tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80358713109918307752024-02-20T05:29:45.671-08:00justtestingTracking the progress of an MA in creative writing. Really - spending three hours a week chatting shit about yourself and stealing ideas from other nice people - kim mcgowankim mcgowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11854915502212651980noreply@blogger.comBlogger54125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8035871310991830775.post-68848585557112034782011-12-10T04:32:00.000-08:002011-12-10T04:34:47.251-08:00Tuffnells' Toffee's for Buttery Fingers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I read Tuffnell's Toffees for Buttery Fingers at Word Soup on the 27 October 2011. Now that I've come to terms with my adenoidal Lancashire accent & nervous stuttering I kind-of think it went okay... <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ABLRawErfc">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ABLRawErfc</a></div>kim mcgowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11854915502212651980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8035871310991830775.post-4748369836858118192011-10-12T08:35:00.000-07:002011-11-05T11:08:32.097-07:00Quickies: short stories for adults<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-5I9i5jlmHMlwKFv2p-OchWyCoxqCnZnQ8e8enq3LC5AsIJBmq_dNbVtqFLjirGdQ_fWbtwdOIBC8T31gZSd0W1faNjB1MGe2DYbpAO8I52AEKjI7jkqcH0cUl1W2alka3BgqkSAJlOA/s1600/Quickies+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: right; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" kca="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-5I9i5jlmHMlwKFv2p-OchWyCoxqCnZnQ8e8enq3LC5AsIJBmq_dNbVtqFLjirGdQ_fWbtwdOIBC8T31gZSd0W1faNjB1MGe2DYbpAO8I52AEKjI7jkqcH0cUl1W2alka3BgqkSAJlOA/s320/Quickies+cover.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you like to raise a little laugh, try dressing as a elderly lady and reading (out loud) a story containing the term, ‘buttery fuck’ - comedy gold. </span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I know I don’t keep this blog anymore but I need to tell my other reader (if you are still alive) that I’ve done a reading without being <a href="http://kimmcgowan.blogspot.com/2010/03/public-display-of-ineptitude-my-first.html">sick in a bucket</a> and I’m in print!</span></div><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On Wednesday 28 September 2011, I read a story called <em>Tuffnell's Toffees</em> at the launch of a book. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>Quickies: short stories for adults</em> is an anthology of flash fiction produced by the <a href="http://flashtagmcr.wordpress.com/">Flashtag</a></span> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">writing collective</span> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">as part of the Didsbury Arts Festival. The launch was glittery with lollies, wit and innuendo.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The <a href="http://www.didsburyartsfestival.org/2011/07/flashtag-1-anthology-launch">Flashtag writers</a> are </span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://wordsandfixtures.blogspot.com/">Sarah-Clare Conlon</a>, <a href="http://www.fatroland.com/">Fat Roland</a>, <a href="http://screen150.wordpress.com/">Dave Hartley</a>, <a href="http://330words.wordpress.com/2011/10/09/scrabble-written-by-tom-mason/">Tom Mason</a> and <a href="http://benjaminjudge.com/">Benjamin Judge</a> and <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and the <em>Quickies</em> stories are written by them and by their invited writerly chums. </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;">My virtual friend Ben Judge (now my actual friend, I think, as we met at said glittering event) asked me to contribute a smutty story. I was very pleased and very scared by this prospect. I was scared for two reasons:</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1). There was a word limit of 400 words and, as my other reader will know; (alive or dead) my name is not a byword for brevity.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2). I didn’t want Ben to be the only Flashtagger with a duff chum.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With this in mind I wrote <em>Tuffnell’s Toffeees</em> then tinkered, meddled, redrafted, redrafted, got constructive feedback from <a href="http://icallitresearch.blogspot.com/">Sarah Schofield</a>, <a href="http://not-exactly-true.blogspot.com/">Valerie O'Riordan</a> and <a href="http://jennashworth.co.uk/blog/">Jenn Ashworth</a>, (thank you folks) tinkered, meddled, redrafted, redrafted. I’m tinkering and meddling still (buttery fuck doesn’t appear in the book, it says buttery fingers in print) - donkey bolted/gate bolted; all that stuff. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Never were 400 words so tinkered and meddled with. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I hope Ben isn’t ashamed (of <em>me,</em> that is - he should certainly be embarrassed by the out and out rudeness of his own stories - one memorable line from his mucky reading was, ‘I tease the length of your dolphinhood…’!)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The glittering launch was grand – <a href="http://wordsandfixtures.blogspot.com/">Sarah-Clare Conlon</a> provided additional glamour (and a naughty story), <a href="http://www.fatroland.com/">Fat Roland</a> snapped on Marigolds to handle the goods and I met many illustrious members of the (I mean this fondly) Manchester Blackwell literary mafia. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have followed <a href="http://abarrelroll.blogspot.com/">Dave Hartley’s</a> story telling for years and he read a <em>Quickie</em> about Scouts and Guides (a comedy <em>platinum</em> combo). </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thanks to <a href="http://not-exactly-true.blogspot.com/">Valerie O’Riordan’s</a> (I hope that doesn’t count as a spoiler) laugh out loud coming of age/aeroplane-sex tale I know how to avoid a kidney infection. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://artoffiction.blogspot.com/">Adrian Slatcher</a> wrote about a club I’d like to visit, <em>just to see</em>; and the word anus in <a href="http://chickenandpies.blogspot.com/">Socrates Adams</a> reading prompted a storm-out by an audience member. Ah, the heady allure of glittering launches. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some of my other favourites were <a href="http://www.ljspillane.com/">LJ Spillane</a>, ‘He blinks and inhales like a man who if dressed and unbound, would be placing his hands in his pockets to steady a tremble.’ Daniel Carpenter’s <em>Fetish Collector</em> and <a href="http://www.kinga-thebooksnob.blogspot.com/">Kinga Burger’s</a> unreliable narrator enumerating past liaisons, ‘…therefore, according to the five-second rule, [he] doesn’t count.’</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I got a forearm tattoo that said smut! in big puffy letters; sadly it was only a temporary tattoo and had faded to a lovebitey exclamation mark by morning, which was sad, but I’ve come to terms with the disappointment. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The anthology is very, very good and contains amazing stories by Adrian Slatcher, Benjamin Judge, Chris Killen, Claire Massey, Claire Symonds, Clare Kirwan, Daniel Carpenter, Dave Hartley, David Gaffney, Dom Conlon, Emma Jane Unsworth, Fat Roland, Gavin White, Jane Bradley, John Macky, Kim McGowan (me!), Kinga Burger, Laura Maley, LJ Spillane, Lynsey May, Matthew Carson, Nick Garrard, Red Newsom, Sarah-Clare Conlon, Sarah Hilary, Shirley Kernan, Socrates Adams, Tania Hershman, Tom Mason, and Valerie O’Riordan.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is worth £3.50/£5 of anyone’s lolly fund.</span><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIkFHsvspVaSIDEgFRcxRxHX5MeP6KM-bRca72Gvf-WrMMdQ-MhaDubqrONCsIZaKhRfUdjT0B_xjehJ0tAYBFWol-TxjNJdfGdceffhKkw1fgjXiQY0z1GifnXY-XV2Arl4I2OAJ60To/s1600/quickies-1-track-mind1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" kca="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIkFHsvspVaSIDEgFRcxRxHX5MeP6KM-bRca72Gvf-WrMMdQ-MhaDubqrONCsIZaKhRfUdjT0B_xjehJ0tAYBFWol-TxjNJdfGdceffhKkw1fgjXiQY0z1GifnXY-XV2Arl4I2OAJ60To/s400/quickies-1-track-mind1.jpg" width="145" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is available for <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Quickies-Short-Stories-Adults-ebook/dp/B005PP44HA/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1317152390&sr=1-1">Kindle </a>and to purchase from Mancheter Blackwell (ignore the Tommy guns, they're mostly harmless) and also from <a href="http://flashtagmcr.wordpress.com/buy/">here</a>.</span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: justify;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"></div></div><br />
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</div>kim mcgowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11854915502212651980noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8035871310991830775.post-45951864150878083902011-01-16T08:43:00.000-08:002011-04-26T05:16:56.766-07:00The Post Last-post Post<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0IC_k36lz44kH9wxwQZibfiO0dqaDfICp7yP-9PHvVghgh1KAKiVnuaufPmDDv4jRRdqLoU2fYK_jDBNVBBPgu_ajMRN2OFt-FiI3pks0sQbQFeEVLPnelA4UXAA0uz_C5C-tQ1Wnh5U/s1600/Crail+moon+rise+sun+set.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0IC_k36lz44kH9wxwQZibfiO0dqaDfICp7yP-9PHvVghgh1KAKiVnuaufPmDDv4jRRdqLoU2fYK_jDBNVBBPgu_ajMRN2OFt-FiI3pks0sQbQFeEVLPnelA4UXAA0uz_C5C-tQ1Wnh5U/s320/Crail+moon+rise+sun+set.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Almost a year ago in ‘<em>A public display of ineptitude’, first open mic slot, being sick in a bucket and Edith Bouvier Beale</em> (</span><a href="http://kimmcgowan.blogspot.com/2010/03/public-display-of-ineptitude-my-first.html"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">see here</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">) I blogged about reading an extract at a </span><a href="http://www.lancashirewritinghub.co.uk/category/word-soup/"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Word Soup</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> live lit evening.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I read The Musical Mobile, a story about an unmarried mother in the 1970s trying to stop the adoption of her baby. I made a spectacle of myself by being moved to tears by my own made-up words.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I did not blog about my second try at public performance at Lancaster </span><a href="http://www.spotlightlancaster.co.uk/index.htm"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Spotlight </span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> in Spring. It was soon after my hip replacement operation. I was on crutches, coked-up on painkillers and not answerable for my actions. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Needless to say, exactly the same broken crackly, croaky voice-thing happened in exactly the same place in the same story, only worse – and in front of a far larger audience. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My fine friend, </span><a href="http://www.lancasterpianoteacher.co.uk/"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">David,</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> and my daughter attended. By good fortune David was busy doing musician-prep things when it came to my slot. He said later that someone told him I’d acted out the piece with emotion. ACTED? Me <em>acted</em>? I’m a librarian for goodness sake. What drugged-up cripple of a librarian in their right mind chooses to act out an emotional story in front of an aghast and squirming audience? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As I hobbled from the Spotlight dais the compere said softly, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">‘Emotional stuff.’ </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Back at seat I put my face flat on the table. A sort-of friend came by and roused me. She said, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">‘That was brave.’ </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">See, I can be dim but I know brave doesn’t mean brave in that context. I can’t quite put my finger on what it does mean. Pitiable maybe? Fool-hardy perhaps? Stark staring bonkers? Probably. But, it doesn’t mean brave, that’s for sure.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My daughter asked me, not unkindly, if I was <em>sure</em> I hadn’t given a baby up for adoption when I was a girl, and I’d forgotten.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anyway. The purpose of this post last-post post is to say I’m at it again. On the advice of said daughter I’m going for something a little more upbeat this time. I’m reading an extract I’ve called <em>Chester Blott Tells a Smutty Story</em> <a href="http://www.paulsockett.com/3pevents.html">here</a> at Paul Sockett’s Outspoken at Clitheroe Castle on 21 January 2001. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Paul is being interviewed on Radio Lancashire at 3 o’clock on the same day and Jim Turner and I might be reading some work on air. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, my radio reading can’t be from the <em>Chester Blott</em> extract because it is a bit rude. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I might have to read from the (honest to God made up) adoption story. Just one more time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, if you like that sort of spectacle - public displays of ineptitude - you know what to do.</span></div>kim mcgowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11854915502212651980noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8035871310991830775.post-23242333942857005252010-12-04T05:13:00.000-08:002010-12-07T06:19:12.128-08:00The Last Post: How it felt on the day I discovered that I did not have a distinction…<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaLghuclklTuy894CVomURnAbgUpS9tn-QMrUfq4nUuErDZ281tnQbJpgdQGMBzbGHQrr2z7fAQXgPk57UKqViGU7M57mJkqraGDBTq8qTr4m5PtHWhWfTrRn4z6D0FKaHUp5mmOj6Q8w/s1600/sun+setting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaLghuclklTuy894CVomURnAbgUpS9tn-QMrUfq4nUuErDZ281tnQbJpgdQGMBzbGHQrr2z7fAQXgPk57UKqViGU7M57mJkqraGDBTq8qTr4m5PtHWhWfTrRn4z6D0FKaHUp5mmOj6Q8w/s320/sun+setting.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’d started to believe I would never know my MA marks; and a bit of me preferred it that way – with Schrödinger's Cat and the flask of cyanide snugly boxed up I could imagine whatever I like.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And what I like to imagine is that I’ve been awarded a distinction.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I could have tried to discover the marks – I could have contacted the person who will know or the administrators who frighten me – but that was daunting, and a bit like temping providence.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then – one Tuesday afternoon five weeks ago – I was in the library and I happened upon the person who will know. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have been in a dark funk since that day. I saw the term ‘dark funk’ in an article and it is a perfect description of the way I feel; a sad mix of gloom and craven passivity.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One darkening Tuesday afternoon, five weeks ago, I meet the person who will know my MA marks in the library. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is impossible (for me at least) to ignore the bulky cat-box on the floor between us. So, when we have established how well we both look, I ask the question. I ask the person who will know when we might find out about our marks.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">‘The Board met last week,’ the person who will know says, ‘your dissertation is with the administrators who frighten you and ready to collect.’ (she doesn’t actually call them that – I’ve never admitted to the person who will know that I am afraid of the administrators, although she might easily have guessed).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So I walk - limping slightly; the limp returns for the walk - very, very slowly, across the winter concourse that separates the library and the student centre, where the dissertation is ready to collect. The distance is about two hundred yards and the journey takes at least two hundred years. The student centre is jolly with light. Students and tutors, bathed in radiance from the windows, crisscross my path. They are chatting, and frowning and smiling and behaving as if nothing is odd. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am waiting for the dissertation to be retrieved and there is a tap on my shoulder. It is the person who will know, again.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">‘I just thought I would come across and tell you…’</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I nod.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">‘…we discussed your mark profile at the Board…’</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I watch her mouth.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">‘…and we decided to award you…’</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I wait. It is like the ticking tense pause they do to be cruel on talent shows.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">‘…a merit…’</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And the cat is on its sad side at our feet. Its eyes are part open but milky-glazed and its body is a stiff as a branch.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">‘…well done!’</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>‘Thank you.’</em></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She speaks on, saying encouraging things about not letting the writing go and about not being disheartened by rejections.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I wonder – '<em>Is merit what they call a distinction at this university?'</em> I wonder if the cat is merely in a black catty-funk, which would be understandable after being closed up in that nasty box for all those months.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The administrator who frightens me hands me the dissertation and I dare to touch the cat lightly with the toe of my shoe.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>‘erm… So – does it go Pass, Merit, Distinction?’</em> I ask the person who will know.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">‘That’s right.’ </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And there was really no need to check, we all already knew that the poor catty-sod had gone - <em>you have been weighed and proclaimed kind-of ordinary</em>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I take the dissertation and sit in the disabled toilet and I look at my mark and I try to read the comments. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">70%. I clawed my way to a 70% with the dissertation but it wasn’t enough to raise the mark profile.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">70% is good. I have done nicely. I should be proud.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I stare at the comments with milky glazed eyes and I ask my self what did I expect.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What did you expect? </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A spectacular dissertation mark to raise your mark profile?</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An invite from the external examiner to meet his literary agent?</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A handwritten request to join a prestigious writers' group?</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A special prize?</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A big clock?</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>Well no. Well yes. I don’t know – not the clock anyway, that’d just be ridiculous.</em></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<em></em></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Aren’t you grateful to have passed? To start with you didn’t even know if you would pass.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>I was being disingenuous when I thought that - I always knew I’d pass, I always knew I could get a distinction.</em></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And how wrong you were. Why did you think you’d deserve such an accolade, why did you think you’d earned a distinction?</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>Because I worked a lot, because I tried so hard, because I wanted it – very much.</em></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ah! So. How do you think it all went wrong? Why do you think you weren’t awarded a distinction?</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>I don’t know. Maybe because I make fun of people to get cheap laughs? </em></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>Maybe because I don’t recycle plastic bottles if they’re oily and difficult to wash out? </em></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>Maybe because I added an espresso to my latte without telling the lady at the till?</em></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s none of those things, is it? </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>No.</em></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What about you weren’t awarded a distinction because of these things: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You didn’t make yourself write when you reckoned you were in pain; too weary; you needed to tidy drawers out, urgently? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You sometimes wrote lazy self-indulgent drivel rather than answering the question?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You sometimes cited smartass paragraphs from hard books pretending you’d read the whole smartass book? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>Could be... But still, I really did want it – very much.</em></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The person who will know makes such a point of how nicely I have done that, after a day or two, I am able to bask in the assurance that at least no one will have a better mark profile than mine. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then – I meet the friend whose dissertation mark is so spectacular that it qualifies her for the big clock (were such a thing not ridiculous). And, with a sickening sickness, I realise that there are people with much better mark profiles than mine; that the person who will know followed me from the library to the student centre to save me from myself, to save me from my own stubborn delusions.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The person who will know knows me too well. She realised that when I saw my 70% dissertation mark I would continue to nurse vain hope until the official results were posted. The person who will know opened the cat box and showed me the merit to stop me making any more of a fool of myself. Better for me to be in a dark funk than for students and tutors to see me cutting a confident swath across the light-drenched concourse between the student centre and the library pulling a branch-stiff dead cat lashed to a set of old pram wheels. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have friends with distinctions and I must be glad for them. I <em>am </em>glad for them, but I wish it was me. And it will always be this other thing now – on the record, on the lips, in the mind, until I am gone. No, even after when I am gone.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, 70% for the dissertation is good. I have done nicely. I should be proud of myself.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But that is not how it felt on the day that I discovered that I didn’t have a distinction.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ps my friend, <a href="http://not-exactly-true.blogspot.com/">Valerie</a>, did her MA at Manchester was awarded a distinction and I am very, <em>very</em> proud and pleased for her!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">pps The official results have just been posted and my overall average (by my calculation) is 69.11111111 (the 1s go on for ever). A number that has a spectacular quality all of its own.</span>kim mcgowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11854915502212651980noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8035871310991830775.post-36133396093006603802010-09-19T06:28:00.000-07:002010-09-22T03:58:13.500-07:00Throttling darlings & it's all over bar the recriminations...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYaomMrd5cBi5QLw5Dp5XtB7K7QfKhlK0C6jgwpAgCwSjVsI1cG64LwdcMv7NaN5amFHVnR-Y_2706BIg9w_ENCrAFR9wJzhDHtPT5cCu43oy9b868qsA5dT81Oupk3MKNLfBJlthypyw/s1600/spring+2010+093.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" qx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYaomMrd5cBi5QLw5Dp5XtB7K7QfKhlK0C6jgwpAgCwSjVsI1cG64LwdcMv7NaN5amFHVnR-Y_2706BIg9w_ENCrAFR9wJzhDHtPT5cCu43oy9b868qsA5dT81Oupk3MKNLfBJlthypyw/s320/spring+2010+093.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Throttling children or killing babies or strangling darlings (I can't remember the proper term but you get the picture) is when you have to get rid of marvellous bits of your story because they don't work; sometimes because, *little voice* on reflection, they are rubbish. It is very hard and I have not got the hang of it yet.</span></div><br />
<br />
In the early drafts of my loomidob, <em>The Shoes</em>, (it's called something else now but I'll come to that in the moment) I have my female protagonist, Joan, winsomely swinging her tennis racket as she strides down the hill in the warm evening sunshine after a steamy summer's day. A few weeks later in the story my male character, Senny, attends a testosterone and lager fuelled FA Cup party at his mate Little-Al's house. <br />
<br />
When I set out my timeline and desultorily checked a few facts I discovered that FA cup finals are played in mid to late-May. I changed Joan's winsome-walking conditions to a balmy spring evening.<br />
<br />
<em>Then</em>, I found out that in 1975 (the year the story opens) the FA cup final was played on 3 May. A few weeks before that Joan would probably have had to <em>feel</em> her way down the hill into town, with tennis rackets lashed to her feet like snow shoes. So that scene had to go, as did several other lovelies.<br />
<br />
In my last post I mentioned that I was sick to death of my title, <em>The Shoes</em>. Sick to death to the extent that I wished the title harm. I have renamed my story <em>Doing Without</em>. The term <em>doing without</em> is used by Senny when he is thinking about whether he would have sex with Tabard-Joyce on the cafe table; regardless of her pop-sox and despite the fact that she picks up discarded cold baked-beans with her bare fingers (See? You want to read it now, don't you?)<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><em>"Tabard-Joyce unpacks our order from her tray to the table and retreats behind the tall glass counter. Ted follows her form. He is wondering if he can overlook the knee-length nylons and the baked-bean fingers enough to fuck her over one of the tables. I know this because I’ve wondered it myself and we’ve discussed the matter. </em></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><em>I decided it came down to how long you’ve been doing without, but on balance and given the opportunity, yes I would. Ted thinks he’s still undecided, but he definitely would too."</em></span><br />
<br />
So. There it is. My story is sort-of finished. It also has a form at last; it grew to over 36,000 words so it is no longer a loomidob and now qualifies as a novella. I was quite sad to leave to loomidob behind but that's what happens.<br />
<br />
I polished (as they say) 12,000 words and I wrote a 3,000 critical commentary on my writing process and I gave it all in, in duplicate, on Friday 13 August 2010. I have been in stark-staring shock since; I don't know when the results are due and I dare not ask.<br />
<br />
I declined an invitation to attend the MA graduation because I am too superstitious. I told the lovely lady who is in charge of Ceremonies that I could not arrange to attend a graduation until I know if I’ve passed the degree. Unfortunately the truth is (and this <em>is</em> shameful) I can't arrange to attend a graduation until I know *miniscule voice* if I have a distinction. There. I've said it. Shameful.<br />
<br />
This blog was for recording the progress of my MA in Creative Writing and it is finished now so the blog is finished. Thank you, my other reader, you’ve been lovely, supportive company x<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span>kim mcgowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11854915502212651980noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8035871310991830775.post-76868241170942799612010-05-17T10:36:00.000-07:002011-04-26T05:13:46.372-07:00Redraft Eleven as a Rubik's Cube and Setting Fire to Stupid Titles<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiFe5mmVVpzc-XQTjED6JPwrPdaPsIbjunhXVQrmMBSKDQes_Pv0pnH_FGv-Te8cR_OzF8c790Z-SrZqOzuRaItny6b2HOmzC8MwpPzWN0lziWCj6LkYTFH5oskQjrztjAoWAYGwzr5xI/s1600/davids+rubiks+cube2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiFe5mmVVpzc-XQTjED6JPwrPdaPsIbjunhXVQrmMBSKDQes_Pv0pnH_FGv-Te8cR_OzF8c790Z-SrZqOzuRaItny6b2HOmzC8MwpPzWN0lziWCj6LkYTFH5oskQjrztjAoWAYGwzr5xI/s320/davids+rubiks+cube2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">I</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"> am hauling myself bucking and bellowing into redraft eleven of the dissertation story. I’ve circled it warily for weeks. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">I think it’s reached a sort of Rubik’s Cube stage; the impression that it might be nearing completion is illusory. This story needs to be pitilessly undone before it can be put together nicely. I am trying to resist the temptation to just rip the little coloured squares off and stick them back (all curling at the edges) where I think they should go. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">To recap for my other reader, the story is called <i>The Shoes </i>and is about a relationship over forty years told from alternating male and female points of view (POV). Initially, it was to be 2,000 words long. An earlier post about the process <a href="http://kimmcgowan.blogspot.com/2010/02/dissertation-narrative-mode-and-being.html"><b>is here</b></a><b>.</b></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">The story is an indeterminate form; too long for a short story, too short for a novella. I've termed it a Loomidob for now.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">I have written a large chunk of backstory for my female character. It relates to a time when the girl is trying to prevent the adoption of the child she is expecting. The extract became a short story called <i>The Musical Mobile</i> (<i>as if </i>I haven’t told you that already). </span></span><br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">My supervisor, The Author who is Writing about Neanderthals, said it is fine for me to write about events that have influenced characters but, to be fair, I should do something similar for my man character.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><b>What I have been advised that I need to do:</b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">See what techniques real authors use to get around the problems I am experiencing.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">Signal temporal and narrative shifts more effectively.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">Give my man more substance, more backstory - even if it is never used.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">Sort out continuity and cohesion problems and research facts instead of guessing stuff.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">During the wasted weeks when I’ve felt shitty and I haven’t felt able to write nicely I’ve been: </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">reading; </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">speaking to real authors by email; </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">thinking about my male character and trying to work out why he doesn’t seen authentic.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><b>What I’ve read:</b></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">The Unconsoled</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"> by Kazuo Ishiguro (a get-better present from a really good friend)</span></span></b></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><i>Black Rock </i>by <a href="http://www.lancashirewritinghub.co.uk/2010/02/interview-with-amanda-smyth/">Amanda Smyth</a></span></span></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><i>The Leaping</i> by <a href="http://www.lancashirewritinghub.co.uk/2010/05/interview-with-tom-fletcher/">Tom Fletcher</a></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><i>Housekeeping</i>, <i>Gilead</i> and <i>Home </i>by Marilynne Robinson</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">T<i>he Amateur Marriage</i> by Anne Tyler </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><b>What I’ve learnt:</b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">Real authors make themselves write however shitty they feel because they can edit and redraft weak work but they cannot edit no work. Real authors write a lot of stuff that never sees the light of day in its original form.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">That I have to stop being resistant to signalling narrative shifts. In <i>The Leaping</i>, Tom Fletcher alternates between two narrative voices and he signposts each change with the narrators name. It works very well.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">I have to stop being resistant to naming my characters; it isn’t enigmatic, it’s pretentious and irritating.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">I am going to have to write a lot of backstory for both of my characters and then jettison most of it; the piece is now over 17,000 words long and my word limit for assessment is 12,000. 17,000 (and growing) is really unwieldy; I forget where stuff is and my style has evolved as I’ve been writing so there are big discrepancies in technique.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">I need to avoid sentimentality and cliché by recalling my own honest emotions rather than writing what I imagine a pretend person (who is inevitably more sophisticated than me) might do and feel. A line from Anne Tyler’s book <i>The Amateur Marriage</i> brought me up short. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">The extract is set in the US in the1960s. A mother has just discovered that her runaway daughter is in hospital in San Francisco, which is thousands of miles away from where she and her husband live. She telephones her husband at work:</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">‘We have to go, you have to come home, how will we get there? …… We have to buy airplane tickets, how do people do that?’ </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">Which I think is exactly how a real person might respond in the circumstance. That is how I would respond.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">I need a timeline to give me an overview of the structure of the story and to highlight irregularities or sloppiness. For example, I realise that I've written about a Harvest Moon in May, and I refer to a general election in 1974 that didn’t happen until 1976. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">Also I’ve made the male character’s father a socialist refugee. Because my grasp of history is poor I don’t know which European countries generated socialist refugees around the time of WW2, or whether they were likely to arrive before, during or after the war. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">Part of me thinks that this is my made up world and it doesn’t matter what I make up. Part of me knows that if I were an examiner I’d throw a script across the room for slapdash fact-finding.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><b>What has happened:</b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">I am sick to death of the title, <i>The Shoes</i>. If I could set fire to that stupid title, I would. If I could hang it, draw it, quarter it and put its head on a stake outside the city walls, I would.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">I have given my characters names, Joan and Senny (short for Senacerib). </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">I signal narrative shifts CLEARLY.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">My characters have more substance; transpires a high proportion of them were bed wetters (really!) No idea this has happened and I might have to rethink it - but what can I do? Maybe noctural enuretics do clump clammily together for comfort. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">I am still finding it much harder to write the male point of view than to write the female point of view.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">I listened to Michael Portillo’s <i>Democracy on Trial</i> on Radio 4. Michael’s father is Spanish, a Labour voter who came to the UK just before WW2 as a refugee. Hurrah!! Senny’s dad is that thing too! </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><b>What is still to do:</b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">Ensure that the characters’ POV are distinctive, consistent and emotionally honest. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">Ensure that the characters’ POV change and age as they do.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">Write, edit, write, edit, stop being a wuss, write, edit.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">Thank you to <a href="http://www.lancasterpianoteacher.co.uk/">David Wright</a> for my photograph of a wistful Rubik’s Cube (I <i>knew</i> David would had a Rubik’s Cube to photograph for me because he can do them very quickly!) </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">David and his band <i>The New Zealand Story</i> are at Spotlight on Friday 21 May 2010, as are many other splendid people. <b><a href="http://www.spotlightlancaster.co.uk/page2.htm">Look Here for details.</a></b></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">I’ve got these books still to read:</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><i>The Pregnant Widow</i> by Martin Amis (a get-better present from someone Very Fine)</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><i>Antwerp</i> by <a href="http://nightjarpress.wordpress.com/">Nicholas Royle</a></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><i>Not So Perfect</i> by <a href="http://nikperring.blogspot.com/">Nik Perring</a> (both get-better presents from myself)</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_RwW7e8nGutf_CQTtaHWBs2RndiQ_c9glqk5jgVXyD4Jm2xqBy3iDd0bYOqvSVAyub9V8X_qvb2LRtUFwI1m-rTDYwltq4C_dnSqt7OEPC-kZB9rHuf0qM8quQElLMb8xdQjH09EWE-c/s1600/rubiks+cube+003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_RwW7e8nGutf_CQTtaHWBs2RndiQ_c9glqk5jgVXyD4Jm2xqBy3iDd0bYOqvSVAyub9V8X_qvb2LRtUFwI1m-rTDYwltq4C_dnSqt7OEPC-kZB9rHuf0qM8quQElLMb8xdQjH09EWE-c/s320/rubiks+cube+003.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div></div>kim mcgowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11854915502212651980noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8035871310991830775.post-69828829948915153622010-05-09T09:18:00.000-07:002010-05-11T07:22:42.818-07:00Interview with Tom Fletcher <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">There is an interview with Tom Fletcher, author of The Leaping, on the Lancashire Writing Hub blog </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><b> <a href="http://www.lancashirewritinghub.co.uk/2010/05/interview-with-tom-fletcher/">here</a></b></span></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbwOmjY9IILc_wblsNq69pcUUqolSGhrYWO5S1_IiB6DdFYTpMeYkJpeau3BwRzse45f9JpoYgjvt2-qh1vHY4UUmkh8vplOYADCfT-3MoeR1xDhhyoTdfeoXgCPQ2Ay4ehhduiToFJF8/s1600/Tom+Fletcher+001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbwOmjY9IILc_wblsNq69pcUUqolSGhrYWO5S1_IiB6DdFYTpMeYkJpeau3BwRzse45f9JpoYgjvt2-qh1vHY4UUmkh8vplOYADCfT-3MoeR1xDhhyoTdfeoXgCPQ2Ay4ehhduiToFJF8/s400/Tom+Fletcher+001.jpg" width="285" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">(it is a very good new novel)</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">More information about and links to interviews with Tom </span><b><a href="http://fellhouse.wordpress.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">here</span></a></b></span></span></div>kim mcgowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11854915502212651980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8035871310991830775.post-22296415842539972572010-04-27T03:02:00.000-07:002011-04-26T05:15:50.404-07:00Bleeping and Clicking, Not Being Able to Write and a Nice Prize<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">'ve had a break from writing because I've been off colour. I want to write stuff. I spent whole bleeping, clicking nights in hospital (bleeping and clicking are not coy swear-word replacements; hospital nights do come furnished with a bleeping and clicking sound track).</span></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG_NCKqPaLViqRh4z6481lCfdbIQ-MIM9EuCg38hVr94f0a1NsB8-dMKCibQQUXAw3jgmqxYADsZ7Qr6_cgzphKi1xle_p_H5FlquvNYOSoCn6EjlhiMAHW2G5aWWsZ5XTtDfAKDhg4N8/s1600/helen+clark+006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG_NCKqPaLViqRh4z6481lCfdbIQ-MIM9EuCg38hVr94f0a1NsB8-dMKCibQQUXAw3jgmqxYADsZ7Qr6_cgzphKi1xle_p_H5FlquvNYOSoCn6EjlhiMAHW2G5aWWsZ5XTtDfAKDhg4N8/s320/helen+clark+006.jpg" tt="true" width="240" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">I spent whole bleeping, clicking nights in hospital mentally composing a piece on how I feel about an arrangement that often seems to strive, 'officiously to keep alive'*.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">Time and again I have witnessed ordinarily aging people who have had their chassis-life extended with replacement body parts and chemical tinkering. They live on, but often they live on to become broken, muddled old shells of human beings who survive into a shitty and undignified great age.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">The piece I was mentally composing had a testing extra facet because I have recently and unwittingly become part of that arrangement. Last Autumn I developed a ridiculous, sore limp and it turned out that, if I wanted to walk painlessly and (sort of) normally again, a surgeon would need to strive and replace my knackered hip with a new version.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">Whatever gruesome things happened to me in hospital they were not conducive to getting mentally composed-words down on paper in an engaging order. The piece I was composing is too difficult for me to write (I keep editing the last three paragraphs but they continue to sound like muddled old crap).</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">All I </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">want</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"> to do at the moment is read. Mostly, what I do </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">do</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"> is stare into space and drop asleep with my glasses skewed across my face and my neck in a cricked position.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">I was quite subdued and sad when I was admitted into hospital. I was plagued with grave doubts about my writing abilites - see </span></span><a href="http://kimmcgowan.blogspot.com/2010/03/public-display-of-ineptitude-my-first.html"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">previous post</span></span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">. Actually, see most of my previous posts. And, although I pretend to be fearless I was witless with terror about what was going to be done to me in the name of officious striving.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">During the bleeping, clicking second post-operative day I received an email from the Writer with the Writerly Name telling me that my short story, The Musical Mobile</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">, has won the 2010 Helen Clark Award for prose.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0jLlpZPlS_tBFVpUZQsAHpF7g6OUsEUPJ9PGsoR_fdou6LY1cz1ucYMVySIcwCNi1QGdqobGvZPYTQz8L8FU6p3HpSmbxtSR03ayXVvkAIQnp8Yshyphenhyphen07zIozskXSDC76HC89RJAVSLOk/s1600/helen+clark+003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0jLlpZPlS_tBFVpUZQsAHpF7g6OUsEUPJ9PGsoR_fdou6LY1cz1ucYMVySIcwCNi1QGdqobGvZPYTQz8L8FU6p3HpSmbxtSR03ayXVvkAIQnp8Yshyphenhyphen07zIozskXSDC76HC89RJAVSLOk/s320/helen+clark+003.jpg" tt="true" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">The news could not have come at a better time and it made me very, very glad. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">The Musical Mobile is an extract from my MA dissertation and is a redrafted version of the piece I read so badly at my </span><a href="http://kimmcgowan.blogspot.com/2010/03/public-display-of-ineptitude-my-first.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">first open mic</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">That's all. That's a start.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">* <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium;">from The Last Decalogue by Arthur Hugh Clough</span></span></span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal"></div></div>kim mcgowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11854915502212651980noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8035871310991830775.post-40205695422853397092010-03-03T03:35:00.000-08:002010-05-17T09:33:55.749-07:00‘A public display of ineptitude’, first open mic slot, being sick in a bucket and Edith Bouvier Beale<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBkIPgQ-tekVBDbdJsI_R6QBT3UfMNjP-WYEqGmKHITFy_oS_3GyrIA-D_MYXNRyc0tJU8_UsYQBhp37DSzDuexDe-QomZZzo4UPSPVQKbVN0sNCua-gdzWY4254-HHgM05gDRkYVpez4/s1600-h/slomofastmo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="318" kt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBkIPgQ-tekVBDbdJsI_R6QBT3UfMNjP-WYEqGmKHITFy_oS_3GyrIA-D_MYXNRyc0tJU8_UsYQBhp37DSzDuexDe-QomZZzo4UPSPVQKbVN0sNCua-gdzWY4254-HHgM05gDRkYVpez4/s320/slomofastmo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I have read a piece of work at an open mic slot. It was my first try and I will just tell you why it was not my finest hour.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">In November I attended the excellent <a href="http://twitter.com/annthepoet">Ann (The Poet) Wilson’s</a> Performance Workshop hosted by <a href="http://www.spotlightlancaster.co.uk/page9.htm">Lancaster Spotlight</a>. I thought I would have a try at reading some of my own writing at a lit evening.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Ann is a great poet, performer and compere and, it turns out, brilliant teacher. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We were a small group and we good-naturedly watched each other reading and perform and gave constructive feedback. Ann provided particularly bespoke advice and showed us how our posture and body language influenced how we sound and how we are perceived. She took us through a whole series of warm-up exercises, breathing and relaxation methods and showed us how to use a microphone (which is a lot more complicated than it sounds).</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We were all conspicuously better at performing by the time we had our second bash at delivering our work.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I am never going to be a ‘Ta-Dah!’ kind of a performer but Ann assured us that the conspiratorial ‘Come and listen to this,’ type of delivery is equally as valid.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Between November and now I nearly had a try at an open mic slot several times - but lost my nerve on every occasion.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Finally, I decided I had to do it. I have no idea where the compulsion to read my own writing out loud in front of strangers came from. An obligatory karaoke evening is way beyond what my vision of what hell might be like - and karaoke-ers are at least performing words written by professionals.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I opted to read an extract from my dissertation long-short story. The extract is a first person flashback to the mid-1970s in which my female narrator unsuccessfully resolves to stop the planned adoption of her baby. I wrote it with a detached and calculating heart.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The evening before the lit night I practiced the piece in front of my benevolent writing group friends. The extract was overly-long – almost five minutes and, ridiculously, my voice cracked as if I was about to cry, when I got to the section where the baby is being taken. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The writing friends were kind. I don’t know, maybe I should have been more explicit about my intentions, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">‘I plan to read this extract in a big room. In front of people. Strangers, who do not know me...’</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">and then my writing friends might have been more candid.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Deluded as ever I pressed on; I cut the extract down by removing the first paragraph and a slew of adjectives.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The extract was still over three minutes long but, I hoped, not long enough to trigger the klaxon.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I tinkered with the ending to make it a more self contained narrative.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I practiced reading the narrative out loud to myself one thousand three hundred and ninety seven times; until there was no scrap of emotion left about my person.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">At the lit evening I hummed along the corridors until my lips vibrated. I swung my arms vigorously in the toilets. I squatted gingerly when I imagined no one was looking to get the tension out of my legs (this latter exercise was an error as I have a very painful limp at the moment). I inhaled huge lungsful of air with each breath until there were shimmering black shapes in front of my eyes. All to little avail.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaroP1tSIhoJ0TpC-GMfeKAw9Y8ntoMO6cukb0wNzpz0blpMZt1uOlbiaqovItlJMqd7iJuMu0-1wT5rz4qi4DqUxvfB0dUm4sftaOq9OTzAg6usoPyzXv_ivBFHNofz-VJylPFjKM758/s1600-h/bucket.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" kt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaroP1tSIhoJ0TpC-GMfeKAw9Y8ntoMO6cukb0wNzpz0blpMZt1uOlbiaqovItlJMqd7iJuMu0-1wT5rz4qi4DqUxvfB0dUm4sftaOq9OTzAg6usoPyzXv_ivBFHNofz-VJylPFjKM758/s200/bucket.jpg" width="173" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">When I stood, eschewing the microphone because I couldn’t remember what Ann had said about how to use a microphone, my heart was booming against my ribs, I was anoxic and shrill. Mentally I was being sick in a bucket in the corner of the room. In reality, I was standing in front of my first audience.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">As I read I couldn’t believe how long and silly the piece sounded. At the same time I felt sure I was accidentally missing out whole critical paragraphs.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">There was one perceptible response from the audience, a man laughed – appropriately - when I mentioned the Uncle Bulgaria slippers; I wish now that I had paused, glanced up and thanked him – but I was in a hurry. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Even before I came to the section where the Fictional Baby is being taken my voice started to wobble dangerously. By the time I got to where the poor sod is being carted off in his Moses basket I was gulping audibly. The tinkered-with ending was lost in mangled emotion.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">It is hard to say who was more embarrassed, me or the audience. I was so affected by the reading that even I came away suspecting that the events in the story were autobiographical. It would have felt like disloyalty to my Fictional Character to say,</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">‘I’m okay, I never had a baby adopted, you know…’</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">As if I am suggesting that my Fictional Character has done something shameful.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">'Anyway...' (this is me addressing my Fictional Character).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">'Anyway, my Fictional Character, it is me who should be ashamed, not you. You did what you considered to be the best thing in the circumstances. I, on the other hand, inflicted an overly-long, sentimental, ridiculously read, possibly inaudible extract on a blameless audience.' </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">After the reading I felt as if I was in a slow-motion/fast-motion trick photography film. In this film I can be seen sitting quite still and anonymous whilst a speeded-up world continues dizzily around me.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">As I said at the beginning, my first open mic was not my finest hour. More accurately; it was not my finest more-than-three-minutes-but-less-than-five-minutes (if you don’t include my starring role in the subsequent trick photography slow-mo/fast-mo motion picture). Actually, not finest hour was probably a fair description.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Did any one else see the non-trick photography film, <em>Grey Gardens</em>? Apparently the subject of the film, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HThPvYePxx0">Edith Bouvier Beale</a> (a first cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis) attempted to launch a cabaret career when she was 60. The New York Times called her act:</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">‘A public display of ineptitude.’</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Oh poor Edie. Oh poor me. There. I’ve said it. We will not speak of my first open mic slot again. Least said soonest mended…</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
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</div>kim mcgowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11854915502212651980noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8035871310991830775.post-35624804497249858152010-02-10T09:35:00.000-08:002010-05-18T04:39:55.306-07:00The Dissertation, Narrative Mode and Being Jealous of Margaret Atwood.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmb-umoTTKVwLZKJ9HqjAvQdRKKyxjQ5NidfObpZExC3I-ty969AOTGrGn4zNdRRWDLKXP4Lk_wwZ1DmZYoaezvCcUId-EHj49E-9VanvS3jczgkE-cbVaq2eNqe7-3DcpLc4LLwK1fwY/s1600-h/books.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" kt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmb-umoTTKVwLZKJ9HqjAvQdRKKyxjQ5NidfObpZExC3I-ty969AOTGrGn4zNdRRWDLKXP4Lk_wwZ1DmZYoaezvCcUId-EHj49E-9VanvS3jczgkE-cbVaq2eNqe7-3DcpLc4LLwK1fwY/s400/books.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">My supervisor, the Author who is Writing about Neanderthals, has spent hours forensically reading my shitty first/fifth/seventh drafts and I have had the first two of my six dissertation meetings.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The project will be 12,000 words in my chosen genre and 3,000 words of critical commentary.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Initially I planned to write <a href="http://kimmcgowan.blogspot.com/2009/09/birthday-neanderthal-half-ma-and-time.html">six 2,000</a> word pieces because I am a blatherer who needs discipline and because I find it so difficult to make longer stories cohesive. The first three story ideas started out as:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><em>The Shoes</em>: a love story over forty years told from alternating male and female points of view;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><em>The Wrong Baby</em>: a story about the social changes wrought by a transfer from a mobile forager/hunter existence to sedentism and food production;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><em>I Was A Nurse</em>: a story about the impact of dementia;</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Two of the stories feature dead or lost babies and the third features an infantile parent. I am <em>always</em> losing babies in my stories.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I am about to blather about point of view (POV) or narrative voice and tense so here is a scanty summary of POV and narrative mode - as I understand it:</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">First person: Uses the ‘I’ voice. The first person narrator is often unreliable because they are presenting events from their perspective.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Second person: Uses the ‘You’ voice.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Third person: Uses the ‘She’ voice. The third person narrator can be:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Third person objective, that is the narrator describes events but not the thoughts of the characters.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Third person subjective (also known as third person restricted (or limited) omniscient) that is the narrator describes events and the thoughts of one main character. Some stories are a series of third person subjective narratives that focus on alternating or different characters.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Third person omniscient: the narrator who sees all and knows the mind of all the characters.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Past tense: 'I was at'; ‘She was at’.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Present tense: 'I am at'; ‘She is at’.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">POV and tense can be used in every permutation. To add confusion I am going to talk about a story in which I use a first person, present tense narrative mode to write about a memory. I like present tense because events are unfolding for the reader as they happen.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">My love story started out being told by two alternating (unnamed) protagonists. Both were narrated from the first person, past tense POV. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">This is a small extract from the first draft (it was well-slated in workshop). Usually the alternating sections are longer but these two just happen to be very short. The girl narrates first then the bloke:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">"I was one of May’s bridesmaids. After the reception a group of us went on to Charlie’s. The dress wasn’t one of those dreadful satin carry-ons; we chose a nice maxi-dress from Dorothy Perkins so I could get some use out of it afterwards. I wore ballet pumps with mine. When he saw me he said.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">‘Don’t you have any proper shoes?’</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Houghton Sue wasn't at Charlie’s this week but she was. She was drunk and looked a bit of a mess, long flowery dress and stupid shoes. Still I took her home and got my end away."</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">At the first dissertation meeting my supervisor recommended that I read:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Margaret Atwood's <em>Alias Grace</em> to see how a writer can shift between narrators; in this instance between an first person unreliable narrator and a third person subjective (or restricted) narrator; </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><em>Postcards</em> by Annie Proulx as an example of how a writer tells one man's story as a series third person restricted narratives; each section present events from the point of view of different characters in turn over many decades;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><em>Burning Bright</em> by Helen Dunmore to see how I might convey how devotion or obsession can blind a character to reality. <em>Burning Bright</em> is written from shifting POV but in the perpetual present tense.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Over a few weeks I found all of the titles except <em>Burning Bright</em> at various Oxfam Books (I found loads of others besides and I did get a bit carried away.... )</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I redrafted <em>The Shoes</em> first because, despite it being slated, it is the story that engages me most. It still is not finished and had grown to 7,000 words before my second dissertation meeting so I suggested to my supervisor that I might concentrate on this tale and let it expand into a 12,000 word long-short story, if such a thing exists.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The initial drafts of <em>The Shoes</em> were written colloquially with contractions - weren't, should've, I'd, can't - which I was unhappy about but which I felt were appropriate to the first person voice. One of the books I found in Oxfam was When <em>We Were Orphans</em> by Kazuo Ishiguro. Ishguro's story is a first person narrative that eschews contractions other than in direct speech and I decided to copy his approach in my next iteration.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So, in the redrafting I removed contractions, added a present tense (and present day), first person prologue which describes the woman catching a glimpse of the man after the passage of many years:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">"I see you today.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I am driving down the hill into the city. It is late morning and the sun is shining in my eyes as I turn a bend. I am about to ask Edie to retrieve my sunglasses from the glove compartment but she is speaking and I think I will wait until she has finished this bit of what she is saying.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I am concentrating on Edie’s words. Or rather, I am alert for a natural break. And then there you are…"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I changed the man's POV sections to third person restricted narrator; I made this change because it allowed me to include details and descriptions that my male character would not necessarily have noted.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I altered both narrative POV to the perpetual present tense so they are not memories or flashbacks but unfolding events. The narrators and the reader does not know what will happen (although the prologue has obviously hinted against a happy-ever ending).</span> <br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I'm impressed that proper writers are able to let slip early on that all will not be well - that the narrator will be dead by Tuesday for example - but it is done so skilfully that that the reader allows herself to hope against hope that all may turn out nicely. <em>I </em>hope this every time I see Hamlet.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">This is extract from above, redrafted:</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">“I am a bridesmaid at May’s wedding. After the reception some of us travel on to Charlie’s for a dance. My dress is not one of those dreadful satin creations; we chose a flower print maxi-dress from Dorothy Perkins so I can wear it again afterwards. I found some pink ballet pumps that match it exactly. When Tom sees me he says.</span><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">‘Haven’t you got any proper shoes?’</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Tom cannot find Houghton Sue at Charlie’s this week, but that girl with the frizzy hair is here; the one that seems to be following him around. She is drunk and she looks a bit of a mess in a long, flowery, hippy-dress and stupid shoes. Tom considers for a while, but he does not get any better offers and so he takes her home; and this time it is worth it. He gets his end away.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I also gave my male character a name, Tom, and the female character became a nurse. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I nursed in the olden days; I know about thermometers and myocardial infarctions and gallows humour and getting bladdered - I have access to credible detail. I'm not sure why I am reluctant to name my main protagonists. It is clear from creative writing blogs and books that not naming a character in an attempt to be 'mysterious' irritates readers. I think I am partly guilty of trying to be <em>mysterious</em> but my reluctance is also based on my prejudice about how a person called, Tom, for example might behave. It is probably time for another trip to a <a href="http://kimmcgowan.blogspot.com/2009/04/wednesday-22-april-2009-worst-legs.html">graveyard</a> to harvest some pre-used names. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Author who is Writing about Neanderthals was happy for me to concentrate on one long-short story and gave me some interesting guidelines for how many words constitute what form:</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">12,000 is more than a short story; it bites back, it trusts (her words).</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">20,000 is a long story (a US form she said) which often reflects upon the social morays of a particular time.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">35,000 is a novella, like <em>The Great Gatsby</em> or <em>The Turn of the Screw.</em></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">50,000-60,000 is a short novel.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So my piece doesn't really have a form. I might call it a Loomidob, or I might get a better idea.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">My supervisor said that the new prologue framed the narrative (!), it is set further in the future than the main body of the story and is the point from which the writer can look backward and even forward.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">She is happy with the redrafting so far and feels that the removal of contractions has changed the tone of the piece and consequently the impact on the reader. She suggests that the new formality slows the narrative and that the piece has acquired a tenderness that was missing previously. She suggested I read:</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Colm Tobin; for tenderness that works very well.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Bakhtin on Dostoevsky's work and the representation of polyphony, many voices. <em>The Shoes</em> has two voices, although I think Bakhtin would say that there is a third voice; the woman who relates the prologue is a decades older version of the nurse and therefore an ‘other’ or changed person.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Author who is Writing about Neanderthals is a candid and critical reader but she already knows my characters, what I am aiming for and how the piece has developed. I recently attended some intermediate writing workshops and I took an opening extract from <em>The Shoes</em> to get some fresh and cold-eyed feedback...</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The counsel I received in this forum was invaluable and (I hope) encouraged me to stop deluding myself. I was advised that:</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">My shifts between points of view need to be more clearly signposted. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I need to orient my characters in a place and time with each shift. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I had already made a decision <em>not </em>to signpost shifts in narrative voice by changing font or by other type of formatting (other than by defined line breaks) because I felt it was patronising the reader, but it is obviously pointless to muddle the reader too. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">It was suggested at the workshop that I could date sections like diary entries. Again, I'm not keen but I am not sure why. Maybe it is because I am a lazy writer, or maybe it is because I am prepared to be a hard working reader and figure out what is happening in the books I read (those written by proper writers); but I realise that that is not a good-enough reason and that I can't depend on reader-loyalty from MA markers.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I came away from the workshops with some more reading suggestions:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><em>Cat's Eye</em> by Margaret Atwood; for effective use of present tense memories or flashbacks and for technically accomplished tense shifts.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><em>Cloud Atlas</em> by David Mitchell; for a portrayal of interlocking lives.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><em>Morven Callar</em> by Alan Warner for a self contained female narrative voice.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Lorrie Moore.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Ann Beatty.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Miranda July</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><em>Cat's Eye</em> is my favourite so far, it features a motif that is familiar to me and, I expect, to my other reader. That is, how a child can be terrorised by a bully who is ultimately revealed to be feeble and pitiable. For my part, that syndrome is not limited to childhood; I spent whole swathes of my adult life not getting or being afraid of people I saw regularly - other parents, people at evening classes, work colleagues - only to eventually realise that it wasn't necessarily me who was stupid or out of kilter.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">In <em>Cat’s Eye</em>, Atwood keeps her child narrator in the eternal present, which contrasts with the nebulous and disjointed childhood memories of the her same character as a grown woman.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I am very jealous of Atwood because she manages time shifts between forty years ago and now that are mostly in first person present tense and occasionally in first person past tense without clunky signposting; italics or diary dates. <em>That</em> is what I am trying to do. The difference is Atwood is a skilled technician and I am not.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">My first person narrator presents information in an immediate, simplistic way:</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">"I am a bridesmaid at May's wedding. After the reception..."</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Although Atwood is writing in the present tense as a child her voice is more lyrical and knowing and her scope is broader:</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">"The snow erodes, leaving the pot-holes in the roads near our house filled with muddy water. The bubbles of ice form across these puddles overnight; we shatter them with the heels of our boots."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: large;">Atwood's narration feels like an adult looking through a child's eyes but, as I said, the adult narrator does not remember the childhood events with clarity or order.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">My story is not complete yet. I know <em>what</em> happens but I am not sure <em>how</em> it happens. I think I just need to get it finished using the current narrative modes and then work on trying to make it accessible without being patronising.</span><br />
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</div>kim mcgowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11854915502212651980noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8035871310991830775.post-58344411516903529472010-02-02T06:26:00.000-08:002010-03-09T05:40:12.075-08:00Is Hull a Real Place?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9KVzC1M6qq-VV8r3gQE1g0RLgHITfnJLWX1ZplcGVFVkLsknAlgOjU5dEE-XNI9L8bptgSf8GcUOHPivFlFcfAfC2tzcTe60j3hZnctghfYtIuFnn4zX4L0VxUkXvxBnCGK32_1lK_nE/s1600-h/the+cornett.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" kt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9KVzC1M6qq-VV8r3gQE1g0RLgHITfnJLWX1ZplcGVFVkLsknAlgOjU5dEE-XNI9L8bptgSf8GcUOHPivFlFcfAfC2tzcTe60j3hZnctghfYtIuFnn4zX4L0VxUkXvxBnCGK32_1lK_nE/s320/the+cornett.JPG" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I recently read a newspaper article suggesting that Hull might become The Venice of the North and was reminded of the time we had our Youngest Grandson and his cornet to stay.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span"></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">They were only with us for a few days; he is a most affable child (and the cornet is generally well behaved). </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">If I cooked food that our Youngest Grandson wasn't sure about he didn't pull sick faces or make gagging noises, he tried his best. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span">This is an exchange we had when I gave him some salty spaghetti bolognaise. I could tell it was too salty because he was laughing like a loon at Ian's daft jokes and shifting food from one plate-zone to another in an attempt to wear it out; and also because it </span></span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span">tasted </span></span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span">too salty.</span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">'Are you okay with that, or is it a bit salty for you?'</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">'It's fine, thanks. Oh, ho ho! Grandad, you're well-sad!'</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He makes a small realignment of some bolognaise and lifts a couple of dangles of unadulterated pasta to his lips.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">'Are you sure, is it perhaps not what you're used to at home and would you prefer to just have some pasta with grated cheese?'</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Short pause. He shakes his head, sage-like, at Ian's infantile banter and appraises his plate.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">'This is very nice Grandma, but it's not what I'm used to at home and maybe I would prefer to just have some pasta with grated cheese.'</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span"></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">In just a few days we managed to lose all his clothes and most of his homework. The majority of his clobber disappeared into the black hole that is After School Club. Turns out you're not meant to believe children when they say,</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">'It's in my bag.'</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">or</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">'It's okay, I left it in the drawer.'</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">or</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">'I didn't wear it today.'</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Because what they're really saying is:</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">'Will you give it a rest, Grandma, with your inane interrogating, I've got important things to think about.'</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We felt quite smug when we returned him to his mother because he was wearing his PE kit. It transpires the PE kit wasn't even his own; school had dressed him in that after he slipped on the field playing Tag (or was it Tig?).</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">'I thought the field was out of bounds in the winter?'</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">'Oh yes. It is.'</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">'Why...?'</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">'My foot just caught the edge.'</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">'Ah.'</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span"></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He was no trouble at all. He let me read to him from his mother's 1970s Thomas the Tank Engine books and his uncle's Calvin and Hobbes and 1980s Beano Annuals. He pretended (for my sake) that playing Consequences is riotously hilarious fun. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span"></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Our Youngest Grandson couldn't believe how much we like to sleep, we do like to be in bed for 9.00 but we were extra exhausted when he was staying. I had completely forgotten how physically and emotionally draining small children are; you live in constant fear that some nameless, terrifying harm will befall them.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span"></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">When my Other Middlest Child drove him and the cornet to school on the final day he said.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">'Auntie Ali?'</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">'Yes, Chick?</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">'I've been wondering.'</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">'Oh yes?'</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">'I've been wondering for a while now.'</span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">'Ye-e-es....?' (this might be one for your mummy)</span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">'Is Hull a real place?'</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">My Other Middlest Child, a brainbox who knows a thing or two about the East Coast, admits that this question caught her on the hop and made her doubt herself. The thing is, she said, when someone thinks you are omnipotent you don't want to ruin your reputation with an ill-considered response. She knew she knew but caught herself wondering. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">'<em>Is</em> it a real place?'</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span"></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Well, Auntie Ali, Hull must be a real place, because I've seen it in the newspaper and it might be destined to become The Venice of the North.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">ps did you know that he cornet was originally derived from the post horn ? Golly!</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span">pps Proud Hullesians, we all </span></span><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span">do</span></span></strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span"> know that Hull is a real and very fine place, it's just that the strain of omnipotence gets to us, sometimes.</span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
</span></span>kim mcgowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11854915502212651980noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8035871310991830775.post-24229026973293989762010-01-05T09:29:00.000-08:002010-01-14T12:19:10.529-08:00The Shire Horse Rides Again - and how many trees the (vulgar) other half have.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUdAx7WdupqE24YQ-xiv0w0nPl4TTWhnAaKTSArjCG6SffjBQ5RuIg7J1BYbDEy_dFyRb4HDhbGP-MPaXY6Qt8gFkcZRq27t0Wm_kolUGomecOSSfitjHWNYD_XdUT1eNMnM00oPFnAQg/s1600-h/the+conga.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ps="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUdAx7WdupqE24YQ-xiv0w0nPl4TTWhnAaKTSArjCG6SffjBQ5RuIg7J1BYbDEy_dFyRb4HDhbGP-MPaXY6Qt8gFkcZRq27t0Wm_kolUGomecOSSfitjHWNYD_XdUT1eNMnM00oPFnAQg/s400/the+conga.JPG" /></a><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">You are short of money in the run-up to Christmas. In these circumstances convention dictates that you spend judiciously until around the 22 December. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">When 22 December dawns a red mist descends (or this year - a white blizzard descends) and instantly it becomes acceptable to purchase anything you see - the more overpriced, the better.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">You do not even need a big Christmas tree. You are poor, your children are grown and a tree only drops and make a mess anyway. A modest Christmas tree will be adequate. You will pity-purchase a wonky, economy tree nearer to the date. You favour wonkers, a tree with a bald bit or a list or a double top or *gulps* an amputation, because you feel sorry for them.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Due to the snow you can't even get to the Christmas tree shop prior to the 22 December. By dawn on the 22 December obtaining a tree (the bigger, the wonkier, the better) is your only ambition.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">It is snowing hard but Ian shovels the drive clear for three hours. In the process he liberates the Postman, which gives everyone a warm-fuzzy feeling. Ian spreads ashes to aid his return journey (note: these were <em>not</em> the Postman's ashes). </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Ian and the Other Middlest child and the Postman set off up the blizzard-blinded lane in a stately 5mph conga in the direction of the Christmas tree shop. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Twenty minutes after their snowy departure the Youngest child draws up, her arrival aided by the thoughtfully scattered ashes. She slept away from home last night and has brought you a huge surprise.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">'I've brought you a huge surprise - a Christmas tree!'</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">You speed dial Ian and his mobile telephone rings in the dining room.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">You speed dial the Other Middlest child and her Elvis Costello ringtone sounds tinnily from upstairs.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The arctic adventurers return with the (second) flake-laden tree. They report that as they slewed to a halt at the Christmas tree shop the nice lady, sensible in her extreme-weather outfit, had clapped her gloved hands together gleefully. As they departed she'd said.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">'I didn't expect to sell any trees today - and I've just sold two!'</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Yes. Both of them to you. Both of them fiendishly expensive. Both of them major wonkers; one of them has two heads, <em>two </em>heads.</span> <br />
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</div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4LLpiyada8-zfoN4IecvmR3FyTfexC2QWYjU9IP-fAC_ubDqR4fPiTViohleFroJdMYEqitkuWCp6nEUAPKDyteYUPC_afOKrwHyXPDWR7ADa3xLAD-F7gPGMVByINyHlnu1NohYgw0k/s1600-h/red+tree+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ps="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4LLpiyada8-zfoN4IecvmR3FyTfexC2QWYjU9IP-fAC_ubDqR4fPiTViohleFroJdMYEqitkuWCp6nEUAPKDyteYUPC_afOKrwHyXPDWR7ADa3xLAD-F7gPGMVByINyHlnu1NohYgw0k/s400/red+tree+2.jpg" /></a><br />
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</div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">There is the mostly red/gold tree (aka The Dropper) - please note the Christmas chair decoration and the pink Christmas rabbit decoration. One visitor saw fit to comment on the oddness of these particular decorations. What is there to say, doesn't everyone have a Christmas chair? There is also a wonker Christmas cricketer decoration hanging around at the back of the red/gold tree.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMopdIo9LNzGQV72klwBAW_tMtpRnoQT22xbZ0ZXO-kUAlXlzCveV-Wvg3ZQt5UBpa5ac-daChhEGOOdbRfQu7hpuclJTicaW11KD3HqsrudY2xV6BR9BZ4_WfYaDeOlq_CwYzofZeUpg/s1600-h/blue+tree+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ps="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMopdIo9LNzGQV72klwBAW_tMtpRnoQT22xbZ0ZXO-kUAlXlzCveV-Wvg3ZQt5UBpa5ac-daChhEGOOdbRfQu7hpuclJTicaW11KD3HqsrudY2xV6BR9BZ4_WfYaDeOlq_CwYzofZeUpg/s400/blue+tree+2.jpg" /></a><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">And there is the mostly silver/blue tree (aka The Two-headed Sticker) -Yes, the coding guidelines have been loosely interpreted. Well, breeched. It's Christmas; and not really the time to get precious about colour-rules; and it transpires there aren't many blue decorations in the loot under the stairs.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Also just visible, next to the silver/blue tree (The Two-headed Sticker) is the cake, baked by the Youngest child, decorated by the Youngest child and the Other Middlest child, eaten by me. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">My other reader will observe that the </span><a href="http://kimmcgowan.blogspot.com/2009/11/lot-of-important-things-two-weddings.html"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Shire Horse</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> rides again.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Our approach to Christmas cake characters is much the same as it is to Christmas trees and to Christmas tree decorations. Bring us your wonkers and they are assured a place in our royal icing blizzard. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The cake tableau was a royal icing blizzard-conga to church featuring: an improbably compact church; a Shire horse; three Father Christmases; two polar bears, one able bodied and one alternatively abled (3-legged); an assortment of candle-head angels, some able bodied, some with wings missing, a King-Kong killer robin red-breast and a King-Kong killer robin brown-breast (the latter's red breast has washed off). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">There is no </span><a href="http://kimmcgowan.blogspot.com/2009/11/lot-of-important-things-two-weddings.html"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Collie Dog</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> for scale; I cannot explain this grave omission, except to say that the compact church and the King-Kong killer robins just chortle in the face of scale anyway.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The cake appears commendably inclusive - and so it is. But I am about to highlight a hitherto overlooked environmental hazard. If it wasn't for royal icing none of these seasonal characters would have sustained severe leg and wing injuries in the first place.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Over the years it has been scientifically demonstrated that royal icing is the primary source of polar bear and angel mutilations. It is almost certainly behind many other nasty disasters. Royal icing should probably be banned.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">On Sunday I attended my excellent friend Steve's 60th birthday party in Windermere. This photograph was taken during his wintery birthday boat trip.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Happy Birthday (very) Old Fruit</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2YSHyH4oVXqYyOhcRqmrCEf8t4UAXVTrsqih3u8l2sb-7FImvkuGk8dtLU-J_9j91uec-xJiZo7lHsr3BVTTmE60GE3MHGc9Sq7K5SzM3YUX8AoQsiy3owF5LBV-xk1NGKwtI4zKLqYA/s1600-h/steves+60th.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ps="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2YSHyH4oVXqYyOhcRqmrCEf8t4UAXVTrsqih3u8l2sb-7FImvkuGk8dtLU-J_9j91uec-xJiZo7lHsr3BVTTmE60GE3MHGc9Sq7K5SzM3YUX8AoQsiy3owF5LBV-xk1NGKwtI4zKLqYA/s400/steves+60th.JPG" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">And Happy New Year.</span>kim mcgowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11854915502212651980noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8035871310991830775.post-25412463301491059512009-12-12T04:15:00.000-08:002009-12-14T02:42:26.968-08:00A Memorial, the Transit of Venus and Not Planning Ahead Nicely - like Olden Day Masons.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvCotz5Ix-OEMqFPngzXXxXING0wZAYiJ3mMuCjer9gmdRQkVv9wCXGqPZEI4-kGLBQC5B-3r_fwVY8PhDZGo1vrECFVNe7bzhD9izKbbhZJepoCdW4k8Qxwegr1uoANXkPuiUEMIOFEA/s1600-h/DSC_0118.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ps="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvCotz5Ix-OEMqFPngzXXxXING0wZAYiJ3mMuCjer9gmdRQkVv9wCXGqPZEI4-kGLBQC5B-3r_fwVY8PhDZGo1vrECFVNe7bzhD9izKbbhZJepoCdW4k8Qxwegr1uoANXkPuiUEMIOFEA/s320/DSC_0118.JPG" /></a><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A post ago I wrote about the death of a friend. His memorial service was held at St Michael's in Hoole near to Preston. It would have been insensitive and intrusive to take camera to the service but there are particular features of the day that stayed with me and I returned to the tiny church at the weekend to photograph some parts of the memories. My Other Middlest child came along with me for company.</span><br />
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</div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWxwhfvy1L0IE5xQwyOOeoIpILEwRJCHdDGPZXy7ncX79dmMkLnvFjCfl1R_uxLMAUdupiMrF6SslEB-N1uSOYuydZEoF2WwJgpSVSyDcfJeLwbtuZemvA8VkD_6ABYMojI57tnVjYe8Q/s1600-h/DSC_0112.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ps="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWxwhfvy1L0IE5xQwyOOeoIpILEwRJCHdDGPZXy7ncX79dmMkLnvFjCfl1R_uxLMAUdupiMrF6SslEB-N1uSOYuydZEoF2WwJgpSVSyDcfJeLwbtuZemvA8VkD_6ABYMojI57tnVjYe8Q/s320/DSC_0112.JPG" /></a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was taken by the heart-shaped motifs picked out in the brickwork of the building, and by a strange and elaborate doorway in the north wall - when you are inside the church there is no sign of an entrance - just blank plaster; it's a door that leads to nowhere.</span><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The heart seems such a modern and frivolous emblem but St Michael’s is very old and I would like to understand why the shapes were incorporated by the bricklayers. There are diamonds too - but no spades or clubs - so it isn’t that the workmen were borrowing playing card symbols.</span><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3KqossWBw6peoUTM6NN-Gw6UPFxQt69Z7a27jO4Wvv0-9yynOUfPkx0VPFhzsGxN54cxXNMxEQtyo4f2Pw315qSUjUZkpaTHkS5uncrqgKZO7o96_mhmQ_N0OAYoCMhYjPN6mxRdenNI/s1600-h/DSC_0108.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ps="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3KqossWBw6peoUTM6NN-Gw6UPFxQt69Z7a27jO4Wvv0-9yynOUfPkx0VPFhzsGxN54cxXNMxEQtyo4f2Pw315qSUjUZkpaTHkS5uncrqgKZO7o96_mhmQ_N0OAYoCMhYjPN6mxRdenNI/s320/DSC_0108.JPG" /></a><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Some people think playing cards are sinister.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'based on the blipish Satanism of the Cabala,'</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(see </span><a href="http://www.balaams-ass.com/JOURNAL/homemake/playcard.htm"><em><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Playing Cards</span></em></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> on this rather unsettling site). I don't think the lovely priest who conducted my friend's memorial subscribes to the belief that cards are inherently evil though)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">St Michael's at Hoole is (a bit) famous because of its association with an extraordinary astronomer, Jeremiah Horrocks, who died in 1641 aged 22.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8EW49mEyQ615DkzbRxhG_LM7HGG4csTbmcTEQDm8lIiSCiL3qMEkFvmAtWKVgQiF7FC3e8JZaw125tWL6DvpfGL6NvcFyHQz2Javxit4HPg1yk8_J1tQYEgPP-FvCshDyvJEk3GScILg/s1600-h/DSC_0111.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ps="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8EW49mEyQ615DkzbRxhG_LM7HGG4csTbmcTEQDm8lIiSCiL3qMEkFvmAtWKVgQiF7FC3e8JZaw125tWL6DvpfGL6NvcFyHQz2Javxit4HPg1yk8_J1tQYEgPP-FvCshDyvJEk3GScILg/s320/DSC_0111.JPG" /></a><br />
</div><br />
<a href="http://www.longtononline.co.uk/his_horrocks.html"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jeremiah Horrocks</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> was the first person to accurately predict and observe the transit of Venus; a phenomenon during which Venus moves between the Earth and the Sun and is visible on the solar face.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The transit of Venus occurs in a massive 243 year cycle and then happens twice within a decade. Young Horrocks witnessed the event in November 1639. The last time it occurred was on the 8 June 2004. During the eulogy the lovely priest mentioned how my friend, a bespoke jeweller, made commemorative transit of Venus pieces for St Michael's.</span><br />
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</div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There were three particular aspects of the memorial service that I couldn’t recapture with a camera after the event.</span> <br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first is the reading the eulogy. It laid out the frame of my friend’s life before us and it touched upon the lives he himself influenced: He was born in Hoxton but was evacuated to a manor house in Devon for the duration of the war. His life and his deeds seem to have reflected that dichotomous start to his existence; he was a jeweller, a singer, a boxer, a stuntman (I didn’t know that!) a father, a writer, a promoter of sport for all, a politician, and much else. He was funny and he was irreverent. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He pretended to be a Tory - but he was far more complicated than a description of his activities suggests; all his instincts were to redress social iniquities, not to perpetuate them (he stopped eating meat after a programme about how transported livestock suffer). To put it charitably, I'm a fuzzy-wuzzy, well-meaning liberal; an atheist who views boxing with aghast bewilderment - but I do nowt. My friend was a properly kind and committed person and he actually <em>did</em> stuff that made the world around him more fair.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The second picture I would have taken is of all the boxers my friend trained over the years, bursting from the joints of the gated choir stalls. Young lives and young men that have realigned themselves within the space they occupy because of what he taught them about self-discipline and self-respect. They clattered up to the gallery at the back of the church; the heeled shoes of their girls muffled by the red-ribbed stair carpet. If my friend had been able he’d have reminded them that they have as much right to the prominent seats as anyone else and he’d have ushered them to the front pews, budging up the officials to accommodate them. I like to imagine him introducing his latest protégée to a startled Mayor.</span> <br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The third image I didn’t get, because it would have been intrusive to take it, is of grown men shouldering a coffin. I hadn’t realised before but it’s an act as visceral and as concentrated as giving birth. Three broad sons and a brother, arms linked over each others shoulders, baring his weight; awkward but peculiarly graceful, their faces waxed with effort of baring one of their own on his very last journey.</span> <br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I started this post not really knowing what I was going to write or how I was going to finish it – and the bother is, I still don’t know.</span> <br />
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</div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As we were leaving the churchyard my Other Middlest child noticed this gravestone beside the rustic gate that leads between the grounds and the car park. I am impressed with how cavalier masons used to be about spelling and hyphenation but this is a particularly spectacular example of not planning ahead nicely; with this post I am continuing a noble tradition...</span> <br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Incidentally, the next transit will be in 2012. I live in Preston and (cloud cover permitting) I'll be able to see Venus crossing in front of the Sun at dawn on 6 June 2012. You can check if and when you'll be able to see it </span><a href="http://www.transitofvenus.org/"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">here</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">.</span> <br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We're really lucky-duffers to be living through a time when we can witness the transit of Venus; after 2012, the next events won't be until December 2117 and 2125).</span> <br />
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</div>kim mcgowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11854915502212651980noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8035871310991830775.post-70230546769676185782009-11-26T01:23:00.000-08:002009-12-14T08:23:33.623-08:00Phil Morsman and Civilisation<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5408340927534317394" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIWGQhJnDRZ6zmh2oCd8-jsEwdrnQd0UD2Ao37Q3Vi1bgzDVA5le0qa9adO_iAMxsYrx6yHE-fAui10erWZuc7kjue_u3thKQlD2Y97XF-DWnYtNHEm3sCO-XobGL_4gEC2cZOxI4_M-c/s320/IMG_1417.JPG" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 240px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /><br />
<div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 130%;">A few weeks ago I wrote a post wondering, </span><a href="http://kimmcgowan.blogspot.com/2009/10/would-we-put-another-human-person-in.html"><em><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 130%;">Would we put another human person in a zoo?</span></em></a><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 130%;"> I blathered that civilisation can't be so very civilised when it's predicated on enforced labour. </span></span><br />
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</div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 130%;">After publishing the post I saw an exhibition of </span></span><a href="http://www.philmorsman.com/index.html"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 130%;">Phil Morsman</span></a><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 130%;">'s work in The Gateway at the University of Cumbria (it's there until tomorrow - you'll need to be quick).</span><br />
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</div><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5408362699496252690" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMovk1eN90lzUQh5gZ039KTzvLYHnxGeDffiuA0fkJGREkPdCIcwWZp1QWLeVijSc1rHaINwFsOthk7e_E_Z8hTb4S7y7CcatIZz25ZAL28AAobIVl6ja6faQDbe6zQNVXQj4XvApPH3M/s400/IMG_1436.JPG" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 165px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /> <br />
<div></div><div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 130%;">Phil's pictures neatly convey what I was struggling to say.</span><br />
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<div><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5408341108294855938" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-2YlC1fkI3skYyegy2ZDq2xIXsliHGpxyWPeP6JzX6hbAAl3xPUZWArsyiRRaDOJmwqR-jKcpObAe5KyGMBRzlTFK_uv3b941u-aR37LOOMYN2xeElH2WQ0nPIaKdJ8Rah4KP1nQKBeI/s320/IMG_1437.JPG" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 320px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 240px;" /> <span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 130%;">More of Phil's work is exhibited in <em>Selected Obsessions</em> the Alexandra Gallery - also at the University. The very poor photograph below is of a mixed media picture entitled <em>Fissure.</em></span></span> <br />
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<div><em></em><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5408356505978974114" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixdVL8X69e7HBwDN0Ript7_JLuHQq5n_bTnY9AfUDfNXHb_Z5_4IWkTGTS-CCKIeJ4YdEa-kTNQ3K0504xL7gqInSBscgrxxt5Tbj-qw0rFivCa8gz2T7_Cb6vj0l6OzhYWTve3QTT4_c/s320/DSC_0102.JPG" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 213px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /><br />
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<div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 130%;">To my simple mind Phils obsessions - in particular slavery, deserts, borders and geological features - reflect my own preoccupations.</span><br />
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<div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 130%;">I took a photograph of another mixed media picture called F<em>ault </em>but<em> </em>it is a Very Bad photograph. The gallery lights (and me!) are hideously reflected in the glass and it'd be a profound injustice to Phil to publish it here. However, <em>Fault</em> is my new best obsession.<br />
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<div></div></div></div></div></div>kim mcgowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11854915502212651980noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8035871310991830775.post-52293398124909208742009-11-20T02:33:00.000-08:002009-11-23T08:32:58.424-08:00Some Important Things - two weddings, a properly sad event, a twenty-first birthday & the real size of a Shire Horse.<img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5407001385652929474" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 258px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgZgyCH1kREnzzHOmqtgfhB27vjCVYONiT_afUsk5a9WCZMgXOYH18XcuSwq4zIctDDve0-YFMKqMfRLsIkqL_m398gIvb06eNFLfAtjVEtXdRUpR4AteCysdqEONvFwpJ4hhLq7w_D6s/s320/sire+horse.JPG" border="0" /><span style="font-size:130%;"> <span style="font-family:arial;">Since the last post a some Important Things have happened. I'm setting these events down in order of chronology not magnitude.</span></span><br /><br /><p><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">My son married. If I'd been set to design the Just Right wife for him I wouldn't have known where to start. Luckily, he found her, and she found him. Congratulations! I could not be gladder.</span></p><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">My middle child and I visited a dressmaker in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 /><st1:place st="on">Blackburn</st1:place> to talk about bridesmaids dresses for her wedding and to purchase ladybird wings and antenna from Blackburn Market (for Halloween, not bridal wear). The next day we visited my other middle child in <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Newcastle</st1:place></st1:city>. On our amble, between tea and buns at Fenwicks and tea and buns at the Baltic Arts Centre across the Tyne, we saw steeplejacks abseiling along the roof of the Sage. We’ve no idea why.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;">Repairs?</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;">A dare?</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;">Window cleaning?</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;">For the view?</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;">Whatever they were up to, they were especially intrepid.</span><br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5406138805752173538" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 369px; HEIGHT: 218px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0QAfTVbHUJoCwDsPfuIE_ZjKBdZkYvaYgE4J-Z0JlOQSiZnnJL3Vdd9zPOuVavopEJ6Ma1MJxV7eRTegVL4edS3qoi1cvgd2bmscgIfV1d-M5kYl0TCMtskB7Age9eFneWQhHENNcoRY/s320/the+sage.JPG" border="0" /><br /><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><!--StartFragment--></span></span></p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, serif;"><p class="MsoNormal"><!--StartFragment--></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">My old friend and neighbour, Peter, died. He's been ill and in pain for a long time and I'm glad he isn't suffering anymore, but it is almost incomprehensible to me that I will never see him, speak to him or listen to him talk, <em>ever again</em>. I miss him just not being there. He was as complex and as interesting as any of us (well, more remarkable than most - but that's his story, not mine). I think he is best summed up by what he said when a Bad Thing happened at our house. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">‘We have no arrangement that can’t be changed if you need us.’</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">And he was true to his word.</span></p><!--EndFragment--><p></p><!--EndFragment--></span><p></p><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">Finally, my youngest child turned twenty-one at five minutes past midnight on Sunday 15 November. I put fairy lights in the window, assembled a bare-bottomed baby photo montage and decorated a cake with a heart filled with dolly-mixtures.</span><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5406157420121979122" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_jF8dmSXk54Fn_S5yjYiwRztsOZ3RWFoa2eJGV1rqF12EIp3n9MboJQqdhKUXh46kE2OcO1fueWq6nqUqwKKzMLLAgFxGb1rpQUqQdywxcpmbVhDjIcT23yN16YUebZ4DmAuqHgUkk-w/s320/ellies+cake.JPG" border="0" /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">Her boyfriend lovingly made her the blue cake below; the one with hand painted Shire Horses and a Collie Dog. My youngest child isn’t particularly partial to Shire Horses or Collie Dogs, but he explained.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">'Shire Horses are my favourite - the Collie Dog is for scale. Most people don't appreciate just how massive Shire Horses are.'</span><br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5407007777514494866" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 213px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR-QUdAa1HfuJzjAch0IDzJ6ILN1WtHEu-VT0tuC1dksp8kTFfWMjMrJy080ScG3-IiHZM_gBX6lQkh7B08S1PBiovjovE9MCqr1la3RuFXTzSxfVsjmzswBkLYiTnuAltO32XTwaAZS4/s320/shirehorse+cake.JPG" border="0" /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">Well, there you have it; Shire Horses are considerably bigger than a Collie Dog but a little bit smaller than a birthday candle.</span><br /><p><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;"></span></p><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQMN83FXfpd8cv_tMbM-YtlZLkt3o5kKg_HGJXcBFBa9ODsD2eFuE2zZwckivALGDgMZFY_zAz3GJTt_TPe2UUJ4bxe4QKbQX7sdrqnPS469eZ1tLQZAGm1GZdhfXgqwPhqUfejpQf1RY/s1600/DSC_0047.JPG"></a>kim mcgowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11854915502212651980noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8035871310991830775.post-85560996130802090852009-10-23T03:51:00.001-07:002009-11-04T05:39:15.814-08:00The terribly sad story of not getting an Award...You were delighted and grateful to be nominated for the Award and overjoyed to find yourself on the Best Personal (blog) category shortlist.<br /><br />Then you start to ask yourself.<br />‘Why Best Personal category? Why not the Best Writing category?’<br />Because that’s how ridiculous and deluded you can be.<br /><br />You are afraid to attend the Glittering Awards ceremony because you feel a fraud mixing with proper writers and also because you know you’ll be irrationally jealous of the (justly deserving) winners. Your friend prevails upon you.<br />‘If you’re going to submit yourself to scrutiny - you have to be prepared for rejection.’<br /><br />And your youngest child indulgently pretends she'd like to attend with you; so you purchase Glittering Awards ceremony tickets.<br /><br />You are virtual friends with some of the other shortlisted writers. Your virtual friends, the Nice Man and the Writer Who Will Win, are on the same shortlist as you. The Amusing Man and Prolific Short and Story Writer are on a different shortlist. Prior to the Glittering Awards ceremony you realise that other shortlisters are preparing readings for the evening. You’re not sure if it’s an axiom that shortlisters read and you’re the only one who isn’t aware of this protocol - but you’re afraid of ridicule and not brave enough to simply ask someone who will know.<br /><br />You tentatively prepare several readings; a three-minuter, and five-minuter and a ten-minuter – just in case, like a little boy going to a important football match with his cleaned boots in a carrier bag.<br /><br />Then you realise your behaviour is preposterous and you contact your virtual friend, the Nice Man, to see if he’s planning to read. He isn’t. And he isn’t sure how shortlisters know they are expected to read at the Glittering Awards or what the selection criteria are. You speculate that it might be writers on the Best Writing category shortlist who are asked to read. He suggests that your Best Personal (blog) category might be interpreted as a Best at ‘colouring-in without going over the lines’ category, and you both have a hearty virtual laugh over that.<br /><br />On the day of the Glittering Awards you paint stuff on your nails (writer blood-red on your toes, nervous-neutral on your fingers); have a hairdo in a shop; put on a dress - with legging, because that's how edgy you writers can be.<br /><br />You stash your the three readings in your big bag - just in case.<br /><br />On the evening of the Glittering Awards you are sick with nerves. You down some Beechams Flu Plus Caplets because you feel a bit queer, and because you want to dull your anxiety.<br /><br />The Amusing Man, the Prolific Short Story Writer and the Writer Who Will Win read their engaging and hilarious pieces.<br /><br />At nine o’clock the Lady Who Has Worked So Hard to ensure all this happens takes her place on the stage to make the announcements. She says.<br />‘First I’ll read out the shortlist for each category.’<br />And your youngest child nods at you in excitement, her eyes saying.<br />‘This is your moment!’<br />You nod back, still more queasy with anxiety.<br />Then, the Lady Who Has Worked So Hard to ensure all this happens says.<br />‘Oh. I don't have a copy of the shortlisted nominations. I’ll go straight to announcing the winners and runners-up in each category.<br /><br />And your moment has gone.<br /><br />The Writer Who Will Win has won and the Amusing Man, the Prolific Short Story Writer and the Nice Man are all runners-up.<br /><br />All your virtual friends get a mention and you fail.<br /><br />On the walk back to the car park your youngest child gives you a cuddle because you look bereft. Your chest is full of tightly compressed tears but you can’t cry. Your youngest child doesn’t understand.<br />‘I don’t understand - why are you sadder about this than you are about sad things?’<br />And you can only reply with a rigid little shake of your head, because you don’t understand either.<br /><br />During the drive home Michael Bubley, the affable Canadian popular singer, is treating Radio 2 listeners to an easy listening concert. This is galling but your hand is too sad to turn him off. Then Michael Bubley, the affable Canadian popular singer, starts to sing the song <em>Home</em>, and the tears start to roll down your face and there are even more of them than you thought and your youngest child is watching your face in the reflection of the rhythmic motorway lights and she doesn’t know what she can do to make it better.<br /><br />And she can’t make it better can she? Because it’s all down to you. You have to stop thinking you’re a splendid scribe one moment and that you’re an insignificant incompetent the next moment. You need to grow a carapace and put more energy into what you actually <em>write</em> instead of worrying about what others think about you and what you write. Until you’ve done those things, you need to avoid Glittering Awards ceremonies; especially if you’ve been shortlisted.<br /><br />This terribly sad sequence of events isn’t what happened to me; but it might have happened to someone like me if their personality were a charmless combination of misplaced confidence and hobbling insecurity.<br /><br />Coincidentally, I didn’t win at the <a href="http://www.manchesterblogawards.com/">Manchester Blog Awards</a> but these talented people did and I extend my super-congratulations to them. I also am very grateful to Kate Feld of <a href="http://manchizzle.blogspot.com/">Manchizzle</a> who manifestly does work <em>incredible </em>hard to ensure that North West bloggers get such a fantastic event and such lovely acknowledgement for what they do.<br />There is a nice <a href="http://ow.ly/vVCL">Guardian review</a> of the Glittering Awards too.<br /><a href="http://doorsintothepast.blogspot.com/">Lost in Manchester </a><br /><a href="http://themanchesterzedders.wordpress.com/">The Manchester Zedders </a><br /><a href="http://myshittytwenties.wordpress.com/">My Shitty Twenties </a><br /><a href="http://www.cynicalben.blogspot.com/">Cynical Ben </a><br /><a href="http://wordsandfixtures.blogspot.com/">Words and Fixtures </a><br /><a href="http://floorboards.blog.co.uk/">Songs from Under the Floorboards </a><br /><a href="http://richardvivmeisterhirst.blogspot.com/">I thought I told you to wait in the car</a><br /><a href="http://lonlonranch.wordpress.com/">Dave Hartley’s Weblog</a><br /><a href="http://runpaintrunrun.blogspot.com/">Run Paint Run Run </a><br /><a href="http://manchesterhermit.wordpress.com/">The Manchester Hermit </a><br /><br />This terribly sad sequence of events, written in the second person, didn’t happen to me but if I were ever called upon to cry to order - unlikely, I know – but if I’m offered a starring part in a weepy film say, or I find employment as a professional mourner, I know a tune that will set me off nicely.<br /><p></p><p></p>kim mcgowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11854915502212651980noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8035871310991830775.post-66256318183451222702009-10-17T07:43:00.000-07:002009-10-23T01:04:47.109-07:00Would we put another human person in a zoo?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia8fMj0RVxARQL7oDrj3VnWpkXthKtrVHN05LQtbeqIUG1KBNNdloITihuYKtl84LytmGwxBDKaDyH6ICqyWWHg3QvYgn_bw64fACftWDMaoe0cKfl_55wqhLVg_9JpyYUZ8QLoYxCpGU/s1600-h/meercats.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5393580515067375330" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; width: 245px; cursor: pointer; height: 320px; text-align: center;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia8fMj0RVxARQL7oDrj3VnWpkXthKtrVHN05LQtbeqIUG1KBNNdloITihuYKtl84LytmGwxBDKaDyH6ICqyWWHg3QvYgn_bw64fACftWDMaoe0cKfl_55wqhLVg_9JpyYUZ8QLoYxCpGU/s320/meercats.jpg" border="0" /></a>When I believed in a God I looked forward to a time, after my death, when I could see the world as it was in the olden-times. <span style="font-style: italic;">Homo sapiens</span> (modern humans, like us) are unusual because we’re the only living representatives of our taxon left. I wanted to witness an era when there were several human species alive all at the same time.<br /><br />I had a fond hope that He (if He resembled anyone in my anticipatory imaginings He looks a bit like David Attenborough) would have a special screening room where I could watch the planet at any given point in history. With eternity to play with I’d happily watch all eons.<br />'Where's Kim?'<br />'In the screening room watching the Pre-Cambrian on fast-forward.'<br />'Again?'<br />'Oh yes.'<br />But to begin with I’d choose to view a time around 90,000 years ago. A time when modern humans were still mostly based in Africa, <span style="font-style: italic;">H erectus</span> (go on, have a good laugh, get it out of the way… Are you done? Sure?) Right. <span style="font-style: italic;">Erectus</span> lived in Indonesia, <span style="font-style: italic;">H neanderthalensis</span> ruled Europe and the dwarf human species, <span style="font-style: italic;">H floresiensis</span> occupied parts of East Asia.<br /><br />I don’t believe in the supernatural anymore and it makes me sad to realise I’ll never see that scratchy video replay.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4Wwg7JDSXlzbdgTyT2CYGTdMMaoIOpIiSP8qHUQTWw0GoZSpEhVWjLSx2ZuH-9V8th72Rw_E7UmIjN6qrmtTTiIflw7acWyZ9pI09KZ8vZzUtjYhyphenhyphennnmcDGkjuulGXUeDz_24s1WIVwc/s1600-h/H+floresiensis+by+james.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5394302801120234130" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; width: 216px; cursor: pointer; height: 320px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4Wwg7JDSXlzbdgTyT2CYGTdMMaoIOpIiSP8qHUQTWw0GoZSpEhVWjLSx2ZuH-9V8th72Rw_E7UmIjN6qrmtTTiIflw7acWyZ9pI09KZ8vZzUtjYhyphenhyphennnmcDGkjuulGXUeDz_24s1WIVwc/s320/H+floresiensis+by+james.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Floresiensis </span>has been nicknamed <span style="font-style: italic;">The Hobbit. </span>I will not refer to <span style="font-style: italic;">Floresiensis</span> as <span style="font-style: italic;">The Hobbit</span>. That is to trivialise the human who lived and breathed and made a living - and it’s not particularly fair on Bilbo either. That will be my last mention of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Hobbit</span> in this post.<br /><br />I recently attended a weekend conference on human evolution in Oxford. Here are some astonishing things I learned at the conference:<br /><br />Chimpanzees are our closest living relatives; we share 99% of our DNA.<br /><br />Chimps are as evolved as <span style="font-style: italic;">Sapiens</span> but we've developed along separate trajectories for over five million years. Less than two million years of evolution separates <span style="font-style: italic;">Sapiens </span>from <span style="font-style: italic;">Floresiensis </span>and less than 700,000 years of evolution separates <span style="font-style: italic;">Sapiens </span>and <span style="font-style: italic;">Neanderthalensis.<br /></span><br />We are more closely related to chimps than a horse is to a zebra, and a horse and zebra can interbreed.<br /><br />Neanderthals lived between 250,000 and 30,000 years ago. They were top predators and consummate hunters; more carnivorous than lions or hyenas. Neanderthals are our evolutionary cousins but definitely not our ancestors. They were a bit like us; they made complicated stone tools, cared for their sick and buried their dead. And they were a bit unlike us; in their anatomy and in their cognitive organisation - they had bigger brains than many modern humans but probably less elaborate powers of abstraction.<br /><br />We (modern humans) evolved in Africa between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago; we were the first human species to colonise Australia - over 60,000 years ago. In human history Australia has never been visible from Indonesia and the journey to Australia always entailed a treacherous sea crossing. When we first set out on that peril filled trip we had no idea where we were going to end up (Indonesia is tectonically volatile and it may be that those first Australians made a choice between Vulcan and the deep blue).<br /><p>We (modern humans) were established in Europe by 45,000 years ago.<br /><br />The dwarf human species, <em>Floresiensis</em>, survived on the island of Flores until 18,000 years ago. Their ancestors were also competent seafarers.<br /></p><br />And here is some sad stuff that those astonishing things made me think about:<br /><p>The conference was about hominin evolution. From six million years ago until the extinction of Neanderthals 30,000 years ago. Most of the other people at the conference were thoughtful and clever; interested dilettantes like myself - keen to learn more. A few were Eurocentric xenophobes.<br /><br />When, as happens a lot, someone tells me society is deteriorating I think about the enforced labour that buttressed great civilisations; Egypt, Greece; the Roman Empire. I think about Africans packed in slave ships and about exhausted Victorian seven year olds strapped to mill machinery, <em>strapped</em> to machinery - and I respond that we’ve been capable of the unthinkable for a long time, (yes, I am <span style="font-style: italic;">very</span> popular on the Clapham Omnibus).<br /><br />At the conference, I didn’t need to reflect on slave ships or seven year olds to wonder what we’re capable of doing to our closest relatives. I only had to sit in the lecture theatre and listen to queries from the floor. Questions raised by some of the delegates showed that they'd spectacularly missed the point of the whole event.<br /><br />After one lecture an elderly lady with a very posh voice asked.<br />‘If modern humans arrived in Europe 45,000 years ago, why did they take so long to become civilised?’<br />I squirmed in my seat; embarrassed for her; embarrassed that she was airing her chauvinistic assumption - that sedentary classical culture represents the pinnacle of human achievement.<br /><br />At university a lecturer told me it was impossible for him to understand or express the complexity of indigenous Australian tradition because it wasn’t a matter of merely describing a belief system or a material culture. It was impossible for him to describe Aboriginal systems because Australians don’t just do things differently from people with a western mindset, they think things differently too. He likened their cognition to an ability to think and see around corners.<br /><br />During coffee, another posh lady assured me that, despite what we'd learned about genetic and anthropological evidence to the contrary, she <em>still</em> thought Australians were from far more primitive stock than Europeans.<br /><br />Matthew Pope spoke about Neanderthal adaptations to Ice Age conditions. At the end of his lecture the lady in the seat next to mine puts her hand up. She’s a perfectly nice posh-spoken lady and we chatted amiably before the talk started. I smile and nod at her encouragingly as she makes to ask her question. I should know better…<br />‘Has anyone commented on the similarities between Eskimos and Neanderthals?’<br />What? What?! Because they can cope with inclement weather and they eat a lot of protein?<br />I swivel with my knees facing away from the lady, in a cowardly attempt to disassociate myself from her views. Matthew Pope is silent for a moment; dumbstruck I assume. My flattened hands are clamped between my knees; I hope beyond hope that no one will think I’m with this lady; think that she’s my friend, or my mother, or my sister.<br />Matthew clears his throat.<br />‘Eskimos - the Inuit - are modern humans.’<br />My knees are crushing my knuckles; my shoulders hunched, my eyes squeezed tight closed - and something is emitting a tiny high-pitch humming sound, I think it’s me.<br />‘Yes, but has anyone <em>properly</em> done any research…?’<br />Stop! You can't talk like...<br />I don’t know what else was said. I might have blacked out.<br /><br />Another speaker, Chris Stringer, wondered aloud how we would behave if <em>Floresiensis </em>were alive today. He suspected, Badly, and I concur.<br /><br />The small-brained humans were still going about their Flores-business 18,000 years ago; that’s yesterday in evolutionary terms. If I’d timed my birth and arranged my geography a bit better I could easily have met <em>Floresiensis</em> and not had to hang about for the post-mortem Betamax screening (I imagine Heaven to be like a green-painted church hall; to be a little bit old fashioned and a little bit out of step with the rest of… erm, the Cosmos).<br /><br />And if <em>Floresiensis</em> had clung on in Indonesia for another few thousand years, what would have happened to them? If civilised Egyptians got hold of the little folk first they could’ve been set to work on the fiddly bits of pyramid construction, down those long shafts that were sealed after completion. <em>Floresiensis</em> would have slotted very nicely into plantation jobs and they’d have been just the right size for mill and mine duties. If eco-friendly Westerners found a colony of <em>Floresiensis</em> today, I think we'd put them in a conservation zoo along with our other closest living relatives. In an Indonesian enclosure maybe, with a concrete wave pool so they could keep their hand in, launching rafts (the posh conference ladies might be persuaded to donate funds for an Outback enclosure and an Arctic enclosure if approached).<br /><br />This time last year I was doing The Poet’s poetry module. As my other reader knows, I never really got the hang of poetry but I did develop a taste for writing pantoums; I’m a bad finisher and with a pantoum if you’ve got your first line you got your final line. I wrote a pantoum about how it would feel to see another kind of human being. When I was small and very ill I was treated by an Indian doctor; that was the first time I’d ever seen anyone who wasn’t white and European; I wondered if it would feel like I felt when I saw him. I was concerned that a reader of the pantoum would consider my poem to be racist but the sentiments in the piece tie in with this post so I’ve (<em>very tentatively</em>) put that poem on my other blog, <a href="http://kimmcgowanwriting.blogspot.com/2009/09/another-human-being-pantoum.html">Another Human Being</a>.<br /><br /><em>Ranty, blethery, blathery, rant.</em> What on earth am I trying to say? I’m trying to say that I was shocked by the casual racism and I suppose, speciesism, shown by my sophisticated colleagues. That I don’t think civilisation is all that civilised. And that I worry about my own craven responses – in Oxford I was more concerned to disassociate myself from misguided posh ladies than I was to make an effort to change their views. I worry at the contradiction that I think it’s dubious to keep fellow creatures in captivity but that if there was a <em>Floresiensis</em> to see in a wild life park (see below) I’d be there with my camera, like a shot. I’m saying that if David Attenborough could organise for me to look into the eyes of another kind of human person before I die, I’d be very grateful. And I am saying that I tried to write a poem about similar thoughts this time last year.<br /><br />The drawings are by James Fraser; thanks yet again, James. I saw some captive meerkats at the Bowland Wild Boar Park. I felt sad for them because they belong in the Kalahari Desert in Botswana - but they were lively and enchanting and I watched them for ages; they really do take turns at keeping watch.<br /><br />The Bowland Wild Boar Park is great, by the way. A proper farm with no use for nancy gaffer tape or No More Nails (because baler-twine is the farm-mender stuff of choice for <em>everything</em>). This is my youngest grandson on the recycled oil-drum ride; yes he is being chased by the tractor – fabulous!<br /><br /></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5394653985964603122" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; width: 320px; height: 213px; text-align: center;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFv5mwQ0lTdRWhjr5gV1zMCmg7usyX7vAUawuIw_E6v0DuxBHlyTp4kadF-Kr9dn515nHmhyphenhyphenGaf71hRjPkNAg0kTXfaAldGe1CZNnEI1WJcSU2R6_Lrup5iTRY6NZeowwoG6tc3WQ-uAY/s320/my+grandson+and+the+tractor+1.jpg" border="0" /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5394654125042725314" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; width: 320px; height: 213px; text-align: center;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoYTkfdPUvVmxVKBjrO4kt7oKSnHozqQL5uNnuG_lExDUCZiMyr_NgzdiC3HpjgLZubawpdYnY6iBXIvBzRdSQrMsOWv1QChlooceXeJmVGvU8sn8Fh_RqOwuNwBSdxvQJKsEhDpDt-SE/s320/my+grandson+and+the+tractor.jpg" border="0" />I usually end a blog post with a cohesive upbeaty quip but it seems out of place in this instance. My youngest grandson is seven; the same age as the exhausted Victorian mill workers I think about sometimes. <p><br /></p>kim mcgowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11854915502212651980noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8035871310991830775.post-15580726682043931112009-10-09T03:36:00.000-07:002009-10-13T01:24:58.951-07:00Heysham, Lemn Sissay & The Manchester Blog Awards (again)<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">I've cheated in my task of viewing the everyday for revelations of truth and beauty. That I'm a cheat is the first disclosure.</span></span><br /><br /><div><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >On a Sunday in September I travelled with my yo</span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" ><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">ungest</span> child to register at university. After the queuing and form filling we drove to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Heys</span></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >ham, an old village on the bottom corner of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Morecambe</span> Bay. The area is dominated by two advanced gas-cooled nuclear reactors; structures so implausibly big that they are almost certainly visible from everywhere on the planet.<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGFeALyzpRKty-P1OuXbleY5rMynieNdAop9QNDpS3SJH5Ql3bNLXzmOWCf36OKKqpyC8FvgBwPYbfqY8lgOdwX0xaqiFwp0QwNvlQM-6VgNyjFV4ogGtvUzPakYbmgPjx9wq80DfwBE4/s1600-h/rock+cut+graves.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5390559514615012754" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; width: 320px; cursor: pointer; height: 213px; text-align: center;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGFeALyzpRKty-P1OuXbleY5rMynieNdAop9QNDpS3SJH5Ql3bNLXzmOWCf36OKKqpyC8FvgBwPYbfqY8lgOdwX0xaqiFwp0QwNvlQM-6VgNyjFV4ogGtvUzPakYbmgPjx9wq80DfwBE4/s320/rock+cut+graves.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >We parked and walked for (about) half an hour and came to the ruins St Patrick’s where we photographed this group of rock-cut graves. The chapel was in use 1200 years ago; it seems very close to the water now but I suspect erosion has brought the sea a lot nearer.</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-QoGKh2rHSInZj0d3iMbefpjehTjgZ3PTBnGdTe2LodzRwBV7zhAPim4ld0E_L-egU8ZC4GSWiDZCEy_9K_zbpFcWXpH0dMeiKpfKekMgtkBzb2EAIlfRwc5P5UqqC8BDmF9B7YqVTck/s1600-h/st+patricks.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5390562684381722866" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; width: 320px; cursor: pointer; height: 213px; text-align: center;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-QoGKh2rHSInZj0d3iMbefpjehTjgZ3PTBnGdTe2LodzRwBV7zhAPim4ld0E_L-egU8ZC4GSWiDZCEy_9K_zbpFcWXpH0dMeiKpfKekMgtkBzb2EAIlfRwc5P5UqqC8BDmF9B7YqVTck/s320/st+patricks.jpg" border="0" /></a> <div style="text-align: center;"><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >St Patrick's Chapel</span><br /></div><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">The two of us scrambled down to the beach and chanced on a man and a boy dabbling in a rock pool with a net. We chatted for a while. My youngest child has helped at an environmental centre and knows a bit about nature and stuff, and I like facts to be straight. The father was telling us the (incorrect) names for some of the tiny swimming things with great assurance but we didn’t contradict him. We tacitly agreed that it’s fine for that little boy to believe his super-dad is omniscient – at least for a little while longer.</span></span><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilAE4uOocz59cF8U8TsAp9S5VfrAtYiYdw6GMLQXBvjpmYOvFbdGiasI-vfXUMe4zq0WseKZsPTohMxJPyABD7LDJ5PUv74HslzF_ZVZZPnWsVYFk8Gzczgoc619jxKxBea_A2b0uNNaw/s1600-h/unconformity.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5390556153875489442" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; width: 320px; height: 213px; text-align: center;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilAE4uOocz59cF8U8TsAp9S5VfrAtYiYdw6GMLQXBvjpmYOvFbdGiasI-vfXUMe4zq0WseKZsPTohMxJPyABD7LDJ5PUv74HslzF_ZVZZPnWsVYFk8Gzczgoc619jxKxBea_A2b0uNNaw/s320/unconformity.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">I photographed this coastal rock formation because I believe it shows an <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">unconformity</span>; probably at least two <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">unconformities</span>. An <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">unconformity</span> is a buried erosion surface dividing two periods of deposition which may have been separated by millions and most probably billions of years. The underlying sedimentary rocks in the photograph are thinly-bedded <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">siltstones</span>, sandstones and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">mudstones</span> which have been folded over by heat and tectonic activity deep underground. Over time those rocks have been exposed at the earth’s surface by a process of attrition. I think the top layer of sediments under the turf will have been deposited in relatively recent times, at the end of the last ice age, as little as 12000 years ago; virtually within living memory.</span></span><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >We had a go at skimming stones but the pebbles are mostly hearty chunks of Millstone Grit and not very bouncy. But then, I would say that.</span><br /><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixnKb5p42nMbZGHdhIwTVbZKD9nESzGbOSbg2sJfHzMISinJtH6H4lgEQ60rtiNQsBTKMFyCpUK7ehzHqqINuWFm3jE4ptBKBMNdaEebbJCmo-GG42b80eEYcqzexnBfv7vDNCfGPgYVM/s1600-h/kim.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5390551569977542450" style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; width: 250px; cursor: pointer; height: 166px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixnKb5p42nMbZGHdhIwTVbZKD9nESzGbOSbg2sJfHzMISinJtH6H4lgEQ60rtiNQsBTKMFyCpUK7ehzHqqINuWFm3jE4ptBKBMNdaEebbJCmo-GG42b80eEYcqzexnBfv7vDNCfGPgYVM/s320/kim.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >'They're the wrong sort of stones...'</span><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgBu3IrG_GWwgcK5lJ_77wlcTLfqp2A501ZLXC6GGR9q5I_lGeBW4QlVTaRcXrz1txI_BoZuBWKFqzuhmYQ0NXLj6HSTmWM7X9i0vOU4r_NlzwzM7gduOKD15030wYTvKONCLj9wMkMhA/s1600-h/ellie2.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5390550733288402802" style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; width: 206px; cursor: pointer; height: 184px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgBu3IrG_GWwgcK5lJ_77wlcTLfqp2A501ZLXC6GGR9q5I_lGeBW4QlVTaRcXrz1txI_BoZuBWKFqzuhmYQ0NXLj6HSTmWM7X9i0vOU4r_NlzwzM7gduOKD15030wYTvKONCLj9wMkMhA/s320/ellie2.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >'</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Yes Mum, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">that'll</span> be what the problem is...'</span></span><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" ><br />On the way back to the car we visited the most peculiar shop. The lady sews dog coats and peg bags on a machine, on the counter. There are the oddest assortment of things for sale; used buttons, medals and improbable jewellery and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">CDs</span> that come free with the Mail on Sunday. I was tempted to ask for a packet of pea-flavoured crisps, just on the off-chance. I’m only sorry I <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">didn</span>’t think to photograph her emporium.<br /><br />A perfect day; my youngest child going to learn more stuff, a deity dad, 1200 year old rock-cut graves, 12000 year old glacial deposits, sediments so old and folded it hurts my eyes to think about them – and a curious shop.<br /><br />This piece of writing first appeared at <a href="http://theculturecheeseandpineapple.wordpress.com/">The Culture Cheese and Pineapple</a> an arts discussion blog I've recently joined . The remit was to leave the house, walk for about an hour in an unfamiliar direction, take pictures and notice things. Apparently, it is based on the idea of <span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">le</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">quotidien</span></span>; that the everyday can reveal truth and beauty.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >As observed, what it initially revealed is my <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">tendency</span> to bilk. But I was pleased with the result. I'm always trying to be as candid as I can but somehow this writing seems more gentle and honest than my usual stuff, Maybe it's because I'm not striving so hard to try to be funny or clever. I'm more calm.<br /><br />A friend sent me this link to <a href="http://gps.southbankcentre.co.uk/about">Global Poetry System</a> an idea that began with <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Lemn</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Sissay</span>. Poetry isn't quite my thing. I've only really written one poem; and that was an accident, but I love the idea of poetry revealed in the everyday - along with truth and beauty.<br /><br />As I've repeated to death, </span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" ></span></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >I'm on the 2009 Manchester Blog Awards shortlist. My youngest child will attend <a href="http://www.manchesterblogawards.com/the-event">The Event</a> with me; even though I've warned her I'm likely to collapse in grief, beating my fists on the carpet and wailing,<br />'It's not fair! You've let <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">talented</span> people in!' when I don't win.<br />I'm not sure she believes me...<br /><br /><br /></span></div></div>kim mcgowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11854915502212651980noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8035871310991830775.post-36259029889491084542009-10-02T04:08:00.000-07:002009-10-02T10:42:03.780-07:00Manchester Blog Awards shortlist<span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >For anyone who was visiting Mars yesterday: I'm on the <a href="http://www.manchesterblogawards.com/the-shortlist">2009 Manchester Blog Awards shortlist<br /></a>This has made me very, very happy.<br /><br />I'm glad that some of the blogs I read regularly are also shorlisted:<br />Cynical Ben<br />Forgetting the Time<br />My Shitty Twenties (twice!)<br />Dave Hartley’s Weblog<br />I thought I told you to wait in the car<br />Big city, little girl<br /><br />Congratulations everyone!<br /><br />Thank you to my other reader for nominating me. Thank you to the shortlisters.<br /><br />This is a photograph of me not being able to skim stones because they are the wrong sort of rock (Millstone Grit). But fate will have to work harder than that to get me down today; I'm on a shortlist and when I've stopped messing I'm going to get ready to travel to Oxford to attend a Continuing Education weekend course called <span style="font-style: italic;">Neaderthals in the 21st Century</span>. It's my birthday and Christmas presents until forever - and that's fine.<br /></span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLqrzo0EIYojhg1HEiQ_bFtD7NLMQQXlY1V2kNrZr9T7mu3haE_uHLUFi-qEeBMTTYRQSauQBKBAYcwSbV0kU-EHyaxZ8D5RsfjbNeb_MxOrxNFfuXEQi4sAxJoAi4bLpA_EP5VXpRMro/s1600-h/kim.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px; display: block; height: 213px; cursor: pointer;" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5387962969524927762" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLqrzo0EIYojhg1HEiQ_bFtD7NLMQQXlY1V2kNrZr9T7mu3haE_uHLUFi-qEeBMTTYRQSauQBKBAYcwSbV0kU-EHyaxZ8D5RsfjbNeb_MxOrxNFfuXEQi4sAxJoAi4bLpA_EP5VXpRMro/s320/kim.jpg" border="0" /></a>kim mcgowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11854915502212651980noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8035871310991830775.post-53954789816434128702009-09-12T04:13:00.001-07:002010-12-04T06:32:37.407-08:00The Birthday Neanderthal, half an MA and Time<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcw5fVPIdPbnV-3z06Jg7CHBsMAMJ0Ugx6GmyVS4h80uxb5ARvThNCfKFaf0Ey1iamYRglDjgWphmAaao8m-WdkPNsxTM1_AiIj3ToI3eMfM6NayK57Y0tPGrMBnPzQ7bnyAuBlLmR_WY/s1600-h/neanderthal+and+fossil+drawing+from+james.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5386527315656762914" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcw5fVPIdPbnV-3z06Jg7CHBsMAMJ0Ugx6GmyVS4h80uxb5ARvThNCfKFaf0Ey1iamYRglDjgWphmAaao8m-WdkPNsxTM1_AiIj3ToI3eMfM6NayK57Y0tPGrMBnPzQ7bnyAuBlLmR_WY/s320/neanderthal+and+fossil+drawing+from+james.jpg" style="display: block; height: 202px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></a><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 130%;">I was given this Neanderthal for my birthday, and those fossils and that terrifying stuff from the stygian crevices of my head. James Fraser made this picture for me. James, you are officially the King of being able to judge a person.<br />
<br />
I might have half an MA Creative Writing. A '<em>M</em>' I suppose, or more properly an <em>'A</em>'; I’m certainly not a Master - but then I hardly qualify as an Art either.<br />
<br />
Whatever, the taught year of the degree is over and when I met the Author who is Writing about Neanderthals for my first dissertation tutorial she intimated I'd passed the last two modules; the exam board meets in October. Schrodinger's cat is completely out of the box – the marks aren’t confirmed - but I’m never, ever going to average 70% or over for the year. Oh well, I don’t exactly want to top myself. Although actually, a bit I do…<br />
<br />
The dissertation is to be twelve thousand words with a three thousand word commentary. I’ve form for being ungovernable regarding word count guidelines; the short-story I wrote for the fiction module grew to be over eight thousand words long and was a nightmare to edit and make coherent because I couldn’t actually read it all in one go (grim to mark too I imagine). Consequently I’m planning to write six, two thousand word pieces, a mixture of fiction and creative nonfiction, based on some of the statements from my <em><a href="http://kimmcgowanwriting.blogspot.com/2009/06/20-things.html">20+ Things</a></em> about me-meme; me, me, me, me. I'm hoping some unifying theme will emerge.<br />
<br />
When I spoke about the three short-story ideas I've got so far:</span><br />
<ul><li><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 130%;">Alternating male and female perspectives of an affair over forty years;</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 130%;">Changes wrought by a transfer from a mobile forager/hunter existence to sedentism and food production;</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 130%;">The impact of dementia;</span></li>
</ul><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 130%;">the Author who is Writing about Neanderthals suggested <span style="font-style: italic;">Time </span>as a theme. I dunno why I didn’t think of that because I am already a Time-Nerd.<br />
<br />
In an earlier post, <em><a href="http://kimmcgowan.blogspot.com/2008/11/thatll-be-different-wednesday-12.html">That’ll be different</a></em>, I referred to shifting perceptions of time through moment and culture. For example, during the 1940s an anthropologist, Evans-Prichard, lived amongst the Nuer, a pastoralist people of Southern Sudan. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 130%;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 130%;">Evans-Prichard reports that Nuer don’t have Time; that is they don’t have any expression equivalent to Time which means that they can’t speak of Time as if it is something actual, it doesn’t pass, can’t be wasted, can’t be saved and can't be made up. It pleases me to think of people who live without Time; of Time as an artificial construct.<br />
<br />
How I feel about time is - in the short term everything matters but in the long term, geological time, nothing matters.<br />
<br />
If my infant mother hadn't survived diphtheria in an era before antibiotics I would never have been born.<br />
'No great loss!' My other reader might reasonably exclaim. 'You're a </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 130%;">narcissist, you produce </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 130%;">ungovernabl</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 130%;">y long short-stories and you're morbidly attached to Neanderthals.'<br />
<br />
Okay, that is all true - but, what if Charles Darwin's mother </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 130%;">had died of diphtheria </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 130%;">or Alan Bennett's mother</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 130%;">? And anyway, if I wasn't born who would my childrens’ partners be marrying at those pretty damn special weddings I've written about; the weddings that are going to happen in the <span style="font-style: italic;">near</span> future? And who would be here to submit bridesmaid gowns to the <em><a href="http://kimmcgowan.blogspot.com/2009/09/wmca-test-for-bridesmaids-gowns-and.html">YMCA test</a></em>? Unsettling thoughts.<br />
<br />
Yet in terms of geological time, nothing is really significant, not whales, not poor darling infants choking to death, not the threat of redundancy, nothing.<br />
<br />
I think to be kind and attentive are the most essential human characteristics. I try to occupy the moment and believe that everything equates. But mostly I live in a geological-time mindset; a mindset where nothing matters; except maybe MA marks and interesting facts about Neanderthals (my favourite hominin, thanks again, James).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 130%;">Yes, I know I’ve used stygian twice recently. Stygian has taken over from trope as a word I bandy in an attempt to appear clever.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 130%;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 130%;">ps I've borrowed the 'What if my mother hadn't survived? None of this would have happened,' motif from Kathleen Jamie (<em>Findings</em> p. 112). Jamie's mother survived pneumonia and my mother <em>really did</em> survive diphtheria.</span>kim mcgowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11854915502212651980noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8035871310991830775.post-58743539529443182632009-09-06T02:12:00.000-07:002009-09-25T06:25:35.618-07:00The Syphilitic Nature of Blogging (Part Two)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH6N0NJvyY0eEywcNvn1Rn1nyFZ5U_Ljqq9OuaY9hV6itnZeaDDpzjZSndCNZR1mEdILIhY3KItxSknKDkB2nzhgPqMNoCKf1kntg40zDPm0UTq6uISl9-GP7-XQSNlZpGHjLE3yHJ78E/s1600-h/ellietinman[3].jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5381972570499628898" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; WIDTH: 193px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH6N0NJvyY0eEywcNvn1Rn1nyFZ5U_Ljqq9OuaY9hV6itnZeaDDpzjZSndCNZR1mEdILIhY3KItxSknKDkB2nzhgPqMNoCKf1kntg40zDPm0UTq6uISl9-GP7-XQSNlZpGHjLE3yHJ78E/s320/ellietinman%5B3%5D.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">I’<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">ve</span> just had the curious experience of stalking a stalker. </span></span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />A while ago a friend gave my blog a nice plug on her blog. Afterwards she asked if I'd noticed an increase in traffic. I explained that, unless someone left a blog comment or emailed me, I'd absolutely no idea if there's been any traffic at all. </span></span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Following said friend's advice I installed a <a href="http://www.statcounter.com/"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Statcounter</span></a>.</span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />On the first day I was astonished to see I’d had twenty-nine visitors to my blog, that's <em>twenty-nine</em>. </span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br /></span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></span><p><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Statistic counters tell you a lot more than how many visits your site has received. You can learn where in the universe the visitor was when they viewed pages, the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">IP</span> address of their computer, which pages they viewed, how long they lingered and what in particular they did whilst they were visiting (in terms of searching, downloading images and leaving comments, I mean; not what they were <em>actually</em> doing whilst they were looking).</span></span></p><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></span><p><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">When I investigated the visitor paths it was obvious that all my visitors were, sadly, me. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">I’d logged in to correct spelling mistakes, I’d logged in to adjust paragraph spacing, I’d logged in because I’d decided, after long deliberation, to replace <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">obtained </span>with <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">got</span>, to be more faithful to my roots, and so on…</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">To begin with, checking your visitor numbers is a little bit addictive.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">‘One visitor! From Plano, Texas! <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Yay</span>!’</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">‘How did they find you?’</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">‘They did a Google search for ‘<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Doktor</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Hotfingers</span>’.’</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">'Great Cripes</span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:180%;">*</span></span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">! That's Smashing.'</span></span><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">'I know.'</span><br /></p><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">‘And how long did they linger?’</span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></span><p><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">‘Well, only 0 seconds, but they came, and they saw. It’s A Start.’</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;">'It certainly is just that, A Start.'</span></p><p><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Last night I check the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Statcounter</span> – sure enough, I’<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">ve</span> visited myself aplenty. I’<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">ve</span> also currently got another visitor; someone on a computer in Glasgow.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Gratified, I take a few moments to look at the visitor number(s) for my other, newer blog. The blog where I’m keeping pieces of my (proper) writing; when I say pieces, I mean piece. There’s one (Joint) award winning poem there at the moment, and a self-important meme and something my daughter pointed out to me that still makes me laugh.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">When I return to the statistics for this blog there are several more page loads showing… </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">It’s that same Glasgow visitor; still looking. Page to page, He (I’m picturing a He) loiters over postings and moves on. He follows the link to my (Joint) award winning poem then returns to my <em><a href="http://kimmcgowan.blogspot.com/search/label/Tinman">Second person and research</a></em> post and downloads a photograph. That photograph of Ellie fancy-dressed up as the Tin Man. Already disorientated, I start to wonder if I should feel uneasy.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">This is absurd. For months I’<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">ve</span> been effectively saying. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">‘Here! Over here. Listen, listen to this!’</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">‘You, yes you - look at this! I’m dead funny, me.’ </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">And here I am feeling uncomfortable because somebody is doing as they’re told, He’s reading my words, checking out my poem and He's downloading a photo of my twenty year old dressed in silver leggings. </span></span></p><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">For thirty minutes I watch in snowballing horror as (in my head) the drug-addled pervert in his seedy tenement riffles through my stuff. I want to shout at him.</span></span><br /><br /><p><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">‘Oi you! Yes you - Deviant-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Dougal</span> with your <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">swivelly</span>-eyes and your bagpipes. What do you think you're playing at looking at my pictures? Don't think you can get away with this. I’<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">ve</span> got your (Temporary <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">IP</span>) address you know!’</span></span></p><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">But, as I’<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">ve</span> written before, blogging is such a queasy paradox. </span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />On the one hand I’m self-effacing and I don’t want people to think I’m vulgar or pushy; on the other hand I’d sell my foot to a transplant surgeon if I thought it would encourage a readership.</span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />Vulgar and pushy wins out every time, of course. </span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />I start to rationalise that it probably <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">isn</span>’t a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">pervy</span> druggie who is working <em>His </em>way through the pages. It’s most likely a nice lady who is interested in poems; <em>She</em></span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">, Fragrant-Fiona, </span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">is doubtless a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">Kelvindale</span> matron searching for fancy dress ideas for her own grown daughter. </span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />In light of this edifying insight I’<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">ve</span> started to wonder if it might be a good idea to use Ellie in her Tim Man outfit as my blog banner. If that’s what people demand, scantily dressed... no, I mean fancy dress outfit tips, so be it.</span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br /></span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></span><p><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Incidentally, I don't <em>really</em> think blogging is like syphilis, have a look at <a href="http://kimmcgowan.blogspot.com/2009/07/syphilitic-nature-of-blogging-part-one.html">The Syphilitic Nature of Blogging (Part One)</a> for how I arrived at the title. In the comments for that post my reader suggests that the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">dysphemism</span> 'self abuse' is a more accurate analogy and, naturally, she is right.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Thank you AGAIN, <a href="http://secure.smilebox.com/ecom/openTheBox?sendevent=4d5445304d4459774e44673d0d0a&blogview=true&campaign=blog_instructions_directurl_makeyourown">James Fraser</a>, for the Tin Man image. The soundtrack </span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">accompanying </span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">slideshow</span> of his doodles at that link are James and <a href="http://achipinthesugar.blogspot.com/">David Wright </a>playing <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21"><em>Anouman</em></span> by <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">Django</span> Reinhardt. </span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Incidently, David and his band, <em>New Zealand Story,</em> have a new album called <em><a href="http://newzealandstory.bandcamp.com/">Show Your Workings</a>.</em></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Check out the witty Madeleine <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">York at <a href="http://madeleineyork.blogspot.com/"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">Déjà</span> view: television reviews & analysis</a></span>, I like her blog.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:180%;">*</span>My new favourite expletive comes from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">Flann</span> O' Brien. I've been listening to Jim Norton reading <a href="http://www.naxosaudiobooks.com/645512.htm"><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">The Third Policeman</span></a>. Listening to <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">The Third Policeman</span> half makes me want to give up writing altogether and half makes me want to plagiarise all his best phrases. Three guesses which I'll choose.<br /></span></span></p>kim mcgowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11854915502212651980noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8035871310991830775.post-15725527311790500022009-09-03T06:03:00.000-07:002009-10-20T06:29:02.494-07:00The YMCA Test for Bridesmaids' Gowns and being a Creep<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0PNlyYRsjrd_44FO5LP7jbDGo8n8QensEviHjVNfqiTt60dxvWabz85wLT8iuEbbT4qdbDG19AsUI3-HjZ_g5Rnd6xt0binwH0Wq9KKhDI01BKGSTO_MApdO0KXjMFyQaNVoHWS_rW6M/s1600-h/petals+2.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377981859543492514" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 212px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0PNlyYRsjrd_44FO5LP7jbDGo8n8QensEviHjVNfqiTt60dxvWabz85wLT8iuEbbT4qdbDG19AsUI3-HjZ_g5Rnd6xt0binwH0Wq9KKhDI01BKGSTO_MApdO0KXjMFyQaNVoHWS_rW6M/s320/petals+2.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">There are going to be some pretty damn special weddings in the near future. My youngest child has been asked to be a bridesmaid, which is grand, and frocks are under discussion. One suggested dress is an asymmetrical style. It has rose petals or foliage all around the top and clambering over a single strap.</span><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;"><div><br />My youngest child is hesitant about this style.<br />‘What’s going to be under those petals climbing over the shoulder?' </div><div>'I'm not sure.'</div><div>'Will it be a shoe-string strap?'</div><div>'It could be.'</div><div>'You know what'll happen if it is don't you?'</div><div>'Will it dig in?'</div><div>'No.'</div><div>‘Will it be annoying because it’s not equal and balanced?'<br />'Not that.'<br />'Will the other shoulder feel left out?’ </div><div>'No, not left out.'</div><div>'What then?'</div><div>'The second I start doing the <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">YMCA</span> it’ll snap. There'll be petals flying everywhere.’<br /><br />I’m not sure how to put it to her that this celebration might not be a <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">YMCA</span> kind of a do. It might not even be a </span></div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">(brace yourself) </span><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic;font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >Oops Upside Your Head</span><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;"> kind of a wedding-do either.<br /><br />I'm not going to let on just yet. It's going to be much more fun shopping for bridesmaids’ outfits if we're assuming we have to submit each gown to the <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">YMCA</span> test.<br /><br />I discovered yesterday that the Author who is Writing about Neanderthals (my favourite hominin) will supervise my MA project. This is a very good thing but I’m also a little bit sad that it isn’t going to be the Writer with the Writerly Name.<br /><br />At least I can now write sycophantic comments on the Writer with the Writerly Name's blog posts without appearing to be a creep. But then, what <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">is</span> the point of writing creepy comments, if it’s not going to get me better marks? Only kidding. Oh man, I <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">think</span> I’m only kidding, I <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">hope</span> I'm only kidding.<br /><br />Had two mentions and </span><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">very fine </span><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">link-ups in the last week.<br />Valerie O'Roirdan at <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic"><a href="http://not-exactly-true.blogspot.com/">not exactly true</a> </span><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold"></span>is about to start </span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">an MA in creative writing at the University of Manchester (she's keen to hear from others doing the same or similar). There are links to some of Valerie's smashing stories from her blog.<br /><br />Kate Feld at <a href="http://manchizzle.blogspot.com/">Manchizzle</a> is hard at work adding blogs nominated for the <a href="http://www.manchesterblogawards.com/">Manchester Blog Awards</a> to her blogroll.<br /><br />And on the topic of the Manchester Blog Awards <a href="http://lonlonranch.wordpress.com/">Dave Hartley</a> has written a story a week for the last twelve months (just two to go). If you haven't read his tales yet you're set for a lovely treat.<br /></span></span><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;"><br />Thank you, James Fraser, for my <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">YMCA</span> bridesmaid.<br /><br /></div></span>kim mcgowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11854915502212651980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8035871310991830775.post-32852578640463323222009-08-27T01:24:00.000-07:002009-09-30T07:21:36.365-07:00It’s body snatching and it’s not nice but it’s not robbing… and the Top Secret Bunker<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp_dWdF05rAl57eBApjIFtXVeBb8V4OPy-_SuxcyIhYADlnecjNcltKbQ5M9aztH54guccWJhgTY1p0e1NR0gzGRSkjffft1SMQ8CLuLbMmoM_CBmT1AwlT3RA68_y9luhyRCUyhyP-Ek/s1600-h/blog7.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5374559800665338642" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 283px; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp_dWdF05rAl57eBApjIFtXVeBb8V4OPy-_SuxcyIhYADlnecjNcltKbQ5M9aztH54guccWJhgTY1p0e1NR0gzGRSkjffft1SMQ8CLuLbMmoM_CBmT1AwlT3RA68_y9luhyRCUyhyP-Ek/s320/blog7.jpg" border="0" /></a>I was finding all about grave-robbing baddies on my recent trip to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Crail</span>.<br /><div><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Crail</span> is a tiny seaside town in Fife in Scotland. As I’<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">ve</span> mentioned before; it probably <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">isn</span>’t there when you’re not looking. </div><br /><div>Grave-robbers securing specimens for anatomists were considered a bit of a nuisance in Scotland during the 18<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">th</span> and 19<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">th</span> centuries. The real life characters, Burke and Hare, have been described as grave-robbers but they were in fact slayers and snatchers not robbers. They murdered outliers of society and sold their bodies to anatomists and they claimed the cadavers of people who <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">weren</span>’t really their relatives, so they could do the same. But they <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">didn</span>’t go to the trouble of digging up fresh bodies, not towards the end of their careers anyway. </div><br /><div>However, real <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Resurrectionists</span>, as they were nicknamed, did rob people out of graves. Scots parishioners devised a series of increasingly cunning devices to foil the nefarious grave-robbing baddies. They used metal hoops that secured a body into the coffin; ton-weight temporary <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">mortstones</span> to position across the grave; <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">mortsafes</span> and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">morthouses</span> where the body would be tenable prior to burial and watch houses where a sentinel would guard newly occupied plots.</div><br /><div>The nice man at the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Crail</span> bed and breakfast told me told me these things whilst I was eating my tea. And he added,</div><div>‘There’s a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">morthouse</span> at the parish church, just along the road.’ </div><p>I am incandescent with excitement. After tea I start to get ready to go out. Ian eyes me warily.<br />‘What are you doing?’<br />I am pulling on my tartan holiday socks.<br />'Just popping out for a little walk.’<br />‘It’s going dark.’<br />I am hoping towards the door, tying my shoelace as I go; did you ever see Wilson, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Keppel</span> and Betty performing the Sand Dance? It is very like that.<br />‘I won’t be long.’<br />‘You’re going to the graveyard, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">aren</span>’t you?’<br />As my reader knows, I do have form where graveyards are concerned.<br />‘Only to see if the masons here ever use <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Shap</span> Granite...’<br />You may also remember that <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">Shap</span> Granite is my current favourite rock.<br />‘You’re going to look for the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">morthouse</span>, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">aren</span>’t you?’<br />‘...and to look for the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">morthouse</span>, I was going to say that.’<br />‘You know you’re a little bit Not Right in the Head, don’t you?’<br /></p><p>He is probably correct, but I don’t care. I’m afraid of living people not dead people; I’m afraid of living people and loud bangs; loud bangs terrify me, every time. </p><p><br />It was twilight when I arrived at the gated church. Huge crows hunkered blackly on the church roof and supplied mournful and atmospheric cawing.</p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5374559673328336338" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 284px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxULAyt1C2bXQBFUYM1EnahfCqXQEvfL5ApsIk0rtSSIhTHXyuikJcO4iIP7GiAuSRIRqUszanAZMGg8uOu1z_N8gPy9oTrhfHb_pM5k94MfsL2QcaCnoF1q9xqmVoOrEgLABf-Np7gnE/s320/james+lumsden%27s+tomb.JPG" border="0" /> <p>The churchyard at <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">Crail</span> is an enchanted necropolis. Built into a tall shadowy wall to the west of the church are a series of mural monuments. These architectural structures date back to the 17<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">th</span> century and are gratifyingly decorated with emblems of mutability and decay, the hourglass, skulls, crossbones, grave digging tools.<br />The carvings range in quality, from a detailed deaths head like the one above from James <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">Lumsden</span>’s tomb to almost childishly incised representations of skulls and femurs.<br />Death’s heads have crossed bones behind them whereas the skull and crossbones have the bones underneath. I’m calling the one above a death’s head because I suspect that those gaps where the face joins the cornice once held stone-bones; I have no other evidence for my theory. But I do like it. </p><p>A number of of the skulls resemble turnip heads, which, in the twilight, was somehow even more chilling than the more meticulous work. </p><div align="center"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5374559130296854418" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 310px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQJukAHnxiKBQVS8zLOgt0MklISvMqpuXZubu7R_WL8lz0pajEm252Jj_bRi_AQ3Y-xSgir6ZmtL7EnwRhttcLXZa2OnUCKv6nrQuo_hhQKMIZqPegRBTBGgP2kTOH5OTS8hX8unYpCtM/s320/blog10.jpg" border="0" />The mason’s inscriptions are as forthright as their symbolism, although I concede that forthright symbolism is a contradiction.<br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5374558996043044706" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 129px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwTlq7q4WkGz1srWjDE11hFp7iAjkUp0T5kv3ngDFgVMFcaEl4FqJzTYYhb86ZffOr2O2j0ABdFF9D9PnqOTaHLMikO6TDf_kgz2wjl5sAx-TmkxRMU6HmV26lTNrrsAcijDV7C8rYVLk/s320/blog4.jpg" border="0" />‘Here <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">lyes</span> interred before this tomb </div><div align="center">The corpse of Bailie Thomas Young’</div><div>No <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">nancying</span> around with euphemism; ‘there’s a rotting dead person under here’.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-yQxK71TvcVjjaT1LZVoJp9JtdzwaSXHEdVUz-G7T_IRohE6mQxmc3lJ91hCp1hfA_grxe4Q4cffdumX8uprnkt6V6CLeGoqIw80ShF53EXLa503JR7Hb2yNP9VE32ZvY_FEoPPwRR04/s1600-h/blog5.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5374558881158343138" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 250px; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-yQxK71TvcVjjaT1LZVoJp9JtdzwaSXHEdVUz-G7T_IRohE6mQxmc3lJ91hCp1hfA_grxe4Q4cffdumX8uprnkt6V6CLeGoqIw80ShF53EXLa503JR7Hb2yNP9VE32ZvY_FEoPPwRR04/s320/blog5.jpg" border="0" /></a></div><br /><div>A particularly rewarding mural monument to the south of the church appears at first sight to be to the memory of a Dr Who character. The headless suit of armour is an effigy of William Bruce of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">Symbister</span>.<br />The Christian convention is for dead people to be buried with their head in the west and their feet in the east; on judgement day the deceased wants to be able to sit up and face the rising sun. As a consequence, the posh people of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">Crail</span> are interred along the, literally, monumental west wall.</div><br /><div>Although Bruce of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">Symbister</span>’s tomb <em>looks</em> archaic I wondered if it postdated the time when the west wall became full of memorials. Apparently this <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">isn</span>’t the case, he was buried in 1630. I’d be interested to learn why he was placed in the (lower status) south; maybe he just liked sunshine.</div><div><br />So, Bruce of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">Symbister</span> was clearly posh but when the trumpet sounds his headless armour is going to have to sit up <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">rustily</span> and turn to the right as he does so to get the benefit of the sunrise. He was 80 when he died and has been dead almost four hundred years. Well, I do <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">Pilates</span>. I’m still alive and I’m only <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">fiftyodd</span> and I can assure you he’s going to find that exercise <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34"><em>veeery</em></span> tricky. Trust me. I would like to be here on the day of judgement to see his resurrection though.<br /><br />As the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_35">stygian</span> dusk deepened, the distant clock in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_36">Crail</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_37">Marketgate</span> sounded, the desolate cries of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_38">corvids</span> intensified (thanks, Sound Effect Guys) and I came across the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_39">neo</span>-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_40">gothic</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_41">morthouse</span> with its inscription:</div><div align="center">ERECTED for securing the DEAD:<br />AD 1826.<br /></div><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9u1_4CfvULasyVfA4Rs0VZBCVmZCKZs6JfACYYpKbMbqBgrs2SEPPiaQyQO9xMUDqpERlMRcLYKcxoTy5nOaIjQXgO3SxBO3StRyL5O-p5Z550J4zoTYEE2jrP7pJfh7NEvp2viEabiA/s1600-h/blog8.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5374558650178234690" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 261px; HEIGHT: 209px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9u1_4CfvULasyVfA4Rs0VZBCVmZCKZs6JfACYYpKbMbqBgrs2SEPPiaQyQO9xMUDqpERlMRcLYKcxoTy5nOaIjQXgO3SxBO3StRyL5O-p5Z550J4zoTYEE2jrP7pJfh7NEvp2viEabiA/s320/blog8.jpg" border="0" /></a></div><br /><br /><div>So this is where bodies were locked-up until they were too decomposed to be of value to the anatomist or medical student.<br /><br /></div><br /><div><br />There are <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_42">morthouses</span> all over Fife but it seems the parishioners’ response to the threat of grave-robbing baddies was hugely disproportionate to the scale of the problem. It’s a long haul for a grave-robber to cart a corpse from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_43">Crail</span> to St Andrews or Edinburgh and graves were not routinely robbed in the area. In any case by 1832, in response to the Burke and Hare murders, an Anatomy Act was passed, which secured a legal supply of unclaimed bodies from hospitals, poorhouses and workhouses. </div><div><br /></div><div><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_44">Morthouses</span> were an inexplicable fashion, a bit like animal print leggings. </div><div><br />I take my last photograph in the gloom, nod to the Sound Effect Guys and return to Ian, delighted with my first mural monument and my first <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_45">morthouse</span>. I start to explain to him about watch houses.<br />‘Relatives, or more likely, lackeys, had to stay in a little house in the graveyard, watching.’ There’s a pause.</div><div>‘A proper house?’</div><div>‘A little house, with a window and a fire.’</div><div>‘Nice.’ </div><div>He’s listening to the radio, it sounds like athletics. I try to hook him with mans’ stuff.</div><div>‘Some watch houses have gun embrasures and the watchers were armed so they could fire at the grave-robbing baddies.’</div><div>‘<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_46">hmmmm</span>?’ </div><div>He lifts the radio up to his ear.</div><div>‘Or they set up tripwire gun-traps.’</div><div>There’s a pause whilst something crucial happens in a race or whatever, then he speaks. </div><div>‘You <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_47">wouldn</span>’t have lasted long then.’</div><div>He’s right; I am always lurking around in graveyards looking shifty. Maybe I was a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_48">Resurrectionist</span> in a previous incarnation and I got shot. That would explain a great deal.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ57eWdqGFQyD28JMiPZPzwpnr2WAlJvHP280F32pQP8nsGydpr0Rrnjmm9T725GlfwqhsDrgViabh7qzl-_eDNnEmdhDM6I6KX1ntlfLHjNvwava3e1AFm5KRU2fqS7gBWvr5-yxFbek/s1600-h/rorkes+drift+george+smith+gravestone.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5381991121651115826" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; WIDTH: 201px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ57eWdqGFQyD28JMiPZPzwpnr2WAlJvHP280F32pQP8nsGydpr0Rrnjmm9T725GlfwqhsDrgViabh7qzl-_eDNnEmdhDM6I6KX1ntlfLHjNvwava3e1AFm5KRU2fqS7gBWvr5-yxFbek/s320/rorkes+drift+george+smith+gravestone.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />In my last post I wrote about Padre George Smith being buried in Preston Cemetery. It says on the <a href="http://www.rorkesdriftvc.com/defenders/smith.htm">Rorke’s Drift website</a> that his headstone is light red marble. Well I’<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_49">ve</span> found it and his headstone is <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_50">Shap</span> Granite; I knew it would be; <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Fools</span>.<br />See, the thing is, marble is metamorphosed limestone and granite is… oh, never mind.<br /><br />On a lighter note, there’s also a labyrinthine Top Secret Bunker by <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_51">Crail</span>; it’s where central government and military commanders would retreat in the event of a nuclear attack. Obviously, the parishioners of Fife don’t want the trouble of a lot of Johnny Foreigner types hanging around the golf course in spy wear asking directions in broken English (and not understanding the reply because it’s in Scottish English) so the helpful authorities have supplied a sign.<br /><br /></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5374563894301043410" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 162px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRlE6NtTC5IVXjX8C-v1Yc460aMXhglxjC_aGAhhkJiqZVC9JK4KKri-KP1vLuaHJ9rBkwDxAlg24hEyg6YjzPzw7iXzKpc_Uw_huqlq44JiDRhQTUoVINzFAC1y5UWZVQkoRC_q_ulzs/s320/blog6.jpg" border="0" />I was allowed to go to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_52">Crail</span> as a prize for handing in my MA assignments nicely. I’<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_53">ve</span> also had my first rejection; I <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_54">wasn</span>’t selected for the Flax creative non-fiction anthology; I <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_55">wasn</span>’t surprised but I was sad. I understand it’ll get easier.<br /><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_56">ps</span> nominations are now open for the the <a href="http://www.manchesterblogawards.com/nominate-a-blog">Manchester Blog Awards</a>. You can nominate yourself and you only have to be nominated once to enter (my friend's done me). Good Luck. (No. Really!)<br /><p> </p>kim mcgowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11854915502212651980noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8035871310991830775.post-75027497763902246282009-08-13T13:29:00.001-07:002009-08-26T07:45:25.336-07:00Zulus fighting in the flowerbed<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6TwJOvCGm1CQJBGjL9NfZF7eIkEgMR4jMSwmQX8lQd9D-anWVHR2pIPD55ZUVdqOXU9LlctnSQBJ8KfXypYWUKQGymylR_btZSvNcOlhhprDbJ53ufv3EifGrl8Bca-2IiJKhKZdSuPk/s1600-h/crail.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5374281011997094034" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 266px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6TwJOvCGm1CQJBGjL9NfZF7eIkEgMR4jMSwmQX8lQd9D-anWVHR2pIPD55ZUVdqOXU9LlctnSQBJ8KfXypYWUKQGymylR_btZSvNcOlhhprDbJ53ufv3EifGrl8Bca-2IiJKhKZdSuPk/s400/crail.JPG" border="0" /></a> <span style="font-family:arial;">This post is mostly about Preston and South Africa and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Crail</span></span> and some dead people who were once alive in those places.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial;">Last week I finished the last two first year portfolios for my MA; the Writer with the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Writerly</span></span> Name’s <em>Creative Writing Workshop </em>portfolio, and the Agreeable Doctor’s <em>Creativity and Marginality in Contemporary Writing </em>portfolio<em>.</em><span style="font-size:0;"> </span>There’s a dissertation to write now; and a year to complete it in.<span style="font-size:0;"> </span>As ever, I was just one day short of having enough time to finish those last two pieces nicely and I was up until three on Friday morning compiling them.</span><br /><br /><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial;">A few hours later Ian hefted me weightily into the car, folding my legs and arms in after like an inexpertly doubled deckchair and we set off for <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Crail</span></span>, <i>via </i>the Humanities Office to hand in the assignments.<span style="font-size:0;"> </span>The Humanities Office was locked and deserted; but I can’t talk about that yet. It’s enough to testify that the kind lady from the Ceremonies Office took the portfolios from me and gave me a receipt, and a hug.<span style="font-size:0;"> </span></span><br /><br /><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial;">There<em> is</em> an assignment drop box but how I feel about assignment drop boxes is: what about the bad person with the lighter fuel and the lit match?<span style="font-size:0;"> </span>That’s all I’m saying.</span><br /><div><div><div><div><div><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial;">On the way to <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 /><st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">Scotland</st1:country-region></st1:place> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">th</span></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG70xOZfypPCABZkiK4twJSC-AZJMj4f67rhRREFWHmIeEJRQS-65MVabShuIRygBAIZ7kppLZqFN5Jt16NOwD2Li2MEjWaLN1cbY-p2tFpXim_Z_Nq1ZIPxz4N__anb0t7XvT1tlOH3A/s1600-h/IMG_0258.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5369549982912830226" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 292px; HEIGHT: 228px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG70xOZfypPCABZkiK4twJSC-AZJMj4f67rhRREFWHmIeEJRQS-65MVabShuIRygBAIZ7kppLZqFN5Jt16NOwD2Li2MEjWaLN1cbY-p2tFpXim_Z_Nq1ZIPxz4N__anb0t7XvT1tlOH3A/s320/IMG_0258.JPG" border="0" /></a>e Radio 4 play was Ken <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Blakeson's</span></span> <i>Bearing the Cross</i> which tells the story of Rorke’s Drift.<span style="font-size:0;"> </span>This is an Amazing Coincidence because there’s a flower bed in <st1:placename st="on"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Avenham</span></span></st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Park</st1:placetype> in <st1:place st="on">Preston</st1:place> that’s designed to mark the 130<sup><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">th</span></span></sup> anniversary of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Rorkes</span></span> Drift (*thinks* <em>'maybe</em> that’s why Ken wrote the play too').</span> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial;">The 1964 film, Zulu, depicts the Battle of Rorke's Drift.<span style="font-size:0;"> </span>It was a terrible fight between the British Army and Zulu warriors.<span style="font-size:0;"> </span>Preston are observing the event because the padre, George Smith, became the chaplain at <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Fulwood</span></span> Barracks, here in Preston, on his return from South Africa and is buried in New Hall Lane cemetery (that was after he died, obviously).<span style="font-size:0;"> </span></span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial;">Apparently one hundred and thirty-nine British soldiers successfully defended the garrison at Rorke’s Drift against several thousand Zulu warriors (reported numbers vary). Eleven Victoria Crosses were awarded to the defending soldiers; the largest number of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">VCs</span></span> conferred to a regiment for one action. George Smith received the Zululand medal and clasp for gallantry; only soldiers can receive the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">VC</span></span>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial;">I felt ill at ease when I saw first saw the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Avenham</span></span> Park flowerbed a few weeks ago. I know the soldiers were brave and doing what they were employed to do, but it somehow seems out of place to be commemorating the defeat of native people who were defending their stolen land; just as Victorian <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Prestonian</span></span> warriors would have defended <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Avenham</span></span> Park, armed with fettlers and yard-brushes, if Zulu <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">pastoralists</span></span> had rolled up and set about grazing their cattle on the sward. Ken <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Blakeson's</span></span> play reinforced my disquiet. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Crail</span></span> is in Fife, across the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">Tay</span></span> from <st1:place st="on">Dundee</st1:place>.<span style="font-size:0;"> </span>I tipped my hat groggily to Kathleen Jamie as I was driven by <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Newburgh</span></span></st1:place></st1:city>.<span style="font-size:0;"> </span>Jamie wrote <i>Findings </i>which was one of the Agreeable Doctor’s set texts.<span style="font-size:0;"> </span>She also wrote the poem <i><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">Arraheids</span></span></i> in which arrowheads in museums, </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:arial;">‘<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">thon</span></span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">raws</span></span> o flint <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">arraheids</span></span><br />in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">oor</span></span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">gret</span></span> museums o antiquities’</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial;">are likened to the sharp tongues </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial;">of Grannies who cannot stop themselves from putting you back in your place; </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial;">'ye <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">arenae</span></span> here <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">tae</span></span> wonder,<br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">whae</span></span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">dae</span></span> ye think ye <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">ur</span></span>?'</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial;">We’<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">ve</span></span> all met one of those Grandmas.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">Crail</span></span> is a picturesque fishing town (see above) fixed in another time and place.<span style="font-size:0;"> </span>Like the <st1:place st="on">Isle of Man</st1:place>, I suspect it isn't there if you’re not looking.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial;">As you know, I spend a lot of time in graveyards, <a href="http://kimmcgowan.blogspot.com/2009/04/wednesday-22-april-2009-worst-legs.html">stealing names</a>, admiring <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">Shap</span></span> Granite headstones, looking for dead babies; I can add looking for the <a href="http://www.rorkesdriftvc.com/defenders/smith.htm">headstone</a> of an Army padre to that list now.<span style="font-size:0;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial;">The graveyar<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMF0NZuOOIqkk91XnwT75EMJ8SlGC4zRuIe33Ds3ZJY3KxqFmbik0nKHqX4pijiGhpjNRyw8firnE41FXGGzzXfMfiiw6pm0DRCQ0fBLiLrdEPPuyJNc8urbLPjhRkUYeRiZQ1b-FdAhQ/s1600-h/DSC_0021.JPG"></a>d at <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">Crail</span></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioHCCe9hiV1TNLz7T45boQZwi23zfXmtomw4ybZTk_mwHIGwQguSmihgwOpjN8d-Qpj8hhHt5R61wRBlvErwPloo_3sUbR8WlNFnV_mkh-4fwK9GOiMX85mN5lnXv3cncnuUM_XLQkuj8/s1600-h/DSC_0034.JPG"></a></st1:placename> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlnAh2i1SuIxaOwVyKvEzHWRHcYcsFhSsLh7KQLS_GZx_CSSo4BYfn-KqhyphenhyphenisIHTnMyrRbTUrUSCoUndoW71rhxu3GcgTdSb1ajqjDst4i3idNuamvLplTPk1ofncULDX7o3ZKQFLcEaE/s1600-h/New+Image.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373547905195101650" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 278px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlnAh2i1SuIxaOwVyKvEzHWRHcYcsFhSsLh7KQLS_GZx_CSSo4BYfn-KqhyphenhyphenisIHTnMyrRbTUrUSCoUndoW71rhxu3GcgTdSb1ajqjDst4i3idNuamvLplTPk1ofncULDX7o3ZKQFLcEaE/s320/New+Image.JPG" border="0" /></a><st1:placename st="on">Parish</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Church</st1:placetype></st1:place> is the best yet.<span style="font-size:0;"> </span>It has the oldest and most elaborate range of monuments I’<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34">ve</span></span> ever seen.<span style="font-size:0;"> </span>Tombs that would <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_35"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_35">tem</span></span>p one to be buried alive (as was said of the mausoleum at Castle Howard, I forget who by).<?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o:p></o:p></span></p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUZK5jnTLDBspDmYGcEfULimJg7yArOdtgGFlpYTdVOOtFK7WhAEJeq6RInDZseCBd_QZmmoABIaymt54kcvUifZbq66crUSrT3tQ0lyQdbjVBqh6uMokNRGg4ZH2cTDfGXUotiaTf_Vw/s1600-h/DSC_0075.JPG"></a><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGbEk4W3sDQU11mQFbQ-fhoVseu5tOQa8JtOlk_zB-2Yj0lTyu9g3wWM_mVBzxvfiv4eKEBV25uuU2XQJ31VVRZPDEKX_fDjEqMDMBgCqQtvYngGo8-7PNlk90Xi0zdMVr7ZeFQeI45Y4/s1600-h/DSC_0066.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5369553115003052322" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 155px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGbEk4W3sDQU11mQFbQ-fhoVseu5tOQa8JtOlk_zB-2Yj0lTyu9g3wWM_mVBzxvfiv4eKEBV25uuU2XQJ31VVRZPDEKX_fDjEqMDMBgCqQtvYngGo8-7PNlk90Xi0zdMVr7ZeFQeI45Y4/s320/DSC_0066.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial;"></span></p><div></div><div><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial;"></span></div><br /><div><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial;"></span></div><div><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial;">I’m tired and emotional now, thinking about assignment drop boxes, kind administrators and displaced Zulu warriors who're reduced to fighting in a flowerbed.<span style="font-size:0;"> </span>I’ll tell the tale of mural memorials, body snatchers and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_36"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_36">mort</span></span> houses next time.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div></div></div></div></div>kim mcgowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11854915502212651980noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8035871310991830775.post-52390515316837231432009-07-13T13:19:00.000-07:002009-07-13T13:40:15.940-07:00The Syphilitic Nature of Blogging (Part One)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYz0YFiax1t0ZvK4V5fpFgpmNUMn-2SEUAUlSApVcxeDQi-56MW-vwlIPC_YHkQDdHWmtZpVdzaaMNPI5SUDtngYyF-sFlDHDquqUfC03DsRQ_lDvb9vNkijj3STHQyrzTaK1it2BxmJs/s1600-h/IMG_0226.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYz0YFiax1t0ZvK4V5fpFgpmNUMn-2SEUAUlSApVcxeDQi-56MW-vwlIPC_YHkQDdHWmtZpVdzaaMNPI5SUDtngYyF-sFlDHDquqUfC03DsRQ_lDvb9vNkijj3STHQyrzTaK1it2BxmJs/s320/IMG_0226.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5358042720191543234" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family: arial;" lang="EN-GB">Writing things in the hope that other people will read them on the internet is such a schizophrenic experience.<span style=""> </span></span> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Is it acceptable to use mental illness metaphors? <span style=""> </span>I think it might be, even if I’m not being postmodern, but that’s not exactly fair is it?<span style=""> </span>It would hardly be acceptable for me to say blogging is like having Duchenne muscular dystrophy or Down’s syndrome or syphilis.<span style=""> </span>Saying any of those things would be insensitive and incorrect and yet a bipolar person doesn’t make a choice to be out of kilter anymore than a victim of muscular dystrophy does.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Curiously, saying blogging is like having syphilis might be just about acceptable (although inaccurate).<span style=""> </span>I wonder if that’s because syphilis is a STD and therefore inherently comical or because it’s treatable with antibiotics?</span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">I digress; promoting a blog is fraught with conflicts and contradictions.<span style=""> </span>At first I though I was writing for myself but that’s not really true.<span style=""> </span>I write a new blog-post and I’d like people to read it.<span style=""> </span>To advertise the new post I tweet a sheepish link on Twitter to people I’ve mostly never met.<span style=""> </span>From what I can make out a fair number of my Twitter Followers are actually pretend people; some of them sell solutions; storage-solutions (boxes, I think) and communications-solutions (computer-shit).<span style=""> </span>Judging by their friendly and outgoing photographs, some ladies who follow me are promoting relief-solutions, I tend to block them - unless I know them - obviously.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Because of the slightly impersonal nature of twittering I queer-like sort of don’t mind if Twitter Followers pity me, that’d just be Twitter Pity.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">As I’ve become bolder I’ve tried to make the promotional tweet a hook, writing lines like, ‘I’ve been looking at ladies legs.’ <span style=""> </span>or name-checking characters that people obsess about, Myra Hindley or Carol Ann Duffy or Hairdresser Ladies;<span style=""> </span>(it might only be me who obsesses about hairdresser ladies - but somehow <a href="http://kimmcgowan.blogspot.com/2009/05/scary-hairdressing-ladies-and.html">I Don’t Think So</a>).</span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">To begin with I cravenly tweeted a link to my blog-post in the middle of the night; a quiet time when people are asleep and when my tweet could get buried under the getting up tweets-rush and never be seen again.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">However, my Twitter tweet now updates my Facebook status (sorry if that makes no sense at all).</span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">I have met (just about) all of my Facebook friends – I <i style="">see </i>a fair number of my Facebook friends most days.<span style=""> </span>I don’t mind too much if the storage-solution thinks I’m vain and deluded but it’s a bit different to rub your Facebook friends’ faces in the facts.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">In earlier days of Twitter/Facebook synchronisation I’d nervously post a blog link <i style="">via </i>Twitter, wait a few nail-biting minutes, and then I’d hysterically logon to Facebook and delete the synchronised status update before it could be seen by too many of my (23 plus) Facebook friends.</span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">I was cured of this lunacy (there I go again with my mental illness metaphor) when I deleted a Facebook status update blog link just as someone added the comment, ‘I loved this post! :)’<span style=""> </span>Of course, the complimentary comment disappeared with the deleted original Facebook status update:</span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Noooooooo! <span style=""> </span>Your first blog-approval and you deleted it!<span style=""> </span>You were frantic. Yet again it was time to calm down, and weigh up the options, and decide what to do.<br /></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Nothing?<br />Too vain and deluded for that.</span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Print off the email alert and carry it everywhere with you so it’s handy if it ever crops up in conversation?<br />Goes without saying.</span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">ReTweet the link and ask your Facebook friend to write his comment again?<br />Pathetic, are you a complete moron?</span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">ReTweet the link and copy and paste your Facebook friend’s comment from the alert email you received when he posted it?<br />The reply would still have <i style="">your </i>name on it, Stupid; how would that look? Think about what you’re considering (and You, stop using learning difficulty-allegory whilst you’re at it).</span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">What I did do was to ReTweet the link in the hope that my Facebook friend was a sympathetic mind-reader who understood about deranged wannabe writers and would write the same comment again.<span style=""> </span>Sadly, not. (I've have got a copy of the comment in my pocket if you want to see it though).<br /></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">On the topic of deranged wannabe writers I received two disappointing MA Creative Writing marks on the same day several weeks ago.<span style=""> </span>On the strength of my disappointment (in myself) I decided I was going to complete the last two taught modules of my MA and then drop out of the programme without starting the dissertation.</span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">‘That,’ I thought grimly as I bloodily sawed at my nose,’ will show me.’</span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The marks weren’t awful but they were comparatively low and, worse, I deserved them.<span style=""> </span>I knew I was floundering when I put my Stylistics portfolio </span><span lang="EN-GB">together</span><span lang="EN-GB">.<span style=""> </span>In the end I felt as if I resorted to writing bottomfishbanana a thousand million times because I just didn’t really <i style="">get </i>it or know what else to do.</span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">I went to see the programme leader to discuss my decision.<span style=""> </span>She, predictably, told me my marks were creditable.<span style=""> </span>That’s another one of <a href="http://kimmcgowan.blogspot.com/2009/04/wednesday-1-april-2009-unexciting-email.html">Those Terms</a> isn’t it? Like ‘salt of the earth’ (common) and ‘friendly and outgoing’ (fast) ‘lively writing’ (self conscious, verbose, first draft-type writing).<span style=""> </span>Creditable is kindly meant but it <i style="">hurts.<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><i style=""><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">But she said something else that did make me reconsider my decision.<span style=""> </span>She said that she could see me submitting work for publication in two or three years time.<span style=""> </span>My reflex reaction was that if I’m not good enough now I don’t want to know.<span style=""> </span>Before I came away I’d realised that I couldn’t expect any greater compliment than what she said; of course it won’t happen overnight.<span style=""> </span>And I’m grateful for her honestly, and her sagacity.<br /><o:p></o:p><br />So, if you see me with nasty awkwardly sewn-back nose - horrible black thread and oversized needle-holes (I can never find the right needle) don’t worry; <span style=""> </span>its just my <s>schizophrenia</s>, I mean syphilis, playing up again.<o:p><br /></o:p></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The photograph is of <i style="">The Minotaur and the Hare</i> by Sophie Ryder in the centre of <st1:place st="on">Cheltenham</st1:place>.<span style=""> </span>Frankie said the Minotaur looks like a nice boyfriend, and despite the fact he’s as friendly and outgoing in his dress sense as some of my relief-solutions Twitter Followers, she right, he does look like nice boyfriend doesn’t he?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>kim mcgowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11854915502212651980noreply@blogger.com11