kidding 18 June 2011
Since I became a teenager (AGAIN) I have been sleeping a lot and then wasting most of the rest of the day avoiding any constructive work. Reason? I am back to writing the teen novel. Part of the tragedy of me taking on the being of a teen so fully is that said buke has to be finished by the end of the month and days spent in a langour of thought and angst just don’t get the words out and onto the page. Add to that the odd day of fine weather when it would be an insult to the universe not to sit out and sunbathe rather than be lashed to a laptop indoors and you have disaster happening before your very eyes. This will end in tears, which might be no bad thing as I have an eye infection that needs dealing with and surely my saline weeping would help that? SEE? there can be positives everywhere particularly when you spend lots of time looking for them, rather than working…I was born to be teenage, clearly…
velcro 13 June 2011
VELCRO – okay, hook and loop haberdashery technology came to us (strictly speaking) in 1958 from the Swiss but was commercialised, etc, later by others. Velcro always reminds me of those wild flower stalks that caught you by their hooked claws as you ran wild through fields and I have no doubt that’s where the inspiration came from…though, having said that, I didn’t check said detail so I am leaving it as a McLynn “No Doubt”…Bit pully, all the same, plants and Velcro…
In other news, Alice and Brenda far prefer when the ‘big’ door is left open for them into the back garden, as opposed to them having to bend (EVER so slightly) to get through their cat flap (a contraption I will never be able to use, but hey ho they seem not to care about sharing there) and so they were delighted to have it open all afternoon as the Hairies and Notquitesohairy went to and fro – equanimity, happiness, harmony…a good Monday, then
mystified 12 June 2011
I had a reader email me about my blogs on buttons and the like. She said when she read them first she found them charming but on a second go-about thought ‘what’s that all about?’ and why not. Basically, I don’t mean it to be in any way profound (I’m not sure I have that in me, or, if I did once perhaps it’s used up now). I am not deliberately setting out to mystify, no, I am just fascinated by the little things we take for granted that most hold us and the whole show together, those simple and brilliant inventions like the zip, and where would we be without them, eh? I haven’t even mentioned velcro yet in my musings on the same, and there’ll probably be a lot of hue and cry over that as velcro somewhat divides people opinion-wise. Though I think it might be time now to go and look up the safety pin, as it’s a huge help to every day chez moi. I’ll report on my findings anon.
fond 10 June 2011
i’m fond of saying that someone (or something) is as handy as a pocket and i hold with that. on the end of my musings on thr zip yesterday, though, i wonder how the Button felt when a new (and crazily crafty and useful) item came along. and let’s face it, where would we be today without a good zip? – though. i imagine, there’s the rub entirely – i have seen good and bad zips in my time and my mum, who was a fine seamstress in her day, was ‘agin’ a nylon zip which is mysterious enough in its way to intrigue, surely.
The Pocket, though, is surely above reproach….
We’re still without a Button Debate – it will come..
zips 9 June 2011
I am back to a life temporarily without acting, and therefore full of shirking writing, BUT which includes a determination to blog more regularly – I have been most tardy, uneven and plain BAD in that department recently. NO MORE! Today’s adventures (while avoiding writing) included many trips on public transport involving double decker buses and the memory of when I was a student and being left to my door by the last night bus of the service, though it was a detour and after the last stop because the lads onboard didn’t want me walking home alone – I wonder what the chances are of that happening now, some 27 years later?
Also I noticed the proud sign over a shop doorway declaring the emporium a major distributor of zips. It’s only a shame it didn’t say for how long – I rather hope it’s since the zip was invented, which was in 1851 (since you were wondering) though that’s most unlikely as it was 80 more years after that before it became popular – so perhaps the early 20th century, then, and it’s on a street where buildings might date to that time and beyond so it is a possibility. I may have to go in and ask, on our behalf to sate our hungry curiosity. We may also have to discuss its impression on the button trade tomorrow – wars and bad feeling in the world of haberdashery can be potent subjects.
I’m BACK!
redemption 2 June 2011
there is an ale for purchase in the fine establishment that is Crucible Corner opposite the theatre called DECEPTION and that strikes me as a good name for an alcoholic beverage. a few nights ago a man in our company got the name wrong and asked for a pint of REDEMPTION and we all laughed and said ‘if only that could be’. so imagine my surprise and delight to see, for sale, another ale in the Crucible itself called ABSOLUTION…
busy 30 May 2011
I have just had an unprecedented 2 days off and have nothing to show for myself but hours of sleep, the reading of a great jo nesbo thriller and the worry that I will have forgotten my HAPPY DAYS lines by the time I have to say them aloud for a paying public tomorrow evening at the Crucible here in Sheffield…altogether this seemingly benign UK bank holiday has delivered terror for the P Mc. In other news, performing the show is as terrifying as expected, but a huge joy that audiences are reacting so positively to it. I will miss it enormously when we finish this run but, who knows, perhaps it will resurface elsewhere, that would be tremendous.
I will leave Sheffield after a wonderful 6 weeks but also bogged down by the amount of STUFF i have accrued – mostly books, trousers and dresses, most of which I probably don’t ‘need’, whatever that has to do with anything. I’m finding the ease with which one can buy online scary – delivered promptly to the door, and usually top notch items. ARGH. And it does mean I leave with more luggage than I arrived with. Baggage, my dears…
happy 23 May 2011
did i accidentally sleep through the end of the world the other night? i ask only because it’s an easy way it could happen to me these weeks. you see, the set for HAPPY DAYS at the Crucible is quite an apocalyptic infinity and it’s where i am spending most of my time at present. it’s got 7 and a half tons of railway ballast rubble on it and a sweeping cyclorama of wilderness beyond – very beautiful and affecting, actually. so, the Rapture was meant to happen and, accordingly, i went home and fell asleep to a soundtrack of shrieking and thunderous thumping (in hindsight, though, it was weekend Sheffield so that may have just been normal) and when i woke up everything SEEMED to be ‘normal’ but when you’re doing a Beckett play ‘normal’ takes on an edge – as my character Winnie says ‘ Strange? No, here all is strange.’ anyhow, do let me know if there’s any news on that world ending front. yi suppose ou could say i am living the dream right now, but what dream? that’s what i’m trying to establish…
carbs 19 May 2011
In preparation for our first dress rehearsal of HAPPY DAYS at the Crucible in Sheffield I saw fit to buy and eat crisps last night, and was filled with self loathing. Mr Peter Gowen, who plays Willie in the show, now reckons I am at least 30% crisp and I’d say he knows his onions on such a matter. This percentage figure is not something I am happy about. Nor am I happy with my actual figure either as this happy Sheffield place has added pounds to me and that is not a GREAT thing. SIGH. Tomorrow we begin to face the public and I am terrified, so the carb craving continues…it seems the way to calm the nerves…
olive 16 May 2011
The Stockwellians are blessed to have added Olive to their menagerie (in which ‘collection’ I include all manner of teenage life incorporated, as it is, by 3 of that kind, The Teenager). Olive is a rescue pup from the wonderful Battersea Cats and Dogs Home and she is a German Shepherd Cross…possibly a cross with a Dobercreature or PERHAPS a smaller dogtype though she seems to have plenty of growth left in those slim long legs and big paws. Anyhow, she LOVES to play and likes a good stretch of the aforementioned long legs. Today her walk was a tad delayed for her liking but her protest was significantly different from one of the resident cats (a large back shorthaired shrub called Boudicca) who, when irked, likes to select a garment and wee on it – instead Olive got busy about the house and gathered a waistcoat, a red shoe, socks, undies, a glove and the bathroom mat into her sleeping cage – an altogether different statement to that of a feline..one might almost call it benign (or, if one was a cat, say that it was lacking in a certain heft)