wendy house

Top notch  

Ratings explained

Elton John  played his little heart out for nearly 2 and a half hours in the Key Arena (Basket Ball stadium) on last Friday night.   Wow.   The little man produced  a range of well introduced songs from classics  (Your Song) through to those on his new album (Postcards from Richard Nixon) and all sorts inbetween (I guess that’s why they call it the Blues).  Very professional.   Not as lively physically as David Bowie or as interesting a stage show as Peter Gabriel.  Nonetheless,

Wow  

Mumzie wriggled to the rythm  in the seat next to me,   singing along,   she seemed very happy.   The audience were more excited by “Bitch” than “Saturday night’s alright for fighting“.  This is America, need  I say more?

Issaquah village theatre’s production of Andrew Lloyd-Weber and Tim Rice’s Tony award winning  Evita is excellent.   Well above the standards of a regional city production of a musical

Ratings explained

Professional performances that my parents compared  favouably with the London show.   The choreography was reminiscent of the original show, the set was robust and versataille. The set was simple and evidence of a well financed production.

A physically petite Evita (Jennifer Paz) morphed from slight ill fitting dress through tailored designerwear to huge ballgowns, filling all with a presence beyond her frame.   Che (Louis Hobson) strutted through the show with suitable attitude,   posture and untamed hair.   Juan Perón (Eric Jensen) had both physical and musical presence,   his affection for the petite Eva clearly and economically conveyed.

This is the only Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice production that I feel inclined to like,   mainly because of the special characteristics of the storyline.   The lead female character is successful within the confines of the patriarchy.   This is clearly detailed with the songs highlighting that she is a whore and should stay in the bedroom.   She is the underdog (bitch) made good through self knowledge and careful marketting of her strengths (capitalism).   In that sense she personifies the American dream.   The use of Che as a critical,   yet appreciative,   male, narrative tool provides a good balance to the story within the  sadly realistic  narrative of the patriarchy.   The story has wry wit,   pathos,   the heroine is somehow almost  likeable yet at the same time detestable (totalitarianism, imbezzlement).  

Eva Peron good or bad thing?  

Fight it out amongst yourselves

House party!   As  we entered the house my friends seemed to melt into the colourful crowd of over-dressed and under-weared party-goers.   This was the 80′s.   The house awash with colour, exotic make-up and loud loud underwear.   I made my way towards the kitchen in search of alcohol to mellow the noisey tones.    A crowd had gathered around the doorway and against the kitchen counters.   In a large  arc with the fridge,   and Burnel,  at it’s apex.

Burnel,  simultaneously beside,   around, and on top of the fridge.   Wearing his performance persona.   At first I didn’t recognize him.   The imaccualte make-up,   tight fitting black leather trousers wrapping themselves around and over the fridge, the cape gently obeying the movements of his body.   Girls giggled.  Boys smirked.   Gradually they lost interest and dispersed into the main rooms of the party.  

I stood riveted to the scene.   To me a fridge is cold,   angular,   almost definitively unsensuous.   Yet here,   with his own movements,  Burnel managed to imbue the fridge with a delicate coquetishness.   It was clearly desirable.   He may have acknowledged my presence with a glance,   I may have said ‘hello’.   It’s unlikely.    The fridge was undoubtedly recieving his  undivided attention and I certainly didn’t want to break the unique experience he was building.   I suspect I remained in the kitchen watching him for the duration of the performance.   I certainly pondered on that philosophically fundamental question

‘what is it like to be a fridge?‘  

Several months later on a nightclub dancefloor I found the answer.   Burnel spontaneously mistook me for a fridge.    My compressor promptly broke,   resulting in giggle fits and an unceremonious  dash to the shadows for emotional repairs.  

How appropriate that a picture of Burnel now clings to my fridge.

tenth in a timely Wednesday series of “why wendy’s single“.    

Reason # 10:   time-bound

Time bound between employed, online-li-ness, asleep,  and occassional trips out.    Sharing  that time approximately

1. 10hrs per weekday  from leaving The Wendy House in the morning (going to work)  to returning in the evening  (Employed)
2. 7hrs per weekday roaming the Wendy House.   Generally in the   kitchen, the Fridge,  the shower, the frontroom with the fluff-balls  a pile of books and CD’s strewn on the floor around the sofa.   Darling  is always ‘on’ when I’m home (online-li-ness)
3. 7hrs per day sleeping (asleep)
4. Sporadically I  leave the Wendy House to spend time with local friends and bop at concerts  (out)

Online-li-ness with Darling  involves

• reading, replying and starting email and Instant Message conversation with people I know,  
• investigating requests to be ‘friends’ from people that  I don’t know (orkut, friendster, myspace, tribe, friends reunited) including the occassional love  letter.  
• Researching,   writing and occassionally attempting to proof-read blog entries.  

I have not established any relationships that I would consider labelling as ‘friends’  where first communication was online through my 6 years of online-li-ness.   With the notable exceptions of Jenn, LaCroix, Kate, and  Jen.

Quite by accident, while browsing, I came upon your photographs

touched by the self expression and creativity,  a  joyous experience,

I fell in love with you and Eric

phrases taken from a longer  email received through flick-r 2006.   The  shortened phrases convey the gist of the original message.   You’ll be glad to know that I also received an invitation to stop by if ever I’m in Minnesota again.   Mechanics and  emails from Minnesota suggest that  there are some very friendly people in the Mid West.

Ever wondered what Wendy review ratings really mean?   You need wonder no more.    Rating system explained:

Don’t touch this,   lest it be contagious or induce severe fits followed by sudden brain death

No.   It’s just wrong,   so wrong.   Turn around an walk away before anything valuable  like sanity or toothbrush gets broken

Thow the phone down.     Icky, icky, icky,   could prompt a minor tantrum involving  some small hand-held household item hitting the floor with a little more speed then naturally supplied by gravity    

Wince making.   What were they thinking?   Walk away now  

Why?   Even lashings of tea and biscuits couldn’t make this work  

Mining required.   Get your spade out,   if you are  prepared to put the effort into  digging for it you’ll find some virtue buried somewhere in this  

Darn good.   Like a pint of well kept real Ale  from a cask in good company,   or a Sunday morning reading a broadsheet in bed with the  fluff-balls snoring nearby    

Lovelly.   Simply world class talent.   Easily recommended and probably even remembered,   which given my scattiness is a major achievement      

Gorgeous.   Oh!   that was good for me.    Expect this review to include a bit of gushing because  the work has  genius potential      

Hero Worship.     Realised genius, lets do it again,   and again,   and again.   There’s a stong risk that Wendy’s planning a proposal.

getting  a canteen lunch is a veritable  obstacle course:

• How long are the queues at the different stands?  
• How fast are the queues  moving?  
• How long do I have?  
• What’s available that I like and haven’t eaten  recently?  
• How much money have I got in my pocket?

I waited in a long, slow moving, queue  at a stand where I liked everything on display.    To add a surprise element   I decided to copy the order placed by the tall slim American fellow in front:

 ”bay sill chicken“

I repeated this phrase exactly.   This was my first time pronouncing Bay Sill rather than ‘Bass Ill’   My UK home used to have its own bay sill where I would sit in the sunshine with the fluff balls while we each tackled the Sunday paper in our own, unique, ways.

Most pleasant,  but alas, not edible.

during rehearsal the director of an amatuer dramatics group directs the on-stage actors:  

“don’t hug the furniture“

The actor standing behind the chair quickly takes two Irish jig style steps backward.   I smirk, stop caressing the shiny Grand piano, sidestep slowly away in the  hope no-one else noticed my naughty furniture ‘ffection.   Meanwhile, mid embrace,  the lead actor  asks the director if the lead actress counts as furniture.   The director, unlike the lead actress,   does not look amused.   Apparantly, stage furniture has a gravitational-like force for amature dramatists.   Strangely true in my limited experience of a few chairs, tables, and  the occassional  Grand piano.

Needless to type,   this  traumatic experience has severeley curbed my furniture hugging tendencies.   You won’t find me in the corner of bars with my arms wrapped around a lone chair or arms stretched along  a  well polished table top.  

All in all,   it’s probably for the best.

approximately 4 inches

I see their heads, a pair of pinballs bouncing  in the distance, as they scan the hall between the taller, faster-moving, arrivals.   Dad’s thick heavy straight hair has a glass-fibre-optic luminance that is  easily held in  view.

Heading towards them, restraining the impulse to  run,  my strides extend.   I’m bound to fall over if I run amongst unsuspecting normal people.   A quick glance around confirms that   adults don’t run in arrivals lounges.   I’m an adult now.  I walk, like the other arrrivals around my parents,  very very very fast.  

After the 200yrd dash I manage to approach dad head-on and get both arms around his shoulders before he’d recognised me.   His shoulders?   I don’t remember ever having been able to reach his shoulders before now.    He kisses my cheek in front of my ear.    He can no longer reach my forehead.    Standing upright with his familiar cheshire cattish grin while  Mum joins the hug simultaneously giggling and chattering.   They had, they explained, ‘seen’ me but not recognised me…..

I hug-herd them to the luggage reclaimation rack while mother spills the first few lines of  this story,  then that,  then the other,  and another.   I barely have time to savour the images she draws before being pulled to the next story.   Dad grins silently,   keeping his sparkly dark blue eyes trained on the baggage go-round,   going round.   In  this moment of our  studying the baggage go round,   unobserved  chattering mother wanders off,   disappearing into the crowd,   giggling and chatting to herself as she goes.

Is  this how toddlers’ parents feel when they realise they can no longer see or hear their their toddler?

I’ll never know.

nineth in an awkward  yet extensive analytical possibly exaggerated Wednesday series of “why wendy’s single“.    

Reason # 9:   gawky

Blog posts can be planned,  edited,  reviewed, carefully structured.   They can be constructed to look smooth.   Obviosuly,   in my case the emphasis is on the phrase ‘can be’.   By contrast, conversations happen quickly.   They benefit from timely wit.  I’m a bit gawky in many conversations and  have been  known to break into talking bollocks  or simply running away.   Un-proof-read emails can also produce some  off-kilter-from-wendy’s-intentions interpretations by the reader.

In conversations I’m the person who starts talking before you’ve finished,   realises it,   stops,   starts again, realises you haven’t finished,   stops again,   puts my hand in the air while listening, then says something on a slight (the slightness is debatable) tangent to your main theme.   Finishes,   there’s silence,   then conversation resumes on the orginal theme   and I wonder why it all feels so complicated.     I do dislike those silences,   the first one I encountered in America was during a work meeting:

colleague:   when do you think that will be finished?

clear end point and direction for me to speak,   phew!

Wendy: in a fortnight

Colleagues:   (silence)

Colleague:  is that four days?

my thick English accent,  relatively quiet delivery and  that ‘fortnight’  is not  used in everyday US American had made my contribution completely unintelligable.

Wendy: in 2 weeks

flabberghasted,   and realising the enormity of unanticipatable miss-communications to come….

obviousness  

pressies are a good thing.

disguises

encountered in a 24hr period last week:

1. can I see your ID card please? asked the cashier in the Fridge before checking-out my beers.   The legal requirement for purchasing alcohol in Washington State is 21yrs.   I look all of my 42yrs.   Cautious organisations standardly check beer purchasers ID if they look 30 or under and some standardly check everyones’ ID.   The cashiers in the Fridge only check some people.    They normally allow me to purchase my beer without having to whip out my drivers licence as evidence of post-21-ism.   That this cashier felt the need to check my ID for my age was a flattering pressie.
2. Bonus laughter.   In line with my occassional soppiness theme an expected package, Poetry BOOK,   arrived with a pertinent hand written quote of JM Barrie (who authored another Wendy, my antithesis) and a jacket review from the bespectabled John Hegley.    As if Smelling that book  was not pressie enough, it arrived with 2 unexpected performance poetry CD’s  and a hand-written note indicating these are bonus laughter.   Smelling and listening at the same time,   with laughter thrown in for good measure.   Hooray!    If I slip some tea into the mix I’m on track for thrills and spills,   literally and literature-ally.  
3. Can you come out to play?   I like this one A LOT that’s about 700x more than normal liking.   I may not always be able to come out to play,   but being asked is simply gush-inducingly good,   it’s like saying ‘we like you’.   Luckily this invite involved going to a local brwery and I was more than able to drop my vacuuming and join the fun.   Thanks,   keep  up the good work
4. Getting to car share and not having to drive.   Excellent.   More than one American that passengered in LooSea pointed out that that either a crash helmet would be a worthy accessory, LooSea has an  unusual  affinity with the Interstate  curb,   or the fast approaching red traffic lights.    I dislike imposing this experience on Americans without full informed consent.   By contrast my UK friends have commented that my driving is somewhat dull.    In the NW USA I miss the  full suprise-steering-opportunities and dislike the  unwarranted, excessive, amount of stopping.  
5. Visitors.   Mum and Dad arrived from the UK.   That’s a lot of travel-time and money to see me.   Well,   they  have explored  the US equivalent of castles on the East coast (Civil war battle grounds) on the way.   My place isn’t a battleground,   pump engine or castle but they’re visiting it nonetheless.  I feel the need to impress the biddies (parents) by not  falling over,  being too scatty,  or making the fluff-balls (cats) too fluffy while they’re here…   …especially since I can’t impress them with my driving skills.   Normally they fight over who doesn’t get to ride shotgun.   Mum normally loses then sits rigidly  holding tightly to  each side of her seat while dad falls asleep (i.e. unconsciousness is preferable) in the back.
6. Trust. Asking  a friend if I could blog about his Regency Tea parties.   Without any hesitation, non-specific ‘erm’-ming, or conditional statements like “only if you don’t mention the Yak” he said YES.   That’s like saying ‘I trust you to produce something publishable without offending  me or  the many and varied other guests’.  
7. Blog comments and snooper statistics.   Wow,   people actually read this stuff!   You realise this means that I’ll keep  writing these unsolicited thoughts,   you’re such sweeties  ;-)

That’s an exceptionally present-full 24hrs.    Seven is good for me (number of items listed above), like 5 red cars in a row is a super good day for Christopher.    

should cc be replaced by copy in e-mail writing, compose,  templates?

When you write an e-mail there’s normally an address entry box below the one marked to this box is consistently labelled cc in every software that I checked:

• Gmail
• MSN Hotmail  
• Windows Livemail Beta
• Outlook 2003
• Outlook Express on XP

The  consistency supports people’s ability to move between different e-mail softwares.   It doesn’t support virgin e-mailers that have never seen or heard of cc.    Everyone will be a virgin e-mailer, at least once

Cc is shorthand for Carbon Copy.   Do you remember carbon copies?   Do the children you know have an idea what a carbon copy is,  or was?   Imagine you are a child,   learning to use e-mail.   Look at a new open e-mail can you easily guess what cc means?   Can you guess why you might want to use cc,   when is it appropriate to use cc rather than the to address entry line?   Imagine that you have to describe what cc means for an e-mail?   How would you do that?   I  suspect software producers  didn’t label it copy becasue copy has two more letters than cc and that takes up valuable screen real-estate.

I remember carbon copies,   in the US, the check (cheque) books still use carbon copies! Carbon dating,  rather than Carbon copying,   is probably more familiar to today’s youngsters.   Personal opinon,   no research involved.

Then there is bcc.   Bcc, Blind Carbon Copy introduces a whole new can of worms for both virgin and experienced emailers that I will temporarily turn a blind eye to, for brevity’s sake.

beyond a criticism of the use of cc within email software  my point is:

Software that  uses the shorthand acronym (or small picture; icon)  for a current technology (i.e. carbon) may enhance understanding of its meaning for the people familiar with that current technology but can have a long term adverse  impact on subsequent generations’ ability to learn what the label means and how to use it effectively.  

Cornwall is a nation.   Technically it is part of the United Kingdoms of Great Britain.   Geographically it is part of England and labelled on Wikipedia as a ‘county’ within England. Cornwall has maintained a strong independent streak.   The national language,   Cornish,   was spoken within Cornwall until as recently as the 1890s.   I once spent a summer holiday listening to a Cornish man tell stories of the Piskies,  Sprigans and  Knockers. Captivating.   Many poets and story tellers have drawn on and referenced these fabulous faerie tales.   The most well known Cornishman,  of legend, is King Arthur.

Cornwall is internationally famous within the mining industry for pioneering deep mining and steam pumping technologies,   the BBC provides online media clips (Realplayer required) outlining the rise and fall of the Cornish mining industry.   Along with the frequent visits to castles my parents ensured my childhood was full of visits to Cornish tin mines.   I appreciated visits to tin mines.   Have you seen those beautiful old steam pumps?   These Newcomen engines were even classified as sensual by a picky pre-teen Wendy….   lets watch the pump PUMP!   Now breath slowly and draw a long slow  mouthful from  a large mug of black tea with a liberal dosing of milk.

The gold rushes lured many Cornish mining experts to America,   who continued moving west to California, excerpt:

The gold mines of California attracted the Cornish miners …   …By 1856 Nevada County had a population of 25,000 and hard rock mining was the driving force of a vigorous economy. How many were Cornish miners is hard to establish since the men moved from strike to strike, often before they could be counted.  

The Cornish brought their folklore tales with them.   Leading to many familiar stories legends here in the US like the Tommy Knockers.   They probably helped secure the awesome showers in Idaho.   These Cornish men appear to have mined all over the world.   In the US  the Cornish were referred to as ‘Cousin Jack’,   a reference to the Cornish legend of Jack the Giant Killer.

A poetry book, like a dictionary, is a book I never finish reading.   Unlike dictionaries I will voraciously read all the words in a poetry book  cover-to-cover upon first discovering them.   Obviously this is after having removed my stickly little digits from the tea mug.    Both are reference books,   pulled from the shelf again and again.  

The dictionary gets pulled when I’m unsure of a word’s meaning,   range of meanings,   origins,   relationship to other words.    Assured of  discovery, my question promptly answered.  Inevitably a rewarding experience,   how can anyone fail to fall in love with dictionaries?   I’m very loyal to my one paper dictionary, it cannot be replaced.    The  Collin’s Concise (1983) was  a present from an elder brother.   When I look at its faded binding  I see my 21 year old brother standing  at the top of Park Street outside Georges with a white plastic bag in his hand held out towards me saying

“you’re leaving home?   You’ll need your own dictionary“.  

A very different experience from pulling one of the several poetry books from the shelf, floor, table, chair, cooker, mantle, washing-machine.    The favoured  books are scattered around the Wendy House where they afford the opportunity of unpremeditated rediscovery in a moment of undirected reading.   Picking up a book,   flicking through the pages to a title that catches some thought  and reading that poem.     One book purchased in a tizzy in 1989 insists on falling open to specific pages,   poems I found powerful in the early 1990s.  I have to fight against its insistence on taking me to specific emotional places.  

Poetry book use  is  not all so sporadic.  There are specific places I’ll go  when I’m happy,   because I’m sad,   or I want to find the words that describe what it is that I’m feeling because I just don’t know.   They are often there,   wrapped in the ambiguities and soothing rythms, but one can never be sure of Dictionary-like success.  

With that thought I’ll return to the vacuuming

pre-teenage Wendy to Mum and Dad:

not ANOTHER castle,   please no.   No more Castles.   Look, Castles are made of stone,   have dungeons and halls and lots of spiral staircases and are generally falling apart.   Once you’ve seen one or two Castle’s you’ve pretty much got the Castle thing covered.   Can we go to the beach instead?   Please… please….   …or a tin mine?    

After 6 years living inn the USA,  during a visit to Mum and Dad’s home last year….

Let’s go on a day trip to a Castle or a Stately home,   or somewhere maintained by British Heritage,   please,   anywhere on your list of old places to visit?

Mum and Dad arrive in Seattle tomorrow for a week long holiday.   Holy Vacuum Cleaners!   Parental cleanliness standards are beyond my comprehension.   This means I’ll be spending Satruday blitzing the cat-fluff.   There are no Castle’s nearby so  I’m going to spring Teatro Zinzanni  on them,    wish me luck…

the curious incident of the dog in the night-time. Mark Haddon.   This is an outstanding first novel.   Recommended  

3 smiles:   ratings explained

Reviewed by charlotte Morre in the Guardian.   The numerous reviews I’ve read are full of praise for this novel.

Christopher, 15yrs, is writing a murder mystery novel.   This is Christopher’s Novel.   Christopher’s presentation is a carefully contructed stream of consciousness.   He provides details about each character,   something interesting or different, to describe the character.   What Christopher finds interesting or different does not follow common patterns of describing a person.   The jacket cover descirbes Christopher as being autistic,   this is an artistic construction of the writer,   the contents should not be taken as representative of Autism.  

goodness discovered:

• Christopher as author:   works exceedingly well to carry the reader through seeing the world through the authors eyes and allowing the reader to have  a privileged view of dramatic irony. As reader we can see the impact of Christophers behaviours and understand these behaviours in a different value-set from Christophers.  
• Christopher describes and demonstrates  his values.   Clearly,   entertainingly.   Christopher attributes values and priorities to events in a different way than is generally socially acceptable.   I found some of his reasoning clearly descibed,  easy to follow,   consistently applied thoughout the story.   For example the meaning of specific groups of different car colours.  
• innovative illustrations.   The book is illustrated,   not with ‘pictures’ provided by an illustrator, with pictures from Christophers perspective.   As pictures per-se they provide little extra information.   As choices of important information selected by Christopher they are powerful story enhancers.

not so goodness

• lack of empathy with other characters.   This is a by-product of working with having Christopher as the protagonist.     There is insufficient detail to build empathy with any other character.   I suspect this was an explicit decision made by the author.   I would have valued the opportunity for a deeper understanding of some of the peripheral characters.   It’s not clear how the author could have achieved this connection within the books clearly implemented perspective.
• Inconsistency.   I found it difficult to follow why  Christopher made some, plot-critical, decisions  and did not become distressed by events that had already been established as distressing to him. For example, it is established early  in the book  that he does not like people shouting.    Later he witnesses shouting without any documented personal reaction.   As if the author temporarily forgot his protagonist in favour of placing  plot manipulating events.  

Aside:

• There are plausible rumours that people who exhibit symptoms of Aspergers syndrome and Autism experience successful application of their strengths in the software industry.   A quick search of the internet finds no real evidence,   just plausible arguments.   Software developers are able to procreate and this ‘syndrome’ is genetically conveyed to offspring.   Evidently,   in December 2000 ““Microsoft became the first major US corporation to offer its employees insurance benefits to cover the cost of behavioral training for their autistic children.”    (Wired Magazine).  This could easily just reflect the excellent pro-active healthcare provision by Microsoft as a company.   As a Seattle local,   this Wendy  wonders….

“I just need to take a bio break“

Will the USA euphemisms for ‘go to the TOILET‘ never cease?   I have to admire their perpetual creativity.   Maybe it’s the new frontier,   lavatory linguistics?   Now they can no longer literally ‘go west’ they ‘go to the rest rooms’ and invent brave new words for the experience to baffle the foriegners.   Splendid,   I’ll play,   after a quick ‘de-hydration squirt’

eight in a series of post-hoc, post-modern, modern posts that  rationalise  the extremely important,   generally unspoken question of  ”why wendy’s single“.    

Reason # 8:   my choice

It’s a positive choice.   When I feel inclined to persistently  torture some dress-challenged mortal that wears khaki cargo pants, flinches when I reach for my hat, looks confused when I’m entertaining myself with a monologue,   I will.   I’ll keep you posted ….

Previously established reasons are labelled with their very own snoop tag in the right-hand side-bar

Towards the end of the road trip we began to bet a bit confused about which State we were actually in.    Because:

• Burn-out.   We were generally more in  a state towards the end of the trip than at the beginning.   We ultimately crossed 14/50 States  covering approximately 3,300 miles in 10 days.   By day 7 our thinking was generally a bit cloudy,   like Iowa,   or was it Ohio.
• Turn-over.   Sometimes we passed more than one State in a day.   Wisconsin, Iowa  and Indiana just flew by.  
• Vowell-challenge.      Iowa and Ohio seem to merge in my triple-vowell challenged consciousness.  

I think Iowa and Ohio looked like this,   arable farms (corn and peas),   cloudy,  straight deserted roads.      I can’t be sure.

pie-dropping disappointment reigned on our US roadtrip when the place matt under the pie dish declared that the local Swedish Festival in small town Pennsylvania had finished before we arrived.   As a  self-confessed Viking,   I was disappointed to miss the pillaging and:  

• cheer leading clinic (elementary)
• Alberta’s Pie contest
• lip sync contest
• Viking ship races
• Swedish language lessons
• Barber shop quartets,   literally dozen’s of them

See the stain where the pie made an escape attempt on the paper place matt…

Saturday gets  a self confessed McEwan addict rating of

4 smiles.   ratings explained

 Highly recommended for people who like Ian McEwan stories where  everday life is intertwined with the exceptional in a suspense drama,   or is it?   For a well thought out and written analysis read this  review by Mark Lawson in the Gaurdian.   Review excerpts:

• Saturday catalogues the local only in order to focus on the global
• By recording with such loving care the elements of one rich Englishman’s life, Saturday explores the question of to what extent it is possible to insulate yourself against the world’s concerns
• One of the most oblique but also most serious contributions to the post-9/11, post-Iraq war literature, it succeeds in ridiculing on every page the view of its hero that fiction is useless to the modern world.
• The most recurrent theme in McEwan’s 10 novels is the sudden ambush of the safe and smug.

We follow the protoganist,   a neuro-surgeon Henry Perowne, through 24 hours set in London, 2003, on the day of a major Anti-war (with Iraq) rally.   Through his recollections we succinctly cover the last 20  years  of significant family events as he prepares for a special evening.   Through conversations,   news broadcasts and the anti-war rally we learn about different perspectives towards Britians engagement in the Iraq war.   His job centres on diagnosing complex human physical disorders,   then fixing them,  saving lives.   Analogous to governments diagnosing world problems and attempting to fix them,   saving lives.    McEwan’s writing style is captivating.   In this single sentence he conveys so much about the   old people in a ‘home’:

“They stir,   or seem to sway as he enters, as if gently buffeted by the air the door displaces”

I read the first half of the book sporadically,  reverently, on a Saturday.     The first half focuses on detailed,   relevant,  scene setting with events.   The home,   the car,   the family,   the health activities,   the job,   the friends,   the colleagues, the rally, the news, the values.   The second half of the book was so gripping I couldn’t bear to put it down,   my evening stretched into the early hours of the morning.          

The BBC debunks barbering.   The full article is worth reading. Here I’ve pulled extracts that  provide an insight into why Christian Ohio male  teachers might be considered of ill repute if they attended a barber:

“Hair, it seems, had been a very important social and religious issue throughout all of the history of mankind, especially since many ancient superstitions revolved around it…     …In 1308, the world’s oldest barber organisation, still known in London as the “Worshipful Company of Barbers” was founded…     …By the end of the 18th century, most barbers had given up their rights to perform surgery, except in small towns where surgeons were not available. They lost their status and became labourers, fashioning wigs in the 18th and 19th century, and their shops became shady hangouts…     …the art of barbering was revived in 1893 when A. B. Moler established a school for barbers in Chicago. Several years before, in 1886, the Barbers’ Protective Union had been founded in Columbus, Ohio, which eventually became Journeymen Barber’s International on December 5, 1887. In 1897, the State of Minnesota passed the legislation for a barber licence.“

In the 1970′s the English barber shops were still supplying their customers with  ”A little something for the weekend“.   Their exclussively male clients could avoid the embarressment of going into a chemist* to ask  for ‘french letters’ over the counter where the shop assisstant might be  neither male nor discrete and other customers may overhear the request.   That’s very embaressing.   Barbers are discrete and approving of your opportunity to use the french letters.   How do I know this?   Let’s just say ‘word of mouth’  

* Chemist (UK) = Drugstore (US)

My  Scandinavian designed  ergonomic kneeling chair decided to trip me up.   I was trying to stand-up.   Moving from sitting to standing is one of those things that people do with a chair,  frequently.   Sigh.   This chair  sneakily left me  sprawled across the office floor.    Ergonomic chair attacks are one of the everyday hazards of my life.    It’s a wonder that I don’t have more grazes and bruises.

During our drive across North America we passed many buildings and,  frankly, shacks advertising Taxidermy services.   Many more buildings were decorated with stuffed animals.   A quick internet search throws up multiple US websites offering Taxidermy training or lists of Taxidermy businesses,   for example this list for Michigan.

This photograph shows a stuffed  Otter hanging in the window of a bar in Idaho:

seventh in a squidgily unstable yet predictably published  Wednesday series of “why wendy’s single“.  

Reason # 7:   cinderella effect

I tend to skedaddle before the evening has really finished.   This means any plucky lad has to  either

• display cunning timing  skills to engage me in ‘conversation’ before I  scarper  
• not take my quick exit as a personal afront
• find a creative alternative solution (e.g. let the tires down on my car)…..  

Previously established reasons:

1. hat fetishist  
2. capable cookie
3. petite pool
4. indolence
5. talks bollocks
6. tiny trichromes

Luckily,   at 42,   I was above the minimum for this section of Interstate 90 in Minnisota.   The road was empty.   I suspect the locals must be under 40.   I’m not ‘mini’.   I’m not a ‘mum’.   I wasn’t sure if I was breaking the law by not complying with the detail of the sign  on this remote, deserted roadway.  

Am I a naughty rebel or what?

The published storyline is that the US government was scared of riots on international labour day, May 1st, and socialism when the date, first Monday in September, was selected.  

In North America the first Monday in September is the “Labor Day Weekend”.    In the US the Monday is a national Holiday.    Not vacation, Holiday.   Vacations appear to be taken by individuals while Holiday’s are  given by the US government.    The US Department of Labor website explaining the history of the US Labor Day does not cite pre-existing “Labour days” in other countries or any international level recognition of the value of labour to society.     Wikipedia has 2 entires on Labour days one for North America (September) and one for the rest of the world   (Labour, May 1st).   The rest of the world entry does  include Canada Labour day,   British spelling,   US compatible date.  

Wikipedia Labour day excerpt:

“A Labour Day is an annual holiday celebrated all over the world that resulted from efforts of the labour union movement, to celebrate the economic and social achievements of workers.   The celebration of Labour Day has its origins in the eight hour day movement, which advocated eight hours for work, eight hours for recreation, and eight hours for rest.”

Wikipedia Labor day excerpt:

“The origins of the American Labor Day can be traced back to the Knights of Labor in the United States and a parade organized by them on September 5, 1882 in New York City. They were inspired by an annual labor parade held in Toronto, Canada. In 1884 another parade was held, and the Knights passed resolutions to make this an annual event. Other labor organizations (and there were many), but notably the affiliates of the International Workingmen’s Association favored a May 1 holiday. With the event of Chicago’s Haymarket riots in early May of 1886, president Grover Cleveland believed that a May 1 holiday could become an opportunity to commemorate the riots. Thus, fearing that it might strengthen the socialist movement, he quickly moved in 1887 to support the position of the Knights of Labor and their date for Labor Day”

One indicator of labour’s health and value,   work-life balance,    does not look positive within the  US  compared to other Nations represented by the United Nations.    PNR reports that:

US companies are perceived as being responsible for an increasingly poor work-life balance… …the U.S. ranks as one of the highest in average annual hours worked per person, a rank that has remained virtually unchanged since 1990, according to statistics from the International Labor Organization at the United Nations.

This fits with my personal experience and appears to influence the whole fluffy notion of ‘way of life’ here in the US.   They are Free to work their sox off and employ services to maximise the efficiency of  their limited ‘life’ time out of work (Nanny’s,   cleaners,   dishwashers,   plummers,   house-painters, Kitchen remodellers,   personal trainers,   gyms…..).

Horses go faster than Yak’s.  

LaCroix took Eric and I on a betting Frenzy at  the Emerald Downs race course.   It’s  much cheaper and more casual than Goodwood but easily as enjoyable.    They took my wild $2.00 bets with the minimum of smirking.   Highlights included

• the little people (Jockey’s)
• well toned bottoms (on the horses)
• space (seating, padock views, course-side views)
• the imposing grandstand.  
• beer could be taken anywhere in the arena
• LaCroix  had her age checked before they would sell her beer

Lowlights

• bets.   Not winning anything with a strategy of picking horses based on their names.
• cash-only entry fee.   Huh?   why’s that.
• camera ineptness.   I now know that I need to work out how to take photographs in quick succession because by the time I’d taken the first photograph of the horses coming out of the chute they were half way around the track!

can you guess which common (in the US)  household appliance just bubbled a fart at me  when I flipped the ‘on’ switch?    This mini Wendy House rebellion called for a plan and a back-up plan.   Hooray!

• Plan:     Boldly, I climbed into it  wearing my fancy night-hiking head-torch and brandishing a pair of partially rusted pliers.   I tried twisting every bolt in sight.   Lack of any success quickly lead to boredum.   Nothing was twistable.  
• Backup plan:     Cunningly,   I distracted the bubble-farter by using the kitchen sink.   Fabulous invention.   Every Wendyhome should have one, so versataile, reliable, simple and with fabulous lines.   Sigh.  

Next, while the big white bubble-farter wasn’t looking I used Darling to find a repair service.   It’s going to have it’s cantankerous botty sorted-out by a pro!   In 2 weeks time.   Until then I’ll be savouring the dramatically simple beauty of the kitchen sink.