Monthly Archives: November 2011

Sunday 27th November 2011

Diary, Home 27/11/2011 Leave a comment

Full House

Just cooking Sunday lunch. Well, yes, I know, it’s not really lunch time, but in our house mealtimes have always been a moveable feast. I once remember inviting some very good friends to supper and when we finally sat down to eat, one of us noticed  it was half past eleven, in the evening… The food tasted good though. As my Gran always used to say… Hunger makes good kitchen.

I say, I’m cooking, but Fergus is in charge of the beef because I either over cook it, or I get so nervous about over cooking it, I completely undercook it and we end up having to put it back in the oven for ten minutes, all the veg ready and everyone starving. We all enjoy our meat rare, but raw is another thing altogether. Julius is in charge of the yorkshire’s. I struggled to get my yorkshire’s to rise properly for years until my sis, Jo, passed on Gordon Ramsey’s recipe. Perfect every time. Last week Julius used double the amount of flour by mistake so we ended up making double the amount of batter which we used the next evening for a toad in the hole. It has been suggested that we should do the same today. I prepared the veg, beautifully, I might add.

Reading

Finished Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman, the latest in the Man Booker Long List I’m wading through…

Interesting.

I enjoyed it, on one level, but felt cheated on another. At times the language is delightful and the narrative voice convincing and moving, but at other times it left me cold. Deep down, I felt it lacked authenticity. I know it’s been really well received and well reviewed, but I felt, at it’s heart it was somehow contrived; designed to affect and therefore, less effecting. The ending surprised and saddened me, so obviously, I did care about the characters, but not quite enough for the novel to really move me.

London and life on a run down inner city estate was evocatively descibed and I recognised much from visiting Isaac in Stockwell last year and living in Harlesdon myself, albeit as a young woman, years ago… I also liked that some serious social issues were dealt with head on and without sugar-coating, but still, it lacked something. Perhaps it was simply that it wasn’t Mr Kelman’s story to tell? I don’t think these characters made themselves known to him and demand he be their conduit. It was perhaps more a case of deciding to write on a subject, aware of it being ‘on trend,’ and then consequently setting out to write a big seller. Appropriation and/or an element of exploitation come to mind. Perhaps I’m being too judgemental and/or cynical? As always, I would love to hear anyone else’s opinion.

BBC National Short Story Anthology




Attempting to write stories, day in, day out myself, I love to read a good short story and this collection certainly delivered.

I really enjoyed them all, but one in particular stood out for me…

The Heart of Denis Noble by Alison MacLeod

It’s one of the best short stories I’ve read in a long time. It seamlessly mixes high science with human emotion and I finished it knowing more, than before I began. An amazing achievement in just a few pages of fiction, but that’s what the very best short story can do.

There comes a moment of realisation some way through and when it hit me, it was so powerful I actually had to take a break, make a cup of tea and smoke a cigarette before I continued. I cried. And I don’t mean a slight welling of salt water in the corner of my eyes; no, I mean cried, fully fledged heaving sobs that took my breath away. Brilliant. if I could ever write a story as affecting as that and as beautifully written and with so much attention to detail and so carefully researched, well… I would know I had finally achieved something.
Do read it. And the others in the anthology. You won’t be disappointed.
I believe it was commissioned by Comma Press (how I love Comma, if I were ever to be published, I would like it to be with them…) and I have ordered the anthology…

http://www.commapress.co.uk/?section=books&page=Litmus

Now I’m reading Jamrach’s Menagerie by Carol Birch. Half way through. Loving it. Sparlking prose.
Also enjoying Carol Anne Duffy‘s Poetry Collection, The Bees. Beautiful.

See you soon.

Gordon Ramsay’s Yorkshire Puds…
4 large eggs, free range, organic, lovely, of course
225g plain flour
300ml milk

Mix, cook and enjoy, preferably with rare meat and lashings of gravy!


Saturday 26th November 2011

Diary, Home 26/11/2011 Leave a comment

Ghostpoet

Passed another milestone today… 
Took Fergus to buy his first suit. And in typically familial fashion, like Mother like son, we’d left it till the last minute, or to the last afternoon, to be more precise. The suit was required for a Casino Evening, tonight, at school.
And, like Mother like son in more ways than one, son had a vision of said suit, or at least what he would look like wearing it. Son is notoriously, sartorially fussy, and why not!
Top Man had a couple of nicely cut styles, ‘it’s got to be skinny, Mum, and I mean skinny…’ but not in the correct size. The only 36″ chest was a rather shiny, Jimmy Carr affair that we weren’t too keen on. We traipsed the length and breadth of Highcross trying on any slim fitting suit we could see, but Yuk, a badly cut bunch, the lot of them.
‘Let’s try All Saints,’ I suggested.
‘Bit expensive,’ middle son said, (such a responsible boy, that one, and never, ever greedy.)
‘Oh, come on,’ I said, ‘It’s worth a try…’
No suits as such, but nice jackets, lovely trousers and when I told the, very helpful, very lovely, sales assistant what we were after, she said she thought she had matching trousers out the back, to the jackets on display and matching jackets to the trousers. (The mind boggles somewhat, but who am I to question the logic behind their sales technique?)
Anyway, as soon as he tried it on we knew. Perfect. Cool, modern, slightly washed and rumpled looking, low at the crutch, slim at the ankle, neat shoulders and very, very skinny. Just right. A beautiful, soft, white cotton shirt and very slim eighties-style tie later and we were done. I didn’t look at the price before punching in my pin, just the look on my boy’s face. Worth every penny.


Just had a look on their website to see if I could find a pic (no) but found this great link to creative stuff and videos made in conjunction with GQ magazine. Follow the link and enjoy. The video at the top of this post, Ghostpoet aka Obaro Ejimiwe is one of the artists. Lovely track. The GQ session is even better I think, but I couldn’t embed the video. Do check it out. There’s sets by Tricky and Gary Numan among others.

http://www.allsaints.com/basementsessions_x_gq/ghostpoet/

And finally, just to warm the cockles of your heart… DJ Fresh- Gold Dust.
(I don’t remember playground skipping being that clever when I was a young thing but that makes me sound old, so I won’t say it out loud…)

Julius’s team won their first match of the season this afternoon and Isaac and his friends (Isaac doesn’t do ‘solo’) are home, so all in all it’s been a lovely day and it will be a full house for Sunday lunch tomorrow. I smell Yorkshire’s. Life is good.
Night night.

A small thought…

Small thoughts 25/11/2011 Comments: 5
Like the soft fluffy

 underbelly of a lamb

with a penchant for punk

straight out of the hairdresser

neon divine

Gossip…

is at best, unpleasant and at worst, can be psychologically damaging to it’s victims.

Mary Gormandy White, a human resource expert, gives the following advice on how to deal with gossip:

Rise above the gossip

Understand what causes or fuels the gossip

Do not participate in gossip

Allow for the gossip to go away on its own

If it persists, gather facts and seek help.

Peter Vajda identifies gossip as a form of violence, noting that it is “essentially a form of attack.” Gossip is thought by many to “empower one person while disempowering another” (Hafen). Accordingly, many companies have formal policies in their employee handbooks against gossip. Sometimes there is room for disagreement on exactly what constitutes unacceptable gossip, since workplace gossip may take the form of offhand remarks about someone’s tendencies.

There are four types of power that are influenced by gossip:

Coercive: when a gossiper tells negative information about a person, their recipient might believe that the gossiper will also spread negative information about them. This causes the gossipers coercive power to increase.

Reward: when a gossiper tells positive information about a person, their recipient might believe that the gossiper will also spread positive information about them. This causes the gossipers reward power to increase.

Expert: when a gossiper seems to have very detailed knowledge of either the victim’s values or about others, their expert power becomes enhanced.

Referent: this power can either be reduced OR enhanced to a point. When people view gossiping as a petty activity done to waste time, a gossipers referent power can decrease along with their reputation. When a recipient is thought of as being invited into a social circle by being a recipient, the gossipers referent power can increase, but only to a high point where then the recipient begins to resent the gossiper (Kurland & Pelled).

Turner and Weed theorize that among the three main types of responders to conflict are attackers who cannot keep their feelings to themselves and express their feelings by attacking whatever they can. Attackers are further divided into up-front attackers and behind-the-back attackers. Turner and Weed note that the latter “are difficult to handle because the target person is not sure of the source of any criticism, nor even always sure that there is criticism.”

I prefer to ignore it…

Ghazal: Islands

Poems 23/11/2011 Comments: 9 

Photo: Raymond Lofthouse

***

No man is an island: I’ve often heard people say,

though you and I have both been, in our own way.

***

Cut off for such a time, the incessant backwash

eroding us to dust, only our edge holding it at bay.

***

Suffering silent storms, harbouring hopes of calm,

first sightings awakened stirrings, formed a causeway.

***

Between two solitary beings, a bridge of dreams

enabled us to cross, each to each other, night or day.

***

We made atolls of hotel rooms in city backwaters,

intrepid, climbed aboard our tub and sailed away.

***

Winching linen sheets, we watched them billowing,

gave them free rein, allowed our dreamscapes play.

***

Curtains drawn, becalmed, marooned by carpet seas,

we fed from breakfast trays, barely saw the light of day.

***

Dazed, metamorphosed, we emerged as new, knew

that neither time nor distance could our love assay.

***

From the island of your birth you look across the sea

to me, in winter England, fog bound, giving you leeway.

***

At my kitchen island I write poetry, pine and keen, wish

to God that I believed, for I would kneel and pray.

***

Supplanter of my solitary life, my certainty, my north,

come home to me, your island of the lime… And never stray.

***


I’m indebted to Jayne and to Jo for your wonderful feedback. Thanks also to Jayne’s link on ghazals for anyone who would like to know more…

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5781

 

 

Ghazal: Islands

Poems 22/11/2011 Comments: 5

See new edit… 

She Trusted Him

Poems 18/11/2011 Comments: 11


 

He shaved her once.

It was his most concupiscent act.

Sowing his seed a season before

they watched it flourish, mature,

until they both could see nothing more.

Then, at last, the reaping hour-

holding her hips, parting her lips,

he kissed her unfurling whorl

and she unravelled.

Greedy, vulpine,

with scopophilic hunger

he cross-examined her minutely

with his eyes.

Rendered speechless, loose-limbed,

fuzz-blurred around the edges,

she lay back and let him wash her.

Silken soapsud fingertips

made concentrated tracery.

Easing apart her origami folds

as if to groom a madder-rose Shar Pei,

he held his blade on high,

all master-grave he swished his scythe

up hills, down dales.

Blushing now and moleskin smooth,

he admired her tonsure, newly blessed,

just how he liked it, so he said

and then she wept.

She knew not why, except

for how she trusted him.

 

 

 

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