This Is The Way The World Ends ...

I was buying cat litter when the world ended.

I was still buying cat litter after the end of the world had come and gone.

I'm not sure whether that says that nothing changes; that life just comes down to shit in the end; or something else entirely.  Possibly all three.

It's the end of the world as we know it ...

Tomorrow.  Just after 11am.  So make sure you have a decent breakfast and get your tea break in early!

That is all.  Thank you.

The Tattooed Poet Project

In the days of flat sharing with Pansy Smilso, I used to have this poster up on the kitchen wall:

I loved it then and still do: it has more resonance now I'm older and have learned that the measure of value is far, far wider than simply monetary.

Despite some people seeing me as being 'square' or totally uncool, in my youth, I flirted a bit with the avante garde, certainly in terms of my appearance.  I wore hats before they were cool; moved on to gloves (still have a bit of a love affair with them); and teamed my work issue uniform skirt and jacket with non-regulation shirts and some of the most way-out shoes it was practical to wear in a catering environment.  It was my little bit of rebellion; a way of asserting some independence by refusing to be confined in a convenient box; a way of refusing to be labelled.  Although, of course, I was self-labelling, but anyway ...

As part of that I kind of wanted a tattoo - used to tease my then boss, who was so uptight and conservative, that I was going to get one just to see her reaction because I knew, if she'd believe it of any of her team, she'd believe it of me.  That was back in the day when tatts just weren't fashionable: you'd have to find some back-street or sea-front dive to get them done in; designs were of the traditional 'hearts, skulls and roses' variety; and only women who were real scrubbers really had a tattoo (although plenty had ankle chains - including the boss!).  Then they got fashionable and I went right off the idea: I didn't want to be one of the tattooed masses!  Now, however, I've changed my mind again.  Whether that's a mid-life crisis, or the realisation that some (although by no means all) can be really beautiful works of art.  The trouble, again, has been in deciding what design I want.  I think I've made my mind up and it's something I've designed and which has some personal significance (I really - and pardon the pun - don't see the point otherwise), but I came across this whilst searching the net for possible inspiration:

I'd love it!  But where would I put it?  I'm not having a tatt down the inside of my arm so across my shoulders seems to be the only realistic option, but I know I'm not ready to have something quite so big (and I may never be) but, oh how I wish I could work out a way to incorporate this with the design I've already chosen.

Then again, it's a mighty big statement to have to live up to ...


(By the way, there is actually a Tattooed Poets Project https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Tattooed-Poets-Project/154955387862114?ref=stream)

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas ...

I like the build-up to Christmas.  I like dressing the tree and getting everything ready.  I just have an intense dislike of the day itself.  It's my birthday, and I loathe it.  I can't go anywhere or do anything that I'd really like to; I can't spend the day with the people I would otherwise choose to as they're usually spending the day with their families.  And even if I do spend it with other people then they are inevitably celebrating their Christmas - as they've every right to do.  (I've considered having an 'un-birthday' in the middle of the summer, but it just doesn't feel right).

But the one thing I absolutely detest more than anything else; the one thing guaranteed to wind me up ... getting a Christmas card with 'Happy Birthday' written in it!!  

Bah humbug ...

I can't imagine the Germans considered invading via Llantwit Major ...

The Welsh side of the family visited this weekend for the ritual exchange of Christmas and birthday presents.  As always, my mother and uncle spent most of their time together reminiscing about "the old days".  My uncle has a particularly sharp wit, honed across several decades of being a history teacher and, usually, the brightest person in the room.  My aunt is the whetstone upon which that wit is most readily sharpened.  You'd think, after 36 years of marriage, experience would have suggested that taking archaeology classes when she knows stuff all about British history (by virtue of the fact that she's American) and is married to a man who knows far too much about it, might be to open herself up to more target practice than should strictly be legal.  No.

Today, in regaling my mother with tales from the trowel's edge, my aunt was spooling through the gazillion photos of things archaeological on her phone - most of which were either unidentified or whose purpose now evades her.  She came across one of these and pronounced: "Oh, now that was near Llantwit Major: it's a World War II Pill Box I think."  In response to which the title phrase of this post, on an inevitable wave of sarcasm, rolled across the room ...

George Osborne is a cunt

Anyone who knows me at all well will know that the "C" is not one I particularly like or use with any regularity.  My inner feminist has some mixed feelings about using it in a derogatory fashion, particularly when applying it to a man.  But I believe in equality and if I can call someone a dick ...

I am becoming increasingly angry with Mr Osborne's Victorian Workhouse Governor-style attitude towards the unemployed.  I'm only surprised that he hasn't (yet) proposed they all be given a DWP 'paupers' uniform to wear as a means of legitimately being able to reduce their spending and thus their benefits.

Surely to god a Modern History course at Oxford must have covered John Maynard Keynes?  If you look after unemployment, you twat, the deficit will take care of itself.  Create jobs and you create a  level of wealth that will support the economy and ultimately bring about deficit reduction.  An economy, I might add, that you, and Dave, have fucked up even further than Gordon Brown did with your recovery-killing austerity measures (and don't think you can get away with blaming it all on the Eurozone's debt crisis either: this is mostly down to YOU!)

I'd really like to see Osborne locked into a room with Joseph Stiglitz.

Oh, and by the way Gideon (because that's your real name), it's only libel if it's not a fair comment.  I'm willing to take the chance on there not being several million people willing to support my assertion ...

Cutting Edge News ...

Went for a haircut this afternoon (yes, I know: Hold the front page!!)

Woman there just before me who goes about once a year, apparently, to have the 'annual growth' removed.  Bit like pruning a lilac tree, I guess.  Anyway, she's known to be a touch random at the best of times.  Hairdresser chats away about preparations for Christmas etc. and this woman comes out with: "Oh, well, I'm not bothering, the world is going to end soon".  A Mayan calendar adherent then.  She went on to say that her ex-partner has an hotel out in the Med. somewhere and is throwing a huge End Of The World party starting just after midnight on December 21st.  Apparently, he's telling all his guests that all bills must be paid in full before midnight.

If anyone can spot a streak of logic running through the minds of either of these people, please let me know.  I'm also quite intrigued as to why they might have split up: they seem like a good intellectual match to me!

Car Wash

I lost my car today.  Popped into the supermarket for a bit of shopping, came out and couldn't find the car.  Anywhere.  Spent at least 15 minutes quartering Tesco's car park looking for it with a sense of rising panic and a sinking "I did lock it, didn't I??" theme running through my head.  I found it in the end.  I'd walked past it at least 3 times but failed to recognise it because the rear number plate was so dirty as to be obscured.  I know! The shame of it!  Tesco's!!!

Post Titles

My posts, I've realised, need titles.  That could be a challenge in itself.  I have a feeling some of them are going to sound like pub names, which could be a game in itself.

I have a long-standing thing for word games going waaaayyyy back to the days of flat-sharing with my very good friend, Pansy Smilso.  Back then, boys and girls, shops didn't open on a Sunday (I know!  The very thought!!), we were young, we were broke, we had no transport other than shanks' pony and buses or the tube, and Bank Holidays usually meant dreaming up ever more bizarre ways of entertaining ourselves. One of those ways was to play 'Alliterative Animal Names' (Hey, come on!  I said we were young and broke.  Did I forget to mention that we lived in our own little world as well as a succession of crummy flats?)  We had Tony the Pony, Dawn the Prawn, Deborah the Zebra, and one I'm peculiarly proud of to this day: Doris the Loris (look it up!).  So look out for word games, clever-arsed quotes and misquotes, and just general intellectual* pseudiness along the way.

*This, to differentiate from the role player definition of "pseud" and thus distance myself from E L James associations as rapidly as I can!**

** A good example of *  

There's a rock outside my front door with "Supermodel" carved into it ...

North Korean archaeologists have "recently rediscovered a unicorn's lair" close to a temple in the north of the country.  Seemingly, there's a rock in front of the lair with the words 'Unicorn's Lair' carved into it.

In other news, tomorrow I start my new career as a size 4, six foot, supermodel ...

What Are Words Worth?

This blog isn't necessarily going to be all about prancing about the countryside with a daisy behind my ear being poetical, but as I claim to be a poet I suppose I should at least start with a post about poetry and writing.

So, today, I'd like to congratulate a friend who took part in NaNoWriMo this year and made his 50,000 words yesterday: "Well done on achieving that inaugural NaNo!"  This means that he has most, if not all, of the first draft on his first novel under his belt and I am so pleased for him.  Having been privileged to read extracts along the way, I'm now desperate to read the entire book and to see it published.

It has been fascinating to observe the growth and development of this work.  It certainly isn't the book he started out to write.  That hit if not the skids, then certainly the doldrums several months back.  The book that's emerged started life really as a distraction from, I think, the frustration of trying to make 'the' novel work and failing to find the inspiration, or to (then) identify the block(s).  Seeing the current novel emerge from a promising, if brief, genesis as a piece of Flash Fiction has been really interesting.

Not always, but quite regularly, when I set out to write a poem what I end up with is not necessarily what I set out to produce.  Elements may be the same, but what appears on the page can be quite different from what was in my head.  That doesn't necessarily mean it's better or worse than the idea that was originally conceived (although it can be), just different.  Often in ways that surprise me. And I think, from sitting on the margins observing my friend write his novel, he has had a very similar experience although, obviously, as his medium and mine are different, not an identical one.  But one, certainly, that I can identify with.

It is really reassuring to 'know', albeit through vicarious experience, that at least one other person has the same kind of experience when writing that I do.  Of course I'm aware that it happens to others but somehow it hasn't quite hit home until now.  It's the old training saw: "I hear, I forget; I see, I remember; I do, I understand" in literary terms.  Or, perhaps more grandly, it's the force and value of the empirical experience over the declarative.  Either way, I've valued the insight.

The gestation of a poem is a curious thing.  I have several poems in my head and in my notebook at the moment that are waiting their turn to see the light of day.  One has been there for over 20 years, another for a year or so, another turned up just a couple of weeks ago.  I know what it is I want to say with all of them.  Or, at least, I think I know and I have a curiosity to see how they might turn out on the page.  When their times come, I wonder how far from the original concept they will have grown.

The Broken Duck

Rather that bore my friends on Facebook with my fairly regular ranty diatribes against all that is wrong with the world, I though that perhaps a blog might be the way to go.  It seemed like a good idea this morning.  Suddenly, faced with a blank page, I'm uncharacteristically lost for words.  Still, I expect I'll get over it.

Normal service will, doubtless, be resumed shortly.  Expect opinions.  And swearing.  I do both.