FiftyFive ~ # 55

This picture takes me back to the start of this blog because I am back writing what I was writing then - and its a blessed relief I can tell you. What a year it has been for writing other things like articles and stuff but I am now back on course to write The Ghost which is good. Though on Saturday I am off to Australia and that is a scary prospect for have never flown south of the equator before. And also because I seem to be travelling with an academic reputation, for what I don't know - Modesty forbids me to speculate. Nevertheless, I hope I can acquit myself with the proper shade of gravitas and all that jazz. Of course the biggest problem is knowing what to pack - it is going to be cold there and since we are in the middle of summer I need to think ahead. Jumpers and jackets and thick socks seem to be in order - though Boots of Spanish Leather is playing on the CD at the moment and they seem to be a good idea too. But books to travel with for much reading will be needed and music to take too and oh - such a quandary. I hope they will get the world cup there too. Would be a shame to miss it - though not the vuvuzelas, thought I had tintinitus at first - zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. When I write I tend to overdose on a particular artist and writing Fear of Flying, Falling and Laughter led me to Nanci Griffith and Speed of the Sound of Loneliness is one of her best (written and dueted here with John Prine - and a neat video too) - you come home straight and you come home curly... your out there running just to be on the run... and here's one for you, I just found out that Nanci is a couple of months older than me, which I guess is relevant to nothing.

FiftyFive ~ # 55

Some days just come together by themselves and there is much pleasure to be had from them, even if they have been hard work. Two major things happened in the past twenty-four hours, last night I scored the winning goal in a six aside match - hey, OK its not the world cup but at my age you take all the goals (and blue roses) you can get! And today I wrote Fear of Flying, Falling and Laughter - creative intervention and critical intercession for my Cranberry trip (did I say I was off to Australia - yay). Forty years in gestation and a day or so to write - ending with: "...the fear of flying, falling and laughter is the death of the author!" I will probably beat myself up over it tomorrow but tonight I will drink a glass of wine in celebration. And I will dance to this tune to celebrate the opening of the World Cup:

FiftyFive ~ # 55

Cameras are odd things - and this idea that they never lie is a lie, for surely the Lilliputian proportions of this picture are all wrong and I am a gulliver here. Still, this is the desk I write at and am writing at now, taking a break from The Fear of Flying paper I am to write for my visit to Cranberry. Made a decision to get my affairs in order today - like insurance and pensions and bank details, I have stuff all over the place and now that I have tidied my books off the floor this must be the next logical move - which is all a bit worrying. Where is this new logic coming from? Am I facing up to the responsibility of ageing or am I just kidding myself and will never get it done - time will tell, I guess. Thus, I am posting Ryan Adams singing Come Pick Me Up - cos he is the person I see inside my head and this was my kind of band when I was twenty, which suggests he is going to look like me when he is older. But I am in the process of writing and recording the acoustic CD which is fun to do. I am thinking of calling it Grey or The BOFs (work it out). Finally got to the end of Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo. Its not that I found it tough going, it was just never to hand when I wanted to read. Though have just begun Brooklyn by Colm Toibin and that is becoming hard to put down. Jeez, so many books so little time and I am researching another paper too, for publication, working title, Barack Obama, Harry Potter and the Mudbloods: race is still a four letter word It is to coincide with the release of the new Potter film but time, can I buy time, has anyone any for sale?

FiftyFive ~ # 55

Chalk and cheese, dress up and dress down, this picture captures A & D to a "T" as they celebrate glamorous Pamela's wedding. Quite an event which I will write about when I have more time - not many people have a pipe band playing them off at midnight - so stirring even I remembered I was Scottish (through and through) - och!

And this auld pair, 158 years in total.

But girls just wanna be glam cousins:

it was a funny thing but this weekend was the first time my entire family have been together, Mum and Dad, brothers and sisters, inlaws and outlaws and all of our/their assorted kids and some kids with kids of their own (making my sister a granny, me a great uncle and my mother and father great Papa and Nana - blimey) I counted 23 (wrongly - I later realised it was 31) of us all descended from the auld yins above. Goodness there's a lot o' us but what fun was had:

Champagne

more champagne we cried

all sense of reason long since gone

and I'll never forget

the night I lost my memory...

Families eh - we'd walk the 500 hundred miles home jist tae haver:

FiftyFive ~ # 55

New shelves for books stored on the floor are now built - phew, only now do I realise how many needed shelving - there are 5 shelves and about 80-90 books per shelf in total - blimey, there didn't look that many until I emptied all the nooks and crannies, corners andother surfaces. But shelving is good, I like building things, its cathartic and healthy and satisfying - and lets face it not too hard. I just screwed in the brackets, cut 3 inches of the wood and then stuck 'em up. One day I may even alphabetise the books (not - I revel in the "delightful chaos") though it was good to find my copy of Beautiful Angiola again.

In the foreground of the picture (above) is my "Blue Fish" recently purchased from a local artist (Kate Lulham) goodness knows where I am going to put it - but will find a space. Its great though, you might need to click on the picture to see it better. But I am posting it now - will take a better picture later - for I must fly - Icarus-like to Edinburgh for birthdays and weddings and meetings with old friends, drouthy neighbours, sisters, brothers inlaws and outlaws - wish me sunshine. Yesterday I was reminded of this fantastic track - another Icarus song indeed, shine your mobile phone in the dark and sing along with the crowd.

FiftyFive ~ # 55

Wet hair, wet t-shirt and wearing a flower pot isn't really the best way to portray yourself to the world, but what the hell, this is a typical UK summer look. If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes, it'll change. And isn't that another British obsession, the weather. I guess its because its so changeable. On Monday and Tuesday of this week it was sweltering but yesterday I was wrapped up in a big jumper as I worked at my desk - shivering away. But today is a good day - its cold and wet and all that and I was thinking that being as its Thursday it will surely be a nothing day - and then what do you know, I wrote a poem. Not something I am well known for - here it is, in all its unedited glory, written in about five minutes at 6am this morning while I sat in my boxers and t-shirt drinking earl grey tea while Max the Cat did the hokey-cokey, in and out and shaking it all about. Poor Max, doesn't seem to know what she wants these days, wonder if I will get that when I am old too. Anyway, here is the Thursday poem while I shake down my linen suit to take to Scotland tomorrow - for my Dad's 81st birthday and P's wedding to her famous Scottish footballer:

Thursday is the strangest day
its not in the middle
nor at the end
but somewhere inbetween
its not the start of the weekend
nor the start of the week
just somewhere inbetween
I rarely eat pork on Thursdays
can't ever remember kissing a frog on that day either
curiously Thursday has never been memorable for me
just somewhere inbetween
and yet I don't know what I would do without it
it does mean its not Wednesday, yay
and Friday is getting closer, yay again
so we are inbetween
saying goodbye to the week
and yay to the weekend
at a staging post between then and what will be
looking back at the week and forward to the weekend
somewhere inbetween

Of course now you might be wondering what the picture (aside) refers to - huh? Well its part of the 17th Biennale of Sydney and I am going for a couple days on the way back from Cranberry - you can see details here to see why I am exited: http://www.biennaleofsydney.com.au/ but I like this idea, Songs of Survival in a Precarious Age, I guess we all have some of them. I know I have posted this before but it takes me back to Edinburgh when me and R. queued for tickets to see BS and are such great mates and I am going to see him on Saturday for lunch I hope, we get so little time together and we will probably end up talking about The Clash in Glasgow, och:

So anyway - here's an Oz art pic for the moment - it might be my boy Icarus, for who can tell what he looks like now - we can only wonder at the wonder:

Oh - and I stumbled across this song - been a long time since I heard it, crap vid but love it: