofas (erm, yeah, RANDOM really) and it has almost put me off sitting down again for life…
In other news, Ireland finally has it’s first Gay Gaelic football player – well, that is to say that at last a man has come out and admitted to being gay. Fair play to him. He’s an ex-goalie and a fine fellow as far as I can make out. The sporting world, in particular all manner of football, is still an area where men don’t often admit to their sexuality if it’s anything but Straight and I wonder if that’s a ‘macho’ thing? Also, I can think of a few Gay rugby teams but no Gay soccer teams – again, anyone got any idea why?
hopeless 18 October 2009
I tried reading Jane Austen about 25/30 years ago and just didn’t ‘get’ her and I am ashamed to say I have not made any decent attempt since – even though I have the most wonderful entire matching hardback collection on my bookshelves. However, over the years I have adored the tv and film adaptations of the work and am obviously untroubled and unfettered (see above) by how accurate or faithful they are to the original written word. She is fiendishly clever at getting people out of impossibles situations, it seems, and can wring a heart like no other when it comes to romance. I am awash after tonight’s EMMA and will DIE if Jonny Lee Milller doesn’t end up with Romola Garai (which, of course, he will…he MUST) and as you can see I am now even mixing fiction with real life names. I adore anything that handles falling in love so well and can even accept that it all ends happily ever after (in apote of getting all cynical in actual life sometimes) cos, well, sometimes it does…doesn’t it??? I love to write a bit of romance myself and it can be a cathartic moment when you bring two wonderful characters together – I will confess that I am more than a little in love with a few of the men I have invented…and I would lie under a moving tank to protect my right to make them up and then have affairs with them…swoon…well, time for a cold shower and bed now – up at 6am and there ain’t nothin’ romantic about that…
charm 17 October 2009
wehay!
The match today was a corker and WE WON! We beat the League Leaders Chelsea and in a really good game of football. So I am hereby putting out the notion that I am Aston Villa’s lucky charm and should be MADE attend every home game forevermore. We had a wonderful time and all praise to the staff at Villa Park who are so good at making everyone feel welcome and the day special. I was lucky enough to have a chat with the wonderful Mrs O’Neill, wife of the wonderful manager, and her equally fantastic daughter Aisling (I’ve most likely misspelt that name). I did a pitchside interview for Aston Villa TV and could not help myself – I stepped onto the hallowed turf and RIGHT BACK OFF AGAIN cos I shouldn’t have – all congratulations to the groundsman who has just won Groundsman’s Groundsman of the Year (try saying that in a hurry – it’s nearly impossible).
Only drawback of the day was that I had managed to get into a deep sleep and had to interrupt that to go to Birmingham.
And there were some classic sporting moments in the car as Himself and Me argued like, erm, a married couple about directions and getting lost (oh yes many times) and issued blame hither and yon – top day out!
dizazzo 16 October 2009
The sleep issue is now an official Disaster Area. Basically, last night I slept 3 hours = 11.30 – 2.30 at which time I woke, tired and very willing to have more shuteye…gave into the fact that I was AWAKE at 3.11 and got up…moved around…tried various ways of getting back to the land of nod and nothing worked…at all…went to work at 6.30 and have been awake since (and though somewhat braindead from time to time managed very well, I must say – well, Margaret Thatcher thrived on that sort of slumber time, didn’t she – though there the comparison ends, I hope)…NOT good, however, in the McLynn Scheme of Things aprticularly bearing in mind how much I love my sleep. I don’t know why it’s happening because, aside from the fact that I wish I could write the book faster, I am not that ‘troubled’ by anything. And even if it was book related that would be something but, put it this way, I didn’t have any great ideas for it keeping me awake…Is there some lunar thing occurring that I don’t know about and which might be having a (malign) influence on my sleep patterns? (I am loath to even refer to them like that cos the only pattern is that they are messed up). Incidentally I did take one of the weak sleeping tabs last night and it was clearly eff all use…
VERY big day ahead as I am off to Birmingham to see Aston Villa play Chelsea and am overexcited to be going to such an iconic fixture. COME ON THE VILLA!