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A brief tribute to Victoria Wood.

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Imagine the following given in a deep Northern accent. 

Victoria Wood

 

So me, Kimberly, Sharon and that cow, Tracey, showed up outside Mrs. Wilson’s house, as arranged, only Tracey showed up late because the bus took so long comin’ from Weight Watchers. She goes in each week and they tell her she’s fat and she goes out again, she says it’s really affective. Sharon felt a bit sick because she’d had a penis colada earlier while we were waiting for the tupperwear lady to show up. Most people hate tupperwear sales night  but this was totally bono fido, totally honest like. But she didn’t show, so we all show up at Mrs Wilson’s house to do the yoga night. You know her house, she’s got the pink guttering that me mam says was a bit open minded but it takes all sorts she says. Me mam not Mrs Wilson, she’s been all tense and upset since she’s had that breast enhancements surgery in Scunthorpe a year ago. The magazines say you have to make the most of what you’ve got but me mam says Mrs Wilson made a mountain out of a molehill, if ya know I mean. Now she finds it so hard to see she can hardly drive.

Anyway we go in, and the heating is on because you’re supposed to be sweating out your chakra, and our Kimberly said out of the corner of her mouth that she could feel the biggest pool of chakra in her neither regions, but then she took the coat off and she said she felt better. Mrs Wilson was there, looking like the Double-D underwire  bra was about to burst in her new Manduka loop back cami, bought to match her capri Amara. She said that she hadn’t slept at all and Tracey started laughing saying ‘Neither would I with me pillows on me face.’ Only Mrs Wilson didn’t think she was funny. Turned out she’d lost her two albino guinea pigs under the settee earlier and couldn’t get them out. The smell of pot purri drafting around the place was more powerful than Bernard Matthew’s breath after a Saturday night.

So, anyways, we get started, all stretched out on her deep shag in the sitting room, and  Mrs Wilson was all, ‘Deep breath girls!’, but you could see she was really really hot, and before we could even get down on the ground and give our sun salutation she got really pale and fainted. Me, Kimberly, Sharon and Tracey manage to get her up the stairs, waving the pot pourri under Mrs Wilson nose as she was going up, and we managed to get her towards the Marks and Spencer cotton sateen duvet cover, until Tracey came up with the idea of loosening the Double D underwire push-up bra. Before our eyes, two albino guinea pigs crept out and made their escape out the windows. Down the pink guttering faster than you could say ‘Yellow Beret’. We had to let ourselves out, and Mrs Wilson never even refunded the fiver.

 

 

The Glenroe Hour

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Well. How are ya. Yeah, I haven’t posted in a while, mainly due to the little man no longer keeping a firm sleep schedule during the weekends. And so the blogs go by the wayside while I sort that out.

Anyways. The opus is done, all one hundred thousand words plus of it. And now that I have these ladies over the finish line, I’m convinced that I have written the WORST NOVEL OF ALL TIME WHAT WAS I thinking and so on. You know what you do with those thoughts? They’re an optical illusion, exactly like those thoughts that tell you it is golden. The truth is much more quantum than that, it both is and is not crap at the same time.

Would make a good title page, actually….

So it’s done. And I am in the strange position of not liking myself at all right now, convinced as I am of my failures and my laziness. Every flaw in my day to day life seems to agree with this message, that I’m lazy, sloppy, ignorant of the impression I make and crass about my speech and my gestures. It’s not helped by a sense of elitism I encounter in my day to day life, in work, in the pool… There are people out there who are a lot better at certain things than me. But where are they better people than me? Oh, wait, I can hear a voice in my head disagreeing with me. It says that in fact, they are better people than me. And then it points to the well thumbed list of my failures in life as evidence. And then I remember that John Banville worked that metaphor with more skill, and I give it up as a bad idea.

I want to write the start again. And edit the whole thing to kingdom come. And then hide. And then stand forth and let them shine.

 

Final Furlong

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[Bored, Received Pronunciation Commentator]

We’re under starters’ orders… and we’re off! Leading the pack is Good Idea, following up is Intriguing Plotline, and close behind is Convincing Theme. Setting a good pace for the pack is Hard Work, always necessary to see in the field and also from the same stable, Long Hours. They’re making good time now and we see the field go around the first corner.

[Bit surprised, becomes alert] But what’s this? Lagging in the Middle and Loose Thread are suddenly leading, followed up by Self Doubt and Inner Confusion, making this a race anyone can still win. It seems Good Idea has lost their rider, and that’s now confirmed by the steward, Good Idea has lost their rider.  

[Utterly excited, yelling at the top of his voice] But as we come around to the final sprint, all horses straining now with the effort, and the sheer weight of the course behind them, we find that it is neck and neck, with Not Giving Up Now and Sheer Bloodymindedness looking likely to lead. And as we come to the photo finish, we see Sheer Bloodymindedness winning the race, with a photo finish, and making us all very proud. Well done. Hopefully that will see them to the winners’ enclosure. 

“Aha ha, yes.”

It’s always darkest before the darn…

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The novel progresses. And as our heroines would tell us, if you don’t stop, you can’t quit. I do very little well in life and most of the time my path is garlanded with examples of what I should have done, or where I would be, if only I was a little different. But I do think that I need to tread carefully with this novel when it is finished. Because that is only the first draft finished. It needs rereading, the start needs to be redone completely, and several key scenes need to be arranged.

But when I see something like the book fair that has a deadline of 16th of March (I’ve gone hunting for the link, can’t find it), both angel and devil on my shoulder told me to avoid it. My little work is far too unprepared to get out there just yet. It is too sloppy, too unpolished, only I can see the worth that these ladies and this story has. No, not yet. Not yet.

It clarifies the situation, though. One of the people listed in the festival was the very person I have circled with red ink in my mind. She will be the soul I want to entrust this story to. And now she is in my mind as the end goal. Hmmmm…..

It is Dangerous to go alone.

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As a kid and young adult I would fantasise about finding some place where I see and hear nobody. I would get from one end of the year to another with no sight of anyone, and I would, I would tell myself, be free. From what, I’m not sure, but I would be free of it.

The point of that, though, is that we grow up. We realise that both the best and the worst of us is brought about by other people. When we’re alone, we’re never ourselves, we’re always a mere potential of ourselves. Instead, when we’re among others, we grow, change and stretch into the people we can be, often whether we want to or not.

“Well, fuck.”

Being alone seems like a treat, an ease of the demands of life. But instead, it means that you’re never free of yourself and the life that you lead. When you are with the others you want to be with, then you find both life and yourself easier.

Don’t go it alone. Just.. trust me on this one.

Maintaining a Holding Pattern

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So. Where I work, we have a large interview coming up. One of the candidates is internal, and all of the candidates have the potential to seriously affect all our working lives. The interviews happen not this coming week, but next week. We’ve got some major projects off our desks, and now we’re just going through the motions until we get a clearer picture of the months and weeks ahead.

 

Same thing for other projects; the plans are set, now we just need to get stuff done to reach the finish line. The time for talking is over.

 

Writing-wise, I’m in the prologue to the final chapter; the bend in the road before the final furlong, if that doesn’t stretch a metaphor to breaking point. Seventy-seven thousand words, and our heroines have yet to reach race day. God, I honestly hope they make it. I’m actually nervous for them, I’m finding that I’m hoping for them. They have been magnificently brave, in a way that you normally see thin women wearing pearls who talk like thiseaux, but here they are flobby, sweaty, ungraceful women, who have hearts bigger than their doubts and who are going to do it anyway. I love them so much.

Hope you have a great day, the lot of ye.

 

 

Any ideas?

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I wish I could come up with something wonderful for you all, but it is Sunday. Beloved son is asleep. In fifteen minutes I’m going to get up from this chair, put on a load of laundry, get things ready for the rest of the week and start linner (cross between lunch and dinner). This is the down time, here, right here. The coming week will see me at work, with a very busy day Tuesday, a very busy and long day on Wednesday, and an increasing storm as we approach Professorship interviews here in work.

This going to be a doddle.

And that is in fact the day job. The real work is the little man, making sure he is developing, looked after and okay. This weekend he’s had ear infections in both ears and had to have meds four times a day. That’s not going to stop just  because his mother has plans, as it shouldn’t. So I’m going to draw a line under this blog now, go off and enjoy the rest of this next fifteen minutes and then get stuff done. Talk to you all soon.

Go Fuck Yourself, 43.

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Oh sod off. So yes, I am facing into another spin around the solar system, meaning that the planet I was born on has successfully completed another cycle around the sun (being married to the other half means I have to get that one right or I will never hear the end of it). You know what that means, youngster? It means another cluster of grey hairs, that’s what it means. It means making sure the insurance is paid and that the heating is on and oh my god the end is nigh.

Yes, that’s what it means. It means the inevitable physical and mental collapse of the rather marvellous thing called Claire and that it is getting less and less likely that I will ever really have a ticker tape parade to celebrate how fantastic I am (oh, look it up if you don’t know what that is!).

This is long overdue, people!!

So last night, after visiting my home town and tying the child up so that he would in fact finally go to sleep, I was getting myself into a tizzy about the fact that I was getting another year old.  I was, in that surreal way that can happen when you are so tired you don’t know your name, I remembered the Chorus Singers Jon Stewart would use to convey his message to Fox News;

 

 

So I pictured the following, complete with my own chorus singers;

I am so old

You’re very old!

43 is old.

That’s really old!

And I should just give up, nothing to left to do…

Don’t give up yet!

I mean, don’t want to give up yet!

Can’t give up yet!

I’ve about forty years left to me, at this rate…

That’s a long time!

And I could still do a lot with it…

Could do a lot!

So I may as well keep trying…

Nothing to lose!

In fact, being mature might be a lucky privilege…

Ain’t done yet!

Maturity could be the best thing yet.

That’s what they say!

Compost.

…You’ve lost us there!

Compost. Makes soil better, but it takes time. Mature soil grows more.

Still don’t follow!

Maturity might be the best thing.

Let’s go with that!

So let’s not write me off just yet.

You’ve got it made!

All right, let’s bring it home!

“She’s 43! She’s 43! She’s 43!”

Any of you got anything to say, don’t want to hear it. And I probably wouldn’t, anyway, going deaf. Young people and their music….

A Horrible Blog to Write

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We all try to project a bit, don’t we? We try to imagine what life will be like when we reach 20, 30, 40, or where we will be when the New Year starts, or such. I remember believing as a child that when 1999 rolled around, I’d be living on the Moon.

When things surprise us, really surprise us, it is a shock to the system. I remember wondering to myself many years ago how things would turn out for some old ex or other, and to my amazement discovered I was absolutely right. He did end up an old louche in a bar. Ah, bless.

Let’s keep it that way.

Still, never saw this one coming. Some of you know about me and Alan Rickman. We’ve been in love for years, if only in my head. I saw him in Die Hard, loved him. Saw him in Truly Madly Deeply, loved him. Harassed him for an autograph on the set of Michael Collins. He did that speech of De Valera six times. The first time he silenced all four thousand extras with the perfection of his performance. Four thousand people, with slack jaws, because of him.

Got to see him, and meet him, at his performance of Borkman in the Abbey. He was perfection, and wonderful, and nice to everyone. I heard afterwards that some workers in the Abbey nearly resigned over the egos during that play, I hope he wasn’t one of them.

When my book was written I was stupid or brave enough to send him a copy. An astonishingly nice letter came back saying that he had it and that he was grateful for it. He didn’t know me, or owe me anything. If he was faking manners or gratitude he was very good at it.

He was interesting and rare and very very good at what he did. He was also a construct; He was not upper middle class at all. He was working class, pure and simple. His Dad was Irish Catholic. He got to a good school. He started late, and went to RADA in his late twenties. His first film role was in his forties.

I will miss wondering what he is in now. I will miss seeing his face get older as mine gets older, I will miss his voice. I will miss him like an old friend and I don’t deserve to at all. I am not his friend, was never his friend. Doesn’t matter.

Will still miss him.

The poem here starts at 3.21. Night night Alan. God bless.