gone! 28 May 2009
Somewhere between the last 2 blogs was a blog that I posted and is now DISAPPEARED…could it have been STOLEN, I wonder? Or is it simply that I have gone mad…though I know I did it and put it up – I always look at the site to check. The extremely maddening thing is that I cannot remember what it was about and therefore cannot do another version. Bet it was The Best Ever and, sadly, now lost for all eternity. Though if anyone did happen to see it could they let me know…or am simply I asking the thief to return it here…
actually 28 May 2009
actually the Missing Blog would have been between ANTS and NO NEED TO EXPLAIN, which now makes sense as the Missing Blog would have explained the NO NEED TO EXPLAIN one…if you see what I mean…spooky…
shame? 27 May 2009
It’s been quite a day. I have spent the last few weeks working on the great series JAM AND JERUSALEM for BBC1 but habouring the fact that I am about to join the cast of SHAMELESS for series 7 which is BIG news, as far as I’m concerned anyway. SHAMELESS is an iconic CHannel 4 show, as FR TED was in its day, and I can’t believe I’m having a pop at both of them in one lifetime! I am a huge fan of SHAMELESS which makes my work all the harder as I have massive expectations of what I should/can deliver as a cast member. What I can report from the little contact I have had with the team? – a VERY happy show with great people involved and that’s surely where its great heart comes from?…that’s where Jam and Jerusalem scores too – I am a VERY lucky gal!
Thought Barcelona were the better team tonight and deserved to win (in case anyone wanted to know my opinion…) Also, Sir Alex Ferguson is the IMAGE of my late Dad so I do like him to win, from time to time, but it wasn’t to be his night tonight….I like to think it’s good for British football to go up against such opposition (when they choose to engage as Barcelona did tonight – sometimes they don’t bother, and who the feck knows why then) as it puts a fine and deadly perspective on the Domestic game…it was also a fab contest to watch from whatever your perspective…
pub 26 May 2009
I got to pretend to work in a bar for one of my jobs today (won’t tell you which as you might think you know plot stuff PLUS I haven’t actually come clean about something I’m doing and can’t till the publicity department let me, so…bet I have yeer attention now!) ANYhow it’s a bit of a dream come true because from an early age pubs have played a part in my life. My late, great Dad, Padraig, used to bring us with him on a Saturday when he’d have a few pints – daytime I stress, and though that probably looks a bit illegal now in those long ago days there were no rules about kids in pubs. Besides, on a Saturday we were either so young we were content to make our own fun (it only took one bottle of fizzy orange and a packet of cheese n onion crisps to fuel us) or later he’d give me money to go buy a book in the main Galway bookshop – O’Gorman’s as it was then – and that meant me getting stuck into enid blyton or a nancy drew mystery = total bliss for the young P Mac. The lads, Ian and Philip, usually opted for comics – Victor, Warlord, etc – and of course I’d read those later too.
From then on, I have enjoyed pubs but (crucially) have never worked in one in ‘real life’. Today’s didn’t smell of drink (or smoke, as in olden times) nor of farts and general human extras – it’s a set, though a fabulously detailed one. I also avoided clearing up puke and having to muck out the loos. In the meantime I said some great lines to other characters and pulled pints and tackled optics.I LIKED being the bar gal. I probably won’t have to do it in the Actual World…unless the recession gets really bad – and if it does I’ll have some top references should that eventuality come to pass. RESULT!
didn't need to explain cos other blog never came up 25 May 2009
see above title…
ants 24 May 2009
The rat seems to be gone so hurrah for that (hope I haven’t been too previous in beginning my celebrations in this regard). I have noticed new visitors, however – there are some ants scurrying around the area where we put the G’s food out – she won’t like that and no mistake. I’m sorry to report that I did stand on a few of the critters yesterday and, I thought as a result, didn’t see any sign of them today. I thought I had done a good thing, scared ‘em off, BUT I read in a Sunday paper today that this makes them go nuts altogether as they won’t have anyone killing their members off and they flock to the site of the carnage! You can try all the solutions you like (according to this paper) but poison is bad if you have other animals about (the beloved G, in my case) so that’s not on and I don’t want to go the sonic disturbance route in case it can be heard by the G cat too (actually, if anyone knows anything about cats and those systems I’d be grateful for info). However, all’s not lost in the getting rid of the ants naturally because apparently they hate cinnamon so I’m going to instruct Himself to put a stick close to where they’re congregating and we’ll see how that goes. I just LOVE when a natural remedy works and I hope this does – I will publish my scientific findings re same presently.
hotels 23 May 2009
Saw an ad on tv tonight for a hotel (couldn’t tell you which or what now so perhaps the ad didn’t work? – then again, I was transported so I may not be a reliable audient/ad acceptee). The hotel in the advert tonight was fab and I was reminded of a lot of places I have stayed, usually on tour, that were not (and still, my dears ARE NOT) great. I recall whole floors being themed in colour and nylon ie one orange and brown (bri nylon sheets and covers) acrylic carpet and wallpaper (never simply paint – we are talking the 80s) other whole floors in purle and pink (you get the idea) and on to black baths – sounds racy till you hear that no one in the visited town would put their body into the water if they saw the colour of it against a white enamel…
ah, memories….
air 22 May 2009
Heard a terrible thing today that gave me pause, and then some. For those of you living elsewhere the Eurovision Song Contest is a tres camp competition once a year this side of the pond. In recent times the Eastern Bloc countries have banded together and voted in tres camp and extraordinary (usually FAB, in their way) songs/winners. This year, though, with a tweak of the voting process Norway triumphed, so a certain calm is restored for those of us who live in the more Western countries. The singer and composer of the number is a cute Belarussian (so you know – eh, have I ever mentioned I have visited Minsk in Belarus – oh, I have, silly me) and the song is called Fairytale. NOW! he plays violin at the start and throughout and here is the awful vista opened up by a jock on Irish radio today – there is a lot of him simply sawing away on the fiddle and it’s jaunty and dancey and so on so why not, instead of air guitar, should we not now see AIR VIOLIN!!!??? I genuinely eeekd out loud and then shivered and truly quaked as a reaction…imagine watching that on the dance floor…
wordart 21 May 2009
One of my favourite poets died recently – the wonderful U A Fanthorpe. I read a lovely obituary in one of the papers and learned a lot more about her than I had previously known – basically, for me until then, it was simply all about the poems I had read. I know I have mentioned before that poetry often helps me when I am writing – it can crystallise an idea though of course the plip side is that it sometimes encourages me to get a bit ‘arty’ and dense (because I am not a poet and sometimes its influence is thwarted by my mind thinking I too can write something poetic). I’m not saying that some of the writing in my novels is not poetic, but it’s my version of a ‘prose poetry’, I guess, and not to be scanned or considered with or like the ‘real’ thing. I don’t like pretentious poetry and Ursula Fanthorpe was not pretentious. She also wrote about important things and those on the margins. It all came back to me last night because I was with a London niece when she declared that she didn’t like poetry, which is sad as she is a great reader of books and loves the written word – I think I should buy her a few collections I think she’ll enjoy. And it’s only a matter of time before she discovers Sylvia Plath and gets all moody so there’s hope yet!
mum 20 May 2009
We have every reason to believe my Mum may have been a left-hander to begin with as she is very dextrous with both hands though now favours her right. When she was going to school in Sligo, many decades ago, the nuns who taught her at Primary level reckoned the left paw was the Devil’s Hand and she was rapidly discouraged from using it. Mind you, I have to admit she has really lovely handwriting so it didn’t do her any harm to switch allegiances in the mitt department. That’s something that really isn’t ‘taught’ anymore, is it, handwriting? We are all encouraged to do our own thing. Himself has the handwriting of a doctor ie nearly illegible. No idea what the G cat’s writing is like as she never leaves a note for me – her protests and requests are delivered in other media (usually a ‘message’ left in a prominent place or a well placed yowl – most effective).