CREATIVITY FINDS A WAY
Some readers will know that as well as occasionally posting on here I also, on a separate blog, write reviews of gigs, plays and films we go to see. Purely for my own amusement, I don't expect anyone to read them, but you need a few hobbies in retirement, and that's one that gives my brain a small challenge and adds another dimension to being an audience member. Over the course of a year I'll usually write well over a hundred of these, with the bulk of them reflecting our assiduous attendance at the various festivals the city has to offer from April to August and beyond.
But, for obvious reasons, not in 2020. Our last live entertainment, the excellent Boo Hewerdine, was almost three weeks ago and it looks like being many months before there's another one. That's a big element of our lives put on hold, my little hobby suspended - and a large chunk of disposable income not being spent! For us that's an annoyance, but such a minor one in the context of what's going on in the world it's barely worth a thought. For the performers - musicians, comedians, actors - we'd have been going to see it's much more serious, as that's how they pay the bills. And how they express their essential creativity. So it's been fascinating to see how they are coming to terms with the new reality, one that could be with us for some time to come and is, surely, going to change much about the world we've known until now.
We can't go to see them, they can't come to us, but there is this thing called the internet, and it has always offered endless possibilities for new ways to interact with others. Seeing artists adapt to this is fascinating, and I've sat watching several music gigs and a couple of comedy shows. It gives them an outlet for their talents, us a substitute for the raw entertainment we are missing, and, possibly a way for performers to earn some much needed dosh in the hard times they are experiencing.
The first one of these I watched was pretty impromptu. The band Talisk found themselves stranded in the US when the bulk of their tour, and income, went awol. They launched a crowdfunder to help them get flights back home and cover some of the debts they had outstanding. As a thank you for the money raised they did a Facebook Live broadcast from a hotel room in Nashville. It was manic, shambolic and probably more verbal rambling than actual music. But it was also very funny, had some great music and curiously involving. Partly because FL provides for real-time commenting by viewers, but also the sense of this being the start of something that would become our main source of 'live' entertainment for who knows how many weeks to come - and maybe beyond.
Since then I've watched a few live, or almost live, music performances, and a couple of the Saturday night shows the Stand Comedy Club have done. In every case there's a palpable sense of nervous experimentation, and trying to find ways to cope with the lack of any immediate audience response. It's going to be fascinating to see how this evolves, but for now I won't bother trying to write reviews. As a performance medium it's still too raw, too feeling-the-way, to be able to criticise. But by the end of April...?
Tuesday 31 March 2020
Sunday 22 March 2020
Covid or 'NotCovid'?
IS THIS IT?
It's a terrible time to be a hypochondriac. Every media outlet telling you to stay at home and shut yourself away if you show any signs of exhibiting from this long list of symptoms - who could resist such blandishments? Youthful valetudinarians aside, the young have always seen themselves as immortal, and many, too many, are still acting as if that were true, with parks and proms and squares bustling in many towns and cities. While the rest of us intently monitor the respiratory condition of anyone who walks within twenty metres, nervously pondering why we have a sudden urge to cough.
And then you actually come down with... something. Is it just the bug you would have caught anyway at this time of year, or THE virus, the one that's receiving global air time and fame? How do you know? Is it going to be obvious? And that's where we find ourselves... Confused.
Barbara and I have both come down with some kind of illness, but can we say if it's Covid-19 or not? No we can't. There's a list of classic symptoms we're constantly being told about, but how many of them do you need to shout 'House'? And if you each have different symptoms do you both have the same bug, even though it hits you in different ways?
I have a tight chest and shortness of breath, but apart from one night when I sweated so much I was starting to looks out for sharks, I haven't been feverish much. Barbara's had the fever, but vomiting isn't on the list. Neither of us have had much of a cough. Hence the confusion.
I write this not for looking for any sympathy. We'll be fine. Now she's eating again Barbara will soon get some strength back. Neither of us seems at any risk of placing any further burden on NHS resources. We have a comfy home, an endless supply of books, music and video, and a cat and each other for company. Our neighbours have created a mutual-help group for the block and a lovely young couple just brought us some milk. It's just a bump in the road.
But I thought it worth sharing because determining if you really have coronavirus is, at least in milder cases like this, not that easy to figure out. Maybe not a big problem in itself - if you're feeling at all unwell then you should immediately shut yourself off from others, that's simple for us all to understand - but it makes you wonder if, when you fully recover, you then have any degree of immunity or not? Maybe, maybe not. But even if you did you could still be a carrier, a risk to others, so sticking with the familiar social isolating behaviour is going to be the safest course of action for... however long it takes.
Whatever it is, covid or notcovid, we have both cried 'House' - or rather 'Flat' - and declared ourselves well and truly self isolated until Third of April. And for now the safest thing is for us all to worry a bit - release your inner hypochondriac.
It's a terrible time to be a hypochondriac. Every media outlet telling you to stay at home and shut yourself away if you show any signs of exhibiting from this long list of symptoms - who could resist such blandishments? Youthful valetudinarians aside, the young have always seen themselves as immortal, and many, too many, are still acting as if that were true, with parks and proms and squares bustling in many towns and cities. While the rest of us intently monitor the respiratory condition of anyone who walks within twenty metres, nervously pondering why we have a sudden urge to cough.
And then you actually come down with... something. Is it just the bug you would have caught anyway at this time of year, or THE virus, the one that's receiving global air time and fame? How do you know? Is it going to be obvious? And that's where we find ourselves... Confused.
Barbara and I have both come down with some kind of illness, but can we say if it's Covid-19 or not? No we can't. There's a list of classic symptoms we're constantly being told about, but how many of them do you need to shout 'House'? And if you each have different symptoms do you both have the same bug, even though it hits you in different ways?
I have a tight chest and shortness of breath, but apart from one night when I sweated so much I was starting to looks out for sharks, I haven't been feverish much. Barbara's had the fever, but vomiting isn't on the list. Neither of us have had much of a cough. Hence the confusion.
I write this not for looking for any sympathy. We'll be fine. Now she's eating again Barbara will soon get some strength back. Neither of us seems at any risk of placing any further burden on NHS resources. We have a comfy home, an endless supply of books, music and video, and a cat and each other for company. Our neighbours have created a mutual-help group for the block and a lovely young couple just brought us some milk. It's just a bump in the road.
But I thought it worth sharing because determining if you really have coronavirus is, at least in milder cases like this, not that easy to figure out. Maybe not a big problem in itself - if you're feeling at all unwell then you should immediately shut yourself off from others, that's simple for us all to understand - but it makes you wonder if, when you fully recover, you then have any degree of immunity or not? Maybe, maybe not. But even if you did you could still be a carrier, a risk to others, so sticking with the familiar social isolating behaviour is going to be the safest course of action for... however long it takes.
Whatever it is, covid or notcovid, we have both cried 'House' - or rather 'Flat' - and declared ourselves well and truly self isolated until Third of April. And for now the safest thing is for us all to worry a bit - release your inner hypochondriac.
Sunday 15 March 2020
Easy cheesey, what I miss about work
SAY CHEESE
"Don't you miss work?"
A common enough question aimed at retirees. And you'll usually get certain set answers, such as...
"The people."
"The mental challenge."
"The sense of purpose."
"Bugger all."
And I'm in that last camp. By the time I'd left things were generally so miserable/unpleasant the only sense of mental challenge was maintaining some sense of equilibrium, and any sense of purpose, other than getting the hell out, had long since departed. My greatest joy was being able to send out, to multiple recipients (almost everyone I knew in the office) a very, very long email slagging off everything about the place. Childish perhaps, but I received several plaudits for it afterwards so totally, completely, utterly worth the effort.
As for "The people"... that's the really common one, isn't it? But it's not that difficult to stay in touch with the few people you actually liked. (Well, it is if you're as shit a friend as me, but that's not everybody, is it?) What they really mean is that they miss the sense of belonging, the casual acceptance of their presence as part of the furniture, the bored welcomes every morning and half hearted "see you tomorrow"s of people who don't really want to be there at all. Like a mildly less alcoholic version of Cheers, "where everybody knows your name", but without the visual attractions of Ted Danson/Shelley long (delete according to preference).
And, to my surprise, I've replaced that part of it with my voluntary work, where I can walk into the office and everyone says Hi. And it's only taken four years.
But I lied when I said I was in the "Bugger all" camp. There is one thing I still miss. When we had all-day meetings, or outside visitors coming to see us, there'd be an order placed with the canteen for one of their buffet lunches. There were three levels of what they laughingly referred to as 'menus', going up in price and, at least theoretically, in quality. Levels two and three included dessert. Which was fruit, and cheese and biscuits. And the latter, despite their sense of artificial reality, were really popular. There would be four kinds of biscuit. Something that seemed almost, but not quite, like Tuc; a water biscuit; a digestive; and those brown ones with crinkly edges that look and taste like salted toasted cardboard.
Then there were the cheeses, all tiny portions individually wrapped in hard-to-get-into plastic. They were religious, because the were the baby cheeses. (Sorry....) There was a triangle of something soft, vaguely Brie-ish. (All of them were a bit like the first kind of biscuit - almost, but not quite, something you actually recognised.) There was a wee tombstone of something cheddary. And little blue streaked cubes of varicose vein cheese.
Most of that lot went quickly. Except for those cubes. Who wants blue cheese for lunch? But that din't stop the canteen sending them in. Every time. This meant that, come the end of the meeting, there's a pile of unwanted, strongly flavoured, bacteria-ridden lumps, and Crawford walking out the door, jacket pockets stuffed with the smelly stuff. To be taken home, stuck in the fridge, then pulled out whenever there was a need to spruce up the taste of a soup or a stew or a white sauce. There was no end to the number of dishes that could be enhanced by one those wee fellas.
And that's what I still miss about work.
"Don't you miss work?"
A common enough question aimed at retirees. And you'll usually get certain set answers, such as...
"The people."
"The mental challenge."
"The sense of purpose."
"Bugger all."
And I'm in that last camp. By the time I'd left things were generally so miserable/unpleasant the only sense of mental challenge was maintaining some sense of equilibrium, and any sense of purpose, other than getting the hell out, had long since departed. My greatest joy was being able to send out, to multiple recipients (almost everyone I knew in the office) a very, very long email slagging off everything about the place. Childish perhaps, but I received several plaudits for it afterwards so totally, completely, utterly worth the effort.
As for "The people"... that's the really common one, isn't it? But it's not that difficult to stay in touch with the few people you actually liked. (Well, it is if you're as shit a friend as me, but that's not everybody, is it?) What they really mean is that they miss the sense of belonging, the casual acceptance of their presence as part of the furniture, the bored welcomes every morning and half hearted "see you tomorrow"s of people who don't really want to be there at all. Like a mildly less alcoholic version of Cheers, "where everybody knows your name", but without the visual attractions of Ted Danson/Shelley long (delete according to preference).
And, to my surprise, I've replaced that part of it with my voluntary work, where I can walk into the office and everyone says Hi. And it's only taken four years.
But I lied when I said I was in the "Bugger all" camp. There is one thing I still miss. When we had all-day meetings, or outside visitors coming to see us, there'd be an order placed with the canteen for one of their buffet lunches. There were three levels of what they laughingly referred to as 'menus', going up in price and, at least theoretically, in quality. Levels two and three included dessert. Which was fruit, and cheese and biscuits. And the latter, despite their sense of artificial reality, were really popular. There would be four kinds of biscuit. Something that seemed almost, but not quite, like Tuc; a water biscuit; a digestive; and those brown ones with crinkly edges that look and taste like salted toasted cardboard.
Then there were the cheeses, all tiny portions individually wrapped in hard-to-get-into plastic. They were religious, because the were the baby cheeses. (Sorry....) There was a triangle of something soft, vaguely Brie-ish. (All of them were a bit like the first kind of biscuit - almost, but not quite, something you actually recognised.) There was a wee tombstone of something cheddary. And little blue streaked cubes of varicose vein cheese.
Most of that lot went quickly. Except for those cubes. Who wants blue cheese for lunch? But that din't stop the canteen sending them in. Every time. This meant that, come the end of the meeting, there's a pile of unwanted, strongly flavoured, bacteria-ridden lumps, and Crawford walking out the door, jacket pockets stuffed with the smelly stuff. To be taken home, stuck in the fridge, then pulled out whenever there was a need to spruce up the taste of a soup or a stew or a white sauce. There was no end to the number of dishes that could be enhanced by one those wee fellas.
And that's what I still miss about work.
Wednesday 4 March 2020
Going for a song
SURPRISE CONNECTION?
It took Barbara by surprise. It had certainly surprised me. She came into the kitchen to find me sobbing.. The full works, shoulders heaving, tear tracks shining on cheeks, salt in beard, incapable of giving voice. When I could eventually speak with any coherence it was to say a song had set me off. Just a song.
A few months before I'd attended a two day course, something my volunteering with Advocard gives me the occasional opportunity to take part on. This one was held in the zoo (good to have the chance to wander round for free) on Suicide Awareness (any humour was likely to be of the deep black variety...). In my years of advocacy work I've had several service users tell me about their suicidal thoughts, or past attempts to end their lives, so anything which makes me better equipped to deal with those situations was welcome. Of course the tutors ran the sessions with great sensitivity, but it inevitably brought up personal memories for many of the students.
So it took me back to 2002 and phone call from Edinburgh Police. We were still living in England at the time so it was unlikely to be anything but bad news. My father was dead, having gone out to South Queensferry, walked out on to the road bridge and jumped. No obvious lead up, no note, no unexpected problems left behind, no reason. By and large I didn't find that too hard to cope with, bar suddenly bursting into tears in the florist when ordering the funeral flowers. I'd been away from Edinburgh for over two decades so he wasn't a part of my daily life, which usually makes bereavement even harder to deal with.
So there in the zoo the memories were just that - memories, nothing that upset me overmuch. And yet there I was in a kitchen chair, a few months later, overwhelmed in a way I never was at the time of the suicide or at any point since. What connected song, lyrics, and memory into a script that had me helpless as the denouement?
In May 2018 it was announced that Scott Hutchison's body was found in the Forth. Hutchison was the lead singer and songwriter for Scots band Frightened Rabbit. I knew a small something of their music, without having listened often, and had seen, and been impressed with, Scott when he performed as a guest on a BBC Fringe show a couple of years before. The link with my father 's death was obvious, but the differences were far greater. Hutchison was so much younger, had a history of depression and had sent out messages hinting strongly at the action he was about to take. I was upset for Scott and those who knew him, but it didn't affect me otherwise. Later I'd play some Frightened Rabbit albums and even the track Floating in the Forth didn't trigger any great flow of emotion.
So surprise it was when listening to the wonderful album "Karine Polwart's SCottish Songbook". Track five is a Hutchison song. Swim Until You Can't See Land. "Are you a man or a bag of sand?" goes the chorus. I'd listened to the song before. But there must have been something about the moment. A few moments alone and at peace, Polwart's clarity of diction and phrasing, a mind receptive to suggestion perhaps? And then those words had the power to connect, transform and open up a mind taken unawares.
And yet it's no surprise really, is it? The human brain has an immense capacity for storing data, and prioritising it in a way that allows us to get on our with our lives. And that same brain can make seemingly random connections, pulling together forgotten ingredients o serve up unexpected flavours. Traumatic events never leave us, we succeed in overcoming them by letting them sink below the level of our daily consciousness. And then along comes a song...
Click here for the Karine version of the song.
Click here for the song lyrics.
And click here for the Frightened Rabbit original, with the man himself.
PS I can listen to the song with pleasure now, both versions, so it really was all in the moment.
It took Barbara by surprise. It had certainly surprised me. She came into the kitchen to find me sobbing.. The full works, shoulders heaving, tear tracks shining on cheeks, salt in beard, incapable of giving voice. When I could eventually speak with any coherence it was to say a song had set me off. Just a song.
A few months before I'd attended a two day course, something my volunteering with Advocard gives me the occasional opportunity to take part on. This one was held in the zoo (good to have the chance to wander round for free) on Suicide Awareness (any humour was likely to be of the deep black variety...). In my years of advocacy work I've had several service users tell me about their suicidal thoughts, or past attempts to end their lives, so anything which makes me better equipped to deal with those situations was welcome. Of course the tutors ran the sessions with great sensitivity, but it inevitably brought up personal memories for many of the students.
So it took me back to 2002 and phone call from Edinburgh Police. We were still living in England at the time so it was unlikely to be anything but bad news. My father was dead, having gone out to South Queensferry, walked out on to the road bridge and jumped. No obvious lead up, no note, no unexpected problems left behind, no reason. By and large I didn't find that too hard to cope with, bar suddenly bursting into tears in the florist when ordering the funeral flowers. I'd been away from Edinburgh for over two decades so he wasn't a part of my daily life, which usually makes bereavement even harder to deal with.
So there in the zoo the memories were just that - memories, nothing that upset me overmuch. And yet there I was in a kitchen chair, a few months later, overwhelmed in a way I never was at the time of the suicide or at any point since. What connected song, lyrics, and memory into a script that had me helpless as the denouement?
In May 2018 it was announced that Scott Hutchison's body was found in the Forth. Hutchison was the lead singer and songwriter for Scots band Frightened Rabbit. I knew a small something of their music, without having listened often, and had seen, and been impressed with, Scott when he performed as a guest on a BBC Fringe show a couple of years before. The link with my father 's death was obvious, but the differences were far greater. Hutchison was so much younger, had a history of depression and had sent out messages hinting strongly at the action he was about to take. I was upset for Scott and those who knew him, but it didn't affect me otherwise. Later I'd play some Frightened Rabbit albums and even the track Floating in the Forth didn't trigger any great flow of emotion.
So surprise it was when listening to the wonderful album "Karine Polwart's SCottish Songbook". Track five is a Hutchison song. Swim Until You Can't See Land. "Are you a man or a bag of sand?" goes the chorus. I'd listened to the song before. But there must have been something about the moment. A few moments alone and at peace, Polwart's clarity of diction and phrasing, a mind receptive to suggestion perhaps? And then those words had the power to connect, transform and open up a mind taken unawares.
And yet it's no surprise really, is it? The human brain has an immense capacity for storing data, and prioritising it in a way that allows us to get on our with our lives. And that same brain can make seemingly random connections, pulling together forgotten ingredients o serve up unexpected flavours. Traumatic events never leave us, we succeed in overcoming them by letting them sink below the level of our daily consciousness. And then along comes a song...
Click here for the Karine version of the song.
Click here for the song lyrics.
And click here for the Frightened Rabbit original, with the man himself.
PS I can listen to the song with pleasure now, both versions, so it really was all in the moment.
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