Too hot to be cheerful

When you wake up to BBC breakfast telly warning you intently about the oh so deadly and underestimated dangers of artificial tanning even I have to reluctantly admit that the summer appears to be on its way. People around me completely unprompted screech “yay summer isn’t it luffffly” to which I force a smile upon my aching face and sort of agree “yes?”

I am a big fan of winter clothes. I love scarves and jumpers and boots and tights and woollen hats. Where are those now? I prefer the common cold to hay fever, blue fingers to red shoulders and mulled wine to ice cream. Furthermore why do people suddenly smell so bad? Is there any excuse for smelling really, really bad while travelling in the packed tube? I remember the signs in the busses saying “no smelly food” can we have the same for people? And what on earth are summer clothes anyway? I prefer the general public neatly wrapped up and muffled by layers and layers of fabric.

I am not really a fan of summer. We have been through this before. I despise swimming. Seriously, what is it with swimming? Why??? My going-south-towards-even –higher-amounts-of-heat has to be carefully planned around a film festival. I want the option to escape to somewhere where it is cold, dark and more interesting than the beach.

Literature gets a very bad deal out of summer. Why are beach-reads a genre in the first place and why are they what they are? Now I have nothing against some mind numbing romantic reads that make Jane Austen look like Thomas Pynchon but why would anyone ever consider reading them? This once you have time to really spend time with a book, more than your twenty minutes hanging from a public transport rail and those ten minutes fighting sleep with the book on your pillow at night. Now I am really lying my way through this argument because I am not a great reader and I walk to work. Not a great reader is a bit harsh, I am a very slow reader. So if I ever wanted to read Infinite Jest or let’s say Gravity’s Rainbow (just to stick with Austen) I would do that on my holiday.

I can still picture the last time I was at the lake side with my family. There are my sisters in bikinis bathing in the sun, there are my parents drinking coffee in the beach cafe and that in the shadow under the tree with the clothes on reading Midnight's Children that’s me. Leave me alone I did my half hour alibi swim and I promise to do another before we go home. I spoke to Chuck Palahniuk that summer so I won the coolest holiday person award in the end. (The golden blue plastic cow for coolest holiday person it was, obviously!)

Tea at the Darcy's

I am back in London. Town sans backpacks and wellies. So far my brain goes “Why?” I miss all the sheep and the little cows living next door and Mr Darcy’s estate. I stayed at a farm and every morning I was greeted by a bunch of adolescent cows staring at me. Real cows mind you, not little blue plastic ones.

The Peak District is fantastic, mainly due to the absence of the general public and its replacement with countless sheep. That works oh so well for me. And the buzzing (as if!) city life fades quickly. We had the wire thingy but the mp3 player ran out of battery and the sun was shining all week long so no need for wellies either! So what?

On the first day we went to the Chatsworth estate for cream tea with Mr Darcy. Me and my mother often lock horns on the question of who is the one and only true Darcy? She thinks it’s Colin Firth. It is obviously Mathew Macfadyen. My sisters are taking my mother’s side in this. So are my aunts. I am tempted to hide my brand new Little Dorrit boxset from them as a form of punishment. I tried using it as a tool of persuasion but all they had to say was “oh he gained weight since Pride & Prejudice hasn’t he?” Sadly I am rubbish at girly arguments so I have retreated from this dispute after my last contribution was “well but he isn’t married to Keeley Hawes is he! And she is so cool!” I really have to work on my debating skills, maybe I should take some classes in that.

How did I get here?

Yes Chatsworth. We weren’t allowed in the farm bit because it had gotten later than we thought. I was disappointed, I wanted to see the farm! Then I remembered that I am staying on one so I just went home and said hello to the cows who were joined by a grumpy pony.

Next Castleton. Now it might sound exciting to sit in a boat and be shipped through an underground tunnel but sadly it really is not. It just isn’t. Nothing to ad. But the “Remember the guide on your way out, thank you” was a very nice little send off to our next stop which was Hadfield. There we took endless amounts of pictures with the war memorial and the man in a shop asked us if we’d agree that we might be 10 years too late wandering through the streets of Royston Vasey. He was right but we were happy. Unfortunately we couldn’t find Bernice’s churches. Apart from that I was in League of Gentlemen - nerd heaven to be perfectly honest with you.

The next day we went to Crich and Matlock where trams and cable cars were closed so off to the Snake Trail it was and that was heart rendering! So beautiful!

Now I have returned and what have I brought back from my holiday? Have a guess! Yes indeed twelve new pens. One of which says “Pauline’s Pen” and another that looks like Shakespeare.

Highly Efficient Holiday Preparations

Holiday Time! How exciting! I am about to embark on a week in the Peak District and I am SO excited. Far far away from the general public. “You need two things” I told myself. Wellies and a nice little backpack. So I left the crowded house I live in and went into town one early morning only to walk through streets of closed shops. It was Sunday and shops open shockingly late. So disorganised me and a lot of perplexed tourists clutched coffees in paper cups and went window shopping. Then I came upon an utterly frightening sight! Hordes of general public members stacked up in front of Primark. As if that wasn’t enough I then realised that Primark had already opened its doors to avoid traffic chaos I presume and the crowd was slowly moving like a large insect. Primark you will be surprised to learn is the only shop I did not expand my quest for a backpack or a pair of wellies to.

I spent hours combing through the shops on Oxford Street. Hours! No wellies, no backpack. That is wrong I found one backpack which was pink and flowery and actually quite horrendous. As well as expensive. I got annoyed. Yes, again. I do get annoyed with London often. Then I realised it wasn’t London’s fault really, why not just wait until arriving in the Peak District, surely there are wellies to be bought there.

Then David called and asked me to get “one of those wire things to connect an mp3 player to the car radio.” With a new sense of purpose I marched into next hmv and bought one. Despite the underachievement in the shopping list department and a shocking overachievement in the buying-random-other-things division I was in the best of moods enjoying my outing into sunny London and the begin of my holiday. But as usual a slight panic grabbed hold of me while manoeuvring through Piccadilly Circus probably aided by the absence of breakfast.

So, as it happens, I found myself a few minutes later in the Haymarket Cineworld with a large coffee and a bag of Revels watching Bronson. Why Bronson? Well it was the only film showing at that time...and ... and that is my only excuse. I was rewarded with utter underwhelmedment (yes I know that that isn’t really a word!)Well to be fair I liked Tom Hardy a lot, he’s just fantastic! There just should have been a less self-congratulatory film around him. Or maybe just a better balanced one, there are some truly great scenes in this and many more that were unbearably not so good at all and worse.

After the film I carried all my shopping (!) to the bus stop only to find a text from David telling me he found that wire thingy for the car and that I could return the one I bought. I will forgive him, he also found my wellies.

Buying meat and finishing Hellraiser.

The other day I went shopping for some relatives of mine who are kind enough to put a roof over my blonde hair at the moment. One thing on the list was mincemeat. Now in the last ten years I have never had any reason to enter the supermarket's meat aisle and even before giving up the magical variety a couple of dead animals could apparently have enhanced my diet with, I cannot remember ever buying a piece of meat in my entire life.

Hmmmm. Such a bizarre place if you're not used to it I must say. I started my quest for the "organic" section thinking, that if I have to buy meat in the first place it is fair enough that I buy some coming from a vegetarian cow. I got confused in no time. I did not realise that mincemeat comes in different animal flavours. Pork or beef? What to do? Pork Pasta or Beef Bolognese? Evidently no help was to be drawn from alliteration logic (as usual) so how on earth should I know?

I found meat incredibly boring. What is all the fuss about? Such a boring aisle of ugly pink stuff, I rather buy a cake that looks like a Dalek frankly. Having said that, I quite enjoyed watching Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall preparing all of the animal. Literally all of it that is. It seems fair enough to me not to shy away from heart and brain if you eat the rest. Given the choice I'd rather have brain than tongue and liver. At least it might feed me the wisdom of cows and solve the mystery of the little blue plastic cow once and for all. It must be a lot easier to "stomach" life if you have several of them. Stomachs that is, not lifes. Then again cats might make the perfect Sunday roast, who knows. Probably not though, they're just not the type, more Wednesday sandwich really.

Before anyone bothers to ask, I have no idea what I am talking about either. All I can say is that the meat aisle was a great adventure. I thoroughly enjoyed myself until I tried to find meat "to put on bread sausage type of thingy." I bought something with a very melodic Italian name thinking that should I be told off for buying the wrong stuff at least I want it to sound like an opera.

Oh! Speaking about raw pieces of meat, I have finally finished Hellraiser. Oh yes I have! At night though and all alone again. Since then I haven't touched the Rubic's Cube, fearing little colourfull torture creatures might appear threatening to tear my soul apart. Nothing worse than a little blue plastic cow tearing... oh nevermind it's not like I ever gonna solve that thing.

Watching Hellraiser while thinking about David Cronenberg

I am currently trying to close some gaping Bildungslücken, embarrassing holes in my knowledge about things I really should know about.

So I sat down the other night to watch Clive Barker’s Hellraiser. It was late at night and most of the lights had stopped working due to a broken fuse, temporarily beyond repair. Furthermore I was alone in a flat that isn’t mine. So far so good.

I admit to not having a clue about the plot, or anything else for that matter, apart from the iconic picture of the man with the needles in his head. Yes I was taken by surprise by the gore. I get grossed out pretty easily and am continuously astonished by the power of unconvincing special effects. The idea is enough. I screamed at the breaking of a wrist in The Fly and cried with disgust watching Videodrome. It works for me. I squeal, cringe and close my eyes. Then I rewind and watch it again, feeling a sense of duty after making a commitment to watching the film not shouting at it. It’s the film’s turn to talk.

I didn’t finish Hellraiser. It was the lurking in dark corners of the utterly revolting brother that pushed me beyond what I was able to deal with. I could not decide whether he appalled me more with or without skin. I am tempted to say with. What scared me most was that I could not work out why I got so frightened. The story is silly and the hooks tearing off the flesh aren’t in the least bit believable effects. I was impressed at the level of repulsion I felt at the creepy sexual tension between the woman and the leaky skeleton. I did not stop watching because I thought the film was bad, I stopped because I was afraid of not getting any sleep after watching it.

Speaking of The Fly and Videodrome. I have for quite some time tried to figure out why I like the films of David Cronenberg so much. It is a late blooming love affair as it only started recently with Eastern Promises, a film that still reigns high among my all-time favourites. I developed a personal obsession with the film after having to convince so many people about its brilliance and succeeding with quite a few. As a result I started to revisit all of his films. I am fascinated by Cronenberg because his films affect me in ways few others do. Dead Ringers had me glued to the screen and once it was finished I was so shaken that I never want have to sit through it again. That is meant as a compliment.

His films involve you, they are dark and compelling. They suck you into your own attraction with what goes against yourself. They aren’t pleasant films but they are brilliant in their physicality. Cronenberg takes the emotional power of the cinema as far as possible, his films hit you right in your gut, momentarily shutting off your intellect by overpowering your senses. It is this tangibility that generates the fascination. They connect right back to the feeling you had as a child finding a dead bird. Horrified as you might be, you can’t leave it alone curious as to how it would feel if you touched it. It is also the shock of something fundamentally beautiful turned into something ugly and frightening. Cronenberg peels away the beauty without destroying it. Like Naomi Watts cannot stay away from Viggo Mortensen and the mob world she stumbles into in Eastern Promises, I will forever return to the films of David Cronenberg.

One of these days I will return to Clive Barker and his Hellraiser as well. Preferably in the morning or at least after the lights have been fixed.

Good Morning from the worst cinema on the planet

I have recently discovered the worst cinema on God’s green earth. Been there, done that and really do not want a t-shirt. It was one of these multiplex outlets at the margins of the city, hidden away in a giant shopping mall. Entering it I already encountered a group of fighting teenagers. The woman in front of me in the queue had some trouble with her cinema card and was told rather harshly by the box office clerk “It’s not my fault that you can’t spell you name!” The two women embarked on a futile row as the real fault had taken shelter behind an impenetrable call centre. Speaking of call centres, the other day a call centre operator hung up on me. Shouldn’t that be the other way around?

But back to the cinema. I managed to trick a woman somewhat less accommodating than Little Britain’s Carol Beer, into handing me a ticket and already in a bad mood decided to treat myself to a bag of Revels. It was a bad day anyway and so far the cinema had done little to cheer me up. The man at the sweets counter said “Revels ey? What are those then?” and he wasn’t even kidding as his empty face told me as I giggled politely. I cleared my throat and said “orange and brown striped bag” and he said “oh is it chocolate?” Suddenly a walking profile-neurosis came rushing to the counter yelling “Moin you need to talk to me you need to do this and this and this” now that was funny because “Moin” means good morning should you be familiar with the language of Germany’s north. Also the man trying very hard to be important and authoritative shouting “Good Morning Good Morning Good Morning get your act together” reminded me of the seagulls in Finding Nemo, as they have a similar war cry. This could have cheered me up but it slowed down the poor stressed out “Multifunctional” as the cinema affectionately refers to its employees in his quest for the striped bag of mysterious sweets. Finally Goodmorning managed to find a bag and I genuinely believed him that he had never seen one before.

On entering the hallway that led to the screens a big bag search was in progress which was completely in tone with the general airport cosiness of the place. Luckily I got spared the search and was allowed to roam around for a while until I found my screen. Now the problems did not end there like I had hoped. There was a doorway under the screen leading to a fully lid corridor which was blocked off by neither door nor curtain which is basically the last thing you need in a cinema.

It smelled bad and the seats where unbelievably uncomfortable. Come on then Revels cheer me up! They didn’t really, instead they gave me a bad conscience. The film I saw was How to Lose Friends and Alienate People and frankly the cinema itself did a better job at fulfilling the titles promised lessons. As much as I like Simon Pegg, which is quite a lot, I could not bring myself to like this movie. On returning home I needed a healthy dose of Hot Fuzz to be reconciled. The group of teenagers sharing the screening with me were quite entertaining though. The scene with the transvestite annoyed be because I thought it was overwritten, it was so obvious that there was no need to explain it multiple times in multiple ways. Or so I thought. About a minute after seeing the penis and hearing the line “Penis!” in further explanation, a girl in a back row yelled “hang on was that a man? Oh my God it was! That’s a man A MAN!!!” and her cronies went “oh my God REALLY?!?!” Enough said. I stand corrected apparently the most obvious scene was still underwritten for some. I am not being overly arrogant here, just generally arrogant. Furthermore it was at around that time that the chocolates had gone so I felt stranded and alone.

On returning home I spoke to a friend of mine who asked me how I was to which I literally replied “Ever so slightly suicidal” to which she replied “Oh really? By the way you wouldn’t believe what a party I had the other night.” Thanks for that. I don’t think I count her among my readers, if I do consider youself column-exploited and be proud.

Good Morning.

Dead Things in Jars

I have handed in yet another dissertation type thing, hence my long absence
Now I am back! Kind of.

Before handing in the cursed work it had to get bound. And while waiting I did the usual thing done to pass the time. I looked at dead things in jars. The University of Glasgow holds quite a collection of little birds and dissected body parts kept in jars. It has also put a clever little twist on the obsession with stuffed animals in Scottish museums, by exhibiting deformed stuffed animals. At first I thought it was two little pigs dancing a waltz but soon realised that they were sharing a head. In the usual tactful and frankly highly entertaining way of scientist language, these things were called "monstrosities." Moving on from the ballroom dancing monsters I had a look at all the bits and pieces that you can cut an eyeball into. That grossed me out pretty deeply, I really do not like eyes. At least not when they get cut. It might be a deep character fault on my part, that the eyes frightened me more than the 5months old embryo. But they did. I really do not like eyeballs. Really, really not. I can't even bring myself to eat litchies due to their uncanny resemblance to eyeballs. I am not a fan of eyeballs.

In my defence I was very tired. My two and a half hours of sleep were framed by long lasting battles with my printer, which for some reason decided to cross out entire sections of my work. I looked through those suggestions and decided that at certain points it had put forward a pretty good argument. Maybe I should listen to my printer more often. It would certainly cut out this useless little paragraph.

What did impress me enormously and in a good way was the little piece of bone from the foot of Robert the Bruce. Does that mean one day the University of Glasgow might clone him? Would he be happy with his picture on the 20 pound note? Or would he be deeply hurt by the little board in the Kelvingrove Museum informing the general public (yes, them again!) that he was in fact a very ugly man.

Anyway the day was crowned by the purchase of a dvd of Jules Dassin's Night and the City which I have been watching continuously ever since. I am now officially a fan of Richard Widmark on facebook, I do not like eyes and I obviously need a holiday.